Blind Assassin (26 page)

“Alex is all right. He’s just a youngster,” Callie said. “He just came along for the ride. He’s just a pal.” She didn’t want Father to get the wrong idea—that Alex Thomas might be a boyfriend of hers, in any competitive way.

“What can I do to help?” said Laura, in the kitchen.

“The last thing I need,” said Reenie, “is another fly in the ointment. All I ask is that you keep yourself out of the way and don’t knock anything over. Iris can help. At least she’s not all thumbs.” Reenie had the notion that helping her was a sign of favour: she was still annoyed with Laura, and was cutting her out. But this form of punishment was lost on Laura. She took her sun hat, and went out to wander around on the lawn.

Part of the job assigned me was to do the flowers for the table, and the seating arrangement as well. For the flowers I’d cut some zinnias from the borders—just about all there was at that time of year. For the seating arrangement I’d put Alex Thomas beside myself, with Callie on the other side and Laura at the far end. That way, I’d felt, he’d be insulated, or at least Laura would.

Laura and I did not have proper dinner dresses. We had dresses, however. They were the usual dark-blue velvet, left over from when we were younger, with the hems let down and a black ribbon sewn over the top of the worn hemline to conceal it. They’d once had white lace collars, and Laura’s still did; I’d taken the lace off mine, which gave it a lower neckline. These dresses were too tight, or mine was; Laura’s as well, come to think of it. Laura was not old enough by common standards to be attending a dinner party like this, but Callie said it would have been cruel to make her sit all alone in her room, especially since she, personally, had invited one of our guests. Father said he supposed that was right. Then he said that in any case, now that she’d shot up like a weed she looked as old as I did. It was hard to tell what age he thought that was. He could never keep track of our birthdays.

At the appointed time the guests foregathered in the drawing room for sherry, which was served by an unmarried cousin of Reenie’s impressed for this event. Laura and I were not allowed to have any sherry, or anywine at dinner. Laura did not seem to resent this exclusion, but I did. Reenie sided with Father on this, but then she was a tee-totaller anyway. “Lips that touch liquor will never touch mine,” she’d say, emptying the dregs of the wine glasses down the sink. (She was wrong about that, however—less than a year after this dinner party, she married Ron Hincks, a notable tippler in his day. Myra, take note if you’re reading this: in the days before he was hewn into a pillar of the community by Reenie, your father was a notable souse.)

Reenie’s cousin was older than Reenie, and dowdy to the point of pain. She wore a black dress and a white apron, as was proper, but her stockings were brown cotton and sagging, and her hands could have been cleaner. In the daytimes she worked at the grocer’s, where one of her jobs was bagging potatoes; it’s hard to scrub off that kind of grime. Reenie had made canapés featuring sliced olives, hard-boiled eggs, and tiny pickles; also some baked cheese pastry balls, which had not come out as expected. These were set on one of Grandmother Adelia’s best platters, hand-painted china from Germany, in a design of dark-red peonies with gold leaves and stems. On top of the platter was a doily, in the centre was a dish of salted nuts, with the canapés arranged like the petals of a flower, all bristling with toothpicks. The cousin thrust them at our guests abruptly, menacingly even, as if enacting a stick-up.

“This stuff looks pretty septic,” said Father in the ironic tone I’d come to recognize as his voice of disguised anger. “Better beg off or you’ll suffer later.” Callie laughed, but Winifred Griffen Prior graciously lifted a cheese ball and inserted it into her mouth in that way women have when they don’t want their lipstick to come off—lips pushed outward, into a sort of funnel—and said it wasinteresting. The cousin had forgotten the cocktail napkins, so Winifred was left with greasy fingers. I watched her curiously to see whether she would lick them or wipe them on her dress, or perhaps on our sofa, but I moved my eyes away at the wrong time, and so I missed it. My hunch was the sofa.

Winifred was not (as I’d thought) Richard Griffen’s wife, but his sister. (Was she married, widowed, or divorced? It wasn’t entirely clear. She used her given name after the Mrs., which would indicate some sort of damage to the erstwhile Mr. Prior, if indeed he was erstwhile. He was seldom mentioned and never seen, and was said to have a lot of money, and to be “travelling.” Later, when Winifred and I were no longer on speaking terms, I used to concoct stories for myself about this Mr. Prior: Winifred had got him stuffed and kept him in mothballs in a cardboard box, or she and the chauffeur had walled him up in the cellar in order to indulge in lascivious orgies. The orgies may not have been that far from the mark, although I have to say that whatever Winifred did in that direction was always done discreetly. She covered her tracks—a virtue of sorts, I suppose.)

That evening Winifred wore a black dress, simply cut but voraciously elegant, set off by a triple string of pearls. Her earrings were minute bunches of grapes, pearl also but with gold stems and leaves. Callie Fitzsimmons, by contrast, was pointedly underdressed. For a couple of years now she’d set aside her fuchsia and saffron draperies, her bold Russian-émigré designs, even her cigarette holder. Now she went in for slacks in the daytime, and V-neck sweaters, and rolled-up shirt sleeves; she’d cut her hair too, and shortened her name to Cal.

She’d given up the monuments to dead soldiers: there was no longer much of a demand for them. Now she did bas-reliefs of workers and farmers, and fishermen in oilskins, and Indian trappers, and aproned mothers toting babies on their hips and shielding their eyes while looking at the sun. The only patrons who could afford to commission these were insurance companies and banks, who would surely want to apply them to the outsides of their buildings in order to show they were in tune with the times. It was discouraging to be employed by such blatant capitalists, said Callie, but the main thing was the message, and at least anyone going past the banks and so forth on the street would be able to see these bas-reliefs, free of charge. It was art for the people, she said.

She’d had some idea that Father might help her out—get her some more bank jobs. But Father had said dryly that he and the banks were no longer what you’d call hand in glove.

For this evening she wore a jersey dress the colour of a duster—taupe was the name of this colour, she’d told us; it was French formole. On anyone else it would have looked like a droopy bag with sleeves and a belt, but Callie managed to make it seem the height, not of fashion or chic exactly—this dress implied that such things were beneath notice—but rather of something easy to overlook but sharp, like a common kitchen implement—an ice pick, say—just before the murder. As a dress, it was a raised fist, but in a silent crowd.

Father wore his dinner jacket, which was in need of pressing. Richard Griffen wore his, which wasn’t. Alex Thomas wore a brown jacket and grey flannels, too heavy for the weather; also a tie, red spots on a blue ground. His shirt was white, the collar too roomy. His clothes looked as if he’d borrowed them. Well, he hadn’t expected to be invited to dinner.

“What a charming house,” said Winifred Griffen Prior with an arranged smile, as we walked into the dining room. “It’s so—so well preserved! What amazing stained-glass windows—howfin de siècle! It must be like living in a museum!”

What she meant wasoutmoded. I felt humiliated: I’d always thought those windows were quite fine. But I could see that Winifred’s judgment was the judgment of the outside world—the world that knew such things and passed sentence accordingly, that world I’d been so desperately longing to join. I could see now how unfit I was for it. How countrified, how raw.

“They are particularly fine examples,” said Richard, “of a certain period. The panelling is also of high quality.” Despite his pedantry and his condescending tone, I felt grateful to him: it didn’t occur to me that he was taking inventory. He knew a tottering regime when he saw one: he knew we were up for auction, or soon would be.

“Bymuseum, do you mean dusty?” said Alex Thomas. “Or perhaps you meantobsolete.”

Father scowled. Winifred, to do her justice, blushed.

“You shouldn’t pick on those weaker than yourself,” said Callie in a pleased undertone.

“Why not?” said Alex. “Everyone else does.”

Reenie had gone the whole hog on the menu, or as much of that hog as we could by that time afford. But she’d bitten off more than she could chew. Mock Bisque, Perch a la Provençale, Chicken a la Providence—on it came, one course after another, unrolling in an inevitable procession, like a tidal wave, or doom. There was a tinny taste to the bisque, a floury taste to the chicken, which had been treated too roughly and had shrunk and toughened. It was not quite decent to see so many people in one room together, chewing with such thoughtfulness and vigour. Mastication was the right name for it—not eating.

Winifred Prior was pushing things around on her plate as if playing dominoes. I felt a rage against her: I was determined to eat up everything, even the bones. I would not let Reenie down. In the old days, I thought, she’d never have been stuck like this—caught short, exposed, and thereby exposing us. In the old days they’d have brought in experts.

Beside me, Alex Thomas too was doing his duty. He was sawing away as if life depended on it; the chicken squeaked under his knife. (Not that Reenie was grateful to him for his dedication. She kept tabs on who had eaten what, you may be sure.That Alex What’s-his-name certainly had an appetite on hint, was her comment.You’d think he’d been starved in a cellar. )

Under the circumstances, conversation was sporadic. There was a lull after the cheese course, however—the cheddar too young and bouncy, the cream too old, thebleu too high—during which we could pause and take stock, and look around us.

Father turned his one blue eye on Alex Thomas. “So, young man,” he said, in what he may have thought was a friendly tone, “what brings you to our fair city?” He sounded like a paterfamilias in a stodgy Victorian play. I looked down at the table.

“I’m visiting friends, sir,” Alex said, politely enough. (We would hear Reenie, later, on the subject of his politeness. Orphans were well mannered because good manners had been beaten into them, in the orphanages. Only an orphan could be so self-assured, but this aplomb of theirs concealed a vengeful nature—underneath, they were jeering at everyone. Well, of course they’d be vengeful, considering how they’d been fobbed off. Most anarchists and kidnappers were orphans.)

“My daughter tells me you are preparing for the ministry,” said Father. (Neither Laura nor I had said anything about this—it must have been Reenie, and predictably, or perhaps maliciously, she’d got it a little wrong.)

“I was, sir,” said Alex. “But I had to give it up. We came to a parting of the ways.”

“And now?” said Father, who was used to getting concrete answers.

“Now I live by my wits,” said Alex. He smiled, to show self-deprecation.

“Must be hard for you,” Richard murmured and Winifred laughed. I was surprised: I hadn’t credited him with that kind of wit.

“He must mean he’s a newspaper reporter,” she said. “A spy in our midst!”

Alex smiled again, and said nothing. Father scowled. As far as he was concerned, newspaper reporters were vermin. Not only did they lie, they preyed on the misery of others—corpse flieswas his term for them. He did make an exception for Elwood Murray, because he’d known the family.Drivel-monger was the worst he would say about Elwood.

After that the conversation turned to the general state of affairs—politics, economics—as it was likely to in those days. Worse and worse, was Father’s opinion; about to turn the corner, was Richard’s. It was hard to know what to think, said Winifred, but she certainly hoped they’d be able to keep the lid on.

“The lid on what?” said Laura, who hadn’t said anything so far. It was as if a chair had spoken.

“On the possibility of social turmoil,” said Father, in his reprimanding tone that meant she was not to say any more.

Alex said he doubted it. He’d just come back from the camps, he said.

“The camps?” said Father, puzzled. “What camps?”

“The relief camps, sir,” said Alex. “Bennett’s labour camps, for the unemployed. Ten hours a day and slim pickings. The boys aren’t too keen on it—I’d say they’re getting restless.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” said Richard. “It’s better than riding the rails. They get three square meals, which is more than a workman with a family to support may get, and I’m told the food’s not bad. You’d think they’d be grateful, but that sort never are.”

“They’re not any particular sort,” said Alex.

“My God, an armchair pinko,” said Richard. Alex looked down at his plate.

“If he’s one, so am I,” said Callie. “But I don’t think you have to be a pinko in order to realize…”

“What were you doing out there?” said Father, cutting her off. (He and Callie had been arguing quite a lot lately. Callie wanted him to embrace the union movement. He said Callie wanted two and two to make five.)

Just then thebombe glacée made an entrance. We had an electric refrigerator by then—we’d got it just before the Crash—and Reenie, although suspicious of its freezing compartment, had made good use of it for this evening. Thebombe was shaped like a football, and was bright green and hard as flint, and took all our attention for a while.

While the coffee was being served the fireworks display began, down at the Camp Grounds. We all went out on the dock to watch. It was a lovely view, as you could see not only the fireworks themselves but their reflections in the Jogues River. Fountains of red and yellow and blue were cascading into the air—exploding stars, chrysanthemums, willow trees made of light.

“The Chinese invented gunpowder,” said Alex, “but they never used it for guns. Only fireworks. I can’t say I really enjoy them, though. They’re too much like heavy artillery.”