In the Middle of All This (15 page)

The e-mails to Martin that he asked her to check were all cautionary, professional, and legalistic. He was not to speak about Jane Wilson, period. With the infanticide there had been phases of secrecy and interrogation, but even if Martin had sensed the student's depression, who was he anyway? He was just an anthropology professor. Some schools didn't even have anthropology.

She stiffened herself for the first class. He'd told her what the last one had been like. Yesterday she had been out raking the lawn, and their neighbor had stopped over, a college alum in his seventies who had returned, almost salmonlike, to this town to retire. Now he was bereft. “We didn't have this when we were their age,” he said, his face mottled with sorrow. “This self-confidence problem or whatever you call it.” Self-esteem, she suggested. “Yeah, well, whatever. We didn't kill ourselves back then.” She had stepped back and looked at him calmly, the children out of earshot in a pile of leaves. “People have always been killing themselves,” she said. “Well, don't you two people go getting depressed or anything,” the neighbor said, his face rosaceous. “It's not worth it.”

“Lauren?”

It was Ruben. “Hi,” she said.

“Isn't Martin in today?”

She told him, as tersely as she could, Martin's situation while he lounged in the doorway and kept pulling out a cigarette from a nearly crumpled pack and shoving it back in again.

“Well, do you have a phone number for him? They're going to have to talk to him.”

She gave it to him. “Anything else?”

“Nope,” he said. He shut the door.

She was lifting the phone to call him when it rang in her hand. The vibration made her drop it. It rang again. All right.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hey.” It was him.

“Ruben's going to call you. They need to talk with you some more.”

“Richard came back,” he said.

“What?”

“Last night. Very late. Weird. And now the car is gone and neither of them are here.”

“When you coming home?”

“Tomorrow.”

She sighed happily. “Hey, that's great!”

He told her again which disks had the assignments. “So, how are you anyway?” he asked.

“How are you?”

“I can't wait to get home.”

“Me, too.”

He paused. “Their call waiting. I've got to take it.”

“Call us.”

“I will.”

She set the phone on the hook. What a relief that Richard had returned. She hadn't thought he'd stay away for long, but it was impossible to know. She couldn't blame him. After all this she never wanted to blame anybody for anything, she wanted to move forward. She knew that was naive. She liked naiveté. It made her feel restful. Or rested.

She printed out the assignments and was about to make the necessary photocopies when the phone rang again.

“Yes?” she said.

“That wasn't Ruben, it was Elizabeth,” Martin said, his voice tense. “They'll be home so late they don't know whether they'll see me, and I should just wake them in the morning to say good-bye.”

“Maybe they just need the time alone,” she said gently.

“Maybe I just get the fuck out of here today.”

“You can't.”

“I know. I know.”

He was silent while she watched the minutes evaporate before his class.

“I've really got to do these copies,” she said.

“All right. I'll call you.”

Annka stood in the hall right outside Lauren's office door, as if she'd been lurking.

“Is everything all right?” she asked daintily. “Is Martin upset?”

Lauren stared at her. “Everything is fine.”

At least she'd told him where the key was. He had it now as he walked up the street toward the tube stop. Almost half the day left. He tried to lift himself. London. He could do anything! He kicked at a chunk of broken beer bottle and gave a whistle. The air was cold, the sky was clearing. London!

The high street clattered and chinked with traffic and trash. He bought a day pass from one of the machines and headed into town. Hamley's was in the middle of another refurbishment, and he had a terrible time finding the right aisles and once in them finding anything suitable. It was always easier at the airport, when he had only a few minutes and the stores offered only a few choices. He bought Sarah a set of special drawing pencils that she probably already had, and he found for Max what must have been his seventeenth or eighteenth tractor. Twenty pounds spent, just like that.

On the street again, he pulled up short. Maybe Richard was mad about him being there. Maybe he was tired of being constantly mistrusted and of having Martin drop in at any hint of crisis. Maybe that was it. Suddenly he felt a little better.

He found a set of coffee mugs that looked like they were made in Italy but were actually from China, painted with vines of purple grapes and bold blue and yellow and orange stripes, narrow at the base and wide at the rim. Lauren would like them, and they were only another twelve pounds.

He had no idea where to drink, and now everyone seemed to be heading out for one. In previous trips he and Richard had always been allowed out once or twice, and they always went to terrific pubs or free houses, where the beer was incredible and they'd have hopeful conversations about all the traveling they wanted to do and there were even girls to look at. He recalled one place that had picnic tables on the sidewalk that caught the last of the day's sun, and when they'd moved inside the lights were warm and they sat at huge butcher-block tables, and for some reason or another a few girls joined them and they talked and laughed until they announced they had to go back to their wives. Where the hell was that place?

He always felt that London was the kind of town where you couldn't just walk and find something, you had to know where you were going. Like most parts of New York. He'd never lived in either city. He'd only visited. He was a hick from the hinterlands. God, he felt good. God, he felt happy.

He sat at the first bar drinking something dark. Elizabeth had sounded a little tense, a little distant, and now he knew why. He'd involved himself between them. What a jerk he was. He wished he'd thought of telling her that on the phone. But she'd been so … dismissive, almost. “Go out and have some fun,” she'd said. He'd just gone along and allowed himself to be dismissed. Just another way in a series of ways that he'd been swallowing parts of himself ever since she'd told him she was ill. Not well. Whatever she called it.

On the wall the bar menu bragged the usual English crap. He ordered another of the same—stout or porter, he'd forgotten which—and tried to think of a good neighborhood between here and Dunkers Green. He liked Hampstead, but Hampstead was at least a couple of changes away on the tube. Findlay had that new mall, but there'd be nothing to look at while he drank. He didn't even know how to get to Chelsea, and there was no way that place was anywhere near the right direction. But it was his last night in London! He gulped the beer and sauntered from the pub.

The 7-Eleven had lots of recognizable cigarette brands, even his favorite. He felt like anything could happen now. He had a little money and an excellent credit card. Wasn't alcohol a depressant? Why did it always make him so goddamn happy?

At Hampstead—yes, Hampstead, to his wonder he'd made it, a gray-and-yellow blur of getting on and off trains and going up and down escalators trying not to read the ads posted alongside—there were almost too many good places to choose from and he felt a wonderful determination to try them all. He hadn't cut loose like this in a long time. And it was still daylight. London!

He nursed another dark one at a picnic table not far from the curb, and watched the people and the traffic pass, a lot of miniskirts on kind of a cold day. At other tables everyone seemed to be eating fries. He smoked two or three cigarettes, feeling healthier and more invincible with each one, and to his surprise ordered another beer. He'd been sure he'd be moving on by now. The beer was colder and thicker and just better than the last, but it was the same beer. Well, it was just better. This was his … fourth? Fifth? Fourth. He'd been at it for just over two and a half hours, including whatever it took to get here. He'd better pace himself, or he'd be home by nine with nothing better to do than watch the walls spin and channel surf with only four or five stations to look at. Four or five.

Bread. Something to soak it all up. He nodded his thanks inside to the bartender and walked soberly next door to a take-out pizza place and wolfed down a slice. Or was it a take-out pierogi place and was he quaffing a knish?

He sat on a bench attached to the entrance of the heath, although the actual heath was, he knew, incredibly far away and a little uphill and then downhill and then uphill from where he sat. Was it too late to slow down? Was the night already over for him? It didn't seem fair. He'd drink water but it would only make him drunker. Somebody had taught him that. Lauren? Lauren.

He hiked down the long high street, trying to be pleasant, to get sober. Four pints. That translated into a six-pack. That was a night's work. He'd really love to try somewhere else, but he didn't want to sit there being all stupid and nauseous and drooling, trying to hide how much saliva he'd have to be spitting out every two or three minutes. Too bad he'd wasted the night. Too bad he didn't have more self-control. Too bad he had never grown up. What was he thinking sitting down in that basement getting stoned? What was he thinking drinking as much as he drank? How pathetic. How irresponsible. How narcissistic.

He walked until he was nearly okay and then went into a really cool place—high ceilings, regal moldings, tall brassy mirrors, low chairs, marble tables, mahogany bar. You wouldn't want to leave anything out when describing a place like this. Peanut shells on the floor. Life-size papier-mâché creatures posted in elevated nooks and crannies. Cute waitresses. Lots of girls at the tables and one or two at the bar. A place where he was in danger of being the oldest person. But there was an old bald guy sitting alone in a corner, smoking a goddamn pipe. God, he was bald himself. Sometimes he forgot. He wondered why. Maybe he had too much self-esteem. Maybe he just never saw himself as bald, even when he looked in the mirror. Every now and then he'd see a picture of himself from the worst angle and be shocked. Just shocked. Straight on, face-to-face with a looking glass, it was hard to see himself that way. But from slightly above, like from where one of those papier-mâché guys sat eyeing him, it was impossible to conclude otherwise. He was really bald, like someone had just sawed off the entire top of his head.

“Sir?”

God, he had a flight tomorrow—god, he had to be at the airport by nine fucking o'clock, and he hadn't even ordered a car yet. Elizabeth said the card for the service was on the—

“Beer,” he heard himself say.

“Beer?” Was she smirking at him? Why did women bartenders have to wear such tight T-shirts? “What kind of beer?”

“Something dark,” he said. “I've been drinking dark other places, and I shouldn't switch. Actually I probably shouldn't even switch between darks, but it's too late for that.” He felt a need to spit and choked it back.

“Something dark,” she laughed at him. She was laughing at a bald man. How incredibly rude.

“You know. Not light. Not yellow. Not orange or amber or tin—” Tin? “Brown,” he said. “But not chocolate, not maple. I can't stand sweet beer.” He pulled out his pack of cigarettes and pulled out a cigarette and dropped it on the floor and had to descend like some kind of mountain climber from his bar stool and bend forward farther than he'd ever bent before to pick it up, all the while shining everyone his precious glaring meek bald head, and then reascend to find her looking at him, mirthful or snide he couldn't tell.

“You're not driving?” she said.

“Tubing,” he said.

That seemed to settle it and she brought him a really dark beer. It tasted like anchovies. No, that wasn't right. It tasted like Guinness. Sadly, he shook his head at himself.

“Is it not all right?”

God, she had a cute accent. Then again, he was in fucking England. “It's terrific,” he said with too much enthusiasm.

She smiled. “Works on you guys every time.”

“I know.” He was sad again.

“First time in London?”

“Nope.” He looked from side to side. For some reason he was the only guy sitting at the bar, where two pairs of girls were sitting elbow to elbow, smoking furiously. He managed to light his cigarette.

“Just seems it, then,” the bartender said. She seemed to like smiling at him. Maybe people liked smiling at bald men.

“I've had too much to drink,” he said.

She lightly touched her hand to her cheek. “I had no idea.” She mopped the counter in front of him with an almost-white rag. He swallowed more spit.

“I'm not a tourist,” he said, puffing his cigarette, then taking a shallow sip of his beer. “I'm visiting family.” He put down his cigarette.“'Scuse me,” he said, feeling green. “Where is—”

“Round back,” she said, excusing him. “You'd better hurry.”

As he splashed water on his face, he tried to count back to the last time he'd done this to himself. He didn't think he'd been this stupid since before Max was born, so that was at least three years back—the little guy was almost three. Was it when he'd gone to give that paper in San Francisco and Lauren had stayed behind with Sarah, and he'd met all his graduate school buddies for scotch and beers and martinis and shots of tequila? Was it that time in Atlanta that Lauren had taken Sarah to visit her mother and he'd gone out with some fathers of Sarah's preschool friends and they'd hit a dozen different bars downtown, and he'd had rum drinks and vodka drinks and rum drinks again and then capped it with some amber beer and Per-codan? The rumor was Jane Wilson never drank or smoked or took anything stronger than iced tea. The rumor was that she'd gone from shop to shop and found the rope at a paint store, that the chair pocked the wall in her dorm room when she kicked it back. That—conversely—she'd been murdered instead of having taken her life.