The House That Jack Built (4 page)

    'Don't you think I know that?' Craig barked at her. 'Don't you think I fucking know that?'

    'Yes,' she said, restraining her anger. 'I do think you know that, yes. That's why you should have the sense to see what a few days' break is going to do for you. Maybe you can get rid of some of that anger. Maybe you can learn that there are some things in life which are way beyond your control; things that you can't do anything about, no matter how much of a wheeler-dealer lawyer you are.'

    Craig said nothing, but looked out of the window at the dreary warehouses and half-derelict projects of the Bronx. In the orange summer sunlight, it looked like a landscape from Morocco. Next to them, a black family were driving in a sagging bronze Mercury, father and mother and fat daughter and dreadlocked kids, and Craig was struck by their obvious happiness, the way they were smiling and laughing. If that old wreck had been his only car, he would have thought about fixing a hose to the tailpipe and killing himself. God, to be satisfied. Just to be satisfied once - with his career or his wife or his friends or his life, or anything.

    Unconsciously, he brushed his right shoulder.

    

    

    Effie opened her eyes and looked up at the ceiling. The sun was dancing across it like a row of dancing-dollies. Beside her, Craig was bundled up in the comforter with only his hair sprigging out of the top of it, his breathing harsh and aggressive. Effie listened and all she could hear was swans honking, and the tap-tap-tap of the curtains against the window catch.

    Not for the first time, she wondered how her life had come to this. No child, when she had always wanted a child. No time to paint, when she had always wanted time to paint. No time to do anything, except work all day at Verulian Galleries on Third Avenue, and then rush home to change for dinner so that she could decoratively attach herself to Craig's arm while he entertained his clients. It was always the same. Lutece on Tuesday, Le Bernardin on Wednesday, La Cote Basque on Thursday and La Reserve on Friday.

    Evening after evening of nodding and smiling at the wives of Japanese and Korean businessmen. Evening after evening of brittle, meaningless conversation. Effie knew that it was her duty; and she couldn't pretend that she didn't like the wealth that it had brought them. But she hadn't married Craig for this. She had married Craig because he was tall and shy and self-deprecating, and he had always made her laugh.

    She thought about those early days together, on Lafayette Street, and she could remember every detail of the window sill over the sink, with the pickle jar filled with cornflowers, and the wild-haired worn-out pot scourers, and Marmaduke the cat sleeping with his paws tucked up, and she could have cried, except that she didn't cry, because she was Effie, and as her mother had once told her
'Effies don't cry.'

    '
Ohaya gozaimas, ogenki des ka?
' she recited. That was Japanese for
'Good morning, how are you?'

    '
Hajimemashte
,' she answered herself.
'Pleased to meet you.'

    She sat up. The room was hushed and richly furnished in reds and yellows, summer colours, with a rocking-chair next to the fireplace, and a huge oak armoire. An oil painting of a retarded-looking shepherdess hung on the opposite wall.

    Craig was still breathing as if he were deeply involved in some complicated dream, so she kissed his shoulder and climbed out of bed. She walked naked to the window and looked down onto Main Street, with its freshly painted turn-of-the-century houses, and its neatly planted maples. In the distance, down at the bottom of the slope, she could see the river glittering, and an early windsurfer setting up his rig.

    She let the net curtain fall back. She turned around, and she could see herself in the cheval mirror on the other side of the room, a pale curved back; a dark cascade of hair, the colour of blackberries, in that moment when the morning light first catches them. She felt the carpet beneath her bare feet. She always felt so calm and beautiful when she returned to Cold Spring, so much at home. She believed that people have an affinity for certain places, even if they weren't born there. Craig, she was sure, was a city dweller. He needed carbon monoxide and the perfumed, airless atmosphere of international-class restaurants.

    She knew that he would have to go back. He would fret, otherwise - start drumming his fingers at mealtimes and checking his watch every five or ten minutes and start making phone calls back to the office. But maybe she could persuade him to stay long enough to get his confidence back, especially his sexual confidence. She needed him to make love to her, just once, to show that he hadn't been emasculated. She needed to feel his single remaining testicle, and to reassure him that was all she wanted.

    He still kept his towel wrapped around him when he came out of the shower. He still wouldn't let her look at him and touch him.

    She went to the mirror and stood in front of it looking at herself. She tried not to blink. Movie actresses were trained not to blink. Her breasts were pale with veins like the tracery of tree-roots. Five small moles formed a cluster on her left shoulder. I am a real person, she thought, watching her chest rise and fall as she breathed.

    She heard Craig stir. He grunted, like a dog grunts when it scents an animal that it doesn't particularly want to catch, like a skunk. He opened his eyes and blinked at her.

    Naked, she came and sat on the edge of the bed, and kissed his forehead, and ruffled his hair with her fingers. 'It's a beautiful day,' she told him. 'It's a beautiful day and every minute of it belongs to us.'

    'What time is it?' he asked her.

    'Eight-oh-two.'

    'Jesus, eight-oh-two. Listen, why don't you take a shower? I have to call Steven. He's due in court this morning with Filipino Oil.'

    'Craig, you don't have to call Steven. Steven is perfectly capable of taking care of Filipino Oil by himself.'

    Craig sat up. 'Filipino Oil is a very complex case. It's my case.'

    'For sure, sweetheart. But Steven knows just as much about it as you do. You said so yourself. So why don't you let him get on with it, without poking your nose in?' She patted the tip of his nose with the tip of her finger, smiling. She knew she was pretty; she knew she looked good. If only Craig would just forget about K-Plus Drugs and that damned hammer, that damned hammer which had beaten them apart.

    'Craig,' she said, and looked him straight in the eye. 'Craig, I love you.'

    He covered his mouth with his hand.

    'Craig, I love you, and I think it's time you tried to forget what happened and think about me.'

    Still he said nothing. She stroked the fine pattern of hairs on the back of his hand, and said, very softly, 'You have to let this go, Craig. Nobody could have done more. It didn't make you a coward. It didn't make you a fool. It didn't even take away your masculinity. We can still have children. You heard what the doctor said. Nothing's changed, nothing at all. Especially the way I love you.' Slowly, she traced her fingertip down his wrist, down to his elbow, and up to his shoulder. He wasn't looking at her directly, his eyes were fixed for no apparent reason on the electric socket next to the satinwood bureau. He looked infinitely sad, as if he had suffered the greatest disappointment of his life. She ran her fingertip down from his shoulder, and touched his left nipple, so that it knurled slightly. She tugged the few dark hairs around it, and then her fingertip continued its journey down his side, tracing the outline of each lean gym-trained muscle, until it reached his naked hip.

    Now he looked at her. 'No, Effie. This isn't going to work.'

    She didn't answer. Instead, she slipped her hand beneath the comforter, and took hold of his fat, soft penis. She could feel his single testicle touching her knuckles, and nothing had changed, not really. She felt breathless, she wanted to feel it, she wanted to squeeze it, she wanted to reassure him that he still excited her, that he was still a man.

    'For Christ's sake!' he snapped at her, twisting himself away from her. 'Don't you understand English?'

    Effie reached out for him again, but he pushed her off. She sat up straight, feeling embarrassed and frustrated and angry, too.

    'Craig… you have to try sometime.'

    'So you keep telling me. So Dr. Samstag keeps telling me.'

    'I love you, Craig. You can't keep pushing me away.'

    He said nothing, but she had never seen him look at her with such resentment before. His bitterness was so strong that she could almost taste it, like a mouthful of pennies with a squeeze of lime.

    He climbed out of bed, keeping his back to her, and picked up the oversized terry robe that was hanging over the back of the chair. She watched him wrap himself up in it, but she made no attempt to cover herself.

    'I need some more time, that's all,' Craig told her.

    'Dr. Samstag said the longer you put it off, the more difficult it was going to get.'

    'Dr. Samstag wasn't hit in the balls with a goddamned hammer.'

    'Craig... you have to make an effort to recover. You can't go on feeling sorry for yourself for ever. You're still virile, you're still a man. I still love you just as much as I always did. But I can't help you unless you try to start helping yourself.'

    He thought about that, but he didn't reply. Instead, he said, 'What do you want to do today?'

    'I don't know. Anything you like. Maybe we could go to the Boscobel Restoration and look at the furniture.'

    'You'd better get yourself dressed, then.'

    She stood up and faced him. She wanted to say something angry, but she knew that it would only make matters worse. What was worse than feeling frustrated was not knowing whether he still loved her or not. She couldn't live without love, and without approval, and she was beginning to feel that she might have to go somewhere else to get them.

    She could have shaken him. She could have dug her nails into his shoulders and scratched him until he bled. But all she did was open the bureau drawer and stare at her clothes as if she had never seen them before.

    

    

    They spent a quiet morning strolling through the grounds of the Boscobel Restoration, a Federalist mansion set in apple orchards and rose gardens, with sparkling views of the Hudson River and the Hudson Highlands beyond.

    'We should have brought a picnic,' said Craig, quite unexpectedly, shading his eyes against the midday sun.

    Effie linked arms with him, and this time he made no attempt to pull himself away. 'A picnic? After all that breakfast? Three helpings of pancakes, wasn't it?'

    'Have to keep my strength up, if I'm going to be a man again.'

    'You're a man now.'

    'So you keep telling me.'

    They walked around the mustard-coloured house, and then ambled back through the orchard towards their car. Effie said, 'If you're really hungry, there used to be an inn not far from here, just the other side of the Bear Mountain Bridge. Do you want to try to find it?'

    They drove down the winding road beneath the noisily-rustling trees. Effie said, 'My father used to take us to this inn almost every Saturday, for lunch. The Red Oaks Inn. He always had a Bloody Mary, and let me suck the celery stick. My mother said he was going to turn me into an alcoholic. He said he was trying to turn me into a vegetarian.'

    They drove around three curving S-bends, and then suddenly Effie said, 'Stop! Stop! I think that's it, off to the left!'

    Craig backed up the BMW around the curve, its transmission whinnying. A small downsloping side-road disappeared darkly between the oaks, so angled and overgrown that they probably would have missed it if Effie hadn't known what she was looking for. A faded wooden fingerpost was engraved with two barely-legible names, Red Oaks, and underneath, Valhalla.

    'Valhalla?' asked Craig, as he turned the BMW around. 'What's Valhalla?'

    'Somebody's house, I don't know whose. I looked it up in my encyclopedia, when I was a kid, Valhalla. It comes from one of those Norse legends, you know, like Odin and stuff. It's the hall of dead heroes. My father always used to say that it was a warning that he should never eat at the Red Oaks Inn, ever again, or else he'd wind up joining them.'

    'Well, he was pretty imposing, wasn't he?'

    'Imposing? You don't have to be PC about him, just because he's dead. He was F-A-T, fat.'

    They turned down the side-road, and immediately found themselves plunged into a cool, hushed world of low branches and dense bushes.' Occasionally they glimpsed bright sunlit clearings through the undergrowth, but for the most part the road was. shadowy and damp, and smelled strongly of decaying leaves.

    'You sure this is the right turnoff?' asked Craig, as briars squeaked and lashed against the BMW's bodywork.

    'It must be. It said Red Oaks, didn't it? And Valhalla.'

    'Right. The hall of dead heroes.'

    The road began to rise up the side of the hill, growing steeper and steeper with every turn. The bitumen had crumbled on both sides, and it was running with herringbone eddies of springwater. On one side, they could see nothing but treetops. On the other, they were treated to a dank cross-section of the earth's interior, with twisted roots and layers of leaf mould and pale, pungent-smelling fungi.

    'Doesn't look like anybody's driven up here for years,' said Craig. 'Maybe we should turn around and find someplace else.'

    'Well, we can't turn around here,' said Effie. 'We may just as well go on to the inn.'