‘I can get it,’ Bill said, but he sat down instead on the green sofa. ‘Oh brother. The trip is always longer than you think. It didn’t used to wear me out so much. Did Paul tell you when the rest of the kids were coming in? Are there plans?’
‘Paul never gives me any of the travel information. I always have to ask everybody. Jean is coming in late tonight – she’s going straight to Michael’s, the doorman can let her in if you’re asleep. Susie is still undecided. She may take the train down Sunday with the kids, if she can face it; otherwise she’ll come on Monday by herself. Nathan has found his own accommodation. I don’t know what. Anyway, they’re all driving in tomorrow morning. He says, in time for brunch. Anything else? I think that’s all. Let me get you a drink.’
While she was in the kitchen, Liesel said to Bill, ‘You shouldn’t have said that about the hotel. It’s none of our business.’
‘She doesn’t care. It was a straightforward practical suggestion.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t have said it.’
They were still sitting in the half-dark, the sun had recently set, but then the lights seemed to come on, there was a flash of summer lightning, totally silent, and afterwards a shower of rain. It spread itself against the window, which was open a foot – along the sill, a row of pot plants pattered in a flurry of drops. You could feel in your breath the sudden fall in temperature.
‘I hope Paul’s not walking home in this.’
Liesel said, ‘We should close the window,’ and got up to close it.
Dana came in and switched on the overhead light. ‘You don’t have to do that.’
‘If you don’t mind my saying, they could probably use some water.’ But she regretted this comment and added, ‘If you give me a jug I can do it myself.’
Always with her kids Liesel felt a little hemmed in, by the ways of giving offense. Her younger daughter, Jean, was constantly telling her off; but when Liesel got tired and hot, things came out that she didn’t mean or didn’t mean in the way they were taken. Her children were very sensitive. Their partners, too. Anyway, what does it matter if you let your plants dry out? You have a small child, you’re tired, you lead busy lives. Although it’s true she couldn’t quite guess how Dana spent her days. Not with Inez around. And a cleaner, probably, who did no more than an adequate job. There were leaves on the dusty sill; one of the succulents had a foam of mold growing along the branches. But this is none of her business and Bill shouldn’t have said anything about a hotel.
She went with Dana into the kitchen to find a jug, and Dana, stretching her long arm, lifted a glass pitcher from a shelf.
‘How’s Inez?’ Liesel asked.
‘She’s fine, she’s okay.’ Dana started filling it at the sink. ‘She’s gone home for the weekend to see her mother.’
‘Where’s home?’
‘Arizona. You know, Inez is really a very impressive person. She’s started taking accountancy classes at CUNY. At night, after she leaves us, she heads downtown. The campus is somewhere around City Hall. Getting back to her apartment takes her like an hour and a half – she lives in Hunts Point.’
After turning off the tap, she stopped for a second, listening.
‘What?’ Liesel said.
‘I think that’s Cal.’
‘I’m sure he’s fine. Leave him. Or do what you want.’
Dana didn’t move, her head was bent, in the listening position, and she thought, oh, I don’t know, I just want to see him, she’ll think I’m fussing, and said, ‘I’ll just go check. He didn’t have his normal bedtime routine.’
‘I can’t hear anything,’ Liesel said. She carried the heavy jug into the living room and spent a few minutes watering the plants, picking off the dead leaves and arranging them in a pile on the sill.
She didn’t mean to tell Dana what to do, but sometimes Liesel couldn’t help herself. Dana was one of those women with … one of those mothers with … too much time to think about everything. She needs a job. Part of what upset Liesel (she felt at that moment surprisingly upset) was the impression she had received of some unhappiness, or not even unhappiness, maybe loneliness or detachment, from Dana. Paul was in some ways her least revealing child, the least likely to confide in her. And he can’t be an easy man to be married to. But Dana also – partly it was a question of social class. Liesel had been trying for years to break through her good manners. But you don’t have to do it right now, at the end of a long day and the beginning of a long visit. When you’re tired everything seems to matter, when really it doesn’t.
This is something else Jean often told her. Jean was her most consoling child. Even if she was also living the farthest away, in London, and in her own life slightly adrift. For a while it seemed she wouldn’t be able to make it. Because of the expense, apart from anything else – late August flights cost twice what they do in September. And she was becoming rather proud of her financial independence, such as it was. Bill offered to pay, of course, but Jean didn’t want to take their money. This is stupid, Liesel said to Bill. If we want to spend our money this way, let us spend it; but then Jean decided to come anyway. They were all coming. All of her children. I don’t care when she gets in, Liesel thought, I’ll stay up.
Bill dug out a pack of cards from the shoe-bag and took them to the guest bathroom. He always played solitaire on the pot. Then Paul walked in, carrying in his arms two large rain-spotted paper bags of food.
‘Hey guys,’ he said, putting them down on the dining table. ‘Good flight?’ Liesel turned around happily to look at him. He came and hugged her, with an arm and half his side, and said, ‘Is that the buddy?’
‘What?’
‘Is Cal still up?’
Paul wore a black suit and a very clean white shirt and a black tie. In clothes like that you couldn’t see the strength in his arms, but she felt it when he hugged her. He had hands like wrenches … he could open any jar. It always gave her pleasure – my strong young man. Of course, he wasn’t so young anymore; in his suit and tie he looked like a perfectly respectable grown-up, somebody who made a lot of money and had expenses to meet and responsibilities to live up to.
‘I can’t hear anything after a flight,’ she said. ‘My ears.’
‘Where’s Bill?’
‘In the bathroom.’
‘Let me just give Cal a quick kiss.’ But he came back a minute later with his son in his arms. Cal had his sleepsack on, he wriggled his legs, he looked wide awake. ‘Hey buddy, what’s up kid,’ Paul said, with his mouth in his son’s warm hair. ‘Have you said hello to your grandmother?’
Dana had started bringing plates and cutlery into the room. ‘Of course he has. We met them from the airport, right?’
‘Hey buddy, you want to get out of this thing? Let’s show them what you can do.’ He sat down on the sofa to unzip the sleepsack and let his son loose between his legs. ‘All right, go. Go, go.’ Cal ran towards the coffee table and Paul watched him run, then caught him at the last minute, reaching his arms out and plucking him easily into the air. ‘I can’t remember,’ he said to Liesel. ‘He must have been walking at Christmas.’
‘Yes, he was walking.’
‘But kind of like the guy from Men in Black.’
Bill came out of the bathroom with wet hands. He wiped them on his trousers. ‘Hey, son,’ he said. ‘What’s in the bags?’
‘I picked up some chicken and rice from Flor De Mayo on the way home.’
‘Is that that place you took us to?’
‘How was Marcello’s memorial?’ Liesel asked.
‘Yes. Is that acceptable to you?’
‘Sure,’ Bill said.
‘Fine,’ Paul said. ‘Let’s talk while we eat, the food’s hot. What are you doing?’
Dana had picked up Cal’s sleepsack, which was on the floor, and was trying to take her son out of his arms.
‘Taking him to bed.’
‘He can sit on my lap and eat a little chicken and rice.’
She gave
him a look. ‘Okay, but I’ve had him all day. If it’s daddy time, it’s daddy time.’
So Paul said, in one of his father’s voices, ‘It’s daddy time!’ and carried his son to the table.
He always looked forward eagerly to seeing his parents, and yet whenever they came, he felt a slight buffering against them, a reluctance to speak or reveal himself. It was easier talking on the phone, that was the relationship you were used to, the phone relationship. Which meant that seeing his parents again always brought with it a moment of disappointment. You could fudge the disappointment and pretend it was caused by something else. By the fact that whenever he saw them again, he noticed their age and couldn’t help checking for new symptoms of it. His mother limped to the table on her bum knee. His father rocked back and forth on his haunches to stand up. He made noises like sighs. He said, ‘Here we go.’ But none of this is what really upset Paul, and he played with Cal on his lap, gave him forkfuls of food (some of which ended up on the floor) to hide behind his son, so he didn’t have to look at them.
Liesel wanted to know about Marcello. ‘How was it?’ she said again.
‘Fine. I don’t know. It was a public … event. There were a lot of people there. People like photographers. And then the other people being photographed.’ He took a bite of food and swallowed – you could see the muscles working in his throat. ‘I guess I was being photographed, too. Not that anyone cared much. But I said to Dana, sometimes you have to show your face. So that’s what I did. I’m sorry I didn’t pick you up.’
‘Doesn’t matter, son,’ Bill said.
And Liesel said, ‘I remember when he first came to our house. I think it was the only time he came. He was so short and fat, I thought, what do you know about tennis? He said he could tell that this was a house of Europeans, that Europeans lived in it, something like that. He said, your son is very good, he will maybe make a career. I liked him but I don’t think I took him seriously.’
‘He said we should move to Florida.’
‘I don’t remember that.’
‘He said if I wanted to have a career I needed to play more, I probably needed to go to one of these academies.’
‘I don’t remember that.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Bill said.
‘Did you want to go?’
‘I don’t remember there was much of a discussion about it.’
‘That’s not true,’ Bill said. ‘Your mother and I talked about it.’
Liesel put down her fork. ‘I don’t remember any of this.’
‘I mean with me. It doesn’t matter, I would have hated it anyway.’
‘And Marcello was wrong,’ Liesel said. ‘About the career, I mean.’
‘Well, I don’t know.’
‘Do you know this Borisov guy?’ Bill asked.
‘Who’s that?’ Liesel said. ‘I don’t understand anything.’
‘My first-round match. He’s young. He’s Bulgarian. We played twice before, both three-setters. I won the first. He beat me five months ago at Indian Wells.’
‘Big serve?’
‘Not particularly. Bigger than mine.’
‘Baseliner?’
‘More or less. A good all-rounder. He’s solid. He covers the court. Two-hand backhand. Doesn’t come to net much because he’s happy trading shots. One of these diet and fitness freaks. He’s probably favored against me, but it’s not a bad first-round match-up, all things considered. Either way, I mean. For either of us.’
‘That’s no way to talk.’
‘Well, at my stage, one of the few things I’ve got going for me is that I have a pretty realistic sense of what my prospects are.’
‘I don’t think that’s true,’ Bill said, and Paul laughed, because it could have meant anything.
After dinner, Paul insisted on walking his parents to Michael’s place.
‘We’ll get a cab,’ Liesel said.
Bill was putting on his jacket. ‘We won’t get a cab but I’m perfectly happy walking.’
‘Don’t be stupid. It’s fine. We’ll walk together.’
That left Dana with the clearing up. Cal was still awake, and jazzed with sleeplessness. By the end of the meal he had started flicking food, and when Paul took his spoon away, he screamed to be let go, and ended up under the table quietly pushing the pieces of chicken and rice around the wooden floor. So Dana had to deal with him, too.
‘Just get him to bed and I’ll clear up when I get home.’
‘It’s fine,’ Dana said. ‘Just go.’
‘Look at me like you mean it. Look at me like you mean it.’
‘Don’t tell me how to look. I’ll look how I want to look.’
‘I don’t think that’s how you want to look.’
‘Oh screw you.’
‘I’m kidding, Jesus. If you want to clear the table, clear the table, but don’t be pissed at me, because I’m perfectly willing to do it when I get back.’
‘That’s not what I’m pissed at you about.’
‘So what are you pissed at me about? So what are you pissed at me about?’
‘Let’s not do this in front of your parents.’
‘They don’t care.’
‘Of course they care. I’m not pissed at you. I just want to get Cal to bed.’
‘Just put him in front of the TV and I’ll do that when I get home, too.’
‘He’s tired, he’s two years old, it’s ten o’clock at night. He needs to get to bed.’
‘So put him to bed.’
‘Fine.’
‘So I’ll put him to bed.’
‘Fine.’
‘Come on, Cal,’ Paul said. ‘It’s beddy byes.’ And he pulled his son from under the table and lifted him in his arms. Cal started kicking and screaming. He had his mother’s high shoulders and small round face, which looked very pretty on a boy and handsome on her. But not so good now, with his childish features incredibly mobile and expressive – like some kind of grief athlete, pushing himself to the limit. He seemed suddenly very long and skinny. Paul was much too strong for him and pressed him against his lap on the couch and forced the sleepsack over his legs. He wrestled the kid’s arms through the armholes and began zipping up the zip – it was a surprisingly violent demonstration of calm superior strength. All the while Dana said, ‘Let me do it, it’s fine, I’ll do it, just give him to me,’ until the zip stuck and Paul abruptly quit. Cal almost threw himself onto the floor. Dana caught him and held him, with his long body against her chest and his head on her shoulder. He stopped crying, but his breathing had so much momentum behind it that they could hear him taking in air.
Paul said, containing himself but holding back something gentler than anger, ‘I just want to walk my parents home. Is that unreasonable?’
‘No. Walk them home. I got this. It’s fine.’ And then, to Liesel and Bill, ‘It’s good to see you. I’m sorry. I’ll see you in the morning. Everybody’s tired.’ She carried Cal down the corridor to his room, with his hands around her neck. Paul could see that his eyes were already closed.
‘Mensch, du,’ Liesel said to Paul. ‘Wir können alleine nach Hause.’
Sometimes she still spoke German to her kids, when she felt tender or worried or angry, when the old simple relation kicked in again. We can make it home alone. Du bist einfach müde, she said. Ihr seid beide müde. Du sollst ihr helfen. You’re tired too. You’re both tired. You should help her.
‘She’s fine. I want to walk with you.’
The rain had stopped and the air had cleared when they stepped into the courtyard. Bill, who could be meddlesome in some ways, but not in others, said nothing. He wasn’t in the business of giving advice to his kids, especially about their parenting. A fountain splashed in the middle, surrounded by dripping dark-green plants; rainwater ran noisily along the curb, too, into the gutters. There was a kind of circular drive around the fountain, where the residents could park and drop things off and turn around. Someone sat waiting in a black Mercedes SUV with the mot
or running and the wipers going. Waiting for what? Or just getting out of the house? People in the city lived in such close quarters. But then a girl ran ahead of Bill and Paul and Liesel, with a backpack swinging one way and then another across her back, and climbed in. Pigtails, maybe she was ten years old. One of these divorce arrangements, a weekend pick-up? Who knows. Bill couldn’t see if the driver was a woman or man.
It was cool, almost cold, but still faintly humid, which suggested the heat would come back. Mosquito weather. At least in the meantime you could breathe again. Car headlamps spread their reflections on 86th Street. Paul carried the shoe-bag and dragged one of the suitcases along the ground. He was still in suit and tie.
‘A weird thing happens at these kinds of events,’ he said. ‘Not that I’ve been to many before. There’s a pecking order, there’s always a pecking order, but it seems particularly odd in the context. So a few people made speeches, some of Marcello’s players. I mean an actual pecking order, you could go down the ATP rankings. Sampras said something, Courier said something. Guys who won slams. As if there were a natural correlation – these are the guys who knew him best and meant the most to him. Which they probably did.’
‘Did you say anything?’ Bill said.
‘I don’t know. Not really. I “gave a quote,” whatever that means. To this woman from the Times I’m half friendly with. When she was an intern there she used to – I tried to be nice to her. We’re talking about levels of intimacy defined by whether or not you can remember someone’s name.’
‘What did you tell her?’
They were walking down Amsterdam, past the bars and concession stands, against all that traffic flowing relentlessly the other way, in little pulses, from light to light. They crossed over at 83rd and got dripped on by the awning of the Hi-Life Bar & Grill. A few people still sitting outside, drinking cocktails, had started to feel the cold – one of the women had draped her boyfriend’s leather jacket across her shoulders.
83rd Street itself was darker and quieter; there was no traffic. They passed a gym, a car rental outlet and the tall steps of an apartment block. There was a school across the way, and then the night sky came down into the space opened up by a playground. It was too cloudy for stars.
A Weekend in New York Page 3