Banishing Verona Page 3

  He pulled his sweater over his head, unbuttoned his shirt, unzipped his jeans. He folded his clothes neatly on the foot of the bed, and naked, almost shivering, climbed between the sheets. I don’t want to rewrite the past, he thought, gazing up at the ceiling. I want to rewrite the present. He rolled over and buried his face in the pillow, breathing in the smells of cold and loneliness. Beneath the pillow, his fingers encountered something unexpected. He drew the book into the light. It was of modest size, maybe nine inches by seven, and bound in soft brown leather, like the books he’d seen in cases at the British Museum. With a little encouragement, it fell open to reveal a page of handwriting.

  He stared in surprise. Not a book she was reading but one she was writing. And then, a second surprise, the writing itself. He had expected her script to explode across the page, comparable to the bold manner in which she entered rooms. Instead, the letters marched in small, neat rows from left to right.

  He raised his glass. “To Edith, who didn’t change.” He tipped his head back and drank until the glass was empty. “Did I mention the farmer’s daughter,” he said, “as sweet a piece of crumpet as ever I squeezed? She made such a racket, I had to put my hand over her mouth.”

  Quickly he closed the book. None of his business, but all the rooms, all the nooks and corners of his brain, were suddenly filled with sunlight. Her aunt and uncle returned tomorrow, and he had the perfect excuse to see her again. With this thought he slid from the bed, dressed, and straightened the sheets. Let the next guest enjoy the oceanic smudges of their lovemaking. Carrying the book, he made his way downstairs.

  He had been home barely long enough to take a shower and change when the doorbell rang. It buzzed, stopped, and buzzed again. He dropped the dish towel he was holding and ran. Absurd, but she had found him once, why not again? He flung wide the hall door, spun down the stairs, opened the front door. For one second, perhaps two, hope persisted. On the doorstep stood a woman wearing a dark jacket, black-and-white checked skirt, sleek boots, and—this seemed crucial—carrying two plastic shopping bags.

  “Zeke, I was worried you weren’t back yet.”

  “Mum.”

  “Gwen,” she corrected, as she did over and over.

  Deflated, he stared at her china-blue eyes, her pink cheeks. Familiarity, as he’d tried to explain to the most intelligent of the doctors, didn’t necessarily make recognition easier, in fact, sometimes the reverse. Whereas a stranger, an elderly man with bushy eyebrows and high coloring, seen once during a freak hailstorm at a bus stop, was instantly recognizable six months later in the queue at the post office.

  “No, no,” she said, as he reached for the groceries, “I’m balanced.”

  She was past him and up the stairs in a flash. He stepped out to the curb and, just in case, scanned the dusky street. Only the usual parked cars, dustbins, lampposts, and leafless elms greeted his gaze. Walking among them were those at one end of a lead, on two legs, and those at the other, on four, panting, pulling, peeing. The hour of the dog.

  He reached the kitchen in time for Gwen’s first volley. When truly aggravated, she sometimes launched her attack before the target was in range, heedless that her missiles fell on empty chairs and tables. “You always did keep the place like a laboratory,” she said, flinging a reproachful red-tipped hand toward his shining sink, his unblemished stove. She herself, working all day in the shop, made a virtue out of unwiped counters, unswept floors. “Don’t get me wrong,” she added. “Nothing the matter with some spit and polish, but at your age you should have better things to do.”

  “Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?”

  “Why should I phone when you never answer? I’ve left all these messages, asking you to call.”

  Never was an exaggeration, else he wouldn’t stay in business, but it was true that his mother’s voice emerging from the answering machine seldom prompted him to pick up the receiver. The machine was among his treasured possessions. If only there were a comparable invention to deal with actual people that you could carry around to intercede between you and them, he’d give a year’s pay.

  He watched as she bent to put a pint of milk in the fridge, her skirt riding up her black-stockinged thighs. Not the sort of thing you ought to notice about your mother, but these days everything was in disarray. Besides, Gwen wanted to be noticed. With her swinging blond hair, her vivid lipstick, she could almost pass for one of the schoolgirls he saw most mornings on his way to work. He had been sixteen before he understood, not through any special insight but a comment of the boy next door—your mum’s a knockout—that what he was watching in the shop, day after day, right under his father’s nose, was flirtation.

  Lovely ripe melons, Gwen would say with a wink. Nice firm cucumber. Everyone, she insisted, can always buy one more thing than they’ve thought of at home. She would go all out, especially with Roger, the dark-eyed waiter from the local Italian restaurant. She would offer him oranges to sample, mushrooms to inspect. Sorry, he’d say, flaunting a sheet of paper, not on the chef’s list. One afternoon when she’d been pushing the pears—Don’t you use them in your poofy salads?—and Roger was offering his usual denials, Zeke happened to catch sight of the list. Cress, he read, garlic, fennel, 3 lb. pears. But before he could remind him, Roger had announced, as if granting a huge favor, that he would take some pears. Later when Zeke told Gwen what he’d seen, she had laughed and said Roger liked making her work.

  Now, he knew, she had her own list, which, when it suited her, she would reveal. The last time she’d dropped in like this unexpectedly, with groceries, she had wanted him to do a job, at cost, for her sister. He watched her produce a bunch of parsley, too limp to sell. What if he said he had a prior engagement, or simply bolted? But she rolled over him like fog: inescapable. Sit down, she told him, and he did, a prisoner in his own flat.

  “Jersey toms, carrots, onions, a couple of beetroot, a nice cauliflower—they aren’t selling, I don’t know why—some grannies for your lunch, a lemon.”

  The other bag held provisions from the supermarket next door, oil, butter, flour—she wasn’t taking any chances on his larder—and from the fishmonger across the street. Zeke had to look away when she unwrapped two speckled trout and dangled one toward him.

  “Ray recommended them. Straight from the fish farm this morning. He said to let you know he’ll be calling soon about his front hall.”

  “No hurry.” With his bulging eyes and minimal chin, Ray bore a strong resemblance to his watery wares; he had always been among Zeke’s favorite neighbors.

  While she peeled the potatoes, Gwen asked about his customers, the ones who were refusing to pay. “Was there something they wanted you to do over?”

  “No, they kept saying how pleased they were.”

  “So?” Nails flashing, she quartered the potatoes. “What’s the problem?”

  Zeke described the various stages of nonpayment: they didn’t have the cash, they were out when he went round at the agreed time, they claimed the check was in the post. Then he had gone back with Emmanuel. Mrs. Patterson had cracked the door, still on its chain, and at the sight of them tried to close it but Emmanuel, a veteran of such greetings, had already jammed his foot in the gap. He had pounded on the door, screaming, until Zeke finally managed to drag him away. Two days later he had pretended the check had come and paid Emmanuel his share.

  “Bastards,” said his mother now. “You gave them a written estimate, didn’t you?”

  He nodded.

  She slammed the cauliflower down on the stove. Like the niece, he thought happily. “We’ll fix them,” Gwen said. “How much do they owe?”

  “Four thirty.”

  “And do they have it?”

  “He’s a teacher and she works at a hotel. But Mum, we can’t just barge in.”

  She gave him a look that long experience allowed him to recognize as withering. “We won’t need to.”

  A memory, far from reassuring, of his mother marching into hi
s history classroom surfaced. Do you know how many spelling errors there are on this page alone? she had said to Mr. Hoffman, holding out Zeke’s essay on the Corn Laws. And your only comment is “good research.” More recently, at various clinics, she had let fly at the vague diagnosis: dysfunctional, Asperger’s syndrome. He never should have mentioned the Pattersons, but often when Gwen phoned, he found himself casting around for safe topics and, one beleaguered day last week, had offered them up.

  Only when they were seated and eating did she say, “You must be wondering to what you owe the honor. Your dad had a little attack last Monday.”

  Discussing the Pattersons, he had momentarily forgotten the cause of her visit. Now her words conjured midget muggers, schoolboys barely up to his father’s waist, rifling his pockets for chewing gum and change. “Did he lose much?”

  “Zeke”—her voice spiraled—“your father had a heart attack.”

  He was on his feet. “Christ, where is he? Is he all right? What are we doing, eating, leaving him alone?”

  Gwen took his arm and guided him back to the table. “Sit down. I didn’t mean to scare you. I wouldn’t be here if he weren’t okay. He’s in the hospital. You can come and see him when he gets home tomorrow.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me straightaway?” Not the question he meant to ask and one to which, anyway, he guessed the answer: his mother regarded her only son as broken beyond fixing.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “As soon as we got him to the hospital it was clear he was going to be fine and I didn’t want to leave a message. That’s why I came round. Then I got distracted by the Pattersons.”

  “But how is he? Is he all right?”

  “The doctor says there’s every reason to expect he’ll make a full recovery, but he’s scared. You know what his first words were when he came round? ‘I’ve been waiting for this.’ His father died of a heart attack at fifty-two. And his brother Stephen, of course. That’s why he’s always been so fussy about food, used to go bonkers when he caught you having a fag. Remember that time you figured out he’d lied about his age? It was the same thing, not vanity but some mad notion he could cheat death.”

  She stabbed her fork into a piece of cauliflower.

  “And me,” she added.

  “You?”

  “The younger wife, marrying late. He kept saying it was wrong for him to have a family, that he’d only end up letting us down. We were courting for two years before I talked him round.”

  Which meant, he knew, getting knocked up. They’d made no secret of the fact that his birth, six months after the wedding, was not premature. Gwen had been sixteen. “I didn’t know,” he said. “I mean, I knew about Grandpa and Uncle Steve but I just thought Dad was a health nut.”

  She sat back, eyes flat on him. For a moment he pictured the poor trout’s head, staring blindly in the dustbin. “You don’t get it, do you?”

  He didn’t. “I wish you’d told me sooner,” he said cautiously. “I could have come to the hospital, helped cheer him up.”

  “Your strong suit.” Her teeth appeared in bewildering fashion and, equally bewildering, disappeared. “Zeke, your father is fifty-seven. He can’t go on working twelve hours a day, and I can’t run the shop alone.”

  “But you’re not alone,” he managed.

  “Right.” She began to tick them off on her fingers. “Rani, Jerome, Tom, Subhas, Jack, and now ‘no problem’ Kevin. Each a disaster, in different ways.”

  He felt as if he were in the presence of a champion bricklayer; the wall was rising around him with astonishing speed. He did his best to slow her down, steal a few bricks, let a batch of cement harden. “Mum, I’ll do whatever you need, you know that. But maybe if you can’t cope with the shop, it’s time to talk about selling. After all, Dad will be retiring soon.”

  “And then what? He’ll sit around enjoying his hobbies. You’ll support him?” She planted her elbows on the table. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but unfortunately I know how you feel. I’m fed up with the shop too, and I was planning to leave your father. Well, that’s on the back burner now. I’ve no idea if Maurice will wait. It’s not as if I can promise anything.”

  “Maurice?” She had said the name as if he were already acquainted with its owner. Then, seeing the way her eyes shone, he understood. This was the phenomenon he had read about so often: meeting someone else. In the waiting rooms of various doctors and clinics, he’d taken to studying women’s magazines and discovered, amid the many articles about weight loss and hair management, the problem pages. He found the desperate little narratives both baffling and consoling. Who were these people who offered up the intimate details of their lives for any reader’s cold-hearted gaze? And then someone else, a stranger in an office, wrote back claiming to know more about the letter writer’s situation than they did themselves. Get rid of Dave; tell Nick no sex until he proves he loves you; your friend needs professional help. But this was his mother, his parents, and none of the advice seemed remotely useful. He held on to the edge of the table. “Maurice?” he said again. “But what about Roger, all those blokes?”

  Gwen made a barking sound. “Roger? He’s very happy with Nathan. Oh, I must tell him you thought we were an item. He’ll be thrilled.”

  She was still talking as he let go of the table, stood up, and carried the dishes to the sink. He washed the plates, the cutlery, the pots and pans, the grill, everything there was to wash. When at last he turned around, she was sitting, arms folded, legs crossed, waiting.

  “Zeke, this is nuts. It would be different if you had gone into accounting, but basically you’re a glorified handyman. What do you have to lose by managing the shop? You’ll get a decent salary, and your father will be over the moon. He won’t be breathing down your neck, I promise. The world’s going to fall apart if we all start treating each other like dirt.”

  Finally—he had lost count of how often he used the word no—he pried her out of his kitchen. Gwen had her own indestructible carapace, the one she took everywhere, but for a moment, when he’d asked, for the third time, if he could walk her to her car, he had wondered whether she was reluctant to go home; he pictured the empty rooms spelling out his father’s illness more clearly than any doctor, her lover banished to some dingy pub. She had even suggested calling on his recalcitrant customers, but he’d persuaded her that showing up at nine on a Friday night was a bad idea. Tomorrow after work—he was putting in one of his rare Saturdays—he’d come round to see his father, then he and Gwen could make a plan about visiting the Pattersons and escorting them to the bank machine. “We’ll phone first,” she said, “to make sure they’re home.”

  “But maybe,” he said unthinkingly, “they’re like me.”

  Got you, said Gwen’s china-blue eyes, but she let it pass for now. “Don’t worry. I’ll tell them they won the lottery or their MP wants to chat.”

  He walked her down the street, dodged her kiss, and loped back to the flat. She wrung him out, emptied him, and what was he left with? Scraps and shadows. As he reached for the light switch in the hall he recalled the five lightbulbs. They had been a sign after all, not about her but about his father. In the living room he took refuge with his clocks. Scanning their neat faces, he saw that the forties traveling clock had lost eleven minutes since yesterday. As he pressed it to his ear, he recalled the rest of the story she had told about Robert the Bruce. After he died, his body was buried in the usual way but his heart was sealed into a lead canister, which the Black Douglas had carried on the Crusades and, at the height of the fighting, hurled into battle. But here’s the truly amazing thing, she had said. Later the heart was found and brought back to Scotland to be buried.

  The clock sounded fine, as far as Zeke could tell. One afternoon in Brighton his Uncle Stephen had told him that clocks make only one sound, tick-tick, which the human ear splits into two: tick-tock. A few months later he had dropped dead, planting an apple tree. Zeke reset the clock, giving it another chance, and put it ba
ck on the table. Both his parents, he thought, had heart trouble: his father’s no longer tick-tocking steadily but faltering; his mother’s a gift given twice over. Through the ceiling came a thud and, just when he was beginning to get impatient, another.

  3

  The next morning, on the fifth attempt, he managed to close the door behind him and, by dint of counting each crack in the paving stones, make his way to his van, parked at the end of the street. Once he was seated behind the steering wheel, with the familiar knobs and levers, matters grew a little easier. I mustn’t let this happen again, he thought. She needs me. Dad needs me. To his relief his new employer, a chef, was out for the day and he had the house to himself. He found the perfect hiding place, an alcove off the hall, and set to work without further delay. As he removed the old kitchen cabinets, he kept picturing his father, not the angry man who had strode into doctors’ offices when Zeke fell ill but the one who had spent Sundays with him on the beach at Brighton, building castles out of pebbles, creating moats and waterways, and who later, in London, had taken him kite-flying on Parliament Hill and done with him the things a normal boy would have done with friends. As soon as the last of the cabinets was stacked in the chef’s front garden, Zeke put away his tools and set off to visit him.

  But when he opened the door of his parents’ house it was as if a large hand were pressing against his sternum. The very air was altered, and the temptation to flee was so strong that he had to seize hold of the doorknob. Gone was the nose-tickling embrace of fruit and Gwen’s perfume and in its place was something synthetic and slightly tangy which, after a few cautious breaths, Zeke identified as approximating the smell of a freshly opened bag of elastic bands. Everything is changing, he thought. Slowly, reluctantly, he edged along the hall and, in the few inches between the door and the jamb, discovered his father.