The Best Thing for You (38 page)

Mr. Hammond laughed. Good boy, he said. Good for you. You’re going to do all right. Well. What do you say we go downstairs and see what delicacy your mother’s cooked up for us tonight?

It’s fish.

Fish! Mr. Hammond said, as though that were a true revelation.

Fish and potatoes.

Slay me, Mr. Hammond said. They went downstairs.

His parents were sitting in the living room, sipping at clear drinks. Immediately his father rose and said, What can I get you?

Sit down, Mr. Hammond said, waving him off. I guess I can find my way around a bottle of gin as well as the next man. He turned to the boy and said, Martini?

Yes, please.

His mother, he saw, had been crying, but was composed now. She sat in her apron, holding her glass and smiling tiredly.

All right, my Cassie? Mr. Hammond said, taking her half-empty glass and handing her a full one. That was a funny thing for his father’s friend to call his mother, but Mr. Hammond had always shown her a special courtly tenderness.

Martini, sir, he said, offering the boy a glass of tonic with an olive floating in it. He glanced at his father’s face and back at the drink. The slick bobbing meat of the olive made him feel ill.

Sorry, Dad, he said quickly.

Good lad, his father said. We’re just rallying.

When did they tell you? his mother asked.

At noon. It was very decently done. They waited until the office was practically empty.

Decent, his mother repeated.

Now, Cass.

I’m not, she said.

I want to apologize again, Mr. Hammond said. I’ve said this to Ben but I want to say to all of you how sorry I am I had to have any role in this. It was an awkward situation. Maybe I did the wrong thing. I want you to know I stressed my friendship with Ben, I told them straight out it was a hell of a thing for them to ask me to do.

That’s enough, his father said.

I feel guilty as hell.

Over a few files? his father said with his faint sweet smile. Rather you than some fool.

Guilty that I couldn’t tell you, I mean.

The boy’s stomach growled loudly.

On that note, his father said, making everyone smile. I move we adjourn to the kitchen.

Seconded, the boy said, when no one else did, and he really did want to eat, though he hated having to be sporting about it.

What about another field? Mr. Hammond asked, taking a second helping of fish. They had been discussing jobs his father might seek, various insurance firms in the city that might be hiring, the pros and cons of each, and assorted gossip – this firm was a closed shop, that one was aggressively recruiting, and so on.
All through the meal he had thought of what Mr. Hammond said about his father not being suited to insurance, and wondered why he would play such a game. Now he saw the man was just being patient, working his father round to a new way of thinking.

What other field? his father asked. He had eaten little but drunk steadily. Foster watched the men’s faces like a ball game. Mr. Hammond must have judged his father to have reached a point of optimum pliability, before the wine turned back round and made him contentious.

What about sales?

Should I be a salesman, Cass? his father asked his mother. Would you like that? Sample cases by the front door? Me walking the streets every day selling – what am I selling, Jim?

Within a company, I meant. An office job, of course.

Encyclopedias, isn’t it?

His mother put her fork down.

All right then, Mr. Hammond said. All right. Let me think. You’re a researcher, an investigator. Policeman?

Too old, his father said.

Ah. But – private dick.

The boy and his mother laughed. His father looked wounded, then worried.

Hey, he said. Hey. That’s a real possibility, isn’t it? I mean, I’m a shoo-in for that job. Hey!

Our man from Pinkerton’s, the boy said, making his mother laugh harder.

Stop it, now, his father said irritably.

It is a good idea, his mother said, sobering immediately. But isn’t that more of a big city job? How many firms would there be in a town like Vancouver?

You’d be surprised, Mr. Hammond said. And I understand
it’s not so glamorous, anyway. Missing persons, divorce. There’s adultery everywhere.

His mother coloured.

I have years of experience, his father said carefully. I’ll just have to put together a cv. References, of course –

His mother stood to clear the plates. Mr. Hammond cleared his throat and said, Wonderful, Cassie, wonderful.

We’ll have coffee in the living room, if you like.

There’s no alternative, Mr. Hammond said. This boy of yours has promised me a performance.

That’s it, his father said, and the boy could see he was in deep water now, far out and on his own, trying to keep his head up, trying not to drown. Some music for dessert.

They waited for his mother to bring in coffee on a tray. Now, who’s first? she said gaily, meaning she expected Mr. Hammond to play too.

The boy caught the man’s eye and took his seat on the piano bench. The front legs were carved into paws so that he always felt he was facing into a maw, paddling at the teeth of some beast. As a toddler once he had trapped his fingers in the lid, probably the source of this fanciful dread. He disliked the instrument but understood he needed a fluency in it if he was to continue in composition.

Play your recital piece, his father said. That Brahms.

Brahms’ Waltz in G-sharp Minor. He had last played the piece the day he met the girl in his father’s office. Instead of going home after his father’s interview with her they had driven to one of the cathedrals downtown, where Mrs. Agostino had entered him in a competition. Down there in the basement he had tied with three girls for third, a contemptible insult to all of them, he had thought at the time. A girl with a Russian name
had taken the little gold-plated cup, her prettier sister the silver ribbon. Five of them played the same Brahms waltz; the pretty sister played Rachmaninoff. But the girl who won played the Brahms so well she might have been playing a different piece entirely. He heard lines and turns in the music when she played, buried counter-melodies brought out like gold and silver veins in a mine wall, that he had not noticed himself, in his own study of the piece. He felt humiliated and fascinated both. She had opened the work up like a book and taken out what she wanted. He had studied the score feverishly, in the car, all the way home.

You played it differently tonight, his mother said, when he lifted his hands from the keys. I heard a little thing I never heard before.

This, he said, fingering out the figure. He had cribbed it from the girl.

That’s it, she said. It’s very familiar, but I never noticed it.

It was always there.

It was and it wasn’t, she said. You never played it quite like that.

I like that one, his father said. I haven’t heard you play it since the recital. The evening –

Yes, he said.

You see, what I don’t understand, his father said, turning abruptly to Mr. Hammond. What I don’t understand –

All right, Ben, Mr. Hammond said.

No. She was just a girl. How do you look at a girl like that and think what you thought? How do you make that leap?

When the purchase and the claim are so close together, you investigate, Mr. Hammond said softly. You know that yourself. It’s standard. I was just following procedure.

But
I got a little spark off her
, he had said earlier, the boy remembered. Which was the lie?

She was grieving, his father said. My God, Jim. You could see it in her face.

Now it’s Mr. Hammond’s turn, his mother said, sprightly-brightly.

After you.

No, not tonight, she said, her smile firming up a little.

His father shook his head, like a dog shaking off water, and said, Please, Cass.

The three of them looked at his father.

Please, his ruined father repeated.

His mother played her old standby, a Beethoven second movement she had learned as a girl and liked to soothe herself with. She would play it at twilight on Christmas Eve, waiting for his father to come home from work, aggravating the boy enormously with her sweet, affected melancholy. Once he had called it a chocolate, to hurt her, but she had only smiled. On those rare occasions when she was out and he was home he tried to play it himself, but its winding intricacies were beyond his sight-reading, and pride prevented him from giving it serious practice when she was around. She played it as well as she ever did, batting .500 on the ornaments and taking the tiger-purr bass line far too slowly, luxuriating in it too much. He hated the way classical music made otherwise intelligent people go gooey, willing to expose the worst parts of themselves, physically and spiritually. He suspected sex did something similar and feared that, too.

Beautiful, Cassie, Mr. Hammond said. With a feeling that was some dark, unsmiling cousin to amusement, he saw the man was genuinely moved.

Oh, stuff, his mother said. I’m rusty as old nails. I’m afraid my boys have heard that old piece far too many times.

Never too many, his father said fervently, nodding his head. Never too many.

That’s a fine instrument you’ve got there.

A wedding gift from my parents. It keeps its tune very well. It was made specially for the West coast climate.

A piano built for the rain, Mr. Hammond said.

For the humidity, the boy said, and both his mother and Mr. Hammond laughed. He didn’t know why.

Now then. His mother got up from the bench and smoothed down the front of her dress. Enough chocolates from old Europe. She shot the boy a wink. Give us something from the new world, Mr. Hammond.

Pearls before swine, I’m afraid, he said. That makes me the swine.

No, his father said.

Mr. Hammond dragged the leather bench back before he sat on it and worked the knobs until it was down as low as it would go. Then he played jazz, his playing as fast and strident as his mother’s had been soft and unfocused. His mother started to clap along, but when neither he nor his father joined in she stopped. Mr. Hammond played on, oblivious, occasionally shifting the bench under himself with his exertions, until it was completely out of alignment with the instrument. His technique was fast and only occasionally sloppy. As the big man slapped and slaved away the boy realized for the first time it was possible to gain proficiency on an instrument with no conservatory training whatever. The world was full of treachery.

One of my favourite composers, Mr. Hammond said, stressing the last word a little, when he had finished. Mr. Duke Ellington.

That’s not simple music at all, is it? his mother said.

He was classically trained.

They looked at the boy, who found he had spoken the thought aloud.

I read it in a book. He came from a wealthy family.

You’re really making a study, aren’t you? Mr. Hammond said. Maybe one day you’ll be as big as him. Maybe one day we’ll be sitting down in the parlour to play your work.

I doubt it, he said frankly.

That’s right, Mr. Hammond said. I forgot you’re with the avant-garde.

Not always.

I liked your
King Lear
music very much, his mother said, in a private voice just for him.

John never tells us what he’s working on, do you, son? his father said. We find out when it’s all over.

Like a strange physics, they were, each exerting a force he must fight or yield to. And he would be a moon amongst planets for a few years yet.

I want to hear that piece you were showing me upstairs, Mr. Hammond said. This, too, was treachery.

All right, the boy said.

Upstairs he unpinned the page of manuscript from his corkboard. His bedroom still held a faint thread of Mr. Hammond’s cologne, and the bedspread was dented where the man had sat. He remembered the girl in his father’s office had worn a scent, and spent a moment imagining it had been her, not Mr. Hammond, in his room an hour ago. The idea hit him so hard his face dipped, his body sang.

What are you working on?
she had asked.

This
is
a treat, his mother said, when he went back downstairs, page in hand. The three adults sat up straighter.

Seven minutes later – he knew, had sat on a kitchen chair in front of the clock on the stove and sounded it out in his head –
he lifted his hands from the keyboard and put them in his lap. For a long moment there was no sound at all. Then he looked up and saw his mother was crying again.

I’m sorry, she said. I’m sorry.

What was that? Mr. Hammond said.

Through the stifling return of all the little sounds that plugged up the world, the breathing and fidgeting and white noise, he murmured: What I’m working on.

That’s not what I was looking at upstairs.

No, he agreed. That was something else.

I thought you were going to play chords.

I changed my mind.

Jesus, Mr. Hammond said, more to himself than anyone. What
was
that.

He glanced at his father and saw that although his head remained lowered, in a posture of listening, he was staring at him.

John? he said.

I’m sorry, Daddy. It’s what I hear.

That’s all right, son, he said softly, without moving, as though the boy were some feral creature that could be frightened by a sudden movement.

Mr. Hammond left soon after. The boy watched him do a curious thing: at the door, as his father turned away to rummage in the closet for the camel’s hair overcoat, Mr. Hammond caught his mother’s eye and mouthed an apology. The boy saw it clearly, the soundless shapes of the words:
I’m sorry.
His mother did not react beyond a very slight shake of the head.

Here we are, his father said, handing over the expensive coat. He seemed suddenly very tired and did not pretend he wanted Mr. Hammond to stay.

We’ll see you tomorrow, Ben, the big man said, and with a
start Foster realized his father faced the additional humiliation of working out the week, wrapping up his last few files. Somehow he had just assumed it would be a holiday for both of them for a few days, until his father found his next job.