Very Old Bones

by William Kennedy

  “That’s more than I heard. Who told ya that?”

  “I’m no squealer, kiddo,” Molly said. “And whatever did you do to your leg? Are you all right?”

  “I can’t kick,” Billy said. “You’re lookin’ good, Moll. How’s the old bareedis?”

  “I’m fine in all respects, and I’ll answer no more impertinent questions.”

  “How’s Saratoga?”

  “The hotel is busy. The track opens next week.”

  “But no more gamblin’ casinos.”

  “None that I hear of. It’s not like it used to be.”

  “Nothin’ is,” Billy said.

  “How many are coming for lunch, Orson? We have to set the table.”

  “Us three and Peter, and Peg is coming with Roger Dailey, the lawyer, and Giselle. Seven.”

  “Giselle is coming?”

  “Peter invited her. She’s been up fairly often lately.”

  “How is she?”

  “She’s pregnant. I guess that makes it eight.”

  “Oh,” said Molly, “oh.” And she looked at me with that hybrid smile of hers: knowing smile of love, and comprehension, and loss.

  “First tremor of the earthquake,” I said.

  “Hey,” Billy said, “you gonna be a papa.”

  “Looks that way,” I said.

  “The lawyer,” said Molly “Why is the lawyer coming?”

  “I’ll tell you when it’s time to tell you,” I said.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what it’s time for. It’s time to make lunch. Bring me the potato dish, two big platters, a vegetable dish, and the pickle and jelly dishes. And the bread plate. And set the table with whatever’s left of the good china.”

  Molly’s reference was to the remnants of a set of china that Peter had bought for Kathryn with his mustering-out pay from the first war, a belated acknowledgment that he had been partly responsible for Francis’s fall into the china closet. And I wondered how much of that episode in his father’s life Billy knew, and I decided he probably knew nothing at all.

  “Have you taken a good look at these paintings?” I asked Billy, indicating The Conspiracy and the Demons.

  “Unhhh,” Billy said, and he craned his neck to look at both, then moved his chair for a better look, and he stared.

  “That guy looks like my father,” he said, indicating Malachi in The Conspiracy.

  “Right. And a little like my father too,” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Billy. “What the hell is it?”

  “It’s Peter’s vision. Your father’s been important to him all his life. He’s painted him many times.”

  “This is the first one I saw.”

  “Not the last. He’s in that one too,” and I pointed to the Demons painting.

  “Who’s that guy supposed to be? It ain’t really my father.”

  “It’s your great-uncle, Malachi McIlhenny.”

  “I heard of him. Wasn’t he nuts?”

  “Totally, but there’s more to it.”

  “Yeah,” Billy said, “when people go nuts they got a reason.”

  “You never uttered a truer word,” I said.

  I heard footsteps on the porch and went to see who was coming. But it was only the afternoon paper, stuck between the jamb and the doorknob by the thoughtful paperboy to keep it dry. It had been cloudy for an hour and now a fine drizzle was beginning. I was closing the door when I saw a taxi turning off Pearl Street onto Colonie, and I thought, Giselle, accurately. She paid the cabbie and slid out of the back seat with her arms full, offering me her knees in the drizzle, constantly smiling, moving with small steps back into my life. I held the door for her, and she kept going down the hallway to the kitchen.

  “Don’t I even get a hello?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Follow me.”

  And so I did, as I always have, and in the hallway she gave me a serious kiss and went into the back parlor to deposit one of her bags next to the player piano. She said hello to Billy without introducing herself and delivered her gifts for the meal (goose-liver pâté, a wheel of Camembert, English tea biscuits, two bottles of Haut-Brion, and two pounds of Whitman’s chocolates for Peter) to Molly in the kitchen.

  “That’s Giselle,” I said to Billy, and I handed him the afternoon paper. He nodded and looked at the front page.

  “They got a story on the shootin’,” Billy said. “They picked up Johnny Rizzo at the railroad station, leavin’ town, and Morty’s in the hospital. He might lose a leg.”

  “That’s a tough one.”

  “Yeah, but he loses a leg means the card game’s off. That son of a bitch’ll do anything not to pay me what he owes.”

  “If they have to reschedule the game let me know. I’ll go with you anytime.”

  “Nah, forget that. I’ll do it on my own.”

  “All right, whatever you say.”

  Giselle came in from the kitchen. “You’re Billy,” she said. “I’ve seen your picture.”

  Billy stood up and shook her hand.

  “I’m Billy,” he said, “and you’re pregnant.”

  “My news precedes me,” she said, and with both hands she arced a bulbous abdomen onto herself. I then took my first look at her body, which was sheathed in a smart white linen dress that gave no indication of the two months of new life that functioned beneath it.

  “A kid in the family,” said Billy. “That’s something new.”

  Giselle had pulled her hair back tight in a ponytail, more severe than I’d ever seen her look. Was she already shedding glamour to befit her incipient motherhood? Throttling down her sex appeal for the sake of the family gathering? I heard the closing of a car door and then saw through the parlor window Peg getting out of a Cadillac convertible (its top up), abetted by a soulful caress of her elbow by Roger, the lawyer, that bespoke something beyond a lawyer-client relationship. I noted Peg’s coy smile, the retreat of her elbow, and their mounting of the stairs together (Peg carrying a fat bag of fresh snowflake rolls and a strawberry pie from the Federal Bakery), and this instant gave me more insight into the femininity of my cousin Margaret than I had ever had heretofore. I could see the appeal she held for Roger, a man twenty-two years her junior, who was to be married in three weeks. But impending marriage was not an obstruction to fun for Roger, who en route to this luncheon meeting offered Peg an afternoon of pleasure at a hotel of her choice, a movie (Indiscreet was playing at the Strand), or an evening at an out-of-town summer theater (Silk Stockings was playing at Sacandaga, and he told Peg she had elegant legs, and she does).

  Peg told me all this when I taunted her with what I had seen as they arrived, adding that she had declined the offers, even though she thought Roger was “a doll.” And I believe her, cannot think of her as an adulterous woman, though of course what do I know? Also, I marveled at how quickly she offered up all this information to me, such frankness unheard of in this family, wherein affectionate elbow-stroking, had it been observed by Kathryn or Sarah, would have led to unexplained excommunication of both pairs of elbows from these sanctified rooms, not to mention the cancellation of lunch.

  Peter came down the front stairs to the parlor and sat in his leather chair, which was still where I’d seen it in 1934, though hardly in the same condition. He had tried to transfigure his appearance, banish the scraggle by wetting and combing his hair, perhaps even trimming his mustache; and, despite the heat of the day, wore an open-collared white shirt with a tan paisley neckerchief, brown corduroy sport coat with leather elbows, tan pants, and paint-speckled dress shoes.

  “Who’s here?” he said as he was easing himself into the chair, favoring his bad hip.

  “Everybody,” I said, and we moved toward him and took all the available seats in the room. I brought a dining-room chair for Molly, who came in wearing her apron, drying her hands on a kitchen towel. Peter surveyed the assemblage with a constant smile, then fixed on Giselle.

  “And how is Mother Gigi?” he asked. I had never heard anyone call Giselle Gi
gi before.

  “She’s sick every morning,” Giselle said, “but otherwise fine.”

  “Margaret, how’s the family?”

  “About the same,” Peg said, “except for Danny. He called me at the office this morning to say he’s getting married.”

  I looked at Giselle, who blinked at the news about Quinn. I wonder why? She did not look at me.

  “A Cuban girl,” Peg said.

  “New blood in the family,” Peter said.

  “Is she a Catholic?” Molly asked.

  “Who gives a royal goddamn?” Peter said.

  “All I know,” Peg said, “is that he’s very much in love.”

  “I should hope so,” said Peter. “Roger, I’m glad you could arrange your schedule to be here. And, Billy, it’s good to see you. It really is good to see you.”

  “Yeah, well,” Billy said, and he worked up half a smile.

  “Molly, you’re losing weight, but you look grand.”

  “And so do you,” said Molly, “with your kerchief.”

  “But you should take off that apron. A day of some formality requires the proper costume.” And as Molly untied her apron he looked at me. “And you should have a tie on for your guests, Orson.”

  “I’ll dress for lunch,” I said.

  I was wearing my usual shirtsleeves, slacks, and loafers; and who needs more in this weather? The answer is Peter, who was demanding proper tribute be paid to the patriarchal rite he was now conducting, and which I had organized. When it became clear that he would be getting a great deal of money for his Malachi Suite, he said to me offhandedly, “I don’t want to keep all that damn money. I won’t live long enough to make use of it. And when I go they’ll probably take half of it in taxes.”

  “What’s your alternative to being well off?”

  “Give it away.”

  “To needy painters?”

  “The family.”

  It began with that; then I called Peg to get a lawyer, for she had legal contacts I lacked. Enter Roger Dailey, perennial eligible bachelor, three-handicap golfer at Wolfert’s Roost Country Club, a junior partner in one of the city’s best law firms, member of an old Irish family with links to Arbor Hill when it was the neighborhood of the lumber barons and other millionaires. I talked him into coming to the house to see Peter, then left them alone. That was a month ago, and now here he was in his creamy Palm Beach suit, bringing us legal tidings.

  I hadn’t invited Giselle, for I’d evolved into thinking we were all but finished. But Peter took the matter out of my hands and invited her himself, which fixed the day of the event. It then fell to me to round up the others, which was a problem mainly with Roger, because today’s visit cut into his golf schedule (the rain would have canceled it in any case), and with Billy, who, as we all knew, loathed this house. But I got around everything and here we were, wondering what was about to happen, imagining what was in Peter’s mind, imagining Peter.

  “You have the goods, Roger?” Peter asked.

  “I do,” said Roger, taking a document from the legal-sized envelope he’d brought with him.

  “Then let’s not drag it out, just go ahead and read it.”

  “This arrangement isn’t unheard of, but it’s a bit unorthodox,” Roger began. “Then again we shouldn’t expect conformity from a major artist like Peter Phelan, whose last will and testament I’m about to read to you. Peter has decided its provisions should be made public not posthumously but today, here and now.” And then Roger read Peter’s ideas translated into legalese:

  “Because money has never been a source of anxiety in me, and because the pursuit of money was never what this family was about, I, Peter Joseph Phelan, have chosen to divide my modest, newfound wealth among my siblings, and the heirs of my siblings, for I do believe that my career turn toward financial reward and artistic recognition, which, however belated, has made me feel blessed with good fortune, has been a consequence of my knowledge of this family. And because I further believe that out of the collective evil to which so many members of this family have been heir, heiress, and victim (the scope of which I have only in very late years begun to understand) there can come some collective good, and because one known form of good is the easing of the financial woe that periodically besets us all, I therefore make the following bequests:

  “To my brother, Charles Edward Phelan, the sum of eleven thousand five hundred dollars;

  “To my sister, Mary Kathleen Phelan, the sum of eleven thousand five hundred dollars;

  “To my nephew, William Francis Phelan, the son of my late brother Francis Aloysius Phelan, the sum of five thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars;

  “To my niece, Margaret Mary Phelan, the daughter of my late brother Francis Aloysius Phelan, the sum of five thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars;

  “To my former concubine, Claire Theresa Purcell, in acknowledgment of two reasonably good years, and two decades of thoroughly unsatisfactory relationships, the sum of two dollars;

  “Further, concerning Orson Michael Purcell, my unacknowledged son by Claire Theresa Purcell, I do now fully and publicly acknowledge him as my true and only son, and appoint him the sole benefactor and executor of the remainder of my estate, after the bequests specified in this will have been distributed, and do invest him also with artistic and financial control over the future of all forty-seven finished, unsold paintings of mine, thirty-six other unfinished works of mine, and any new works I may undertake before my death, all profits from any sale or exhibition of these works, or any other of my worldly goods, holdings, or inheritances, to accrue to Orson alone, provided that he legally change his name to Orson Michael Phelan, and that he thereafter remarry, forthwith, his present wife, Giselle Marais Purcell, to insure that her unborn child of this moment, July the twenty-sixth, nineteen hundred and fifty-eight, will legally bear the Phelan name; and that if this issue be not a male child, that Orson pursue yet again the conception of a male heir with his wife of the instant, or, if that marriage is terminated, with a subsequent legal spouse, in order to insure at least the possibility of the Phelan name continuing beyond Orson’s own demise, this latter contingent action thus ending his responsibility for the Phelan line; for more than this no man should be asked to do.”

  In the silence that followed the reading we glanced where we had to, me at Giselle, all the others at Peter; and Peg spoke up first to say, “Uncle Peter, thank you, thank you. I don’t think you know how much this will mean to our family.” Fifteen hundred down: easy as apple pie.

  Molly walked over to Peter and kissed him on the cheek, said, “You have a good heart,” and went back to the kitchen tying on her apron. Billy stared at Peter with what I took to be puzzlement: Why is this guy givin’ money away? And why to me? But Billy made no statement except with his eyes.

  I caught Peter’s eye and I nodded at him. And then he nodded.

  Giselle stared at me, and in her look I saw more comprehension of what the will had said about us than I myself possessed at this moment; for while I’d known Peter planned to dispense money, and suspected I would get a bit of it, no thought of a paternity clause ever crossed my mind. I believed he would die without acknowledging me, and I had decided long ago that that was all right. Who needed legitimacy? The answer again was Peter. He needed it now that he was going public. He needed to tidy up his life, organize his death.

  He had not expected the professional and financial success that was now coming to him at such a late hour. But it happened that a few perspicacious gallery owners and museum people began to see that his work, despite the varied modes and genres in which he had painted and drawn, had about it a prevailing quality that now seemed to be singular. Recognition came to him as does the fixative an artist acquires at death: No more innovation for you, my friend; we read you at last. This handful of influential Peter-watchers saw him neither as sectarian of any art movement of his era, nor as yet another gadfly among trends. Now they saw an artist who had vaulted beyond his matrix, fused
the surreal, the natural, the abstract, and the figurative, and produced an oeuvre that was as cumulatively coherent as his motivation had been in creating the work.

  Peter Phelan, obsessive artist of Colonie Street, subsumed in the history of his family, all but smothered under his ancestors’ blanket of time, had willfully engaged it all, transformed history into art, being impelled to create, and purely, what Picasso had called “convincing lies”; for Peter believed that these lies would stand as a fierce array of at least partial Phelan truths—not moral truths, but truths of significant motion: the arresting of the natural world at an instant of kinetic and fantastic revelation; the wisdom of Lizzie’s lofted leg in her dance with the shadows; the wizardly acceptance of chicken droppings by the demented Crip Devlin; the madly collective flailing of arms in Banishing the Demons.

  This latter painting, the largest in the Malachi Suite, treats of the collective Peter mentioned in his will. By the light of an oil lamp, a candle, and a fire in the McIlhenny hearth (shadowed homage to La Tour), the players in the Malachi drama are enacting their contrary rituals: Kathryn Phelan (abundantly pregnant with Peter, the arriving artist) is sitting on the bed in the background, holding the hand of the beset Lizzie, who is supine in her calico chemise, blue flannel nightgown, and black stockings, her hair splayed wildly on her pillow; and the Malachi minions—the wizard Crip Devlin; Crip’s daughter, Mab (the image of the child who led me to Francis at the railroad tracks); Lizzie’s father, old Ned Cronin, who badly needed a shave; Malachi’s ancient cousin, Minnie Dorgan, with her dropsical stomach, and her stupid son, Colm, whose hair was a nest of cowlicks; and, central to it all, Malachi himself, with his wild curls and his wilder eyes, all these clustered figures pushing upward and outward with their arms (Colm gripping a lighted candle in his right hand and thrusting upward with his left), ridding the house of any demons that may have been summoned by the archdemon that Lizzie had become. The entrance door and two windows of the house are open to the night, and those errant demons, who well know that this room is inimical to their kind, are surely flying fearfully out and away, back to their covens of hellish darkness.