Far-Flung

by Peter Cameron

  “No,” he said. “You don’t understand.”

  “Of course I don’t understand, because your behavior is incomprehensible.”

  “They have a new father. I try not to interfere.”

  “How very gallant of you.”

  Jack closed the armoire and locked it. He played with the keys. They were old keys, made of iron. He wondered what else they opened. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish things were different. I wish I were different.”

  For a moment neither of them said anything. Mrs. Carter looked back out the window. “I had to have the elm tree cut down,” she said. “The town insisted on it. They said it was jeopardizing the electrical wires.”

  “That’s a shame,” Jack said.

  She shrugged her thin shoulders. “They did a very neat job of it. All in a day.”

  “I didn’t notice it was gone,” said Jack.

  “It’s getting dark,” said Mrs. Carter. “Turn on the light.”

  Jack’s show was at the Winterburn Gallery, which was owned by a woman named Olivia de Havilland. She claimed this was her real name, and Jack saw no reason to doubt her, since there were a number of other equally odd things about her that were true. He spent an exhausting day hanging the show with her. She had the unfortunate idea that some of the canvases should be hung very high, and some very low, thus creating, in her words, “a dynamic viewing experience.”

  Although Jack had sent an invitation to the opening to his ex-wife, he was surprised to see her there. They usually avoided each other. But about halfway through the evening, Barbara entered the gallery, trailing a twin by either arm. The twins were dressed in brightly colored jogging suits; Barbara’s newly restored body was tightly swathed in leather. She ignored the paintings and made right for Jack. “Greetings,” she said, kissing the air beside his cheek. She indicated the twins and said, “les enfants,” as though they were some exotic delicacy.

  Jack didn’t know what to do. He felt under-rehearsed. He was aware that everyone was watching him and that he was making a poor show. One of the twins—he had no idea which—clutched his leg. He reached down and patted her head. She looked up at him.

  “Which one?” he said.

  “Sigourney,” Barbara said. “See Daddy’s paintings,” she said to the child. “Daddy painted these.”

  Sigourney studied a canvas that, thanks to Olivia de Havilland, was hung at her eye level. “I can do better than that,” she said.

  There was much tense laughter, followed by tense silence. Jack turned to Barbara. “How about dinner when this is over?” he asked.

  “What’s up?” asked Barbara.

  “Nothing,” said Jack. “I just thought it might be nice.”

  “With or without?” asked Barbara.

  “With or without what?”

  “Les enfants,” said Barbara.

  “Oh,” said Jack. “With.”

  “If I’d known, I’d have brought the dog,” Barbara said.

  Barbara suggested a restaurant called Cafe Wisteria in Tribeca. The twins devoured a plate of cornichons and radishes and disappeared beneath the table. For a while Jack and Barbara concentrated on their food, and listened to the murmurings at their feet. Barbara was the most relaxed person Jack had ever met. Nothing seemed to faze her, which drove him crazy. The rumor was that she was addicted to Valium, but Jack knew for a fact that she wasn’t. She just inhabited her life disinterestedly.

  “How is Roger?” Jack asked. Roger was Barbara’s new—well, not new anymore—second husband.

  “Roger’s fine. He’s in Madrid at the moment. We’re buying a house there.”

  “In Spain?”

  “Outside of Barcelona.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” she repeated, as if she had never considered the question before. “I don’t know. No reason, really. We plan to spend half the year there.”

  “Oh,” Jack said. “You’ll take the twins?”

  “They’re a little too young to fend for themselves.”

  “Of course,” said Jack. “I just meant …”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. What will they do in Spain?”

  “Learn Spanish, I hope. I don’t know. What do they do in New York? Play. Grow up. Don’t tell me you’re developing an interest in them?”

  Jack didn’t say anything. A small hand was rolling his sock up and down his ankle. “Actually,” he said, “I have been thinking about them. I was wondering if I could take them to visit my grandmother.”

  “How is she doing?”

  “Well. She’d like to see the twins.”

  Barbara raised the tablecloth and addressed the floor. “Honeys,” she said, “would you like to go visit your great-grandma? Jack wants to take you to Bedford.”

  “Where’s Bedford?” a twin asked.

  “Not far,” said Barbara. “In the country. You get there on a train.”

  “Are there cows?”

  “No, it’s not a farm.”

  “Is there a trampoline?”

  “No. Just a big house with your great-grandma, who wants to see you very much. And Jack will take you. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  “Who’s Jack?”

  “You know Jack. Your father. Not Daddy, but your father.”

  Jack leaned his head down and looked under the table. “It’s me,” he said. “I’m Jack.” The twins looked up at him with identical, confused expressions on their small, perfect faces. “I’m Jack,” he said again, and reached his hand down toward them, tentatively, as if to wild dogs.

  At the hotel there was a message for him to call Langley Smith. Langley had originally been Jack’s student, when he taught painting and lectured on modern art for one ill-fated semester at Bryn Mawr immediately following his exodus from New York. He had met her again, several years later, at the opening of a show of his in Los Angeles. By then she had switched from painting to acting. Her biggest claim to fame was as a guest star on “L.A. Law,” playing a woman (unjustly) accused of child molestation.

  “Hi baby,” Langley said. “How did it go?”

  “Not bad,” Jack said. “Julian Arnotti bought the two big ones.”

  “Great,” she said.

  “How are you doing?” Jack asked.

  “Not bad. I was called back again for the part in that pilot.”

  “What pilot?”

  “The one for Lorimar. About the American family in Russia. You know, the dum-dum daddy’s an ambassador, the ditsy mother’s an alky, there are kids and a dog and a lot of funny commies.”

  “Who are you?”

  “The daughter, if you can believe it. I’m a nympho with a thing for Ruskies in uniforms.”

  “That’s great. And you got it?”

  “Yes. Unless they decide to make the family black. As you know, black is very popular out here now. They’re negotiating with Richard Pryor, and if he says yes, then it will be black. But I doubt he will.”

  “Maybe you could be an adopted daughter. That would be interesting.”

  “I’ll suggest it. So when are you coming back?”

  “I don’t know. In about a week. I’m a little worried about my grandmother.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, my aunt who usually stays with her is drying out at Betty Ford. I don’t think she should be living alone.”

  “Can’t you get someone to stay with her? A nurse or someone?”

  “I guess so. I’ll have to look into it.”

  “If this Ruskie thing falls through maybe I’ll fly out. It would be fun to spend some time in New York together.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m kind of preoccupied.”

  “You must be tired,” Langley said. “What time is it there?”

  “One o’clock.”

  “You want to go to bed?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “O.K., then. We’ll talk later?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Listen, good luck with the thing. The pilot.”
/>   “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll let you know if I get it.”

  “Well, good night.”

  “Good night,” Langley said. “I love you.”

  Jack hung up quickly, hoping his failure to respond to her declaration had gone unnoticed. But of course he knew it had not. And he had some idea of how Langley must feel: Langley, in her bedroom, the TV on, the sprinkler spraying the window; Langley in bed in her Tina the Killer Whale T-shirt, having said I love you to the miles between them, to the darkness, to his inevitable silence. She was better and braver than he, he understood that, but what he did not understand was why she tolerated his constipated dumb love, which he could express only when they lay down together and allowed their bodies to speak. He redialed the number of her house in Topanga Canyon. “Hello,” he said. “C’est moi.”

  “Bonjour moi,” Langley said. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Oh,” said Langley.

  “I miss you,” he said, after a pause.

  “I miss you, too,” Langley answered.

  “I’m a little drunk,” he said.

  “Go to bed,” suggested Langley. “Sleep it off.”

  “I wish you were here,” he said.

  “So do I,” said Langley.

  “I really wish you were here,” he said. “Really.”

  “I love you,” said Langley.

  He didn’t answer. He just sat on his bed, the drapes drawn, the traffic in the street, the phone pressed to his ear.

  “Sleep well,” Langley said, and hung up.

  While his grandmother and the twins had a tea party in the gazebo, Jack mowed the lawn. The gardener was in the hospital. Although he couldn’t hear their conversation, which was obscured by the roar of the mower, he could tell they were having fun. Every time he trudged past the gazebo all three waved at him. His grandmother raised her teacup in salute.

  The party was still in progress when he finished the lawn, but before he could join it his grandmother told him to shower and change. Jack still had clothes in the house, which he and his father had lived in from the time his mother had died till the time he went to college. His father died five years ago, of a heart attack while swimming in Long Island Sound.

  Except to keep them clean, his grandmother had touched nothing in their bedrooms. His was the same as the day he had left for college, and his father’s was the same as the day he went for his swim. Jack took a shower in the bathroom they had shared. There was still a bottle of his father’s cologne in the medicine chest. He smelled it and then tentatively put some on his skin, but he didn’t smell like his father. He stood naked in the cool bathroom and looked out across the lawn at his grandmother and his daughters in the backyard. They were putting on a show for one another. His grandmother stood up and sang “Getting to Know You.” Then the twins performed a sort of tap dance, but without tap shoes or music it was rather thumpy and chaotic. Jack watched from inside the house, like a voyeur.

  He called his grandmother the next day. The phone rang and rang, unanswered. Fearing the worst, he took the first train to Bedford. The front door was unlocked. The curtains in the living room were all drawn and the house was dark. His grandmother lay on the sofa. She sat up as he entered the room.

  “Who is it?” she asked, feeling on the coffee table for her glasses.

  “It’s me,” he said, “John.”

  “Haven’t you heard of knocking?” she asked.

  “I thought something had happened to you,” he said. “I tried to call you, and there was no answer. I thought you were dead.”

  “Not quite dead,” she said. “Just napping.”

  “Jesus,” he said. He opened the curtains.

  “Close them,” she said. “I’m trying to keep the house cool.”

  He closed the curtains and sat down beside her on the couch. He realized he was panting and tried to catch his breath. He was sweating, too. “Have you heard from Aunt Helen?” he finally asked. “When is she coming back?”

  “Not for a while. Apparently she was moister than anyone of us thought.”

  “Well, I’m worried about you being here alone,” Jack said. “I’m planning to go back home, and I don’t like it that you’re here alone.”

  “Actually,” his grandmother said, “I was thinking about getting a chimpanzee.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “A chimpanzee. For a companion. I’ve read they make wonderful companions. They’re very intelligent, you know, and clean.”

  “Isn’t it against the law to own wild animals?”

  “Apparently not chimpanzees.”

  “I can’t believe we’re talking about monkeys. You aren’t serious about this, are you?”

  “Of course I am serious.”

  “I think it’s sick. It’s macabre. It’s like Nora Desmond in Sunset Boulevard.”

  “Norma Desmond.”

  “Whatever.”

  “What about your promise?” Mrs. Carter asked.

  “What?”

  “I am changing the subject. You promised to paint me a picture of Benders Bay. I don’t suppose you have.”

  Jack had forgotten all about the. painting. “Oh,” he said.

  “You forgot? I thought so.”

  “I didn’t forget. I just haven’t had time. I’ve been very busy.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “I’ll go up this week,” he said. “Before I go back.”

  Mrs. Carter leaned forward and kissed him. “It was very sweet of you to rush out here. I’m sorry I unplugged the phone. I should have told you. I keep it unplugged unless I want to make a call or expect one.”

  “What if someone has to get in touch with you?”

  “They can send a telegram. That is what telegrams are for.”

  “Telegrams are delivered over the phone.”

  “What happened to the little men on bicycles?”

  “I don’t know. They all died.”

  This news momentarily silenced Mrs. Carter.

  “Well, that’s a shame,” she finally said. “A damn shame.” She stood up. “Come,” she said. “It’s lunchtime. Are you hungry? How about a sandwich?”

  That night he called Langley. He explained about the painting, telling her he wasn’t sure when he’d be back.

  “That’s very sweet of you, to do a painting for your grandmother,” she said.

  Jack let her think that. It was the second time that day someone had told him he was sweet, yet he felt less than sweet. “Did you get the part?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “They’re postponing production while they rethink the concept. They’ve decided it’s politically incorrect to make fun of commies. I can’t believe the end of the Cold War is fucking up my career.”

  “That’s a shame,” said Jack.

  “That’s the breaks,” Langley said.

  “Listen,” he said. “Why don’t you fly out here? And we’ll go out to Fishers together? We can stay a couple of days.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Langley.

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just, you know, going through a lot of stuff right now, and I want to get it sorted out.”

  “What stuff?”

  “Just stuff. Life stuff, work stuff.” She paused. “Love stuff.”

  “About me?”

  “Bingo,” Langley said.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Langley. “I don’t even know that there is a problem. I’m just thinking about it.”

  “Well, can’t you think about it on Fishers Island?”

  “Baby, listen, call me when you get back to L.A. We’ll talk about it then.”

  “You don’t think we should talk about it now?”

  “No. Have fun. Paint well.”

  “Wait,” he said. “Don’t hang up.”

  “What?” said Langley.

  “Listen,” he said.

  “I’
m listening,” Langley said.

  “I don’t want to lose you,” he said.

  Langley didn’t say anything.

  “I don’t want to lose you,” he repeated.

  “That’s funny,” Langley said.

  “Why?”

  Langley made a small noise that could either have been the beginning of a laugh or a sob.

  “What’s funny?” he asked.

  “Nothing, really.”

  “Have I already lost you?”

  “Maybe,” Langley said. “A little.”

  “Listen, I’ll come back tomorrow. I can paint the house later this summer.”

  “No,” said Langley. “Paint it now. I told you I have stuff to think about. It’s O.K. I’ll be here when you come back.”

  “Well, don’t think about anything till I get there.”

  “I’m a smart girl,” Langley said. “I can’t promise you that.”

  The next day Jack took a train to New London and rented a car and rode the ferry over to Fishers Island. He drove out to Benders Bay and parked at the end of the long, sandy driveway, and looked up at the house, which stood on a bluff above the water. It had not been changed. The lilacs were blooming. There was a strong breeze from the sea and it blew some lavender blossoms across the windshield. Jack closed his eyes. He could smell the lilacs and the salt water and the heat. He remembered a time when he and his grandmother had been playing Scrabble on the terrace. He could remember the same fragrant hot wind, and how every now and then they would have to lean forward, shelter the board, and place their hands over the intricately arranged tiles, so that their words would not blow away.

  He got out of the car and assembled his easel and supplies at a point in the road where the house was best silhouetted against the sky. As he began drawing, a woman appeared on the terrace and looked down at him curiously. She began to walk down the driveway, and Jack thought of the questions she was bound to ask him—Who are you? What are you doing here? Why are you painting this house? He put down his piece of charcoal, and tried to think of some answers.

  THE SECRET DOG

  WHEN MY WIFE, MIRANDA, finally falls asleep, I get out of bed and stand for a moment in the darkness, making sure she won’t awaken. Miranda is a sound sleeper: Life exhausts her. She lies in bed, her arms thrown back up over her head, someone floating down a river. I watch her for a moment and then I go downstairs to the closet where I keep my dog. On the door is a sign that says “Miranda: Keep Out.”