The Beggar's Pawn

by John L'Heureux

  “Mother!” Claire said. “Mommy!” she said. “Poor Misery! Tell me he’s still alive.”

  Maggie took Claire in her arms and cried softly. She was still speechless at how good Claire looked.

  “Is he? Is he still alive?”

  “You look so wonderful,” Maggie said. “Just wonderful. Your father won’t recognize you.”

  “I’m not sure how you mean that.”

  “Claire. It’s a compliment.”

  “Once you explain it, I guess.”

  They collected Claire’s bags from the luggage carousel. “He survived the stroke,” Maggie said, “but he’s worried about his mind.”

  “Alzheimer’s,” Claire said. “It’s going around.”

  Maggie shook her head in disbelief. This was certainly Claire, despite all the new refinements.

  They drove straight to the hospital.

  David was sitting up in bed, looking depressed. “They want me to walk more,” he said to Maggie, wondering who the other woman was. Then he recognized his daughter. “Sweetheart!” he said, joyful suddenly. “You look beautiful. Where did you hide the old Claire?”

  “So his mind is okay,” Claire said to Maggie, “nasty as ever.” And to David she said, “Did I look that bad before? Don’t answer. I thought you were supposed to be dying. Mother said this stroke was the real thing.”

  “It’s the lucky third: all fuss, no lasting damage.” And in fact he began once again to feel that he would survive this stroke and walk out of here singing.

  * * *

  —

  SEDGE JOINED THEM in the afternoon. He had driven up from Los Angeles in his little Mazda Miata and arrived with a terrific headache from all the traffic. Sophia, his new fiancée, had wanted to come with him but he persuaded her to wait until he saw what shape his father was in. She could come up for the funeral, he said. So with his headache and his expectations of a dying father, he was not prepared for his newly refurbished sister or his exhausted mother or his not quite moribund father, a man who was supposed to be laid out on a slab. But Sedge’s own perpetual optimism and his native good spirits took over and, waving his arms about in that way of his, he said, “I don’t know who looks best: my gorgeous mother, my glamorous sister, or my dad who’s obviously faking a stroke! What a great family I’ve got! What a lucky man!”

  Everyone was always glad to see Sedge.

  * * *

  —

  WILL ARRIVED THE NEXT DAY and Sedge picked him up at the airport in Maggie’s Prius, since his own little Miata was only a two-seater. Sedge knew that Will’s marriage had fallen apart and he knew about the graduate student affair but he was not prepared for the startling young beauty of Cloris. She was, of course, blond. She was very tall, taller than Will, and she was at first glance boyishly thin. Her eyes were a deep blue that in some lights looked green and her complexion was that pale English rose. She wore glasses.

  “Well!” Sedge said, and his appreciation was evident.

  “How is Father?” Will said.

  “Very pleased to meet you,” Sedge said to Cloris. She looked so English, with that complexion and those great glasses.

  “How’s Father? Is he going to make it?”

  “A mild stroke. He’s sitting up and talking.”

  “This is my fiancée, Cloris,” Will said.

  “A pleasure,” Cloris said.

  “You bet,” Sedge said. He smiled at her, happy man that he was. “The car is on the third level.” He shook his head, making all those black curls tremble, and gestured toward the parking garage. Then, with nothing more to say, he waved his arms about pointlessly. Cloris laughed. “What?” he said. “Tell me.”

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said.

  Sedge let his gaze rest on her a moment longer than necessary while she returned his gaze so that it seemed at this, their first meeting, an understanding was reached.

  * * *

  —

  SO THEY WERE HOME, the whole family, a reunion of caring people. Educated, sophisticated, lacking for nothing. An enviable group.

  16.

  Reginald Parker visited David early in the morning. He was still eating his breakfast of Honey Bunches of Oats when Reginald poked his head into the room.

  “Looking good,” Reginald said.

  Milk from the cereal ran down David’s chin. “Dammit,” he said and wiped his chin with the bedsheet.

  Reginald reassessed David’s condition and said, in a very loud voice, “How are you doing?” He spaced the words so David could understand.

  “I’ve had a stroke,” David said, “I haven’t lost my hearing.”

  “Sorry,” Reginald said. “I just thought . . .”

  “You’re probably one of those guys who shout at people who don’t understand English.”

  Reginald knew what he meant.

  “To make them understand, I mean. As if noise alone would do it. Oh, shit.” He was not making sense. He wondered, and not for the first time, how much damage his brain had sustained. “What am I trying to say?” he asked.

  An orderly came in to take the breakfast tray. David greeted him in Spanish, hoping to show Reginald how you speak to people who don’t understand English. He repeated his greeting, slightly louder.

  The orderly said, “Howdy,” and left, annoyed at being addressed in Spanish since he himself was Russian.

  David cleared his throat, loudly.

  Reginald determined to say nothing until David decided what mood he was in.

  “So, how are you?” David said finally.

  “Claire mentioned that you had had a stroke.”

  “Claire? My Claire?”

  “In an email. She mentioned she would be coming back to Palo Alto because . . .”

  “You correspond?”

  “Only by email.”

  “The mode of correspondence was not the question. The question was about the fact of the matter.” He was pleased with himself. He had expressed that very well. His mind was not completely gone yet.

  “We’re friends.” Reginald lapsed again into silence, having made his point about Claire.

  “Well, that’s nice. That’s lovely.”

  More silence.

  “Well, you were very good to come.”

  “My grandmother is dying.” Reginald waited for a response. “She’s nearly ninety.”

  “Your grandmother.”

  “Is dying.” David should know this. David should know that he, too, Reginald Parker, was somebody. Somebody, moreover, who was an intimate friend of Claire. He was as good as any of them.

  David murmured something polite about the grandmother.

  Instantly Reginald felt like a fool. Why had he degraded himself this way? Who cared whether this old bastard recognized that Reginald was somebody? After all, who was the old bastard himself but a second-rate academic with a dysfunctional family? As his novel-in-progress would demonstrate.

  Reginald was disgusted with himself and decided he needed a hit of something, at least a little weed.

  “Well, I’ll leave you to it,” he said, and, to conceal his anger, he left the room jingling the coins in his pocket.

  David stared at the empty space Reginald had occupied. “I’m sorry to hear about your grandmother,” David said, and was surprised that he did indeed feel sorry. It must be the effect of the stroke.

  17.

  At the Hollisses’ house there was a general sense of confusion. Rooms and the privacy they provided had been worked out satisfactorily before Will and Cloris showed up, but now with these two extra people life was in turmoil.

  Claire had taken up residence in her old room; it had been converted into a study for Maggie but the daybed there served well enough for a short visit. Claire had brought two large suitcases and her many new outfits filled the small, ol
d-fashioned closet. You can’t go home again, she told herself, at least not when everybody else goes home at the same time. She wanted privacy. Who were all these dreadful people?

  Sedge moved into his old room, which served now as a guest room. There were towels on the newly made bed and little bars of scented soap. He dumped these on the bureau. His mother meant well but a grown man needed a real bar of soap. Besides, he hated to cause this fuss.

  Will, the Perfect Son, was camping out with Cloris in his old room, which had long since been taken over for storing useless stuff: discarded luggage, lamps and end tables, and, in one corner, piles of books to be donated to the local library. Cloris cheerfully accepted her secondary status in the house, well aware that she was an outsider who was not yet a married member of the family. She was happy just to be included.

  “Where do you put anything in this house,” Will asked Cloris, behaving for the moment as if he were not the Perfect Son. “I need to shower and there’s no place to put anything and the dresser drawers are full of old curtains. Why do they keep all this junk? End tables and lamps and suitcases. Why don’t they give this stuff to the poor?”

  There were three bedrooms upstairs but only two bathrooms. This had been fine when the children were young: Claire had her own bathroom and the two boys shared the other. But now with Cloris visiting there had to be some time strategy for Sedge and Will and Cloris to share the toilet and the shower and for Sedge to do his hair. None of them except Cloris was used to living like this, crowded into a small space with all these other bodies and their clothes and their luggage, so when Will asked rhetorically, “Why don’t they give this stuff to the poor?” Cloris responded quite reasonably, “What poor?” She was at that moment looking out the window at the manicured lawn and the swimming pool bordered by red and white flowers just coming into bloom.

  “Well, there must be poor people somewhere,” Will said.

  “I think this is very nice,” Cloris said. “It’s like living in somebody’s attic. We can share the bathroom with your brother. It’s not that big a deal. Or I could share with Claire.”

  “Don’t mess with Claire. That’s always been her bathroom.”

  Claire had already taken the problem in hand. Her bathroom had two doors, one opening to her room and the other to the hall. She had simply locked the hall door from inside and in this way created for herself a private bathroom. Will and Cloris could share the other one. With Sedge.

  “And Sedge’s latest fiancée will be coming soon. What are they going to do about her?” Will was not resigned to sharing.

  “I can’t wait to get a look at her, a Hollywood star.”

  “She works in wardrobe. She’s not a star.”

  “All the same. She works in film.”

  “Sedge is too old for stars. He’s never attracted the star type.”

  “But he’s still attractive. That black hair.”

  Will looked at her with suspicion, thought better of it, and gave her a kiss. Life with the young was a challenge.

  * * *

  —

  THEY VISITED DAVID in relays during the afternoon so that he’d always have company. This had thoroughly exhausted him and left him feeling cross and put-upon. He wanted Maggie, and maybe Dickens, but all these people and all this talk? Dying, by comparison, looked easy. He had to get home soon so they could all go away.

  * * *

  —

  THEY FOUND THE HOSPITAL visits tedious, though none of them would admit to it. They loved their father, and to be there for him and provide him consolation was the least they could do. They agreed on this over lunch and they agreed on it at greater length afterward when they took Dickens for a walk to the park. At the last minute Claire decided not to join them; instead she borrowed her mother’s Prius to go and meet a friend for coffee. Will and Cloris and Sedge set off together for a walk with the reluctant Dickens.

  “So when do we get to meet the movie star?” Will asked, just to be difficult.

  “She works in wardrobe. She won’t be coming up. As a matter of fact, I’ll be leaving first thing tomorrow. Dad looks to be okay and I should be getting back to the lab. If anything bad should happen—you know, if he gets worse—Mom can call me in LA and I can be here in no time.”

  “I had hoped to meet a movie star,” Cloris said. “What’s her name?”

  “Sophia.”

  “And you’re going to marry her?”

  “We’ll probably marry, but it never lasts for more than a couple years.”

  “What a shame.”

  “There’s a curse on me,” he said happily. “I love to be married—I’d love to marry you—but it never lasts. I should carry a sign saying ‘Two-Year Limit.’”

  They all laughed and Dickens turned around to see what was so funny.

  “Maybe this one will last,” Cloris said.

  He shrugged and waved his hands about and shook his black curls. It was a funny little performance and Cloris laughed at him.

  “The big thing,” Will said, annoyed, “is that we’re all here to support Mother and provide Father with some consolation.”

  “That’s the big thing.”

  “That’s the only thing.”

  * * *

  —

  CLAIRE WAS LATE getting home because, after an unsettling number of Starbucks lattes, she and Reginald had not been able to agree on where they should go to have sex. His house was out of the question and so was hers. Reginald was all in favor of the back seat of the Prius but Claire said she was forty-three and there was nothing romantic about a Prius and at her age she needed a bed under her, so it was a hotel or nothing. They went to the Stanford Arms and Reginald—with an eye to his coming inheritance—paid the bill, and did so with a sense of satisfaction. He had arrived. But in the end the evening was something less than a total success for either of them and Claire had come home exhausted and unwilling to talk to anybody. Still, she was here to support her mother and she would, dutifully. She’d just put her head in the door, say good night, and then go straight to her room.

  Her mother was propped up in bed, reading. “Good night, sweetie,” Claire said. “Sleep well.”

  “Who did you see?” Maggie asked. “Whom?”

  “Reginald,” Claire said. She owed her mother her customary frankness.

  “Parker? The one we had dinner with?”

  “The very one.”

  “I wondered about him. And you.” She waited for a response. “Is this to be an ongoing thing?”

  “I doubt it. But it’s ongoing for the time being.”

  “And what about Helen? What about Iris?”

  “Helen’s his wife. Iris is his daughter. I’m just his friend.”

  “So it isn’t a bed thing?”

  “Yes, it is a bed thing. But Helen and Iris are not my responsibility. He wouldn’t be having a fling with me if there wasn’t already something wrong there.”

  A long silence.

  “I find this reprehensible.”

  “Don’t worry yourself, Mother. You’re not the one doing it. You’re still a model of familial virtue. Nighty night.”

  Claire closed the door quietly. Frankness was painful. Often.

  * * *

  —

  IT WAS TWO in the morning and Sedge had had a lot to drink and, unable to continue sleeping, he got up to pee. He had tried to sleep through it, but he was late forties now and his bladder was not what it used to be. He hadn’t brought a robe but everybody was long asleep so it didn’t matter that he was wearing only his boxer shorts. Besides, he was still in good shape.

  The bathroom door was closed and he could see light beneath the door. He’d have to wait. Two minutes passed, then three, and he began to get anxious. It was undoubtedly Will in there, having a solemn, meditative poo, but what if it were not Will but Cloris? He’d just
have to wait it out. Finally he couldn’t wait any longer. He tapped lightly at the door. He listened for some sound and then tapped again. The door opened a crack and Cloris peeped out. She gave Sedge a shy smile and opened the door wide.

  “I’m reading,” she said. “I’ve got jet lag.”

  She was wearing a matching nightgown and peignoir, both of them semitransparent, and her figure no longer looked boyish. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She adjusted her glasses and smiled.

  “It’s the middle of the night,” she said. “I didn’t want to wake Will.”

  “Yes,” he said. “What are you reading?”

  She held the book out to him. “It’s your father’s biography of Crane. He’s a very good writer. Your father.”

  “I’ve never read him.”

  “It’s the middle of the night,” she said again. “You probably want to use the bathroom.”

  “Yes.”

  They were standing very close. She was beautiful and she was wearing those terrific glasses. Sedge couldn’t stand it a minute longer. He leaned forward and put his hands lightly on her shoulders and lowered his face to hers. He kissed her very softy, gently, a fatherly kiss to a girl half his age.

  “I had to,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. “Good night, Sedge.” She went slowly to her room.

  18.

  Maggie was up early getting breakfast for her family. Sedge had left earlier that morning, not even waiting for a cup of coffee. He had to get back to the lab, he said, there was a ton of work to do. Besides, he was useless here. His father would make a better recovery if there was less noise around him. And all these visitors. It was too much.

  Maggie understood: he wanted to leave so he left.