The Innocents (9 page)

“Hey, Pumpkin, hello, Schnitzel. My two favorite girls.” He patted Schnitzel’s hollow blond flank. “Now you see, that’s a real dog. Who wants one of those rats when you could have a proper animal?”

Rachel handed him the lead and slipped her arm through his, and pushing past the nettle bushes, they crossed into the Heath Extension. Once they were safely on the grass Adam unclipped the dog, who continued to plod along beside them as if still tethered. The appeal of gamboling had worn off; these days she was happy to meander along at the pace of her human companions.

“Did you see the attachment to my e-mail?” Rachel asked.

“No, I read it on my phone. What was it?”

“Ads! I wanted you to tell me today if you liked it. It was a photo of the function rooms at the Berkeley. They’ve still got one Sunday slot free next August, but they have to know tomorrow.”

“But I don’t want to get married in August.”

He realized that this sounded petulant and he was about to neutralize it with a more playful statement but then stopped himself. Until now, setting the date had been a point on which they teased one another. But he had begun to feel faintly emasculated by his own lack of control, and increasingly irritated that not Rachel, or Jaffa, or even his own mother had taken a second to listen to his thoughts on the subject. Whenever the wedding was discussed, the women treated him as if he were a small child clamoring for adult attention, whose conversational contributions were to be indulged and then ignored.

They had reached the bridle path that bisected the Heath Extension, the chips of black bark beneath their feet rimed gray with frost. At the children’s play area he stopped and leaned against the wooden fence. Schnitzel flopped to her belly beside him, already grateful for the pause.

“I don’t want to wait that long,” he continued, rocking back and forth on his heels. “I don’t understand why planning a party has to take nearly a year,” and then, knowing that the trivializing word
party
might have put him under threat, went on quickly, “I want you to be my wife, Pumpkin, that’s why I proposed to you in the first place. I want us to be married, I want us to live together, I want to get on with our life together as a married couple. And if it’s the hotel and the guest list and the caterers that are holding it all up and takes all that time, then why do we need that stuff?”

She cocked her head and regarded him for a moment before reaching out to touch his hand. “We don’t need that stuff, Ads, but we’ll only do this once, and isn’t it more romantic to do it properly?”

“No!” He was shouting now, taking full advantage of their isolation. So often when they talked he had to be careful, unconsciously modulating his tones to avoid anyone overhearing. At Rachel’s flat, Tanya was usually padding around with her ears pricked for gossip, and in the restaurants they frequented Rachel was always convinced—not without reason—that they were likely to be sitting within earshot of someone they knew. To be able to raise his voice was a rare luxury. It felt energizing.

“It’s romantic to be married! Let’s just do it, Rach. Come to Vegas with me, and let’s get married on New Year’s Eve.” The idea had just come to him. It was mid-November already, and they could be married within six weeks. In six weeks there could be an end to the questions. In six weeks he could be safe.

Rachel had been looking on with concern as he’d gotten louder and louder, her eyes following his hands as he gesticulated as if, when they came to rest, she might be able to divine his mood from them as from a weather vane. But now she was giggling helplessly and collapsed against him, throwing her arms around his middle and squeezing affectionately. They were both insulated in large puffer jackets, his black, hers navy, and her arms barely reached around to hug him.

“What’s so funny?” Adam pulled back, trying to see her expression. Her face had been pressed into his coat but she looked up, still laughing.

“Wouldn’t that be amazing?” Her eyes gleamed with mischief. “Can you imagine everyone’s faces if we actually did that? Imagine telling my parents!”

Of course she thought he was joking. So convinced was she of the correct path for everything that she was not even aware there was an alternative, he thought bitterly, and felt suddenly despairing. Most of the future guests at his own future nuptials knew, with a fair degree of certainty, what they would be eating at the festivities (roast beef
au jus
with baby vegetables), knew the flowers they would be gazing at while they ate it (cream tea roses in square vases of matte white ceramic), knew the approximate attire of the other attendees, and knew that one of the three bands who performed at London’s classier Jewish functions would provide the sound track. Why did they have to chug through every benchmark, every occasion, every ceremony as if their lives were one long snaking, predetermined conga line? He could almost see the endless procession of dancers ahead; could feel the sweating hands of those behind him weighing heavily on his shoulders as they bumped and shuffled through the steps. Surely it didn’t have to be like this. Why shouldn’t they escape from Hampstead Garden Suburb and marry somewhere else, just the two of them?

“I’m not joking!” he said impatiently. “Let’s go. Let’s get away from everything here and be just the two of us, and come back married.”

Rachel was still laughing but his tone had confused her and she paused. “You’re not serious?”

“I’m completely serious.”

“Adam, we can’t possibly do that.”

They had started walking again, idly, and Adam had picked up a long stick, dead but still pliable, that he was snapping at the naked blackberry bushes as if it were a schoolmaster’s cane. It was too long and thin to throw for the dog but still Schnitzel was trotting beside him, fixedly following its movements. Adam began to mime his golf swings.

“Ads.” Rachel had stopped again and was watching him, her hands in her pockets. “I do know that all this planning is stressful, and that nine more months seems like a long time to plan a, to plan a
party
”—they smiled at one another—“but you’re not being practical. Can you imagine if after everything my parents have done for me, and everything that Michelle has done for you, all that work and love and looking after you and Olivia since your dad died, and then we repaid them all by saying ‘Sorry, you can’t see your children get married, they want to do it in America on holiday’? Of course it’s our wedding, but think how many people would be hurt. And second, to be honest, some tacky, anonymous place in Las Vegas doesn’t exactly sound very original anyway. I know it’s different from a big Jewish wedding in London, but isn’t it just conforming to a different sort of tradition? The only difference is that it’s not
our
tradition. But it’s still the same wedding that lots and lots of other people have. It’s not really anything new, is it?”

She had taken the lead from Adam’s hand and clipped it to Schnitzel’s collar, a sign that she intended to cross back to the road and that their walk—and possibly the conversation—was over. This meant going to Lawrence and Jaffa’s house to return the dog and, though he and Rachel had planned to go straight back to his flat to spend a quiet Sunday alone together, someone was likely to be having tea at the Gilberts’ who would steal at least two hours from them. He could see the day unfolding; Jaffa’s potent coffee would be thrust into one hand, sugar-dusted cinnamon balls would circulate and the visitors, whoever they were, would peer over his shoulder as he was made to look at photographs of the Berkeley Hotel function rooms on Lawrence’s laptop. This was all made more galling by the fact that Rachel was right. His suggestions for breaking the mold were as clichéd as the mold itself. That had stung.

But once they were married—which at that moment seemed as far away as the next millennium—he would have to find the means to show Rachel how vital it was that they open their eyes to the rest of the world; for however circumscribed his own horizons might be, Rachel’s were ten times more so. What form this intrepid exploration might take was not yet clear, only that they could, and must, attempt it. He had vague thoughts of travel, of literature, and of inhabiting broader social circles, knowing all the while that these had always been available to him had he chosen to reach out for them, and in any case did not contain the essence of what it was he craved. But together, he and Rachel would begin to make real choices for themselves.

He watched her searching for the keys to her parents’ house in the capacious depths of her navy blue tote, its leather handles chestnut-dark with age, the fourth or fifth of these identical bags that she had carried since they’d known one another. On Israel Tour, her modest bikini and disposable cameras had been stuffed into a brown one; a version in light caramel had followed; and they had been either black or deep indigo ever since, more practical, she explained, for day-to-evening. Rachel liked what she knew and was faithful to it. And as Adam watched her walking beside him, swirling her dark hair into a knot and skewering the fat bun with a silver chopstick (bulk-bought at Boots in Brent Cross each time her stock of them ran low), a voice in his head whispered, Would she even want her eyes opened?

The following afternoon Adam received an e-mail from his sister. “
Deal with Mum
,” it commanded. “
I’m attempting to finish a paper, and she keeps calling me about recreational stimulants
.”

“
Why is Mum calling you for drugs?
” he replied, and almost immediately Olivia’s swift fingers had returned,

She’s not calling me
for
drugs, as you well know. She appears to think that my pastoral role at St. Hugh’s might have familiarized me with such matters, although thankfully these things are left to the Dean. Rachel’s American cousin left a bag of contraband in Jaffa’s downstairs loo, and some person by the name of Leslie Pearl found it during a dinner party. Gilberts are understandably mortified. Mum seems to have connected all of this with a Brahms recital at Georgina and Rupert’s house? Apparently the family honor is somehow at stake—ours, not the Sabahs’, obviously. Mum is on the warpath. Whatever it is, please make it stop. She says you’re not answering her messages, but for pity’s sake, answer them. I’ve got a deadline
.

Without his sister’s plea, Adam would have been inclined to continue ignoring his mother’s repeated and unnecessary Mayday signals. It was not uncommon for him to impose a surreptitious communication ban—it had been a wonderful moment when he discovered that his BlackBerry possessed a function to send only specific callers to voice mail. These days, when he needed to retreat into work his mother and Rachel were both simply diverted and he need never know they’d tried. This afternoon he had a case report to finish and felt enervated even by the thought of his mother’s outrage.

“Leslie and Linda Pearl!” was all that Michelle actually said after he had steeled himself to ring. His office mate, Matthew Findlay, had popped out to Itsu for a tub of miso soup and a bag of wasabi peas; Adam had only a brief window in which he could close his door and allow his mother to vent. Matthew was not Jewish and therefore did not have a Jewish mother with whom he was required to communicate on an hourly basis.

“What about them?”

“Of all the people who had to find it, Leslie and Linda Pearl had to be round at the Gilberts’ for dinner with that little so-and-so leaving her drugs around.”

“But it’s not their daughter, Jaffa needn’t be embarrassed. What was it she left?”

“Marijuana, I believe, but that’s hardly the point. To have someone actually bringing that stuff into your house—and when they had people round! What does Lawrence say about it?”

Adam sighed. “Funnily enough, Mum, he didn’t mention it in our meeting this morning.”

“Well, ask him if he’s all right. Adam, what possessed you to ask me to get her an invitation to the Sabahs’ recital? Rupert and Georgina are going to think I’ve gone completely round the bend, bringing streetwalkers into their home.”

“She’s hardly a streetwalker.”

“No, she’s worse, she’s a junker.”

“Junkie. But I’d hardly say that a bit of weed makes her—”

“Junkie shmunkie. How should I know? Funnily enough, Adam, I’ve never had to deal with this sort of thing before. I’m very upset,” she added, sounding upset.

“I’m sure the Sabahs are too posh to care about these things. They’ll forgive you.”

“I’m quite sure they won’t, and I only really know them through the charity committee and it was really a bit much for me to ask them, you know. Everyone saw that girl coming in late, looking like a homeless person, and everyone knows that I brought her.
We
brought her actually, because you’re going to have to take some of the responsibility for this. And now, thanks to Leslie and Linda Pearl and that awful Tanya—who I’m sure has a thing for you, you know, Adam—I have no idea how Rachel has lived with her for so long, and I suppose if Jasper doesn’t marry her soon she’ll have to find another flatmate to be jealous of—but now that they all know about it, the whole of North London is going to be saying that that cousin is still a piece of work and that she was probably smoking God knows what in the Sabahs’ bathroom, too.”

The diatribe continued until Adam was forced to invent an urgent conference call. He depressed the button, leaving the receiver to his ear—he wanted to speak to Rachel and check that she was not also being buffeted through her Monday by high winds of family drama, and to find out whether Ellie was all right. As he was dialing Rachel’s number, an e-mail from Rupert Sabah appeared in his inbox. Lawrence was a trustee and legal adviser to one of the Sabahs’ charitable foundations that assisted the dwindling, impoverished Jewish communities still remaining in the former Soviet Union. But communication from Rupert was a rare occurrence, cybercommunication rarer still. Adam hung up and opened the e-mail with trepidation.

With hope that you have read the minutes and redrafted the contract in accord with their directions. Lawrence insists that the work can be in no better hands than yours, and I am quite certain of it
.