Theo (31 page)

Somebody poisoned my dog. She’s dead.

Roger moves his eyes down to look hard at Theo. When did this happen.

Just now. Today.

How do you know it’s poison.

All the dogs are sick and can’t move and they’re foamy. And Paz is littlest and she died. Theo’s crying but angry. Tears he’s wiping away.

I’m sorry. Somebody here now did it.

Yeah. I know who did it. It was a man. I’m going to bury her.

How do you know.

I just do. I saw him try to make the horse eat something.

Fuck. Roger looks around then shakes ash onto the floor. Idiots.

Is your friend going to die.

Roger looks at Theo hard: I hope not.

Is she poisoned too.

No, she’s just unlucky.

How.

Never mind, mate. She’s a victim of purity.

What.

Nothing. There’s an ambulance coming, and there’ll be police. Maybe reporters, for fuck’s sake.

Are they going to arrest somebody.

They’ll try.

Is my dad in trouble.

It’s his house. And he’s not unknown to them. They’ll make it his fault.

How.

He let it happen.

Can we save him.

That’s what Colin’s doing.

How.

He’s going to take one for the team.

What.

I told you man, it’s hard on everybody. Colin’s doing a job.

Does that mean like getting arrested, Theo asks.

If necessary, he’ll say it’s his fault.

But he didn’t do anything.

We can’t have your dad in more trouble. He won’t be able to live here anymore, and you don’t want that, right.

How come you’re not in trouble.

Roger smiled. I’m always in trouble, just not this time. I’m a guest.

She’s your friend.

Yeah, but I can’t control what she does. Our car’s clean.

I don’t understand.

It’s okay, son. It’s okay. It’s being handled. That’s why your dad’s talking to the lawyers.

My dad’s making Colin get arrested even though he didn’t do anything.

Roger stares out into the light. It’s part of Colin’s job.

What kind of job is that.

The kind people like Colin do for people like us, because that’s his job.

Theo thinks but doesn’t know what to say, he’s full of sadness
and sharp edges, together, he feels like he’ll cut someone if he touches them.

Theo thinks about what Roger said before and feels something important has stopped being true. Theo thinks about his dad, talking to lawyers, Colin waiting for the police to take him instead of – who. His dad. Roger. Who.

Whatever the new truth will be, it’s coming quickly. And right now he wants to get out of that room and the smoke and the smelly guys in T-shirts with wet moons from the heat. Roger’s lighting another cigarette, and looking at Theo.

Figure out what you can’t live without, son, and let the rest go. Roger’s saying this to Theo, leaning over to say it.

You’re not my dad.

No. But I’ve known you your whole life. I was in Tunisia with Frieda and your dad when she got pregnant. Your dad wrote a song about you before you were born.

I’m not like you.

Yeah, maybe not. Roger laughs: I sure hope not, for your sake.

You don’t want people to be like you. What does that make you.

Maybe when you’re older you’ll get it. If you even remember. Roger laughed again.

You’re always laughing. I don’t see what’s so funny.

Theo, man, I’m not the enemy. I’m a friend. I just want to help.

That’s what everybody says. Because my dad’s famous.

Roger’s looking at Theo the way adults look at things from an oven to figure out whether they’re cooked or not. Roger’s assessing whether Theo’s ready, for something. More advice they think he’s too young to understand.

Your dad’s trying, mate. He loves you very much, but you’re going to have to figure out a lot of things yourself. He’s hopeless: Roger laughs.

I don’t need any more advice.

No more advice, my friend. But maybe some news.

News. Are the police here.

No, that’s not the news. But we’ll handle them, no worries.

His dad’s slinking into the ballroom now; Adrian’s blinking at the bright light and someone’s handing him sunglasses and Theo’s running to him.

Why is Colin going to jail.

Whoa, hold on, mate. Colin’s not going to jail. Jesus, it’s like a bloody office in here. I gotta take it slow or I’ll get the bends.

Why would you make Colin get arrested.

Adrian stares at Theo, a long time, then at Roger, who inhales from his cigarette. Adrian looks around the ballroom, at the men boxing equipment and thumbing hair out of their eyes, the people looking in from the halls, someone ducking out of the sun to collapse and sprawl on pillows, everyone really looking at Roger and Adrian, even if they aren’t, even if they smoke and talk and look out at the light through the smeared glass doors. Everything was a lie.

Look. I’m a crap dad. I love you so hard there aren’t words for it, but I’m a selfish, weak bastard. I’m too much of a child to be a good parent. But I’m trying my damndest – and I have to play. I’d slit my mother’s throat for a good song – Adrian tilted his head to look down at Theo and frowned – come on, mate, let’s get some peace.

Theo sees Gus’s wife, Roe, alone in England, her face. His grandmother. The most normal person he knows. Theo’s head
swims in light and heat and feelings and even the air’s agitated and unhappy.

In the sun Theo notices lines on his dad’s face, outside the shades, and on his cheeks and elsewhere, fine lines like old people have. Lines in all kinds of directions, like a map, with all the lines leading to the eyes and mouth, the eyes covered but the mouth there like a volcano or a mountain. Roads across a white desert. They walked, toward open space among the others, all the people.

See, here’s the deal. Remember the trial, when we stayed in the hotel. I’m on probation and if I get popped again right now I could lose my visa and we couldn’t work in the US again. And I could go to jail. One of a bodyguard’s jobs is take a bullet to save the person he’s guarding. That’s what Colin’s doing.

Isn’t Colin your friend.

He is. And that’s what friends do for each other. He won’t really have much happen, except endure some rudeness, I’m sure. Beastly treatment from beasts, what can you expect. You lie down with dogs and you get up smelling like rotten meat.

What do you do for him.

I pay him good money.

Adrian and Theo weave over the grass in a sea of sound. Theo tries hard to pay attention, but things are so slippery. Ideas and people.

Roger said you’re hopeless.

Adrian snorts: I suppose I am. I’m also hopeful, however, mate. Our ship will keep sailing, and we’ll pass through this little squall. You know, in New Guinea, kids your age are allowed complete freedom to come and go. Their parents just assume they’re smart enough to make decisions for themselves. And everybody has a hand in helping get them to that point,
the whole village. That’s the way I feel mate, I want you to be free.

Theo squints in the late sun, lower now. His hair’s in his eyes, white salt on his skin, which is dry and tight, like it’s too small. Maybe it’ll crack open and he’ll slip out and leave something that looks like a boy behind. But what will he be.

There’s a siren from the front side of the house where the road is, quiet but getting louder. Christ: Adrian turns and goes back toward the house, where Roger is gesturing at him, flapping his arm saying come here. Roger puts and arm around Adrian’s neck and talks into his ear, and they sink into the dark.

Theo runs around the side of the house, past the sunken pool with music floating up, and around the house’s side and there’s an ambulance and a police car, and a black car with a long antenna curling from the front up over the top to the back, like a grasshopper. Two men in light blue shirts and dark blue trousers and heavy black shoes, with sleeves rolled up, are hopping up the steps. One carries a red box like a fishing tackle box or a tool box. His arms are dark with hair. Two ODs, someone is saying, one of them or someone inside the open front doors who Theo can’t see.

That black car sits, while one of the sound men carries equipment from the house toward the mobile recording unit, the RV, cables gone: untied, ready to cast off.

Theo’s seen someone revived before, in Jamaica. He doesn’t want to see it now. He wants to bury Paz and go back to the water. He wants to be as far from the house as he can get without getting in trouble. But – who would notice. No one in this village.

Theo feels the world, huge around him, but he’s inside
something, another world, both slowly circling, and maybe there are openings between, but only when things line up and you have to jump, run, to make it through, to get to the new place. And maybe there’s another world outside of that one, but you can’t know until you get there. Cocoons.

That black car’s wings open, and men bend and get out, in suits. Theo’s father has suits, closets of them, made by a man who comes and measures his father, a man who always carries a cigarette behind his ear and wears a tie and vest with rolled up shirt sleeves, a British man from Manhattan. Adrian only wears the suits when he goes to court – another world, and his father eels through and back out by camouflaging himself, he says. Colin says it’s like getting washed into the sewers, you just hold your breath and ride the flow and hope the cleaners can get the smell out of your posh togs.

The men gesture at Theo – come here, they say with their hands. It’s the police from earlier. One calls over: Come here, son.

Why.

We want to talk to you. Make sure you’re okay.

I’m fine.

Well. We’ll let Child Protective Services see if that’s true.

I’m not a child.

Theo sees teeth – they’re laughing.

He remembers in Jamaica, one night he woke to Adrian and
Frieda screaming at each other and Frieda throwing things at Adrian, and Adrian calling her a daft cunt and Frieda waving a knife at Adrian, and people running between them and Theo in a hammock on the sleeping porch slipped down and out through the wooden door, which he liked the feel of, that door solid and warm, carved with leaves, someone on the island had made it as gift, and Theo rubbed his hand on it walking out into the stars and the wind – there’s always wind around, which he likes, something alive that shows up everywhere – and Theo laid himself out on the ground, the sandy bit of the garden between the big floppy cactuses and paddle-leafed green plants he didn’t know, just big and thick as hands, and he cried a little, he wasn’t sure why because it wasn’t like he hadn’t heard Adrian and Frieda do that before, in fact he’d heard them doing about everything they could do together, but tonight he just felt small and he lay there, and over him two tall palms leaned together and swayed slowly in the wind, just a little because they were big trees, but like placid animals, creatures tall and looking down and up and around, at the humans and everything, and clacking together, making small noises as they touched, soft wooden sounds almost musical, but not chatty, just sounds every now and then, and the wind lifted their long leaves – fronds Theo knew they were called – and let them drop, like wind was curious and just wanted to feel, and then gently let the fronds fall back so they clicked a little, too, every now and then. And he just lay there, looking up at the tall dark beings above him, and he heard a voice, or voices, in his head.
Okay. It’s okay, everything will be okay
.

Then the screen door slammed and he heard Frieda shuffling out calling his name, Theo baby, and she was crying. Weaving in the air, the trees looked down as she bent over Theo and
said, I’m sorry baby. We’re just terrible for each other, aren’t we, my love.

It’s okay, Theo said.

Theo’s running for a shovel, in the gardener’s shed and he’s running past everything and pushing and straining at the door and in the fanned light he sees an old wood and iron shovel, which he grabs and it’s heavy and he runs back out the open door and he’s light-headed and a little nauseous, which happens from not eating but also other times.

Paz lies under the bushes, and the catering lady’s not there but her assistant is, doing something on her knees. Theo’s running with the shovel and sees him, sees the man who fed the horse, and Theo feels hotter and he’s running toward the man, who’s turning to sit down on a bedspread, a pink spread with little pompoms on it, or knobs, or little bulbs, Theo doesn’t know what they’d be called, and the man is facing a group of people who are passing around a wine bottle and taking off shirts and Theo’s behind the man now and swinging the shovel and Theo sees faces across from him, and words coming out of them and the man leaning back on an arm and turning with a half smile to strain and look and Theo’s swinging the shovel and the flat of it hits the man on the back of the head and he’s face first into the grass and there’s yelling and jumping and the wine turned over and spilling on the spread, and it’s red wine, and Theo liftes the shovel again and is yelling and he’s holding the shovel like a sword, the blade down and he’s going to stab down and end the story and he can’t see and then he can and he yells sound because there aren’t any words and in the white is a small brown bird, on the lawn, watching, staring at him with its round cocked head, watching, and somebody else yells too
and he drops the shovel and runs and he’s running across the lawn fast, and he’s over the dazzling terrace and the sparkle and heat and into the thick gloom of the ballroom like underwater, where it gets dark fast, except in places like Jamaica where Theo’s been swimming and the sand is so white it’s light and even hurts your eyes, but here the ocean’s dark as the house, it’s all dark, and Theo’s in and not thinking or thinking but trying not to – what’s wrong is everything, this place, he can’t breathe anymore, he’s in trouble, he doesn’t know, he’s running around and past people and up the back stairs that the servants used, the way narrower and plainer, and harder, no carpet, just yellow and brown wood and walls of yellow and he’s running up and up and his stomach hurts and he can’t breathe but he’s at the top of the house, the level below the attic and he runs the steps toward the last stairs up to his room and he opens the door and slams it and he’s in butterflies, the room’s blurry with them.