Authors: Charles Elton
Mr Toppit (32 page)
“Everybody knows a lot about the books, Merry,” Laurie said sharply.
“Merry’s doing an English major,” Jerrilee informed us, with a little smile of pride.
“Merry, the books are what they are,” Laurie said firmly. “Luke’s dad was a very special person. Nobody could follow him.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I have, like, total respect for his genius. But that’s what I’d want to do—bring out his genius.”
“It’s in the books already,” Laurie said coldly.
“But he died! He might have written more. Was he going to write more, Luke?”
“I don’t know,” I said truthfully.
“Don’t you want to know what happened next?”
“There’s always got to be a next,” Rick said, nodding sagely, as if his statement of five minutes earlier had become a famous phrase or saying in the interim.
“And how would you do that, Merry, bring out his genius?” Laurie could hardly keep the contempt out of her voice.
“I’ve seen things in the books, hidden things.”
“Like what?”
Merry turned to me. “You know that bit in the fourth book,
Garden Grown
, when you think Mr. Toppit is chasing you through the Darkwood? When you get back to the house, you see that you’ve been cut by thorns and falling over and stuff. They’re down your front, those wounds, aren’t they?”
“It’s not me, Merry,” I said.
“Do you think your dad ever did chakra healing?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Well, I’m studying with this guy—Wade—up in Topanga. It’s a kind of healing energy. You use crystals and stones.”
Laurie sniggered. “I don’t think chakra healing has reached England yet.”
Merry ignored her. “Those wounds sort of correspond with the seven chakras—um, the crown, the brow, the throat, the
heart, the solar plexus … I can’t remember the other two. You know, maybe Mr. Toppit is a kind of healer with a split personality that makes him bad sometimes. Like Lucifer being an angel before he became Satan. There’s so much you could bring out if there were more books.”
Travis cleared his throat. “Well, the lady who wrote
Gone With the Wind
, she ended it with Scarlett O’Hara saying that tomorrow-always-comes-around thing. Maybe she wrote it like that because she wanted everyone to wonder what happened the next day. That’s why they’re doing a sequel.”
“It’s a different book, Travis,” Laurie said crossly. “The
Hayseed Chronicles
do not end with Mr. Toppit saying, ‘Tomorrow is another day.’ ”
“I love
Gone With the Wind,”
Jerrilee said, to nobody in particular. “Always makes me cry.”
“But wouldn’t that be cool?” Travis said. “To know what happens to Mr. Toppit? Wow! Imagine him in the real world. Maybe he has superpowers.”
Then Laurie did something quite mean: she shunted her anger at Merry onto the hapless Travis. Her voice was trembling. “Travis, just think for once before opening your mouth. This is really difficult for Luke. His dad passed away not so long ago. Can you imagine how he feels, you discussing it round the table?”
Actually, five years seemed quite a lot more than “not so long ago” and, anyway, we weren’t really discussing Arthur’s death. Nonetheless, her eyes brimming with tears, Laurie put out her hand and squeezed my arm. Everyone looked at me.
“It must still be so raw,” Erica said.
Rick nodded. “Big thing to deal with.”
“Hard, seeing him everywhere in bookshops,” Jerrilee added.
Thank you, Laurie. Now the entire table was waiting for me to say something.
“Is there any more meatloaf?” was the best I could come up with. In unison a sickly how-can-he-be-so-brave? expression settled on their faces.
“Yes, life goes on, doesn’t it, son? That’s painful, too,” Rick said.
Dear Luke,
I’m missing you. Claude is, too. We imagine you sitting by the pool (I presume she has one) at Laurie’s swanky house, drinking neon-colored cocktails with little parasols in them. Claude says that the last great contribution to culture made by America was the martini and it’s been downhill all the way. I hope you’re not wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and if you are, make sure it isn’t turquoise. Not a good color with our porridgy Hayman complexions.
You left a lot of chaos behind when you flew off! Let’s not even talk about the hangovers. There was a horrible photograph of you in the
Daily Mail
. Where do they find these things? Like Martha says about you, “Neck like a chicken, arms like a gorilla.”
We were all quite jealous. It wasn’t just you who got the police caution! Claude would have loved his photo in the papers, even with his bad teeth. Anyway, the good thing is that Martha is furious, so that’s a result. What a fuss! It’s only a caution. We’re not going to be hauled in front of some hanging judge and publicly flogged, which, of course, is what Martha would like. Not that I’ve spoken to her for the simple reason that she isn’t speaking to me.
Tant pis
. I’ve had—and I expect you will find one waiting when you get back—a letter from
Fräulein Löwenstein. Apoplectic, or whatever it is in German.
Apoplechtische?
What an old bag. Why doesn’t she mind her own business? “I hope you won’t mind me being honest with you, my dear, but I look on you and Luke as family … blah, blah.” We have let Martha down. She who has been so loving and kind. She who has proudly been the figurehead of the good ship
Hayseed
. She, who has taught us standards we have chosen to ignore. For fuck’s sake! I feel like writing back and telling her we’re talking about the she who cleared out Arthur’s stuff and put it on a fucking bonfire.
I miss you. Did I say that already? Claude isn’t much fun at the moment. Endless rows with his grandfather over money. The old man twigged he’d only had his front teeth done and not used the money to repair all of them so he’s cut off Claude’s allowance. Apparently he practically had his hand in Claude’s mouth examining his teeth as if he was a horse! I’m broke, too. No point asking Martha for money. I talked to Graham about writing a biography of Arthur and he said he’d think about it. Then he said he thought it was a good idea but maybe someone “more academic” should do it! We had a row because I said he was just stealing my idea. Anyway, I’m going to work on him and shame him into letting me do it and giving me a fat advance.
Claude and I are meant to be meeting Toby Luttrell tonight after they finish shooting. Claude is slavering with excitement. That producer, Jake, was on the phone asking if he could come as well, but Toby said under no circumstances. Apparently they all hate him and think he’s completely useless. Got to change now, though it’ll
take much longer to help Claude sort out his outfit. I’ll go on with this later.
I wouldn’t put much on today being a great filming day on the Hayseed set. Toby’s just left, called his driver and told him to pick him up here instead of at home. Late night. Claude’s just gone to bed and is snoring for England. Claude cooked one of his Thai things (again) and then sulked because nobody was very hungry. I expect Jake will accuse us of leading Toby astray. No leading needed, believe me. He’s got very bad breath. The difference between us and them is that we look after our teeth. Oh, my God! That wasn’t me talking, it was Martha! Don’t you find that? She’s so ingrained in me that I find myself thinking her thoughts even when I know they’re complete bollocks. All those ridiculous life lessons of hers keep invading my head. Only the intellectually inferior have “amusing” books next to the loo. It’s vulgar to serve a choice of puddings at dinner. “Silent Night” is not a proper carol and must never be sung at Christmas. Only idle minds have time to listen to the radio. And the real killer—that thing she’s always quoting from Goethe or Rilke or whoever it is, “Everything serious is difficult …” and then she gives that awful pause and says, like it’s a punchline: “… and nearly everything is serious.” God! No wonder we’re so fucked up.
I wish you were here even though I know I wouldn’t get much out of you. I wish you were here now so I could talk to you and not have to listen to Claude snoring. I was hoping Toby would be like you, like a better version of you. Sorry, not better, but more sort of
lifelike, like one of those super-real oil paintings—except he doesn’t look anything like you. That hair. That yellow—like a color that doesn’t exist in nature. Give me your mouse shade any day. And, of course, he’s the size of a toothpick. He kept nipping off to the bathroom as if we didn’t know what he was doing. Anyway, what did we care? Claude had got us a little party-bag (I know you disapprove but, honestly, we needed to cheer ourselves up) so we had some every time Toby disappeared, which seemed to be most of the time. In the end, like the good hosts we are, we came clean and pooled it. Then Claude made a bit of an idiot of himself with Toby. Even though he’s clearly game for anything, it was a bit much for the midget.
Why doesn’t Arthur invade our heads? Why is it just Martha? What happened to his life lessons? I can’t even think what they could be. Can you? Spend as little time with your family as possible? Lock yourself away in your study? Was he so unhappy? Did we make him unhappy? Do you remember sitting with Martha and Arthur years ago in their bedroom one summer and the window was open and there was a loud bang, some noise from the woods, and Martha said, “What was that?” and Arthur said gloomily, “Maybe someone’s shot themselves”? Even Martha was amazed.
Sometimes I think he threw himself in front of that concrete truck, like Anna Karenina. Just thought he couldn’t go on. Maybe that gloomy, withdrawn thing is his life lesson. Maybe that’s what’s inside us and we dwell on Martha’s ridiculous ones because it’s easier. Wouldn’t you like to be a cat or dog and not feel much,
just respond to simple physical stuff, like it’s either hot or cold or you’re hungry or not hungry? I don’t understand you. I never know what you’re reacting to, what’s going on in your head. You’re like Arthur. You hold it all in. I suppose that’s a defense, but I don’t know against what. What happens to people? There aren’t any cigarettes. I’m going out to see if one of those early-bird paper shops is open. I wish you were here. I might post this. Or I might not.
Love, Rachel xxxx
Because of jet lag I woke up early, sometimes early enough to say good-bye to Laurie when her driver came to pick her up at six o’clock. Then I was on my own for a while before the day got going for everyone else. I liked the silence or, rather, the sounds that broke it: the sprinklers in the garden, which were set on timers, the tropical birdsong and the whir of the giant fridge in the kitchen. It would be a couple of hours before Travis was up. I would know because I could hear him practicing his guitar—mostly the chords from “Layla,” reverb-y and distorted through the primitive speaker system he had set up. When I got to the poolhouse where Travis slept, Merry was sometimes there—she could get to it through the garden without coming into the house—and we would do a ritual of bear hugs and hand-slapping as if we hadn’t seen each other for decades.
Merry had lived in Modesto all her life so she was almost as much of a stranger in Los Angeles as I was. Travis said he had been there a few times and knew it quite well, even though he seemed incapable of going anywhere without getting lost. He kept saying he wanted to show us what he called “secret LA.” Actually, I wouldn’t have minded doing some of the touristy things, like the Universal Studios tour or Disneyland, but they did not seem to be on Travis’s agenda. We spent most of one afternoon trying to get to the Hollywood sign but it proved elusive: streets that seemed to be heading towards it
petered out into dirt tracks, while others twisted and turned with the sign above us vanishing and reappearing behind the hills.
In fact, many things proved elusive for Travis. He tried unsuccessfully to find the house where the Charles Manson murders had taken place, way up on a street called Cielo Drive, but Travis couldn’t remember the number and thought he would recognize it from a photograph he had once seen. That wasn’t the only confusion: he seemed unsure whether it was Sharon Tate or Sharon Stone who had been among the victims, until Merry corrected him.
Several times a week, Merry went to have her chakra healing lessons. Travis went with her but I couldn’t tell whether he was just driving her there or having the lessons, too. Her teacher, Wade, lived at the top of some canyon and apparently he was longing to meet me. According to Merry he thought the books were the “most awesome things” he’d ever read and had “total respect for their philosophy,” but he also seemed rather shy so it was always the next time that I would be taken to visit him.
When they came back from Wade’s they were fired up with excitement and—after the usual bear hugs and hand-slapping—we sometimes drove up the coast to a place called Paradise Cove where there was an old-fashioned shack-like restaurant. There, we had beer and hamburgers, then walked up the beach to go swimming. If you went far enough it was almost deserted, and if there was absolutely nobody around, Travis and Merry would skinny-dip. I tried hard to avoid having to do it, too. Showers at school were bad enough but it was just about okay there because everyone felt embarrassed. A beach in California, well, that was different.
Merry and Travis seemed totally casual about it and they had brown, easy bodies, as if they’d been hewn from a single piece of wood that had been carved and sanded and oiled to smooth perfection. I had to pretend that I didn’t feel like swimming—I couldn’t go in wearing trunks when they weren’t. I had a stomach ache, I didn’t like swimming after a meal, I was worried about a cramp, I didn’t want to get sunburned. How many excuses could you come up with? Finally, after we’d been to Paradise Cove three or four times, Travis said, “Hey, bro, you’re not shy, are you? Nothing to be frightened of,” and Merry giggled, and so, as if I didn’t have a care in the world, I peeled off my trunks and ran, with my white, uneasy body, which had been bolted together from various scrawny bits of driftwood, as fast as I could into the surf, hoping that nothing shrank in the cold water.
What we did in the days and evenings when Laurie wasn’t around remained between us. It became a secret for no particular reason other than maybe it was more fun that way. When Laurie asked what I had been up to, the cover-up you do when talking to a parent kicked in like a reflex: “Oh, you know, we drove to the beach, then went to Century City and had Thai in the mall food court.” If Travis was with us when she asked, there might be the tiniest eye contact between us, a telepathic agreement not to mention skinny-dipping or the margaritas Travis had made in the poolhouse with the limes and tequila we had taken from the store cupboard, or that either the little baby monster from
Alien
was burrowing through Travis’s jeans when we went to see
Big
at Grauman’s Chinese Theater or it was Merry’s hand.