Burning Down the House (2 page)

He had told her, the first evening she ever spent at Gardencourt, that if she should live to suffer enough she might some day see the ghost with which the old house was duly provided. She apparently had fulfilled the necessary condition.

—
HENRY JAMES
,
The Portrait of a Lady

T
HEY ALWAYS CELEBRATED
important family events out of town, usually in another country. Here they were in a black car as it sped along the highway, now turning onto a side road, disappearing and emerging from under trees like a blinking light on a Global Positioning System screen moving across a continent. The tinted windows flickering with shadows and reflections, sparks dancing against the glass. From the outside, the family riding in the car was difficult to understand, the way the movements of a fire, even when viewed within the safe confines of a fireplace, seem random and uncontrolled. However, inside, from amid the licking flames of its interlocking relationships, the Zane family made its own fantastical sense. All families are complicated, but because their connections constitute the primary reality that its members know, some families create a world that to them is more comprehensible than the world itself.

From the point of view of the fire in the fireplace, the living room appears extraordinary, disorienting, and obscure. And the unexpected lashings of the blaze feel comfortable, ordinary, and known.

This time Jonathan had flown his driver over, so Vlad was taking Jonathan, Miranda, and Alix from the airstrip to the house in the same car. It was awkward for Alix because she had been conscious of the tension between her brother and his fiancée ever since they had begun their journey and they had been journeying for a long time: from New York to London, and then from London on a smaller plane, and now in this sedan, here, on a road in the British countryside lined with ancient trees whose branches and leaves so loose and careless reminded Alix of one of Jonathan's silk ties, flung casually over his shoulder as it was at this very moment. She sat next to Miranda, while Jonathan had opted to sit up front with Vlad. Alix and Jonathan had two much-younger half brothers, nine-year-old twins, and Miranda had recently discovered that Jonathan was sleeping with their nanny. Miranda had threatened to call off the wedding, was still threatening, convincingly, to leave tomorrow and head to Sardinia where some friends had a place, but Jonathan had talked her into coming this far and now here she was sitting in the backseat being driven to the manor house which Jonathan's family had rented for the occasion. Her eyes were red, but she was in possession of her usual perfect haircut and amused expression. Alix had no idea what Miranda was thinking, but she knew that Miranda was capable of impulsivity—and in this case maybe bolting was the rational thing to do—in spite of her preternaturally still surface. Miranda was like a big cat. Composed, she looked out the window at an angle which almost touched her disembodied yet vivid reflection and which made it appear to Alix as though her brother's betrayed fiancée were in the middle of having a quiet conversation with herself.

Alix thinks that it is too late. Too late for her to have any kind of life other than this life dictated by her family circumstances, defined by these people trapped inside their pain. She does not believe as she rides in the car on the way to her brother's wedding that anything can grow other than these old green trees which line the road. She is waiting for Ian, for the friend who knows her, who represents a time when she believed that things might grow. She sits in the car and waits for Ian.

Vlad, said Jonathan, could you pull over for a minute?

Thanks.

The rush of green coming at Alix made her eyes blur. So much beauty outside, so much misery in the car.

Thanks, said Jonathan. And now that we've stopped would you mind getting out for minute? Just to give us some privacy. You've got an umbrella, right?

Vlad nodded and reached down for his umbrella and opened the car door and stepped out and stood by the side of the road. Jonathan swiveled around in the front seat and said: Alix, you too, okay? Miranda and I have to talk before we get there.

No, not okay, said Alix. I don't have an umbrella. It's not like I don't know what's going on anyway so you can speak freely in front of me. Or get out of the car yourselves.

Alix, it's not raining very hard.

You're right. It's more like a mist. So you guys won't get too wet. Or you can huddle under Vlad's umbrella.

Alix…

Miranda got out of the car without saying anything and walked several yards along the road beyond where Vlad stood smoking a cigarette.

Thanks, Alix.

You're welcome. The fresh air will probably do you both a world of good.

Alix watched Jonathan follow Miranda down the road. The mist swallowed their outlines and as they met in the distance the image of the two of them through the watery window fused with the raindrops in a hazy, romantic picture. Alix could have imagined that they were very happily in love. They were, in their own way. Some people, thought Alix, are happiest when they are unhappy. Miranda was one of those people. I am too, thought Alix. And in a flash of insight that sped past her like one of the cars on the road, she understood: but some people are not like that, some people are happy when they are happy. A flash and it was gone. She wouldn't have believed it even if you had been able to prove to her that she had had the thought herself. The memory of the idea was somewhere in her mind, but already Jonathan and Miranda were walking back toward the car together and Alix was aware of what their postures meant before her conscious brain had even registered that she had seen them. She didn't know what Jonathan had said or promised or what Miranda had threatened or demanded. But Alix knew: Miranda would stay at least another day.

It's on the way to the wedding that Alix remembers Poppy will be coming too. Alix doesn't always look forward to seeing Poppy, her much-younger half sister who is also her cousin, but now Alix does, she looks forward to all that youthful energy and stupid beauty. Looking forward to seeing Ian and Poppy, Alix is able to bear the rest of the ride. Later she will remember the feeling she had in the car while thinking about Poppy and Ian, the mixture of despair and anticipation, and she will think that she'd had no idea what was coming. How could she have known? Why should she have known that Poppy and Ian would begin a flirtation at Jonathan's wedding that would evolve into a romance and escalate into a tragedy?

That she remembers the moment at all will make her feel as though she must have had some awareness, some information. Information that her mind did not actually know it had. This makes her feel guilty. It is a familiar feeling.

The first time they saw S— they confronted pastoral green lawns and grazing sheep, many louche and unnaturally natural trees, and, after much winding road, a grand and stately stone house. As they pulled up, several men with headsets and strong arms arrived to open doors and whisk away belongings. One of them was the leader of the headset men and he welcomed everyone and gestured to the other men about valises and rooms. Jonathan checked his phone as he made the quick walk from the car to the vast foyer with its enormously high ceiling and checkerboard marble floor. He took a sharp inhalation and then exhaled slowly as he scrolled through his texts. Without looking up, he said to Miranda, and to the assembled in general, that the twins, Felix and Roman, would be arriving later in the day at the airstrip with their mother Patrizia, along with the new nanny, a Slavic girl. As he said “a Slavic girl” Alix saw that he ran his fingers through his hair and looked quickly sideways at Miranda. The last nanny had been Brazilian and Alix could tell that Jonathan hoped the word “Slavic” conjured something pale and unthreatening in Miranda's mind. And his.

I
T HAD BEEN
raining on and off for hours when Ian showed up and then the skies cleared, if only for a little while. Alix had unpacked and tried on her new dress for the wedding and taken it off. She'd put her jeans and sweater back on and looked out the window. It was a gigantic window and you could see the suddenly visible sunlight being thrown down in big fistfuls between the clouds, spilling out onto the extensive and still-wet grounds. She took in the view as if she were draining a glass and then stepped out of the room.

Again, her thoughts turned to Ian. Ian had been Alix's best friend since their first week at college nearly twenty years ago. Ian had helped her home from their first party, the one with the nitrous tanks in the apartment at the Roosevelt. Ian had stayed with her until all hours at the Castle Bar, the ripped leatherette seat of the banquette wet with sweat on her miniskirted thighs. Ian now lives across the lobby from her in the Village in the building her father owns, her family having given Ian a rent-stabilized one-bedroom that had made it possible for him to stick it out in the theater world until he had had a hit. Ian brings her stories and confidences at the end of a hard day, handing them to her like the detritus from a little boy's pocket. She knows Ian keeps secrets from her, but the ones he shares are worth more to her than anything. She knows she is in love with Ian, but she knows that part of why she loves him is that he will never love her back in the same way.

The long hall in the grand house led to a wide staircase, and Alix followed a band of dusty light along the banister toward the portrait-lined gallery. Just then Ian rounded the corner below, entering from the marble-checkerboard-floored foyer into the gallery, and headed up the staircase. They met halfway on the wide, shallow, green-carpeted steps. Ian stood before Alix and swayed slightly. His wet hair dripped onto his shirt collar. His gray eyes were gentle and clear. He held a piece of luggage in one hand. Are you going to give me a hug or should I just get the hell out of your way?

Do I look that bad? said Alix.

Not bad, just distressed. But I'm here now. Ian smiled. You don't believe it yet, do you?

He put down his bag.

Alix looked at his smile. Very familiar, very comforting, an embrace. She tilted her head at him. Really? Do I look okay?

Ian eyed her up and down. Refined. Aware. Authentic in a cool way. No one else would guess you were having a terrible time.

Thank you, I think.

Can you show me to my room?

Where's the guy? The headset?

I told him I'd find it myself.

Which means I will find it for you. Follow me, she said.

As they walked, she said, I'm sorry I asked you to come to this.

Why? I love it! I feel like I'm in a movie.

Miranda is thinking of calling it off.

I don't care. I'm not here for the nuptials. Just to be here for you.

You are a true friend. Really.

They crossed a threshold. Ian looked around the grand bedroom. This'll do, he said.

They sat side by side on the brocade bedspread and gazed though the room's original wavy-paned-glass window together, across undulating gardens and lawns.

Ian remembers sitting so many years ago in college on the lawn outside the library with Alix, the green grass stretching out around them, carpeting their world. The force of that memory sweeps through him for an instant. He feels an ache, a longing to be eighteen. But if I were eighteen I wouldn't be here, he reasons. And for now that is enough.

Patrizia here? asked Ian.

Not yet. Coming soon with the twins and a new nanny.

Steve?

Later. No one knows exactly when.

And where's Poppy?

Not yet materialized, said Alix.

You talk about her as if she were a spirit.

She is, sort of. She seems to float through life. You know what I mean. Anyway, she has a boyfriend whom she was reluctant to leave, so she's taking the last possible plane.

Ian turned to face Alix.

A boyfriend?

She's seventeen. It's still called a boyfriend isn't it?

I thought they just “hooked up.”

We're old. We wouldn't know.

Ian took off his jacket.

The ache of a moment ago is gone, his inchoate feelings for Poppy replacing the ache with a drift of desire. He thinks, he wishes, he knows: he is young.

She just finished her junior year, right? He said, Where's she going to apply to college?

College. He remembers: meeting Alix, their instant closeness, her introducing him to new worlds, to her aunt Diana, the surprisingly glamorous grad student who would become his mentor. He can't imagine anything more idyllic than his time at college.

She doesn't want to. Doesn't want to leave the boyfriend. Isn't very into school these days. Steve is annoyed.

So what will happen?

She'll go.

You're sure?

We'll see. How are you? How's the show?

A curl formed on Ian's mouth. His eyes shut and opened a little too slowly.

It's going well. A lot of late nights. Thank God I love the music. The story's good but it needs work.

You're reliving the eighties! Our youth. How fun.

Ian closed and opened his eyes again.

That's why I'm doing it, right?

No. You're doing it to make a lot of money. Your shows always do.

You're wrong. My shows make money, but I don't. And anyway, that's not why I do it.

Oh really? You do it for art?

Don't be an idiot. I mean, yes, for art, but that's not the only reason.

He had gotten up and hung his jacket in the closet. He went to the bathroom and took a plush towel and was rubbing his head with it to dry his hair.

He smiled and they looked at each other for a long time.

I do it so I won't buy a gun and blow my brains out in a gorgeous red mess all over the wall.

Ah, she said. Got it. Would you like to greet the bride and groom?

This family, he thinks. It is amazing how people can be so lucky and so miserable. Alix, with her inability to feel pleasure, how can she go on? But she does and he loves her for it, in spite of it, because of it. Along with her money, she has an unseemly almost-buffoonish sense of gloom. He accepts her, her unhappiness, not only accepts it, likes it.