by M. M. Mayle
“Yeh . . . all right. Okay, I’ll issue a retraction, but you have to give me credit for trying,” he shouts to be heard above the din of the impatient drivers behind them.
They park a short way from the boardwalk and pizza restaurant. Laurel, still a bit thin-lipped from their row, is all for leaving him in the car till she scopes out the situation. He’s all for taking his chances. In the end, he causes a few turned heads on the boardwalk and scant notice inside the restaurant that’s populated with a few lunchtime stragglers and pensioners nursing coffees at a bit past two in the afternoon. Once they’ve been seated and received menus, he leaves Laurel to make the pizza selection and heads straightaway to the phone kiosk at the rear of the establishment.
Technically true to his word, he explains to Anthony that the lady solicitor and writer of biographies has done nothing of her own volition to delay his return home. He takes his time and pulls this off without getting into the fine print of the matter where the whole truth resides. After a short chat with his mother and a few words for drowsy Simon, he hangs up and returns to the table that’s now furnished with tall glasses of iced tea and a large pizza covered with every known sort of topping, or so it appears.
“Everything but anchovies,” she says and helps herself to a slice.
“Anchovies would’ve been fine.” He takes a chair across from her, “Anathing of your choice would’ve been fine.” He takes a slice, delays taking a bite to say that she couldn’t make him a whole lot happier than he is at the moment.
“Does Anthony now have a better understanding of the situation?” she says, as impervious to his comment as she was to the honking horns a bit ago.
“I believe he does.”
They eat without interruption for a few minutes. Then she surfaces another topic with potential to back up traffic only he’s the one creating the roadblock this time. He pretends not to hear Laurel ask how he was able to sustain a relationship with Aurora when everyone else saw her as a lost cause. He goes right on eating even though he’s full to bursting. Laurel goes right on asking as though he didn’t hear her the first time.
“I’m sorry, Colin,” she says the third or fourth time it’s asked. “I have to ask because it’s the question readers will most want answered, and you’re the only one who should answer it. Although I’m sure they have theories, I can’t ask any of your friends or associates, and it wouldn’t seem right to ask your—”
He holds up a hand for silence, surveys a setting that couldn’t be more at odds with the subject matter. Then again, speaking of Aurora in this no-frills environment might be just the astringent touch needed. He wipes his hands and mouth, goes through three serviettes before he feels ready.
“Remember that day in the historical park . . . Jockey Hollow, was it? Remember when you spoke about yourself in an effort to draw me out?”
She nods.
“Do you recall telling me that throughout the ordeal with your grandmother you wanted to believe she was redeemable, that she would somehow, someday, revert to being caring and comforting? Become grandmotherly is the way I think you put it, actually.”
“Yes, I do . . . yes I did.”
“When you described your stubborn faith . . . your hope . . . your belief . . . whatever it was, I identified strongly. I felt a certain kinship with you I wasn’t able to express at the time. And I felt, deep down, that if I ever was able—”
“You don’t have to go on. I understand, and I arrived at that understanding on my own, so I could only nod in agreement when first Rayce and then Nate spoke of your tenacity and—”
“And you don’t have to go on . . . thank you.”
“One more thing,” she says, “please . . . and it’s just for me to know. What I do not understand is your reluctance to let this facet of you be revealed. You seem almost apologetic, even ashamed about this. You shouldn’t be, you know. Your willingness to look well beyond the shadow of doubt for redemptive qualities and your apparently unlimited capacity for forgiveness are highly laudable characteristics and nothing to be ashamed of. I see those characteristics as being at the core of what makes you such an exceptional person.”
“Then you better have another look because I’m not like that anymore. I went off handing out free passes of any sort when I came back to life. Ask Nate. Ask anyone. When whatever happened, happened, I got reprogrammed, you could say, and I’m no longer set up to be suckered. No, I won’t be making that mistake again.”
“I see.” She does her thing with the serviettes and they move to leave.
He pays the bill at a counter near the door and cheerfully signs a few autographs. Cheerfully because these fans were either too shy or too polite to interrupt whilst he was eating and for that, they get the full treatment.
Against a repetition with less-considerate fans on the boardwalk, he pulls out the battered hat and wraparound shades. This earns him a smile from Laurel as they walk back to the car.
FIFTY-NINE
Early afternoon, April 8, 1987
Ten minutes or so from the lunch stop, they reach the entrance to Island Beach State Park where Laurel allows him to pay the modest off-season rate. They’ve not gone far inside the park when they see a red fox looking for handouts along the roadside. The sighting elicits from Laurel a mini-lecture reminiscent of her nature talk during the hike through Jockey Hollow.
“And don’t forget Island Beach is on the Atlantic Flyway,” she says, “so a wide variety of birds can be seen here during migratory periods. Maybe we’ll see a mockingbird, or at least hear one. We might even spot a few yellow warblers.”
She continues to enthuse after she parks the car and leads the way to a numbered trail, going on about the herons, egrets, and ibis they could find lurking in marsh areas. Then, when they move along a slat-fenced path through the dunes, she rhapsodizes about shorebirds—the gulls, terns, and sandpipers sure to be found at water’s edge.
She points out growths of prickly pear cactus and identifies beach heather that she says will bloom yellow in another month. Closer to the ocean, she draws his attention to tufts of hardier stuff that can withstand lower temperatures and salt spray. She impresses upon him the importance of these sere grasses and sedge that anchor the primary dunes.
“Some with root structures said to go back a hundred years,” she states as though she had cultivated the plants herself.
When they reach the broad tidal flat, she appears ready to identify each and every shell encountered.
“Oh, and there’s a whelk, and look at all the periwinkles.” She scoops up a few of the small tightly spiraled shells and lets them drop through her fingers. “I think they’re having a family reunion,” she says with contagious delight.
Without help he can tell a clam from an oyster from a scallop and maybe point out a mussel shell. He wouldn’t know a quahog if it bit him. Or want to know a quahog if anyone but Laurel was doing the identifying. And he had no abiding interest in the nesting habits of ospreys until her enthusiasm touched him.
“Sometimes called sea eagles, these raptors build great huge nests of sticks in the highest trees or on man-made platforms built for that purpose. They return here in March, and egg-laying takes place in April—now,” she says. “We may see an osprey on the wing, but to visit the main nesting area, we’d need a kayak.”
She darts a few steps ahead of him on the hardpacked sand, daring the waves to touch her, jumping back when one nearly does.
“This would be one of your special places, then?” he says when he catches up.
“Oh, does it show?” She smiles and darts off again to flirt with the waves.
This time he follows, and they both get their shoes dampened.
She stops suddenly, turns to face him. “I’m sorry about the nature lecture. I promised myself I wouldn’t do that again . . . or recite odd snatches of poetry . . . or talk about myself instead of you.”
“Nothing wrong with any of that. I’m fine with it. I love it, actually.”
<
br /> “You’re way too kind—one of the gazillion reasons I keep straying from purpose, something I must stop right this instant. Starting right now, I have to focus on how best to continue when you’re . . . over there.” She flips a dismissive gesture in the direction of the sea. “And line up my next sources.”
“I’m dried up as a source, then?”
“Of course not.” She again sets a steady pace along the strand. “But you can’t very well describe your period of convalescence and rehabilitation, can you? If I understood Nate at all, or any of the allusions you’ve made, you were a passive participant during that ordeal, so I’d hardly expect you to have kept a diary of it.”
Passive participant. That’s a new one. Gentle and more considerate than some of the other terms applied when he was universally viewed as an empty vessel. Language like that could have him thinking she’s defected to the Nate camp and nursemaiding’s about to commence. But hasn’t she got him striding along on a sand surface providing at least twice the exertion of a stroll on pavement? A good sign, that is. Isn’t it?
In short order, it’s decided that Nate’s the best person to organize interviews with staff at the catastrophic care center in Denver and that Nate’s private archive should be the final word in establishing corroborating facts.
“He’s kept meticulous records since the beginning of time and can substantiate everything from gate receipts at Budokan to how many pints of blood I received at the hospital in Michigan. He can tell you how much was spent on hair stylists in 1981 and the monthly cost of physical therapists in 1985. I’m surprised he didn’t mention those resources to you last night.”
“He may have—off the record. To be honest, I was so overwhelmed by his oral history of events I wasn’t thinking of backup resources,” she says.
They agree that, when necessary, the work-in-progress should be couriered between New York and London because too much can go wrong with faxed transmissions and the post takes too long. They pledge to speak by phone a minimum of once a day. Thought of going a day without sight of her ripples a shiver through him..
“I am coming back, Laurel. I’ll bring the lads, I’ll lease a flat, I’ll buy one, you’ll see. And you’ll come to the UK one day. I’m counting on it. You’ll need Chris Thorne’s input, and there are others whose contributions could be useful. Not forgetting there’s all of England for you to see.”
Again, she doesn’t automatically rule out a someday visit to England, and this is enough to produce another shiver—a better kind of shiver.
“Have you stopped to consider how much this project has changed since its inception?” she says. “At the start, I was certain it could be wrapped up in the time allotted—three weeks I believe it was. I wasn’t just certain, I was adamant. And I was determined to prove Amanda wrong when she let me know in no uncertain terms, that there was a lot more to you and your story than I was giving you credit for. I owe her an apology. And you.”
“You don’t owe me an apology. I’m not insulted that you thought my life story wouldn’t fill a jotter. Don’t forget, you were picked to write it for the reason you didn’t know anything about me.”
“Maybe so, but I definitely had some preconceived notions about your breed. I wasn’t as objective as it appeared, and now any impartiality I had toward you is gone. Now I’m officially biased in your favor, and I think Nate would have caught onto that last night even if I hadn’t admitted it.”
Another good sign, it is, and maybe the one that got Nate thinking she was ripe for picking.
“Let’s hear it for personal prejudice, then. Bring it on. Long as you go on responding to me and not my celebrity, I’m good for however long it takes and whatever it takes.”
He smiles at her but she’s looking elsewhere, maybe scanning for whales to appear on the horizon.
“Then you feel the project has changed only in its projected length and that your original goal remains the same,” she says in a rush like she’s suddenly aware she’s been caught wandering.
“My goal’s the same as at the start. Nothing different there. I only wish . . . time’s always the enemy . . . never enough. I hate being in this countdown, dreading tomorrow because it’s the next-to-last tomorrow. I’ve no business thinking that way when for someone like me, every tomorrow should be seen as a gift . . . Sorry, bit maudlin there. I might better be thinking about the do for Rayce tomorrow night and all the positive shit that’s meant to signify. You’ll be there, won’t you?”
“I will, yes.”
“With anyone I know? As part of David’s group?”
“I’ll be there by myself.”
“God is good,” he mumbles the same thing he said the day he met her, then holds his breath to a fast count of ten before speaking up. “You could be there with me, couldn’t you?”
“Yes, I could, but. . . .”
He gives an exaggerated groan. “I might’ve known there’d be a catch.”
“But I’d have to be with you as your official biographer. That would have to be made perfectly clear.”
“It’s made clear, all right. It’s so bleedin’ clear it’s blinding me. I’m learning to live with it, though.”
Low cloud cover only simmering at the start now shows signs of coming to a boil. When they first arrived at water’s edge, a fickle wind was disturbing the surface of the long rolling combers as though stroking against the nap. Now the wind is more decided in direction and kicked up from whimsical irritant to consistent botheration, raking the backs of the waves into a disorderly chop that sends salt spray high into the air. They huddle together and draw back from the breaker line. No one suggests a full retreat, not even when the wind claims his hat and snatches the ribbon holding her hair. His arm would like to go round her the way it would go round one of the lads, in a natural, protective way that says he’ll be there long as wanted.
By his estimate, they walk for nearly an hour in cautious intimacy, occasionally bumping shoulders, occasionally leaping in unison to avoid an ambitious breaker. They’ve not seen another living soul since they left the car park; this could be the earth in its entirety, with the bearable tinnitus of wind and surf as the most natural soundtrack. Lost deep in that projection, he startles considerably when she closes the gap between them, wraps his nearest arm with both of hers and brings her mouth close to his ear. Maybe she was lost somewhere too, because she hesitates several beats before speaking.
“I’m so sorry this has to end.” She tightens her grip on his arm whilst explaining the park closes at dusk and dusk, however hidden by turbulent clouds, is not that far off.
When they’re returned to the car park semi-breathless, she hands him the keys to the Range Rover. “Do you mind?”
Does he mind? Not at all. Not when this can be taken as another good sign. Obviously her session with Nate hasn’t raised any second thoughts about his ability to operate a motor vehicle.
They drive off in comfortable silence, with him tuned in for more positive indicators of any sort, and her watchful for overflights of sea eagles or the odd beggar fox in the road. They’re back on the mainland and headed north on the toll road before she looks his way.
“You know, after you’ve gone home, I won’t have any excuse to visit my favorite haunts during business hours.”
“Is that your way of saying you’ll miss me?”
Of all the comebacks he could make, that may be the poorest. In her silence he hears the drawbridge winch up and the call go out to man the battlements. If he fancied a look at her just now, he wouldn’t be surprised to see the cartoon version of a force field sprung up round her, arcing and flashing eerie blue lights.
He’s badly stricken with the impulse to just do it, just get on with it and never mind that declaring his absolute conviction after a little over a week’s acquaintance would have her wondering more about his mental state than anything else. He cools his jets the way he always has where she’s concerned—by reminding himself that if he’d responded to standa
rd rock star urgings the first time he was alone with her, he wouldn’t be alone with her now.
As the city comes into view she stirs a bit, attempts to finger-comb her windblown salt-sprayed hair. “God, it’s crunchy,” she says and reaches over to brush back his equally tangled hair. “So’s yours,” she adds.
He concentrates on making his scalp remember her touch as along as possible.
On the slowdown into the Lincoln Tunnel, she turns to him. “Earlier, at lunch, I didn’t think to ask if Anthony went to school today.”
“No, he didn’t. Still feeling a bit unsure and queasy, my mum said.”
“I’m sorry.” She hands him a wadded-up bill to pay the toll. “I’ll talk to him again if you wish . . . only to reinforce what I said earlier, you understand.”
“Thanks for the offer and yes, I understand.”
During the stop-and-go transit of the tunnel, he’s glad to remember that she won’t be returning to New Jersey after dropping him off at his hotel. He can’t thank her enough for making the move, but if he brings it up again she’ll say the same thing she said the night she came to his rescue at the studio—that it wasn’t for his peace of mind, it was for her convenience.
They’re arrived too soon at the park-side entrance to The Plaza, where she scans the scene and pronounces the coast clear of obvious paparazzi.
“Are you free for dinner?” she asks when he’s partway out of the vehicle.
He does well not to fall the rest of the way. Or leap about in jubilation when he finds his footing.
SIXTY
Afternoon, April 9, 1987
Long after ringing off, Colin still can’t decide which was more unsettling—this morning’s phone talk with Laurel or last night’s romantic dinner that went nowhere. He’s leaning towards the phone conversation because, in declining a face-to-face session today she referred to his impending departure; she called their longwinded chat a rehearsal for the days and weeks to come, and the reminder disturbed him as much or more than last night’s failure to launch.