A Fatal Debt

by John Gapper

  “I’ll take Ben with me,” he said, “and Guy can mind the store.”

  My father had bought a Rover and he let me sit in the front, which he hadn’t done before. The seats were leather, and I smelled them as we drove, the wipers squeaking on the windscreen in the drizzle. I watched the colored segments of the dashboard display until we got to Paddington and waited across the road from the entrance to the station, where my parents had arranged to meet. The radio was on and he leaned over to turn it down.

  “Listen, Benny, will you do one thing for me?” he said.

  “What, Dad?”

  “You know Jane, who you just met? Don’t mention her to Mum, will you? I think it’s better kept between us.”

  I looked at him, not quite understanding what he meant, and I saw his awkwardness, the pleading expression on his face that I hadn’t known before. It was an adult face, different from a child’s, with its folds of flesh, its pockmarks, its stubble and sweat. I thought of him as huge-impossible to knock off course from sheer bulk-but he seemed vulnerable in that moment. I was pleased to be taken into his confidence, for my agreement to be needed. It seemed like a small thing not to reveal the presence of another woman in our home.

  “Okay, Dad,” I said.

  My mother came out of the station just after that, and she ran across the road, in the gap behind a bus. She put her head through the rolled-down passenger-side window when she saw me and laughed with the relief of being reunited. She was only a few years older than I am now. She’d been born in Virginia, although she’d lived all of her adult life in London after meeting my father as a student in the 1970s. The British are supposed to be genteel and Americans boors, but she disproved it. She’d taken up British habits-gardening, visiting seaside towns-but not the rudeness.

  “How are you, boys?” she said gaily.

  “We’ve just about coped without you,” my father said.

  “You haven’t missed having a woman about the house, then?”

  “What do you say, Benny?” my father asked me, a warning look in his eyes.

  “It’s been fine,” I mumbled.

  He drove us home, with my mother insisting on me sitting in the front while she chatted happily from the backseat. She’d been to visit a friend in Oxford for a couple of days. We stopped to pick up fish and chips on Chiswick High Street as we neared home-a reward for good behavior, my father called it.

  For a time I forgot it, basking in the glow of my intimacy with my father-the fact that he relied on me for something that mattered to him. Jane was filed away in my mind until a few months later, when my parents’ arguments, which had been occasional and brief, became loud and vituperative. From my bedroom, I heard terrible threats and recriminations being exchanged.

  My brother, three years older than I, was contemptuous of my frailty and taunted me for crying in the middle of one volcanic eruption. Half-fascinated and half-scared himself, he passed on gossip from his forays halfway down the stairs to overhear what my parents were shouting about. Some woman called Jane, he reported.

  I was tempted to flaunt my knowledge of her, but something told me not to. It would have revealed that I’d kept a secret, not only from him but also from my mother. As my father’s affair progressed to its inevitable conclusion-my parents calling us down to give us a stilted explanation, my father leaving with a suitcase and hugging us in the hallway-the ball of my guilt and complicity swelled inside me.

  My mother hid her distress from us after he’d gone, except once. One day, when I was sixteen and the postdivorce arrangements for weekends, birthdays, and Christmases had become routine, I found her in our living room. She was looking at a photo of us four together, my father with his arms around us.

  “I wish I’d realized, Ben. I could’ve done something,” she said.

  My heart twisted again. She wasn’t crying: I think her tears had long been shed.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I said, my teenage self unable to conjure up more.

  From that moment on, I had an uneasy sense around my father of being trapped together in our deception, him not knowing whether I had blurted out the truth to her. It was too difficult for either of us to acknowledge, so our secret was buried with her.

  Ten years later, my mother had died of cancer while I was at medical school in London. It was the catalyst for me to depart for New York, escaping my father’s guilt-ridden bonhomie and Jane’s relief that she no longer had to compete. Jane sat a couple of rows back at the service, while my father occupied a front pew with my brother and me, and edged up to stand beside him only at the gravesite. It hadn’t made her presence there any less painful.

  I bumped into Jane on the way out of the hospital, in the store that sold newspapers, sweets, and shiny helium balloons bearing cheerful messages for the patients. She was squatting with her back to me to pick up a magazine, and the white strap of her bra was pressed up against her cream blouse in a way that provoked in me desire mixed with hostility. That wasn’t, I’d come to realize in adulthood, a contradiction. I kissed her airily on the cheek, barely grazing her skin, and told her that my father looked well.

  “Have you got time for a cup of coffee, at least?” she said, as if it were typical of me to be rushing off.

  Look, I’ve just flown across the bloody Atlantic to see him, I thought, but I kept it to myself and nodded. We found a seat in the hospital’s atrium, holding two cups of foamed milk sprinkled with brown powder. The space was lit from above by a cloudy sky.

  “How are you?” she said. “We haven’t seen you for ages. I hope you told Roger he’ll have to change his diet. You know what he’s like.”

  “I sure do,” I said, matching her smile despite the tug of rivalry I still felt when she talked of my father proprietarily. We remained in temporary harmony while I explained what had happened to his heart in terms she grasped, and she looked appreciative.

  Our detente didn’t last. “When will we see Rebecca again?” she said, licking the foam with her tongue. “I think she’s great, Ben. Don’t you let her go.”

  “I’m afraid we’re taking a break,” I said stiffly.

  “Oh, Ben. Why? She’s such a lovely girl.”

  That was Jane. No sensitivity, no sense that there were things she shouldn’t push. I hadn’t paid for a psych to probe into my guilty secrets-I just wanted to be left alone. I felt a prickle of sweat and longed to be out of there, no longer held to emotional account.

  “Yes, she is. You’re right, Jane. It’s all my fault,” I said, standing up.

  My heart was starting to race with all my long-held resentment against her. It didn’t take much to trigger it, and I knew that I had to finish our conversation before I said something I’d regret. As I did so, I looked up and saw a black Audi that I recognized halting outside the entrance. It shouldn’t have been there, but I was glad it had flouted the rules.

  “I’ve got to go. I’m getting a lift,” I said to her upturned face. “I’ll call later to see how Dad is. Take care.”

  I hurried across the atrium before Jane could stop me, the doors at the entrance sliding obediently open to let me escape.

  5

  As I reached the Audi, a slim young man in a dark blue uniform got out and opened the rear passenger door, revealing a man sitting comfortably in the back. He was in his mid-fifties, long-legged and broad-chested, with a pink face. His mottled gray hair was unkempt for a banker’s, brushing his collar at the back and flopping over his forehead so that his nose protruded like a mole’s. His dark gray suit looked expensive but slightly crumpled. He had a rich voice, the product of an English public school, and the self-assurance that went with it.

  “Hello there,” he said, shaking my hand. “I’m Felix.”

  He’d called earlier that morning as I’d arrived at the hospital, saying that he’d be sharing my flight home if I didn’t mind. His name was Felix Lustgarten, he’d said, and he was an old colleague and friend of Harry’s. I hadn’t felt in a position to refuse, n
ot that there was any reason to, and I was still absorbing the shock of what had happened after I’d called Nora on Tuesday morning.

  I’d told her that I wouldn’t be able to see Harry on Wednesday after all, and she ought to take Harry to see another psych-Jim Whitehead, I’d suggested. Nora had been sympathetic but implacable. After asking about my father and expressing her regret, she’d promised to sort it out. After half an hour, she’d called back to say that she’d arranged for me to fly to London and be back to see Harry as we’d arranged on Wednesday. I hadn’t thought she could be serious, but she’d been as good as her word.

  “Nora told me your father’s been poorly. I do hope he’s recovering,” Felix said.

  “He’s doing better, thanks,” I said.

  The Audi pulled away from the hospital and turned onto the A4 back toward London as Felix adjusted the rear air-conditioning. The car was as hushed as its driver; sitting in those deep leather seats was like being swaddled. I could feel myself relax as the driver accelerated silently past an obstructive truck. This was the cocoon I’d yearned for as Jane had poked tactlessly at my raw emotions. Even Felix’s presence was soothing: he had an air of amused detachment that I liked.

  “We can shoot you back in comfort, anyway,” he said. “Nora insisted I take good care of you.”

  “That’s thoughtful of you, Mr. Lustgarten.”

  “Felix, please. No one calls me Mister, not even the doorman at my apartment. Actually, I wish he did. Perhaps I should tip him more for the holidays.” He leaned forward to address the driver. “How does the traffic look, Frank?”

  “A bit nasty along the Embankment, but we’re going against it,” the man replied.

  “Jolly good. You might tell George we’re on our way and we should be wheels up by eleven.” He turned back and regarded me quizzically. “Now then, I understand you’re not allowed to tell me anything, but I can talk, can’t I?”

  “I can’t stop you,” I said.

  “Hah! Well, nobody can, apart from my wife, bless her. Anyway, Nora told me about Harry, poor chap. He’s in a bit of a state, isn’t he?”

  “That’s what Mrs. Shapiro told you?”

  Like Jane, Felix was pushing me about things I didn’t want to talk about, but I didn’t find it uncomfortable because it wasn’t about me. It was a patient whose privacy I wanted to protect, not my own. I was used to that.

  “Christ, you don’t give much away,” Felix muttered.

  “Do you work here?” I said.

  “Nope. New York, where the action is. Mind you, there’s been a bit too much of it lately. Every time I look up, another bank has disappeared. At this rate, there won’t be any money left for my bonus.”

  He lapsed into silence for a few minutes, thumbing at his BlackBerry, and I looked out of the window. We reached the Embankment and passed the London Eye, heading east. The hum of the tarmac under the tires was hypnotic, and I could feel myself slipping into a doze when Felix’s BlackBerry rang shrilly, making me start.

  “Oh dear,” he said, looking at the name on the screen. “Have you read Wind in the Willows? As soon as Toad goes to jail, the weasels invade Toad Hall. We’ve got company.” He held his BlackBerry to his ear. “John? … Delighted to have you on board. Lots of room. We’ll be there soon.”

  He clicked off and looked balefully at me. “Hell is other people. I’m afraid a couple of investment bankers want to cadge a lift. They’ve been here holding out the begging bowl to the Arabs for capital because Harry lost it all-our new masters, I’m afraid. So much for our chat. I wouldn’t trust John with a secret, although it’s supposed to be his job to keep them. In fact, I don’t trust him, period.”

  “I thought you were an investment banker,” I said, puzzled by his contempt for his colleague.

  “A banker? Not me, Doctor. I’m just a humble PR man, paid to make them look good. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it. Where were we? Oh, Harry. Yes, poor old Harry, my boss and protector. Without him, I’m not sure how long I’ve got left at Seligman. I don’t imagine the new guard will approve of our little jaunt. I’d hoped to keep this under wraps, but fat chance now.”

  We’d passed north of Tower Bridge and were coasting along by the Thames with Canary Wharf ahead. Felix pointed at it through the windscreen.

  “See there? Second tower from the left, a third of the way up. That’s where I worked twenty years ago. We were the only ones in the building, it felt like. Desolate bloody place. The London end was in an awful mess. New York sent Harry over to pull the Brits into shape. God, he nearly screamed the place down. It was a shock for the others, but he took a liking to me.”

  “Did you like him?”

  “Strangely, I did. He’s a warm-blooded creature, Harry, not a reptile like some of them. He’s got a heart.”

  Felix thumped his chest with a fist, on the spot where most people imagine the heart to be. Then, as the golden fish on the roof of Billingsgate Market swam by, he reached out and traced a pattern on the window with one finger.

  “You know Harry’s mistake?” he asked. “He reckoned he’d rebuilt Seligman single-handedly-which he more or less did. He thought he could rescue Wall Street and America, too, could take on anything. He stopped watching out for trouble because he thought he couldn’t be beaten. Mind you, he wasn’t the only one who was smoking his own dope. Turns out none of us are as smart as we thought.”

  As he spoke, we swung left past some blue concrete blocks and a security barrier on the edge of City Airport. Just ahead, parked in front of a low building, was a small white jet with two engines perched next to its tail and large oval windows running the length of its fuselage. The driver halted next to a man wearing a yellow over-jacket and carrying a clipboard. I was back where I’d arrived that morning, in Harry’s Gulfstream IV.

  Harry’s jet felt only distantly related to the regular kind, like a Thoroughbred horse next to a donkey. As we taxied over to the runway and lined up behind a turboprop, I sat in a leather armchair with a cup of coffee beside me in a cork-lined holder. The cabin was covered with gold fittings, from the air-conditioning nozzles to the edges of the walnut panels. Michelle, the blond attendant who’d been my only companion on the way over, hadn’t bothered to give us a safety demonstration. I’d latched my seat belt instinctively, but neither Felix nor the two bankers in the rear, immersed in BlackBerrys, had bothered. Together, we occupied a third of the aircraft’s dozen seats.

  “Tell him to cut the bullshit and talk to me. I thought we had this deal done,” the senior-looking one hissed into a phone as the Gulfstream aligned itself at the start of the long runway. “They said they would offer thirty-one, so why don’t they offer thirty-one? … No, you’re not listening … No.”

  He kept talking as the engines fired, but I was lost in the adrenaline rush of takeoff. Instead of the rumbling, straining effort to pick up speed of a passenger jet laden with fuel for an Atlantic crossing, we galloped along the tarmac so rapidly that my head was pushed into the rest. Then we were up and off. As we twisted over Canary Wharf, the city scrolled up the window, making me light-headed. We rose so fast, with a goldfish bowl view of sky and city, that my brain jammed with data.

  The jet punched through clouds into clear light, our rate of climb hardly slackening. Across from me, Felix glanced at the Financial Times, looking bored, while the men to my rear resumed thumbing through their emails. We leveled out at forty-seven thousand feet in a layer of sky I’d first been introduced to on the flight over. It was a deep azure, and white tendrils spiraled lazily upward from the clouds below.

  “Nice, isn’t it?” said Felix, glancing over.

  “I could get used to it.”

  The coffee had awakened me, and my sense of being safely coddled was fading, squeezed out by anxiety at the way I was being absorbed into the Shapiros’ world. By the time I’d worked out what Nora had meant by her offer, it had been too late. A car had been dispatched to take me to Teterboro Airport, just across the Hudson
, for the flight to London. There had been no schedule to keep. The Gulfstream had soared into the night sky, bearing Michelle and me, as soon as I’d waltzed through security.

  That night I’d slept on a bed made up by Michelle, without sound or motion to disturb me. The pilots guided the Gulfstream through the skies as she watched over me. I’d felt like a lotus-eater in a gilded world that I might not have the energy to leave. Even as I luxuriated, it troubled me. Psychiatric treatment has a frame. The patient must turn up on schedule and pay the check on time-he must make a commitment to his cure. We didn’t let the wealthy dictate their terms any more than the Medicare brigade, yet here was I, drifting away from the protocol with every step I took to help Harry.

  “We’re above the turbulence here,” Felix said. “Concorde used to fly this high, but now it’s the guys with their own jets. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

  He led me three paces down the aisle to the bankers. The older, more talkative one was tall, and his swept-back blond hair was graying at the temples but luxuriant. His face was long and watchful, and he had chiseled features that should have been handsome but were slightly too perfect. Sitting by him was a man in his early thirties, wearing a suit, dark tie, and spectacles. He was viewing a spreadsheet on a laptop computer, and he nodded at me silently, in the manner of a junior partner.

  “Ben, this is John Underwood,” Felix said, indicating the older man.

  “Good to meet you, Ben,” Underwood said. “This is Peter Freeman, he’s on my team.” He gestured toward the younger man. “Felix, I thought we were going to Teterboro. What’s all this about Bangladesh?”

  “Not Bangladesh. Bangor. Maine,” Felix said patiently. “We’re going through customs there to drop Ben on Long Island. It’s quicker. No one else around.”

  It was the first I’d heard of Long Island-I’d assumed I would return to New York-and it added to my unease.

  Underwood turned to me. “I didn’t catch your second name, Ben,” he said.

  I hesitated. I didn’t want more people to know who I was or my connection to Harry. It was already too open a secret for my liking.