The City Below (40 page)

"What's going on here, Nick?"

Squire shook his head sadly, glancing up at the dangling effigy. "I'm sorry you came upon it this way, before I could explain. I can see why you're upset." His voice was higher than Terry's, his Boston accent sharper, but those differences were small, and Joan realized for the first time that her husband had consciously worked to lower his voice and round out his way of pronouncing vowels. The brother's calmness, and the contrast with Terry's furious agitation, made her think for a bizarre moment that this was Terry's father, not his younger sibling. His arrival would make all that had just happened seem like the roughhousing of maladjusted children.

But these two men had no father. Joan knew what a wall that lack had erected in Terry, what she had yet to get through. Now she sensed that that wall stood between the brothers too.

"You own the carriage house now?" Terry said. "You let them use it?"

"I do, yes." Squire looked down at Joan, as if she were the one to whom he owed this explanation. Already, and implicitly, he was conveying a basic self-acceptance that she had never sensed in Terry. "It's a way to keep the lid on. This is bad, you could say grotesque, even." He meant the effigy. "But at least it's not a human being. These kids would be out of control if Jackie wasn't riding them. Now they're a club." He looked up at Terry. "You remember how we like a nice club in the Town. But let's drop this nonsense. You didn't come over here to—"

"Jackie Mullen is playing with fire in there. And he wouldn't do it unless you gave him the matches."

"Relax, Terry. Jackie's been assigned over here by Community Affairs. As a local guy, he can help keep the peace. Don't be so thick."

"His punk had a sawed-off shotgun just now."

"There's no pin in that gun, Terry. We let Brownie carry it so he won't get something that shoots." Squire shifted the plant to his other arm, with no more thought for it than a delivery man would have had. He was all patience now, patience with the juvenile delinquents, patience with his forever uptight brother.

"The Marshals are a safety valve, don't you see? We're a step ahead of violence over here, no thanks to the Boston cops, or to the court, or to the mayor, or for that matter to the liberals who keep urging us to be peaceful. What do they expect, we should get these sixteen-year-olds to hold hands and sing 'We Shall Overcome'? It's
their
high school that's been hijacked. That is point number one." Squire looked at Joan again, seeming to expect a signal of her support.

He said, "These kids are pissed off, and I don't blame them. Jackie has them organized into squads 'protecting the Town,' when what they'd really like to do is storm over to the Berry and burn crosses up and down Blue Hill Ave. Instead, they patrol Old Ironsides and Bunker Hill. Where's the harm? Playing with fire? Colored people have torched whole cities with less provocation than we've had. All we do is yell at buses and lynch dummies. The kids are right to string up Garrity. He's punishing the Irish for embarrassing his good friend and yours, Kennedy. The kids know what we all know—we're being screwed." Squire paused. When Terry did not react, he added, "I would expect you to understand, and give some clue to Kennedy."

Terry exchanged a glance with Joan: Everybody wants me to talk to Ted. He said, "What I understand, Nick, is that children are being terrorized."

"Yes,
our
children. So what if they hang out in the carriage house drinking beer and saying 'Fuck the judge!' I say it too. Fuck the judge!" To Joan he said, "Excuse me."

"I've heard the word before." It hit Joan at once—what a strange statement with which to introduce herself.

"I'm surprised," Squire said.

"Don't be." There was an explicit daring in her voice.

And with an air of display, she brought her legs together, her close-fitting jeans emphasizing her slender thighs. Squire sensed that she was aware of his abrupt interest in her body. She would take it as a victory, and he would let her.

She never lowered her eyes from his. He knew a warning flag when it was waved in his face. And he understood now that his brother's built-in uneasiness had wrapped itself around her. Terry's marriage had him in over his head. Squire liked her.

"Joan," he said with unforced sincerity, "I'm sorry this is how we finally meet You are very welcome here, and I want you to see our good side." He flashed a smile. "We've all been wanting Terry to bring you over."

"That wasn't my impression, frankly. I wrote your grandfather last year, and then again when we were moving up here. He never answered."

"Letters are not in Gramps's bag of tricks, Joan. But I wasn't thinking of him." Squire looked forlorn. "He's in his own world. I was thinking of myself and Didi, and of our kids. Come on. Let's go up to the house."

Terry hooked his thumb back toward the flower store, the old house. "I want to check in with Gramps."

Squire turned toward his brother. "He lives with me, Terry. You think I'd move without him?"

The brothers held each other's eyes for a long, hard moment. Finally Terry, like an older brother yielding authority, said, "Okay, kid. Lead the way."

They left the hanging effigy and the carriage house behind. Joan drove up to the corner and pulled to the curb while the men followed on foot.

"You might want to put the top up," Squire said to her.

Joan gave Terry an anxious look.

Squire saw it and laughed. "Because of the rain," he said, "not the kids. It might rain again."

"The car's okay here, Joan," Terry said. They both pulled the canvas top up. "In front of Nick's house we're safe." He glanced at his brother. "Joan has a serious commitment to her car."

"I like a serious commitment."

When Joan joined him on the sidewalk, Squire surprised her by crooking his free elbow at her. "Madam? Allow me." He was an Irish tenant suddenly, receiving the lady from the big house. "Welcome to our wee abode."

Joan put her hand inside Nick's arm, surprised at how natural it seemed to do so. Who is this man? As she walked in step with him, she looked over at Terry, who faced away.

The Victorian house dominated the corner near the crest of the hill, just below tidy Monument Square. Joan and Squire took the stairs up to the house like dance partners.

The door was framed by leaded glass side panels. The doorbell was a knob, which Squire pulled. He opened the door, pulling the bell again.

Joan hung back to wait for Terry, drawing a plastic bag out of her purse and handing it to him. They heard the thud of footsteps and the squeals of children. Two boys and a girl appeared, swirling around Squire, with a chorus of "Daddy! Daddy!" that seemed remarkably unstaged.

One child, the smallest but stoutest one, a somewhat pasty-faced boy, clung to Squire's leg. The other boy grabbed on, crying, "Troll! Troll!"

"Oh, you got me!" Squire reached out to put the wrapped plant on a hall table, then rubbed the child's head. "But look who's here, kids. Your Uncle Terry!"

Only the girl said, "Hi, Uncle Terry."

Terry hugged her, then knelt on the polished wood floor of the foyer. He opened the bag and emptied it of a dozen different wind-up toys, all animals of various colors. He cranked each, and soon they were scurrying in chaotic circles at everyone's feet The children hopped with delight.

As Terry straightened up, his brother stooped to play. One boy, then the other, pushed at Squire as he laughed like a kid, sending first a dinosaur on its way, then a croc.

Joan winked at Terry.

A woman appeared across the foyer, beside an ornately carved bench below a tall gilded mirror. She was large, older than Joan, dressed in flowing white pants, a white Mexican wedding shirt, and sandals. Next to her a spiraling staircase drew Joan's eyes up to a glittering brass and crystal chandelier. On a stand beside the staircase was a French bouquet The woman seemed too composed, and her setting too elegant, to have anything to do with the horseplay at the door.

Squire began extricating himself, but the children were not stopping. The older boy wrestled his sister down. "Jackie," the girl cried. "Stop it, Jackie!"

The boy went limp, pinning her with dead weight as the last of the animals wound down. The children became still.

"Hello," the woman said, walking toward Joan. She stepped around the children, her hand extended. "I'm the mommy troll."

"Hi," said Joan uncertainly.

"Also known as Deirdre. Didi." She turned to Terry and very simply opened her arms. "Hi, doll. Where the hell have you been?"

Terry said, "We'd have brought you flowers, but—"

"I know, I know." Didi winked at Joan from inside Terry's arms. "He was my first boyfriend," she said. "His flowers ruined me. So I had to marry into the family." She had a long face, a too prominent nose and chin, overly styled red hair, yet there was something surprisingly attractive about her, particularly in white as she was, like a figure from an art magazine.

Joan surprised herself by picking up the remark "Well, he's my last boyfriend—and he
never
brings me flowers."

"I spare them for your sake," Terry said.

As Didi stepped back, Joan said her arm inside Terry's. "But you're my last beau, aren't you, sugar?"

"You're from the South?" Didi blurted. "Nobody ever told me you're from the South."

Joan mugged, "Look away, Dixieland."

Didi moved to Joan's other side. "Oh, we're going to like you. Aren't we, kids? And here are the trolls. Say hello, you little monsters."

"Hi," the smallest said, the only one to look up. He was a freckle-faced charmer, about five, with a head full of red curls. His thumb dove into his mouth.

"Get up, Jackie," the girl said to the older boy.

"No!" the boy said, too loudly.

Joan and Terry retreated a step.

"Ease off, Jackie," Squire said, bending to take the boy's elbow.

"No!"

"Game's over, Jackie." Squire took both his arms, pulling him up.

"Goddamnit, let go of me!"

"Jackie—"

"No, goddamnit! Goddamnit!"

Such defiant rage in a boy of perhaps seven made Joan look again at the flaccid body, the pinched asymmetry of his face, eyes askew, nose wedge-shaped, mouth curled, skin aflame. He was in the grip of a merciless emotional derangement. He was retarded.

Joan glanced at Terry, whose eyes widened, which only made Joan angry. Why don't I know about this?

Didi joined Squire in holding Jackie, who continued to scream and flail his arms.

Joan felt a crushing claustrophobia, the only way panic ever overtook her. But the boy's parents, embracing him jointly, controlling him, responded with complete calm. Didi softly repeated his name, "Jackie, Jackie, Jackie," a mantra, all the while rubbing his back, while Squire closed him in the full circle of his arms, firmly and tenderly.

In a minute the storm passed. The boy relaxed between the woman in white clothes and the man in dark. The three were still.

Joan was surprised to realize that she herself was leaning against Terry, inside his arm. What, she wondered, had this scene to do with the snarling, anti-busing mob at Charlestown High School? She wanted to apologize to Didi and Nick for witnessing what was far too intimate—not their son's outburst, but the unfettered kindness with which they'd soothed him.

When at last Didi stepped back from Jackie and opened her arms to the other two children, they each took a place at her side, near the beautiful French bouquet Didi said, "Kids, this is your Aunt Joan."

Joan nearly gasped to hear herself referred to in that way. Before she could respond, yet another child appeared from the hallway beyond the staircase, a barefoot two-year-old in a T-shirt and diaper, clutching a fistful of Cheerios. Behind her came a young woman holding a wailing infant.

"Ah, good. Good!" Didi clapped her hands, then threw them wide. "The holy family. We're all here now. Thanks, Teresa." She took the baby and nuzzled him. The young woman withdrew with the trained deference of a mother's helper. Squire stood with an arm around Jackie and an eye on the others. The expression on his face was what struck Joan most, the vivid love.

Didi invited Joan and Terry to follow her into the kitchen. The kids dropped back to wind up the toys as the adults trooped toward the rear of the house, past a spacious living room with floor-to-ceiling windows and a satiny grand piano, and an oval library the walls of which were lined with books. Joan glimpsed a rolling ladder, which emphasized the height of the ceiling.

The doorway at the end of the foyer led into a narrow corridor that twisted around into a pantry, and then into a large, cheerful kitchen which, with its bright appliances, crisp white Scandinavian cabinets, stainless steel sink, and Marimekko curtains, suggested
Architectural Digest.
This was the house of a wealthy family. Not Charlestown, Joan thought, but Georgetown.

Didi handed the baby back to her helper, saying as she did, "This is Teresa, who keeps me sane. Don't you, Teresa?"

"You call this sane?" Squire said happily, bringing up the rear. "How about a drink?"

"I'd like to see Gramps," Terry said.

"And I'd like to meet him." Joan was still at Terry's side.

Squire studied them for a moment before saying, "Sure, sure."

Didi moved to a counter spread with tomatoes, and began slicing.

Joan said, "I'll come back and help."

Didi smiled, reached for a nearby glass of wine, and raised it toward Joan before sipping.

Squire led them to the staircase. "There's an elevator in back," he said, "but maybe you'd like to see the house." They climbed all the way to the fifth floor. The entire place had been restored: the rosewood banisters, the oval stained-glass windows, the plaster moldings on the walls and ceilings. The staircase was carpeted with a long runner, an oriental with threads that sparkled in the illumination of the skylight. The higher they climbed, the more light there was.

At a landing, Joan leaned to Terry and whispered, "You said they lived above the flower store. Who
are
these people?"