Finn took a look at the tree. Suddenly, he became distant, deep in thought. In this intense way, he looked at the row of sugar maple which, Ann was right, were getting too big for the garden.
‘Trees grow…’ he muttered.
‘Say again?’
‘Trees grow.’
‘Even I know that.’
‘It’s forty years since he took that photograph. And trees grow. It is the right cemetery. It’s probably the exact spot.’
Ann glanced back at the house and saw her husband watching, his nose flat against the window.
‘I just wanted to know I was in the right place,’ Finn whispered.
‘Finn, I’m going to be honest. You make me nervous at the best of times, and you talking in riddles about cemeteries just makes me scared.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry. You’ve no reason to be scared of me, or my brother. I bet you I’m more scared of your daughter than you are of me.’
She smiled knowingly, then darkened. ‘But she is okay, isn’t she?’
‘Of course she is,’ he said, and she knew it was true. ‘I wanted to be sure that a photograph I saw – of a cemetery – was not a lie. It’s just a photograph but it made a lot of sense of things for me. I felt pretty excited that I had worked out where it was taken, felt all grown-up like I belonged in New York City, but then I couldn’t find the place. But trees grow and landscapes change. I think I did find the right place. I’m not the idiot people think I am.’
‘You’re clearly not an idiot. Your brother I’m not so sure about.’ It was rare for her to say something frivolous, and, when she did, she felt the urge to hide.
‘He’s not himself today, but he’s no idiot, he’s a success.’
Not much of what the boy had said made sense to Ann, but his demeanour made sense, his tone of voice made sense. He appeared misunderstood and a little bit lost, and that all made perfect sense to her.
The distant, subdued sound of a phone ringing fell lightly between them. Ann looked inside and saw Stefano lunge for the receiver, then the grin on his face, and that thing he did when he became animate, rubbing the curve of his belly while leaning back and smiling. He had a great smile, she still enjoyed his smile. She ran inside.
Finn stayed in the garden a while and by the time he went in, the others were in the kitchen and there was Andy Williams on the CD player and Ann sliding two huge dishes, a lasagne and a cannelloni, into the oven. Jack, who was standing behind her slugging back a dose of cough medicine, looked at Finn and at the food and gave his brother a big thumbs-up with deliberately crazed eyes. Stefano bent over a silver tray of garish flutes, pouring a drop of brandy into the base of them, and then champagne.
Dilly had called to say that she was assisting a fashion photographer on location in Harlem and would be with them by eight o’clock. Finn felt deflated, partly by the absolute knowledge that she was not assisting a fashion photographer in Harlem, but mainly by the desire to retrieve his book and get away sooner than that.
Stefano handed out the flutes and the four of them chinked glasses.
‘Good health,’ Stefano said. ‘Here’s to eight o’clock.’
‘Cheers,’ Finn said.
‘A Parker family tradition.’ Ann smiled. ‘We like a champagne cocktail with guests.’
‘Especially,’ Jack said, raising his glass, ‘when you’ve just discovered your guests haven’t left your daughter’s body parts in a suitcase somewhere in New Jersey.’
‘JESUS H. CHRIST!’ Stefano shouted.
‘What?’ Jack was oblivious. ‘Are you from New Jersey?’
Ann Parker slugged back her cocktail and ran to the kitchen.
‘Was that meant to be funny?’ Stefano asked Jack.
‘We eat now, yeah? Not at eight,’ Jack replied.
Stefano stormed out.
Finn turned on his brother. ‘What’s in the little bottle, cough mixture or truth serum? All the things people think are funny but would never say out loud, you’re saying them today.’
‘You’ve noticed too?’ Jack said. ‘The weird thing is, I never even thought these things before, and now I’m thinking them and saying them.’
‘Well, stop.’
‘Thinking or talking?’
‘Talking.’
‘Agreed, but first, how long does lasagne take to cook? I can’t last much longer.’
‘Jack, do this for me: sit down there and hardly say a word for the rest of today. Be mute, eat a lot, you’ve got a bad flu or something. And don’t drink that cocktail, it’s lethal and these glasses are huge.’
‘Okay, I will, except the bit about the champagne. It’s yummy.’ Jack took his glass to the couch, and sat quietly, adjusting to the flavour of being bossed by his little bro. It was a new dish. He sipped his cocktail, felt it slip into his body like a slow, dangerous river of heat, and waited obediently, quietly, for dinner to be served. When that time came, he hauled himself up from the couch and aimed for the dining table far away on the other side of the open plan, a vast distance of plush carpet and useless ornaments and whiteness away. His legs threatened to buckle under him and the room span a little. His body felt too weak to reach the table and the two huge dishes of steaming hot pasta bake upon it, but he made it, and slumped into his chair. He declined the red wine which Stefano was pouring and nodded when asked if he wanted vegetarian cannelloni or meat lasagne. ‘Both, please.’
‘Are you vegetarian, Mrs Parker?’ Finn enquired, politely.
‘Ann, please.’
‘No “e”,’ Jack muttered.
‘No. But Dilys is, of course, and, well, you know, I thought she’d be here.’
‘She will be,’ Stefano said. ‘That’ll reheat just fine.’ He had a spring in his step.
Finn took a moment to recall, in the privacy of his own thoughts, the many slabs of red meat he had witnessed Dilly devour in the four months he had known her.
Opposite him, in the privacy of his own sweaty, disorientated, malnourished body, Jack wrestled with his first experience of tunnel vision. He stared at his baby brother until he caught his eye, and mouthed the words, Help me, then collapsed face-down, clipping the side of his plate as he head-butted the table and flipping the bake on to his head. Finn, Stefano and Ann froze, staring at the sight of Jack’s crumpled body, pinned to the table by his forehead, wearing a wig of pasta.
‘That’s not good,’ Stefano said, and leapt out of his chair. He eased Jack’s head up and looked into his eyes.
‘Sorry,’ Jack mumbled.
Stefano moved confidently and manfully, sweeping the food away from Jack’s head and wedging his arms beneath Jack’s armpits, instructing Finn to take Jack’s feet. They carried him to the spare room, where Stefano laid the bedcover across him and wiped the food from his face and hair.
‘Thank you,’ Finn said.
Stefano examined Jack’s pupils. ‘How do you feel, Jack?’ he asked, firmly.
‘I’m just exhausted, that’s all…’ Jack whispered. All he could feel was the heat from the food burning his head and the descent into a thick, cloying sleep.
When he woke, the room was pitch-black and he could not be sure his eyes were open. The house was quiet and the universe seemed still. His back felt hot and his body rested. It was some minutes, as his eyes adjusted to the dark, before he realised that Finn was sitting on the side of the bed, and that it had been the sound of the bedroom door brushing over the deep carpet that had woken him.
‘Hello.’ Although Jack’s voice was comically weak, he sounded like Jack again, not the intruder who had occupied his body for most of the day.
Finn lent in close and whispered, ‘I’ve spent the last five hours listening to them and their neighbours debating your drug problem over a game of Canasta. I told them it wasn’t the case but they ignored me. I think they decided it was heroin, in the end, after lots of different ideas.’
‘Did you play Canasta?’ Jack asked, weakly.
‘Yes,
for a bit, while explaining that what they kept saying, MBNA, is a bank and that what you are not on is MDMA, but my knowing what MDMA is convinced them you must be on it, and me supplying you. Then, I made name cards for Ann-no-E, for all the trees in their garden. She’s going to laminate them and have them on pegs in the ground so she knows what’s what.’
‘Charmer,’ Jack said.
Finn handed Jack a mug of hot tea and wrapped his brother’s fingers around the handle. ‘They’re terrified of you,’ he said.
Jack drank the tea. He was in a daze. Finn started giggling.
‘What?’ Jack asked.
‘You fell into a lasagne.’
Finn clamped his hand over his mouth to quell his laughter. Jack rushed to put his mug down.
‘Mr Tidy fell into his supper,’ Finn squealed.
They squirmed and wriggled on the mattress and occasionally, despite their better efforts, a shriek escaped them.
The Parkers and their friends, the Johnsons, studiously avoided any mention of the high-pitched, hysterical whining coming from the English quarter. They carried their glasses from the card game on the dining table to the other end of the living area to watch college football and bitch a little about their town.
‘Also,’ Finn continued, ‘Dilly called again and now she’s not coming until tomorrow lunchtime.’
‘Are they pissed off?’
‘They’re too pissed to be pissed off.’
‘I think there might be béchamel sauce in my ear,’ Jack said. ‘I feel kind of weird and spacey.’
The darkness had removed the jagged edges between them.
‘I’m turning in,’ Finn said. ‘It’s been interesting.’
Jack watched Finn’s silhouette reach the doorway and disappear into the next room. He remained sitting upright in the darkness and rotated his ankles and stretched his arms above his head and tried to get a feel for how conscious he was. He felt that he ought to be sociable, to put in an appearance given the nature of his earlier exit, and ambled into the living area, forgetting that he was wearing only socks, underpants, a suit shirt and electrocuted hair. He took a seat on the couch next to Ann, worrying her considerably. Stefano and the Johnsons averted their eyes from Jack’s state of undress and stared steadfastly at the college football.
‘You should eat. You must eat,’ Ann said, booking herself an exit to the kitchen as she noticed the attractive muscularity of Jack’s legs.
Jack looked across to the other couch and beamed a smile.
‘I’m Jack,’ he said.
The Johnsons pulled that face that was the smile of fear. Stefano ignored his guest. Jack waited obediently, smiling at various soft furnishings and lifeless family photos which revealed a ratio of, ballpark figure, four photographs of Phoebe to every one of Dilly.
Ann Parker returned with a blanket, and a tray upon which was a plate, upon which was a gargantuan mound of reheated pasta. She placed the blanket across Jack’s naked legs and laid the tray on Jack’s lap and sat at the far end of the couch from him, pressed tight against the armrest.
‘Thank you, Ann,’ Jack said, before his first mouthful.
‘You’re welcome.’
During the ad break in the college football, Stefano reached for his wand and, fatefully, hopped channels. HBO was showing Last Tango In Paris and Jack pointed his laden fork at the screen. ‘That’s a classic. You guys seen it?’
The Johnsons peered at the screen and shook their heads. Stefano ignored him and went back to the football.
‘But you’ve heard of it, right?’
‘I don’t believe so,’ said Mrs Johnson.
‘I’ve definitely heard of it being quite… alternative… but I never did catch it,’ Ann said.
‘Well, you’re just about the only people who haven’t,’ Jack said. ‘You have to see that movie. It’s a classic, like I said. Very controversial.’
‘Some other time…’ Stefano murmured.
Ann cleared her throat at her husband. Stefano raised an eyebrow in private before turning to his wife. She glared at him. He shrugged her a ‘what?!’.
‘We’ll watch Jack’s movie,’ she said, nodding her head to make it perfectly clear that her decision was final. ‘He’s our guest and he’s feeling a little… unusual.’
Stefano frowned at her. She frowned back stronger. Jack loaded his fork with gooey cannelloni. The Johnsons took a look at the time.
‘HBO,’ Ann said, flatly. ‘Last Tango.’
‘My wife loves to dance,’ said Mr Johnson.
Jack strained forward to suck a petrified waterfall of melted cheese up towards his mouth, oblivious to the TV debate and to having recommended the film. Stefano looked at him murderously, and complied with his wife, switching the channel. Jack smiled at Ann as he chewed, and winked as he thanked her again for the meal. When he had finished eating he placed his knife and fork together, and let out a sigh of satisfaction and settled down to watch the film that his hosts had on. The movie was a bewildering living hell for Stefano Parker until he drew the line at Marlon Brando applying cooking butter to Maria Schneider’s backside and switched back to sports.
‘Basketball…’ Jack said. ‘Awesome.’ He smiled at the Johnsons.
Ann went to the kitchen. She took cream from the fridge, hesitating as she came eye to eye with a Land of Lakes half-stick. She returned with a bowl of chocolate fudge cake with hot chocolate sauce and cream over it. Jack thanked her and tasted it and mmmed at her with a grin.
‘You make this?’
She shook her head, coyly, and tucked her legs beneath her bottom on the end of the couch.
‘Well, it’s wonderful anyway, thank you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ she said, delighted. Treat him like a normal person and he’ll try to behave like one, she told herself.
‘It’s all wonderful; you’re both so kind, everything we never had,’ Jack added. He returned immediately to his food, oblivious to the disarming effect of his words on Dilly’s mum, who could not help but feel an ocean of compassion.
Stefano shook with anger and stared at the game, unable to get the movie out of his head. They all sat in silence, save for the scraping of Jack’s spoon around the sides of an empty bowl. When there was not a trace of cake left, Jack got to his feet, thanked his hosts for a wonderful meal, and strolled off to bed, stroking his belly.
Stefano couldn’t look his neighbours in the eye.
‘An educational evening,’ Harry Johnson said.
Stefano saw them out and bolted the front door, despite the presence inside his house of exactly the sort of person he was trying to keep out. Ann cleared away Jack’s tray, mulling on how young men were grateful for being fed to a greater degree than her daughters ever were. Stefano joined her in the kitchen. ‘Jesus H. Christ,’ he muttered furiously.
‘Let’s turn in,’ Ann sighed.
‘Uh-uh,’ Stefano said, returning to his chair. ‘Uh-uh-uh.’
Ann followed him into the living area and waited patiently for him to elaborate. He shifted in his seat, staring at the screen, annoyed that she wasn’t taking the bait by asking him what he meant by ‘uh-uh’.
‘No way…’ he added, to prompt her.
Still she didn’t bite.
‘If you think I’m going to sleep while those two are in my house, you can think again.’ He pointed his wand at the TV and started channel-hopping furiously. ‘I’ll find myself something decent to watch, not that other filth.’
He kept pressing the button, station after station, settled for the NBC sports round-up, and folded his hands over the wand as though it were a gun, the man who sleeps with one eye open, on the television screen, a Long Beach John Wayne for the noughties. ‘I’m protecting my wife and my house,’ he hissed, finally looking at her.
She smiled gratefully and went to bed.
25
They brought him oxycontin at four in the afternoon and the pain melted, and again at midnight. At one in the morning, William slipped a
way in his dressing gown and sneakers, holding the saline drip above his head until his arm grew tired, then pushing it into his pocket. Even as he gulped at the fresh air, the sensation of having departed from his own body remained and he carried himself down the West Side like a balloon on a string.
The opioid veneered his broken body and he felt light and in contact with nothing, and he watched himself come to a standstill in the old yard at the far reaches of the theatre district, where the long-ago-abandoned Stephenson Theatre stood in ruins at the head of the narrow, rectangular enclave which had the air of Miss Havisham’s banquet. A Stieglitz mist hung over the edges of Manhattan, stirred by a cool night on the Hudson, and lending the quiet, neglected buildings of the yard the feeling of an impenetrable forest. On a bench on the wide sidewalk, beneath a silver birch tree illuminated ghostly white by a street lamp, he saw Josef Potter, his old boss. William took a seat beside the elderly man and felt immediately at ease with him again, even though Josef had died six years ago, on the first day of the millennium.
‘Why leave a good job with real skills and real challenges? You were still young and you chose a job doing nothing.’
‘I get a lot done. Life’s never seemed busier.’ William rested his hand on Josef’s arm, only for the old man to draw back from him.
‘But you’re not doing anything.’
‘Not to worry any more.’ William smiled. ‘I feel okay about everything.’
William continued to speak to the newly married young man beside him, who had stopped on the bench to sober up before going home and had watched as a man wearing a dressing gown in the night had sat beside him and struck up conversation. The young man followed the route of the tube leading from William’s arm to his pocket.
‘That a lifeline?’ the man asked.
‘No, it’s just a tube. There is no lifeline, Josef. But you must know that by now.’
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