Authors: Jonathan Gash
Lottie thought the building was like a supermarket, with the same anonymity. She wondered if she was doing the right thing coming to see Kylee. She’d been at Heathrow to see Bray’s flight leave. She’d imagined Bray looking back, seated among wassailers as the bar opened and friendships burgeoned. He would of course be startled if anyone spoke, giving his slight nod to avoid talking.
Standing there among the planned
Mahonias
and
Berberis
, the lovely
Ceanothus
in bloom, Lottie found it easy to blame herself. God knows, Bray was doing something brave, if loony. She had wanted to say goodbye, but guessed Kylee might be there.
She asked for Kylee Walsingham. The efficiency, of a company rising in fortune, was certainly convincing. Before she could waver, she was ushered along corridors and into a room where Kylee was sitting on a windowsill eating an orange. Plush, new, and not a computer in sight.
“Hello, Kylee. I came to make my peace.”
The room was bare. Lottie realised Kylee had chosen her ground.
“Where’s the fucking war?”
Kylee spat a pip expertly against the wall, grunted when it failed to reach. Lottie controlled her anger. She’d expected more than this.
“I only wanted to say that if there’s anything I can do.”
“That it?”
Lottie’s irritation grew. “Look. I know you think I let him down, but you haven’t looked at things from my point of view.”
“Save yourself some aggie and piss orf.”
“What did you say?” Even for Kylee this was outrageous.
A man opened the door, made to carry in a stack of files and swiftly withdrew, hooking the door with his foot.
“Leave Bray alone. You’ve done damage.”
“Damage? What damage?”
“Sodding off, that’s what damage.” Kylee spat a piece of orange skin at Lottie, making her step aside.
“Would you mind stopping that?”
“Piss orf. You did fuck all.”
“How dare you! What do you know at your age?”
“More’n you, you fucking geriatric.” Kylee simply dropped the orange peel, wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “Sod off and let him do it.”
“I’ll have you know that I worked twice as hard as you and your ignorant sidekick ever did! I put in hours, weeks. Who made all the arrangements for his tour, set up the visits, dragged that ancient firm into the light? I did!”
Kylee stretched languidly, thumbs in her belt.
“You fucking crone, come creeping round now he’s started off. I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.”
“I did —”
“No such thing?” Kylee’s falsetto made crude mockery. “Isn’t that what you do-gooders say? It’s for everybody else’s good?”
She advanced on Lottie, arms akimbo.
“I’ve had a fucking life-dose of you let-downers. You turds are in everything for what you can get. You used to come to the correction dump.”
“I did nothing of the —”
“You did. Twin fucking sets, phoney pearls, tweed skirts and brogues.” Kylee nodded her own agreement. “Smiling like some frigging disease. How maaaahv’llous you were to visit such crappy flea-bitten brats! Making,” Kylee spat, “an impression.”
“You insolent little bitch!”
“Bray don’t need a senile fucking relic.”
Lottie shouted, giving way, “How far do you think you would have got without me?”
“Farther. You derelict old bat, you should a been out there helping him instead of here bragging at doing sweet fuck all.”
Lottie was almost in tears. “That’s unfair! I worked as hard as you, as Bray!”
Kylee snorted. “To make your own number wiv him, that’s why.”
Lottie turned away in rage. “Trying to talk sense with you is like…like talking to him!”
“That proves we’re right and you’re the daft bugger.”
“I told him straight out. He’s a dreamer. Whittling wood at his age! Has he ever done anything else? No! He’s just a big kid.”
“Of course he is, you silly cunt! Like me!” Lottie gaped as tears streamed down the girl’s face. “That’s why he’s doing it! He’s out there with Davey! He always was! And he’s the only one who’s been in here with me! It happened to him! What happened to the little lad’s happening again to Bray, you ignorant fucking crone!”
Lottie felt like hiding.
“He’s Davey,” Kylee said quiet now. “He’s me. He is lost children, see?”
“I don’t understand.”
Kylee spoke with withering contempt. “Idiot cow. Do you think Bray would’ve left
me
to rot, like they all did, if he’d seen me like I was?” Lottie had never seen anyone weep as Kylee wept, tears streaming yet without a change in expression. It might have been rain. “Never in a million fucking years. Everything he’s doing to find Davey he’d do for me. He doesn’t say so. That’s because he can’t talk proper like you people can. But he would have. He’s the dad I never had.”
“Look. I’m sorry. I —”
“Whatever he wants to do, you get in his way I’ll rip your fucking eyes out!” The last word was screeched so viciously that Lottie recoiled.
Some woman along a corridor called out, nervously asking if everything was all right.
“You haven’t the sense to see you might be wrong.” Lottie’s last stand.
“Numbers don’t lie,” Kylee said. “You selfish bitches have words to do that.” Hawking, Kylee spat directly into Lottie’s face.
“You’re mad,” Lottie said, stumbling to the door trying to get a hankie out.
Kylee shoved past and out of the door without another word.
That evening Lottie found herself on one of the benches on the Maldon greensward. The crowd was thinning in a watery sun. Boats were returning up the estuary, folk collecting children from the paddling pools. The sky still
showed traces of blue. A few families congregated round motors in the car park, searching for bags, anxious not to leave half their stuff before setting out homeward. It was all quiet content.
She saw a young father grab his toddler from near the water’s edge as a giant yawl’s wake threatened to lap against the bank, the child squealing in outrage at rescue. She could still see Kylee’s blank face, the girl’s cheeks dripping tears.
Had the girl wept so often that she no longer noticed her own weeping? They were honest, not a device. Lottie wondered if Kylee had it in her to be deceitful. Cunning was beyond the child, for child she still was. Yet such hatred. Lottie felt almost frightened at Kylee’s vituperation.
Was it true?
Was she right, that Lottie, naturally wanting a settled relationship with an eligible middle-ager, had merely played investment tactics? And became sulky because Bray had a more compelling priority? Worse, it meant Lottie was beyond feeling a devotion the girl understood with such transparent clarity, and that Kylee was more of a woman than a woman almost three times her age.
Lottie dabbed her eyes. She hadn’t Kylee’s expertise at weeping with such casual physiology. She fumbled for a tissue. A dog ran at the water’s edge, barking at the turning tide. For one silly instant Lottie believed it was Buster, but it was only a small Sheltie bent on mischief. Its family called it away.
She took out her car keys. A vapour trail stood out against the blue as a plane, probably from the Continent, headed inland. She watched until the white streak dissolved.
How fast planes went these days, she thought, faster than any train, than any ship.
New York was having a heat wave. The Manhattan air felt turgid. You breathed soggy air, clogging the throat.
Bray was astonished at the pace, all streets one-way. He was unprepared for rollerbladers, swooping on you so suddenly and with such grace. Iron kerbs in Manhattan, shaved to a thin metal strip at street corners. Why? Massive saloon cars, several windows long. The ineffable politeness of some people, the extraordinary anger of others, and the appalling heat. Buildings were unbelievably diverse, no two alike. A Chase Manhattan Bank that was no more than a smart little detached redbrick house set among skyscrapers, as if in a canyon. The wail of sirens, grids of flashing lights on emergency vehicles.
Surely he must be the only person in New York City not yacking into a cell phone? He was struck by the diversity of human shapes. And the verbosity of traffic notices:
NYC Law: Speed limit 30 unless otherwise posted. No honking except for danger
. A logo would have done for either, or had he missed something? And heavy freight vehicles were not allowed down Park Avenue without some special extra permit. Superfluity was everywhere.
The unbelievably tatty taxi set him down at the hotel. He was relieved to find Lottie’s booking system working. A young lady told him he was “pre-registered”. He would have felt a pang for Lottie’s absence, but regret was disallowed, like heavy freight vehicles in Park Avenue.
The evening was hot and sultry. Sweat thickened his collar, dripped down his nape hair. For a while he simply sat in his room. He put the television on to follow the hours. He’d acquired from Suzanne in the workshop a gift
to mark his departure, a gadget converting currencies and telling the time all over the world, temperatures, tides, heaven knew what else. He’d set it on Greenwich Mean Time and checked it every few minutes. One TV channel, too quick for him, tried to show him an episode of KV but he got to the remote button before it could flash up the forthcoming All-America KV Competition.
The TV placed the suffix
et
by numbered hours. Eastern Time? But
ct
defeated him. Central Time, possibly, or was there such a thing? If so, central to what periphery?
That day he spent doing runs of lectures. He went down for a nervy meal in the hotel restaurant, fretted and slept. He woke on the Fourth of July, heard people say the frankly unbelievable “Happy Fourth” to each other. The heat was worse.
He walked to encourage fatigue, returned to his air-conditioned room tired. That evening he watched the celebratory fireworks begin along the East River’s four sites of exquisite lights. Davey would love them. The comforting thought came that maybe, just maybe, probably, certainly, Davey was seeing them, beaming.
Two more rehearsals of talks, while he waited. He’d got his laptop computer ready. At the hour he tapped in his message. The e-mail went without a hitch. Instantly a return message came:
u 8 secs late how offen i av 2 tell u ok?
Relief almost undid him. He typed yes
all ok
and got back
comp is go then?
One-fingered, he typed in
yes we
do it & thanks
And got back
get 2 bed big day 2morn do ur teeth luv
Reluctantly he put the laptop away feeling lost, and
filled up. A ridiculous sensation, she a chit of a child and so far away.
Kylee had said to milk the firm by inventing false expenses but, heaven’s sake, who on earth had the necessary convolutions of brain to keep that up, to no purpose? Lottie had warned him to list travel costs and include everything for proper accounting. Who had such vigilance?
No. He was
here
with his plan, faulty and speculative as it was. Vigilance must be hoarded until his chance came, then everything could be expended in a great rush to his last breath. The child stealers would be eternally vigilant, with resources he couldn’t even contemplate. Wasn’t that what Jim Stazio said?
He felt forlorn, though reassured. Kylee must have been watching the minutes, his unlikely lifeline. Angrily he reversed the words, for who criticised the ropemaker when his thin twine alone stopped you from falling?
Now to message Gilson Mather and say so far he was fine. Even before Bray left Lottie had a map of the USA and two boxes of coloured pins in the firm’s office. He had written to Geoffrey and Shirley and asked after Buster. He checked the laptop’s battery and puzzled over the bathroom voltage.
One last time, he took out his itinerary, Lottie’s instructions in her handwriting: Sotheby’s of New York, taxi to a lecture hall, to an antiques emporium, motors at this or that airport, names of couriers, phone numbers in case. He’d arrived. How near, how far away, there was no way of knowing.
He remembered saying that to Kylee. She gave him a mock backhander.
“No way of knowing
yet
,” she had reprimanded. “Say
yet,
y’old fucker.”
He’d been ashamed at his lapse. She was right. He said it aloud in the room, “Yet.”
Next morning he rose at six o’clock and made a start.
The camp at Colnova Falls was seriously oversubscribed. The Tain contingent arrived in a crowd. Three more intakes due the following day. One dormitory was four bunk beds short. The first afternoon was spent in fixing sleeping arrangements. The camp was run by Brighters, all vigorous and sports-orientated, with their own hierarchy.
The children thought it an adventure. Clint felt sorry for the camp Brighters, so gaudy in their orange anoraks, but Carlson, Leeta, and Frondy, a Mexican girl who made up their quartet, didn’t and wanted more children to make friends.
“They’ll be sued,” Carlson prophesied. “We’ll be witnesses.”
“They can’t.” Frondy’s father was a lawyer. “They sign a paper.”
It was brilliant, though. Clint’s foursome had First Canoeing, which was daring. They did badly. Carlson blamed their instructor, Camp Brighter Sally, who said they were too reckless. Clint asked Sally how they made the canoes but she didn’t answer. Carlson said she didn’t know.
Evening meals were staggered on account of the numbers at Colnova Falls, mixing children being Falls policy. Every building was a rustic log cabin, though features of modern living were in evidence from muted airconditioning to indoor pools.
First dinnertime, Clint’s four encountered the Chicago children. They were full of the KV competition on television.
“Know what?” Dwight, one of the latecomers challenged the Tain kids. He was a heavily built nine-year-old who had written to a glamorous Hollywood starlet and expected a letter any day, probably with an invite to star with her in her next movie. “We stand the best chance of winning, see? The prize is an old table worth a million. Older’n the whole US of A!”
“The answers are obvious,” Frondy said scornfully. “They’ve gotta be. That way they get pay-off, half the phone bills.”
“We do it e-mail,” Dwight explained.
“You win a visit from the KV actors. The winners go on TV.”
“There’s four questions.” Dwight’s friend Merv told stories of stealing automobiles in Chicago. The Tain children didn’t believe him. “I’ve a cousin who’ll get us the answers up front, easy.”
“Clint’s best.” Leeta was always competitive.
Merv nudged Frondy. “Who’d pay a million for a table?”
On the slope was a small waterfall among trees. The trunks were carved totems, showy with gloss paints. Clint was interested. Carlson sceptical.
He said, “Brighter Sally, they’re just made up, right?”
“No.” Sally was feeling decidedly unbright as she walked her two groups to their dorms, but maintained her
determined smile. “They’re genuine Amerindian. Real carvings by local tribes.”
“Where are the tribes, then?” Leeta took up the protest.
“They might be hiding,” Frondy said. “Indians hide.”
“Come on, Clint,” Brighter Sally urged. “Keep up.”
“Clint likes wood shapes,” Carlson explained.
“It’s why we’ll win the KV competition,” Leeta said candidly, swinging her bag until Brighter Sally told her sharply to stop that right now in case she hit somebody. “We’re going to do it here when it starts.”
“Here?” Brighter Sally yelped. “We haven’t the facilities! You mail postcards to the TV station, right?”
“No,” the children said with scorn. “Everything’s e-mail.” Carlson eyed her. “Ain’t you got computers here?”
“Clint!” Sally called with a glassy grin. “Clint! You can look at those totems another time.”
Clint stared at the totem. It was huge, right up into the sky. The colours were different than the wood must have expected. You couldn’t be sure until you’d carved so the Thing in the wood came out. The wood knew.
He stared at the adze marks.
Only big people used an adze. One day, he would be big enough to stand astride the job o’ work and swing a huge adze, blade towards his legs. Miss, and you had to go to the hospital. Only you hadn’t to swing. Not even when you went back and forward –
forwards
– sawing holding onto one end of that great double saw that was hardly ever used. Then you swung laughing as the handle pulled you near, then pushed you away. And the man in the paint-stained apron, the apron he called a, what, so stiff with colour that it stood up on its own, to Clint’s delight, in a corner where pieces of wood lay in neat heaps among – amongst –
shavings that crackled underfoot.
No, you couldn’t use an adze yet. Twelve, the smiling sawing man who wasn’t Doctor said,
happen, depending how we get on
. Only you’d to say maybe, not happen. The humming sawing man said happen. He knew everything about wood. The man could make a totem bigger than any totem in the world if he wanted to. Wood knows what it wants to become.
“Clint!” Camp Brighter Sally was calling. “Clint. You can look at those totems another time!”
Clint ran and caught the others up.
“Clint could do better’n those,” Leeta said.
“Bet he couldn’t.” Dwight snatched Leeta’s bag.
“Give me my bag!” Leeta screamed.
“Stop that before somebody gets hurt!” Brighter Sally clapped hands for attention as they headed towards the dorms. “Now, kids! Guess what we’re doing tomorrow!”
“Sailing!”
“Horses!”
Sally tried to keep the enthusiasm going while she distributed the kids into the dorms, but was busy wondering if the other Brighters had considered computers. Kids had too many raves. Panic buys for some movie robot, premiums, all costing a fortune until the rush was over then onto something else. She had three nieces and two nephews, to her cost.
Falling asleep that night, Clint thought of the smiling man in his apron. Turpentine was a big smell, in a bottle labelled with an orange dot that meant no touching. The apron wasn’t called an apron at all.
Brat
. The old man belonged to Clint, and didn’t say apron. “Where’s my brat?” he’d say in his carving place with one window, and Clint would say, “You’ve got it on!”
and he’d laugh because the sawing man had forgotten it again.
The man kept doing that, forgetting it every evening after supper in the wood place with the story panel on the end wall.
He slipped into oblivion.
He was unprepared for the crowd. The small hall at Devace, Hinds and Meltonish’s on Fifth Avenue was packed, people having to stand.
Nervously he listened while James Evanders, vice-president, made a fulsome introduction.
“Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to a very special presentation. We are honoured by a remarkable speaker, the senior craftsman of Gilson Mather. His firm is the only surviving furniture manufacturing company that can still trace its origins back to the Seventeen Hundreds in London’s Long Acre. Our esteemed visitor is
the
acknowledged expert in antique furniture. His recent success is the compilation of the classic two-volume work detailing furniture that, over the centuries, emanated from his own firm and that of its eminent rivals…”
Bray tried not to study the audience as Mr Evanders spoke on. They were alert, friendly, smiling in anticipation. Was he worth all this? They seemed so eager, these Americans, to listen to a bloke talking about wood.
“Furthermore, our speaker has kindly consented to accept questions. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mr Bray Charleston!”
He began hesitantly, but soon warmed. The audience took him at his word, putting questions as soon as he got to specifics about a four-drawer chest of coloured walnut.
“Yes, the piece is one I especially admire.” He pointed
clumsily with the marker light. “Many craftsmen of the time – say, 1740, give or take – would have eschewed brass handles of such a size for a quite dainty piece. The drawers are lined by pine, edges slightly raised.” He smiled confidingly. “Craftsmen among you will know what I’m about to say: walnut is a whole range of types, not just one. And some
Juglans
, like Nogal, is variegated reddish, even chocolate-brown, as here. I love it. It shows a lustre that even the most incompetent duckegg can’t get rid of.”
There was some laughter, but he shook his head.
“I mean it. We are the worst enemies of the most exquisite God-given material. We have to accept its trust, because it is a living thing. Work ineptly, and we insult Creation. We have no right to be too lazy to bother.”
A ripple of applause brought him back to his subject.
“What I’m getting round to is this: Wise craftsmen would choose this wood for its working properties. It lasts. Soft, yet almost unbelievably light to handle. Its grain is rodlike straight. It works easily, and polishes like a dream.” He smiled apologetically. “Sorry. I’m getting carried away.”
Some lady raised a hand. “What’s that piece worth?”
He inspected the slide image above him quizzically.
“Small is fashionable nowadays. Nicely graduated drawers, though without adornment on the raised edges that some still call ‘cockbead’. Bracket feet. Plain, whole heartwood, not elegant veneer. Oh, worth at least a half-dozen world cruises.”
“Are you sure?” the lady exclaimed incredulously.
Bray heard himself say, “Well, missus, I was positive a minute ago. Now, it’s probably twice as much!”
There was laughter. He noted the time and tried to get on. He was going too slowly. His answers became more
summary. He concluded five minutes over time, and accepted the applause. Mr Evanders gave his thanks.
“Ladies and gentlemen, refreshments are provided during the break, after which Mr Charleston will discuss the furniture on display in our gallery. They represent four centuries of craftsmanship from England and America. A DHM catalogue is available…”
The lady who had posed the first question approached Bray. Immediately he started a hesitant apology.
“No. I loved your talk, Mr Charleston!” She squeezed his arm. “And I
loved
that ‘missus’. How d’you say it?”
She gave him her card and invited him to talk to her antiques group in Venice, California. She was the first of many. Their enthusiasm was a huge relief. Bray found himself enjoying the crowd. He only noticed the time when somebody pushed her way through with the vice-president to remind him that he was due to speak in New Jersey.
“Thank you,” he said. “There should be a motor —”
“It’s here,” Lottie told him calmly. “You’ll just have time to drop in at your hotel.” She turned to the smiling people. “Thank you for your kind welcome and interest. I’m afraid Bray has another engagement.”
“You’re not taking him!”
Lottie handled the protests and pleasantries with quips of her own.
“Your slides and folders are in your case,” she told Bray, maintaining her smile. “Sorry, but I really do have to get Mr Charleston away or Gilson Mather will hunt me down…”
They made it to the waiting vehicle and entered the air-conditioned interior.
“I was told off,” Lottie said, “and made to see sense.”
“Is it all right with the firm?”
Lottie gave a half laugh. “Still worrying over pointless details even now, Bray? We’re going to have none of that for ever and ever, d’you hear?”
She turned away, shaking her hair down over her face to consult a list. “We have two hours. You can have a rest and a bite.” She leant forward to speak to the driver. Bray watched Manhattan, feeling life was suddenly saner.