Thanksgiving (9 page)

‘Well Jack and I got back on Wednesday, right? I thought that awful thing happened on Monday, but that can’t be right, because after we got back I saw Lucy right here.’

‘Right where?’ I demanded, with no attempt at mitigation. If Allie was going to retail the clichés of spectator grief, she might at least trouble to get her facts right.

‘On Wednesday? Or was it Thursday? No, it must have been Wednesday, because that’s recycling day and I’d just got back from taking my bins to the kerb. Then I looked over at your house, and there she was, standing there with her back to the kitchen window. I waved to her and called out, but she didn’t notice me, or maybe she didn’t want to talk. I guess she had something else on her mind. But you know the strange thing? She looked about twenty years younger, the way she did when she and Darryl Bob bought that place.’

I said nothing, but my look must have spoken because Allie turned away.

‘I know it’s hard to accept, but it must be God’s will,’ she concluded, heading back to her own porch.

Allie was a fundamentalist Christian of some variety who frequently mentioned God in a casual, slightly resigned way, as though He were CEO of the company in which she was an underpaid, put-upon secretary.

‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do. I’ve got some tuna casserole you could have tonight if you want.’

I walked back inside the house and closed the door. On Wednesday of the previous week, Lucy had been dead for two days.

Then I remembered that the memorial service had been held that day, and that Claire had been here. That’s who Allie must have seen standing at the kitchen window, not Lucy but Claire.

In the hallway, the Caller ID box was still winking. The display read ‘UNAVAILABLE’. I picked up the phone and dialled our voicemail service. There were twenty-three new messages. I listened to the most recent. It was from Claire, asking me to call her. She sounded distraught. Just what I need, I thought, another wacky female. But I called anyway, and immediately regretted it.

‘First Jeff walking out on me, then Mom dying, and now this. It’s like we’re cursed.’

‘Claire?’

‘I’m sorry, I guess I have grievance issues or whatever the fuck they’re saying this week. It’s all bullshit. And it’s so dumb, because it wasn’t like I was that close to him, even when he still lived with us. He was a big drunk, to be honest. Plus depressive. Mom tried to get him on meds, but he preferred to self-medicate with booze. He had violent mood swings. You never knew what to expect.’

‘What’s the matter, Claire?’

‘One moment he’d be all lovey-dovey, the next he’d be screaming at you. Plus he was a total slob, didn’t shower for days on end, wore the same clothes for weeks. His idea of dinner was eating peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon, standing up in the kitchen and washing it down with beer.’

She paused to blow her nose loudly.

‘I hated him. And her. You know that? I never told you, because I didn’t want to be hurtful, but now . . .’

‘Claire, what . . .’

‘They used to fuck, in that room right across from mine. The one you guys have now. I mean had. And she’d be screaming and he’d be yelling and it’d go on all night. And I was like thirteen, for Christ’s sake, never been kissed, and I had to listen to them going at it for hours, and then Mom showing up all dewy-eyed at the breakfast table and him with that kind of “Well-I-guess-I-did-my-day’s-work-last-night-so-I-can-slack-off-now” look.’

‘Hello?’

‘Fuck them both. I hate them. I used to wish they were dead, and now they are I’m scared. It’s like I caused it. Am I nuts too? Have I inherited this? I’m so scared, so fucking scared. Hello? Are you there?’

I could hear her weeping.

‘I’m here,’ I said. ‘Are you?’

‘Yes, unfortunately.’

‘Claire, what’s happened? What’s all this about?’

‘What do you mean what’s happened? You know what’s happened.’

‘I do not.’

A silence.

‘You mean they didn’t tell you?’

By now I was starting to get irritated.

‘Who didn’t tell me what?’ I snapped.

‘The police. They said they’d spoken with you. I’ve been calling you at the hotel and at home and you’re never there. You could at least have got in touch. He was my father, for fuck’s sake. What planet are you living on?’

‘Claire, listen. I was out last night. I came here early this morning. A policeman came to the hotel with some story about your father’s trailer having burned down. He asked me a bunch of questions. That’s all I know.’

Another, longer, silence.

‘Oh my God. They didn’t tell you?’

‘Tell me what?’

‘He’s dead.’

‘Who’s dead?’

‘My father.’

‘Dead? How?’

‘He was shot. The trailer burned down, but they found the gun and . . . and enough of the body. The skull survived. He’d been shot in the head at close range.’

I found nothing to say.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t hate him, I didn’t mean that. I felt sorry for him, just like Mom. He was a flawed human being, but Jesus, which of us isn’t? And of course I never hated Mom. I’m so sorry I said that. I’m going slightly crazy here.’

‘Of course. Look, do you want to . . .’

‘I don’t want anything. I’ll be fine. But I have a question.’

‘Yes?’

‘Did you kill my dad?’

Once again, I could find nothing to say.

‘Hello?’

‘I’m here.’

‘Did you hear what I asked?’

‘Yes, of course. The answer is no.’

‘But you were down there, right? The police told me when they called.’

‘I went down to see him, yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I wanted to talk things over with him, about who gets what from Lucy’s estate. I was doing it for you. For you and Frank, I mean.’

‘You saw him on Saturday?’

‘Yes.’

‘And they found the body on Monday.’

‘I was back here by then.’

‘But they can’t tell when he died, because of . . .’

She broke off.

‘Because of the fire?’

‘Yes.’

‘I understand now. They didn’t tell me any of this. I’m so sorry, Claire. You poor thing. I wish there was something I could do.’

She sniffed her way back into speech.

‘There is.’

‘What?’

‘I need to know if you killed him.’

‘No!’

‘Only they say they have photographs he took of you threatening him with a gun. The same gun they found at the scene. And they say you bought it earlier that day, and it was the gun which fired the shot which killed him. That’s what they told me.’

I listened to the renewed silence as if it were complex polyphony.

‘Claire?’

‘What?’

‘I didn’t kill your father.’

She started sobbing again.

‘You didn’t? You know what that means?’

She was way ahead of me. It took me another moment to work it out.

‘Oh, I see.’

‘He must have done it himself.’

‘He talked to me about it, Claire. I’m sorry, this is not the moment to tell you this. But he did. He even talked about ways to do it. He bought the gun off me so he’d have one handy.’

‘And you let him have it?’

She sounded indignant now.

‘Claire, this is America. He could have bought a gun any time he wanted. He happened to buy it from me, that’s all.’

‘But why did you take a gun there in the first place?’

I had no answer to this.

‘Tony?’

For a moment, I thought Lucy had come on the line, something which used to happen all the time in our phone-ridden household.

‘Who’s that?’ I demanded.

But there was only white noise, followed by an insistent electronic howl.

She’d hung up on me, which was most unlike Claire and probably meant she wanted me to call her back right away and demonstrate my concern. But I couldn’t. My concern at this point was all for myself.

Mason had played a clever game with me the night before, never lying but revealing almost nothing of the essential facts. Which were that I was at the very least a material witness in a potential homicide investigation into Allen’s death, and most probably the prime suspect.

I could imagine the kind of law enforcement and judicial procedures that went on in Nye County, Nevada. If they got someone like me in their paws, with photographs of me pointing the presumed murder weapon at the victim, they wouldn’t bother looking any further. On the basis of what I’d stupidly revealed to Detective Mason, they even had two solid motives: Allen’s stash of porno material featuring me and my dead wife, and his financial finaglings which had left her a hundred thousand dollars in debt. Hell, they wouldn’t even bother with a trial, never mind further investigation. They’d just warn everyone in town to turn off their lights and stoves and TVs before six that evening since there was likely to be a brief power outage due to exceptional demand down at the county jail.

I ran upstairs, opened the door of our bedroom and hunted frantically through the file where I kept my passport and other papers. Whether tactfully or to save herself unnecessary labour, Claire had not bothered with this space on her tidying mission before the memorial service. Our bed had not rearranged itself, which for some reason disconcerted me. The covers were thrown back, the sheets rumpled, the pillows bore the imprint of our sleeping heads. There was the pink flannel nightdress which Lucy used to put on like a tent, flapping her arms about to get them through the sleeves, a comic pantomime which never failed to make me laugh in pleasurable erotic expectation. There were her shoes, scattered in random disorder all over the floor, where I invariably tripped over one of them on my way to pee in the night. Her clothes in the closet, her make-up on the chest of drawers, the paperback biography of Greta Garbo which she’d been reading, her knickers on the floor, her sanitary napkins in the closet.

Files from work, unpaid bills, the silk scarf I’d bought her in London, the wooden chest she’d inherited from her mother where she kept her meagre stock of jewellery, mostly featuring pins and earrings with apple motifs, gifts from well-meaning associates at work. The framed photographs of her children, our dirty laundry in a plastic basket, stacks of toilet-paper rolls from Costco, a handwritten note in her loopy scrawl reminding her to pick up the dry-cleaning.

Not here.

WINDOW OR AISLE?

That’s what they ask, isn’t it? Always assuming you get a choice in the first place. ‘Would you care for a window or an aisle seat today?’ It’s one of my favourite bits of the airline liturgy, right up there with the classic ‘Adjust your own mask before attempting to assist others.’

The shuttle I took down to SFO didn’t bother with such niceties. It was like a subway train. You bought an e-ticket, showed some picture ID at the gate and grabbed the first available seat. That was fine with me. On this occasion, I wasn’t interested in the view or easy access to the toilets. I was watching the door to see who boarded after me.

I may have decided to leave precipitately, but I’d planned the manner of my departure with some care. No luggage, for a start, not even an overnighter. I’d added my passport and Green Card, a Sony Walkman and a few tapes to the contents of my overcoat pockets, then called a cab to take me back to the hotel where I’d been staying. I told the receptionist that I’d be checking out early the next day and settled the bill in advance with a credit card. Then I walked through to the sushi-and-oyster bar and slipped out a side door to the street.

A short walk brought me to a far grander hotel, with a line of waiting cabs outside. No one was following me, so far as I could tell, but I hung around in the lobby for another ten minutes, inspecting everyone who entered or left, before slipping the doorman a five and taking a cab to the airport. I didn’t take any chances there, either, staying out of sight in the bar, my back to the wall with a clear view of the doors, until the plane started boarding. No one looking remotely like a policeman had appeared at any point. By the time I buckled myself into my seat, I was beginning to feel reasonably confident.

The other end, I had just over two hours to catch the night flight to Paris. Everything seemed to be going smoothly, but I didn’t relax my vigilance. Having bought a ticket and checked in, I left the international concourse and hid myself away in a hutch for smokers on the first floor of one of the domestic terminals. Once again I boarded the plane at the last moment, and only after a careful scrutiny of my fellow-passengers. No one seemed to take the slightest interest in me, but I didn’t completely relax until the 747 hit its stride on the runway and the rumble of the wheels suddenly ceased. There below us was the city where Lucy had met Darryl Bob, but it could have been a postcard as far as I was concerned. All that mattered was that we were airborne, and that from a legal point of view I was now on European soil. I even had a window seat.

Settling back into it as the plane made its turn towards the east, it occurred to me that back in the days when I used to turn a quick buck by writing articles for in-flight magazines, I could easily have come up with a multiple-choice quiz called ‘Are You A Window Person Or An Aisle Person?’ The idea has just the right amount of specious plausibility to hold people’s interest for about twenty minutes, but not enough to make them feel bad if the result didn’t pan out the way they’d expected. The reason why the distinction still held my interest was simple. Lucy was an aisle person, I’m a window person, and that’s how we met. If we’d both been one or the other, it would never have happened.

At first I was annoyed, to be honest. The flight at Heath-row had already closed, the seat next to mine luxuriously vacant. Then she appeared, flushed and breathless after a mad dash from Terminal One, where her incoming plane had arrived late. I nodded curtly, cleared my stuff away and buried my nose in the book I’d bought at the airport. Even after a single glance, I could tell that she was one of those women who have learned from experience to expect to get hit on in such situations, and I wasn’t in the mood to give her the satisfaction.

For all my pretence of indifference, she imposed herself on me without making the slightest move in my direction. I pointedly did not speak to her right through the meal service. I glanced over every once in a while, though, noting a good body, concealed rather than displayed, and a serene face belied by her shrewd, amused gaze. It was as though she had already worked out the petty variation on the usual routines which I was playing, and had decided to let me make a fool of myself in my own good time.