On Beauty (53 page)

‘Oh, no? How so?'

‘Well . . . it turns
out
that Monty's
fucking
Chantelle – a student,' said Zora, speaking the expletive with particular vulgarity. ‘One of the discretionaries he was trying to get rid of.'

‘
No
.'

‘Yes. Can you believe it? A student. He was probably
fucking
her before his wife even died.'

Howard slapped the sides of his chair jubilantly. ‘Well, my
God
. What a tricky bastard. Moral majority my
arse
. Well, you've got him. My God! You should go in there and
spit-roast
him. Destroy him!'

Zora forced her fake nails, left over from the party, into the underside of the table top. ‘That's your advice?'

‘Oh, absolutely. How could you resist? His head's on a platter! Deliver him up.'

Zora looked up to the ceiling, and when she looked down a tear was working its way down her face.

‘It's not true,
is
it, Dad?'

Howard's face stayed the same. It took a minute. The Victoria incident was so happily concluded in his mind that it was a mental stretch to remember that this did not mean the incident was not a real thing in the world, capable of discovery.

‘I saw Victoria Kipps last night.
Dad?
'

Howard held his expression in place.

‘And Jerome thinks . . .' said Zora, with difficulty, ‘somebody said something and Jerome thinks . . .' Zora hid her wet face behind her elbow. ‘It's not true, is it?'

Howard put a hand over his mouth. He had just seen the step after this and the step after that, all the way to the awful end.

‘I . . . oh, God, Zora . . . oh, God . . . I don't know what to say to you.'

Here Zora used an ancient English expletive, very loudly.

Howard stood up and took a step towards her. Zora put her arm out to stop him.

‘Defended,' said Zora, opening her eyes very wide in amazement, letting the tears course down. ‘Defended and defended and defended
you
.'

‘Please, Zoor –'

‘Against Mom! I took your
side
!'

Howard took another step forward. ‘I'm standing here, asking for you to forgive me. It's real
mercy
I'm asking for. I know you don't want to hear my
excuses
,' said Howard, whispering. ‘I know you don't want that.'

‘When have you
ever
,' said Zora clearly, taking another step back from him, ‘given a
fuck
about what
anyone
wants?'

‘That's not fair. I love my family, Zoor.'

‘
Do
you. Do you love Jerome? How could you
do
this to him?'

Howard's head shook mutely.

‘She's my
age
. No – she's
younger than me
. You're fifty-seven years old, Dad,' said Zora and laughed miserably.

Howard covered his face with his hands.

‘IT'S SO BORING, DAD. IT'S SO FUCKING
OBVIOUS
.'

Zora now reached the top of the stairs leading down to the basement. Howard begged her for a little more time. There was no more time. Mother and daughter were already calling for each other, one running upstairs and one running down, each with her rich, strange news.

‘What? What am I looking at exactly?'

Jerome directed his father to the relevant section of the letter from the bank that had been placed in front of him. Howard put his elbows either side of it and tried to concentrate. The air-conditioning was still not up to the job of summer in the Belsey house, so the sliding doors were pulled across and every window open, but only warm air circulated. Even reading seemed to bring on a sweat.

‘You need to sign there and there,' said Jerome. ‘You have to do this stuff yourself. I'm late.' A heavy smell lingered over the table: a putrid bowl of pears that had expired in the night. Two weeks earlier Howard had let go of Monique, the cleaner, describing her as an expense they could no longer afford. Then the heat came and everything began to rot and swelter and stink. Zora took a seat far from these pears rather than move the bowl herself. She finished what was left of the cereal and pushed the empty box towards her father.

‘I still don't see what the point of separating the bank account is,' grumbled Howard, his pen hovering above the document. ‘It just makes things twice as difficult.'

‘You're separated,' said Zora factually. ‘That's the point.'

‘Temporarily,' said Howard, but wrote his name on the dotted line. ‘Where are you going?' he asked Jerome. ‘Need a lift?'

‘Church, and no,' replied Jerome.

Howard restrained himself from comment. He stood and walked across the kitchen to the doors, stepping out on to the patio, which was too hot for his bare feet. He stepped back on to the kitchen tiles. Outside smelled of tree sap and swollen brown apples, of which maybe a hundred were scattered over the lawn. It had been like this every August for ten years, but only this year did Howard realize something might be done to improve the situation. Apple
cobbler, apple crumble, candied apples, chocolate apples, fruit salads . . . Howard had surprised himself. There was nothing now that he didn't know about making food from apples. He had an apple dish for every day of the week. But it just didn't make as much difference as he'd hoped. Still they kept falling. Worms spent their days passing through them. When they turned black and lost their shape, the ants came crawling.

It was now about time for the squirrel to make its first appearance of the day. Howard leaned against the doorframe and waited. And here he came, scuttling along the fence, intent on destruction. He stopped halfway along and made the acrobatic leap over to the bird feeder, which Howard had spent yesterday afternoon reinforcing with chicken wire to protect it from this very predator. He watched with interest as the squirrel now set about methodically tearing his defences apart. He would be more prepared tomorrow. Howard's forced sabbatical had brought with it a new knowledge of the life cycles of his house. He now noticed which flowers closed themselves when the sun set; he knew the corner of the garden that attracted ladybugs and how many times a day Murdoch needed to relieve himself; he had identified precisely the tree in which the bastard squirrel lived and had considered cutting it down. He knew what sound the pool made when the filter needed changing, or when the air-conditioning unit needed a thump to its side to quieten it down. He knew, without looking, which of his children was passing through a room – from their intimate noises, their treads. Now he reached out for Levi, who he correctly sensed was right behind him.

‘You. You need your allowance. Don't you?'

Levi, in his shades, was giving nothing away. He was taking a girl out to brunch and a movie, but Howard didn't need to know that. ‘If you're giving it,' he said carefully.

‘Well, did your mother already give you some?'

‘Just give him the money, Dad,' called Jerome.

Howard came back into the kitchen.

‘Jerome, I am merely
interested
in how your mother manages to pay for the secret “bachelor pad”
and
go out with her girlfriends
every night
and
fund a court case
and
provide Levi with twenty dollars every other day. Is that all out of the money she's siphoning off me? I'm simply interested in how that works.'

‘Just give him the money,' repeated Jerome.

Howard tightened the cord of his bathrobe indignantly. ‘But then of course
Linda
– she's the lesbian one, isn't she?' asked Howard, knowing the answer. ‘Yes, the lesbian one – she's
still
squeezing half of Mark's money out of him, five years later, which seems a bit rich, really, what with their children being grown, Linda a lesbian . . . marriage having been just a small blip in her lesbian career.'

‘Do you have any
idea
how many times you say the word lesbian
in a day
?' asked Zora, switching on the television.

Jerome laughed quietly at this. Howard, happy to amuse his family even incidentally, smiled too.

‘So,' said Howard, clapping his hands, ‘money. If she wants me bled dry, so be it.'

‘Look, man, I don't want your money,' said Levi resignedly. ‘Keep it. If it means I don't have to listen to you talk about it.'

Levi lifted his sneaker up, a request for his father to do that special triple knot thing with the laces. Howard braced Levi's foot against his thigh and began tying.

‘Soon, Howard,' said Zora breezily, ‘she won't need your money. Once the case is won she can sell the painting and buy a goddamn island.'

‘No, no, no,' said Jerome confidently, ‘she won't sell that painting. You don't understand anything if you think that. You have to understand the way Mom's
brain
works. She could have kicked
him
out' – Howard expressed alarm at this nameless characterization of himself – ‘but she's like, “No,
you
bring up the kids,
you
deal with this family.” Mom's perverse like that. She doesn't go the way you think she's going to go. She's got a will of iron.'

They had this discussion, in different variants, several times a week.

‘Don't you believe it,' contributed Howard, and with exactly the morose intonation of his father. ‘She'll probably sell this
house
from under us an' all.'

‘I really
hope
so, Howard,' said Zora. ‘She totally deserves it.'

‘Zora, haven't you got to get to work?' asked Howard.

‘None of you knows anything,' said Levi, hopping to swap feet. ‘She's gonna sell that picture, but she won't keep the money. I was round there yesterday, talked to her about it. The money's going to the Haitian Support Group. She just doesn't want Kipps to have it.'

‘You were round there . . . Kennedy Square?' queried Howard.

‘Nice try,' said Levi, because they had all been instructed not to give Howard any details as to Kiki's exact location. Levi put both feet on the floor and evened up the legs of his jeans. ‘How do I look?' he asked.

Murdoch, fresh from a short-legged scramble through the long grass, came scuffling into the kitchen. He was overwhelmed by attention from all sides: Zora ran over to pick him up; Levi played with his ears; Howard offered him a bowl of food. Kiki had wanted desperately to take him, but her apartment was not dog-friendly. And now the remaining Belseys being nice to Murdoch was, in some way,
for
Kiki; there was the unspoken, irrational hope that, although not with them in this room, she could somehow sense the care they were lavishing upon her beloved little dog, and that these good vibes would . . . it was ridiculous. It was a way of missing her.

‘Levi, I can give you a lift into town if you like, if you can wait a minute,' said Howard. ‘Zoor – aren't you late?'

Zora didn't move.

‘
I'm
dressed, Howard,' she said, pointing to her summer waitress's uniform of black skirt and white shirt. ‘It's
your
big day. And you're the one with no pants on.'

This much was true. Howard picked Murdoch up – although the dog had barely tasted the meat put in front of him – and took him upstairs to the bedroom. Here Howard stood before his closet and considered how smart he could possibly look given the humidity. In the closet, from which all the real clothes – all the colourful silk and cashmere and satin – had been removed, a solitary suit hung, swinging above a jumble of jeans and shirts and shorts. He reached
out for the suit. He put it back. If they were going to take him, they could take him as he truly was. He pulled out black jeans, dark blue short-sleeved shirt, sandals. Today, supposedly, there would be people from Pomona in the audience, and from Columbia University and from the Courtauld. Smith was excited about all these possibilities, and now Howard did his best to be too.
This is the big one
, read Smith's e-mail of this morning,
Howard, it's time for tenure. If Wellington can't give you that, you move on. This is how it's supposed to be. See you at ten thirty!
Smith was right. Ten years in one place, without tenure, was a long time. His children were grown. They would soon leave. And then the house, if it were to stay as it was, without Kiki, would be intolerable. It was in a university that he must now put all his remaining hope. Universities had been a home for him for over thirty years. He only needed one more: the final, generous institution to take him in his dotage and protect him.

Howard pulled a baseball cap on to his head and hurried downstairs, Murdoch struggling behind him. In the kitchen, his children were hooking their various bags and knapsacks round their shoulders.

‘Wait –' said Howard, padding his hand around the empty sideboard. ‘Where're my car keys?'

‘No idea, Howard,' said Zora callously.

‘Jerome? Car keys!'

‘
Calm down
.'

‘I'm not going to calm down – no one's leaving until I find them.'

In this way, Howard made everybody late. It's strange how children, even grown children, will accept the instruction of a parent. Obediently they tore up the kitchen hunting for what Howard needed. They looked everywhere likely and then in stupid unlikely places because Howard went ballistic if anyone, for a moment, appeared to have ceased looking. The keys were nowhere.

‘Aw, man, I'm done with this, it's too
hot
– I'm out,' cried Levi, and left the house. A minute later he returned, having found Howard's car keys in the door of his car.

‘Genius!' cried Howard. ‘OK, come on, come on, everybody out – alarm on, everyone get keys,
come on
, people.'

Out on the scorching street, Howard opened the door of his baking car by wrapping the corner of his shirt round his hand. The leather interior was so hot he had to sit on his own bag.

‘I'm not coming,' said Zora, protecting her eyes from the sun with her hand. ‘Just in case you thought I was. I didn't want to change my shift.'

Howard smiled charitably at his daughter. It was in her nature to come across a high horse and ride it for as long as it would carry her. She was certainly riding high at the moment, for she had recast herself as the angel of mercy. It had been in her power, after all, to get both Monty and Howard fired. To Howard she had strongly suggested a sabbatical, which reprieve he had taken, gratefully. Zora had two years left at Wellington, and, the way she saw it, the college was no longer big enough for the both of them. Monty had been allowed to keep his job but not his principles. He did not contest the discretionaries and the discretionaries stayed, although Zora herself dropped out of the poetry class. These epic acts of unselfishness had lent Zora a genuinely unassailable moral superiority that she was enjoying immensely. The only cloud on her conscience was Carl. She had left the class so that he might stay, but in fact he never returned. He disappeared from Wellington altogether. By the time Zora felt brave enough to ring his cell it was out of order. She enlisted Claire's help in trying to find him; they got his home address from the payment records, but letters sent there received no reply. When Zora dared a visit, Carl's mother said only that he had moved out; she would say no more. She wouldn't let Zora past the doorstep, and talked to her guardedly, apparently convinced that this light-skinned woman who spoke so properly must be a social worker or a police officer, somebody who could cause the Thomas family trouble. Five months later Zora continued to see Carl's many doppelgängers in the street, day after day – the hoodie, the baggy jeans, the box-fresh sneakers, the big black earphones – and each time she spotted a twin she felt his name soar from her chest to her throat. Sometimes she let it out. But the boy always walked on.

‘Anybody for a lift into town?' asked Howard. ‘I'm happy to drop everybody where they need to go.'

Two minutes later Howard rolled down the passenger window and beeped his horn at his three half-naked children walking down the hill. All of them gave him the finger.

Howard drove through Wellington and out of Wellington. He watched the blistering day undulate outside his windshield; he heard the crickets' string section. He listened, on his car stereo, to the
Lacrimosa
and, like a teenager, turned it up high and kept his windows down.
Swish dah dah, swish dah dah
. As the music slowed, he slowed, entering Boston and meeting up with the Big Dig. He sat in its maze of unmoving cars for forty minutes. After finally emerging from a tunnel as long as life itself, Howard's phone rang.

‘Howard? Smith. Gosh, it's great you finally went and got yourself a phone. How you gittin' on there, buddy?'

It was Smith's artificial voice of calm. In the past it had always worked, but recently Howard had grown better at attuning himself to the reality of his own situation.

‘I'm late, Smith. I'm now very late.'

‘Oh, it's not rilly that bad. You've got time.
Pah
-point's all set up there ready for you. Where you at exactly?'