A Circumstance of Blood

by Jeannette Batz Cooperman

  “It was until you panicked. Let me guess: It would be inappropriate for you to answer my question.”

  “It would,” she agreed. “But, the real reason is, I don’t know yet.”

  *

  She found Colin dragging a pile of giant logs one by one into the grassy open space between the school and the dorm.

  “I asked the guy who brings our firewood not to chop it,” he explained, breathing in gusts between the words.

  “And you had a reason for this?”

  “The Scottish Games,” he announced, straightening to intone the words. “The hue and cry were for football, but the little bastards don’t need blood sports. They’ve enough aggression already.”

  A bell rang, and boys filtered out on to the grass. They stood in clumps, watching Colin’s manoeuvres and cracking jokes under their breath.

  “The young are no more open to the new than the ancient are,” Colin muttered. He picked up one of the logs, ran a few yards with it pointing straight up at the sky and then hurled it, end over end, to the edge of the farthest clump. All conversations halted. A single ‘Whoa’ rang in the silence. Cheeks pink, Colin waved to them. “Away wi’ ye,” he called. “Get to class. I want you all back out here at two for the trials.”

  “You enjoyed that,” Sarah said when they’d scattered.

  “I did,” he agreed. “It’s my only athletic prowess. And it’s not like I can show it off anywhere else.” He hoisted and hurled another caber, and she hid a smile.

  “What next?” she asked.

  “Hammer toss.” As she helped roll the row of heavy metal balls to the starting line, Simon ran back and forth between them.

  “Is he herding us?” Colin asked.

  “Poodles don’t herd. He just wants to help.”

  “Well, if I get half that effort from the boys, I’ll be happy.” He straightened the row of balls. “So what’s your day like? Are you getting enough done on Haiti?”

  “I’m getting zip done on Haiti.”

  He combed his fingers through his hair. “Look, if you need . . .”

  “No, it’s okay. Some of it’s me, too. It’s just hard to put myself back in that world. So much unnecessary death . . .” She angled splayed fingers, pushing the subject closed. “Tell me what Graham’s father is like.”

  “He used to be a high-profile trial lawyer. Criminal defence.”

  “Bleeding-heart liberal like his wife?”

  “He was. But he switched jobs a few years ago − he’s doing corporate law at one of the silk-stocking firms. Maybe it’s influenced his politics . . .” Colin’s voice trailed off as he counted the row of logs. Grunting, he rolled another one into place. “We don’t need to psychoanalyse Graham,” he said as he straightened. “Just decide if he’s dangerous.”

  “Well, short of measuring his irises to see if they dilate when somebody’s in pain, I don’t know how I’m supposed to determine that,” she snapped, kicking a ball so hard it shot into the hedge. Why was it off limits to explore somebody’s mind? People always made it sound like a spurt of extra nastiness, like you were tearing someone into bits for the joy of it and not just trying to understand them. “A psychopath’s most classic trait is an intense, unwavering, expressionless stare,” she recited. “Graham is intense, and he’s not quick to break eye contact. But how cold his eyes are? That’s pretty subjective.”

  Colin knelt to chalk a start line. “I’m not used to kids being as fearless as he is with adults,” he said. “I don’t know how much of it comes from being smart, or from being an only child with professional parents, and how much is just basically not giving a shit.”

  “Even that doesn’t make him dangerous. At least, not until he grows up and starts using that power in court, or in surgery. He wants to be a neuroimmunologist.”

  “In that case, we may have to wait for him to figure himself out.”

  “Well, he’s on his way. He’s already accepted at Harvard.”

  Colin sat back on his heels, putting a palm against the frozen ground to steady himself. “Is that what he told you?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  When the last morning class broke, a dozen or so boys came outside to test their strength on the logs. Ben Lo, five-four and narrow-shouldered, went behind a boxwood hedge to practise with the lightest log he could find. Watching from his office window, Colin answered the phone absentmindedly.

  “Father McAvoy? Bryan Dennison. I see that you were copied on the letter about Graham’s . . . about Harvard not accepting him.” The books Ehrlich had pulled out jutted forward like the chins of the insolent, and Colin shoved them flush while Dennison forged on. “Listen, I know you’ve got connections. I thought maybe you could call, put in a word.”

  “What sort of word, Mr. Dennison?”

  “A good one,” he snapped. “My son suffered through his mother’s illness. He shouldn’t be judged harshly for that.”

  “I’ve yet to decide if Graham should even remain with us. I’m hardly in a position to vouch for him with the Ivy League.”

  The phone went dead. Another problem with all this new technology − nobody could slam a phone down properly anymore. Colin slammed his landline, just for closure. If that poor bastard thought he could save his son from the world’s judgement, he was more fool than he seemed.

  Outside, Ben had rejoined his friends and Steven was there by himself, trying to pick up the log. He staggered forward a few steps and heaved it, and the force pulled him off balance. He stumbled backward and fell.

  Colin squinted, trying to see if he was hurt. He sat up, face twisted in a sob, white uniform shirt and khakis covered in wet mud. Another boy jogged over − he must’ve been right on the other side of the hedge. Colin recognised him, Graham. He held out a hand for Steven to grab. Then, just as the boy started to pull himself up, Graham let go. Steven slammed down on the ground again.

  That did it. Colin threw his notes on his desk and ran downstairs, anger flooding him with resolve. This school was a refuge from cruelty. No nutter with rich parents was going to change that. If Ehrlich wanted their money he could damn well babysit Graham Dennison himself.

  When Colin reached the hedge, he heard voices and pulled up short.

  “You fell,” Graham was saying. “Your worst nightmare. And you’re still alive. You don’t need a hand up. You can get up all by yourself. All those guys you’re so worried about competing with? They’re still trapped in their miserable little lives. They always will be, bro. And, it’s nothing to do with you.”

  Panting, Colin waited, his emotions rearranging themselves like a kaleidoscope. Then another voice − Philip’s − yelled, “What the fuck did you think you were doing?” He’d run from the other direction, must have seen what happened from the dorm.

  Coming around the hedge, Colin crossed to Philip and took him by the arm. “Let it go.”

  “Oh, let the poof have his say,” Graham said.

  Shaking his arm loose, Philip drew himself up. “I’m not gay. I’m omnisexual.”

  Graham looked over at Colin. “And that’s okay with you, Father?”

  “Philip can be anything he wants,” Colin replied easily. “It’s what he does that’s my concern.” His eyes held Graham’s. “And the same is true for you.”

  *

  By the time the Games reached their close, the sun was setting and the temperature had dropped fifteen degrees. Nothing jaded about the boys now − they were giving it everything they had. Colin played referee, his cheeks blotched red, his accent thicker by the minute. After the last contest, he praised their sportsmanship. “Aye, that was fine. Keep practising the caber toss and the stone put. We’ll do this properly in spring with the bagpipes.”

  As they dispersed, he made his way over to Sarah. “We’ve got to talk,” he said under his breath. “Can you come up to my study after dinner?” She nodded slightly and glanced away, his conspiratorial mood contagious.

  Du
ring the meal they traded a few glances, but she asked only the blandest questions about the Games. As soon as they’d finished their pie − tart lemon custard topped with clouds of toothache-sweet meringue − she went back to the milkhouse, changed into sweats, and grabbed a chew for Simon and a blanket for herself. Colin kept his rooms at sixty degrees; she saw no reason to share his austerity.

  While she settled herself by the fire, he propped his door open. Just propriety, or didn’t he trust himself?

  “So Graham’s not going to Harvard,” she said, still shaken by the lie.

  “Not unless his father can pull strings. They rejected his application. His dad asked me to intervene, but I’m not inclined to do so.”

  “And you’re sure Graham knows this?” She dragged the blanket around her shoulders.

  “He knows he got rejected. Beyond that, I’ve given up trying to read him.” Colin sat next to her, long legs stretched toward the fire, and recounted the incident before the Games.

  “Not that it matters, but is Philip gay?” she asked.

  “He’s at least bisexual. I had to kick a young woman out of his room the other day − she must’ve driven all the way up here to see him. So, I’m prepared to accept ‘omni’.”

  Sarah thought a minute. “What do you make of Graham’s actions? Was he really trying to help Steven buck up?”

  “I actually think he might have been.”

  “So he’s, what, a compassionate sadist? He goes around practising random, anonymous acts to toughen up the world’s victims?”

  “His parents just talked them to death,” Colin pointed out. “Maybe he decided that romanticising suffering only perpetuated it.”

  “I get the feeling you agree with him.”

  “In some ways, I do. I think we’re scared to make victims brave. What if they turn on us?”

  She nodded slowly. “Whatever his motives, you can bet they were deliberate. Graham doesn’t act recklessly. He’s the exact opposite of Sean.”

  “The kid you wrote about? What did happen with him? I bought your book but . . .”

  “You didn’t read it. My dad didn’t either. He told me it was all too upsetting.” She sat up and clasped her knees. “Sean was a good kid, straight As, loved baseball, looked out for his little sister. Then, something shifted. His grades plummeted. He quit the baseball team and started smoking pot and playing war games on his computer.”

  She could still see the scene in her head − Sean, thin and sweet faced, grabbing his father’s rifle and crawling on his belly across the family room. His mom coming in to call him for supper. Her son crouched by the side of the couch, firing until she fell.

  “He said he’d been hearing voices, and a psychiatrist testified about the onset of schizophrenia. The jury liked the prosecutor’s version, a teenage boy gone bad. I thought he’d go to prison and fall apart, and they’d all have to admit he had schizophrenia. But he’s done just fine. Plays a lot of basketball, tutors inmates. So, either he had a temporary psychotic episode − apparently even smoking too much pot can cause them − or all that sweet innocence was a lie.”

  For a long minute the only sound was the squishy chomp of wet rawhide. “There’s nothing psychotic about Graham,” Sarah said firmly. “He’s got a harder grip on reality than most of us.”

  “Right. And you’re going home, aren’t you?”

  “Colin, I’ve got to get this Haiti piece done. And there’s nothing else I can do here. I’ve talked to Graham. I’ve watched him with the other students. He stands apart, and he’s a smartass, but I don’t sense anything pent up in him. His only agenda seems to be deflecting other people’s judgements − of him or anybody else.”

  “So you feel like he’s . . . contained, for want of a better word? I mean, he’s obviously got issues, but could they spill over and hurt anybody else?”

  She didn’t trust Graham to be kind, but she didn’t sense cruelty either. Just a haughty, deliberate loneliness. “I’m guessing he does have a conscience, but it’s of his own making. He’s not that different from Philip really − they both like to shock. But Graham’s more reserved and more analytical. His issues won’t spill unless he wants them to.”

  *

  “Ms. Markham!” The voice boomed across the faded gilt of the Art Deco lobby.

  “Mr. Dunbar,” Sarah replied, inclining her head. The doorman at the Coronado refused to relax into her first name, and she wasn’t about to call him Clive until he called her Sarah.

  “We’ve missed you, my dear.” Mr. Dunbar was always plural. “By the state of your mailbox, we were starting to wonder if you’d gone back to Haiti.”

  “Oh Lord, I’m sorry. I forgot to tell you. I went to stay with a friend for a few days. Any calamities while I was gone?” It had taken two years, but he’d finally loosened up enough to tell her stories about the more pernickety tenants.

  He handed her the pile of mail and winked. “Mrs. Higgins did have a bit of upset with the butcher at Straub’s. Seems she’d ordered her chicken bosoms . . .”

  “Chicken bosoms? You are making this up.”

  “No ma’am, I am not,” he said with a grin. “She ordered those bosoms delivered for her bridge party, and he brought ‘em the day before, and she wasn’t sure they’d be fresh enough.”

  “One does yearn for fresh breasts,” Sarah said dryly. “Okay, then.”

  She dragged back the elevator’s heavy brass grill and pressed the seventh black button, its number worn off by decades of use. As soon as she opened her apartment door, Simon ran to his window seat and put his front paws on it, sticking his nose under the Roman shade to see what he’d missed in the streetscape below.

  All evening she worked on the Haiti piece, scrolling through the text, adding and deleting. It felt good to finally be writing. Simon snored, and the radiator’s pipes clanked and hissed at regular intervals, reliable as an old butler. She could be happy by herself, she thought, calm and sufficient. Other people’s moods pulled her as thin as taffy.

  The minute she hit ‘Save’, exhaustion hit. She closed the laptop, brushed her teeth, stripped off her clothes, and climbed into bed with a happy groan. Wriggling around, she found the hollow her body had made in the pillow top. The mattress at the milkhouse had actually been better, but this bed was hers, and she’d missed it.

  *

  It was late, and the clomping footsteps and shouts back and forth had finally stilled. Philip wedged the back of an Italianate side chair under his doorknob. “Just for privacy,” he murmured.

  Without speaking another word, he moved so close they could feel the heat coming off each other’s bodies, then stood there, waiting. When he heard the quickening of breath, he moved forward again, deliberate as a tightrope walker, brushing his fingertips wherever he could find bare skin. Down the neck, circling the wrist, stroking the ear’s curve.

  And still he said nothing, offering nothing to object to.

  Their silence had weight and texture − colour, too; he imagined an opaque violet-blue swirling around them. He decided it was time to end the tease and took the last step forward, pressing close, arching his neck, finding the hollows and fitting his body against them. No rude groping, no demands. Only the intimacy of shared breath and unspoken need.

  “So,” he murmured, not making it a question. And just as he’d hoped, the restraint snapped, years of trapped desire cut loose and rushing at him. A hard, frantic kiss, the clutch of someone drowning. For an instant, that abject need frightened him.

  Then, he took charge, answering the urgency with a pounding rhythm as relentless as surf against a boulder. When hot semen shot from his body, he let out a sound as wild as an animal’s cry. Beneath it, he heard a low moan, that ended in a sob, the exultation already gone.

  Oh, God. Now he’d have to provide comfort. He forced himself to lie still, their fingers interlaced, until the gloss of sweat dried and turned their skin clammy. Faking a long, yawning stretch, he got
out of bed. Surely they didn’t have to drowse and cuddle? He was ready to be alone again.

  Ignoring the robe on the back of his chair, he walked across the room and poured himself a shot of the bourbon he’d stolen from his father’s liquor cabinet, raising his glass in a mock toast. “Better?”

  No reply.

  “You’re going to act like you didn’t want that to happen? Please.”

  Philip loved the way people always made it seem like he was the one pretending. Only Steven − who could barely read a book, let alone a human being − had managed to figure out the point of his costuming. “You dress all those different ways,” he’d said, “but all of it turns into you.”

  Philip used clothes to create himself, not conceal himself. All most people knew how to do was hide.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Jesus telling his future disciples to stop mending their nets and follow him? The boys might see it as a plea for vocations. In the second reading, Paul wanted the Corinthians to stop quarrelling, but Colin rather liked a healthy quarrel. Psalm 27 had better yield a homily.

  Taking the last bite of the giant cinnamon roll he allowed himself on Saturday mornings, he watched the snow fall. Six inches predicted. He copied out the psalm’s urgent first line: ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?’ Words his mother used to murmur when a black storm whipped into Kilnaughton Bay, or his granddad told ghost tales about the chambered cairn near Cill Tobar Lasrach.

  We’re all frightened, he wrote. We’re scared of the future, scared we’ll disappoint our parents, or we won’t make enough money or have enough fun. Clicking his pen between top and bottom teeth, he thought for a minute. The problem with fear is, it takes over. It eats away at our faith and destroys our peace. If we . . .

  Somebody banged on his door. “Coming!” he called, but whoever it was only banged louder, and his stomach clenched. It was too early in the morning for anything but trouble.

  In his haste he twisted the doorknob too fast, and his hand slid off. Grabbing it again, he swung the door open.