Change is coming for the Sparlings. The fourteen-year-old Magnus can feel it. He accompanies his father to the Munster and Leinster Bank to change Irish pounds into US dollars. At the counter he watches Edwin formally receive the count-out and then sign traveller’s cheques with his fountain pen. This is all tremendously reassuring, and traveller’s cheques are exotic. He contributes by noting they should pack a bottle of ink.
In the taxi on the way to Dublin Airport, Magnus tries to occupy as much of the back seat as his father. He wants to see all his father sees, but the seat springs are weak and the stuffing has sunk to the frame-plate.
Edwin Sparling politely makes it clear to the driver that he wants minimal communication with him. Magnus knows to smile, be happy and be quiet. Magnus studies his father as they bounce. He sees that his father wants this journey to be a period of transcendence, but the taxi driver talks regardless. Magnus wants to tell the driver how delicate the situation is, and for him to shut his hole. But Magnus says nothing. His smile begins to ache, but he wants to be smiling.
Is it good or bad to be born and to live in Dublin? Magnus can’t say, but the streets pass through him, their sounds, theirs smells, their structure. His father is not fixing on the adventure ahead, but seems instead to be taking in the sights in case the plane crashes. This gives him a curious twitching of the nose.The twitching, Magnus thinks, has to do with concentrating, with his father keeping his nerve.
Stella, Magnus’ mother, doesn’t think this trip is wise; doesn’t think it is worth it; thinks it is a mistake. Edwin had listened to her patiently, had then informed her that he was taking Magnus. Stella had wept. What is she crying for? Magnus had wondered. They were going on an adventure. She could have come to America if she’d wanted. If she wasn’t too busy.
While Edwin queues at the check-in desk, Magnus wanders in the concourse and wishes his father had told his aunts what they were doing. Charlotte would have made Stella come to see them off. Aunt Maureen would have given in and come too. It would have been a blast to have the three sisters there, all wavy and laughing and teary, and full of chatter, because of it being an adventure.
The airport is familiar. It has important standing in the wider family. Sunday dinners at the zoo have been trumped by dinner at the airport. Stella, Edwin and Magnus. Aunt Charlotte often comes, and sometimes Aunt Maureen, though she is never comfortable with it. She had enjoyed the expeditions to the zoo, but had to be coaxed. She prefers the zoo to the airport, though she thinks it’s uncouth to eat there.
Everyone knows Stella is in her element at the airport. Hostesses are glamorous, but she cuts a more striking figure than any of them crossing the concourse, in her high heels, half a step ahead of her sisters. Edwin gets pleasure out of letting the sisters on. He holds Magnus back as though some lesson is to be learnt. ‘She’s a mystery, your mother,’ he says, as though there is no mystery at all.
There are jet planes to watch, and Stella to be seen. The meat and vegetables are usually cold, but the gravy is hot. Stella will swing her legs out from under the table and cross them with extraordinary ease, though in Magnus’ estimation it has to get sore leaving them out there as long as she does. On one occasion, Charlotte balances her teacup on Stella’s knee. It is meant as a joke – Magnus and his father laugh, even Maureen titters – but Stella doesn’t like it.
Now, this airport scene is eclipsed by a new association. Father and son’s expectations soar with the jet, up through the puffball clouds and into the blue. Twenty-five minutes later, they make a steep descent through a sheet of white onto the runway at Shannon Airport for the mandatory stopover. This presents as an affront to their high spirits. Edwin buys Magnus a Babycham at the bar of the duty-free hall. Though it is still morning, he treats himself to an Irish coffee – which was never his drink.
Two hours later, Magnus is eating his dinner over the Atlantic. As soon as he is finished, he swings his legs into the aisle and crosses them. His father doesn’t seem to mind. Doesn’t seem to notice, actually. It is an air hostess who smiles and says ‘Excuse me’ and waits for Magnus to swing them in again.
‘You made short work of that,’ Edwin says, nodding at the boy’s tray. Evidently, he is relieved Magnus has not lost his appetite.
‘It was very lovely,’ Magnus declares, thinking it is important to be absolutely clear with his opinion from this moment on.
Father and son change into their best clothes in a toilet at Los Angeles Airport. Good Van Heusen shirts, new Clarks shoes, ties bought in Switzers. Edwin puts on a dark mohair suit, and Magnus a light sports jacket, also from Switzers. They have v-neck pullovers in case the nights are cold. These form the top layer in the grip-bag Magnus is carrying.
‘The stripes go in a different direction on an American tie,’ Edwin declares, to make the wearing of a tie more palatable. They both have striped ties. ‘I wonder will anybody notice the trouble we’ve gone to?’
‘They’ll notice, all right,’ the smiling boy says.
‘Good.’ Edwin says they might drive the distance and go straight to the house.
‘Do I have to wear the tie?’
‘You do.’
‘The trousers are bad enough … ’
‘Aren’t they flairs?’
‘Yes, but … ’
‘Didn’t you pick them out?’
‘Because you made me.’ His mother was a good judge of what he should wear. She knew about men’s fashion – even fashion for teenage boys – but she didn’t get to approve this outfit, because she wasn’t told about this trip in advance. She was staying with her sister, Charlotte. Or was out with other men.
‘We’re ready for anything, the two of us,’ Edwin says. They are looking each other over as they cross the airport concourse. Magnus has already taken off the sports jacket and has it on a crooked finger at his shoulder. ‘I’m not wearing the jacket.’
‘You don’t have to,’ Edwin concedes. ‘Just have it to hand. That, and your pullover.’
His father has bought him a diver’s watch, which he likes very much. It has to be seen at all times. Magnus also wants people to see his identity bracelet, which has his Christian name engraved on the inside.
Like many Irish of his generation, America holds a fascination for Edwin, but it is not his spiritual home. For Magnus, he is sure, it will be different. The hiring of an American car to drive several hundred miles is a dreamy affair. Edwin loves cars, though he is never a bore about it, and never boastful. He claims to know a lot by the sound of an engine. He is an old-school professional gent for whom motoring is part family conveyance, part lifelong personal hobby. He has never driven in right-hand traffic before, but he knows what he is doing. He wants to drive a stick-shift convertible, but the only convertible available at the airport today is an automatic.
The car is handed over by a tall black man in a pressed, short-sleeved shirt. He has a name-badge. Preston Jones. Magnus memorises the name. Preston holds out a clipboard to Edwin: sign here for the insurance; that’s how much gas there is in the tank. He hands Edwin the keys. Thank you, sir. Edwin is smiling, too. He can’t get over himself.
Edwin has never driven an automatic, but you wouldn’t know it to watch him drive the tan-coloured Buick with white convertible top out of the wire compound.
‘Now, Magnus,’ he says, ‘when we get out on the highway you are to look for signs for Bakersfield.’ He speaks with the authority of a driving instructor, but with obvious pleasure. Magnus knows his father has the route planned, but wants to include him from the outset. An American wouldn’t know my dad hadn’t been in America before, Magnus is thinking. Preston Jones didn’t know, he is sure.
They head east from the airport, avoiding central Los Angeles, then north towards Pasadena. They aren’t here to see Hollywood, to visit film studios and tour the houses of stars. That has to be firmly acknowledged. It is simply part of the extraordinary route to Edwin’s birth-mother. To stop to make a little holiday, to alter the purpose even for a short interlude, would be bad karma.
They don’t expect to see a film star or famous musician in their auto or coming out of an expensive shop. Nor do they think they will see a scene being shot on location. Nor do they. They do, however, drive down streets lined with the very tall palm trees that Magnus recognises as featuring on the LP label of Warner Brothers.
Monkishly applying themselves to their mission empowers them, they believe. Edwin promises they will drive around Hollywood and act like a pair of swanks, as he puts it, on the way back.
They have put on too much suntan oil. Too much suntan oil makes you go orange, Magnus tells his father. It certainly makes his hair stick to his forehead. For Edwin it just blends into his hair oil. Edwin seems much better adapted to the climate than Magnus. How is that? Magnus knows that he should study his father more closely then he has ever done before. This is a momentous trip and there is a lot to be learnt.
There are dentists and opticians with their offices in skyscrapers. Downtown, that is. Undertakers, too, perhaps. And whores. They can be anywhere in every city and can also be found on some ranches. There are definitely orgy clubs in Los Angeles. Magnus has been told as much by Taaffe, the school rebel and sometime bully. He wonders does Edwin know that. The whole floor is a mattress. Taaffe had said it is best to keep your socks on, though he didn’t say why. Some of the places have pools with submerged seats where they sit naked. In America women who sit in such pools go to the shops wearing no knickers. You won’t be able to tell where these clubs are by just driving down the street. But you will see whores on Sunset Boulevard. Whores on Sunset Boulevard wear knickers, but only because it gets cold at night. They’ll show you their knickers if you ask, and you won’t have to pay for that.
On a straight stretch out on the highway, Edwin takes his hands off the steering wheel for a moment. He says it is to check the wheel balance, but really, it is for the excitement. Magnus had not seen his father do such a thing before, but this is no ordinary journey. He is thrilled, but feels safe because he knows his dad to be a cautious man and a good judge of margins of error.
‘Can we put the roof down?’ Magnus asks.
‘Yes, we can. You find the switch,’ Edwin says, knowing right well where the switch is located.
Magnus lets down the roof. ‘We could have the radio.’
‘Let’s have it,’ Edwin replies.
Magnus turns on the radio. It is tuned to an evangelical station. They listen for a moment. In the peaks of this particular homily, the preacher-man is presenting as heartbroken wailer. He makes the name Jesus very long on the airwaves. In the troughs he seems to be sorrily mumbling wartime code. Attack the bridge tonight. The Yanks are coming. Magnus rolls the knob and immediately hits a smooth twanging rock. He gives a little squeak of delight. They are in the land that makes this music.
‘Will we have some jazz?’ his father asks mischievously.
‘No, dad.’ But he rolls the knob until he finds jazz. Then, there are high-energy commercials to which they both listen intently. Magnus had been wanting his father to buy a Ford Capri. It’s a car with a rev counter – that’s rare – and it’s a coupe. It’s a good time to remind him, and so he does. Edwin says he just might, smiles, and puts on a spurt of speed.
He is his father’s companion. They are on a mission. They are travelling in a fast convertible across a stretch of America. It doesn’t get much better if you are a fourteen-year-old boy.
Edwin doesn’t drive directly north on the main highway to Bakersfield, but turns off at Santa Clarita on a route that takes them through part of the Mojave Desert. Then, they cut back through the mountains. It is cowboy desert. A cowboy desert with this bullet road running through it. ‘I know this place,’ Magnus wants to shout, but he doesn’t want to make his father jump. He opens his mouth to take it in. Lets his mouth fill instantly with hot, dry air. He lets out a yelp, when really, he wants to shriek. Desert dust hitting the back of his throat does this.
Magnus finds he can’t take in the experience just yet. His father has him on edge because his father is scared to be doing what he is doing.
Can they go to Eureka Dunes, Magnus asks. The sand dunes boom there. They make an eerie and fantastic sound.
It is much too far away, Edwin tells him. Magnus needs to remember the scale of this continent, and the vast distances, place to place. They are only making a modest detour here and yet look at the mileage.
Magnus shows his father a picture in their guidebook. Buying the guidebook was OK, having it with them in the glove compartment with the bottle of ink was OK too, but Magnus knows his father is uneasy with any reference to it because that somehow detracts from their quest. Eureka Dunes, however, is important, Magnus has decided, and in a strange and secret way may be part of his father’s salvation. He will not say this, be he must make him want to go. ‘There they are,’ he says. He holds the map so his dad can see it. He points to Death Valley, runs his finger back to where they are currently. ‘Look, we’re just here … ’
Edwin laughs, which offends Magnus. ‘That’s much too far, son.’
Ranging in Eureka Dunes, they could be sure, would be special. A visit to the blood-mother might not. It might turn everything bad. Magnus folds the map the wrong way, stuffs it into the pages of the guidebook, throws the bundle onto the back seat. ‘Can we stop here to look around?’ he asks resentfully.
Magnus doesn’t really want to stop in this place, and Edwin wants to make good time. Edwin will only slow down. ‘Look at that,’ he says repeatedly, pointing with an open hand. ‘What do you think?’ Magnus, he sees suddenly, is so very nearly not a boy.
They’ll pull in further up the road, Edwin promises. He wants to inspect the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which they will cross on the near side of the mountain range. Why, Magnus asks. Why look at something like that. He doesn’t really want an answer. He just wants to register a protest. It is a great engineering feat, his father tells him. Later, they will find a nice spot in the mountain park he’s marked on the map.
‘There’s two aqueducts, actually,’ Edwin informs him enthusiastically. ‘What do you think?’
Magnus doesn’t think anything much about aqueducts, so he says nothing. He wants this floating to go on for days and nights. Wants to cut across the open desert, but at speed, then stop to explore without any explanations.
‘There were all sorts of scandal associated with the project,’ Edwin says, ‘but what a feat.’
It annoys Magnus that his father has read up on this stuff and wants to revel in it. Weren’t they only allowed the one mission: to meet the blood mother? Only after that encounter could they make another plan: wasn’t that what his father had insisted?
‘If we get our business done and get back on the road early,’ his father says, reading Magnus’ mind, ‘if we don’t waste time, we might take another detour. We might just have enough time for the Hoover Dam.’
Will we be able to go straight there, Magnus wants to ask. He means drive a straight line and at high speed. But he doesn’t ask. Though he would like to see the Hoover Dam, he feels he should offer no encouragement. He has settled for the raid on the blood-mother. If there is anything after, it should be Eureka Dunes. ‘You mightn’t feel like it,’ he says, trying to be generous.
‘We’ll see,’ Edwin replies softly, and builds the speed at which they are travelling.
Magnus likes to see the miles clocking up. He makes regular checks with the counter. Racked by tremorous anticipation, Edwin, too, watches the mileometer. Their displacement brings long, expectant silences between father and son as they drive through the landscape. This is a sacred, ghostly adventure, and both are incredulous when they consider their action.
They don’t stop to inspect either of the aqueducts. That Hoover Dam slips out of reach. Eureka Dunes may as well be on the moon.
Magnus consoles himself with the smooth hiss of the tyres on the highway, the soft, fast ride that lets him slide his eyes along a distant saw-tooth ridge of pine-covered mountain. This expanse, these scenes, have always been in him. Like Dublin rain.
‘Look at that, dad,’ he says, putting a finger out against the blast of oncoming air and tracing the jags. ‘You could tear off a piece of sky if you could reach.’
‘Oh aye.’ Edwin doesn’t know what his son is talking about, but Magnus is content to let his father be distracted. He tries to read the music of these continental lines. What he hears, he will remember forever.
These are big trees, but nothing like as impressive as what is further north, he knows. These woods give way to ridges that are bare, but beautiful in the smoky-pink evening light.
‘The trees,’ Magnus says, turning his head as they slide behind. He leaves his arm extended in the air-stream. ‘The jagged trees. You could rip the sky on them.’ Now, he’s feeling a little foolish for repeating himself.
‘Sugar pines, I think,’ Edwin says, surprisingly.
They are both high on excitement. Why should he feel foolish? He gladly repeats the name. ‘Sugar pines.’
‘I might be wrong,’ his father adds with a careless grin.
Magnus opens out the map to measure again the distance to Eureka Dunes. At the point of having one quarter of it spread, the map blows out of his hands and the whole of America takes off back down the road and up into the air with an enormous leap. Edwin’s first reaction is to slow and prepare to stop, but then he lets out a cheer and drops his foot on the accelerator. Magnus struggles in his belted seat, manages to get on his knees to look back into the sky. It isn’t good to be a clumsy companion, but he sends a giddy cheer after the tumbling sheet of paper.
They’re burning, Edwin realises. He lets up the soft roof.
Magnus wants to pee. Up ahead there is a large shopping mall on a spur from the highway. They pull out of the flow on a long, slow bend that leads to a vast car park. Edwin doesn’t want to delay, doesn’t want to be slowed by air-conditioned interiors and easy buying. There are woods on one side of the complex. Densely packed, tall, skinny trees. There is no fence, no boundary other than the curb and the first line of trees. Edwin pulls the Buick in alongside the curb.
‘You can go in there, Magnus.’
‘Are we not going into the shops?’
‘No. We haven’t time. You go in there and I’ll get us some sweeties.’
The use of the word sweeties – that offends Magnus. Sweeties are a bribe for kiddies. Still, he takes account of the fact that his father is confused by generations, never mind his son’s true age.
‘All right.’
‘I’ll get us something American.’
Well of course he is going to get them something American. Magnus is used to seeing his dad being distracted in the presence of Stella, especially when they are dressed up and in the company of others. Was the confusion spreading?
Edwin pulls away in the tan-coloured car. It is a strange sight. There has to be a thrill to being abandoned, albeit temporarily. This is what bubbles under Magnus’ ribs, as he steps through the coarse yellow grass.
As soon as he enters the woods, the air about his face is cooler, but no less dry. The sounds from the parking lot instantly seem uncannily distant and exotic. The ground is relatively even, but he advances cautiously. He is embarrassed to be observed from any distance peeing, so he intends to go deep. He descends into a hollow. He has an urge to explore as long as he dares. Content to be away long enough to have his father worry. Magnus’ sweeties can melt a little on the front passenger seat.
Eventually, Magnus does stop to pee. When he is finished, he leaves his penis out for a time and stays perfectly still because it is a nice thing to do. He puts his hands on his hips and studies the tree canopy. When he hears a flurry in the bushes some way off, he nips his skin on the zip of his trousers tucking himself in. At the end of the hollow, something comes out of a thicket and quickly comes at him. It is fast and low-slung. It is a hunting dog. It behaves like no dog he knows. It freezes suddenly and modifies its breathing to recoup moisture dripping from its tongue. It is giving Magnus’ position. It is waiting for an order. To attack. To retrieve. The lone hunter does not come through the thicket, but around it in a wide arc, appearing silently with rifle at the ready, a sure-kill distance from the spot where Magnus stands. Magnus knows not to make sudden movements, even now that man and dog have seen him. It seems incredible to the boy that they are less than a thousand yards from a shopping mall, but here is this man in camouflage with a dog, out for killing.
Magnus waves at him, though it presents as a wildly exaggerated gesture at this range. Suddenly, the dog is at him, sniffing and whimpering. The hunter stands motionless and staring, for all Magnus knows, sensing with the hairs on his ears the vibrations of animal movement in another part of the wood.
The hunter makes a kind of hiss-whistle that immediately brings the dog to heel. He then gives a slow jerk of his chin – which Magnus thinks is either to indicate that Magnus is lucky he hadn’t been shot, or that he should now run for his life. He doesn’t know which. Though his heart is pounding, Magnus maintains eye-contact. Man-eyes and dog-eyes are indistinguishable.
‘Nice dog you have,’ Magnus lies with a clack in his dry throat.
The hunter says nothing. Just stands there and waits for the boy to get out of the woods – which Magnus does with an initial bolt that startles all three of them. He springs from the tree-line so quickly that he is nearly knocked down by a slow-moving silver Mustang.
A hunter with his dog in the trees beside a shopping mall. It is more incredible to Magnus now that he stands out in the open.
He might have been shot dead, or killed under the wheels of a car, but America has spared him. Edwin is waiting anxiously in the wrong place. Magnus finds the car by running two sides of the perimeter of the parking lot.
‘Where were you?’ Edwin demands, even before his son is properly in the passenger seat.
‘I was where I should be. I was back there. Where you left me.’ The alarm in his voice is unmistakable.
‘This was the spot,’ his father insists.
Magnus comes back, but suppresses his alarm with a kind of trembling wonder. ‘You weren’t looking out for me,’
‘Your fly is open. For God’s sake, Magnus … ’
Magnus tells his father nothing about the hunter and his dog.
Their route takes them through Woody’s Peak. The way is well signposted. There is a large car park with heavy wooden picnic tables and barbecue grills. They are on a rock-pile with the Los Angeles Basin behind them and the San Joaquin Valley ahead. There aren’t many cars or camper vans. It is a working day. There is a thick heat haze and no wind to speak of. Edwin pulls over, away from the picnic area to a spot that would have offered a spectacular view ahead were it not for the conditions. He switches off the engine and throws his arms along the backs of their seats.
‘Smell that,’ he says.
‘What?’ Magnus asks. Are there sausages and rashers cooking?
‘The high mountain air.’
Magnus can’t smell it. It’s a phony remark as far as he’s concerned, but he knows his dad has planned to say this, and that he should go along with it. He draws a deep breath.
‘There could be bears,’ he says with a casual exhalation.
‘You might be right,’ Edwin replies, humouring him.
They are getting to their picnic when a funeral party comprising a hearse and one limousine rolls up the final stretch of incline, circles and pulls in to the shade a short distance from the Buick. These cars seem to function without engines. There is just the sound of their tyres on the gravel. They stay in convoy formation. People get out. Family stand about with rounded shoulders looking well-scrubbed and dazed while the limousine driver goes to the boot and takes out two baskets of food, a collapsible table and six folding chairs, which he sets about arranging. The two hearse-men get out and stand respectfully by their vehicle with their hands behind their backs. They gaze at the rock formation. Their hearse is still shiny in spite of having a layer of fine road dust. It has a matt hard-top with slender italic ‘S’s in chrome on either side. Magnus wonders why anyone might want to pretend the vehicle is a convertible, like theirs. It has a light-fixture on the roof, just above the windscreen, that is like a police set, but it is purple. This is a good idea, Magnus thinks, though he can’t think why. It is a sleek modern hearse, but there is a wavy pelmet with tassels in the rear compartment. It sits heavily on the ground. The casket looks like it is made of bronze. Both hearse driver and mate are allowed long hair under their caps, one thick and curly, the other fine and straight. The limousine driver has short hair, but a heavy blond sweep across the forehead. Their glowing white shirts have extra-long collar tips that reflect light onto their tanned chins and make them look like film stars.
Something comes over Edwin. It is as if the party has pulled over on his account. Magnus sees that his father is mesmerised and that bizarrely, he wants to connect with these people. It is strange to see a hearse with an American casket with a body in it, and the relatives having a sit-down picnic on the side. Magnus wants to gawk, but his dad wants more. He can only assume it has to do with his anxious state of mind, and the heat, perhaps. It might be different were they able to see for miles and miles.
In the event, Edwin only has to make a token move in their direction. Magnus tries unsuccessfully to hang back. He wants to hear the worst. A middle-aged woman makes it easy for Edwin. It is as though she is expecting to engage. ‘Are you going to Los Angeles?’ she asks.
‘No, we’re visiting relatives in Bakersfield.’
Edwin hides his disappointment that there is no positive spark of recognition, no show of interest in the town of Bakersfield.
‘We’re burying Walt in the family plot.’
‘I see. In Los Angeles?’
‘We’ll have a service down there, then he goes in the family plot.’
‘Well, that’s as it should be, I’m sure.’
‘I don’t know,’ she says.
They move towards each other, in a penguin waddle. Now they stand forming a wedge and facing the hearse, but not looking at it directly. Older people do this positioning thing, Magnus notes, especially in public. Other people in the park who have noticed the hearse come into their midst, but they just look for a brief moment, and make a point of not being bothered. It is their way of showing respect, Magnus supposes, a way of not making a spectacle of it. He thinks again about his own ancient American blood-relative.
Is she rich, he wonders? Has she liver spots and skinny brown arms? Does she wear a white turban, big sunglasses and sneakers? Does she still get into a swimsuit? She might be a spectacle.
‘Walt is your husband?’ Edwin asks.
‘My brother. He was only sixty-two. Only sixty-two.’
‘Oh dear. I am so sorry.’ This stopover seems to have a ceremonial character to it. The family is taking in the scenery in a most deliberate manner. Edwin wants to show empathy. ‘He was a man who loved the outdoors?’ he ventures.
‘Oh yes.’
He worked as an engineer, perhaps? He is an architect himself, he informs her. He and young Magnus have crossed the two aqueducts, of course. What a marvellous feat of engineering.
No. The deceased wasn’t an engineer. Walt was a margin clerk in a firm of stockbrokers. He retired early, came up north, got himself a place, bought a gas station just out of town.
‘But he liked this place?’
‘Oh yes.’
Walt’s father had a ranch but he lost it. Left Walt just a pair of shoes and his cufflinks.
‘Oh dear.’
‘But Walt made good.’
Edwin was sure he did.
‘He married her.’ She points.
‘Ah. I see.’
‘I’m his sister,’ she repeats.
Edwin doesn’t ask what the father left Walt’s sister.
‘You can say something to her if you want.’
‘Well … yes. I will.’
‘Walt would like that. He was interested in buildings.’
‘And he liked coming up here.’
‘Oh yes.’
Edwin doesn’t really want to speak to the widow. Doesn’t want to intrude. She appears sedated, set on her course in a confused manner. ‘You live up north, too?’
‘We don’t live anywhere near.’ Again, she points, this time to a shiny-headed softie bursting out of his dark suit. ‘That one’s my husband. We live in Louisiana. He’s from Baton Rouge.’
‘Baton Rouge?’
‘You know Baton Rouge?’
‘I know the name. I know where it is on the map.’
‘We don’t live there.’
Edwin doesn’t ask where she and her big husband live.
‘We’re in transport.’ She says this because the stranger has told her he is an architect. It’s only polite. ‘You want to join us for food? We got lots of food.’ She makes a gesture and shuffles the short distance to the family group.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ Magnus hears his father say. He can’t believe it. What is his father at? Does he have heatstroke?
‘I’m Edwin. This is my son, Magnus.’ Edwin pushes him forwards with a thumb in his back. They are introduced to the other strangers. They even shake hands with the undertaker people.
‘And that’s Walt,’ Walt’s wife says, pointing.
Magnus blushes, and squirms in his pants. The whole experience is excruciating, but the food is nice. All sorts of sausage, and salads with fruit instead of a hard-boiled egg. He would have liked a hard-boiled egg, though.
He has to listen to his father ingratiating himself with Walt’s people. He has to watch him act like some weird ambassador man. You’re from Ireland. Oh my. The big shiny man likes the Buick. He leans on the bonnet with the tips of his fingers looking like he might make an offer on it, but no. Walter’s convertible is in back of the gas station. This man will be getting that.
When the picnic things are packed away and it’s time to leave, sister links arms with sister-in-law for the few steps to the limousine. Nobody thinks to say goodbye to Edwin and his son, who have drifted back to their rented car. All of a sudden Edwin feels compelled to move on.
‘How are we for time, son?’ he asks, distracted, as he searches his trouser pockets for the car keys.
‘I don’t know,’ Magnus replies sullenly. He feels he has been deprived of some wider, indefinable experience.
‘Now remember, you’re in charge of map-reading.’
‘Just follow the signs,’ Magnus says, throwing himself into the front passenger seat. ‘Just go straight.’
‘They were nice people,’ Edwin says, turning over the engine.
‘I suppose.’
‘It’s sad about Walt.’
Magnus doesn’t like his father’s tone, which seems to suggest the dead man is an old family friend. If this is meant to be some sort of lesson about it being OK to be upset, Magnus doesn’t need it. ‘Do you think if they left him in this place the bears would eat him? A bear could break open that coffin easily.’
Magnus sees by the way his father’s face flushes as he laughs that he thinks this is a boy’s way of coping – which only adds to Magnus’ annoyance.
‘Hey,’ Edwin says, ‘we still have those whopping sandwiches.’ He tussles Magnus’ hair and reverses the car in a wide arc. Before pulling away, he makes a gesture that is half wave, half salute, but the funeral party is already driving across the car park towards the Los Angeles Basin. People raise their heads to observe. Children pause to watch the dead man glide. Looking back, Magnus sees one man raise his straw hat into the haze before they slide off the mountain.