Then he sat looking at the command he’d written when airborne that morning: Phone Vanessa*. He was almost certain she was still in New York, and on the strength of that certainty he dialled her number. Her recorded voice was flat and brisk. He left a message—no more than that he would be away for a few days—and wanted, as soon as he hung up, to retrieve his awkward words. Too late.
He turned off the television and went to iron four shirts for the trip. Ironing was one of his favourite tasks, and he did his best to surrender to the pleasing scorched smell, which, along with stinginess, was the reason he did not have his shirts laundered. He hung them up on the pulley to air, and put four sets of underwear and four ties in his bag. He added pyjamas, a pullover, a spare pair of shoes. It was eleven-thirty before he got into bed in his own untidy bedroom. No sooner had he lain down than he recalled The Dark Forest in his briefcase downstairs.
So far Leo’s impersonation was proceeding well. He and Aunt Helen had fallen into an easy bantering. In response to her enquiries about his “brother,” he gave a glowing report of Leo’s efforts on behalf of the underprivileged. Aunt Helen frowned. “If he wants to suffer for art, that’s up to him,” she said. “But if he wants money, let him work like the rest of us.” Leo was tempted to ask what work she had ever done besides utter the onerous “I do”; instead he acted the tolerant older brother and said Leo would find himself one of these days. This allowed Aunt Helen to chime in that losing oneself was the height of carelessness. The following morning, Leo woke early and tiptoed downstairs.
• • •
One of the maddening things about Aunt Helen’s was the number of phones. You’d have thought she was head of IBM—she had one in every room, including the loo. So even when I rang Maudie at the crack of dawn, I had to treat the conversation as part of my performance. I was always careful to identify myself as “Roman-in-America.” After a week of avoiding four-letter words and saying “actually” and “as a matter of fact” as often as possible, I was losing a sense of where my voice ended and my brother’s began. If I was ever lucky enough to be in the house alone, I planned to call and see if Maudie recognised me, unaided.
Today I said, “Maudie, it’s me, Roman. I thought I’d give you a ring before Helen got up.”
“Darling, how are you?”
“Excellent. Yesterday Helen took me out to Walden Pond. You know, where Thoreau lived.”
Every other day Helen dreamed up an expedition. Over elevenses she’d announce our destination and estimated time of departure. Then it was up to me to come downstairs suitably dressed, back the car out of the garage, and escort Helen to it. The day before, I’d followed her directions west along Route 2 and down a winding country road to a car park in a grove of trees. There she settled herself with the Boston Globe and sent me traipsing off to look at Thoreau’s hut. I’d never read a word the guy had written, still, just being alone for a few minutes was a relief. Walden Pond turned out to be a lake with amazingly clean water. The cabin had long since vanished but a reconstruction stood nearby. I peered dutifully in the windows.
I rabbited on about all this and Maudie finally said, “I’m glad Helen’s well enough to take you places.”
“Yes, she’s full of vim and vigour. How are you?”
“Okay,” she hesitated. “Not great.”
I felt a little rush of warmth; it was the first remotely intimate thing she’d said to me. When I pressed her, she confessed she was still in the grip of last night’s dream. She’d been wandering around in a flat, foggy, World War I wasteland. The air was filled with the cries of a dying elephant. Then she met an old man. He didn’t seem upset so Maudie asked him why. “How can I be upset over one dying elephant,” he said, “when there are so many?” As he spoke, the fog cleared and she saw that the wasteland was strewn with dying elephants, crying ceaselessly. “It was so sad,” she said, “I could hardly stand it.”
“Maybe you should make a gift for the elephants—a bowl or a vase?”
“I am already.” Her voice lifted as if I’d said exactly the right thing. “Not just one—a series of bowls, that will fit inside each other like Russian dolls.”
“Good, I’ll admire them when I get home. A week today.”
• • •
A movement caught Ewan’s eye, and he looked up from the book to see the curtains drawn across the open window puffing in the breeze. The dream, he felt sure, was Mollie’s. Suddenly all his fears for himself, about his career and Vanessa, seemed minor compared to the possibility that his sister might descend into the valley of despair and do something irreversible. He had always known Mollie lacked some of the ballast he and Bridget had had from birth. He must call her every day, must make sure the birds and the bones did not come back.
• • •
After I put the phone down I felt very weird. Maybe it was the remains of my jet lag but I stared round Aunt Helen’s kitchen wondering what the hell I was doing there. If our scheme worked Roman stood to become a semi-millionaire, whereas I’d get enough for a cheap sofa. As if she were standing beside Aunt Helen’s cooker, I heard my mother say, “Why can’t you be more like Roman?” And my father by the monstrous fridge, “If only you studied like your brother.” And echoing them an endless chorus saying, “I’m afraid you didn’t get the part.” I padded over to the coffee machine. I knew what I was going to do back in Scotland, and admiring a bunch of bowls was just the start. So far Roman’s subterfuge had served his purposes. Next it would serve mine.
By noon the sun had come out. I figured I’d walk over to Arlington Center in the afternoon. Not that the shops were any great shakes—mostly fast food and stodgy clothes—but on non-expedition days there wasn’t much else to do. Then at lunch Helen announced she had an appointment with her lawyer at three o’clock. “I have to take advantage of having a chauffeur,” she smiled.
“Just let me get those hubcaps polished. Where is his office?”
“In Cambridge, near Harvard Square.”
“In that case maybe I should pay another visit to the Fogg Museum.” I was pleased with myself for using this detail at last.
“No, no,” said Helen. “You’re coming too. Art’s really looking forward to meeting my nephew, one of my nephews.”
Meeting me? The fluttery stage-fright feeling started up in my stomach. There was no way the old fart could discover me, but what if I’d overlooked some crucial thing? Something Roman had done at the age of ten that only he knew about, like only I knew who had put a bag of dog crap in Bill Hamilton’s desk. Then I remembered the dreary production of Twelfth Night I’d been in last summer. If Viola could pass for Sebastian, what was my problem? I realised Aunt Helen was still waiting for a reply. “Art Savage,” I said. “It’s such a splendid name for a lawyer.”
“As you’ve already remarked,” she said, raising her napkin to her lips.
Another conversation Roman hadn’t bothered to report. So much for any points I’d racked up for the Fogg, I thought, and asked if the chicken we were eating was free-range or battery.
The lawyer’s office was on the ground floor of one of those wooden houses clustered around Harvard Square, and thank God there was a place to park in front. Aunt Helen negotiated the wheelchair ramp with aplomb and “Art” came out to the reception area to greet us, a small, dapper fellow with a ferocious tan and the inevitable bow tie. “So you’re the famous nephew,” he said, pumping my hand. “I’m pleased to meet you. I understand you had some problems getting away?”
“Actually, it was a bit of an effort.” I was trying to sound extra-pompous. “However I’m hoping my absence will allow my colleagues to realise I’m irreplaceable.”
“Good man,” said Mr. Savage. “Stupid thing, yesterday I wanted to confirm our appointment and I had my secretary phone you in Scotland. Luckily the line was busy.”
Jesus wept. I felt myself blush, something I don’t remember happening offstage for a dozen years, and through her massive lenses, Aunt Helen seemed
to check out every change of shade. I mumbled an incoherent comment about her being the perfect hostess.
“She sure is,” said Mr. Savage. “Don’t let her wear you out.”
They both chuckled. Helen said she wouldn’t be long and they shuffled off into his office. The receptionist, a nice-looking black woman in a cerise suit, asked if I’d like coffee and I said great and remembered to say with cream instead of white. “And may I use the phone for just a moment? I’m afraid it’s long distance.”
“Help yourself.” She gestured to a phone on a table between two armchairs.
My fingers trembled as I pushed the buttons. What would I do if it was busy or no one was home? Maudie answered on the third ring. “Darling,” I said, “it’s me,” forgetting all about identifying myself.
“Is everything all right?”
“As a matter of fact I’m at Mr. Savage’s—Aunt Helen’s lawyer. Apparently he tried to call me yesterday, in Scotland. The line was engaged.”
“Goodness,” Maudie exclaimed. “We never thought of that, did we? Well, don’t worry. From now on no one but me answers the phone.”
“You angel,” I said and blurted out some nonsense about reminding her to pay the mortgage. My heart was still thumping as I hung up. Surreptitiously I wiped the sweaty handprint off the receiver.
The receptionist brought my coffee. “You’re welcome,” she said when I thanked her. I sat there, flicking through Newsweek and wondering about Aunt Helen’s business. As I turned to the film reviews, it suddenly came to me: my campaign on Leo’s behalf had paid off. She was going to make me a beneficiary. A hundred thousand, I daydreamed, two hundred? Beneath her desk the receptionist crossed and re-crossed her slender legs.
• • •
Ewan closed the book and got out of bed. Downstairs, he dialled Vanessa’s number again. After four rings, her recording clicked on. Somewhere in the middle of his reading he had realised that David Coyle might also be phoning Vanessa and that he ought to let her know what was afoot. Hearing her voice, though, he had no idea what to say. The line between information and accusation seemed nonexistent. He let the tape run and hung up without saying a word.
Chapter 9
On her way home from the airport, Mollie stopped in Perth to buy supplies. In the chemists that first day, when Mrs. Tulliver had asked, she’d said some friends were visiting and had forgotten to bring their bag of baby things. “What a nuisance,” said Mrs. Tulliver, and Mollie hadn’t blushed or batted an eyelash. It was as if she had known even then, before fully laying eyes on Olivia or inhaling her downy fragrance, what she was going to do. But she had been acting solely on instinct, whereas now guile and cunning entered in. She went to the Boots on Perth High Street, a large, busy shop where no one paid her any attention, and walked up and down the baby aisle, buying whatever seemed remotely useful. Then she went to Mothercare and quickly chose a car seat, a sling, and half a dozen outfits. She wished there were time to linger over choices of colour and style, but glancing up as she wrote out her cheque in Boots, she thought she saw Mrs. Rae, the butcher’s wife, at the cosmetics counter. When she looked again, the woman was a stranger; still, Mollie was reminded of how often she did run into people she knew in Perth. Later she realised she had ignored what should have been her worst fear: the possibility of meeting someone who knew not her but Olivia. After all, Perth was her hometown, and she was a distinctive baby who had already been missing for several days. To worry about that, however, would have required admitting the untenable facts: Olivia had parents, or a parent, and Mollie’s joy was balanced against someone else’s pain.
By the time Mollie finished, the back seat of the car was filled with purchases. Without stopping to install Olivia’s seat, she tucked her back on the floor and began to drive through the busy streets. At the third red light, she launched into “I Love to Go a-Wandering.” When she exhausted the verses she remembered, well outside Perth, she moved on to “Greensleeves.” The only songs she knew were those she’d learned at school from Miss Luke, the music teacher.
“Greensleeves was all my joy,
Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves was my heart of gold,
And who but Lady Greensleeves?”
she sang as she accelerated past two lorries. For once the motion of travel did not put Olivia to sleep; she lay gazing up from her pillow as if the ceiling of the car and Mollie singing behind the steering wheel were sights of infinite interest. Whenever the road straightened out, Mollie glanced down for a glimpse of her small face.
She came through the gates of Mill of Fortune, and there stood the house, foursquare and welcoming. The dark cloud of malevolence, which for the past month had hovered above the slate roof, was gone. Unlocking the back door, she was struck by how tattered the green paint had become; when the weather grew warmer, she would paint the door cerulean blue or perhaps a brighter green. Inside, Sadie pranced around, snorting her welcome, and Plato tapped his mirror so that the small bell hanging above it tinkled. On the table were a bunch of keys and a note. Bending down, Mollie read, These will let you into the house. To turn off the burglar alarm press the first four digits of my phone number. Love, Ewan. “How nice of him,” she murmured, and, with no thought she would ever use them, slipped the keys into her bag.
That afternoon she put Olivia in the sling and walked up the hill to St. David’s Well. She threw a coin for each of them and made the same wish twice—that they would never leave each other—as if repetition would convince the king’s daughters of their sincerity and thus multiply the chances of success. Then she continued along the forestry track to the moors. She heard a lark singing, and a hundred yards ahead, a kestrel circled once, then again, before hurtling down with almost audible speed. As the bird rose clumsily out of the heather, its talons empty, Mollie registered with astonishment that she had forgotten to be afraid.
She stood gazing east down the valley. In the distance lay the town, with the river running through it and the fields spreading out on either side, some newly planted and already taking on that first cast of green, others still being used for livestock. Winter was safely past and spring was coming, hesitant but unmistakeable.
The last hurdle of the day was Ewan’s phone call, and from seven o’clock onwards she waited anxiously. Once she went to call him, but even as she lifted the receiver she was letting it fall. Initiating the lies she planned to tell seemed fractionally worse than offering them in self-defence. When the phone did finally ring, she was so nervous she forgot most of her story. She’d planned to say something about a pleasant woman police constable, about a form she’d filled out. But Ewan seemed satisfied by her scant details. Then the kitchen door, which she had carefully closed, swung open, and Olivia let out a yell. Mollie jumped up to shut it, blamed the noise on the dog, and rattled on before he could ask any questions, not that he would have. His lack of curiosity, which she used to count a fault, now struck her as wonderfully fortunate. She was hard-pressed to conceal her delight at his news of Milan. Four days’ reprieve, she thought, and counted them off on her fingers for sheer happiness. As soon as the call was over, she went back into the kitchen and, standing by the stove, drank a small tot of whisky in a single swallow.
After breakfast, when Olivia fell asleep, Mollie approached that corner of the kitchen where for weeks her loom had stood neglected. She was, or rather had been, in the middle of a hanging, a present for Rebecca, whose birthday had passed a fortnight ago. Studying the tapestry of grey and purple, Mollie thought, What an absurd gift. Rebecca wanted what she herself had wanted at that age: trendy clothes or brightly coloured cosmetics. She picked up a pair of scissors and began to cut a month’s work out of the loom. In a more patient mood, she might have unravelled it. She had joked once with Chae that no one ever gave Penelope enough credit for the laborious work of unravelling. He had kissed her and had the hero of his next novel make the same remark.
As Mollie squeezed the scissors, she recalled a conv
ersation with Bridget last autumn. Bridget had telephoned to wish her happy birthday and after the exchange of greetings gone on to expound her therapist’s latest theory. “She thinks the reason I’m ambivalent about having children is because of our mother’s difficulties,” Bridget said, her voice growing shiny with self-importance.
“But you were much too young to know what was happening,” Mollie exclaimed.
“Intellectually yes, but not emotionally. Don’t you think it’s strange that none of the three of us have children?”
“No,” said Mollie. “You don’t want them, Ewan hasn’t met the right woman, and I have children.”
“Stepchildren,” Bridget corrected. “It’s not the same.”
“Of course it is,” Mollie said. “Don’t be reactionary.”
Bridget in turn had accused her of repression, and the phone call ended in mutual irritation.
Watching the severed threads spring apart, Mollie thought she owed her sister an apology. Then another figure appeared, with an even greater claim on her remorse: Chae’s ex-wife. Every summer she had phoned, begging to see Rebecca and Daniel just for a weekend. “I can’t stand not seeing them for two months,” she would say. But Chae insisted on sticking to their agreement; the children were hers during term, his over the holidays. And Mollie, finding her complaints incomprehensible, had supported him. Christ—she snipped vehemently—what a bitch I was! She had always believed she loved her stepchildren only a little less than their parents. Now, measured against her feelings for Olivia, she could see that love for what it was: a single strand of wool compared to the whole tapestry, a pine needle compared to the tree.
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