The Angel's Cut (31 page)

S
ix weeks later Flora and Xas took the baby out to register her birth. She was thriving, but tiny still. The shells of her ears had separated from her head and her fingernails had appeared from behind the horizon of their quicks. But Xas had done a little reading—once he dared to put the baby down long enough to go out to the library and borrow books on infant care. He realised that Flora and he should perhaps prevaricate a little about when she had appeared. She was doing much better than she could be expected to for a baby so premature. Of course, the clerk at City Hall wasn't a paediatrician and while he helped Xas and Flora complete their paperwork he didn't even glance at the quiet little bundle Flora was carrying.

Alison McLeod Hintersee.

Flora's house had a modern mangle washing machine, not an old copper. As a girl Flora had sometimes sat in the wash
house and watched her grandmother fish clothes from the soaking tub—grey concrete with the tide mark of soap on its sides. Grandma would lift them into the copper then, after stirring them in boiling water, transfer them from the copper into the rinsing tub. Flora had admired her grandmother's hardy strength. It was just as well she didn't have to think how to manage any of this herself. Xas did it all. He washed everything in the machine, with detergent, then put his big chilli pot on the stove and boiled one sheet or five diapers at a time. And, once, one of the neighbours was intrigued to see ‘the young pilot', as he was known in the neighbourhood, out at the washing line after midnight, lifting wet diapers bare-handed from a pot that was billowing steam into the cold air, wringing them out and pegging them up, all while the cloths fumed hellish tendrils of steam.

Flora called Avril, who was on location in Hawaii, and then sent a photo of Alison, smiling one of her early, toothless, open-wallet-shaped smiles. Avril was full of questions; she promised to visit as soon as she was back.

She appeared several weeks later, with flowers, and a christening gown of Brussels lace. Xas fixed Flora and her guest tea, then got out of their way. But, late that afternoon, Avril found Xas out by the clothes line, pegging out washing. Avril picked her way across the lawn, walking on tiptoe to prevent her shoe heels from penetrating the turf. She was carrying Alison. Xas upturned the empty laundry basket for Avril, and she sat down, Alison on her knee. ‘Baby is only halfway through a feed,' she said. She rubbed Alison's
back to raise a burp. Alison slumped, sleepily. She grizzled, her pouting mouth red and wet with milk, her hair darkly curdled with perspiration.

‘It seems to me that Flora's a little touchy, even for someone so tired,' Avril said. ‘But it's hard for me to judge. I really haven't any experience of babies.'

Alison produced a burp, and Xas caught a whiff of the breast milk's sweet fennel scent.

Avril looked disconcerted. ‘I guess that's the desired result,' she said.

‘Yes.' Xas smiled at her. ‘Keep going, there might be more.'

‘And, surely, Flora's feet shouldn't still be swollen,' Avril said.

‘I have suggested we get a doctor to look at that.'

‘And?'

‘Do you think she's against doctors because of her long stay in hospital?'

‘No. Flora's far too sensible for that.'

Xas nodded.

‘But right now she's too tired to think straight. So you should just decide for her. Make an appointment. I can make some recommendations if you don't like your current doctor.'

‘We don't really have one.'

‘Are you telling me she didn't see a doctor at any time during her pregnancy?'

‘She was very reluctant. I thought she must be afraid of them.'

Avril stared at him for a time. Then she asked, ‘Do you always let her get her own way?'

‘I always let everyone,' he said, then, after a moment, ‘That sounds worse than it is.'

Avril got up and put Alison over her shoulder. She lingered a moment longer, swinging her weight from foot to foot, as people do by instinct when they're holding a baby. ‘I fixed us some crackers and tomatoes before, and I had to ask Flora where you kept the salt shaker. She said you don't salt anything, and it occurred to me that you already had her on a diet. That you'd read a book.'

Avril had noticed all the books. From her expression Xas thought that perhaps she disapproved of them. ‘Yes,' he said, ‘I think it's better if she has next to no salt now.'

‘If you know that much, then why haven't you made her go to a doctor already?'

‘I don't make people do things.'

‘You mean, you won't be responsible.'

‘I once gave someone bad advice.'

Avril frowned at him, and looked set to linger. But Alison was yawning, squeaking, smacking her lips, clearly ready for more milk, so Avril carried her inside.

Xas fetched his hoe then went around his vegetable beds scraping the tender green flush of weeds from the soil around his young tomato plants. He thought about the bad advice he'd given Sobran. Perhaps not so bad in the balance. Celeste, the woman he had encouraged Sobran to marry, had never been wholly sane. And at times she had been insane. But they'd had seven children and those children had brought
Sobran great happiness. Was it really a sound policy never to offer advice? And, Xas wondered, was that really his policy? He had also offered Sobran advice on viticulture and winemaking. He'd offered Cole advice on the design of planes. He'd had many discussions with Flora about film, and some of that might have amounted to a form of advice, for their talks must have helped Flora form her tastes. Was it only the big things which he abdicated any responsibility for? The big things—love, and the acute mortal risks that often followed on from loving: children, illness, all the consequential trouble of the ravelling and unravelling of separate human lives. Had he been telling himself that, since the people he cared for died, it didn't matter when they died? When or how? Did he suppose that it was his business only to make those he loved comfortable?

Xas sat down on the ground. The bean frame was between him and the house, and he was hidden behind a filigreed screen of scarlet-flowering tender green runners. He put his hands over his face. Whatever he'd been thinking, he had to change. For this reason. Whenever he heard Alison waking up he'd come to look into her bassinet, and she'd smile at him. She already knew who belonged to her. She knew that he did. She'd smile and begin to kick, and wave her hands, as though hoping to clamber up through the air into his arms. She'd yawn, and the bud of her chin would sink into a socket of soft fat. Her tongue would curl around coos and ahs and she'd sing, or seem to sing, in her melodious milk-thickened voice. To
him
.

Xas wondered what Sobran would have thought of all this. He wished he could speak to him—for once wished not just to see Sobran and speak to him about their shared past, but to show him something, Alison, to share her, like great news that it should be possible to broadcast back in time to the beloved dead.

O'Brien came through the open back gate and, strangely, didn't trot toward Xas. Instead he plodded, apparently footsore. Xas picked the cat up and cradled him. He stroked O'Brien's rough fur, his these days tangible spine. He gathered the cat's sandy paws in one hand and kissed him on the tips of his warm ears.

Xas found Flora a doctor. The doctor sent Flora to a specialist at Cedars-Sinai. Xas waited outside the specialist's office during the consultation. When Flora came out the specialist said he wanted to speak to Mr Hintersee alone. A nurse would wait with Mrs Hintersee. One of the nurses offered to walk Flora to their car. She took Alison's carrycot from Xas. Flora and she took hold of a handle each and set off down the hall.

The specialist invited Xas into his consulting rooms, and asked him to sit down.

‘I don't know your wife,' the specialist said, ‘but one would think that her line of work required sharpness, perspicacity?'

Xas nodded.

The specialist made a thoughtful humming noise. He fingered the papers in his file. He looked up. ‘Your wife is
already showing some changes in censorium,' then, ‘Oh, excuse me—'

‘I know what you mean,' Xas said.

‘She's irritable, her concentration is impaired, she is suffering from fatigue, and insomnia. We might be able to put all that down to motherhood. But she also told me that there are times when, hearing herself, she thinks she sounds drunk.'

‘In the past week once or twice she's slurred her words,' Xas said.

‘She told me that she noticed, and was distressed that she couldn't correct it. She also complains of itching. And is occasionally nauseous. She said that you could give me a more comprehensive description of her diet.'

Xas did that. The specialist kept nodding. He seemed grave. He then said, ‘I can't see any adjustments you need to make. I did tell your wife that I'd like to admit her and she only said, “To do what?” I do appreciate that she doesn't want to be separated from the baby.'

Xas nodded.

‘We discussed weaning the child. I've given Mrs Hintersee a book about infant formula—

‘And what did she say?'

‘She agreed. Can you handle all that? Hygiene and sterility are very important.'

Xas nodded.

‘Your wife said you could. She has a great deal of confidence in you.'

‘All right,' said Xas. He wanted to walk away, join Flora and Alison in the car, drive them home, get back into his
routine—with whatever ‘adjustments' were necessary. He wanted to be private, to watch Alison at Flora's breast for a little longer, her small hands patting and pressing, her eyes flicking back and forth, as though she were reading her mother's breast. He wanted the hours to stretch—for a little longer. ‘All right,' he said, again.

The doctor got up, came around his desk, and put a hand on Xas's arm. He sought Xas's eyes—caught his gaze, held it. ‘You do understand?' he said.

Xas nodded.

‘Your wife didn't have kidney disease, but her kidneys have been fragile for a long time, almost certainly because of the burn injury. The pregnancy was too great a strain. She is now showing several signs of acute renal failure.'

Xas nodded. He remembered standing with Flora on a set watching a rehearsal. It was cold on the soundstage, and the actress was wearing a leotard and cotton tights under her satin robe. He remembered how Flora had turned to him and said, ‘Jean's a gorgeous girl, but you can see she has a problem with her ankles. They swell up now and then, like mine.' Flora had had an example before her—young Jean Harlow's puffy ankles, and her own. When Harlow died surely Flora hadn't believed any of those myths about the actress having accidentally poisoned herself with too much peroxide from bleaching her hair?

The specialist said, ‘Your wife's system might—
might
—right itself. But if it does not there's very little we can do.'

‘Yes,' Xas said. ‘Thank you.'

‘When your wife has weaned the baby I'd like to see her again.'

‘All right,' Xas said.

The man released him.

Xas called Crow and told him he should visit Flora. Crow said that he had a lot on his plate: he was getting married the following day, then flying to Hawaii for a honeymoon.

Xas said, ‘I understand that you and she argued. And that the argument was about honour.'

‘We didn't argue,' Crow said. ‘And I don't respond to emotional blackmail. I know what
you
want. I can see how minding a baby wouldn't sit with being a test pilot, and being out at all hours at clubs on Central Avenue. Or any of your other pursuits.'

‘Gardening is my main pursuit, now that I've quit Lockheed.'

‘Look—I'm starting afresh,' Crow said. ‘It's rare for a man my age to get the kind of chance I have now with Grace. Grace is a once-in-a-lifetime girl.'

‘You're supposed to say you're in love.'

‘Any sap can say that.'

‘So love's an opportunity? A stroke of luck?' Xas said, then, ‘You're an idiot, Crow. A great artist, but an idiot. You're a couple of years shy of fifty and you've still not worked out how long life can be, and how your seventy-year-old self will require certain things from the man you are now and, if you fail him, if you fail that old man, he'll disown you.'

‘Good God! Whenever you do open your mouth you sure say a mouthful. Look—I'm not liable for Flora's decisions. Flora is a big, grown-up girl. And, I have to say that, while you're telling me off, taking the moral high ground, I notice you're still hedging your bets with compliments. That tells me a lot about you.'

‘What it tells you is that praise comes to me more naturally than criticism. That that's the way I was made,' Xas said, ‘you benighted animal.' He hung up the phone.

Cole said yes, he would come and visit his friend. But he didn't appear. Instead, he sent three dozen red roses. Xas put the flaring mass in one bucket, rather than several vases, and carried the bucket into Flora's bedroom. He told her who they were from, and she said, irritable, ‘Oh, don't tell me
that's
going to start up again?'

‘That?' Xas shook his head. ‘No.'

‘Where's O'Brien?'

Xas promised to find the cat. He gave the roses one last tweak. He said, ‘It's summer, so he's pretty busy in the waste lot.' As he spoke he felt lightheaded, and injured inside, as he did whenever he lied.

These days O'Brien would often only sniff at his food, lick up a little of the meat juice, take a few laps of water. Then he'd go outside to lie in the crosshatched shade under the rosemary bush, and sleep.