Based on a True Story (19 page)

thirty-five

How much longer would this spectacle continue? Frances watched, appalled, as Augusta draped herself over Len Bleeker. One hand lay on her father’s shrunken forearm, the other around the back of his wheelchair. Augusta had practically taken her breasts out for weighing. They tumbled from her peasant top, twin moons reflected in the silver Georg Jensen candlesticks.

Frances had expected her father to look older, but she hadn’t expected him to be so diminished. Len Bleeker had always had a giant head, an Easter Island statue of a head, with a slab of a nose and wiry eyebrows overhanging dark eyes. “This head has never found a hat its equal,” he used to say. But now this vast promontory sat on the spindly shoulders of a child, a boy with rickets. He looked like a bobble-headed doll sitting on a car dashboard.

The cruelty of the thought shocked Frances and she reached for her wineglass. Third glass of the night. Her parents did indeed keep an excellent cellar, which had sat untouched since the onset of her father’s illness.

“What a magnificent vintage,” Augusta had purred. “I feel I’m at the Savoy.”

Three bottles sat on the table, and Frances watched as Augusta topped their glasses with a 2001 Dominus. It didn’t seem to bother Jean that this stranger had usurped her hostess’s role, and possibly her husband, too. Frances’s mother held a hand over her wine glass, shaking her head as Augusta moved to fill it.

Len raised his wine to his lips, hand trembling, and Frances felt her temples pulse. He wasn’t supposed to drink. Why wouldn’t her mother say something? But Jean sat back, a small smile on her face, and listened to her husband reminisce about life in the old country. Frances took another gulp.

Len had spent a half-hour telling Augusta about his childhood in Coventry, playing in the ruins of the cathedral, wrenching his ankle on the edge of a bomb crater. The combination of poverty and postwar rationing meant that he was always hungry. When he arrived in Los Angeles in 1964, he’d stood in the bread aisle at the supermarket, paralyzed by choice.

“I’ve always missed certain things about home, though,” he said. “Telly, for one. Television’s useless in this country. Everybody’s so bloody cheerful all the time. In England you knew you’d at least get a proper laugh.” He mentioned a name that Frances didn’t recognize, and Augusta, smiling, leaned over to whisper something in his ear.

“A nonce, you say?” Len Bleeker’s mouth fell open in shock and delight. “But he was married to that girl from the horror films, with the lovely —” He raised shaky hands and cupped a pair of breasts.

“Who was born a bloke,” Augusta said.

“No,” Len breathed.

He placed a hand on Augusta’s; it was twice the size of hers. His wheelchair nestled inside a specially designed panel which slid from underneath the teak dining table and allowed him to sit at its head, as he always had.

Frances lurched to her feet. She couldn’t watch any more.

“Mom,” she said, “I’ll get the dessert.”

Her foot caught in the bottom rung of her chair and she nearly tripped. Augusta had eyes only for Len; they were talking about the best pubs in Coventry.

In the kitchen, Frances went to the sink to splash cold water on her face. She had to bend nearly double; the appliances and counters had been lowered to accommodate the wheelchair. As the water hit her, Frances remembered how furious Len had been when a county bylaw forced him to make his appliance stores wheelchair accessible. He’d grumbled about political correctness gone mad, and had considered challenging the bylaw in court. Finally, grudgingly, he oversaw the refit of his six stores, the entrances widened and elevators installed.

Frances pressed a tea towel to her face. If only she could have come back here boasting of a single triumph, no matter how small. If she could have given her father a tiny bit of light. Instead, nothing. She was a giant among the pint-sized appliances, but felt as small and helpless as a child.

She didn’t hear her mother come in. A cool hand slid across her shoulders and she stiffened.

“I can’t believe you haven’t said anything,” Frances said.

“About what, sweetheart?” Her mother bent to open the refrigerator and took out a bowl. Raspberry fool, her father’s favourite.

“About Augusta, fawning over Daddy.” The words sounded slurred to her own ears. The water hadn’t sobered her at all.

“Oh, Frances,” her mother sighed, straightening. “Do you know how long it’s been since anyone flirted with your father?”

She turned away, sliding the bowl onto the counter beside a stack of dessert plates. In the hall, a phone rang: Augusta’s phone. Frances felt her shoulders clench, waiting for Augusta to answer it, but there were no footsteps. The shrill sound stopped, but after a few seconds it began to ring again.

Jean turned to her daughter. “You might want to get that, darling. It might be important.”

Frances stalked into the hall, seething. Did Augusta know nothing about roaming charges? Of course she didn’t. She was not the sort of person who shopped around for the best monthly plan. She fished the phone out of Augusta’s purse and barked, with more force than was strictly necessary, “Yes?”

A moment’s hesitation on the other line, and then an Englishman’s voice: “I’m sorry, I must have the wrong number. I’m trying to reach Augusta Price.”

Frances bit back annoyance. The English were always sorry, or at least they pretended to be. “You have the right number. This is her friend.”

“Oh.” Now the man on the other end sounded even more confused. “I’m sorry. I didn’t . . . I didn’t know —”

“That she had a friend? Yes, well, the situation is extremely fluid.” Frances was pleased; it was something Augusta might have said. “One moment, I’ll find her.”

“If you could please tell her it’s David, her agent.”

Clapping a hand over the phone, Frances walked down the hall to the dining room. Where there was no one. For a moment she stood, confused. Augusta was gone; her father, in his wheelchair, was gone. A profound sense of dislocation ran through her: the Englishman’s voice on the phone pulled her back to London, but she was here in California, her home.

She spun around, suddenly terrified. What if Augusta had run off with her dad? Wheeled off, more like. Hysterical laughter bubbled to her lips, and she heard a tinny voice on the telephone: “Hello? Augusta?”

From out in the driveway came a shriek, spine-piercing in the still night. Frances nearly dropped the phone as she ran to the front door and yanked it open. Across the road, past the cliff’s edge, she could hear the sound of the surf. Moonlight picked out little peaks far out to sea. But there was silence from the front yard. Frances stepped out onto the porch and felt her stomach lurch.

There, at the top of the sloping driveway, next to the wheelchair-adapted Escalade, Augusta held onto Len’s wheelchair with the tips of her fingers.

“Do it,” her father said. His whisper carried on the night air.

Before Frances could rush down the stairs, Augusta had let go, the wheelchair picking up speed as it careered down the grade toward Moonstone Drive and the cliff beyond. Len squealed, hands clutching the armrests. He had a few seconds’ head start before Augusta began thumping down the slope after him.

Catch him
, Frances thought,
catch him
, while another part of her brain noted:
She’s moving fast for a drunk in heels
. It looked as if Augusta
would
catch him, the distance between her outstretched hand and Len’s chair narrowing, until she stumbled and nearly fell. Frances let out a froggy croak of fear. Augusta righted herself and plunged on. At the last moment, just as Len touched the edge of the road, she reached out to snatch a handle, yanking the chair in a wild, spinning arc.

Panting, she pulled Len’s chair to a stop and turned to Frances with a triumphant smile. She swept the hair off her forehead and said, “I used to do that with Charlie’s pushchair.”

Frances felt the sag begin in her knees and she slumped against the doorframe. From the phone in her hand she could hear David’s voice: “Augusta? What is that noise? Has there been an accident?”

Len Bleeker took a deep breath. There was a vivid pink flush on his cheeks. He slowly turned his wheelchair at the foot of the drive and beamed up at his daughter.

“Frances,” he said. “I like your friend.”

thirty-six

Her fingers traced the words she’d carved into the bench twenty years before. The summer Frances turned eleven, she read the Brontë sisters and cursed the fate that placed her in a tiny town on California’s coast, and not on Yorkshire’s moors, where she belonged. The words were still there:
Frances Suzanne Bleeker, here 2day gone 2moro
.

And back the day after that. She straightened up, trying to spot sea lions’ heads in the water below. But the sea was black, and the moon had ducked behind clouds. Len and Jean Bleeker were tucked up in bed, Len vivid and preening from his adventure. He’d cackled with pride even as they placed him on the stairlift. Frances wasn’t sure whether to report Augusta to the police or give her a medal.

She heard the gravel crunch on the path behind her, smelled the Benson & Hedges and Arpège.

“Darling,” said Augusta as she sat down heavily. “It’s time to pack the sled and say mush.”

“We’ll be gone soon,” said Frances. “Only three more days before we fly back.”

“You don’t understand,” said Augusta. “We must leave sooner than that.” She placed a hand on Frances’s knee. “David has secured a reading for me. It seems the actress who had stolen my role has become unavailable. Something about a surgery gone terribly wrong.”

“Oh, yes. You mentioned this. A miniseries, isn’t it?
Circle of Deceit
.”

“
Circle of Lies
, darling. A subtle but crucial distinction. And this role will return me to my proper place. A bit of press, perhaps even some attention during awards season . . .” Her face fell ever so slightly. “Of course, it’s been a while since I read for a producer. Or had to memorize lines. I’m not entirely sure I’d know what to do in an audition any longer.”

Frances felt an odd rush of tenderness. “But you want to do this?”

“Of course I do. I must work, darling. Work is what remains, after everything else has gone.
Arbeit macht frei
, if I may quote the Nazis without reproach. Work is what we leave in the world. Even if it’s rubbish, which is usually the case.”

Frances hugged herself. If they went back to London, and Augusta returned to work, she could finish the outline of the book. It would be the path back to self-respect, for both of them. She looked out over the dark ocean, toward home. “That book advance isn’t coming, is it, Augusta? The publisher’s not sending any money.”

Augusta shifted on the bench beside her. “I’m afraid not, darling. At least not in time to help us.”

It was comforting to hear the truth spoken for once. “I’ll change our tickets,” Frances said. “We’ll go home early.”

Augusta clutched her hand, and Frances realized for the first time how small it was, a child’s hand. When Augusta spoke, her voice caught: “Thank you, Frances. You’ve been so good to me. Almost like a — well, not like a paid servant, anyway.”

Unpaid servant
,
Frances thought
.
“Two things, though. When we get back to London we must begin seriously on the book.”

“Absolutely.” Augusta made the sign of the cross over the right side of her chest. “Virgin’s honour.”

“And I want you to give Kenneth Deller his computer back.”

Augusta sucked in her breath, jerked her hand back.

Frances said, “It’s not like you’re mentioned in his book, anyway.”

“Thank you for reminding me. I am quite aware of that absence.” Augusta reached into her pocket, drew out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a lighter. A small burst of flame lit her face, lengthened the bruised shadows under her eyes. “My son and his father seem to have forgotten that I was once a rather important part of their lives.”

“I’m sorry, Augusta. Being ignored is worse than anything.” Frances wrapped her arms around herself. “Believe me, I know.”

It was a long time before Augusta spoke. “Eventually everything comes back to bite you in the arse,” she said. “Even the things that used to kiss it.”

* * *

Out on the driveway, Augusta crouched by Len Bleeker’s wheelchair. Jean and Frances watched them through the window in the hall.

“That’s another thing,” Jean said. “No one ever bends down to your father’s level anymore. He spent his whole life looking down on people, now he has to look up.”

“She just wants him to look down her top,” Frances said.

“Fine by me,” Jean said. “He’s tired of looking at mine.”

Frances’s mother went to the side table in the foyer and opened a drawer. She took out a thick wedge of cash, neatly gathered with a mother-of-pearl clip, and held it out to her daughter.

“No, Mom.”

“Yes, Frances.” Her mother took her hand and pressed the money into it. She didn’t let go. “I don’t want you feeling badly about this. Everyone needs help from time to time. When you finish helping Augusta with her book, you can pay us back, if you’d like.”

The bills in her hand were worn and soft, a pleasing thickness, comforting as a duvet. Frances wondered how long her mother had stashed them in the drawer, waiting for an emergency like this. The fact that her parents knew, in advance, that she’d need rescuing was more than she could bear. She pressed the money back into her mother’s hands.

“I can’t.”

Her mother drew a sharp, exasperated breath. “Of course you can, sweetheart —”

“Mom.” Frances felt her teeth come together, hard. “It’s not about the money. It’s about me picking myself up —”

“And we can’t help you?”

“— on my own,” Frances finished. “I would just like to feel, for one day, that I was capable of fixing my own fuck-ups.”

Her mother pursed her lips at the profanity, and Frances thought how easy it would be to run up to her room, to hide here in a house gleaming with lemon polish, unsullied by doubt.

“Oh, Mom,” she whispered. “I’d wanted to come back with more than this. A bit more to show for myself.”

Jean shook her head and placed the money on top of the side table. She cupped her daughter’s face, and there was something in her eyes Frances did not want to see. “I dropped out of college to marry your father,” she said. “I’ve looked after him ever since. Every day I worry that my life’s been a waste.” She slid her hands around Frances’s waist and gripped tightly. “At least you’ve had adventures.”

There was a choking tightness in Frances’s throat. “You know what you can give me, though? Some Kleenex for my purse. I have a friend who hates the sight of tears.”