Lily understood she had humiliated her mother. No amount of explaining about spilled shandies and the need for dry clothes that didn’t stink of beer could get through. No one believed her. She scarcely believed herself anymore.
I can tell you this much, said her mother. Your father has just about given up on you. She was sitting, as usual, with her legs tucked up beneath her robe, in the near dark, sipping Scotch and smoking, thinking. She didn’t have to spell out how ashamed she was of Lily. And Lily’s father was apparently beyond shame.
So now she was stuck with twelve silent girls in a cinderblock classroom and an ancient teacher, Sister Ann. The nuns, she was told, lived behind the carved wooden enclosures in the mansion and the boarding students lived in cinder-block cubes just like the schoolroom. She could only go to the convent for chapel and for Friday lunch in the stone dining room. So Lily was surprised to be summoned into the Mother Clarence’s study at the end of her first full week.
The convent had once been a Guinness mansion. One of the minor Guinesses, said Emma Hocking. Derek Voose had suggested the Little Flower because a client, Paula Clark, had a daughter there. If that silly cow is for it, began Emma. Then she amended, I’m sure you’ll love it, darling heart.
Lily found Mother Clarence’s office—a pretty flower-filled sitting room on the second floor—a place for an ideal Victorian mother to rest after tending to all the loved ones. Mother Clarence was standing by the window, contemplating an empty bowl on an elaborate stand.
I’m not sure why we keep it here, she said as Lily entered the room. We never put anything in it. She lifted it up. We’ve been in this house for twenty years. It was right here when I arrived.
Lily tried to think of a response. I like the blue.
Yes, I do, too. A true lapis lazuli. I like all the colors of this house, even in their faded versions. Hold this. Beware, it’s heavy.
She offered the bowl so quickly, Lily had to step forward, tripping a little in her oversized wingtips to catch it.
Extra heavy, said Lily.
It’s the lead. Makes it very dense. So, you’ve been showing yourself to young men I understand.
No, said Lily. The bowl straining her arms. No, Sister, I wasn’t. I was changing out of wet overalls because I’d spilled a beer, a shandy, in my lap.
And you spilled it on your friend as well? How old are you? I think thirteen. Your beer?
Mostly lemonade.
I see. I’ll take that.
Lily handed back the big lapis bowl; her arms ached with the holding of it.
Maybe we’ll let this be, said Mother Clarence. Maybe we’ll let it be like the bowl, here, always with us, and heavy, and not clear in its purpose, but not without its beauty. Its grace. Mother Clarence settled the bowl on the filigree stand. She turned back to Lily and didn’t smile but somehow rearranged her somber features in a happier mode. Good day, Lily. Someone will show you back to the classroom.
Lily stayed still, confused.
Good-bye, now, dear. That door. She pointed to a high mahogany door different from the one Lily had entered.
Outside, Lily stood blinking on a narrow dark landing of a stairway. A girl with a sharp center part to her blond hair sat on the step opposite chewing on her thumbnail. Ha, there you are, she said. Did she make you hold the bowl?
Lily laughed, but she didn’t say yes. Then she started to cry.
Come on, you’ll live. The girl gave her a light shove on the arm. Come on. Name’s Beven. I’ll show you something I dare you to pick up and hold.
She led Lily down the back stairs and through a corridor to a receded wood paneled alcove. You’re not going to believe this, said Beven. You’re not a screamer, are you?
They’d come into the most cloistered part of the house; Lily could tell by the smell—mildew and incense and vinegar. Everything was dim, only squiggles of light where the heavy purple curtains drew apart. Here. Total, total silence now, said Beven. Don’t even breathe. She leaned into a door and opened the knob by tiny degrees and pushed it open slowly to a crack and placed one eye there. Clear, she said. And let the door open wide. Crazy, right?
An old nun was stretched on a table surrounded by thick white lit candles and one small stubby one flickering in front of a gruesome picture of a bleeding Sacred Heart, just beyond her head. The room stank like manure.
Don’t gag, said Beven. Use your sleeve. She pulled the cuff of her cardigan over her nose. Take a look.
Lily came closer.
It’s Sister Bernadette, the typing teacher, keeled over in class last Friday. She died yesterday while they were all eating lunch. They couldn’t get her mouth closed for hours! Had to use a spoon or something.
But why is she here?
They always do this. Homemade undertaking, more religious, maybe?
The smell is horrible, Lily said through her sleeve.
Well, they’re not experts. Watch this.
Beven took hold of Sister Bernadette’s hand. You can still move it a little. Help me out. Hold this one. She motioned Lily into place. The feeling of the hand was like chilled paper and very light. Lily thought it would weigh a lot more, the way the bowl had. Beven said, I just want to make the rosary into a cat’s cradle. I think we can do it really fast. Lily held the hand still, while Beven tangled the rosary into knots around the fingers. Then she led Lily out a different way and took her to her classroom door. What are you waiting for? A kiss? she said. Go in!
That night, Lily couldn’t settle into sleep. Her back felt knobby against the sheet, as if each bone were slightly on fire. She might be getting a flu. She finally slipped out of her own bed and wandered out of the back suite. She began down the long corridor to the front of the apartment, but when she reached the marble floor, she could hear her mother, the click of ice. She wanted to tell her about Beven and Sister Bernadette—did they do that at St. Tom’s, too?—but not about the rosary that ended up a thick ball in fingers stiffer than Beven had guessed.
Her mother coughed in a certain way and Lily knew she wasn’t welcome. She backtracked past her bathroom and curved into the guest room, as usual. She left the lace bedspread on—something her mother was proud of, an antique lace, soaked in tea to get just the right color—then slipped into the scented sheets and felt the comfort of this bed. As long as she kept the door closed as if the room were at the ready, she was fine. She’d wake up with the soldiers’ garbage cans at dawn and find her own bed again, long before Mrs. Veal was in and making trouble.
The sheets soothed her hot back, and she thought of Lawrence and wondered whether he’d gotten her message. She’d called the Dorchester when she got home from school and when his room phone rang his mother answered. How is Lawrence? she tried.
Well, fine, darling. Shipshape, said Mrs. Weatherfield. Are you his new friend?
No, the same friend that you met down in the lobby last month? We discussed art?
Of course, dear heart. I’ll tell Lawrence you called. Kelly, is it?
Lily.
Lily, yes, yes, pardon me. All right. Ciao!
Block of cheese, Lawrence had said, but she sounded quite pleasant to Lily. Her voice low in her throat as if she’d been caught singing. Just listening to her would make an average person guess that she was very happy. Lily wondered what her own voice told people.
She was in a half sleep dreaming of Lawrence by the ocean singing to her grandmother in Swedish, and Lily was wading in the water, her legs sandy, the ease of the ocean filling her body, wave rocking, when she woke up to find her father hovering uncertain in the doorway.
Daddy?
What are you doing in here? he said, as if he were speaking not to Lily but to a room of intruders. What’s all this crap? He was swaying now into the room, his face lit green by the well lights, a halo of hall light behind him. Who’s in here?
Daddy, it’s me.
Who put all this garbage in here?
Lily sat up, and now she was ruining the bed. She looked aroun
d and it was true, the floor was littered with all her stuff; she thought somehow she’d cleared some of it away. Her father kicked at a pile, a pink bra flipped off the end of his shoe and fell back to the ground; he kicked at the bed. Get up!
What’s wrong, Daddy? Though she already knew what was wrong. Get up! Go to your room. You have three for godsake. Not enough for you?
She was up now, wearing an old nightie, something with ducks on it. Stupid and comforting and too small across the chest where her new bosom, tiny buttons of ache, pushed out. She tried to slink past her father but he was blocking the door, and when he kicked her, it was with the same intent as kicking the bra, clearing a mess, making a gesture about the big mess, then he swung wide with his fist, which seemed slow and stupid but hit the side of her head. Oh, she cried and fell backward away from the door, and then he was punching at her shoulders and arms then her chest, her small left breast, and that’s what sent her to the ceiling. She’d heard about this, about people floating above their bodies but how surprising to be doing it herself. She hovered in a corner just above where her father had backed her against a wall. He couldn’t stop punching at her, though now the punches were light when they landed and often missed, and then just like Lily her mother was floating too. Her mother floated into the doorway and said, Nick? What’s happening?
Then her mother floated away and Lily heard the door to the master suite close softy. As if her ears were supersonic and placed right next to her mother’s door lock, she heard the quiet click. And her father heard the click, too. He stopped and wheeled out of the room with a roaring Fuck, and then a choked-off Jesus, Jesus. Then he knocked softly and their bedroom door opened then closed.
When Lily came down off the ceiling she stayed completely still for a long time, then she saw the bib of her blue velvet overalls sticking out from a pile of spent clothes. She yanked them on over her nightie, tied on her wingtips; she couldn’t see any socks. In the front foyer her maxicoat lay on the carved bench where it wasn’t ever supposed to be, probably her father’s first clue to the mayhem she’d caused. Her key was usually in her pocket, but not now; it didn’t matter. She let herself out and downstairs she went out the iron and glass door and left it unlocked for all the robbers in London to find. The street smelled like cats. The air was plastic feeling and rubbed her face in an ugly way. She brushed her hands along her cheeks to clear the air and felt the rawness and stopped. All along the shortcut down South Audley the first garbage trucks were making a noise like gunfire, tossing the tins, as if the tidy doorman had never given a single instruction. Everything was slimy about the garbagemen’s faces in the lamplight; their eyes were sunk like the devil’s. At the Dorchester, the night doorman barely nodded and the elevator man called her Miss and wished her a pleasant sleep. When she knocked on Lawrence’s door it was a long wait, and she kept thinking the maid with the hairnet would catch her first and pull her away. But finally the door opened, Lawrence in pajamas with rocket ships like a baby’s. Oh, Lily, he said. Are you making bad choices again? And then he let her in and made room under his green satin eiderdown once she’d peeled away the stinking dirty overalls. She lay on her side, back to his front. He spidered one hand toward her breast. But she pulled it in faster, and pressed it down and felt the soreness and shock pour out into his palm.
21
Jean heard a knocking, a cleat against the dock, or maybe something down by the water honking, a goose lost from its mates. She’d left the French door open all night long and now the room felt bone cold and she’d piled all the bedding on top of her, pulled it close to her body. She listened, snuggled down for the knock of cleats, knock of the cleats, echoing out across the water, but then she was awake and it was something else banging softly and her heart sank. She was alone in her London bed, the light from the armory filtering through her ecru curtains, a thudding, banging sound came through the wall. And now she was fully awake and switched on the lamp and rubbed her head. All along the skin of her inner forearm the crumpled sheets had made a complicated impression, like a wing. When Cubbie was small and just barely talking she told him once that a bird had come along and left an impression on her cheek. She’d fallen asleep on a beach towel, strange she’d been that tired, and Louisa had them swimming in the baby pool. He came tottering back just as she was straightening herself out, patting her cheek with the puff of a small compact of powder. He stroked where the towel had left its swirl, frowning as though she were injured and in danger, and she told him it was only the tip of a wing brushed by, or maybe the gill of a fish? And Cubbie said, Me, Mama, his wet salty palm stroking her cheek. She laughed and hugged him close, wet and covered now with blown sand. Let Louisa rinse you off now. Where’s your sister? But Cubbie was more interested in her cheek than getting ready to go home. How fortunate she’d been to have this little boy standing sandy and wet stroking her cheek on a sunny windy beach day. Louisa somewhere up by the cabanas wrestling Lily into a dry pair of shorts, and he’d escaped and found her. The thudding was louder now, and immediate. Lily was awake and doing something dopey. She wasn’t sure she even wanted to know.
Just like that Jean remembered Claudia and laughed. Cubbie and his Claudia, his true love starting in nursery school. Lily, so superior, already in kindergarten, where she said the boys had desks and the girls lily pods, where the boys wore white coats like doctors when they painted and the girls smocks like aprons. Cubbie said in his school, at Happy Hours, Claudia was boss. And Lily didn’t believe him. Claudia can’t be the boss, she said. And Cubbie said, But Mommy is. And Lily, stumped—because it was true, Daddy wasn’t home enough to be boss, only on weekends—threw a box of crayons at the wall, making a smear of waxy color that took Louisa a week to clean. Lily got a spanking, and a daylight bedtime. It occurred to Jean only after everyone was asleep that Lily’s crayons had gone straight at the wall, not to her brother, that Lily never hurt Cubbie in any way; he’d just frustrated her peculiar world order, and she couldn’t set him straight. Another bang against the wall. What was she setting straight now? And why was she in the guest room again? They’d talked about this. Her wandering in there whenever she felt like it and leaving a big mess.
She was weary of the daily wrestling with Lily and she couldn’t get Nick’s attention. Even the disaster at the Working Men’s College had failed to grab his notice. Lily pinned to a wall in a basement clubroom by a boy exposed. She was astonished. But Nick only laughed. He’s fifteen for godsakes; it’s a miracle his pants are ever on. Jean was mystified by this response. What about Lily? But she’d already lost his attention. He had a meeting; he had Billy Byron back in London by the end of the week. Would she be on standby? Billy hated the wives, famously, wouldn’t tolerate them except in very controlled circumstances. So far, Nick had no example of the circumstances.
But by chance, Billy Byron had spotted Jean in Harrods lingering at the holiday gift package display and thought she was the pinnacle of something or other. There she is, he’d shouted. Our target. That’s who we’re aiming for. She’s it! Nick looked around, across the vaulted hall that comprised just one part of cosmetics at Harrods. There was Jean taking up a small shopping bag. Her camel coat tied snug, her tall bronze-colored boots, lacy brown stockings. Her hair long and streaky down her slender back. Nothing fake there, just the look we want right now. What are we calling her? asked Billy Byron. Irving, what the fuck are we calling her? You remember.
We can call her Jean Devlin, said Nick, laughing, waving to catch her attention. She’s my wife.
Billy looked at him as if he might spit. Irving suppressed a laugh. Not a chance, said Billy.
Nick was confused for a moment. You don’t want to meet her?
No, no, thank you, Nick. Irving, get me out of here. Chop- chop. I don’t know what we’re doing here anyway. Let’s go. Right now. Nick, we’ll see you later. And Billy was hustling out through the fragrances, Irving straining to catch up. Even so, later on over dinner, Billy leaned into Nick’s shoulder and s
aid, Maybe some other time I could get a look at that type again. Nick took a breath. Sure, he said. Then Billy was leaning in the other direction again. So, Jean was on hold for Billy’s arrival this weekend, just in case. Who knows, said Nick. Maybe he just wants a restaging of you looking at lipstick.
It’s a little crazy, said Jean. She was talking into his back. Isn’t it? Though she felt flattered and wondered what to wear for her encore. He’s a little nuts, she’d said. But Nick was already breathing the rattling way he did in London, wheezy snores, already deep asleep.
But now where had he gone? And when? His clothes were missing from the chair so he must be out again. More than once in the last few weeks she’d been awakened by an apologetic assistant manager to come to Annabel’s or the Curzon House Club or a strange dive in Soho. She half expected the phone to ring, then another soft bang on the wall.
Lily was wrecking the guest room again and that was just intolerable. Jean felt a surge of rage, too familiar these days, and struggled up. She found her robe, her hands so shaky with fury she couldn’t tie it. She leaned into the mirror over her dresser until she could bring her face into focus. Just breathe, she said out loud. Just breathe.
Then she opened the door that led to the back corridor and to the guest room. There was Nick standing in the middle of all of Lily’s trash. And Lily in the far corner, eyes shut, arms crossed over her chest, like she was acting in a play. Nick? Jean said, but he didn’t answer, just kept staring, red-faced, at all the junk on the floor. Fine, she said. Let him take over for once. She slipped back down the hall and quietly closed her door.
The next morning Jean stood at a front window, looking out on the forlorn winter square, sipping Mrs. Veal’s appalling coffee. She insisted on having it ready when Jean woke up. Jean was imagining sneaking over to the Europa and having just one decent cup, when she spotted Lily slowly walking down the block, head lowered, shuffling along, bare feet in untied wing tips. Her nightgown was under her unbuttoned coat. Soon she’d be swanning through the lobby. Nearly ten on a Saturday morning, it would be busy. Jean put down her cup and went to meet Lily at the door.
The Loved Ones Page 18