A Ship Made of Paper (37 page)

She remembers Daniel and Iris, the little looks they traded. Was he already fucking her? He claims not, but it’s probably ridiculous to assume scrupulous honesty from him. Maybe he was. Maybe Kate was already being played for a fool.When she was young the thought of somehow being the butt of a joke was at the absolute zenith of her jealousy, nothing was worse than thinking someone might be reveling in putting something over on her. But now, to her surprise, the possibility that Daniel and Iris might have taken some grotesque pride in fooling her barely registers in Kate. It seems the most trivial part of the story.This is a story about sad-ness and loss, about getting a shocking wake-up call to put her house back in order, this is a story about what she had to learn in order to make things right again. She wonders if she is deluding herself, but that thought is simply too painful. Instead she thinks:
I should thank them,
trying that one on for size. But no, it doesn’t fit, either.Too big. Or too small. Something.

They drive on the curving, bucolic blacktop that goes past Leyden’s riverside mansions. The estate next to Eight Chimneys, which for two hundred years had been known as Eliade, has finally been sold off by the dissolute progeny of its original owners and is now called Leyden Farms.

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A wooden roadside stand has been built across the road from the entrance gate where bushels of golden delicious and Macintosh apples are sold—a puzzling bit of frugality on the new owner’s part. He is a middle-aged television producer, specializing in hospital dramas, and he paid close to eight million dollars for the estate. It’s difficult to see how the two or three hundred dollars made annually from selling apples could make much difference to him. Perhaps they’re a tax dodge.

A mile later, they come to the crumbling stone gates of Eight Chimneys.

The estate’s gatehouse sits at the edge of the road—a small stone house that is an architectural miniature of the mansion, and in even worse repair.

“These people are so crazy,” Kate says. “Everything is falling apart, it’s just chaos everywhere.”

“I’d think you’d like this sort of thing,” says Daniel. “It’s sort of southern. It’s Faulknerian.”

“If I wanted to be in the South, I would have stayed in the South. I think people ought to take care of what they have. I hate things going to wrack and ruin. And Daniel? This isn’t Faulknerian. Everything creepy and southern isn’t Faulknerian, just like everything annoying isn’t Kafkaesque.”

The long driveway between the road and the main house has somehow gotten worse since the last time he drove it.The potholes have doubled in depth, and now Daniel must dodge the crowns of fallen trees—once he drives directly into one of the craters. When they reach the main house, there are only five cars in front, and one of them has no tires and has obviously been there for quite a while.

“You said it was going to be a big party,” Ruby says.

“It will be,” Daniel says. “We’re just a little early.”

“When’s Nelson coming?” Ruby asks. She hugs her doll close to her.

“I don’t know if he’s coming at all, Monkey,” Daniel says. “But there will be other kids, I promise.”

“You promise?” asks Kate, amazed.

“Yes,” Daniel says. And Kate shakes her head, clearly implying that Daniel, if he had the proper humility, would never make another promise for as long as he lived.

a s h i p m a d e o f pa p e r

They are met at the door by Susan, wearing a rust-colored corduroy jumper, such as you would see on a schoolgirl. Her graying hair is twisted into a long braid. Her face looks moist and dense, like the inside of an apple.

“Hello, Kate,” Susan says, extending her hand. Her voice is frosty, edged with contempt. She is punishing him for his participation in Ferguson’s and Marie’s scheme. “It’s nice to see you. We’re putting coats in here.” Then, turning toward Daniel, “If any of the politicians show up, I’ll leave them to you. I can’t stand politicians.”

She leads them into what had once been the conservatory, a large room with floor-to-ceiling casement windows. The room is empty, except for an antique telescope standing gawkily in a corner, and a long oak table upon which the guests can deposit their coats. “Isn’t this the room where Professor Plum did it, using a . . . candlestick?” Kate murmurs to Daniel. Susan is walking a few feet in front of them, with her hand resting on Ruby’s shoulder.

“We haven’t met,” Susan says to Ruby. “I’m Susan Ferguson.”

Ruby has never been addressed in quite this tone. There is no inflection in Susan’s voice that would suggest she is speaking to a child. Confused, and a little thrilled, as well, Ruby looks up at the strange woman.

“Is this your house?” she asks. She holds her doll behind her back to hide it from Susan.

“Oh please, don’t remind me. Look.” She gestures toward the wallpaper, faded blue and dirty white, showing a repeated pattern of a little girl in a pinafore holding a hoop through which jumps her dingy little dog. “Not to mention . . .” She points to the warped floorboards, then the copper-colored stains on the ceiling. Susan sighs, takes Ruby’s coat from her. “You know, at a certain point, you just give up.” She looks down at Ruby, gives her a curious little frown, as she wonders why this child seems so unresponsive. “Are you in school?” she asks.

The party is centered in what the Richmonds still call the ballroom, and, in fact, it is a room where dancing sometimes occurs—though now it is either raucous, sweating rock and roll, or the sacred, ceremonial steps of Apache rain dancers or Sufi dervishes, performers brought in by

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Susan. People are beginning to arrive, but Daniel is too nervous by now to do more than nod a distant hello to each of them. It is striking him with some force that coming to this party is a grave mistake. If Iris doesn’t show up, it will break his heart, his indelible disappointment will show like blood on a sheet. If she does appear—then what? How will he be able to keep away from her?

He stands, with Kate, near the fireplace where four-foot white birch logs are smoldering.The brick wall of the hearth is coated with creosote, black and sticky. Kate speaks to him through the side of her mouth.

“Thank God we hurried getting here. I think it’s important to be among the very first to arrive. Don’t you?”

“There’s no kids here,” Ruby says.

“There will be, I’m sure of it,” Daniel answers.

“I want Nelson,” says Ruby.

Daniel stares at the fire. He knows Kate is looking directly at him, but he pretends to be absorbed by the progress of the flame as it slowly burns through the logs. His face is scalding; the fire burns his thoughts away, and he stands there as if hypnotized.When he finally steps away he sees a few more people have arrived, and that Ruby has found the food on the other side of the room and is grabbing handfuls of potato chips.

Susan has taken it upon herself to point out a mural on the ballroom’s ceiling to Kate, who has a plastic cup of wine in her hand.

“Ferguson’s great-grandfather Payson Richmond commissioned a Portuguese artist to make this mural. Payson wanted a picture of heaven, he wanted stars, which you see, and a moon, over there, and he wanted to see God. More than anything he wanted God up there, looking down on all the wonderful people. But the artist, whose name was Barbieri, was a devout atheist.You see, no saints, and certainly no God. Payson insisted that Barbieri get back on the scaffolding and find a place for God and Barbieri of course refused, and before anyone could intervene the two of them were fighting like kids, slapping each other in the face, pushing, and Payson ended up slipping on the floor and hitting the side of his head, which caused him to lose the hearing in his right ear.”

a s h i p m a d e o f pa p e r

Kate seems amused as she listens to this. She has a taste for the sort of ceaselessly self-referential anecdotes families like the Richmonds like to tell. She herself uses phrases like “old family” and “good family.” She believes in genealogy, she believes in birthrights, she feels that the deeds and misdeeds of our ancestors are a large part of who we are. Daniel prefers not to believe in such things, the idea that who we are is determined by our ancestors has never appealed to him, and now, of course, it is repellent.Yet he is relieved to see Kate staring up at the mural with Susan. Kate’s neck is long and still firm. She is wearing a black skirt, flattering and tight, a bolero jacket, clip-on pearl earrings. Her hands are on her hips. She looks lithe, high-spirited, if he didn’t know her he would want to. How strange it feels not to love her. That love had once felt so stable, dependable, its very lack of drama made it feel eternal, and now, to feel so little, to feel almost nothing outside of respect, and a desire not to hurt her too badly, is like waking up one morning and finding that you no longer can enjoy the taste of bread.

Ferguson, meanwhile, is on the third floor, in the room into which Marie has moved. There’s a little hooked rug on the floor; the walls are bare except for an old brass bell that used to be connected to a system of pulleys controlled from a panel in the butler’s pantry and could be rung to summon whatever maid might be using that room. Ferguson sits on the edge of Marie’s bed, dressed in work pants, a frayed white shirt, while she dips a comb into a glass of water and grooms him. “Hey, take it easy,” he says, as she rakes the comb through his hair, but she is determined to bring his unruly mop under control. She combs his hair straight back and when she finally finishes, Ferguson stands up and walks stiff-leggedly to the window, where he sees his faint reflection swimming in the old wavy glass. “Great,” he says. “Now I look like a Mexican.”

“I doubt it,” says Marie. She kisses his forehead. “If I help you save Eight Chimneys . . .”

“I’ll be forever in your debt,” Ferguson says.

“That’s sort of what I’m counting on. It’ll put us on the same level. I won’t be poor little Marie, I’ll be the girl who saved you.”

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When the party is in full swing, Marie plans to make a little speech.

She wants to thank everyone for coming and to give a brief overview of the Eight Chimneys Project, which is what she is now calling the plan to turn the house into a historical site. Ferguson has come to her room, however, not only to kiss her, and to walk with her down to the old ballroom, but to talk her out of making her speech. Susan must not be over-shadowed in that way, it will be humiliating to her, and that would be unkind and even a little dangerous. But now that he is with Marie he finds that he doesn’t have the heart to tell her not to address the guests.

She deserves the credit and she deserves the recognition. And the personal significance that this afternoon must hold for Marie has suddenly become touchingly clear to him.What a triumph, what a turn of events, what a change of fortune. Here, after all, is a girl who was raised by one of the estate’s old servants, a girl whom destiny seemed to have marked for a life of utter insignificance. How could anyone with a heart interfere with her moment of glory?
I’ll stand next to Susan while Marie makes her
speech,
he thinks.
Maybe I’ll put my arm around her
.

“Are you ready?” he asks Marie.

She touches her throat, and then the pearl necklace that Susan and Ferguson gave her on her sixteenth birthday. She is dressed in an oatmeal-colored woolen suit. It seems like something women wear to the office. Ferguson has no idea how she chooses her clothes; he’s meant to ask her but it keeps slipping his mind.

“Do I look all right?” she asks.

“You’re beautiful.You make me very, very happy.”

She seems truly surprised by his tenderness. He rarely says sweet things to her if they aren’t in bed—in fact, the best part of sleeping with him is getting to hear that gentle voice.

“I wish Dad were here,” she says.

“I do, too, honey,” says Ferguson. “I really do. Now let’s go down there and shock the hell out of everybody.”

Marie stops in her tracks. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Nothing. I have no idea why I said that. Fumes from a s h i p m a d e o f pa p e r

the lead paint on these old walls.” He links his arm through hers and steers her through the doorway.

Ferguson and Marie come down just as State Senator Phil Russell joins the party. Russell is a stocky, ravenous man, dressed in a brown suit. Thirty years ago, he was a football star at Sacred Heart, a Windsor County Catholic high school, and his chin, nose, and forehead still show the scars of his three years on the offensive line. He surveys the room with wary eyes—this bastion of the faded aristocracy is not on his regular beat. Russell runs on the Republican and the Right to Life tickets; he has been warned by his staff that while the Richmonds’ Republican roots are deep, Ferguson and Susan are at the end of the line and their house is a gathering place for eccentrics and flakes.

As Ferguson and Marie make their way toward Russell, Susan swoops him up and escorts him over to meet Daniel. By now, forty or fifty people have shown up, but not Iris, and Daniel is trying to keep his composure.

“Daniel, I’m sure you know Phil Russell,” Susan says. “Mr. Russell, Daniel Emerson has agreed to act as our attorney in this whole business.

Isn’t that nice of him?”

For a moment, Daniel wonders if Susan is somehow under the impression that he’s not going to bill them, but then he realizes this is merely her manner.

“Nice to see you,” Russell says, squeezing Daniel’s hand, his shoulder.

“What a wonderful party.”

“It certainly is,” Daniel says. He has found a place to stand near the center of the room where he can feel the cool draft whenever the front door opens, so he knows when new people have arrived. He feels the flutter of the breeze on his pant legs, but when he looks past Russell he sees Upton Douglas, a portly, white-haired real estate broker, swinging his way in on a pair of yellow crutches. Douglas was knocked to the ground by a falling branch during the October storm and he broke his leg in four places.They’ve known each other casually for years, and when Douglas sees Daniel staring at him he smiles.