—Mister Crease excuse me, let me say that my . . .
—He really can’t consider anything less than five mil . . .
—My client, Mister Crease, is prep . . .
—Five million six.
—Mister Crease, my client is prepared to write a check on the spot. There won’t be a day wasted on banks, mortgages and all those silly time consuming details, his attorneys will take care of the title insurance and the usual formalities and I think we can have a closing almost overnight, I think I mentioned that he’s a very busy man he has a dinner meeting with some top industry executives out on the coast tonight and . . .
—Let’s not waste any more of Mister Crease’s valuable time standing out here in the cold, Madame. He won’t consider a laughable sum like your two million seven for a minute. You couldn’t build a place like this today for less than ten, just look at the gentle curve of these slate roofs it’s all handwork, every single slate, you don’t find workmanship like that anymore it’s practically a landmark, two million seven? It’s worse than laughable Madame, it’s an insult, go down and tell your client Mister Crease takes it as a gross insult. If he wants to make a serious offer we can give you another minute to get his best price, I’m a busy man myself so will you please hurry? and he drew closer watching her unwieldy efforts to do just that down the cascading steps, his foot wedged more firmly in the door with —I’ll tell you Mister Crease, a real stroke of luck I was here for this, these real estate people almost make you ashamed of the human race, a regular cesspool of human greed it’s all the biggest swindle ever invented right down there with your insurance racket nothing but dog eat dog, I’ve got to leave any minute now a big commission right down the line but don’t listen to anything less than five million firm, if he wants it he’ll take it, just get a look at her she’s just told him she thinks she can talk you down to four million a real steal at the price they’re cannibals all of them, don’t see how she can face herself in the mirror, what do you say.
—Please go away.
—Oh Mister Crease, Mister Crease? she renewed her assault up the steps without pausing for breath —I have wonderful news for you. I’ve been able to talk him up to your original asking price of three million two, half right now on the spot and the rest at closing he’s waiting right there with his checkbook in his hand and . . .
—Where’d you get this three million two asking price.
—We discussed it on an earlier occasion as the fair market value Mister Prestig, I’m afraid you’re not very well acquainted with the real estate market in this area and the slump we’ve been in is . . .
—You’re talking about condos and housing developments Madame, there’s no slump in properties like this one look at the view, you won’t get that anymore with these wetland setbacks, the privacy alone is worth a couple of million because money can’t buy it, I’m a busy man I’ve got to get going but I’ll be glad to handle your closing if they come up with a reasonable figure Mister Crease here, take my card, you’ll see I’ve got a new number? sidling round to recover his foot and slip a hundred dollar bill into the breast pocket folds —glad we worked out this other arrangement just leave the rest of it to me, keep in touch.
—Well! Now we can talk, if you allow me to say so Mister Crease I hate to see a gentleman like yourself bullied that way. Lawyers just seem to try to complicate things and some of them can really scrape the bottom of the barrel when they . . .
—Will you go away?
—Yes it won’t take us a minute without him interfering now will it. I wouldn’t argue for a moment about the value of the site and the location in this prestige area since that’s really all my client is interested in, with all your Mister Prestig’s talk about slate roofs and landmarks but the place is old and in bad repair isn’t it, this very porch where we’re standing is ready to fall on our heads but that’s unimportant because he plans to tear the whole thing down anyway and start fresh with this famous postmodern architect who’s doing the place on the corner right down to the carpets and picture frames it will be quite a showplace, he has his checkbook in his hand Mister Crease and offers like this may never come again, certainly not from these imaginary clients who won’t blink at five million but will try to jew you down the minute you . . .
—Get out of here.
—But, what? She stepped aside as he strode past her for the edge of the veranda where he stood undoing his trousers —I don’t . . .
—Didn’t you hear me? He paused there with his hand digging deep in his underclothes. —If you don’t get out of here right now I’ll throw you down these steps do you hear me? and if I see your painted pig face on this property again I’ll, I’ll have you for lunch.
—I, my God! she got hold of the railing as he turned away without a glance after her headlong clamber down the steps and the roar of her car swerving aside for one bearing down on the driveway ahead.
—Who in God’s name was that.
—Some crazy woman. Did we forget milk? as they came to a halt and silenced, staring at him standing at the end of the veranda directing a steaming arc down on the withered grass below.
—Oscar! not even raising his eyes to them with the slamming doors of the car —stop it! My God he hasn’t done this since he was eight years old, Oscar? as they reached the steps together —I said stop it! He used to try to write his name on the snow that way, come inside right now it’s cold out here! Will you tell me what in God’s name’s going on? she came up after him, —who was that woman! but he ambled on back through the doors doing up his trousers to leave her standing there in the grip of the cold for the grocery bags handed to her up the steps, down the hall and through to the silent kitchen: butter, oyster mushrooms, broccoli, feta cheese, pesto, elbows braced on the table there and her face sunk in her hands, pickled ginger? Ponentine olive spread?
—What’s all this stuff, sun dried tomatoes? unsalted pignolias?
—God only knows Lily, I mean I just took whatever I saw, I thought we could get him interested in meals again I must have been thinking of that day Mister Basie came out here with those carrots in the Spanish style, I hardly know what I’m doing. That performance just now out there on the veranda he must be into the wine again, where is he now.
—He’s in there with his fishes.
—Well God help us. I mean at least they don’t make any noise.
Neither the red scream of sunset blazing on the icebound pond nor the thunderous purple of its risings on a landscape blown immense through leafless trees off toward the ocean where in flocks the wild goose Wawa, where Kahgahgee king of ravens with his band of black marauders, or where the Kayoshk, the seagulls, rose with clamour from their nests among the marshes and the Mama, the woodpecker seated high among the branches of the melancholy pine tree past the margins of the pond neither rose Ugudwash, the sunfish, nor the yellow perch the Sahwa like a sunbeam in the water banished here, with wind and wave, day and night and time itself from the domain of the discus by the daylight halide lamp, silent pump and power filter, temperature and pH balance and the system of aeration, fed on silverside and flake food, vitamins and krill and beef heart in a patent spinach mixture to restore their pep and lustre spitting black worms from the feeder when a crew of new arrivals (live delivery guaranteed, air freight collect at thirty dollars) brought a Chinese algae eater, khuli loach and male beta, two black mollies and four neons and a pair of black skirt tetra cruising through the new laid fronds of the Madagascar lace plant.
And now where was he? He must have gone someplace because the car wasn’t out there in the driveway, setting off a new round of muttering about the last time this happened, calling the hospitals, calling the police in Hoboken was it? lying in a ditch somewhere and in he walked frozen to the gills it was probably these damn fish again, he’d probably gone up to that place on the highway to get them something for lunch —I mean my God they’re eating us out of house and home, can’t we do something about this mess in the refrigerator? G
round beef heart and baby brine shrimp mixed up in here with the pickled ginger and sun dried tomatoes, he’s got bloodworms and crabmeat and medicines for their parasite bacteria and fungus problems right in with the feta cheese and that Ponentine olive spread that cost God knows how much and what’s that on the shelf over the sink, that plastic cup that says cole slaw there’s something floating in it, will you throw it out? I’ve been looking at it for a week.
—No don’t! That’s mine Christina, that’s my jelly implants.
—Well what in God’s name are they doing here, are you keeping them for souvenirs?
—They told me to keep them for evidence when I went up there to get my stitches out, I told you I’m going to sue that slimeball didn’t I? And they told me they’re putting together this big class action lawsuit against him and this whole bunch of doctors and this company that made the jelly if I start to lose my hair and my memory like this other lady I was scared to tell you, there’s something else I was scared to tell you Christina. See I thought when you paid them that fifteen hundred dollars up at the hospital that that was for everything but they said that was just the room and the operating room and the anasthesist and the television rental and the free toothbrush but the doctor’s separate. This doctor which took them out is separate.
—What do you mean he’s separate.
—Fifteen hundred dollars but . . .
—Fine. When you win your big lawsuit against the doctor who put them in you can pay the doctor who took them out now let’s not talk anymore about it, I want to get, listen. Did you hear that?
—It’s these big trucks way out at the end of the driveway, you know that little house that was back there in the trees? It’s gone. Right overnight the whole house, it’s . . .
—Not the trucks no it’s, listen. It’s Oscar! He’s, my hands are wet go in there and see what in God’s name’s going on will you? and Lily? ask him if he’s eaten? but she was gone, leaving nothing but the distant rumble of the trucks until her heels came clattering down the hall again.
—He’s calling the police, Christina. He’s calling to report a stolen car.
—I’ll kill him! she whispered, twisting the dishtowel in her hands like a throat —he’s, no be still! I told you to remind me to call the garage in town to bring his car out here didn’t I? flinging it down —where is he. Oscar? and through the door —where is he! the phone trembling in her own hands now stabbing out a number, her voice sunk to a deadly calm as she got on with —Carlos or José, one of them can drive it out here can’t he? today? or tonight then? My God I mean, all right here are the directions, will you write them down?
—I’m making some tea when you’re done, all right? and when she brought it in, —what are you so mad at Oscar for.
—Because he, just because I am! Where is he!
—How come you’re blaming him then! He’s just trying to help out isn’t he? I mean we always leave the keys in the car here don’t we? Is it his fault if somebody steals it?
—Because I, because he’s driving me crazy Lily, everything is, those trucks out there now before it’s even light when I come down and he’s already in there with his bowl of cereal he hardly eats anything else, all he asked for last time I went shopping was peanut butter and another box of it, I try to talk to him I ask him if he wants tea or some toast and he just goes on shoveling it down and puts on his glasses reading the back of the cereal box till he finally asks me if there’s any mail, I mean it’s practically dawn and is there any mail! and back in the kitchen —have you seen his latest?
—No but wait a second, I forgot to . . .
—These tiny sea horses he sent away for roaming in and out of the windows of that idiotic castle in there the way he roams around the house here himself like some lost soul, I mean God only knows what he expects after this thing that came for him yesterday, did you see it? reaching behind the cereal box —from Saint Pancras School, Dear Professor Crease I thought they were inviting him to lecture on the . . .
—No but wait a second, there’s a . . .
—I mean can you imagine? Your colleague, Doctor J Madhar Pai, has given your name as a reference on his application to join our faculty as Psychological Counselor and Senior Proctor for the Sixth Form. He would also supervise the School’s athletic program, chapel attendance and any disciplinary . . .
—No but wait a second Christina there’s a . . .
—qualities of moral fibre and leadership embracing traditional values, best embodied on the playing fields of Saint Pancras where emphasis is placed not on winning but rather on how you play the game, and we will appreciate your candid appraisal of his suitability in these capacities and for taking an active role in our lively academic community. Your comments will be held in the strictest I mean my God people will do anything, the very thought of Trish ending up on the lively playing fields of . . .
—No but listen Christina something came yesterday certified I put up here over the sink and forgot to . . .
—Well thank God. I mean I’d begun to think Bill Peyton expected me to sit here staring at that rotting amaryllis till the end of, throw it out will you? tearing open the envelope barely in her hands —it looks like the bowels of a, oh my God.
—But what . . .
—Just be still! She folded back a page, folded back another, —where is he.
—Oscar? He probably went back up to his old room on the top floor with his rock collection, he even slept up there last night did you know that? He was . . .
—Well call him! folding back each page more slowly than the last until she suddenly got up herself storming back up the hall to the foot of the stairs —Oscar! in a near collision there —sit down. Just be quiet and listen to this, will you sit down? doing so herself, getting her breath —that, that insufferable law clerk my God, a simple estate! He’s whipped together the final accounting on Father’s estate, I’ll say he’s whipped it together right across our naked backs, will you look at it? But she made no sign of giving it up, pausing again for breath which dwindled with the balance of the principal (assets listed on page 3 here below) totaling $5,649,500, less the following, in Federal tax, $2,065,000; in New York State tax (location of house only, less mortgage), $284,500; executor’s fee, court costs, filing and attorneys’ fees, $100,000; personal bequest, $500; leaving to the residual legatees in equal shares the amount of $3,199,500 —well my God Oscar why are you staring at me like a, can’t you see what this means? It means the house. It means these treasury notes and deposit certificates and the cash and everything else all go for taxes and that drunken fool’s executor’s fee passing along what’s left to his courthouse cronies because this house is the bulk of the estate, three point two million! This property assessed at three point two million and he’s probably already drunk up every cent of the five hundred dollars he took out of it sitting down there on a hundred thousand as his executor’s fee my God, a hundred thousand dollars for this? suddenly on her feet brandishing the papers —and what he’s scribbled at the foot here just to be cute? over seizing the phone now, —puts him in mind of old Justice Holmes he says, left most of his estate to the U.S. Treasury I mean aren’t we doing practically the same damn thing? punching out numbers —handing the IRS two million dollars with the veranda caving in and not a penny for paint or even fixing our driveway, hello? Yes, Bill Peyton please, if they expect us to keep a roof over our heads while they, who? Well who are you I, what? sputtering her own name —and who are you! Lenny what? Yes, yes tell him I got his lovely plant but when does he expect to send me the . . . I said when! and she stood tapping her foot till she hung it up with a choked out —thank you. Some flunky named Lenny telling me it’s at the top of Bill Peyton’s agenda coming out here in a day or two with some of Harry’s papers he thinks we’d like to keep, I mean if he dares show his face without that insurance check in his hand I’ll, I’m going to have a drink.
—What shall I . . .
—Don’t ask me Lily do what you want to!
There’s that flounder for supper I’m going in to get a drink, now where did he go? but she raged past the dim room festooned with blankets without a glance in at the figure looming in the cadaverous pallor of the halide lamp tapping a teaspoon of God only knew what over the blades of the Amazon sword plant, settling on the Madagascar lace where the recent wave of immigrants seemed to have thinned considerably since their arrival as a glittering turquoise discus passed trailing a shred of black skirt from its jaws and the sea horses, gliding past the walls of the castle with all the diminutive rectitude of the knights of King Richard the Lionhearted raising the siege at Acre, only for it to fall once again to the gleaming ranks of the Saracens a century later ending the last Crusade and, with it, the kingdom of Jerusalem, were now nowhere to be seen.
—He said he’s not hungry for us to go ahead and eat. He’s in there now watching some mystery with a peanut butter sandwich.
—Well I’m simply exhausted, it’s been dark for hours I’m going up as soon as we’re done. Will you tell me what those blankets are doing strung up in the sunroom?
—Because I can’t sleep with that spooky light in there, like it’s always daytime in the middle of the night.
Day for night, good cop bad cop, undercover sleuth tracks serial killer, incest victim seeks revenge, heavy metal star on killing spree and the screen ablaze with an overturned patrol car, flashing lights merging with the late night news, spy in mafia drug orbit and the door battered in: police! freeze!
—Well my God where is he, I thought he was down here.
—No it’s real Christina, there’s somebody out there! as the red and blue lights flashed across the walls and the pounding on the door continued.
—Well open it!
—Mrs Crease? We picked up your car, you want to come out and identify it?
—But who, what time is it? She stared at the policeman half her age weighted down with the hardware strung at his waist —I mean I’m not even awake, I can’t go out there now I’m not even dressed.