CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

I wake, wrenched from a dream, to the sun radiating through curtains. I was back in Larchmont, and Bill was phoning me. I was halfway down the stairs. I could see my feet clearly: soft-skinned, tanned and sinewy. My toenails were lacquered with pearl-coloured polish. The phone stood on top of the liquor cabinet and I had my hand on the receiver; I was lifting it to my ear. Faintly, I could hear Bill’s voice.

‘Is that you?’ Bill asked.

Green light fell through the curtains. I felt a tingling pleasure. I said, ‘It’s me. Where are you?’

I waited for Bill to answer, and heard him clear his throat. Then he said, ‘Annabel.’ It sounded like ‘Unnabel.’ The voice on the phone had changed. It was Frank.

Then Frank said, ‘I can’t talk. My mouth is too dry.’

I answered, ‘It’s all right. I know you passed away. I’m sorry.’

Don’t admit he’s dead, I thought. He’ll disappear.

It was too late. There was silence. I said, ‘Talk. Please. I’m listening.’ I tried to hear him breathe. Faintly, I heard music, a Mozart opera? Then the phone started again, even though I was still holding the receiver. On and on it rang; I could not stop the noise.

‘Where’s Bill?’ I called. ‘I thought I was talking to Bill.’

In my sleep, I shaped these words with my mouth. Then I woke.

The real phone in Lake George is a party line, running from our house and three other farms in the district to the exchange, rigged up with copper wire. It can’t be ringing for me. Even the sound it makes is different from Larchmont. It’s a low gravelly bring, rather than a clear peal.

What’s the use of asking where Bill is? I’ve known the answer for years. He writes to me. I’ve replied once. He’s on an Indian mission in North Dakota, where he is known as Dr John Peters. He was star witness for the prosecution of Suzy and other people he had scarcely met: actors and directors mostly, and a couple of academics. They were convicted under the Smith Act.

The dream was wishful thinking: that Bill might still be in Larchmont, and that I could go back there and be with him, our fraught past erased. Or even that Bill, Frank and Suzy had somehow evaded what befell them. What I really wanted to ask Bill—or even Frank—was this: how could this have happened? Who did we become?

Emma, who rarely sleeps this late, begins to wail. I go into her room and find her on the floor, the pale skin around her eyes flushed pink with crying. She’s a slender bird of a child, just three years old. We sit on the rug and I kiss her black hair where it is thin and silky at the part. I rock her, although it doesn’t stop her from crying.

I ask, ‘Did you fall out of bed?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was it a wild dream horse, bucking you off?’ She begins to smile. I say, ‘The horse has gone.’ I lift her up and gesture to the view of lake and khaki trees through the window. The water is glassy between the trees.

Emma is big enough to walk to the kitchen, but I carry her. Her weight in my arms, her fresh cake smell, is a comfort to me.

She points. ‘Bird,’ she says.

There’s a superb blue wren on the kitchen windowsill, pecking at his reflection. His head is a bright blue flash as his beak strikes the glass. I imagine the heart beating in his chest, mad with fury: he believes another bird has invaded his territory. He must drive this phantom away. He doesn’t think of the bruises he inflicts on himself as he flies against the window.

The real phone starts again. Emma slides off her seat. She reaches up to grab the receiver and holds it to her ear.

Emma says, ‘Hi.’

I can hear another voice, maybe two voices.

Emma says, ‘Bye bye.’ She drops the phone.

I say, ‘You have a dad. His name is Bill.’

The voices chatter on. They are oblivious, or are ignoring us.

‘I know,’ Emma says. ‘Bill Whitton.’

I say, ‘He wrote me a letter. He sent me a photo of where he lives now.’ I take it out of a drawer. I show her the photo. In the foreground, there are files, a fountain pen and a vase of prairie flowers. Outside the window are a few shanties, a road climbing between two hills. In the distance, there is the glimmer of Lake Sakakawea, and behind that the rising Rockies, or so his letter says.

She pushes the photo away, almost crumpling it. ‘Why is he there?’

I shake my head. His letter says: I came here to help—let me spell it out: I’m working on an Indian Reservation—to do penance for my past lives as weapons scientist, informer and witness for the prosecution.

I say, ‘He couldn’t come back with me.’

‘Why?’

‘The police needed him.’

‘The police,’ she echoes. She is in awe of them. ‘Why?’

When I ignore her question, I feel I’m as bad as her father. I slide my arms around her narrow shoulders and squeeze. She struggles, tips back her head and laughs.

‘When he coming?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not sure if he’ll come.’

‘Why?’

‘I haven’t written back yet.’

‘Why?’

‘I got his letter two weeks ago. I’m still thinking about what to say.’

‘Two weeks,’ she echoes.

I answer, ‘Help me pour oats into a saucepan.’

I lift her up, so she’s sitting on the counter, and place her hand on the carton of oats. Together we pour oats into the pot. I add water and stir.

In my mind’s eye, I see Bill’s face as a series of dark lines: his eyebrows, the creases at the corners of his eyes, his horizontal mouth, the lower lip a little full. I turn to Emma. Her face is a younger version of his: the eyelids heavy at the corners, the ample lower lip, the moss-coloured eyes. His face persists in hers.

What should I say to him? I could write: ‘The past is already a green dream. The Annabel Whitton who lived in Larchmont, even her feet are different.’ I look down at my unpainted toes. I stir porridge. I see my daughter’s little teeth as she smiles.

I could write, ‘You have a daughter. Her name is Emma Whitton.’

I am prepared: he may never believe that she is his child. Until now, I haven’t told him about her.

‘Come with me,’ I say. I lift Emma down from the counter and we go into her room, where through the window is a view of frost-burnt hills—it’s late winter. I take down Bill’s camera, which she uses as a toy. I don’t know if the film’s any good. I seat Emma on the yellow bedspread and say, ‘Smile.’ She puts her head to one side. She clasps her hands in her lap—she likes to pose. Through the viewfinder I see her face, as I hope Bill will see it. To my eyes it is miraculously beautiful. It is a face with features I never longed for or imagined, and yet when Emma was born, her expressions were the only things that mattered. Here is the sweep of her eyebrows, her rosy lips and her dimple.

‘Monkeys,’ she says. The word sends a chill through me. When I push the button, the chill is gone. There is a satisfying click. Somewhere inside the camera, a shutter opens and closes, and her image is captured.