Tumbledown (46 page)

“Unless this painting in his office is one of Pook’s,” Violet said, “I’m afraid they’re all gone. I wish we had at least a few. I think my mother may have one, but I’m not sure.” Her mother owned a painting, but Violet did not believe it was actually the work of Pook. Following his suicide, his paintings were in demand, and her father sold all that had not been in the show. Once they were gone, her father began painting them himself. He sold a few of them before his friend, the art dealer in Phoenix, figured out what he was doing.

This story had come to Violet from her mother, who’d been so upset with her husband that she briefly left him. “The funny thing,” her mother said, “was that they were not as good as Pook’s. The craftsmanship was far superior, but the paintings . . .” She frowned and shook her head. This conversation had taken place in London, on the eve of Violet’s wedding. “Now I wish I’d never gone back to him,” her mother had said. After a moment, she added, “Poor, poor Pook.”

Violet was not willing to reveal this final chapter of family scandal to these strangers. She had surprised herself by talking about Pook. She wanted to go to Jimmy’s office and look at the painting. Pook’s real name was Paul. His middle name was Knowles, their mother’s maiden name. Somehow, Paul Knowles became Pook. Poor, poor Pook. What Violet actually believed was slightly different from what she had said: Jimmy became a counselor to
understand
Pook. Perhaps he thought he could spare other families the sorrow that had damaged theirs. No one could know the real reason, not even Jimmy, but some things are compelling because they touch on one’s history in secret ways.

When Barnstone stood to gather the dinner plates, Violet leapt up to help her. They were in the kitchen when the doorbell sounded.

Maura yanked open the door. Mr. James Candler stood on Barn-stone’s stoop. He smiled at her. “Hi, Maura.” He introduced himself. “Do you remember me?” People evidently liked his smile because he knew to offer it. “How do you like William Atlas at the sheltered workshop? He doing okay?”

She shook the hand he offered. “Big improvement over Crews,” she said. “But no one calls him
William.
”

Candler laughed. “No, I guess no one would.”

She had to admit that he had a swanky smile. “You want to come in or something?”

“Could you tell Ms. Barnstone that I’m here to pick up my sister and fiancée?”

“I can hear you,” Lolly called. “What are you doing here?”

“Hello, guys, sorry to interrupt the session.”

“It isn’t a session,” Lolly said. “Why would you call it a session?”

Mick could almost hear a lid clamp down over the afternoon. He felt vaguely accused. He needed to breathe and count, but he didn’t want these people to see him counting.

“Well, hello, Mr. Coury,” Mr. James Candler said, the lilt in his voice slight but there, a lilt that meant he felt less friendly than he was acting.

Mick nodded hello, but Mr. James Candler had already turned his attention to Andujar, and he was not entirely successful at hiding his surprise and disapproval.

“I’m James Candler,” he said. “Do you remember me, sir?” He paused for a moment, but nowhere near long enough for the shy man to respond. “Just the four of you?” he said to Lolly. “Isn’t there supervision going on?”

“We’re just talking,” Lolly said. “We had lunch. Violet and Patricia are in the kitchen.”

“I thought you weren’t going to be volunteering.”

“We’re not.”

“Volunteers aren’t supposed to be left unsupervised for the first three weeks.”

Lolly colored. “We came here to have lunch with Patricia and her friends.”

Candler stepped across the room to the kitchen. Violet and the Barnstone had their heads through the sliding glass door and were talking to a person in a hot tub. Candler rapped on the glass. The women pulled their heads in.

His sister looked relieved. “I’m surprised to see
you
here,” she said. “Came to get you. Hi, Barnstone.”

“ ’Lo, Candler.”

“Billy called from his new place to say he was unpacking and wondered if I could pick you guys up.”

From behind him, Lolly spoke. “Did he say to come now?”

“I thought that’s what he meant.” He offered a shrug. He hadn’t expected this gathering—or this greeting. “I thought I was doing Billy and the two of you a favor.”

“I texted Billy.” Violet set her wineglass on the kitchen counter. “I didn’t mean for him to quit packing or to call you. This is awkward. I’m sorry, Patricia.”

Barnstone rocked her head. “No biggie.”

“Mick says you have one of your brother’s paintings in your office,” Lolly said.

The group migrated to the living room, waiting for Candler to reply.

“You could have a sandwich,” Mick said. He had enjoyed the conversation too much. It made him bold. His mind was racing, but he spoke carefully. “We have some sliced roast beef left over. Perfectly sliced rose beef.”

The smile Mr. James Candler flashed was unmistakable—not one of gratitude but of comic disbelief. “I’ll see you tomorrow, hombre.” He turned to his sister. “It’s Pook’s, but it’s never been catalogued. There’s a story behind it. I’ll tell you on the drive.” With that, he fled, holding the screen door for the women. “Sorry for the misunderstanding,” he called.

“Don’t think too badly of us,” Violet said.

“I’m so bloody embarrassed,” Lolly added.

“We’ll do it again,” Barnstone offered.

They stepped through the portal and the screen door slapped shut, but they paused on the stoop. Lolly faced them through the screen, her mouth opened to speak. Finally, she addressed Andujar. “Maybe next time we’ll hear you play.”

“Okay,” he said and shifted around on the bench in preparation. “Oh,” Lolly said. Violet’s head appeared beside her through the screen, and then Candler’s head, above them.

Andujar played, both hands in the lower keys, more a thunder than a tune.

“This is one of his own compositions,” Barnstone said, and then whispered through the screen, “It’s very short.”

The piano rumbled and then his right hand shot out and touched a single high key, without interrupting the rumble, which seemed then to coalesce around this single note. It reminded Mick of something basic in the world, something more elemental even than the thunder it initially called to mind. Again the hand shot out for a single note and returned.

Cecil Fresnay, in the hot tub, stood up, naked, his quite adult genitalia swinging with the rocking of his head. The final high note was hit and held while the rumbling ceased. The man in the tub slapped at the water in delight, making his whale sound.

“Thank you,” Violet said.

Andujar kept his eyes on the floor, but nodded to her as he stood and slipped his hand through the door to hand her a wadded sheet of paper from his pocket. Then he fled the room. The Candler girls likewise fled.

“Well,” Barnstone said. “I think the day is complete.”

In the Porsche, from her grocery compartment, Violet thought she might be watching them tear apart their love. The idea that they might shred their bonds did not much bother her, but having to witness their boorishness did. If she turned her head, she didn’t have to watch them, but there was no way not to hear. She and Arthur had rarely fought, at least not with heated language and loud voices. Once, in a restaurant, after a young man they knew had openly flirted with Violet, Arthur said, “I’m not entirely acquainted with the finer details of American manners, but in this country, when a married woman wishes to behave seductively with a random man, she is encouraged not to do it in the presence of her husband.”

Violet denied being flirtatious. “I was merely being polite.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d be less polite in the future.”

“I will not. I did nothing wrong.”

That was the extent of the argument—the verbal part of it, anyway. They ate in silence, and Arthur buttered a roll so fiercely that the knife cut it in half. On their way to the tube, he took her arm and said, “I suppose I’ll have to get used to the attentions offered you by men half my age.” She put her arm around his waist, and the argument was over.

Violet twisted around to save her aching back and they pulled her into their personal storm.

“Aren’t we?” Lolly demanded of her.

“I wasn’t listen—”

“I’ve told James that you and I accepted Mick’s invitation to go to the beach, and we’re damn sure going.”

“You can’t go with Mick,” Candler said.

“I would very much like to see you make an attempt to stop us.”

“I’ll take you to the beach.”

“You may or you may not, but you don’t have the power to tell me what to do with my time.”

“Mick is my client. I
can
tell
him
what to do. That is my job, telling him what to do.”

“Is that so? I thought your job was to help people like Mick, but if you think his spending an afternoon with me and your sister would be such a corrupting influence, then I suppose you’d only be doing your job in advising him to avoid bad influences.”

“Don’t be an ass,” he said. “You act like this is me being controlling, when—”

“
My job is telling people what to do.
You don’t think that’s controlling?”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. Violet, you understand what’s wrong with this, don’t you?”

“I’d rather you didn’t drag me into the middle here.”

“I am a health professional, and I have to make certain that my relationship with my clients is a professional one.”

“Then by all means you should not come with us. Not that we invited you.”

They passed a big truck, and its windy bellow silenced them.

Violet understood they were not obliterating their relationship after all. They were tearing away the initial illusions each had about the other with the underlying belief that this violence would permit them to rebuild afresh—like people taking apart the pieces of a puzzle before beginning the real work of assembly. (Human behavior is no simple matter, and the unfolding of a single act can paper a house. This book is that house.)

How men and women lived together was never rational, Violet decided. The walls in James’s miserable house were hollow, and she heard James and Lolly having sex all the time. Oddly enough, she didn’t mind it. She did not enjoy it, but it didn’t bother her as much as she thought it might. A man and a woman about to take the leap of marriage ought to pitch their bodies against one another as often as possible. If Lolly had insisted that they wait to marry before having intercourse, they would already be husband and wife. The promise of Lolly’s body was too much for any healthy young man to resist, but perhaps repetition would reveal its limits.

She had not asked him to see the painting because she didn’t want to go with Lolly, who would want to know what it might sell for. Or she would gush about it, say how much she loved it, no matter what. Violet would get Jimmy to explain some time when they were alone. Right now, she needed to think about her own life. Arthur’s publishing house had sold for a nice profit, and she’d made out well on the flat. He’d had decent life insurance, and the retirement plan he’d put in place for himself was now hers. She wasn’t a wealthy woman, but neither did she need to work. She could not imagine herself dating men, but the frequency of sexual relations taking place about her had forced her to imagine having sex. She suspected that if the extra man in the house were someone at all presentable she might have slipped off one night to his room for erotic exercise. This was not and would never be a possibility with Billy Atlas. She would troll the bars like a harlot before she’d have anything carnal to do with him.

Arthur, like any man, had had his little preferences. He liked to have sex outside the bedroom. The couch was a natural favorite, but he also liked to bend her over some piece of furniture or have her lie on her back on the kitchen table. In his eyes, she was youthful and beautiful. He saw no imperfections in her body and no signs of aging. He had children from an early marriage, and he did not want children with her. She accepted that—or she had until near the end when she had tried to get pregnant. Erections were not governed by muscle and he could still get them to the day that he died, and she would crawl on top of him—in the bed or in his wheelchair, or sometimes she would have a nurse help her position him on the couch. But she had never gotten pregnant, and she guessed that she had waited too long to try.

Her brother would have children. With Lolly or some other woman. She examined his troubled face. She liked the idea that he would one day become a papa.

Candler, for his part, regretted the argument and blamed himself. Why had he rushed off to get them? Had he assumed he’d be rescuing them from the tedium of the Barnstone? And why hadn’t he taken them to the beach? This stupid mess was his own fault. It was just such a wearying thought, the traffic, the crowd—what was it Lise called them?
Body nazis.
He imagined Barnstone’s motley bunch among the beach crowd, Andujar Freeman and Cecil Fresnay, Mutt and Jeff of the mentally ill. He began laughing.

“I didn’t know you find my plans and ambitions funny,” Lolly said. “I was thinking about that scene at the Barnstone’s. The naked manchild on the patio and that buffalo playing the piano.”

“I thought we were talking about my trip—mine and Violet’s—to the ocean.”

“You’ve made it clear that you know more about the well-being of my clients than I do, so fine, go to the beach with Mick and the gang. By that time this other stuff will be over.”

“You mean your interview?” Lolly asked.

“Barnstone is good at managing chaos,” he continued, “which is more or less what we teach our clients to do—how to manage their chaos.”

“I guess it
was
a funny scene,” she admitted.

From the back boot came laughter. Violet covered her mouth but could not contain it. Lolly joined in, and then James. And the animosity slipped away.

“Mick described a vacant beach that he used to go to before he became ill,” Violet said. “That’s what I’d like. Someplace without people.”