Mr Toppit

by Charles Elton

  “That’s quite something.”

  “I don’t want to die here,” she said.

  “Where do you want to die?” It sounded like a heartless thing to say, but she had started it.

  “New Mexico. The mountains.”

  “Los Alamos?” I said. She looked surprised. “Laurie told me about it. I saw the show she did.”

  “Didn’t much like it when I was there, but I dream about it. I dream a lot. Too much sleeping. All the pills they give me.”

  “Why didn’t you like it? It looks beautiful.”

  “Too many Jews,” she said. “Still, you got to run them up a flagpole and cheer. They built that bomb, got us out of the war. Nobody said they weren’t smart. My husband was a Communist, thought he was anyway. Lot of them there, too.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “I hope he’s dead, what he did to us. You should have seen Laurie then. So pretty. Fat little thing. I did her hair in braids. She had a tough time. She loved that place. She didn’t want to leave. You know I was an alcoholic?” I shook my head. “Well, that’s what you’re meant to call it. In the place I went they said it’s a disease. I just liked to drink. That’s not a disease. You like peaches, it’s not a disease.”

  “My father’s dead,” I said.

  “Some people need their parents. You don’t, you’re okay. Laurie never comes down here. She doesn’t like me much.”

  “She talks about you a lot.”

  “Big deal. Why doesn’t she come and talk about me down here? She made me sell my house. It was mine, not hers. We should have stayed in Modesto. That show of hers, it’s not going to make her happy. She was better on the radio. She doesn’t have the face for TV. They’re all so skinny.”

  “Isn’t that why people like her? She’s different.”

  Alma made her humph noise. “You want different, you should put Erica on TV. And she’s skinny enough.” Then she added, “She won’t like you being here.”

  Now I felt nervous. “Don’t tell her I came, will you?”

  “I’m good at secrets. You got to keep secrets. The Jews next door, they couldn’t keep a secret. I begged them, but they told on him. I said I’d repay them soon as I could.”

  “What?”

  “The money. Only a couple hundred dollars, but that was a lot then. You know what Los Alamos means in Spanish?”

  I was getting lost. “What?”

  “Poplars. Trees. Never saw any there, though. My husband—Rudy—stole the money from them. The Jews in the next apartment. Laurie played with their kid. Paully. Mean little boy with little pig eyes. Paully had seen him in their apartment, then the money was missing. I’ll say that for him, he ’fessed up straightaway. Lost money playing cards. We could have repaid it, but they went all high and mighty. That’s Jews for you. Always better than you. They said we’d betrayed a code of honor. Well, I never signed up for it. Then they said I was drunk, wasn’t fit to look after a child. Okay, I shouldn’t have shouted at them but they shouldn’t have gone to the MPs.”

  “The what?”

  “Military Police. They kicked us out. The Jews watched us when we left. I could see them smiling. That little Paully. Mean kid.”

  “So where did you go?”

  “Back to California. He got a job. I don’t know, one of those towns. Never stuck to anything. We moved around. Bakersfield, Fresno. Wasn’t hard to get a job—all the men were overseas fighting. He was four F, something wrong with his feet. He was always lazy. Always playing cards—poker, blackjack, anything he could put a couple of bucks on. We weren’t much by then. Maybe we never were. Laurie cried when we left Los Alamos. Broke my heart.”

  It was dark now. The palms at the top of the slope were silhouetted by the lights of the main house. All I could see was Alma’s profile and the light reflecting in her beady little eyes when she tilted her head towards me.

  “He was no good, I knew that, but she was crazy about him, Laurie. Snappy dresser, nice looking, too, but you get sick of all that. You wait. We could have gone on, I guess, but then he got that job teaching. Then there was the girl.” She stopped. “Why are you interested in all this?” she said aggressively.

  I thought that was a bit unfair. I hadn’t asked her to tell me anything. She’d wanted to. “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s like a jigsaw.”

  She humphed. “You got better things to do than jigsaws.”

  “Maybe I should go.”

  “Go if you want. It’s nothing to me. You’re a strange kid. You don’t say much. What you got to hide?”

  “I had a brother who died.”

  There was a pause. “That’s tough,” she said. She waited for me to go on.

  It took me a moment to get started again. “He was called Jordan. He died a long time before I was born. My parents never talked about him. My mother still doesn’t. Ever. My sister and I don’t know anything about him, just his name. There’s nothing stopping us asking about him, but we don’t.”

  She nodded. “Sometimes it’s better not to ask,” she said. “Some things, you better be sure you really want to know.”

  “I never knew what happened to him until last night. I met this man, this friend of my parents. He’s pretty ancient. He was confused, his memory’s kind of gone. He thought I was Jordan. He knew Jordan was dead, but he thought for a moment I was him. Like a ghost. Then he was embarrassed. He told me what happened to Jordan. I think I’d built it up in my mind to be something really complicated, but it was simple. They had some nanny, my parents, some au pair, and my mother was late back from somewhere and the nanny was bathing the baby and she left the room for a moment or something and when she came back the baby was dead. The baby had drowned. That was it.”

  I was crying now. I was sitting with an old woman and crying at her. She might have been mad, but she was tactful. She didn’t do anything awful like hug me. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone to do that.

  “Better to know,” she said. “Not always, but you want to know, if it’s your brother. Your parents, hard for them to get over that. You don’t want to fail your children. You want to protect them. I tried to do that for Miss Laurie. Lot of thanks I got for it.”

  “I’d better get back.”

  “You don’t have to go,” she said.

  “It’s late.”

  She put out her arm, fragile as a chicken’s wing, to stop me getting up. “This girl,” she said. “This girl. Nine or ten, I guess. In the class he taught. She was ‘slow,’ you called it back then. Sweet-natured. Pretty. Her parents always put flowers in her hair. Nicely dressed, little blond thing. Didn’t look at you when you spoke to her. The parents weren’t too bright either, else they’d have spotted it earlier. He pumped gas in a filling station, the father. Drifters, a lot of them around then. Rudy made her put his thing in her mouth.”

  I didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t want to ask her any questions so I stayed silent. She didn’t like it. “You still there? You gone to sleep?”

  “No, I was thinking about it.”

  “Too much thinking’ll kill you. You watch out. The parents wanted money or else they were going to the police. I knew they wouldn’t, they weren’t the kind of people who went to the police, probably in trouble themselves. Rudy knew that, counted on it, I guess. But I would. He didn’t count on that.” She gave a grim laugh. “I told him if I ever saw him again, the police would be round faster than I could cut his balls off. I had Laurie. She was eight or nine, she loved him. Never had much time for me but she loved him. I gave him the savings we had, not much but enough to get him out of town. Never saw him again. He might have gone to Oregon. He sent cards from there for a while, but I never gave them to Laurie. Best that way. Then we moved up to Modesto so he didn’t know where we were. I hope he died in jail somewhere.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “What’s to be sorry for? It’s not your doing.”

  “You protected her, though.”

  She gave another hu
mph. I bent to kiss her good-bye. There was a little tremor in her cheek. She smelled musty and powdery. “I’ll come back again, shall I? When Erica’s not around.”

  She shrugged. “You could,” she said. “I don’t mind if you do and I don’t mind if you don’t.” As I left, she was holding her hand to her cheek where I had kissed her.

  By the next day I had decided I would do the show. I was feeling bad about a lot of things, about Laurie really, about what Alma had told me, and I wanted to make things as right as I could. What I couldn’t bear was it seeming like Erica had had anything to do with it, because while my position about Laurie and the show had shifted, nothing about Erica had.

  What I’d been thinking was this: maybe some of what Laurie had said to me was true—the stuff about giving something back and honoring Arthur’s legacy. My life wasn’t that much of a hard-luck story, after all, and I could just about entertain the possibility that maybe I was being a bit self-indulgent. I even came round to thinking that being on the show might be fun.

  The odd thing was that before dinner the next night, the first time I had seen Laurie since that awful conversation, it seemed like she was the one who was apologizing to me.

  “I need to talk to you,” she said, but not in a heavy way. In fact, she put her arm round me when she took me into the den. “I thought it would be fun to go out for dinner tonight. We’ll go to Dan Tana’s. It’s real old-style LA. You’ll like it.” Then she put her hand on mine. “I feel just awful that I said those things. The show really takes it out of me, makes me kind of grouchy sometimes.” She sighed. “Everyone has an opinion. The ratings could be higher, the advertisers are worried, we didn’t think Tuesday’s show worked, the guests aren’t right. It just goes on and on and I get so tired of it sometimes. It would really help me if you did the show. Of course, I can sort it out in some other way if you want.” She didn’t sound totally convincing.

  I was just about to say, “Yes, I’ll do it. I really don’t mind,” when she said, “And Erica, you mustn’t worry about her. When I said treat this place like your own, I meant it. When I think how good you all were to me in England—you want beer, you have it. Anything you like.” She gave a little laugh. “I’d watch the tequila, though. You know they dissolve worms in it?”

  My mind stopped in its tracks. One of two things had happened: either Erica had lied to me—she’d said she wouldn’t say anything to Laurie about the booze until I had sorted things out with her—or, worse, Laurie had known about it from the start and they’d cooked it up together to shame me into doing the show. My instinct was that it was the latter. Whichever, it made me dig in my heels and I didn’t say what I’d been going to say. Instead, I said, “I’m glad there’s some other way you can do the show. That’s great, Laurie. Thank you.”

  Clearly it wasn’t what she had expected, and there was a moment’s silence. “Fine,” she said, “fine. It’s your choice,” but the lightness had vanished from her voice. “I’ll make other plans. Now, we ought to get going.”

  There were just the four of us, Laurie and Erica, me and Travis. Travis had to drive. Erica and I were sitting in the back. Nobody said anything in the car. My guess was that Laurie and Erica had planned the dinner as a celebration to thank me for agreeing to do the show, so now we were all there under false pretenses. I kept close to the window. I didn’t want to be near Erica.

  The restaurant was rather quaint, with red leather and booths and checked tablecloths. A lot of fuss was made of Laurie as we went in, kisses from the headwaiter and warm handshakes for the rest of us. She was very gracious, saying things like, “You know I get withdrawal symptoms if I don’t have your Eggplant Parmigiana at least once a week, Jimmy.” As we walked through to our table, people stared. “This is so cool,” Travis kept saying. “This is like a real celebrity place.”

  Erica wore a fixed smile. She was sitting opposite me so I had plenty of opportunity to see it. Before we’d even had a chance to order anything, a waiter brought us a bottle of champagne on the house. He poured Laurie’s and Erica’s glasses first, then turned to me.

  I had just opened my mouth and was saying, “No, thank—” when Erica put her hand out and said, “He’d better not. He’s only eighteen.”

  I could tell I was going bright red. “You should be flattered, Luke. They think you’re grown-up,” she said, with a light but discernible emphasis on “think.”

  I didn’t know how I was going to get through the meal. Thank God for Travis, who was completely oblivious. “I don’t like champagne too much,” he said. “It gives me gas.”

  “Oh, Travis, really, spare us,” Erica said teasingly. “That’s too much information. You must keep your gastric arrangements to yourself.” She and Laurie gave an awful phoney laugh, and Travis glowed with pleasure at the unexpected attention.

  Laurie didn’t say much all the way through dinner. I kept glancing at her, but she was keeping her gaze well away from me and looking at Travis, who began telling us about his songwriting. Erica watched him, wide-eyed, as if he was the most fascinating person in the world. He was working on a song about Merry, he said.

  “Don’t you need to be a very special person to be immortalized in a song? Like ‘Lili Marlene’?” Erica said.

  Travis looked confused. “Who?”

  “Oh, Travis, before your time. One of the great songs. Or ‘Eleanor Rigby.’ You’ll know that one, I expect.”

  “Or Ruby,” he said, warming to it.

  “Ruby?”

  “You know, like ‘Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town.’ ”

  Laurie snorted, and Erica’s eyes flicked in her direction. “I don’t think I’m familiar with that one,” she said.

  “Or ‘Mrs. Robinson.’ ”

  “Yes, all quite special people.”

  “Merry’s special,” he said.

  “She’s very attractive, of course.”

  “No, she’s got like an aura.”

  “An aura. My goodness.”

  “No, she is. She is special.”

  “I’m sure she is. You’re very clever to have spotted something in her that has eluded the rest of us.”

  Travis took that as a compliment. “I’m still working on the song,” he said. “I’ve got the chorus and some of the words.”

  “And how does it go? Your song.”

  “Well, the chorus is ‘I watch you through my eyes/Until …’ ”

  “ ‘I watch you through my eyes,’ ” Erica repeated quizzically.

  “Yes.”

  “But who else’s eyes could you watch her through?”

  “I’m, like, seeing her through my eyes.”

  “Yes, I understand that. But it wouldn’t be possible for you to see her through anybody else’s. Unless you have special powers.” She gave a gay little laugh. “No, go on. I’m sorry, I don’t really understand song construction.”

  He cleared his throat and started again. “ ‘I watch you through my eyes/Until the summer ends/I know how hard you try/To force the pain to mend.’ ”

  “Oh, it’s a sad song,” she said. “That’s nice. That’s a good rhyme: end/mend—it’s clever, Travis. Cole Porter better watch out.”

  “I find the rhyming stuff really hard,” he said.

  She laughed again. “If it was easy, we’d all be doing it. It’s obviously a special gift of yours.” Travis looked pleased. “But it’s so sad,” she said, with a little catch in her throat. “Forcing the pain to mend? How could such a golden creature as Merry have pain?”

  “She’s quite a deep person,” Travis said.

  “Deep? You do surprise me.”

  “She’s the deepest person I know.”

  “Really? In what way, Travis? You are perceptive.”

  It was going to go on and get worse. “Don’t do this,” I said. I hadn’t even begun to eat. My Clam Linguini was still sitting on the plate. It was meant to be one of their specialities, but it didn’t look very nice. I hadn’t known the clams would still be
in their shells.

  Erica turned to me slowly. “I’m sorry, Luke?”

  “You don’t have to do this.” My voice was trembling.

  “Do what? Travis is just telling us about his songs.”

  “Yeah, bro, what’s up?”

  They all looked at me. I couldn’t explain it in front of Travis and I didn’t want to hurt him. He was the only innocent one at the table. I didn’t say anything.

  “You seem upset, Luke,” Erica observed coldly.

  I turned to Laurie. She was the closest thing I had there to a parent and, ridiculously, I wanted her to protect us, but I knew it was too late for that. She was staring straight in front of her, as if she was somewhere else. I was on my own.

  “It’s just mean,” I said, in a voice so clear that even I was surprised. “It’s mean and cruel, Erica. Like pulling the wings off a butterfly.”

  She wiped her mouth and put down her napkin. There was silence for a moment. “I’m delighted to think you know me well enough to talk so frankly,” she said, then got up and left the table. The look on Laurie’s face: I thought she might hit me, but she pushed her chair back and hurried after Erica across the restaurant.

  The day before I left to fly home, I wanted to see Alma again to say good-bye. After lunch I could hear Erica doing her tennis practice with the ball-throwing machine and knew that would keep her occupied for a while. I sneaked through the garden to Alma’s little house. I had to call her name several times through the gate before she heard me.

  “Who’s that?” she shouted from inside.

  “It’s me. Luke.”

  The screen door opened and she maneuvered herself out onto the porch with her walker.

  “Hi, Alma.”

  “I’ve got a shotgun,” she said. “You tell those Mexican friends of yours I’ll blow their brains out if they come here one more time.”

  “It’s Luke. I was here the other day.”

  Something seemed to clear in her mind. “Oh, you,” she said.

  “I came to say good-bye. I’m going tomorrow. Back to England.”