Some Great Thing (21 page)

“Well, it’s all heating up isn’t it, buddy?”

“Well, that’s right. That’s what I’ve been trying to let you know.”

“Well, I know. Shit. I’m as busy as you are. It’s going. It’s moving.”

“Yeah, but the Government.”

“What?”

“The Government.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“What’s that, buddy?”

“I haven’t heard from my contact there for a coon’s age.”

“Right.”

“Well, what’s that all about?”

“I don’t know, buddy. He’s your contact.”

“Exactly. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Well, it’s all going on. I’ve got thirty frames up. Phase one is on its way.”

“Right. Same here. My phase one is definitely on its way. What’s going on? I’ve called the guy fifty times, and then you’re … I was having trouble catching up with you.”

“OK. I’m seeing you tonight, aren’t I?”

“Where?”

“Your place.”

“Again?”

“Yeah. I guess I’ve been coming over a lot.”

“No, I didn’t mean that. But you were over there … I didn’t mean … you were there last week, weren’t you?”

“I didn’t know you weren’t going to be there.”

“No, I’m glad you went. We’ll talk business, won’t we? We should catch up.”

“Yeah. Everything all right?”

“Yeah. Yeah. A bit overworked.”

“Tell me about it,” he said.

“It’s all going on,” I said.

“That it is,” he said.

I
WAS UP ON
the hill trying to get a bit of peace again, and once again that Espolito Ghost of Something Wrong crept up on the neck. Fuck off, is what I whispered this time, but the feeling was undeniable and I still didn’t want to turn around. So I raced home and this time the feeling was right. It was midnight and the house was empty. No Kathleen. No Jerry Espolito on my neck.

I grabbed a beer and fell asleep on the couch and when I woke up at dawn there were footsteps upstairs. I didn’t care how much I felt sorry about Espolito dying: if he was still alive I was going to give him a fatal poke in the jaw because he was scaring the hair off me. The footsteps were in our bedroom. I knew it couldn’t be Kathleen because I would have heard her come in with Jerry, plus her and Jerry’s coats weren’t in the hall.

I grabbed one of my boots by the door so I could kick the ghost’s face with my hand, and I went upstairs slowly. I did make sure I was awake and thinking clearly. Trust me.

I couldn’t hear a sound from the bedroom once I was up there so I checked the other rooms first. Jerry’s bed had not been touched. Typewriter and calculator were still in the study. No more noise.

I went into the bedroom and there, lying on the bed, was a skinny black weirdo in a cape.

I flicked on the light and screamed with my boot in the air as a fist, but Kathleen barely stirred: She was out cold, passed out in her coat.

I was able to wake her up eventually, a couple of hours later, but she wasn’t very friendly. I was wondering where Jerry was.

“He’s over there, ya feckin eejit.”

“Where?”

“Edgar’s.”

“What’s he doing at Edgar’s?”

“Let me sleep.”

I drove over to Edgar’s wondering what was going on. Edgar answered the door and Jerry was behind him playing with a toy airplane.

“Hey, Jerry, there you are,” says Edgar.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there you are. We’ve been waiting for you all night.”

“Where?”

“Here.”

“I was at home. Kathleen and Jerry had disappeared, just gone. All night.”

“Come in.”

“They were gone all night, and then Kathleen turns up at home and scares the shit out of me. Hey, Jerry.”

“Hey, Dad.”

“How’s it goin?”

“Good.”

“He’s got his airplane there.”

“So what’s going on?”

“Well, I thought you were supposed to come over last night. Over here. And we called your place all night until around midnight or so. And Jerry here, he was all tired so it seemed best that he just crashed. See, I … Kathleen and I had drunk a bit, we were pretty looped, so we couldn’t really get her home. I didn’t know she left, actually.”

“She’s at home.”

“Right.”

“So, you’ve been looking after Jerry?”

“He doesn’t need much, do ya, buddy?”

“I had breakfast,” says Jerry.

“I dropped a couple of Pop Tarts in the toaster. I don’t have much else.”

“Well, thanks, Edgar.”

“No, it was … I laid on quite a spread last night. I’m sorry you missed it.”

“I didn’t know, I honestly had no idea we were invited over.”

“I had steak, Dad.”

“Did you, buddy?”

“He had a steak as big as a cat.”

“Did you, buddy? Good boy. Lucky boy. I’m starving.”

“You want a Pop Tart, Jer?”

“Yeah, all right. Please. Sorry, Edgar.”

“No, man. Have a Pop Tart.”

W
HEN I DROVE HOME
from Edgar’s with Jerry I asked him if he would like to build a house, you know, not a real one but a small one out of plaster on the floor at home. He was a hundred percent agreeable.

We instinctively tiptoed into the house from the garage. There didn’t seem to be any noise from upstairs so I opened the door for Jerry and followed him down to the basement.

I had fixed the basement up as a sort of distraction until I could build us the self-cleaning house, so it was really quite nice down there—couple of workbenches, a television, no carpet.

“Now, of course, Jerry, the basic principle behind plastering is that you can’t have a wall without a frame, and a frame is nothing unless it becomes a wall. Right?

“What we’re going to do here is ignore that basic principle.”

We heard a noise above, a creaking, and we were both quiet for a second.

“We’re going to ignore that basic principle because I think we should go ahead and get our hands dirty, and it’s a pain in the ass to build a small frame, right?”

“Right.”

“Furthermore, Jerry, and I mean this seriously, plastering as you and I know it is a dying trade. Nowadays people—and, sure, I’ll have to admit, I do it occasionally myself—people use plasterboard; and the only art of the trowel that remains is in smoothing the mud over edges and studs, and occasionally smoothing over errors in the boards. And by mud, I mean compound, don’t I, buddy?”

“That’s right.”

“So we’re just going to make some plaster, dip our hands in it and make an impossible house. What do you think?”

“Can I make my own?”

“Is Daddy getting bald and fat?”

“You bet.”

“You bet you can, big guy. I’ll make one and you make one.”

“I’m no good at Art or Spelling.”

“That’s OK, buddy.”

“And Damien Lowther says I’m stupid.”

“Well, how about Daddy rips his tongue out if he meets him?”

“You bet.”

“You bet your genius head, big guy, now let’s make a couple of dwellings. You’ve got to … when making plaster …”

There was more shifting upstairs.

“When making plaster, we have to pay the mixture some respect. We don’t have to worship it or, necessarily, pretend it’s a woman, or any of that shit, but we have to give it due respect. The one thing both you and the plaster know is that if it doesn’t feel right, it’s not going to hold. Now, you know my secret, don’t you?”

“Pinch of lime.”

“You’re a star, Jerry. Pinch of lime. Don’t tell anyone.”

“Is Mummy awake?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe she’s in bed still?”

“Maybe, buddy. So we’ll just use this bucket here and so … right?”

“Yep.”

“And so?”

“And Portland cement. Yes?”

“OK.”

“There is no alternative, Jerry.”

We set to building, Jerry and I, and we spread a quiet gray mess over the floor. We didn’t say a word to each other, and gradually, upstairs, Kathleen grew into a storm of cupboard doors and footsteps. We didn’t talk to each other in the basement for more than two hours.

Kids can be weird. Bunch of freaks, really. That’s one thought I dwelled on for a while. Jerry was moving his lips, making little sounds that must have been the people who were living in his house. If I did that while I was building I’d look like a nut.

His house was ingenious. It gave me a lump in my throat. I can’t describe it. You will never know. He wrote a “J” on each side and he made a little ball of plaster that he said was a cherry (for Jerry) and he put it on the roof. He was a bright, quiet little freak, and those whitening hours with the suspense overhead were some of the sweetest I ever spent with him.

“Your house is pretty ordinary,” he told me, which made me laugh, which was a mistake.

The door to the basement opened and Kathleen shouted “Jerry!” from the top of the stairs.

We each waited for the other to answer.

She shouted “Jerry!” again.

We both said, “Yeah?”

I
T WAS MY MISTAKE
, apparently. Kathleen had told me about dinner at Edgar’s ages before. I don’t know how I forgot. Never mind. Nothing a slap round my ear wouldn’t fix.

Everyone started walking away from me again. I was finishing the walls of phase one.

I don’t think I have ever lived in myself. I had a glimpse of that realization when I was looking at one of those walls. If a wall is something hard, something real, maybe even an end, or an unmistakable truth; and this is me, here, this body, here; then I think where I, my mind, always actually lived was somewhere between me and the walls. I think I’ve always run around between truths, between myself and the end. It is not a big space between me and the walls, but there is room to imagine anything.

G
ALATEA
,
SAUCY GIRL, PELTS
me with an apple, then runs off to the willows …

“H
ELLO, SIMON
!”

“So you remember me?”

“From dinner.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“Not long enough to forget you. Come in, come in. Are you here for Leonard? I’ve just come back from running. Excuse the shorts. Are you here for Leonard?”

“Not at all, no. Is he here?”

“I think he is out eating somewhere.”

“I was looking for you, actually.”

“For me?”

“I heard that you had bought a new house, so I thought I might intrude, warm your house, bring you bread and salt.”

“Where’s the bread and salt?”

“I could get some.”

“That’s fine. We have some. Lots. Leonard’s tastes are richer. Can I offer you a drink?”

“What are you having?”

“A shower is what I was going to have.”

“Shall I come back another time?”

“No, no. It occurred to me as a witty thing to say.”

“It was.”

“I would have champagne if you joined me.”

“I will.”

“So, you aren’t here for Leonard at all?”

“No.”

“It’s a good thing he is out then. I hope you don’t mind my appearance. I don’t actually run very much. There isn’t anywhere to run to, really, and I find it boring anyway. Nothing like a good walk. But I went running anyway, you see. Do you walk?”

“Only when there is no good in sitting.”

“Maybe you would like to walk with me sometime. Would you mind opening the champagne? I blinded my grandfather once with a cork. I don’t … I don’t feel confident.”

“I suppose not.”

“It was just the one eye.”

“I see.”

“I’m kidding. Don’t give me a full glass.”

“Here you are. Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

“I hope you don’t think I am intruding. Or that I am odd. Please don’t think that I am odd. I have been meaning to look you up ever since we met at dinner, to call on you. Awfully long time ago now.”

“It doesn’t feel that long.”

“I could have had you and Leonard over, but I’m not good at having people over. I am much more charming at other people’s houses.”

“Cheers again.”

“Cheers. I remember your story, from dinner.”

“Which one was that?”

“About food. About your daughter and her friends.”

“The Friends and the Pizza story.”

“Yes. ‘A spoonful of chocolate pudding.’ It was the best of the night.”

“Not much of a night then. I tell it all the time. Leonard gets me into a bind with his role-playing at dinner. I always end up telling the same story, no matter what theme he sets. He can be pretentious, my husband. Do you like him?”

“It’s a story about indecision, really.”

“Yes, it is. The heroine is upstairs, in fact.”

“Who?”

“Kwyet.”

“Quiet?”

“Yes. She is still Indecision itself. She’s a student. First year at McGill. But she keeps coming home because she can’t decide whether to keep studying or not.”

“So she lives in Montreal?”

“She can’t decide. I mean, yes, theoretically she is in residence there, but she comes home every weekend. Would you like to meet her?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t be offended if she doesn’t come down. I suspect the champagne will lure her. But don’t be offended if not … KWYET!”

“yes, mum.”

“WILL YOU COME DOWN FOR A MINUTE—she’s actually quite social—WILL YOU COME DOWN? WE HAVE A VISITOR.”

“just a minute.”

“There, that was easy. Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

“Leonard tells me you are having a difficult time at work.”

“I …”

“Oh, here she is. Kwyet, darling, this is Simon Struthers, a colleague of your father’s.”

“Hello.”

“Hello. It’s an extraordinary name, ‘Quiet.’ ”

“Mum’s a Kinks fan.”

“Pardon?”

“
Kwyet Kinks
. It’s a nickname, technically.”

“We renamed her. Have some champagne.”

“Nice.”

“Bit of a reward for being social. What were you doing upstairs?”

“Reading.”

“What were you reading?… Darling … What were you reading?… There now, you see, Simon, that look? The silence?”

“I’m thinking, Mother. I’m just thinking about what I was reading. It’s Latin, but I can’t really read a word of it. Ovid.”

“Why are you reading Ovid?”

“…”

“Darling, Simon asked you a question.”

“Sorry. For a course. I just don’t know why I’m taking the course. I don’t know any Latin.”