The Last Laugh

by Lynn Freed

  “Darling,” I said, “what if we go off for a weekend together after I return? Just you and me? Lily can go to Saul?” Perhaps, I was thinking, wresting my life so relentlessly for myself over all these years was what had left the structure of hers tilting like this.

  “We could have done that here!” she said. “But, of course—”

  “Hey!” said Finn, coming up and putting his hand on her shoulder. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

  She nodded. “That’s our ferry.”

  “So, skip the ferry and stay on with us!”

  Us? I turned aside, pretending to dig for something in my bag. “Hey!” he said again, touching my shoulder this time. “Tell her to stay! Where’s Lily?”

  Hester snorted, drying her cheeks with the back of her hand. “We have to go,” she said. “I’ve got summer school. And she has riding camp.”

  “Fuck summer school!” he said. “Fuck riding camp! Why’re you wasting your life in a classroom anyway?”

  The crowd began to surge forward.

  “Lily!” Hester yelled. “Come on! Now! Bye, Mum!” She threw her arms around me, weeping again.

  “Dumb, dumb,” said Finn, watching them join the crowd.

  Lily didn’t turn, not even for a last look from the top of the gangway.

  “Agh,” Finn said, “what’s the matter with them?” Then he beamed down at me, his Ray-Bans glinting in the sun. “And how’re you, my little darling? Ready to say sorry?”

  It was his favorite ploy, or joke, or perhaps he actually believed in the reversal. And really I was sorry—sorry for Hester, and for Lily, and wishing truly now that there were something I could do to make them happy.

  I watched the ferry until it was out of sight, and then led the way to the car, thinking how ridiculous it was to have him back, and whether to drop him at the hostel.

  “I’m not sure it was worth your while coming back,” I said, starting the car. “Agnes and Wilfred are still here. She leaves tomorrow, but he’ll torment Bess with his presence as long as it suits him to.”

  “That slimebag’s nothing to me. Why would I give a damn about him?”

  I shrugged.

  “Listen, just stop this nonsense and marry me,” he said. “You know you want to tie the knot. Everyone knows it.” He rolled down the window and hung his head out into the wind. “We could live here if you like,” he shouted. “Although it might get a bit boring. But if that’s what you want, okay.”

  “‘Tie the knot’!” I laughed, I couldn’t help it. His nonsense made me happy. It always had.

  * * *

  Hester (finis)

  I’ve just reread this journal, start to finish, and find I’ve learned nothing more than I knew already. Not that it hasn’t been a fine antidote to the idiocy of So Long, but, in their own way, the entries have been just as wrought, just as ordered into shape, just as far in their orderliness from the mess and disarray of life. All that writing this has brought me is a sort of sadness for things I can do nothing about. “It could bring to the relationship closure,” Dania had said. Closure? I should have included that nonsense in my final screed for “à GG.”

  So, what I’m thinking now is that I’ll tear out these pages—there aren’t that many—and rip them up. Then drop the pieces into the Aegean as we ferry away from this island. The trouble is that I’ve never much warmed to that sort of self-generated, self-conscious ritual, not even the scattering of ashes.

  So, perhaps I won’t tear them up. Perhaps, if I read them over when I’m seventy-five or eighty, I’ll find the sadness has faded, like the color in the old photographs.

  Or perhaps not.

  * * *

  THEY WERE ALL AT THE house when we arrived, the French doors wide open, and Mohammed waddling in and out.

  Finn stopped on the threshold. “I’ll go to the room.”

  “What room?”

  “Don’t play games. I need a shower—” He peered out at the veranda. “Who’s the movie actor?” he said. “In the chase long.”

  “Rex. And please don’t do your ‘chase long’ number here, they won’t find it funny.”

  “Fuck them, who’s Rex?”

  “Bess’s sometime lover.”

  He snorted. He’d always snorted at the word “lover,” although he was watching this one with keen interest. “Movie actor?” he said again.

  I walked off to the kitchen and started to put things in order. We’d sent Gladdy on a trip to Naxos with her church ladies and it was a relief to have the kitchen back to myself.

  “Oy,” said Dania, coming in. “It’s like Times Square here.”

  “I know, I know.” I banged a few dishes around.

  “And I am having again heat waves, can you believe it?” she said, flapping a dish towel. “After all these years! It’s like being again forty.”

  “Daniushka,” I whispered, “you didn’t tell anyone else that you pushed her, did you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Good. But what about that recording? The one she made? Amos choking?” I looked hard at her. “What the hell possessed you, Daniushka?”

  She shook her head, defeated for once. “Revenge is the end of nothing,” she said.

  * * *

  Ruth, dear, funny as it may be, we’re going to have to pass on this one. After Bess’s last one, which created a storm of e-mails (not necessarily a bad thing) we thought something more positive would be a nice way to end the year. The recipes went down a treat:) Have the children left? What about a column saying how you miss them? Or at least the grandchildren? Something bittersweet? Give it a think. I know you must be packing up crazily, but a penultimate one in Greece would be great. Then, for the last “à Go Go,” something about being home again? Just reaching out:) Sxx

  * * *

  REX WAS THERE WHEN FINN and I emerged from my room the next morning. He raised an eyebrow at me when Finn wasn’t looking, and then stood, holding a hand out to Finn. They were perfectly matched, both tall, gray, and pleased with themselves.

  “Are you still at the hostel?” I asked Rex.

  “Oh no,” said Rex, “thank God, no.” He laughed. “I’m back at the hotel, at least until this afternoon.”

  “They’ve got room now?” I said. I couldn’t imagine enduring another night of Finn’s snoring. “Finn,” I said, “you’re going to the hotel tonight.”

  “We’ll see about that.” He put an arm around my shoulder.

  “Ruth, listen,” said Rex. “I’m going to need your help with something.”

  Finn’s grip tightened.

  “It’s a long story,” he said, “but, in short, we’re leaving on the one o’clock ferry.”

  “‘We’?”

  “That’s the point. Irina and I and the baby.”

  Finn whistled.

  “What help?” I said, loosening myself from Finn’s grip.

  “Bess has a thing about Irina,” he said. “I don’t blame her, of course, all things considered.”

  “But, as I understand it, the child isn’t even yours.” Have you got your hands on Bess’s bank account yet? I wanted to ask. Because, if you have, I’ll call the authorities to stop you boarding the ferry.

  “Whatever the case,” he said brusquely, “I’m going to marry Irina and adopt Eugenia. That’s what Irina called her. Lovely name, isn’t it?”

  “And Wilfred?” I said.

  He smiled then, flashing teeth. “They’ve had enough of paternity, it seems. They’re giving the other child back as well.”

  “They’re what?”

  “They say, of course, that the child will be better off, but they’re the ones who’ll be better off, any fool can see that. Well,” he said, slapping his thigh and giving a quick glance at the stairs, “I’ve scribbled it all down here. Bess’ll be okay, you know. I’ve never known anyone who lands on her feet the way she does. But you’ll bolster her up a bit, won’t you, Ruth?”

  Finn and I sat in silence after the door closed, the
muffled sound of Dania’s voice filtering through as she conducted one of her morning sessions. After a while, Bess’s door opened below, and I heard her step, her shuffle, her sigh as she began to haul herself upstairs.

  “Let her have her breakfast first,” Finn whispered. He adored presiding over a drama, and often I’d pretend to play along. Now, however, I stood up and put the envelope in her place at the table.

  “Was that Rex I heard?” she said, coming in. “At this hour? Oh, Finn, hello. What’s this?” she said, picking up the envelope.

  “I’m playing Gladdy today,” I said. “I’ll make the coffee.”

  * * *

  Dear Stacey,

  Alas, positive isn’t going to work for the last two. Or ever. If I have any talent, it lies in the opposite direction. So when I’m confronted with the sort of positive thinking that pervades So Long, it makes me want to hang myself. Or, at least run off in search of someone as negative as I am about the sorts of things your readers are so positive about. If we were talking about joy here, real joy, or even ordinary happiness—those unexpected moments, or stretches of moments, that don’t arrive on order—well, that’s a gorgeous subject, a deep and complex subject that I don’t think would be at home in a magazine like So Long.

  So, why don’t we just call it a day with “à GG?” I think we’d both feel rather liberated just to put it behind us, as you might say. Don’t you?

  With fond regards and thanks,

  Ruth

  * * *

  “DID YOU KNOW?” BESS SHOUTED at Agnes. “Did you know they’re giving that Mustafa back?”

  Agnes closed her eyes, doubtless to make being out of the moment easier. Her bags were lined up in the hall and I was driving them down to the ferry. “They’re going this afternoon,” she said. “By plane.”

  We’d been enduring Bess’s outrage all morning. Clearly, Agnes knew as well as I did that it was Rex who was at the heart of it.

  “They’re giving him back because he’ll be better off with his own kind of parents,” said the girl, hitching herself yet again onto Agnes’s lap.

  “And who’s putting that rot into your head?” Bess demanded. “Listen to me, my girl: They’re giving him back because they can’t stand him. A lot of parents can’t stand their children. The difference is that they can’t give them back because they’re theirs. See?”

  “You wouldn’t give me back, would you, Mummy?” squeaked the girl, looking up into Agnes’s face. She was getting on my nerves almost as much as she was getting on Bess’s.

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” snapped Bess. “Don’t start that nauseating duet again, please.”

  “When are we going, Mummy?” the girl said.

  Bess banged her coffee cup back onto its saucer. “Why don’t you go now?”

  I looked at my watch. “Come,” I said, “we can have a coffee down at the port while we wait for the ferry.”

  “Look,” Bess said to Agnes, “I know I’m being a cow, but the girl’s nine, for God’s sake. You’ve got to set her free or she’ll land up in a loony bin.”

  Agnes gave her mirthless laugh. “Oh, Ma!” she said, leaning over to kiss the top of her head. “Emma,” she said, “Giles. Come and say goodbye to Grandmother, please.”

  As I drove them down to the port, chatting to Agnes about things that didn’t matter, I was thinking of Lily and Eleftheria’s Yorgos, and wishing, oh wishing, I’d listened to Finn and got her to stay on for another few days of happiness.

  * * *

  Oh no, Ruth, dear, don’t leave us in the lurch! What if we edit your last piece down a bit, taking out some of the more flagrant red flags? You should see the fan mail we get about you! Whisper-whisper: Amy wants you to go on with the column after the year is up, but keep that under wraps or she’ll have my hide. Okay? Peace? By the way, we’d love a column about those moments of happiness. Could you work one in? Sxx

  * * *

  Gripp Redux #1

  When Stefan Gripp came to, he was stretched out like a dead man, staring up into a moving kaleidoscope of light and dark. After a while, he saw that it was the bough of a tree, and that a gentle rain was falling through the canopy, fluttering the leaves. I must be on an outcropping, he thought, looking around. But, with mist below and cloud above, it was impossible to be sure. Slowly, inch by inch, he backed himself up against the tree trunk. And only then did he run the usual check: arms, legs, cash, notebook, revolver. All in place. O’Donohue must have been in one hell of a hurry, he thought, or decided I was dead already.

  * * *

  I MANAGED WITH DIFFICULTY TO get Finn down to the house Hester and Agnes had just vacated. Doesn’t make sense, he kept muttering—he for whom making sense had never ranked very high. The truth was, he was embarrassed. He was also wounded that I hadn’t warmed sufficiently to the gesture he’d made in returning to endure his snoring and take him back into my heart (as he’d have put it).

  And yet, he was in my heart. If I’d been writing him into a novel, I’d have pushed him upstage, at least until the final scene. But this wasn’t a novel, and it was awkward having him back, out of the blue, only weeks before we were all due to leave anyway. It was awkward, too, with Dania, and with Bess mourning Rex, and with Gladdy clucking around like an enraged hen.

  “Bess,” I said, “you didn’t pay Finn’s airfare, did you?”

  She stretched luxuriously. “I offered, but honestly, Ruth, he’s a decent chap—he said no thanks. Don’t be a cow. Just give him a chance.”

  “And Rex?” I said. “What happened to your offer there?”

  “Oh, that bastard!”

  “But, listen,” I said, quite serious now. “Did he take the money? Did he, Bess?”

  I watched her carefully, but she didn’t flinch. “I didn’t give him a chance,” she said. “He had the gall to try, of course, but I’m quite good at sabotaging a subject before it can even come up.”

  I laughed. She was right. I’d seen her at it.

  “Can’t you just see them in a bedsit,” she said. “Nappies and buckets and mops, and a scheme for making a killing on nipple cream—?” She broke into a peal of shrieking laughter.

  “Wot’s so funny?” said Dania, coming in from her morning’s labors. “Where’s Finn?”

  “He’ll be up soon,” I said. “Did you change your ticket?”

  “All changed, no penalty! Amn’t I great?”

  “Great, great, great,” sang Bess, back at her laptop. “But look at this. Dania, come here! You’d be fabulous in this!”

  Dania strolled over to the window seat and peered at Bess’s screen. “What is it?” she said. “A blanket? Wot?”

  “It’s a cloak! See where the arms come through? And there’re pockets.”

  “But orange? I don’t wear orange.”

  “But it’s the best sort of orange! The Italians do that orange. You’d be gorgeous in it.”

  Dania stood up straight. “How much for that blanket?”

  “It’s on marked-down markdown, and it’s your birthday present. Where do you want them to send it?”

  “No, no, no.” Dania shook her head vigorously, accustomed only to the other side of generosity. “This is crazy,” she said, “markdown or markup.”

  “Consider it first prize for getting rid of Wendy. I’ll get you the skirt to match if you get rid of Dinny’s wife.”

  Dania laughed then, a real laugh and, for a few moments, we were all laughing together. It was as if we’d just arrived and had the whole year still ahead of us.

  “What’s the joke?” said Finn, coming in. “Come on, tell me!” He’d always adored women’s laughter, and could never understand why it stopped when he tried to join in.

  “How about that restaurant down on the water?” he said. “The one with octopuses hanging on a string outside?”

  “Lots of them they have octopi henging,” said Dania.

  “He means Halaris,” I said. “Anyone want to go?”

  But we were a couple now
, he and I, and so they pretended to have other things to do. Without them, however, it would feel out of step, sitting at Halaris, ordering calamari when what I really wanted was for the three of us to have these last weeks to ourselves—just us, for once.

  * * *

  “WINE?” FINN SAID, AS SOON as we were seated at the restaurant. He grinned across the table at me, still enormously pleased with his gesture in returning. “Beer? Can’t remember the name of the one I used to order.”

  “Mythos?”

  “That’s it! One half carafe white wine, one Mythos.”

  I stared at the boats on the water, thinking of Rex and the yacht coming into harbor. How long ago it seemed now. It also seemed simulated, heartless, and suddenly I was ashamed of it for that. I sipped my wine in silence.

  “Hey,” he said, “talk to me!”

  “I’m not in the mood.”

  “You’re not going to bring up what happened last time, are you? Because if you are, I’ll leave right now.” He stood up.

  “So, leave! Who asked you to come back in the first place?”

  “You want me to leave?” he said, leaning toward me.

  “I want you to stop making a scene.”

  He turned to the table next to us. “She wants me to leave,” he said, “so I’m going to stay.” He sat down again.

  I couldn’t help it, I laughed.

  “See? I made you laugh!”

  “You make me wonder what the hell I’m doing with you.”

  “That’s not what you were saying the other night.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Finn, do grow up.”

  “Marry me and I’ll grow up immediately. You won’t believe the difference. Boom, an adult.”

  * * *

  TWO POLICEMEN WERE WAITING AS we came through U.S. immigration. One stepped forward. “Dr. Dania Weiss?”

  “Here I am,” Dania said. “What’s happened?”

  Gladdy, Bess, and I stopped our luggage carts behind her.

  “Move ahead, please,” the policeman said to us. He was small-eyed, thick-faced, frightening.

  “But look—” Bess said.

  “Move ahead, please!” he said again.

  And so we moved ahead, and out through customs, into the crowded lobby. Agnes was waiting and, at the back of the crowd, Finn as well, his arms opened wide. He’d returned a week earlier, and with his tan and his shirtsleeves rolled up, he looked ridiculously young for his age.