Revenant Rising (25 page)
“You mean your mother’s death . . . There can’t be anything much worse than losing an adult child.”
“I absolutely agree. There can’t be, not for most people. But my grandmother was not like most people and it was my mother’s rebellious ways she never got over. Until the day she died, my grandmother never stopped blaming us—me, my two little brothers, my little sister, and my father—for the greatest disappointment of her life—my mother’s refusal to become a lawyer. She had always taken it out on us in insidious ways, but when my father went into decline and could no longer teach full time, she was more open about making us miserable.”
“Are you telling me she didn’t try to nurture and comfort her own grandchildren in the absence of their mum?”
“I am. She went through the motions, of course. She’d make twice-weekly visits and sometimes stay for a weekend to keep the neighbors from talking. She never held the baby, though, or showed any physical affection for the little boys.”
“What about you? How did she treat you?”
“She kept me at arm’s length other than for showing some interest in my progress at school. Then that changed when she found me in bed with my youngest brother during one of her weekend stays and denounced me as an incestuous child molester—her exact words—for trying to help him through a bad night.”
“Denounced you to whom? The authorities? A child protection agency?”
“No, just to my father, fortunately.”
“And he told her to fuck off, I hope.”
“He really couldn’t afford to. He only told her she must be mistaken because by then his health was worsening and we were on the brink of becoming wholly dependant on her. I will say this, however, he was far more harsh with her when she discovered a package of tampons in my schoolbag and called me a miserable little masturbator—again, her exact words. I really thought he was going to slap her and send her away for good.”
“He should have.” Colin keeps his eyes on the ground and widens the distance between them. What’s going on here? The naming of trees and birds and even a few insects was one thing,—that could have been payback for what he put her through at the museum—but this spillover is quite another. Starting with her just happening to spout the only words of Thomas Paine he ever heard, and progressing to talk of her upbringing, could she be employing the standard Nate tactic—tossing out a few intimate disclosures here and there in order to encourage similar from him? If that is the case she’s not giving him any openings. Not yet, anyway.
“Sorry.” He breaks off speculating and asks her to repeat whatever it was she just said.
“I was saying . . . that sort of thing went on for nearly a year. When my grandmother wasn’t maligning my character, she was undermining my father’s and he continued to take it because he’d lost tenure and was running out of money.”
“Your grandmother had money and refused to help?”
“Yes, she had money, a lot of money, and she considered it her righteous duty to refuse us all but the most meager financial assistance. I’ve since come to understand that her reasoning was not entirely punitive. She truly believed unearned wealth would corrupt.”
“How did
she
come by this money?”
“Oh, she earned it, no question there. For a woman of her generation, admission to Columbia Law was an accomplishment in itself, and graduating at the top of her class put her in something of a category by herself. Then she went on to establish with David Sebastian’s father the highly successful law firm that now represents you and that was achieved in only one generation. Another triumph, especially for being in New York. I will
never
deny that my grandmother earned the money. She did, however, become deranged in the process—no question there either ”
“I was thinking the same—barking mad, she had to have been.”
“Such a fine line between madness and genius . . . Do you believe that?”
“Yeh, I think it’s similar to the one that can exist between goodness and evil-doing . . . can be ill-defined . . . nebulous. I’ve got a question, though. You just said you think your grandmother became deranged in the process of attaining her goals. Does that mean you believe she started out as a decent human being?”
“That’s what I wanted to believe, just as I wanted to believe—even while her abuse was ongoing—that she was redeemable. I wanted to believe that for the simple reason of her being my grandmother. I wanted to believe she’d somehow come around, revert, become grandmotherly in the traditional sense, become caring and loving. Comforting. This character out of Dickens I’ve described for you just now is the product of my adult thinking, of confronting cold hard facts from a distance and being better equipped to accept certain realities.”
“Let me understand . . . You’re saying you didn’t hate her whilst she was actively making your life miserable?”
“Not
consciously
. Like my poor father, I was probably in some form of denial related to the practicalities of the situation and, like my father, I couldn’t afford to expend any more emotion. We were still grieving, we didn’t have extra energy for hating.”
“How were you able to reach the point where you are now? You strike as amazingly dispassionate, and you don’t seem to have much prejudice about what must be a very sore subject.”
She flashes a half smile. “You mean how many years did I spend on a therapist’s couch? None. I was lucky. Writing my grandmother’s biography was my best therapy. Not a complete cure, though, because I can still have flare-ups now and then—just ask David.” The smile flickers again and goes out.
“Hold on. You can’t be telling me one of the books you wrote is about this grandmother from hell, can you?”
“Well, yes.” She stops walking and turns to face him. “I thought you knew I had written a biography when I was tapped to write yours.”
“I . . . uh . . . I only glanced at your CV, I saw you were qualified as a writer . . . but I didn’t know. . . .”
“Your manager probably had some idea. He was very quick to agree with David that I would be capable of more than the interview that was your original request.”
“I don’t know what to say, actually.”
“You don’t need to say anything. Don’t worry about it. Why on earth would you want to know more than the title of an exceedingly dry dissection of a pioneering female litigator? Why would anyone? I wrote it with the same lack of passion and prejudice you credit me with now, so it’s quite a slog to read just as it was quite a slog to write.”
“You wrote it for the therapeutic effect, then.”
“No, I had no idea the writing would provide a much-needed catharsis. That was an unexpected benefit. I wrote it because it was one of the requirements of my grandmother’s last will and testament.”
They resume walking and at the next intersecting trail encounter the only other person they’ve seen since sending Bemus on his way. The ruddy-faced older woman poling herself along with a heavy walking stick gives a perfunctory nod that may have broken the spell because the subject suddenly changes without warning.
“Yesterday you were speaking of modern-day musical influences when we had to leave the museum.” Laurel brings out the little notebook from a pocket in her vest and begins reading aloud from a registry of greats. “You had just started listing what you referred to as the contemporary brotherhood when we had to stop,” she ends the prompt.
“Wait a minute. Are you just gonna leave me hanging? I’d very much like to hear the rest of the story. Your story.”
She stops again and tips her head to one side. “Colin, I don’t think you realize I’ve been talking for way more than an hour.” She points at her watch and frowns. “I let the trees get to me, and then it was Thomas Paine and the unavoidable link to my father. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I can’t very well inspire you to talk when my mouth’s running, can I?”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing at all.” He has to look elsewhere or he’ll be compelled to touch her cheek or smooth her hair or make some other intimate gesture he’s dead certain would be judged wildly inappropriate. “Please tell me the rest of the story, Laurel,” he says in the general direction of what he’s recently learned is a black locust tree.
Given this opening the size of the Lincoln Tunnel, his pledge to reciprocate with some of his own difficult history should then follow, but the words will not come. They won’t even form. It’s doubtful he will ever be provided with a better, more natural opportunity to speak of parallel experiences with presumably good people gone irredeemably bad and of denial as a way of life—and he lets it go.
He decides it’s safe to look at her feet. “I don’t think I mentioned that I like your shoes,” he says with a degree of honesty because they are starting to look good to him.
She laughs. “You don’t have to resort to
that
. Pretending to like these clunky things will get you absolutely nowhere.” She laughs again. “Perhaps I will tell you the rest of the story sometime, but it won’t happen until you’ve opened up. That
is
what we’re here for, don’t forget, and I’ve already taken far too much of your morning.”
“I promise you, you haven’t taken anything I wasn’t happy to give.”
“Very well. Then may we pick up where we left off?”
Discourse on musical influences, past and present, was originally intended to be something of a filler exercise and now he’s forced to go at it with utmost seriousness or risk being thought disobliging on all subjects. She’s jotting things down every third step and he seems set on naming every recording artist he can think of.
He’s reciting almost by rote because his upper consciousness is filling up with the sheer preposterousness of the situation. Here he is, the big rock star just rated redoubtable and magnetic by the tabloid press, and he’s planning the rest of his life around the slim possibility this fantastically desirable creature will tell him the rest of her life story. Sometime. And she only said perhaps. Not much to cling to, is it? Not for a bloke accustomed to crooking a finger at whatever he wants—whoever he wants.
He casts a sidelong glance at her and again picks up on the vibe warning that she’d view any variation of a crooked finger as an obscene gesture and react accordingly.
“And to any list of musical influences I’d have to add Rayce Vaughn, who was mentor and champion long before he became unofficial therapist,” he says. “You’ll be meeting him soon, you’ll probably want to spend time with Rayce as well as with Nate.”
“I’m sorry, did I say I was going to spend time with your manager?”
“I guess I took for granted. I mentioned yesterday in the museum that I wanted you to meet with Nate and I was just getting round to letting you know that I cleared it with him this morning. He’s willing and you can name the time providing you give him a day’s notice.”
“I see.”
“You say that a lot and I never know what it is that you see.”
“You’re not supposed to,” she says, “but in this instance I’ll tell you. I see that you’re unwilling or unable to talk to me about anything other than the most general aspects of your life, so you’re enlisting your manager and your mentor to do the job. How do you suppose that makes me feel? At your request, I’ve made our meetings as little like standard interview sessions as I know how. I have taken great pains to avoid anything faintly interrogatory. I’ve asked almost no direct questions and all I have to show for it is material that would put even one of your greatest fans to sleep. A few minutes ago I was feeling guilty for having used up so much of your time talking about myself—because I do feel comfortable and safe talking to you—and now I discover this all is some sort of delaying action until Rayce Vaughn rides into town or Nate Isaacs can make time for me.”
“Laurel, no, it’s not like that at all . . . you don’t understand.”
“Then explain.” She stops dead and turns to face him, but her expression doesn’t match her words. She doesn’t look anywhere near as angry as she sounds. If anything she looks sad, disappointed even.
“I can’t . . . at least not now. I’ll have to ask you to trust me. Please.”
“Trust you to do what?”
“To tell you as much as I can as soon as I can.”
“Very well.”
“That’s something else you say a lot and I’m never sure what it means.”
“It means that I have either accepted or resigned myself to the answer or the status quo or whatever.”
“Then you’re not giving up on me?”
“No, not just yet. I am, however, going to start asking direct questions.”
“Please do and if I can’t answer I’ll—”
“Yes, I know, you’ll find someone who will. We’ve another hour and a half to go if we stay with the present pace and that should be enough time for you to initiate an examination of your relationship with the press.”
“God, but you are lovely.” It just slips out, byproduct of extreme gratefulness.
“So are you, but I think ‘gorgeous’ was the word used to describe us.”
