Two weeks passed and Madeleine didn’t call. David was like a waif living on the streets, sidelined, blown here and then there by gusts of emotion, hunkered down from time to time under the temporary shelter of some adult demand upon his time, a phone call, lunch with a client.
In the office, Bernice watched him with the corners of her mouth down, her lips pushed forward, studying his face, wondering. Vaguely, he implied that he was at odds with himself about retiring. Maybe he was. Let her think that anyway, he said to himself.
He tried to arrive home as late as possible; he couldn’t eat and he couldn’t sit still or relax anyway. Leon didn’t answer his cell phone, and his office said he was out of town, so there was no squash, nobody to talk to, nothing to distract him.
At night, David lay awake in bed until the birds started to sing, then got up and took a long shower and went out in the thin dawn light, walking. He never saw Francine, but one night he found himself taking pity on Puck who whimpered and yapped down in the basement whenever he heard the front door open.
‘You poor lonely little bastard,’ David said, crouching down and opening the cage and letting Puck come slobbering onto his knees. He picked the dog up and held him close against his chest and stroked him until Puck lapped his face, snorting.
‘What a sucker you are, Puck. Why should you love me? I treat you like shit. We all do. This whole family completely neglects you, and you just hang around hoping for a little something. A little anything. You’re just totally committed, aren’t you? You dumb, loyal thing.’
It made him feel better, though, to have Puck’s company. And with Puck that night, David came close to shedding a tear; it was Puck’s unguarded, pulsing heart that David could feel so easily in the eager, tiny body.
So he took Puck upstairs with him. You’re fucking desperate, Judd, he told himself. But the dog’s comfort was the only comfort there was.
‘I’ll bet you’d like a little look around, huh? Come on.’
David was pretty sure that Francine never let Puck out of the basement anymore except to go outside. So they walked through all the empty rooms and David thought about Gordon and Hope. He started to realize that he hadn’t spoken to them since the day Madeleine was taken away in the ambulance. They’d left messages for him, which he should have answered. I miss them, he thought. I really miss them.
He tried to weigh the two pains against one another: Madeleine and her daughter, Gordon and Hope. And then he thought, It’s not about pain. That’s not how you decide. It’s about what I promised them, what we agreed. And it’s about their future. I have to try to guarantee that somehow.
Anyway, I can’t do the second thing if I haven’t done the first thing. I can’t be a good father to a new child by being a bad father to the older ones. It’s a complete contradiction. A good father is—a good father.
David hadn’t been all the way up to the nursery since the children had left for Virginia. He saw that Francine kept it spotless; there was no dust anywhere and not a mark on the honey-colored carpet. Puck sniffed here and there; nothing seemed to grip him. The rooms smelled like wet wool; David squatted down and put his palm on the carpet, it was damp to the touch, newly washed. As if anyone was going to come and check Francine’s work, he thought to himself. How does Elizabeth exert such power over Francine from so far away?
Idly, he opened a closet. There were tall cardboard boxes standing in a neat row toward the back. The children had left behind a few toys. There were the walkie-talkies from Christmas. Those will work fine in the States, David thought, maybe Norma didn’t realize. He stuffed one in each trouser pocket, remembering how earnestly they had tackled their own invented versions of Sardines, Room Service, and the all-over-the-house all-out laughing Sneak Attack. Maybe I should get Francine to take the rest away, he thought. She must know someone with kids this age. The new people will probably just throw this stuff out.
He tipped the boxes forward, looking through. Winter clothes—coats and sweaters, Gordon’s dark green school uniform with brilliant red stripes on the socks. They smelled of moth balls. And behind the boxes he saw Hope’s battered little mint-green bed, dismantled, and the mattress against the rear wall with a stain of learning on it that made him smile. But it was a forlorn smile.
‘Puck,’ he said to the dog, ‘we’ve got to get Francine on the case. Look at all this stuff that’s been forgotten. I wanted Hopie to keep that bed. It was my mother’s bed.’
It hurt him to think of Elizabeth discarding the bed; on the other hand, why should he feel surprised? It was just how she’d been about the house in Nantucket.
He stepped deeper into the closet, pulling the boxes aside and squinting at the picture painted on the headboard of the bed, the little white sailboat with the storybook children aboard, and his mother’s name on the stern, Hope.
I guess Elizabeth knows it’s all here, he said to himself. She must have some sort of plan.
He set the boxes back in their row and closed the closet doors, clicking his tongue at Puck.
‘Let’s go, buddy.’
They went down to the master bedroom and David picked up the phone from the floor to call Virginia. Puck jumped onto the bed beside him and curled up like a glossy black comma on the white bedspread.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Eating supper with Pedro.’
‘Pedro?’
‘You know, the cook here. He takes care of us when Norma’s resting.’
‘How’s Norma?’
‘Norma’s okay. She rests a lot and she can’t take us swimming which is too bad because it’s pretty hot. Mr Richards said he would take us when he has time.’
‘Mr Richards?’
‘The farm manager. Daddy, you have to come here! You don’t know anything! You’re hardly in this family now!’
‘Mummy can’t take you swimming?’
‘Mummy’s still in New York.’
‘Mummy’s in New York?’
‘She has foundation work,’ Gordon said. ‘It’s only for about a week; she’s probably coming back tomorrow.’
‘Well, that sounds good, if Mummy’s busy and off to New York. I’ll bet that’s fun for her.’
‘Maybe. But I guess she misses you. She doesn’t say much.’
David felt a little dart of fear. ‘Is she staying in her room again?’
‘No. She comes out. But she just—you know—doesn’t want to do anything. Maybe it’s too hot for her here.’ There was a pause. ‘She talks on the phone.’
David changed the subject. ‘And what about the riding?’
‘Well, we haven’t really started that yet. They need to arrange it. We’re just kind of—waiting still.’
‘You’re still waiting to start the riding? But you’ve been there six or seven weeks now, longer—’ David felt the injustice of this. How could Elizabeth let the whole summer go by? He stopped himself from asking Gordon anything more about it. He couldn’t question Elizabeth when he wasn’t even there, and certainly not to the children.
He assuaged his guilt by stroking Puck harder and harder. Puck rolled onto his back; he seemed to be smiling.
‘So school starts in just a couple more weeks, yeah?’ David said. ‘It’ll be fun to meet your new classmates.’
‘Mummy hasn’t told us about that yet,’ said Gordon. ‘But I guess I won’t mind. It gets boring here. You should really come, Daddy.’
‘I’m going to come. Soon,’ David said. ‘Should I talk to Hopie?’
‘Okay.’
There was silence, then a sound like a chair scraping as Gordon handed over the phone.
‘Hi, Daddy! When are you coming home?’
‘As soon as I can, Hopie. I’ve got Puck here.’
‘I remember Puck,’ said Hope.
‘You better remember Puck! He remembers you! He’s dying to see you.’ David stroked the dog’s tummy and Puck’s legs trembled with pleasure. ‘Aren’t you, Puck?’ he said to the dog. ‘Aren’t you dying to get to Virginia and see those kids?’
‘Bye, Daddy.’ The phone went dead.
David listened for another second, then shrugged. I suppose that’s all she wanted to say, he thought to himself. He reached down and dropped the receiver back on the cradle on the floor. Then he sat on the bed feeling a little stunned. I’m getting cut off from everyone, he thought.
So he started thinking about airplane tickets. I suppose Bernice better get me on a flight. I’m not really doing anything in the office anyway.
When would be the right time to leave? Why make a ceremony of it? He’d been avoiding going to Virginia. It seemed so final.
Maybe I should have made a few trips over during the summer, he thought. But then, hadn’t Elizabeth sort of encouraged him to stay behind and finish up for good? Hadn’t he been far too busy? The truth was, he just didn’t want to go. He felt the chill of it, like the grave licking his toes, the brown suction of the earth, of night, of giving in.
It’s dragged on long enough, he thought. She’s not taking care of the kids properly. Norma’s only half able to. They’ve had a crummy summer and they haven’t even seen their new school.
He picked up Puck to take him down to the basement. I wonder if I am supposed to do something about the dog and the house? Maybe I’d better take the dog with me? How the hell else will he get there?
The next morning, David called Leon’s office.
‘Mr Halberg should be back from New York today,’ he was told.
So at ten he tried Leon’s cell phone.
‘How was New York?’
‘I’m just coming in from the airport now,’ Leon said. ‘I’ve lost a lot of blood, but I guess I’m alive. I still have an office here, anyway—for the moment. And the job at LSE, if they don’t kick me out for being the opposite of an expert.’
‘Can I buy you dinner tonight? It’s my farewell party. I’m going to leave this weekend.’
‘You’re leaving?’ Leon sounded genuinely amazed.
‘It’s time, Leon.’
‘What about the girl?’
‘Yeah, well. The girl doesn’t seem to want me. And my kids do. We can talk about it tonight. Want to do the Oxo Tower again?’
‘How about tomorrow night? And maybe just something ground level? I mean—it’s your party, but I wouldn’t mind someplace where I can lick my wounds kind of quietly.’
‘Well, let’s go to Le Caprice. They’ll look after us.’
‘I can get there by maybe eight thirty?’
‘Yeah, fine.’
When David looked around his office door and asked Bernice to book the table, he realized he ought to take Bernice out someplace, too. He could take her to lunch. But the prospect horrified him. I just can’t get into all this shit, he said to himself. I can’t do goodbye all over the place all week. I can’t bear it. So, with Bernice, he stuck to making arrangements.
He opened the door all the way and took a few steps toward her desk. ‘Bernice, make sure my wife knows when I’m getting in. She’s been in New York, but the secretary at the house in Virginia will know how to get a message to her. She might be getting home today anyway. And can you check with the airlines about the dog? I need to bring the little pug—he maybe weighs eight or ten pounds—for the children. Find out how I do it. Thanks, Bernice.’
She was pink around the eyes. Too bad, David thought, my guts are on the floor. You just have to deal with it, Bernice.
And as he was turning back toward his office, it occurred to him for the first time ever that Bernice might be sweet on him. Jesus, he thought. That takes the cake. But it explained a few things. It’d be cruel to invite her to lunch then, he decided. I’ll buy her a present. Some Hermès thing. And for some reason, the idea made him unbearably sad.
I want to give Madeleine something, he thought. I want Madeleine to know—what? That I’ll be back?
Will I be back?
He knew he couldn’t leave without seeing Madeleine.
Why hasn’t she fucking called me? She’s practically driving me away. All during the last two weeks, David had been gradually resigning himself to that: Madeleine wasn’t going to call him. She didn’t want to see him; she didn’t want to talk to him. She wasn’t going to let him see the baby. She was begging him to hurry up and go.
He looked around the door again. ‘Bernice?’
Bernice patted a finger under her eyes before she looked up.
‘Can you get in touch with Madeleine Hartley? I guess at home. Tell her I’d like to stop by and see her before I leave town. Find out whether it’s convenient for her. Whatever time suits her.’ He kept his voice crisp, impatient.
Bernice nodded. David could see the wound in her eye, the tiny surge of darkness in the center of the watery blue before she looked down again.
‘Cheer up, Bernice,’ he managed to say, ‘you’re going to love working upstairs.’
She sniffed almost imperceptibly, her eyes glued to the top of her desk, her fingers plucking at her hair.
David waited almost half an hour for Leon at Le Caprice. The tinkling piano music and the swish of service and tête-à-têtes was all a little too charming for his mood. If he had to be out in public at all, he now realized, he would have preferred a dark, smoky American bar peopled by one or two hopeless drunks; he ordered Scotch on the rocks then sat and stared at it while the ice melted.
Leon finally barreled in, towering over the waiter, perspiring, apologizing, seeming oddly graceless and out of his element. As he sat down, David noticed he smelled stale, unshowered, vaguely homeless.
‘Aren’t we the glamor pusses,’ David remarked blackly.
Leon looked him over and laughed. ‘What are you drinking?’
‘Scotch. But I haven’t touched it.’
‘I’ll have it.’ Leon half-drained the glass, smacked his lips and sat back in his chair. ‘So we’re two guys whose lives are in the shithole, huh? And it really shows in a place like this; God, I feel it.’
‘What’s wrong with your life? I guess I’ve been too selfish to really ask. I’m sorry.’
‘Apart from having blown my bank roll? I shouldn’t complain. I’ve had nothing but fat years. Things’ll come back.’
‘So what was New York all about?’
‘I’m selling my place there.’
‘That bad?’
‘Yup. Well, no. I don’t know.’ Leon swirled the rest of the watery Scotch around the bottom of the glass, watched it spin for a few seconds, and then drank it.
David wondered what to say. He felt a little surprised at Leon, and he felt, once again, disappointed in himself for not getting it. ‘Jesus, Leon. We were sitting pretty only a few short weeks ago. What did I miss?’
‘Nothing. You didn’t miss anything. I could maybe keep the place; I don’t know. It just seems like a good time to sell it. It’s a big asset. Makes sense to convert it to cash. I’ll get something smaller. Maybe not right away. I think real estate’s going to give way in the next few months. Now’s a good time to make the move. I can’t wait around and miss another boat, can I?’ Leon sounded fed-up, as if he had gone over these points repeatedly, talking himself into it.
‘Well, you’re never there anyway, are you?’ David said. ‘Why keep two places?’
Leon nodded blankly.
‘Did you buy something here? I’ve never even been to your place here.’
‘It’s not my place,’ Leon said. ‘Just a room in a house in Primrose Hill. Friend of a friend. Cheap, no hassle.’
There was a silence, and David sensed in it that Leon had more on his mind than he was saying. He felt anxious about Leon’s general dishevelment, and he also felt curious. How could he break through, David wondered, to what was really going on? Here I am, relying on Leon as my oldest, closest friend to deal with my ruined life, and I don’t even really know how to ask him to confide in me.
Or is that just the way Leon is? David wondered. Does he have a permanent habit of not telling everything?
‘You seem a little upset, Leon. What’s the deal?’
Leon had his hand in the air. ‘Wait. I’m just getting another Scotch. Do you want one?’
David shook his head. He was trying to think about what Leon was really like, and he had to admit to himself that he had a history of failing to read Leon, of failing to see where Leon was going. Leon was the one with the intuition, the empathy. Leon was the one who did the watching and who suited himself to David’s mood and inclination. So there were always surprises from Leon.
I’m more likely to spend time trying to figure out some woman, David thought to himself. Although maybe I’m not as good at that as I thought. Still, in the case of a man—Leon—I just assume he’s like me. And when he shows me he’s not just like me, I notice but then I forget. I don’t bother to go on noticing.
What if I really watched, really glued my eyes to Leon? Could I understand him if I tried; could I get inside his head?
So he watched Leon as the next Scotch arrived and he breathed in Leon’s stale smell as if it were his own stale smell. He thought about how Leon now had no real place to live. The money, the status—all that had to matter. If Leon had really lost it.
Unexpectedly, David pictured Leon’s mother and father. Hardship, struggle, barbarity, he thought.
At last David said, ‘Do you want to order some food, Leon? Maybe we should.’
‘Just pasta for me. My stomach’s not great.’
‘All that Scotch isn’t doing it any good.’
Leon smiled. ‘Yeah, well. It’s doing me good.’
‘Jesus, Leon. I wish I hadn’t resigned already. I’d offer you a job.’
‘My famous timing is just shit right now.’
‘I’ve got some money you could manage for me, Leon. If you’re willing. It isn’t very much.’
Leon looked embarrassed.
‘I’m serious. I wish it was more. I could use your help.’
‘I used to have a pretty big minimum for investors. Friendship’s good, David, but not pity.’
‘Leon, this is for real. It has to be you. It has to be completely—discreet. I want to make a fund for the baby. I know I can trust you, Leon.’
Leon avoided his eye, as if he were uncomfortable, maybe even angry. There was a silence.
Then David said rather sharply, matching Leon’s anger, ‘Leon, I was going to ask you anyway. Before I knew how bad things were with you. So—nothing’s changed, you see.’
David thought Leon looked unhappy, sad even, like Bernice. What was that all about?
And then at last Leon looked up, unguarded, right into David’s eyes. David felt it like a blistering light.
‘That’s nice of you to show me your trust—in the circumstances,’ Leon said. ‘I’ll do whatever you want, David. I can go see her for you, maybe look after her somehow now you’re leaving.’
The promise was unblinking and complete. David opened himself to it, half-smiling, alive, so that there was an authentic exchange between them of human concern, in midair, words and a look, which felt to David like a solemn vow or even as if they had stood up and embraced; there was some intangible element of love in Leon’s eyes. David was certain.
Then Leon added, ‘I thought she sounded like the real thing. I was rooting for you. Not at first. But I couldn’t help seeing you cared for her. You’ve done ten years of marriage with Elizabeth; maybe she isn’t right for you after all. You are the only one who can know. I’m partly to blame if you are married to the wrong woman, so it feels good telling you. By the way—I’m glad there is a baby. Congratulations. I didn’t know until you said it just now that the baby was okay.’
This tore into David, confusing him. It seemed as though Leon was voting for some plan of action that David wasn’t pursuing—at least not pursuing now.
All David could say, feeling pretty half-hearted now, was, ‘I’m going to try to see Madeleine before I go.’
And then details came out hectically, as if he had to quickly finalize certain arrangements. ‘She’s agreed to see me tomorrow—last thing before I leave town. I’ll tell her about you—that you might get in touch. The baby’s a little girl; I guess I’ll be able to find out the name. The money has to come in little parcels, Leon. I don’t know what’s going to happen with Elizabeth. But she can’t find out about this. Apart from anything else, she wants the money for her foundation—everything, as far as I can tell.’
A waiter arrived with a plate of oysters for David, the chalky shells sitting like tarnished silver nuggets on a bed of cracked ice and the raw opalescent flesh floating in the shells. Leon grimaced.
‘Don’t watch,’ David said, scooping the first one down his throat.
He ate a second one and then asked, ‘Do you have enough money for next week?’
‘Depends on what I get for the apartment.’
‘Can I lend you some?’
‘Maybe. Yeah, maybe that would help, David. I appreciate it.’
‘I’ll do fifty thousand.’
‘Whoa—that buys more than a week’s worth of groceries.’
‘With fifty you don’t have to ask me again in five minutes. Besides, it works for me. You can put it back into the baby’s fund later. It’s better if I move it now while I have an excuse.’
‘There’ll be tax issues and conflict issues and—whatever.’
‘Get a lawyer and make it legal. Do the loan papers, interest. I’ll pay. In fact, let’s do a hundred thousand while you’re at it.’
‘So are you thinking divorce?’
‘I don’t know about divorce. I want to get some money out from under Elizabeth’s eye, though. It hadn’t really occurred to me before. She follows all this stuff so closely. The truth is, I hardly know what I have. I mean, I keep score on exactly what comes in, but it pretty much all goes out through her. I haven’t paid a hell of a lot of attention lately. She’s such a great manager, and I’ve just relied on that skill of hers. But it’s left me no freedom—or—no privacy.’
‘Maybe you should just make a clean breast of this whole thing,’ Leon said. ‘I guess maybe I told you that before—that it’s usually better to tell the truth. You’ve been honest with Madeleine—try it with Elizabeth. She might surprise you and just let you go—let you be happy.’
‘She might not!’ David snorted. Then quietly he said, ‘I can’t risk losing the kids. Let me get some money loose, first. Then I’ll think about it. There’s plenty for Elizabeth and for me.’
But David was feeling lighter, optimistic. Maybe the future still held promise. Maybe Leon could help him to carve out some other life for himself than the one he had so come to dread.
‘What about Lewis?’ he asked in a friendly way as he raised a third shell to his sucking lips and looked at Leon down tilted cheeks.
And suddenly David felt a prick of alarm. He could see the distress on Leon’s face. Down went the slithering chill of the oyster; David snapped his head upright, swallowing, and said with real concern, ‘So what’s happened with Lewis? Why didn’t you say?’
‘It’s—complicated,’ Leon said, waving his hands in a criss-cross above his drink. ‘And there’s been all this other stuff, with Madeleine, more of an emergency-’
‘So tell me about it,’ David insisted. ‘Who knows when we’ll have dinner together again.’
‘It may work out.’ Leon looked around, as if he were hoping for a waiter to interrupt them. Then he said, twitching his head dismissively, ‘He’s upset about the apartment. It’s my fault. I dragged him down from Boston, promised him anything he wanted—forever, basically—that’s how we talked about it. And that’s how I feel. But now it seems like I’ve wrecked his life. As if I did it on purpose, or as if I should have known—should have warned him. Obviously he doesn’t want me to sell the apartment, and the fact that I’m insisting that I have to do it to survive makes him think that I don’t love him anymore—or not in the same way. He’s been living there full time—to him it seems like the place is his. And he’s a real—homebody. Well, not a homebody, but home is like a part of his personality, an extension of what’s inside him. That’s one of his gifts, really.’ Leon paused and heaved an oceanic sigh. ‘I should have been there with him to enjoy it—the way he is at home, the way he takes care of every little thing. It’s love for him, really—an expression of love. Love should never be—rejected.’
He dropped his eyes and paused nervously. ‘So we’ve had some disagreements…’ Then he brushed his nervousness away with a wave of one massive hand. ‘Just domestic stuff. You can imagine: he told me that if I’m trying to end the relationship, I should end it, not sell the apartment out from under him. That sort of thing. He doesn’t believe me when I tell him the relationship is the one thing I am counting on.’
As Leon talked, David finished off his oysters. Then David sat still, listening, hands resting on either side of his empty icy plate until Leon stopped. ‘But you can straighten that out,’ David said at last. ‘It’s just—you’re not communicating properly.’
‘Yeah, well—not communicating.’
‘So go back and spend some more time with him. Work it out.’
‘I don’t have time. I’ve just been in New York for a week. I’ve got to get liquid and get back into the market. Besides, he’s—it’s—oh, God, I don’t think I can explain, actually.’
And then the pasta arrived, two steaming plates of limply twining yellow strands, bits of salmon nesting in it, a veil of thick, pale sauce.
Leon pushed his away as soon as the waiter set it down.
David lifted his fork, balanced it in his hand, twisted a few noodles around the tines.
‘I’ll buy the apartment, Leon,’ he said curtly.
Leon raised his eyebrows. Then he shook his head. ‘Bad idea.’
‘I’m serious. It’s a great idea. It’s a perfectly sound investment for me. I can justify it without a thought. And there will be a lot of cash when the Belgravia house sells, so we may as well scrape the bottom of the barrel if we need to. What are you asking?’
‘You’ll never get that past Elizabeth.’
‘Of course I will. She’d want me to do it. We’ve talked about getting a place in New York in fact.’
Leon was silent. Then his lips sort of flickered with repressed laughter. ‘Well, that may be true. Maybe she would want you to. But not for the reasons you’ve got in mind.’
‘Big fucking deal.’
‘You won’t keep it a secret from her, David. You won’t be able to.’
David looked at Leon semi-fiercely. He squinted at him, wondering.
Leon was impassive. Then he said, ‘I think you could hide some assets here in London and let me manage them for you, but Elizabeth’ll figure out about the apartment. And when she does, you know, it could blow everything else. So, I don’t think you should even consider it.’
David started eating his pasta. He took a few bites, scowling because it was hot and burnt his tongue. He sipped his water.
‘Let me buy it anyway. Let me help you, Leon. As a completely separate thing. She’s giving my money away to people I’ve never even met. After tomorrow, I have nothing to do except play with my kids and brood on the wreck of my personal life. I might as well buy myself a little piece of real estate. I might as well do something for a friend. Let’s help each other out all we can and then see what happens. You can rent the apartment from me for a while—whatever you can afford. Get liquid. Get your fund back in shape. Later on, if you want to buy it back, I’ll buy something else with the money. Maybe by then, I’ll need a place I can use.’
Leon was silent.
‘Think about it and call me tomorrow morning before I go,’ David said. ‘What if you could just make it through this thing with Lewis? Isn’t that the most important thing? Isn’t that what you’re telling me?’
Then Leon burst out, ‘There’s no fucking time for thinking it over. I don’t deserve this, David. But I’m going to take you up on it. You’re going to have to top three million cash, toute suite, and fight for it because I’ve already accepted an offer.’
David shrugged, shoveling in the pasta.
Leon parked his bike on Regent’s Park Road and walked along the lamp-lit asphalt path to the top of Primrose Hill to call Lewis. He was very tired and a little drunk, and his stomach was still cramping unpredictably, but he felt relieved and almost happy. Swathes of mist hung over the grass and drifted through the warm black trees. The path felt slippery and lumpy under his feet; sweat slid down his back and the insides of his arms; he took off his leather jacket. He felt the lawns spilling vertiginously down all around him, and beyond the dark circle of quiet in the park, he could see the murky urban night spreading yellow and indistinct in the distance. The city world was miles away, honking and striving, never dark. Here, he had enough privacy to argue, to console, however loudly, however long was necessary.
Lewis didn’t answer the phone in the apartment, which ate up Leon’s spirits. And the cell phone thing with Lewis was usually a waste of time. He only answered emergencies on his beeper. Still, Leon sat on top of Primrose Hill dreaming up a message he could leave.
Maybe: ‘Don’t move, darling, I’m coming home.’ That’s funny, Leon thought, savoring the pun. And I could just get on a plane tomorrow, which would definitely convince him.
He lay on his back on the sparse grass and stared at the glow of thin cloud-cover far away in the August sky. He felt connected to Lewis even by the air in between them, by three thousand miles of summer night with phone signals, satellites, airplanes moving and blinking everywhere through it. I’ll reach him; we’ll talk, he thought. It’s impossible not to reach someone and talk to them nowadays. The whole stratosphere is saturated with communication.
Still, he thought, it’s being in the same bed, in the flesh. And doing that most of the time.
‘How in fuck did we get this so screwed up?’ he wondered out loud. And what he saw was Elizabeth’s face, pinched, sorrowful, haunting them. She’s like some harpy, some siren, sucking his lifeblood.
Lewis just can’t resist her, Leon thought. Why do I get mad about it? He’s a doctor. He’s born to heal people and he’s good at it. Of course he likes a challenge and that’s nothing to be jealous about. And I haven’t been there with him. I haven’t been there, and I feel like a loser just now. Insecure as a kid.
When he called Lewis’s cell phone to leave his message, Lewis answered.
‘Wow!’ Leon said. ‘You’re there.’ His heart jumped. He sat up.
‘Hey, man,’ Lewis said. ‘Back safe?’
‘Yeah. But I wouldn’t say sound. I’m feeling the wounds—deeply feeling the wounds.’
‘Uh-huh.’
Leon sensed that Lewis hadn’t forgiven him. He wanted to spring his news about the apartment, but now he discovered he wanted Lewis to forgive him first. He wanted to spring his news on a perfect, undemanding lover. One who loved him for richer, for poorer, with or without the apartment. Maybe it was a lot to ask.
‘How’s Elizabeth?’ Leon thought that would sound friendly.
‘She went back to Virginia today.’
There was a silence.
Then Leon got what he wanted, or some of it.
‘You shouldn’t let her bother you, Leon. I’m sorry she was here when you and I maybe needed time to ourselves. I know you think she interferes. She thinks she’s entitled to interfere, too. But I don’t pay that much attention to her. You just think I do. It was bad luck the way everything happened at the same time.’
‘She’s pretty demanding,’ Leon said.
‘Yes. And so are you!’
‘I’m sorry about the apartment.’
‘Not as sorry as me. But, hey, we’ll fix up another place together. Elizabeth’s a pain in the ass when it comes to places to live. She got me going. I admit it—her crap about how you should treat me. But you can see she’s identifying with me in my relationship with you—telling me I need this and that assurance from you. You’d think it was proof she’s crazy, wouldn’t you? But she’s not—she’s not really crazy. She’s looking for a way to be friendly—or just—involved. Obviously, the two things could never be the same—her marriage and you and me.’
‘Well, it helps to hear you say that out loud. How am I supposed to understand what’s going on, if you don’t tell me?’
‘Leon, I’m sorry, but you know I promised her I wouldn’t talk about her to you or anyone else. The only way I can keep my promise is absolutely. That’s how I do it. It’s hard.’
‘It’s insane,’ Leon shouted into the phone, starting to laugh. He felt a kind of exhausted joy overtaking him as he began to realize that Lewis was still his.
‘Well, it’s not a lot different than you promising her you wouldn’t tell her husband where she was at Christmas time.’
‘Yeah—okay. She’s hard to say no to.’ Leon paused, then he said caustically, ‘Friends! Nobody’s allowed to know anything about anyone. Once or twice it’s been almost impossible trying to pretend to David that I haven’t been in touch with her. She’s pretty tricky.’
‘Yes, she’s tricky, Leon. Doesn’t hurt to be aware of that. It’s part of her fiendish appeal—you have to double and triple think with her. That attracts me, actually.’ Lewis laughed. ‘On the other hand, she hasn’t got a clue what her husband is up to either, has she? From what you tell me about David’s life, he’s as devious as they come. So maybe that’s why she’s the way she is.’
Leon thought about it for a moment, but he couldn’t agree that David’s behavior was the same as Elizabeth’s. He didn’t really know why. For a moment the night of the mint-green jacket shadowed Leon’s memory. He should tell Lewis about that night, about how it had made him feel that Elizabeth could never care for him as the person he actually was. That would make Lewis understand the difference between David and Elizabeth. Something about being able to love. But instead Leon said, ‘Lewis, I have some good news, actually.’
‘I’m crazy about good news, as you know.’
‘David’s buying the apartment, and we can stay in it.’
‘What?’
‘I had dinner with him tonight, and he offered to help us out. He’s going to buy it and rent it to me. Maybe later on, I’ll buy it back.’
‘Well, that’s a fairy godmother if ever there was one. But you told me this guy’s no fairy. So whatever moved him to do that? Have you been turning people on behind my back?’
Leon laughed. ‘Once there was a time when I would have done anything—No. It’s not like that. It’s—well, he’s a true friend. And he’s interested in the apartment as an investment. So—’
‘So?’
Leon thought he had already answered the question, but he wanted to persuade Lewis to feel as happy as he himself felt, to trust him, so he gave more reasons. ‘Well, so—so also, I’m going to help David out with this woman I told you about who’s had his baby. Do some investing for him on their behalf. Or for the baby anyway.’
‘The baby survived?’
‘Seems that way.’
‘I see.’
‘It’s not what you think, Lewis. David would have bought the apartment anyway. It’s two separate arrangements.’
‘But Elizabeth’s not to know?’
‘She’s not to know.’
‘I see. And you don’t call that a bribe?’
Leon felt irritated by this. ‘No. I don’t. David knows I would keep my mouth shut anyway; he doesn’t need to bribe me not to tell Elizabeth about his girlfriend. I guess you had to be there, Lewis. I guess you had to see the guy’s face.’ He took a breath. ‘He’s my friend, Lewis. Isn’t that good enough for you?’
‘Well, she’s my friend, Leon. She used to be yours. And I don’t see that he treats her very well. You are just so stuck on that guy; you are never going to get over him, are you?’
Leon stood up and paced around the paved flat top of the hill. ‘Let’s not go here again,’ he pleaded in a very soft voice, ‘please?’
Lewis sighed a long, deep sigh. ‘No, Leon. We won’t go here again. You’re right.’ Lewis’s voice was soft, too. ‘We’ve got to get these people out of our heads, that’s what I think. Do we really want them owning our apartment?’
‘I don’t know. But I know I’d do anything to make you happy.’
‘Come home?’
‘Tomorrow. But only for the weekend.’
‘Cool.’
Leon’s heart jumped again. After they had hung up, he spun around on one heel in the dark then scampered down the hill.
And from their apartment in New York, Lewis called Elizabeth in Virginia to tell her that Leon wasn’t making him move out after all. He thought it would reassure her.
The next morning, when David opened the brown envelope from Bernice with his airplane tickets inside, he found a pink Post-it note stuck to the tickets: ‘Mrs Judd says not to trouble yourself about the dog after all. B.’
But since Bernice had already made the arrangements with the airline, David ignored the note. He was picturing Gordon and Hope, how their faces would light up when they saw Puck. He wanted to arrive with something special, and he felt like Puck had become his team-mate. Puck was a guarantee that David would be accepted back into the family, practically an excuse for being absent so long. How much trouble could it be, traveling with a small dog?
Then at the door, Francine tried to relieve him of Puck.
‘Mrs Judd has told me what to do,’ she said. ‘I can look after the dog.’
David felt sorry for Francine. She had worked hard and conscientiously, discharging every conceivable duty on Elizabeth’s behalf without any pretence of supervision or appreciation from him. Now the last vestige of full-time employment was skipping out the door on a thin red leather leash.
He looked at Francine apologetically and simply told her the truth. ‘I want to have the dog with me, Francine. Puck is good company.’
Francine was wringing her hands. She looked distressed.
‘I’ll take good care of him, Francine,’ David said. ‘You’ve done a very good job. I’m sure you still have plenty of salary coming, and Mrs Judd will give you a good reference.’
Francine started to say something, then stopped, and David thought perhaps she found it inappropriate that he referred so openly to the termination of her employment. After all, he had no idea what had been agreed between Elizabeth and Francine. But nobody had kept it a secret that the house was on the market. As far as David knew, estate agents had been taking people around it all summer, and it had been Francine’s task to let them in and to keep an eye on them.
Now as David pictured strangers in the house, he felt all the more determined to take Puck with him.
‘I’ll explain everything to Mrs Judd, Francine.’
‘But the quarantine, sir.’
‘There isn’t any quarantine for dogs going into the United States,’ David said. ‘Don’t worry!’
Then, because he didn’t want to be delayed any longer, he scooped Puck up under his arm and walked out to the car. ‘Thanks for everything, Francine,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Good luck!’
These people, thought Francine as she bolted the door, they don’t know what they want. They never talk to each other. They throw away their money.
She started down the basement stairs with enthusiasm. She could clear away Puck’s cage and move her television into the kitchen. She opened the cabinet underneath the kitchen sink and reached for her spray bottle of disinfectant, her sponge, her gloves.
On the way to Madeleine’s, Puck snuffled and skittered over the slippery back seat of the car and back and forth across David’s legs, his claws biting the flesh of David’s thighs right through his trousers.
‘I’ve got a nice little sleeping pill for you to take on the plane,’ David murmured soothingly, stroking Puck’s ears as the dog roamed unsteadily. ‘I can’t give it to you yet or you’ll wake up before we get there and you won’t like that.’
David realized that Puck hadn’t been in a car much at all and certainly never on an airplane, but he sensed that Puck was feeding off his master’s nervous excitement as much as anything else. It was almost like panic rising inside David. His mouth was dry and his thoughts kept scattering chaotically. He felt as though the car might fly off the road because he couldn’t focus on when the driver should turn the wheel, how he should grip it, whether he had the strength. Really, David was using Puck as ballast; he was holding onto Puck to center himself, to keep himself in his seat. Just to breathe seemed to David almost impossible, but when he touched Puck’s hot black fur, he felt air come into his lungs as if through his fingertips and he felt his heart beat steadily.
So when the car pulled up at Madeleine’s house, he took Puck inside with him. If nothing else, he thought grimly, Puck will persuade Madeleine’s mother that I’m a family man.
‘You’ve got a dog,’ Madeleine exclaimed as she opened the door. ‘That’s quite competitive. Poor Christina has no tricks at all yet. Or—it’s not a dog for her already?’ She looked alarmed, eyebrows raised, then smiled as she caught David’s eye.
He wrapped Puck’s leash around his hand to shorten it and held it tightly.
‘No—don’t worry. It’s the children’s—Gordon and Hope.’
‘Oh,’ said Madeleine. ‘Will he mind if I kiss you?’
‘Don’t know.’
When Madeleine said kiss, she meant business. It wasn’t what David had expected, but it was what he wanted. And the kiss went on for so long and was so profound, so committed, that Puck did begin to mind, or at least he began to be aware of the river of fire engulfing the hall and began to bark in excitement or perhaps in warning.
At last Madeleine said, ‘I’m sorry I made you wait until today, but I wanted it to be without the nurse and without my mother. Come and see her.’
‘Yes,’ was all David could manage. He floated along like a sled over the snow, Puck pulling on the leash, Madeleine pulling him by the hand.
The baby was sleeping sweetly in a lace-covered basket on the living-room floor. Puck strained at his leash toward the basket, tugging and distracting them both, so that Madeleine asked David to pick up the basket and put it on the coffee table.
Again he said, ‘Yes.’
He took Puck into the kitchen and tied the leash to a chair, came back and lifted the basket onto the coffee table, and then took Madeleine in his arms again.
‘You haven’t looked at her at all,’ Madeleine complained.
‘I looked. She’s asleep. I’ll look again in a minute.’
‘And you’ve made my milk start. I can feel it. Oh, my God, look at this.’ She pushed him away, laughing and making a face. They could both see that her thin white shirt was soaked through and transparent across both of her breasts. ‘You’re just a little too exciting. Although the nurse says I have enough milk to feed triplets.’
‘Did I do that?’ David asked.
‘Well, she’s still asleep,’ Madeleine nodded at the baby’s basket, ‘so it has to be you.’
‘It’s like something that would happen to a man—if you see what I mean.’
Madeleine blushed. And David said, ‘It’s amazing. Thrilling.’
‘I’ll go and change my shirt.’
‘No, don’t. I don’t have much time.’
‘No?’ Madeleine’s brow furrowed. She looked vulnerable to David in a way that was not familiar.
‘My flight’s in about an hour and a half.’
‘To?’
‘I’m leaving today, Madeleine. For Virginia. Didn’t Bernice tell you?’
‘Leaving—for good?’
‘Well. Yes. I mean—I don’t know. You never called me. I thought that was what you wanted. It’s what we agreed.’ There was a pause. ‘Isn’t it what we agreed?’
Madeleine sat down on the sofa. She leaned forward over the baby’s basket and looked inside, twitched the blanket, touched the baby’s forehead with the back of her knuckles.
‘I don’t know what we agreed. Yes. It’s what we agreed. I suppose I was hoping that you would ring me. In spite of everything.’
‘I did. I talked to your mother—two weeks ago—longer. She said you would call me back as soon as you were safely home and not pressed by—by everything. I waited to hear—I was sure that’s what she meant—’
Madeleine didn’t say anything as she still leaned forward over the little basket; she brushed her face with the back of her hand and David thought maybe she was brushing away a tear.
‘Jesus,’ he said and rummaged through his hair with tense fingers.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Then Madeleine said, ‘I guess Mummy just—forgot to tell me.’
‘I don’t know what to say, Madeleine.’
Again they fell into silence, desperate.
A chair dragged across the kitchen floor, a light trembling scrape. David stood up.
‘I think I’ll have to go today, Madeleine. Everything’s been arranged. I—I don’t know how to pick it apart. Not with any—control over the outcome—any privacy.’
Madeleine nodded, her eyes down.
‘I’ll just go check on the dog. I don’t want him to break something.’
‘Why not turn him loose?’
‘Do you think?’
‘He isn’t very big.’
David came back into the room with the little red leash coiled in one hand and Puck trotting beside him just as Christina began to mew and fuss.
‘It’s funny us both having a—commitment—now,’ Madeleine said, gesturing at Puck and then reaching inside the basket with both hands.
‘Mine’s more of an alibi than a commitment.’ David put his foot under Puck’s stomach, dragging it gently along in two or three passes. ‘But he’ll tell no tales, that’s for sure.’
‘Here, hold your daughter while you have a chance. I’ll watch the dog.’ And she thrust the bundled baby into David’s hands as he sat down again on the sofa. Puck watched and then sat down on the rug.
‘She’s tiny.’
‘Everyone says that.’ Madeleine smiled.
‘Seriously,’ David said, feeling that his arm was crooked around feathers, around air. ‘She’s really not much bigger than the dog. In fact, I think she’s smaller.’
‘Six weeks early. But she’s catching up.’ Madeleine’s voice was fat with maternal pride, gloating. The baby mewed again, turning her squinched red face from side to side, then opening her beady, birdlike black eyes. ‘She’s putting on a real show for you.’
‘Fierce little eyes. Like a cross old lady.’
Christina let out a minuscule howl.
‘Where’s that on her Richter scale?’ David said, nervously bouncing his arm to calm her. ‘Sounds urgent.’
‘It’s time for me to feed her.’ And Madeleine took Christina back, bursting the buttons on her wet blouse, fiddling hurriedly with straps, releasing a swollen, blue-veined breast.
David had never seen anything like it, the mountain of breast, the red-brown, enormous nipple, the impossibly small, frantic baby desperate to take hold of it. How will the baby do it? he wondered. He was staggered by the drama of it, all in an instant, the naked grab at life made by the gaping, infant mouth. Madeleine let out a little gasp as the mouth clamped down; she arched her back a little.
‘Wow,’ he said. He couldn’t take his eyes away from them.
‘It’s amazing, isn’t it?’
Madeleine knew, he thought, exactly how amazed he felt.
And then she said, ‘Listen.’
He leaned toward them and he could hear the slightest sucking sound; he could see the jaws pulling, and the blistered, blue baby lips stretched so wide, he thought, that it seemed as though they would tear.
He dragged his fingertip across Madeleine’s breast, kissed the finger, then touched Christina’s cheek with it.
‘It’s like some form of sex,’ he said.
‘It is a form of sex. It’s the sequel,’ Madeleine said.
‘And it feels like?’
‘It feels like heaven. Once she’s latched on.’
‘I saw. That part hurts?’
Madeleine nodded.
And David said, ‘But she doesn’t have teeth?’
‘Of course not,’ Madeleine laughed. ‘But try letting someone suck that hard on your tit ten times a day—see if it doesn’t make you sore!’
David grinned. Then ever so gently he said, ‘I wanted to tell you that my friend, Leon Halberg, might get in touch. You said it would be all right if I set up some money for the baby. For Christina. Leon’s going to organize it. So—can he get in touch?’
Madeleine said, ‘Yes. Perhaps not just yet. In a few more weeks?’
‘I think you’ll—well, maybe you and he will like each other.’
‘Maybe.’
‘You can trust him, Madeleine. If you need to.’
She nodded and bowed her head low over the baby.
‘I have to go, Madeleine. I have to take this dog to Virginia. I’m—sorry.’
Then Madeleine looked up, straight at him. Her eyes filled with tears, and she said in her throat, struggling, ‘I wish you could have chosen us, David. I wish you could have chosen me and Christina.’