Great Circle: A Novel

by Maggie Shipstead

  “Don’t forget Daddy!” Alice said.

  “I wouldn’t dream of inflicting this mug on Jamie after such a parade of beauties,” Mr. Fahey said. He was in high spirits, pinker and shinier than ever.

  The first course was oysters, then cold consommé, then poached salmon.

  Nora was full of observations about Europe. “On the crossing there was always a breeze. One gets used to the cooling effect.”

  “Does one?” Alice asked, putting on a queenly accent and looking down her nose.

  Jamie had eaten the oysters and, despite misgivings, the salmon, had vainly hoped by some miracle the meal would not involve beef. When the inevitable steak was placed in front of him, a thin, crimson liquid pooling around it, he looked surreptitiously for Jasper, but the dog must have been shut away somewhere.

  “I’m interested in this young man’s plan for the future,” said the art expert, turning to him.

  Everyone looked at Jamie. “I have another year of high school,” he said, “and then I’ll probably go to the University of Montana.”

  “To study art,” said the expert.

  “I’m not sure,” Jamie said.

  Mr. Fahey leaned back in his chair, chewing. “How is the art department at Montana?”

  “I think it’s good enough,” Jamie said. “My uncle taught”—he caught himself—“teaches in it.”

  Mr. Fahey pushed more steak into his mouth, took a gulp of wine, and said, “I think you ought to come to Seattle. Either to UW or Cornish College. Talent like yours, you shouldn’t be stuck in a backwater.”

  Jamie almost laughed at the idea that he could afford such a thing.

  “Furthermore—” said Mr. Fahey

  “Some would say Seattle is the definition of a backwater,” Nora observed. “Compared to Europe.”

  “Nora,” said Alice, “don’t be stupid.”

  Sarah said, “It’s snobbery, not stupidity.”

  “Furthermore,” said Mr. Fahey again, raising his voice, “I would like to help you.” The Fahey women looked at one another.

  “I don’t think I understand,” Jamie said.

  “I’m saying I’ll pay for your schooling and expenses, boy! You’d continue working for me, of course, in one way or another. Maybe with the art, depending on how things shape up with this museum idea, or maybe with my business.” He pointed his knife at Jamie. “I’m a self-made man myself.” This in a tone of light interest, as though he had not already said so many times already. “I like to give others a leg up when I can.”

  Jamie, flabbergasted, didn’t know what to say. He longed to accept, to fall back into the Faheys as though into a feather bed. If he did, incredible as it seemed, his vision of himself as a husband to Sarah, the father of her children, a prosperous citizen of a Pacific city, might plausibly come to pass. But ambivalence stopped him. There were the slaughterhouses, and, yes, he liked to draw, and over the summer he’d grown vain about his talent. But what if there was a latent Wallace in him? What if, by becoming an artist, he would create the right conditions for dissolution and anarchy to spread through him like a fungus?

  He needed to think more, and not in this hot room, at this table full of Faheys and their plates of bleeding beef.

  “You’ve left him speechless, Daddy,” said Penelope.

  Mr. Fahey said, “Finish up your steak, and we’ll have some champagne to celebrate.” Then he looked more closely at Jamie’s plate. “Why, you’ve barely eaten anything. Are you ill, boy?”

  Jamie glanced at Sarah, who looked back with perplexity. “Aren’t you hungry?” she said.

  It didn’t matter, he realized, whether or not he wanted to be an artist. He said, “I don’t eat meat.”

  “What?” Mr. Fahey appeared genuinely confounded.

  “I don’t eat meat.”

  “No meat?”

  “No.”

  “Is it some kind of religious belief?”

  “No, sir. I just can’t abide the idea of it.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “You feel sorry for the poor animals!” Nora exclaimed. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

  Mr. Fahey sat back. His face was turning burgundy. “You can’t abide the idea of my business? The business that built this house? That bought this art? That’s paid you all summer?”

  “I couldn’t accept your offer,” Jamie said, “though I appreciate your generosity.”

  “You couldn’t—” Mr. Fahey cut himself off with a small sputter. “The offer is rescinded. I couldn’t trust a man who doesn’t eat like one.” He narrowed his eyes. “And you’re not to hang around my daughter anymore. Don’t think I don’t see you trailing after her.”

  Desperately, Jamie searched Sarah’s face for understanding, but he saw only confusion and worry. She looked at her mother, who gazed steadily back, gave the smallest of nods. Sarah gathered herself, said to her father, “He doesn’t trail after me.”

  “You’re not to see him anymore!”

  Again she looked to her mother, but this time Mrs. Fahey was studying her plate. Tears overflowed onto Sarah’s cheeks, but Jamie saw she would not go against her father.

  “Son.” Mr. Fahey was pointing a thick finger at him. “Son, God put animals on this earth for food. Animals kill and eat each other. We’re animals, too. We’re just smart enough to have figured out a better way to get meat than wandering around with bows and arrows. We’ve bred these animals to eat them. Cattle and pigs and chickens wouldn’t exist if they weren’t food.” He opened his mouth, pointed to his canines. “These?” he said. “God gave us these to show us what He wants us to eat. And that is the steak on your plate!”

  Jamie put his napkin on the table, rose from his chair. “Goodbye,” he said. “Thank you.”

  As he walked down the hall, he could hear Mr. Fahey shouting after him that he was an apostate and a fairy and that he should get out, get out of his house.

  He did not feed the dogs that night. He went to Union Station and bought a ticket on a night train to Spokane and then on to Missoula.

  Lonely and righteous, Jamie went home and learned his sister was engaged to Barclay Macqueen.

  Missoula

  August 1931

  Two weeks before Jamie came home

  A pale evening sky, deep rivers of shadow between the mountains. Marian circled until the drivers switched on their headlights, landed on the strip of flat land they’d illuminated. While they were unloading the cases, Caleb came walking out of the forest, his rifle across his back. The drivers’ hands went to their holsters.

  “It’s all right!” Marian cried. “He’s my friend!” She jogged to meet Caleb, threw her arms around him in a way she would not have if they’d met in Missoula. Out here, there was a sense of occasion. “How did you find me?”

  He was brown from the sun. His hair was braided down his back. “A little bird told me. How about a lift home?” Caleb had built himself a small cabin up the Rattlesnake from Wallace’s house.

  She glanced at the men, who were making no secret of watching them. “You won’t be scared?”

  “What’s there to be scared of? Aren’t you a good pilot?”

  She’d been late arriving, and now they were late taking off. Darkness had fallen entirely by the time they reached Missoula, and the city’s lights shone gold among the mountains.

  After she’d put the plane to bed, Marian drove Caleb back through town, up the creek past Gilda’s house, past Wallace’s house. After the road had dwindled to a rutted track in the forest, he told her to stop where a trail led off through the trees. “Come have a drink,” he said. “You saved me two days’ walking.”

  The cabin was not far. As they walked in the dark, Marian said, “Why don’t you get a car?”

  “I don’t want the responsibility. I don’t really like ownership
in general.”

  “Sometimes it’s worth it on balance, isn’t it?” she said. “Not that I have much experience.”

  “I’d rather keep things simple.”

  His cabin stood in a circular clearing and was small but expertly constructed, with tightly notched corners and each log hewn to sit flat on the next, smooth strips of mud daubing sealing the gaps. He took a key from his pocket.

  “You lock your door,” she observed.

  “So?”

  “So you want to keep owning some things, at least.”

  “Sure, but I resent the worry of it.” He ushered her in, and she stood in darkness as he lit a kerosene lamp and then another, revealing a squatting black stove, a rocking chair, a cot, a bearskin on the floor, antlers on the walls. “Take off your boots, would you?”

  The cabin’s interior was perfectly, painstakingly tidy. The blanket on the cot was tucked smoothly around the thin mattress; another was folded across the foot. His few dishes were stacked on a shelf above the sink. He hung his rifle on a rack that held three others, their stocks and barrels gleaming.

  “Did you cut the logs yourself?” she said.

  He was pouring whiskey into tin mugs. “I did. But I bought milled lumber for the roof and rafters.” Handing her a mug and indicating the rocking chair, he said, “Sit there.” He busied himself lighting a fire in the stove. When he sat on the cot, their knees were almost touching.

  “You keep your place very tidy.”

  “I had enough mess for a lifetime with Gilda.”

  “You were so savage when you were little. And now look at you—sweeping and folding. Everything in its proper place.”

  “Everything savage stays outside now. In its proper place.”

  “Do you have a girl, Caleb?”

  “Can’t I keep my cabin clean without you seeing a woman’s touch?”

  “It’s not that. I’ve just wondered ever since we stopped…” She didn’t need to finish the sentence. They’d never put a word to it, anyway. It had always been a kind of ellipsis.

  He leaned back against the wall, his legs crossed. “There are girls,” he said, “but there’s no girl.” He watched her. She saw a languid stirring of his old slyness. She thought he would make a joke or a proposition, but he said, “I’ve been on Barclay Macqueen’s ranch before.”

  “Bannockburn.”

  Caleb nodded. “Some associates of his hired me for a hunt. We had permission. Nice country. The house is something.”

  “Good or bad?”

  He shrugged. “Depends on your taste in houses.”

  “I’ve only seen it from the air. Even though I might—” She stopped.

  He finished for her: “Go to live there.”

  She nodded. Her chest was tight. Why was she afraid? Caleb got up to pour more whiskey into her mug. He stood beside her, his hand on her nape. His touch was cool. She’d forgotten the coolness of him.

  “Who cuts your hair now?”

  “Someone who charges in money.”

  He tugged her out of the chair and onto the floor with him, sideways into the triangular space between his legs, loose in his arms. For a long time, he held her in silence. He kissed her mouth, but the kiss was innocent, led no further. Everything that had ever happened with Caleb seemed innocent now, compared with Barclay. “Your heartbeat is coming through your whole body,” he said.

  “I’m telling it to stop.”

  “Not stop.”

  “To slow down. It’s not listening.”

  “I could help you go away. There are places where he wouldn’t find you.”

  She resented Barclay horribly; her gratitude to Barclay was bottomless. She wished she could vanish and never return; she couldn’t bear leaving him. Who are you?

  “The funny thing is I think I love Barclay. I’ve never admitted that before.”

  His cheek was against the top of her head. “You have a strange way of showing it.”

  She knew she should leave; she wished they could crawl into his cot together. “It’s a strange kind of…” She trailed off. She could not say the word love again. “It’s a strange thing.”

  * * *

  —

  Barclay knew she had flown a man from the mountain strip back to Missoula, and he knew that man was Caleb, and he knew she’d driven him to his cabin and stayed inside for three hours. “Three hours,” he said. They were standing in the kitchen of the green-and-white house, the table between them. “Tell me, what could possibly have kept you busy for three hours?”

  “If you sent a spy after me,” she said, furious, “he probably looked through the window. So what did I do?”

  “You screwed him.”

  His certainty drew her up short. “But I didn’t.”

  “Don’t lie.” Black eyes, stark freckles.

  “I’m not. You’re lying. I know because I’m telling the truth.”

  A silent standoff, both incredulous.

  “He’s my friend,” Marian said. “He’s always been my friend. Am I not allowed to have friends?” Her voice rose. “Do you want me to be completely alone except for you?”

  He sat down heavily, the anger going out of him. “Yes,” he said. “If I’m being honest.”

  “You want to know what we did—we talked.” She gathered herself, said as though making an accusation, “I told Caleb I loved you.”

  He looked up. “You did?”

  “When did you start having me followed?”

  “Say it again. Tell me what you told him.”

  He was radiating thrilled pleasure. She felt only hopelessness. “Not now.”

  “Tell me you love me.”

  Louder, she said, “When did you start having me followed?”

  “After you flew to Vancouver. Only because I was so afraid of losing you.”

  Thank god Caleb had stopped their trysts when he had.

  “I thought you would do something foolish and get yourself into another bad situation,” Barclay said. “It was for your protection. I wasn’t looking to trap you, only to keep you safe.”

  “We don’t trust each other. We should admit it.”

  “I’ll stop if we’re married.” Vehemently: “Because when we’re married, I’ll take your vows as your promise not to run away. Because I know you’re honorable.” He stood again, came around the table, and knelt at her feet. “Say it now. Please. Tell me what you told him. It should be between us, not you and him.”

  She did as he asked. As the words left her, they caused a strange sensation, as though a knife had been in her gut and pulling it out was both a relief and a new wound, a fatal breach. She had known she would have to admit, eventually, that she loved him, and now she had, and now she could let it be true. He pressed his face into her thighs. She touched his head. He looked up and said, “I love you so much, Marian, but I have to tell you something. And before I tell you, you have to know that I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known—I should have waited.”

  She was frozen. She was in the cockpit over the crevasse.

  “There’s something—I set something in motion when I was angry, but I can undo it.” His eyes were full of tears. “Marian, I’ve done a terrible thing. But you have to understand—you made me wait too long.”

  The Cosmic Whoosh of the Expanding Universe

  Eleven

  I’d once heard a costume designer say the best actresses didn’t even look in the mirror; they felt a costume. At fittings for Marian, I kept my face turned away from my reflection as though it would turn me to stone. I walked around in a heavy coverall flight suit thing and sheepskin boots feeling as burdened and out of my element as an astronaut marooned on earth. On one wall, a patchwork of photos of female pilots and random era-appropriate people had been pinned up along with costume sketches and pretty much ever
y photo of Marian in existence, and I wallowed slowly over to look.

  I’d seen her wedding photo before, online, where she and the gangster Barclay Macqueen are standing outside a handsome courthouse, leaves blowing around their feet. Marian is holding her hat on her head and smiling wanly, as though at an unfunny joke. Her new husband looks elated.

  Next to it was a printout of a portrait in charcoal I hadn’t seen before. Marian was very young in it, almost but not quite a child, her hair cut very short, a look on her face like she was about to contradict whatever you’d just said. “What’s this?” I asked.

  The costume designer had followed me across the room and was fussing with a strap at my waist. “Her brother drew it. It’s in a private collection somewhere. Isn’t it lovely? So much personality.” She was tugging me backward, turning me to face her assistants. They studied me.

  “She looks like a flying squirrel,” one said. He held up an arm and gestured to the space under it. “All webbed in here.”

  “It’s authentic,” the designer said defensively, “a real-deal Sidcot suit, but I think we can tailor it so her shape isn’t quite so lost.”

  My resolve cracked. I glanced in the mirror. They’d already cut my hair down to a severe sort of pixie and bleached it. I was a small pale head atop a huge brown body, puffy and fungus-like.

  “Don’t worry,” the designer said. “We’ll make it more flattering.”

  “I don’t care about that,” I lied.

  “I promise,” she said, as though she hadn’t heard. “You’ll look great.”

  * * *

  —

  Siobhan called to say Redwood Feiffer wanted to have me over to his house for lunch. Always with the fucking lunches.

  “Just me and him?” I considered informing her that I would not be giving this guy a blow job. My career was no longer a blow job–based barter economy.