Mr Toppit (37 page)

What I’d been thinking was this: maybe some of what Laurie had said to me was true—the stuff about giving something back and honoring Arthur’s legacy. My life wasn’t that much of a hard-luck story, after all, and I could just about entertain the possibility that maybe I was being a bit self-indulgent. I even came round to thinking that being on the show might be fun.

The odd thing was that before dinner the next night, the first time I had seen Laurie since that awful conversation, it seemed like she was the one who was apologizing to me.

“I need to talk to you,” she said, but not in a heavy way. In fact, she put her arm round me when she took me into the den. “I thought it would be fun to go out for dinner tonight. We’ll go to Dan Tana’s. It’s real old-style LA. You’ll like it.” Then she put her hand on mine. “I feel just awful that I said those things. The show really takes it out of me, makes me kind of grouchy sometimes.” She sighed. “Everyone has an opinion. The ratings could be higher, the advertisers are worried, we didn’t think Tuesday’s show worked, the guests aren’t right. It just goes on and on and I get so tired of it sometimes. It would really help me if you did the show. Of course, I can sort it out in some other way if you want.” She didn’t sound totally convincing.

I was just about to say, “Yes, I’ll do it. I really don’t mind,” when she said, “And Erica, you mustn’t worry about her. When I said treat this place like your own, I meant it. When I think how good you all were to me in England—you want beer, you have it. Anything you like.” She gave a little laugh. “I’d watch the tequila, though. You know they dissolve worms in it?”

My mind stopped in its tracks. One of two things had happened: either Erica had lied to me—she’d said she wouldn’t say anything to Laurie about the booze until I had sorted things out with her—or, worse, Laurie had known about it from the start and they’d cooked it up together to shame me into doing the show. My instinct was that it was the latter. Whichever, it made me dig in my heels and I didn’t say what I’d been going to say. Instead, I said, “I’m glad there’s some other way you can do the show. That’s great, Laurie. Thank you.”

Clearly it wasn’t what she had expected, and there was a moment’s silence. “Fine,” she said, “fine. It’s your choice,” but the
lightness had vanished from her voice. “I’ll make other plans. Now, we ought to get going.”

There were just the four of us, Laurie and Erica, me and Travis. Travis had to drive. Erica and I were sitting in the back. Nobody said anything in the car. My guess was that Laurie and Erica had planned the dinner as a celebration to thank me for agreeing to do the show, so now we were all there under false pretenses. I kept close to the window. I didn’t want to be near Erica.

The restaurant was rather quaint, with red leather and booths and checked tablecloths. A lot of fuss was made of Laurie as we went in, kisses from the headwaiter and warm handshakes for the rest of us. She was very gracious, saying things like, “You know I get withdrawal symptoms if I don’t have your Eggplant Parmigiana at least once a week, Jimmy.” As we walked through to our table, people stared. “This is so cool,” Travis kept saying. “This is like a real celebrity place.”

Erica wore a fixed smile. She was sitting opposite me so I had plenty of opportunity to see it. Before we’d even had a chance to order anything, a waiter brought us a bottle of champagne on the house. He poured Laurie’s and Erica’s glasses first, then turned to me.

I had just opened my mouth and was saying, “No, thank—” when Erica put her hand out and said, “He’d better not. He’s only eighteen.”

I could tell I was going bright red. “You should be flattered, Luke. They think you’re grown-up,” she said, with a light but discernible emphasis on “think.”

I didn’t know how I was going to get through the meal. Thank God for Travis, who was completely oblivious. “I don’t like champagne too much,” he said. “It gives me gas.”

“Oh, Travis, really, spare us,” Erica said teasingly. “That’s too much information. You must keep your gastric arrangements to yourself.” She and Laurie gave an awful phoney laugh, and Travis glowed with pleasure at the unexpected attention.

Laurie didn’t say much all the way through dinner. I kept glancing at her, but she was keeping her gaze well away from me and looking at Travis, who began telling us about his songwriting. Erica watched him, wide-eyed, as if he was the most fascinating person in the world. He was working on a song about Merry, he said.

“Don’t you need to be a very special person to be immortalized in a song? Like ‘Lili Marlene’?” Erica said.

Travis looked confused. “Who?”

“Oh, Travis, before your time. One of the great songs. Or ‘Eleanor Rigby.’ You’ll know that one, I expect.”

“Or Ruby,” he said, warming to it.

“Ruby?”

“You know, like ‘Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town.’ ”

Laurie snorted, and Erica’s eyes flicked in her direction. “I don’t think I’m familiar with that one,” she said.

“Or ‘Mrs. Robinson.’ ”

“Yes, all quite special people.”

“Merry’s special,” he said.

“She’s very attractive, of course.”

“No, she’s got like an aura.”

“An aura. My goodness.”

“No, she is. She is special.”

“I’m sure she is. You’re very clever to have spotted something in her that has eluded the rest of us.”

Travis took that as a compliment. “I’m still working on the song,” he said. “I’ve got the chorus and some of the words.”

“And how does it go? Your song.”

“Well, the chorus is ‘I watch you through my eyes/Until …’ ”

“ ‘I watch you through my eyes,’ ” Erica repeated quizzically.

“Yes.”

“But who else’s eyes could you watch her through?”

“I’m, like, seeing her through my eyes.”

“Yes, I understand that. But it wouldn’t be possible for you to see her through anybody else’s. Unless you have special powers.” She gave a gay little laugh. “No, go on. I’m sorry, I don’t really understand song construction.”

He cleared his throat and started again. “ ‘I watch you through my eyes/Until the summer ends/I know how hard you try/To force the pain to mend.’ ”

“Oh, it’s a sad song,” she said. “That’s nice. That’s a good rhyme: end/mend—it’s clever, Travis. Cole Porter better watch out.”

“I find the rhyming stuff really hard,” he said.

She laughed again. “If it was easy, we’d all be doing it. It’s obviously a special gift of yours.” Travis looked pleased. “But it’s so sad,” she said, with a little catch in her throat. “Forcing the pain to mend? How could such a golden creature as Merry have pain?”

“She’s quite a deep person,” Travis said.

“Deep? You do surprise me.”

“She’s the deepest person I know.”

“Really? In what way, Travis? You are perceptive.”

It was going to go on and get worse. “Don’t do this,” I said. I hadn’t even begun to eat. My Clam Linguini was still sitting on the plate. It was meant to be one of their specialities, but it didn’t look very nice. I hadn’t known the clams would still be in their shells.

Erica turned to me slowly. “I’m sorry, Luke?”

“You don’t have to do this.” My voice was trembling.

“Do what? Travis is just telling us about his songs.”

“Yeah, bro, what’s up?”

They all looked at me. I couldn’t explain it in front of Travis and I didn’t want to hurt him. He was the only innocent one at the table. I didn’t say anything.

“You seem upset, Luke,” Erica observed coldly.

I turned to Laurie. She was the closest thing I had there to a parent and, ridiculously, I wanted her to protect us, but I knew it was too late for that. She was staring straight in front of her, as if she was somewhere else. I was on my own.

“It’s just mean,” I said, in a voice so clear that even I was surprised. “It’s mean and cruel, Erica. Like pulling the wings off a butterfly.”

She wiped her mouth and put down her napkin. There was silence for a moment. “I’m delighted to think you know me well enough to talk so frankly,” she said, then got up and left the table. The look on Laurie’s face: I thought she might hit me, but she pushed her chair back and hurried after Erica across the restaurant.

The day before I left to fly home, I wanted to see Alma again to say good-bye. After lunch I could hear Erica doing her tennis practice with the ball-throwing machine and knew that would keep her occupied for a while. I sneaked through the garden to Alma’s little house. I had to call her name several times through the gate before she heard me.

“Who’s that?” she shouted from inside.

“It’s me. Luke.”

The screen door opened and she maneuvered herself out onto the porch with her walker.

“Hi, Alma.”

“I’ve got a shotgun,” she said. “You tell those Mexican friends of yours I’ll blow their brains out if they come here one more time.”

“It’s Luke. I was here the other day.”

Something seemed to clear in her mind. “Oh, you,” she said.

“I came to say good-bye. I’m going tomorrow. Back to England.”

“You didn’t stay long,” she said grumpily. “Why you going?”

“I’ve got to get back to my family.”

She humphed. “Family won’t do you much good.”

I laughed. “Probably not. I blotted my copybook here.”

She looked confused. “You what?”

“I’ve offended Laurie.”

“What? You stole all her potato chips?”

“Something like that.”

“I like you,” she said.

“I like you, too.”

She looked away and made a dismissive gesture with her hand. “Liking people’s not going to get you anywhere.”

Just then, I heard Travis shouting for me: “Hey, Luke! Get up here! Where are you?”

I turned round and saw him gesturing wildly by the palm trees at the top of the bank. When I turned back, Alma had gone inside and the screen door was swinging on its hinges.

When I got to him Travis was breathless with excitement. “What is it?” I said.

“You’ve got to see this! It’s like a surprise. Come on!”

He put his arm round my shoulder and practically dragged me back to the house. We went through and out to the front. In the driveway, Stan was opening the rear door of his big black BMW. Out of it, her eyes squinting in the bright sunlight, came Rachel.

“Oh, this is so fabulous,” she said. “I’ve been itching to call you but Laurie made me promise not to say anything so it would be a big surprise for you. She’s flown me over to be on her show! First class! Free champagne all the way! And now you’re about to go home. I can’t bear it.”

“I don’t like champagne too much,” Travis said. “It gives me gas.”

It’s hard to come up with the right word to describe the things that took place in the weeks after I left LA and Rachel arrived there. The family shorthand we used to refer to it afterwards—not that we did refer to it much afterwards—was to talk about “the stuff” that happened in LA even though we knew that calling it “stuff” was to underplay it in a pretty major way. Better, I suppose—more self-protective, anyway—to imply we could treat it lightly, to pretend that the fallout of those weeks might be finite. I wasn’t there, but over the years I pieced it together from what Rachel—never the most reliable source—said, and from what Graham Carter told me, and I’ve guessed some, not hard with the personalities involved.

Like the bomb that Laurie’s father either did or didn’t help build in Los Alamos, certain events needed to take place for the required explosion to happen. In the case of the bomb, two subcritical masses of fissionable material would have to come together to form a supercritical mass. On top of that, they have to come together in a precise manner and at high speed. That’s what I learned in physics, anyway.

In the case of Laurie, there were two simultaneous but unrelated news stories—I think even hardened conspiracy theorists would find collusion between the
National Enquirer
and the
LA Times
unlikely—that appeared just after I left and Rachel had got there. The first one was in the
Enquirer:
the front cover had a huge picture of Laurie with a giant headline,
“Laurie Gay
Scandal,”
and underneath
“This Woman’s Shocking Charge,”
with a little inset photo of a dumpy middle-aged woman in a nurse’s uniform.

The piece began, “Laurie Clow has become tangled in a messy gay scandal triggered by shocking allegations that she plied her vacation companion, Marge Clancy, 54, a care worker from Laurie’s hometown of Modesto, Calif., with alcohol and then forced her into sordid sexual acts on the exclusive Caribbean island of St. Barts.” Marge Clancy was described as an “angel” by her patients, and much was made of her good works with terminal-cancer sufferers, as if that somehow proved she must be the innocent party. Coworkers called them “thick as thieves,” unnamed friends had noticed “something odd” about their relationship. Marge Clancy, who had thought they were “just friends,” felt “betrayed by Laurie’s sordid actions.”

But there was more: Laurie had recently been “linked with Dutch care worker, Erica Hauer, 43, employed by the star to tend to her mother, Alma Clow, 84, an Alzheimer’s sufferer,” and there was a blurry photograph of Erica playing tennis. Unnamed staff “in her spacious Beverly Hills mansion” were quoted as saying that Laurie and Erica were “constantly together” and that Erica seemed “to rule the household.” What they clearly considered the most damning piece of evidence was this: Erica’s “prized pedigree Persian cats, Marty and BJ, are named after lesbian tennis legends Martina Navratilova and Billie-Jean King.” There was a coda: the magazine intimated that Laurie’s championing of the “best-selling
Hayseed
books, with their celebration of family values” was some kind of smokescreen to mask her “unconventional lifestyle.”

I imagined the house to be like an ants’ nest that had been disturbed—suddenly they were swarming all over the place,
particularly at the Friday program meeting. I should think the driveway was jammed with cars that day, with extra PR people drafted in to sort out the crisis.

They tried to spin the story in the most positive way possible: nobody believed anything in the
National Enquirer
anyway—the story might just as well have been “Chat Show Star Abducted By Flying Saucer.” Whether the story was true or not, there was nothing illegal about being gay. The show tended to skew towards a more liberal demographic, it attracted a sizeable gay audience, and so on.