Revenant Rising (63 page)

“You’re not the first.”

“And Nate . . . I’m absolutely in awe of the devotion he showed you and the baby after the accident. I imagine you’ll want to dedicate the book to him, perhaps write a dedication page yourself. That kind of selflessness and commitment is
so
rare these days. I can’t praise him enough . . . I am very,
very
impressed now that I’ve gotten to know him.”

“You might not want to get entirely carried away. He was, after all, still on payroll.”

“Oh
please.
It wasn’t about money, you know better than that.”

“Because he’s independently wealthy? Yeh, I suppose I do know better, but that doesn’t make putting up with him any easier these days.”

“Why, because he still sees you as reliant on him?”

“Oh, you think? Let me tell you what I found out only this morning.” He launches into the story of the laminated memory card, as he will always think of it, but this doesn’t produce the indignation he wants from Laurel.

Instead, she defends Nate, forgives his hovering smothering overweening micromanagement style as understandable, all things considered. She goes on and on about Nate, praising his hospitality, his food and drink choices, his art collection, his sensitivity to her needs and to the needs of others, his goddammed state-of-the art kitchen. Repetition, the lot of it; already said on the phone the night before.

He drifts deeper and deeper into a brooding silence that lasts till they leave the Parkway at the Toms River exit. They’re coming into a resort area now with featureless little summer cottages crowded together on barren plots of land reminiscent of beach huts shoulder to shoulder along the rocky Channel coast.

“Have you ever been to Brighton?” he says.

“Do you mean Brighton Beach on the peninsula? That’s a ways south of where we’re headed today. And no, I’ve never been there.”

“I was thinking of Brighton in England. Certain things here remind me of that area.”

“I’ve never been there either. I’ve only been to London and very briefly.”

“Do you think you’d ever like to see more of England?”

“Yes, of course. Who wouldn’t?”

The answer rather surprises him. Even though the question was purposely vague, he was expecting the negative response he got the time he asked if she would travel to the UK in order to complete work on the book. He takes heart from this crumb of hope and approaches cheerful when she suggests a plan for lunch.

“The spot I have in mind is on the boardwalk in Seaside Heights, just across the bay. They serve what’s reputed to be the best pizza in New Jersey and shouldn’t be too crowded this time of day.”

“Outstanding. I can’t recall the last time I had decent pizza.”

“However. . . .”

“Yeh, I know. Same as yesterday. The bleedin’ recognition factor. There’s just no popping round the local for a simple pint and a pie, is there?”

She touches his arm lightly. “I don’t mind, and please don’t let it bother you. What I thought I’d do is leave you under wraps, go in and assess the situation.”

“How, by asking for a show of hands from the Colin Elliot fans?”

“You know, I may just do that and when no one raises a hand won’t
you
be the joke of the day.” She gives his arm a playful punch and laughingly explains that if the pizza place is teeming with girls and young women she’ll revert to plan B and order takeaway pizza.

They cross a bridge to a barrier island where he was not expecting to see the profile of a Ferris wheel and the convoluted structures of other pleasure park rides silhouetted against the open Atlantic. Reminiscent of Brighton Pier, it is.

She follows his gaze. “Don’t worry, we’re not stopping there.”

“I didn’t think so, but the sight of it reminds me to call home next chance I get.”

“And that reminds me to ask if Anthony’s settled down any. Did he attend school today?”

“When we spoke earlier, he sounded better and the plan was to go to school. He still had a lot of questions, though. Some about you, I should warn.”

“Warn? Is he questioning my credentials or something?”

“He’s questioning your relationship to me. I think he’s beginning to suspect you may be the reason I’m delayed coming home.”

She gives him a look. “You
know
I cannot allow that. He must
not
be allowed to think that.”

“Then
you
tell him because there’s no way I’m denying it.”

She hits the brakes well short of the nearest stop sign and turns to confront him. “The minute we reach the restaurant, I expect you to get on the phone with your son and correct his thinking. By maneuvering me into speaking to him yesterday, you encouraged a belief for which there is no basis. By doing so, you were unfair to him. And to me. Give me your word you’ll do as I ask or you’ll be sitting here the rest of the day.” She glares at him impervious to all else—including the bleating horns of the traffic they’re blocking.

“Yeh . . . all right.
Okay
, I’ll issue a retraction, but you have to give me credit for trying,” he shouts to be heard above the din of the impatient drivers behind them.

They park a short way from the boardwalk and pizza restaurant. Laurel, still a bit thin-lipped from their row, is all for leaving him in the car till she scopes out the situation. He’s all for taking his chances. In the end, he causes a few turned heads on the boardwalk and scant notice inside the restaurant that’s populated with a few lunchtime stragglers and pensioners nursing coffees at a bit past two in the afternoon. Once they’ve been seated and received menus, he leaves Laurel to make the pizza selection and heads straightaway to the phone kiosk at the rear of the establishment.

Technically true to his word, he explains to Anthony that the lady solicitor and writer of biographies has done nothing of her own volition to delay his return home. He takes his time and pulls this off without getting into the fine print of the matter where the whole truth resides. After a short chat with his mother and a few words for drowsy Simon, he hangs up and returns to the table that’s now furnished with tall glasses of iced tea and a large pizza covered with every known sort of topping, or so it appears.

“Everything but anchovies,” she says and helps herself to a slice.

“Anchovies would’ve been fine.” He takes a chair across from her, “Anathing of your choice would’ve been fine.” He takes a slice, delays taking a bite to say that she couldn’t make him a whole lot happier than he is at the moment.

“Does Anthony now have a better understanding of the situation?” she says, as impervious to his comment as she was to the honking horns a bit ago.

“I believe he does.”

They eat without interruption for a few minutes. Then she surfaces another topic with potential to back up traffic only he’s the one creating the roadblock this time. He pretends not to hear Laurel ask how he was able to sustain a relationship with Aurora when everyone else saw her as a lost cause. He goes right on eating even though he’s full to bursting. Laurel goes right on asking as though he didn’t hear her the first time.

“I’m sorry, Colin,” she says the third or fourth time it’s asked. “I have to ask because it’s the question readers will most want answered, and you’re the only one who should answer it. Although I’m sure they have theories, I can’t ask any of your friends or associates, and it wouldn’t seem right to ask your—”

He holds up a hand for silence, surveys a setting that couldn’t be more at odds with the subject matter. Then again, speaking of Aurora in this no-frills environment might be just the astringent touch needed. He wipes his hands and mouth, goes through three serviettes before he feels ready.

“Remember that day in the historical park . . . Jockey Hollow, was it? Remember when you spoke about yourself in an effort to draw me out?”

She nods.

“Do you recall telling me that throughout the ordeal with your grandmother you wanted to believe she was redeemable, that she would somehow, someday, revert to being caring and comforting? Become grandmotherly is the way I think you put it, actually.”

“Yes, I do . . . yes I did.”

“When you described your stubborn faith . . . your hope . . . your belief . . . whatever it was, I identified strongly. I felt a certain kinship with you I wasn’t able to express at the time. And I felt, deep down, that if I ever was able—”

“You don’t have to go on. I understand, and I arrived at that understanding on my own, so I could only nod in agreement when first Rayce and then Nate spoke of your tenacity and—”

“And you don’t have to go on . . . thank you.”

“One more thing,” she says, “please . . . and it’s just for me to know. What I do
not
understand is your reluctance to let this facet of you be revealed. You seem almost apologetic, even ashamed about this. You shouldn’t be, you know. Your willingness to look well beyond the shadow of doubt for redemptive qualities and your apparently unlimited capacity for forgiveness are highly laudable characteristics and nothing to be ashamed of. I see those characteristics as being at the core of what makes you such an exceptional person.”

“Then you better have another look because I’m not like that anymore. I went off handing out free passes of any sort when I came back to life. Ask Nate. Ask anyone. When whatever happened, happened, I got reprogrammed, you could say, and I’m no longer set up to be suckered. No, I won’t be making that mistake again.”

“I see.” She does her thing with the serviettes and they move to leave.

He pays the bill at a counter near the door and cheerfully signs a few autographs. Cheerfully because these fans were either too shy or too polite to interrupt whilst he was eating and for that, they get the full treatment.

Against a repetition with less-considerate fans on the boardwalk, he pulls out the battered hat and wraparound shades. This earns him a smile from Laurel as they walk back to the car.

FIFTY-NINE

Early afternoon, April 8, 1987

Ten minutes or so from the lunch stop, they reach the entrance to Island Beach State Park where Laurel allows him to pay the modest off-season rate. They’ve not gone far inside the park when they see a red fox looking for handouts along the roadside. The sighting elicits from Laurel a mini-lecture reminiscent of her nature talk during the hike through Jockey Hollow.

“And don’t forget Island Beach is on the Atlantic Flyway,” she says, “so a wide variety of birds can be seen here during migratory periods. Maybe we’ll see a mockingbird, or at least hear one. We might even spot a few yellow warblers.”

She continues to enthuse after she parks the car and leads the way to a numbered trail, going on about the herons, egrets, and ibis they could find lurking in marsh areas. Then, when they move along a slat-fenced path through the dunes, she rhapsodizes about shorebirds—the gulls, terns, and sandpipers sure to be found at water’s edge.

She points out growths of prickly pear cactus and identifies beach heather that she says will bloom yellow in another month. Closer to the ocean, she draws his attention to tufts of hardier stuff that can withstand lower temperatures and salt spray. She impresses upon him the importance of these sere grasses and sedge that anchor the primary dunes.

“Some with root structures said to go back a hundred years,” she states as though she had cultivated the plants herself.

When they reach the broad tidal flat, she appears ready to identify each and every shell encountered.

“Oh, and there’s a whelk, and look at all the periwinkles.” She scoops up a few of the small tightly spiraled shells and lets them drop through her fingers. “I think they’re having a family reunion,” she says with contagious delight.

Without help he can tell a clam from an oyster from a scallop and maybe point out a mussel shell. He wouldn’t know a quahog if it bit him. Or want to know a quahog if anyone but Laurel was doing the identifying. And he had no abiding interest in the nesting habits of ospreys until her enthusiasm touched him.

“Sometimes called sea eagles, these raptors build great huge nests of sticks in the highest trees or on man-made platforms built for that purpose. They return here in March, and egg-laying takes place in April—now,” she says. “We may see an osprey on the wing, but to visit the main nesting area, we’d need a kayak.”