These people are so kind, the army of help turned out for Mimi.
Burton turns out to be an expert packer. He takes over from L and has twelve boxes of china trussed and labelled in no time. “Jasper must take a look at some of these things,” he tells Hugh. “You want an appraisal for insurance even if you aren’t selling them—of course the second-hand market is a cesspit even with an honest dealer on your side. You’ll never realize the value on some of these lovely things. Georg Jensen! A set for twelve!” He has more to say, much more, but his phone rings.
He checks the number and, eyebrows mounting, excuses himself and goes through the hall into the garden, a stubby old peacock shrieking unintelligibly into the phone.
In fact, the china and silver are going straight into Jasper’s basement (his storage room, farther from the river, is safer than the gallery’s), where he can go through them in his own time. It doesn’t matter, nothing does. But they’ll be safe there.
The cedar closet—Ruth said he has to empty that. Newell leaves the kitchen and comes to help pull out whatever treasures Mimi squirrelled away in there, furs and necklaces. The burden of selling all this hurts Hugh’s head—give it all away, give it away. Money has fallen from any form of importance; losing the gallery to Largely would matter no more than losing this apartment to her. Nothing is permanent, nothing is safe.
Newell laughs, or sighs, looking out the back hall window to where Burton prances up and down on the dead lawn, gesticulating. Faint cries carry on the misty air. “He reminds me of Mimi in a way—don’t get pissed. He went through a lot, the losses of AIDS, the theatre, his appalling early life. You don’t see his damage, his love of art: his whole self.”
Hugh’s midnight insight into Newell and Burton has evaporated. He keeps himself from snorting by addressing the padlock, the combination coming to his fingers, not his mind. The door opens. Cedar scent clouds out as they enter, and redwood glow: coats one side, shelves on the other, stacked with velvet boxes, envelopes, her pearls in their old red leather case.
“Why are you always so angry with Burton, Hugh?” Newell asks, persisting.
Because his head hurts. Because Mimi is dead.
No point in anything but the truth now. Hugh stops, leaving the boxes where they lie. “Because you told me he was your—your introducer,” he says. “Your first.”
Newell doesn’t speak.
“At twelve. That’s a bad thing, I think it was a bad thing he did, that’s why I hate him.”
“I never told you that,” Newell says. “I never did.”
Hugh doesn’t speak.
So Newell does. “Fuck, Hugh.” (Or is that fuck you?) “What do you want me to tell you? It wasn’t Burton.” Hugh shakes his head. “Okay, it was the priest—it was my father, Della’s father, some guy in grade nine—it was everybody. I had a hockey coach, a biology teacher, a fucking scoutmaster. Before them all, I had my own self, my heart and mind. Nobody made me be anything. I am who I am.”
You don’t often see Newell angry. Buoyed by the strange clarity of everything since Mimi died, Hugh says, “You did. You said, ‘I was twelve, and he knew what I was.’ ”
“Well, he did, but I knew long before that. He—” Newell pauses, eyes going left. “He reassured me. He made it all right to be like—myself. In those days, someone just saying it’s okay was a considerable gift. Even now.”
Yes, Hugh wants to be told that himself. It’s okay, to be a failure and a poor excuse for a son and a mediocre artist and—and Newell’s friend. Impossible to hate Newell. Or, loving Newell, to hate anyone else, merely for being gay.
“Have you been carrying this all this time, thinking Burton abused me?”
Hugh stands on the verge of tears. “No, no …” He has, he has.
“Don’t be sad! It wasn’t—he helped, he—knew what my life already was, the secret things. He made it seem semi-normal. Or only half-freak. Not toxic.”
If you’re telling the truth, Hugh might as well continue. “Ivy asked me if I was jealous of Burton, first time we talked. Would you really have married him?”
“Oh, Hugh,” Newell says. “Would you have married Ann, if she’d wanted you to?”
You would have.
Newell nods. “So why did that bug you?”
“I don’t know. Because you’re being taken advantage of, because it wouldn’t make you happy. Because it’s unsuitable.”
“Two men getting married? Somewhere underneath, do you think that?”
No. Clear on that, Hugh can laugh. “No, fill your boots. Marry Orion, if you want to, he’s over eighteen—I just don’t want you to marry Burton. But I don’t want to punch him, either. I will treat him with courtesy and respect, because you do.”
Newell looks at Hugh, caught by a subtle tone, an expression, some ghost of contempt. “How can you look down on me the way you do? I’m seriously asking: how dare you be so sad all the time, be made unhappy by me? You think I’d be better off if I was more like you—but I think you’d be better off if you were more like me, like Burton, like Orion. You know me better than anyone in the world—better than Burton knows me. But you don’t love me as kindly or blindly as he does, as independently, for myself. You love me for the sake of your own remembered self, for childhood and safety, for Ruth, for hard days with Mimi. Like I love you, and Della does, for being our brother.”
Hugh tries to make his face blank. Not wanting to hurt Newell any more. But he needs to know, he can’t stop himself from asking, “What about Orion?”
“You’re right,” Newell says. “I stopped it. It’s not good, absorbing him, taking over—he has to have his own life.” He shrugs, turns away to pull another heavy coat, and holds it up to himself, becoming Mimi, showing it off. Burying his face in the glorious collar, he says quietly, “But it’s hard. I love him. If that has any meaning.”
It does, it does. Hugh’s head hurts so much—Newell has to stop stabbing him like this. He runs a hand down the sleeve of the golden sable. Would it fit Ivy? L wouldn’t wear fur.
Lifting his head Newell says, “I just think we should be with the ones we love, however difficult it is to arrange the practical part, however impossible. With all the ones we love. You came to live here for Mimi’s sake, because you understand that.”
Hugh shifts his head, tries to ease the pressure. Yes. “Yes. Yes. I’ll stay with her as long as she needs me,” Hugh says. His head feels weird.
Newell looks at him. He doesn’t stop looking.
“However—however long,” Hugh says, feeling for what he ought to be saying. He puts the red calfskin pearl case in the box. His hands are heavy. Shelves empty, rod clear—he closes the door. The lock dangles, open. “I’m going to sleep there, they brought me a cot so I could stay overnight.”
He’s kind of lost the drift of this conversation. Maybe he needs another pill.
Still with the odd look, Newell zips up the coat bag and asks, “How is she?”
“She’s good, she’s good. Her old self.”
“Did you see Conrad today?”
“Yes, I saw him … at FairGrounds, having cake, yes, he says she’s tough, she’ll …”
He shakes his head. Touches his hair, on the right side.
Newell takes Hugh’s hand, and looks straight at him—makes you realize that he doesn’t do that very often. Like you realized it about Della a few days ago.
“I don’t look at you guys nearly enough,” Hugh says.
“I think we’ll go find Conrad again,” Newell tells him, with that sweetness of manner that makes Hugh do things you don’t want to.
“Conrad again. Okay,” Hugh says. That offers an anchor, and you think (as much as Hugh still can think) maybe you need one.
Burton, squealing into his phone, hogs the whole path from back garden to truck. Orion stays in the shadows of the back porch, boxes piled in his arms. Arms aching, eyes aching. He didn’t mean to listen, but by then he was already listening.
Of course he listened. Morals are for adults, for people with the luxury of power, of self-determination. Under-rats, victims, have to listen behind doors. Behind the cedar closet door, listening as Newell helps Hugh pack and says no no no no.
Orion shouts inside: it’s not the same.
All right, Burton’s an evil fucker, big surprise. But why should I be put aside? Whatever happened between Newell and Burton all those years ago is not the same as what is between Newell and me.
I want this. I’m not being taken over. I get to say, to decide what’s right for me, in my own heart, in my own body. Hugh says marry Orion, if you want—like that’s a joke. If Newell was strong he’d tell Hugh NO fuck you I love him. Because we should be with the ones we love.
Burton, dancing down there on the gravel path. Whatever—they’ve worked it out, they’ve made this long life somehow weirdly together, and if Newell can’t leave that, all right. I could have fit alongside it somehow. Somehow.
Fuck off, everybody who wants to protect me, fuck you all.