Read We Need to Talk About Kevin Online
Authors: Lionel Shriver
Tags: #Fiction, #Psychological, #Teenage Boys, #Epistolary Fiction, #General, #Literary, #Massacres, #School Shootings, #High Schools, #New York (State)
We Need to Talk About Kevin (4 page)
We slowed by the tennis courts in the blaze of April sunlight, pausing to admire a powerful slice backhand through a gap in the green mesh windbreaks. “Everything seems so sorted out,” I lamented. “Wing and a Prayer has taken off so that the only thing that could really
happen
to me professionally is for the company to go belly-up. I could always make more money—but I’m a thrift-shop junkie, Franklin, and I don’t know what to do with it. Money bores me, and it’s starting to change the way we live in a way I’m not totally comfortable with. Plenty of people don’t have a kid because they can’t afford one. For me it would a relief to find something of consequence to spend it on.”
happen
to me professionally is for the company to go belly-up. I could always make more money—but I’m a thrift-shop junkie, Franklin, and I don’t know what to do with it. Money bores me, and it’s starting to change the way we live in a way I’m not totally comfortable with. Plenty of people don’t have a kid because they can’t afford one. For me it would a relief to find something of consequence to spend it on.”
“I’m not of consequence?”
“You don’t want enough.”
“New jump rope?”
“Ten bucks.”
“Well,” you conceded, “at least a kid would answer the Big Question.”
I could be perverse, too. “What big question?”
“You know,” you said lightly, and drew out with an emcee drawl, “the old
e-e-existential
dilemma.”
e-e-existential
dilemma.”
I did not put my finger on why, but your Big Question left me unmoved. I far preferred my
turn of the page
. “I could always traipse off to a new country—”
turn of the page
. “I could always traipse off to a new country—”
“Any left? You go through countries the way most folks go through socks.”
“Russia,” I noted. “But I’m not, for once, threatening to ransom my life to Aeroflot. Because lately ... everywhere seems kind of the same. Countries all have different food, but they all have
food
, know what I mean?”
food
, know what I mean?”
“What do you call that? Right! Codswallop.”
See, you’d a habit back then of pretending to have no idea what I was talking about if what I was getting at was at all complicated or subtle. Later this playing-dumb strategy, which began as gentle teasing, warped into a darker incapacity to grasp what I was getting at not because it was abstruse but because it was all too clear and you didn’t want it to be so.
Allow me, then, to elucidate: Countries all have different weather, but they all have weather of some sort, architecture of some sort, a disposition toward burping at the dinner table that regards it as flattering or rude. Hence, I had begun to attend less to whether one was expected to leave one’s sandals at the door in Morocco than to the constant that, wherever I was, its culture would have a custom about shoes. It seemed a great deal of trouble to go to—checking baggage, adapting to new time zones—only to remain stuck on the old weather-shoes continuum; the continuum itself had come to feel like a location of sorts, thereby landing me relentlessly in the same place. Nevertheless, though I would sometimes rant about globalization—I could now buy your favorite chocolate-brown Stove brogans from Banana Republic in Bangkok—what had really grown monotonous was the world in my head, what I thought and how I felt and what I said. The only way my head was going truly somewhere else was to travel to a different life and not to a different airport.
“Motherhood,” I condensed in the park. “Now, that is a foreign country.”
On those rare occasions when it seemed as if I might really want to
do it
, you got nervous. “You may be self-satisfied with your success,” you said. “Location scouting for Madison Avenue ad clients hasn’t brought me to an orgasm of self-actualization.”
do it
, you got nervous. “You may be self-satisfied with your success,” you said. “Location scouting for Madison Avenue ad clients hasn’t brought me to an orgasm of self-actualization.”
“All right.” I stopped, leaned on the warm wooden rail that fenced the Hudson, and extended my arms on either side to face you squarely. “What’s going to
happen
, then? To you, professionally, what are we waiting and hoping for?”
happen
, then? To you, professionally, what are we waiting and hoping for?”
You waggled your head, searching my face. You seemed to discern that I was not trying to impugn your achievements or the importance of your work. This was about something else. “I could scout for feature films instead.”
“But you’ve always said that’s the same job: You find the canvas, someone else paints the scene. And ads pay better.”
“Married to Mrs. Moneybags, that doesn’t matter.”
“It does to you.” Your maturity about my vastly outearning you had its limits.
“I’ve considered trying something else altogether.”
“So, what, you’ll get all fired up to start your own restaurant?”
You smiled. “They never make it.”
“Exactly. You’re too practical. Maybe you will do something different, but it’ll be pretty much on the same
plane
. And I’m talking about topography. Emotional, narrative topography. We live in Holland. And sometimes I get a hankering for Nepal.”
plane
. And I’m talking about topography. Emotional, narrative topography. We live in Holland. And sometimes I get a hankering for Nepal.”
Since other New Yorkers were so driven, you could have been injured that I didn’t regard you as ambitious. But one of the things you were practical about was yourself, and you didn’t take offense. You were ambitious—for your life, what it was like when you woke up in the morning, and not for some attainment. Like most people who did not answer a particular calling from an early age, you placed work beside yourself; any occupation would fill up your day but not your heart. I liked that about you. I liked it enormously.
We started walking again, and I swung your hand. “Our parents will die soon,” I resumed. “In fact, one by one everyone we know will start pitching their mortal coils in the drink. We’ll get old, and at some point you’re losing more friends than you make. Sure, we can go on holidays, finally giving in to suitcases with wheelies. We can eat more foods and slug more wines and have more sex. But—and don’t take this wrong—I’m worried that it all starts getting a little tired.”
“One of us could always get pancreatic cancer,” you said pleasantly.
“Yeah. Or run your pickup into a concrete mixer, and the plot thickens. But that’s my point. Everything I can think of happening to us from now on—not, you know, we get an affectionate postcard from France, but really happen-happen—is awful.”
You kissed my hair. “Pretty morbid for such a gorgeous day.”
For a few steps we walked in a half embrace, but our strides clashed; I settled for hooking your belt loop with my forefinger. “You know that euphemism,
she’s expecting
? It’s apt. The birth of a baby, so long as it’s healthy, is something to look forward to. It’s a good thing, a big, good, huge event. And from thereon in, every good thing that happens to them happens to you, too. Of course, bad things, too,” I added hurriedly, “but also, you know, first steps, first dates, first places in sack races. Kids, they graduate, they marry, they have kids themselves—in a way, you get to do everything twice. Even if our kid had problems,” I supposed idiotically, “at least they wouldn’t be our same old problems . . . ”
she’s expecting
? It’s apt. The birth of a baby, so long as it’s healthy, is something to look forward to. It’s a good thing, a big, good, huge event. And from thereon in, every good thing that happens to them happens to you, too. Of course, bad things, too,” I added hurriedly, “but also, you know, first steps, first dates, first places in sack races. Kids, they graduate, they marry, they have kids themselves—in a way, you get to do everything twice. Even if our kid had problems,” I supposed idiotically, “at least they wouldn’t be our same old problems . . . ”
Enough. Recounting this dialogue is breaking my heart.
Looking back, maybe my saying that I wanted more “story” was all by way of alluding to the fact that I wanted someone else to love. We never said such things outright; we were too shy. And I was nervous of ever intimating that you weren’t enough for me. In fact, now that we’re parted I wish I had overcome my own bashfulness and had told you more often how falling in love with you was the most astonishing thing that ever happened to me. Not just the falling, either, the trite and finite part, but being in love. Every day we spent apart, I would conjure that wide warm chest of yours, its pectoral hillocks firm and mounded from your daily 100 pushups, the clavicle valley into which I could nestle the crown of my head on those glorious mornings that I did not have to catch a plane. Sometimes I would hear you call my name from around a corner—“Ee-VA!”—often irascible, curt, demanding, calling me to heel because I was yours, like a
dog
, Franklin! But I was yours and I didn’t resent it and I wanted you to make that claim: “Eeeeeee-VAH!” always the emphasis on the second syllable, and there were some evenings I could hardly answer because my throat had closed with a rising lump. I would have to stop slicing apples for a crumble at the counter because a film had formed over my eyes and the kitchen had gone all liquid and wobbly and if I kept on slicing I would cut myself. You always shouted at me when I cut myself, it made you furious, and the irrationality of that anger would almost beguile me into doing it again.
dog
, Franklin! But I was yours and I didn’t resent it and I wanted you to make that claim: “Eeeeeee-VAH!” always the emphasis on the second syllable, and there were some evenings I could hardly answer because my throat had closed with a rising lump. I would have to stop slicing apples for a crumble at the counter because a film had formed over my eyes and the kitchen had gone all liquid and wobbly and if I kept on slicing I would cut myself. You always shouted at me when I cut myself, it made you furious, and the irrationality of that anger would almost beguile me into doing it again.
I never, ever took you for granted. We met too late for that; I was nearly thirty-three by then, and my past without you was too stark and insistent for me to find the miracle of companionship ordinary. But after I’d survived for so long on the scraps from my own emotional table, you spoiled me with a daily banquet of complicitous what-an-asshole looks at parties, surprise bouquets for no occasion, and fridge-magnet notes that always signed off “XXXX, Franklin.” You made me greedy. Like any addict worth his salt, I wanted more. And I was curious. I wondered how it felt when it was a piping voice calling, “Momm-MEEE?” from around that same corner. You started it—like someone who gives you a gift of a single carved ebony elephant, and suddenly you get this idea that it might be fun to start a
collection
.
collection
.
Eva
P.S. (3:40 A.M.)
I’ve been trying to go cold turkey on sleeping pills, if only because I know you’d disapprove of my using them. But without the pills I keep tossing. I’ll be worthless at Travel R Us tomorrow, but I wanted to get down another memory from that period.
Remember having soft-shell crabs with Eileen and Belmont at the loft? That evening
was
wanton. Even you threw caution to the winds and lurched up for the raspberry brandy at 2 A.M. With no interruptions to admire dolly outfits, no tomorrow is a
school day
, we gorged on fruit and sorbet and splashed immoderate second shots of clear, heady framboise, whooping at each others’ top-this tales in the orgy of eternal adolescence characteristic of the childless in middle age.
was
wanton. Even you threw caution to the winds and lurched up for the raspberry brandy at 2 A.M. With no interruptions to admire dolly outfits, no tomorrow is a
school day
, we gorged on fruit and sorbet and splashed immoderate second shots of clear, heady framboise, whooping at each others’ top-this tales in the orgy of eternal adolescence characteristic of the childless in middle age.
We all talked about our parents—rather to their collective detriment, I’m afraid. We staged an unofficial contest of sorts: whose parents were the most bonkers. You were at a disadvantage; your parents’ uninflected New England stoicism was difficult to parody. By contrast, my mother’s ingenious contrivances for avoiding leaving the house made for great hilarity, and I even managed to explain the private joke between me and my brother Giles about “It’s very convenient”—the catchphrase in our family for “They deliver.” In those days (before he was reluctant to let his children anywhere near me), I had only to say “It’s very convenient” to Giles, and he guffawed. By the wee-smalls I could say “It’s very
convenient
” to Eileen and Belmont and they cracked up, too.
convenient
” to Eileen and Belmont and they cracked up, too.
Neither of us could compete with that interracial vaudeville team of been-around-the-block bohemians. Eileen’s mother was schizophrenic, her father a professional cardsharp; Belmont’s mother was a former prostitute who still dressed like Bette Davis in
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
and his father was a semifamous jazz drummer who had played with Dizzy Gillespie. I sensed that they’d told these stories before, but as a consequence they told them very well, and after so much chardonnay to wash down a feast of crabs I laughed until I wept. Once I considered bending the conversation toward this monstrous decision you and I were trying to make, but Eileen and Belmont were at least ten years older, and I wasn’t sure childless by choice; raising the matter might have been unkind.
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
and his father was a semifamous jazz drummer who had played with Dizzy Gillespie. I sensed that they’d told these stories before, but as a consequence they told them very well, and after so much chardonnay to wash down a feast of crabs I laughed until I wept. Once I considered bending the conversation toward this monstrous decision you and I were trying to make, but Eileen and Belmont were at least ten years older, and I wasn’t sure childless by choice; raising the matter might have been unkind.
They didn’t leave until almost 4 A.M. And make no mistake: On this occasion I’d had a wonderful time. It was one of those rare evenings that had proved worth the bustle of rushing to the fish market and chopping all that fruit, and that should even have been worth cleaning up the kitchen, dusty with dredging flour and sticky with mango peel. I could see being a little let down that the night was over, or a little heavy with too much booze, whose giddy effects had peaked, leaving only an unsteadiness on my feet and a difficulty in focusing when I needed to concentrate on not dropping the wine glasses. But that wasn’t why I felt dolorous.
“So quiet,” you noticed, stacking plates. “Beat?”
I noshed on a lone crab claw that had fallen off in the skillet. “We must have spent what, four, five hours, talking about our parents.”
“So? If you feel guilty about bad-mouthing your mother, you’re looking at penance until 2025. It’s one of your favorite sports.”
“I know it is. That’s what bothers me.”
“She couldn’t hear you. And no one around that table assumed that because you think she’s funny you don’t also think she’s tragic. Or that you don’t love her.” You added, “In your way.”
“But when she dies, we won’t, I won’t be able to carry on like that. It won’t be possible to be so scathing, not without feeling traitorous.”
“Pillory the poor woman while you can, then.”
“But should we be talking about our parents, for hours, at this age?”
“What’s the problem? You were laughing so hard you must have wet yourself.”
“I had this image, after they left—the four of us, all in our eighties with liver spots, still boozing it up, still telling the same stories. Maybe tinged with affection or regret since they’d be dead, but still talking about weird Mom and Dad. Isn’t it a little pathetic?”
“You’d rather anguish over El Salvador.”
“It’s not that—”
“—Or dole out cultural after-dinner mints: Belgians are rude, Thais disapprove of groping in public, and Germans are obsessed with shit.”
The tinge of bitterness in such jibes had been on the increase. My hard-won anthropological nuggets apparently served as reminders that I’d gone on an adventure abroad while you were searching suburban New Jersey for a tumbledown garage for Black and Decker. I might have snapped that I was sorry my travel stories bored you, but you were mostly teasing, it was late, and I wasn’t in the mood to scrap.
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