To the Manor Dead (3 page)

The weather was still
crummy the next day—a high gray sky, limp drizzle—but I still got a charge driving over the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge and looking down at the Hudson, so wide and slow that it looked more like a lake, the hills on either side dotted with big houses and small towns, cement plants and power lines. I’d discovered the area during my sixteenth summer, when I’d fallen madly in love with a songwriter/poet/lunatic twice my age whom I’d met in Washington Square Park, and was convinced was an undiscovered genius. Jeremy rented a shack in Athens, a tiny riverbank hamlet, and I spent that steamy summer screwing on a futon, listening to Jeremy compose songs I slowly came to realize were trite and grating, making him Bustelo coffee using a paper towel for a filter, rolling him Bugler cigarettes, and generally being a slave to a schmuck.

Ah, youth.

Not that my judgment got much better with age—witness the Asshole.

But in spite of Jeremy, the valley had gotten to me—the quirky towns, the history, the stone houses, the river, the lighthouses, swimming in cool Catskills creeks. I was raised—if you want to call it that—on the streets of the East Village. It’s ironic how provincial a city kid can be, the valley that summer was a wonderland, a visual orgasm, a new world. I felt like I could breathe up here, but it wasn’t all pristine and prissy and countrified—you know, women in straw hats buying twelve-dollar jars of jam—there were all kinds of people, it was funky and real.

I reached the east side of the river, turned up River Road, and suddenly I was in one of those Jane Austen movies—old stone walls, sweeping fields, fat cows on fancy farms, gingerbread gothic cottages, gatehouses of the old estates.

I came to a stone wall that looked a little
shabucka
—stones had tumbled loose, lay mossy and forlorn. The field beyond was a choppy sea of high grass and saplings. The wall ended at a drive flanked by two nicked-up brick pillars; only one of them still had its stone urn on top. There was a worn bronze sign on one of the columns: Westward Farm.

I turned down the drive, which snaked spookily between tall trees, with gnarly, overgrown fields on either side—through the dank drizzle I saw an abandoned tractor, a crumbling kennel, creepy little copses of trees that looked like sinister men huddling to hatch evil plots. The only thing missing was Julie Andrews bursting forth, arms spread, singing her joyful British brains out.

The drive went on for about a half mile, took a little turn and—
whoa, mama
—there sat a house that seemed to stretch for a couple of city blocks. Set on the crest of a lawn that rolled down to the river, it was grand and stately as all get-out—until you noticed the peeling paint, missing shutters, and cracked windows. There was a circular parking court in front, with a defunct fountain in the middle of it, and an assortment of old cars spread around, including Daphne’s Mercedes.

I parked my Camry and got out.

The mansion’s front door
was framed by a columned portico. Too bad it was inaccessible, covered with crumbling terra cotta pots, rusted urns, chipped statuary, and other detritus of a good garden gone bad. Remembering what Daphne had told me, I looked to the left—there was a row of tall windows, one of which had been turned into a makeshift door by the crew from
This Old Trailer
. I walked over—it was ajar and I stepped inside.

I was in a huge high-ceilinged parlor filled with the furniture, art, and rugs that Daphne had showed me. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, highlighted with bird droppings, empty wine bottles, overflowing ashtrays, yellowing newspapers. The walls and ceiling were water-stained and sported spots of bubbling, crumbling plaster.

Daphne had said she’d probably be upstairs in her bedroom, so I walked through an archway on the right that led into the main hall. The two-story room was split in half by unfinished drywall. The wall began in the dead middle of the front door and continued right up the
Gone With the Wind
-y staircase. From the other side of the wall I could hear faint echoes of Indian music—sitars and cymbals and chanting.

I started up Daphne’s side of the stairway, which curved around and led to an open landing, also cut off from the other side of the house by the drywall.

“Daphne?” I called.

No answer. I set out in search of Daphne’s bedroom. The rooms I passed were filled with massive pieces of furniture covered with white sheets that lay on them like exhausted ghosts. Everything was dirty and disheveled, there was so much dust in the air I could taste it, I heard critters scurrying around inside the walls. This was what made my work so cool—peeking into other people’s lives. I’d seen some pretty bizarre scenes, but Westward Farm was number one with a bullet.

“Daphne?”

No answer. I came to the end of the corridor and there was her bedroom. It was an enormous corner room with windows facing the river and a carved sleigh bed. I poked my head in.

“Daphne, are you here? It’s Janet, Janet Petrocelli.”

Nothing. I stepped into the room. Unlike the rest of the house, it looked inhabited. There was a tiny makeshift kitchen—hotplate, half fridge, microwave—in one corner, just outside the open bathroom door. Clothes were strewn around, more empty wine bottles everywhere. The bed was unmade, the sheets grimy and gray, and there was an indent on the mattress that told me Daphne spent a good part of her life there. The room had a peculiar smell—musty, overlain with dirty linen, ancient violet sachets, and something earthy and dank, almost like decaying leaves. I moved closer to the bed—the
Times
Sunday magazine was open to the crossword puzzle and there was a tray that held a coffee mug and a small plate with a half-eaten piece of toast. I felt the mug—did it still hold a faint trace of warmth?

I peered into the bathroom: clawfoot tub, octagonal floor tiles, pedestal sink, all gritty and mucky.

But no sign of Daphne.

Back outside, I made
a decision: go ask the hated brother if he had seen his hated sister. Maybe they’d made up over a case of wine or two. I walked down to the other end of the house, where another graceful old window had been turned into another sloppy door. I knocked. No answer. Since the house was bigger than a museum, and there was that Indian music playing somewhere in the far reaches, they probably didn’t hear me.

I opened the door and stuck my head inside. It was a cavernous room that mirrored the one on Daphne’s side, except most of the incredible old furniture was gone, replaced with stuff that looked like Salvation Army rejects. A couple of beat-up plaid couches faced a massive flat-screen television, and a coffee table was strewn with magazines, tortilla chips, soda cans, candy.

“Hello?” I said.

Just then a little girl of around three, wearing a flimsy sundress, rushed into the room in a state of fevered flight. Without noticing me she darted behind a sofa, in hiding.

She was followed, a few beats later, by a woman in her mid-twenties, eating a Ring Ding and smoking a cigarette. She didn’t notice me either. “Where’s my little Rodent?” she called.

“I didn’t see a thing,” I said.

The woman turned to me. She was wearing a short shift, would have been pretty with a little more meat on her bones, had long brown hair and enormous blue eyes that looked oddly blank. She sat on the edge of an armchair, crossed her legs, took a puff of her cigarette, and asked, “Who’re you?”

“Janet Petrocelli, I have an appointment with Daphne Livingston.”

She considered this for a moment, in a vacant sort of way. “Daphne’s my aunt,” she said, as if reminding herself. She took a bite of her Ring Ding and raised her voice. “Mmmm, this Ring Ding is
soooooo
good!” She cocked an ear. “This is the best damn Ring Ding I have ever eaten.”

There was a pause and finally the little girl crawled out from behind the sofa.

“I want Ring Ding, Mommy.”

“Not till you eat your Pizza Pocket,” Mom said.

The girl grimaced. “Do I
have
to?”

“No … unless you want a Ring Ding.”

The girl exhaled in resigned exasperation and stomped off in the direction she had come. Mom said, “That’s my Rodent,” and followed the child.

My first glimpse of the parenting habits of the old aristocracy. I checked out the magazines on the coffee table—
Yoga Journal
and
National Enquirer
,
Wrestling World
and
Mother Jones.
Someone had a major Dots addiction—there were at least half-a-dozen Costco-sized boxes of the rubbery candy. There was a standing hookah beside the table.

A woman of around fifty walked into the room. She was naked. She was also pretty broad and fleshy—you might call her layered—and completely nonchalant. Once I got over my shock (if nudity is so natural, why is it always so jarring?), I thought her body looked sort of beautiful, in an I-am-what-I-am kind of way.

“Hi,” she said casually. She sat on a couch and fired up the hookah. She took a deep toke and then held out the hose to me. “Hit?” she asked in a squeaky pothead-holding-it-in voice.

I shook my head.

She exhaled.

“You sure? It’s primo shit, Humboldt County. Our dealer Fed-Exed it in.”

“Maybe later.”

She shrugged, picked up the remote, clicked on the television and found a frenetic Spanish-language game show that featured neon costumes, buxom women, lots of music and screeching, and a confetti machine. She howled with laughter, took another toke, grabbed a box of Dots, and then turned to me with a friendly smile.

“I’m Maggie.”

“Janet.”

“Dot?”

“Nah, I’ve got bridgework.”

“I’ve never played bridge.”

“Me neither.”

“I used to read Tarot,” she said wistfully. Then she brightened. “You know what, I’m going to read Tarot again … now where did I put my cards?”

She got up and began to root around the room—I was treated, when she leaned over, to several wide-screen views of her bahunkus. After a slow-motion examination of a desk drawer—she seemed to find everything in it mesmerizing, particularly a paperclip—she stood up and said, “I forgot what I’m looking for.”

“Tarot cards.”

“Ah, fuck it,” she said, and sat back down. “What were we talking about?”

“We ranged around.”

“I like you,” Maggie said, drawing her feet up under her, curling into the sofa. She had a full face, frizzy hair, and small eyes that twinkled. She took another hit from the hookah and then switched the remote to an animal show that featured some weird nocturnal marsupial scurrying around in infrared light. “Wow,” she said, “it’d be cute to have one of those.”

“It would.”

“I bet you could get one on the Internet. I got a seahorse on the Internet, but it arrived dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I froze it, but then it cracked in two when I touched it.”

“Listen, I’m looking for Daphne, Daphne Livingston.”

“Aunt Daf?”

“Yes.”

“Poor Aunt Daf.”

“Are you a relative?”

“What is this, twenty questions?” She looked at me for a second with a wary, challenging expression, then popped a Dot in her mouth and switched the remote to a home shopping network where two bizarro-faced women were selling handbags covered with feathers and bangles. Maggie was rapt for a minute, and then switched back to her Spanish-language game show, which cheered her right up. “I’m the housekeeper,” she said.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I hold this place together. Without me, it would all go to shit.”

No doubt.

“I go way back. My grandfather was the head groundskeeper. So was my Dad. I lived in the old staff house. But then Godfrey burned it down for the insurance money … I mean there was a fire, and I moved in here. Let me give you two cents of advice: don’t mention Aunt Daf to anyone on this side of the wall. Godfrey
hates
her—says he’d like to kill her, chop her up, puree her in the blender, drink her, and then shit her out.” She leaned in to me and dropped her voice. “See, when Aunt Daf kicks Godfrey gets
everything
. The land, the house, the contents. There’s paintings and whatnot over there that would make your head explode. We’re talking
mucho
dinero
.” She leaned back and shook her hair in a proprietary way. “I get a raise when that happens. Course, that wouldn’t be hard, since I haven’t been paid in three years!” She roared with laughter and her whole body shook, every last layer.

“Where is Godfrey?”

“From the sounds of that music, he’s meditating. You might want to wait, he goes postal when people disturb his meditation. Are you a friend of Aunt Daf’s?”

I wasn’t sure mentioning the nature of my nascent relationship with Daphne would be too smart—I didn’t want to end up in that blender myself. “Yes, we’re friends.”

“Don’t tell Godfrey this, but I like Aunt Daf, she’s very … tolerant. Some people get all high and mighty about me being a nudist, the Central Hudson guy had the nerve to lodge a complaint—
asshole
. If I want to sun my koochie, it’s
my
business. Aunt Daf is totally cool with it.”

“I … met a little girl, and her mother, just a few minutes ago. Who are they?”

“You’re not from DSS, are you?”

“No.”

“Cross your heart?”

“Cross my heart.”

“That’s Becky, Godfrey’s daughter. She moved back home about a year ago … or maybe it was two years ago. Becky’s a pretty girl but she’s a little
s-l-o-w
, if you get my drift. She ran away to Kansas City. I mean, how lame-ass is that? Anyway, she met a crystal meth dealer in an all-night laundromat and shacked up with him way the hell out in the cornfields and when his meth factory exploded and blew him into a trillion little pieces, she came home. Meth kills brain cells, you know.” She took another hit from the hookah. “Sure you don’t want a toke?”

“No, thanks. And …
Rodent
… is her daughter?”

“Isn’t that Rodent the cutest little tidbit?”

“She is pretty cute.”

“Can you imagine—a meth dealer’s kid living at Westward Farm? Old Lady Livingston would croak. Course she’s already dead!” Then she roared again and switched the remote to a rock video and started to dance along from her seat, raising her arms and shaking her upper body in a joyous jiggle-fest. Then she stopped suddenly and looked at me intently. “Who’re you again?”

Just as I opened my mouth to refresh the sieve that was her memory, a young woman in her mid-twenties walked in from outside. She looked casual but pulled together in slacks and sweater, carrying a book bag. She and Maggie exchanged a look of mutual antipathy.

“Hello … Claire Livingston,” she said to me, extending her hand.

“Janet Petrocelli.”

“She’s looking for Aunt Daf,” Maggie said.

Claire looked concerned. “Aunt Daphne lives in the south wing.”

“I couldn’t find her over there, so I thought I’d check here.”

“Daphne doesn’t come over to the north wing. Can we talk a minute?” Claire asked.

I nodded.

“How about a cup of coffee?”

“Sounds good.”

As she led me out of the room, Maggie called out, “I’ve got some mac ‘n’ cheese in the oven, give it a check-see, whudya?”

I followed Claire down a long hallway, through a large pantry lined with glass-fronted cabinets, and into a vast kitchen that looked like Katrina’s twin sister had just blown through—sinks piled high with dirty dishes, food strewn around, open cabinets, grotty old pots on the stoves, a slightly rancid, moldy smell. One counter was taken up by an armada of bottles, vials, canisters of vitamins, protein powders, herbal boosters. There was a small television blaring, but there was so much snow the picture was barely visible. Claire switched it off.

“First of all, I want to apologize for this household,” she said.

“There’s no need.”

“Yes, there is. Retarded monkeys wouldn’t live like this—but Livingstons would. I really should attack it all, but it’s just so overwhelming, and besides: a) Dad and Becky and Maggie
like
living this way, and b) if I did clean it up, two days later it would be right back to
this.
” She gestured in disgust. “I do, however, keep my corner clean.”

There was one spotless countertop with a coffeemaker. Claire got a bag of coffee from a freezer.

“I’m worried about Aunt Daphne,” she said as she poured coffee into a brown-paper filter. “She’s always been profoundly self-destructive, but things seem to have spun completely out of control. And she seems frightened, somehow.”

“Yeah, I sensed that.”

“Since I’ve been back, I’ve been trying to negotiate a rapprochement between her and dad, but it’s hopeless, they just
loathe
each other.”

“You don’t live here?”

“Oh, good God, no. I’ve only been back for a couple of months and I’m leaving as soon as I can. I’ve lived in Seattle for six years and, for obvious reasons, come home as rarely as possible. But I’m teaching a course in American history up at Bard this semester. It’s just a one-semester fill-in, but I’m starting my career and Bard is a nice notch in my belt. Another reason I took the job is so that I could check up on my family, or what’s left of it. It’s been very depressing. Dad still acts like Napoleon on St. Helena, Becky—who is my twin by the way—has clearly inherited the Livingston gene for what I will kindly call eccentricity, and I just learned yesterday that my father wants to
adopt
Maggie, which would make her my sister. The mind boggles. Speaking of minds, if I stay here a day longer than I have to, I’ll lose mine.” She blew out air, and gave me an abashed smile. “I’m sorry to unload on you.”

“Hey, we all need to vent sometimes.”

“Thanks. You’re the first rational person I’ve met in this house. I’ve just had it up to here, and I’m too embarrassed to discuss this with any of my colleagues at Bard. So, how do you know Aunt Daf?”