Skyscape (25 page)

The room was spacious, and oddly under-furnished. There was a smell of fresh latex paint in the air, and the carpet underfoot was new. A television was on, the sound off. There was a commercial; you could buy an album of country songs sung by a group of men who were supposed to be brothers. They did not particularly resemble each other.

The man was as far away as he could get, leaning against a far wall with a slouch she associated with Westerns, the gunslinger who would not turn his back to the rest of the room.

He watched her for a moment before he moved.

His smile was welcoming. He was tall, and he stepped toward her confidently. She offered her hand. His grip was strong, and he kept her hand just a little bit too long, holding her hand, actually, as though they were lovers, or intimate friends.

What struck Margaret most, however, was her awareness of all of this—that he was a man acting welcoming, behaving in a confident manner, a good actor in rehearsal.

“You're a beautiful woman,” said Red Patterson.

The brightest source of light was the television screen. Shadows jumped, jittered.

She said that she didn't want coffee or a drink, and she sat. He sat across from her, looking relaxed, and Margaret told herself that the meeting was going well so far.

“I know Curtis believes in you.” She picked her words with care.

“But you don't.”

The carpet had a strong, chemical smell, the scent of factory-fresh fibers, adhesive. “I want to. But I was shocked to see him on television.”

Patterson said nothing, but he looked at her with kind, thoughtful eyes.

“Maybe I should have expected it,” she said. “Maybe I was naive.”

“It would have worked. If the shooting—”

There was a moment of awareness. Margaret knew that this must be the very room, this new carpet, this fresh paint, so much cosmetic to cover the signs of violent death.

“I felt betrayed,” she said.

“I'm so sorry,” he said.

His apology had weight. “I spoke with Bruno Kraft,” she said.

“I knew he was in town. I've always wanted to meet him.”

What motivated her to lie just then? “He has persuaded me that Curtis should just stay here in the City with me for a while.” She was almost certain that this modest lie would be detected by the famous doctor. But she continued. “Maybe it's best that he forget about painting. Maybe he should just be a human being.”

He was quiet for so long she began to think that now she had really blundered.

At last he spoke again. “You've been listening to a lot of advice,” said Patterson.

“What difference does it make,” she said, “if we take a few months—”

“It makes no difference. You're right.”

“Curtis is grateful to you—”

“Whatever you decide. Curtis, and you, and Bruno—just put your heads together and decide what to do. My life belongs to Curtis now. He's all that matters.”

These words made Margaret uneasy. “That's a very generous statement.”

“I love Curtis.” His features appeared carefully drawn, eyebrow well-delineated, skin smooth, a portrait rather than a living face. There was a quality of earnestness about his eyes, a seeming sincerity that was disarming.

No wonder people opened up to him, she thought. “Curtis's recovery has been faster than the doctors expected.”

“My patients always do well,” said Patterson, smiling agreeably. “And you're doing well,” he added, like a fellow performer complimenting her reading of a script. “I'm very impressed with you. You're a strong woman.”

His compliment stirred her, won her over, as she knew it was intended to win her. But the man had power.

He continued. “I want what's best for Curtis.”

Margaret was dazzled by this man—and puzzled. “Everyone acknowledges the good you can do.”

“Some people don't believe.” He shook his head, smiling sadly. “I think my critics dismiss me. They think I'm a creature of television, a monster. They want to keep me from doing good in the world. Curtis Newns is a client out of my dreams, a man I care about deeply, a man I can help return to his full creativity.”

The man
might
be sincere, Margaret knew. He certainly sounded earnest. His speech was slightly too measured, like someone reading from a script he had almost fully memorized. This same quality made his words seem thoughtful, someone who would rather listen than talk. Or perhaps he had been taking some sort of medication. He had that odd, a-beat-late quality she recalled experiencing herself, when she took pills once for a cracked molar.

He continued, “I know you don't want to be separated from Curtis. You must love him far more than I do. I can understand why you might be concerned.”

“Let me come with him,” she said.

He took a moment before responding. “I've considered this. I would certainly enjoy your company. But I have to wonder—is that such a good idea?”

“It would reassure me.”

He gave her what he must have known was a handsome smile, the sort of interested look that is hard to resist. His gaze was both intelligent and erotic, so that a conversation like this did not seem far from an act more carnal.

“Owl Springs would be wonderful for both of you,” he said. “I have a staff there, and all the comforts you might dream of. It's far away, out in the desert, inaccessible by car. We do have aircraft—”

She had read about the place, but felt it was necessary, for some reason, to make conversation, to fill the silence. “You fly? I mean, you have your own plane—”

“I have a license. And I have a small collection of aircraft. I fly, when I get a chance. But I do think Curtis needs time to himself, time to be alone, quiet. Don't you realize what a wonderful opportunity this is?”

She did—that was the trouble. Curtis would thrive in a place she had heard described as “an oasis safe from the daily riot.”

“Owl Springs is everything you can imagine,” said Patterson with a smile. “And more. Few people know this, but unauthorized aircraft are forbidden to fly over the estate. My land is next to a military preserve, and was declared off-limits as a legal courtesy to me. That makes the place especially peaceful.”

“Curtis would love it.”

“He would, very much. But wait,” he added, reading her expression. “You don't have to decide now. There's plenty of time.”

She felt grateful to him, impressed with his warmth, the kind look in his eyes. But she still doubted him. She felt the suspicion lingering, a residue, nearly sinful. She lacked faith. Red Patterson was elusive.

“Out there in the desert,” he was saying, “anything is possible.”

“I came to tell you that I wouldn't stand in the way,” she said. “I wanted to be sure.”

He did not show surprise or gratitude. He had the ability to seem interested only in her. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I am,” she responded, wanting to be more confident than she was.

When she was about to leave, she followed him to the door. He was close to her, and as she looked up at him she saw what might have been, intuitively, the source of her lingering doubt.

The man was wearing makeup, as though about to step before cameras. But Margaret understood that he was not doing his show these days. The look in his eye told her that he knew that she perceived this, and he shook his head, as though to say: this is our little secret.

Margaret was so close to Red that she could feel the heat of his body. “It was horrible,” she said. “What happened here.”

He kissed her—a diplomatic touch on the lips. She told herself that it was not romantic or erotic. It was even a little formal.

She would put her fingers to her lips in the days to come and try to tell herself that she had been given a blessing.

When it happened it was very quick.

Loretta Lee called her just before the surprise maneuver took place. “Everything is going to be just wonderful,” said Loretta Lee. “Curtis couldn't be in better hands.”

Margaret was able to careen through the traffic in the BMW just in time to give Curtis a kiss on his cheek, another on his mouth, and then for the cameras, a last kiss slightly off target, just below his nose.

It was going to be all right, they both agreed. The event seemed whimsical, not serious at all, in that way that good-byes often manage to blend pathos with prosaic comedy, delays, wind doing awkward things with clothes and hair.

It was very windy, and neither of them could hear the other very well. A team of doctors and nurses wheeled Curtis into a special van. Later, Margaret would watch this on the news. There was footage of Curtis smiling and waving, an unfocused, public benediction that made it appear that he was bidding farewell in a more general way, saying good-bye to all that smacked of illness and confusion. As he waved the plastic tubes tugged at plastic bags suspended above him, and the sacks of clear fluid swayed, festive and rhythmic.

The automatic lift of the van failed to carry him upward. A mechanic fiddled with something. Curtis looked like a man healthy enough, if a director had called
cut!
, to climb out of the chair and stride off into the afternoon sunlight.

When the van was gone there was a perfunctory flurry of attention around Margaret. There were a few questions, a few photos taken, but only one question stayed in her memory, nagging her afterward: were you surprised that Curtis was taken away so soon?

When she was home that evening she let the starling go. She did it with the same abrupt decision with which she would have killed it to keep it from suffering, or cut off an injured leg—the sort of speed required when one acts with uncertainty, hope, and ultimate doubt that one is doing right.

She told herself that she acted out of mercy. She was aware of the act as partly symbolic, but afterward she would find the symbol frustrating, elusive.

She believed that Curtis had won his argument, and that she agreed with him at last: a cage is an evil thing. The glossy black bird was out of the cage quickly, hopping along the rail of the balcony. It released one of its squeaky calls.

It flew very badly. There was a flutter, black feathers flung down into the late afternoon, like the fan of a storybook senorita tossed down into the growing dark.

27

Her mother called that night to say, “Thank heavens it's over.”

There was a rustle and thump outside, on the balcony. Margaret looked up from the telephone, but then told herself that she was hearing things. “I'm so glad that Curtis is in such good hands,” said Margaret, realizing how bright and insincere her voice sounded.

“Webber and I were just watching it on the news. Curtis certainly looks like he's lost a lot of weight.”

Surely, she tortured herself, there
was
something out there, a set of wings in flight against the glass door. “I thought he looked fine,” Margaret said.

“You must come and see us soon, Margaret. You were looking tired yourself, you know. You get those little shadows under your eyes, the same as I do.”

Tear yourself away from the phone, she told herself. Rush out to the balcony—the bird has come back. “I feel perfectly wonderful,” she said.

“You have such a bright future, Margaret. And Webber was saying how good you look on television, despite everything.”

She told herself to drop the phone and spring to the sliding glass door. But the phone had a mastery over her, and she knew the starling could not have returned. She guessed that he was already lost, finished after only an hour or two of freedom.

So she plunged on in what seemed like pointless conversation, the give-and-take she had indulged in on rocky flights as the
fasten seat belt
sign winked on, chatter as tranquilizer. “I didn't have a chance to plan any special clothes. I just wore whatever I had on—”

“And he was suddenly whisked out of your life.”

Margaret's mood turned from familial patience, a remnant of the desire to please her mother that had so adorned her girlhood, to something quite different. “You love doing this, don't you?”

Her mother sounded almost pleased. “I want only to help you, Margaret.”

“You feel that you absolutely
have
to call me up and needle me.”

“Perhaps it's the truth that causes you pain, Margaret.”

“You're always so sure of yourself.” This was all useless, Margaret knew, a slipping back into old domestic politics, Margaret playing adolescent, rebel peasant to her mother's duchess.

Her mother adopted a forgiving tone. “This has been such a strain, hasn't it?”

Margaret felt like a child, reduced to knocking the chess pieces onto the floor. She concluded the call politely, and hung up.

Outside, there was no sign of the starling, only the continuing wind hissing in the cypresses below.

Bruno called to say that he was heading back to Rome. He had met with the San Francisco police, and found them perfectly cooperative, but the wonderful drawings were gone. “We can hope that some ignorant child with accidental good taste found them in the gutter and now has some remarkable pictures to enjoy. Maybe some morning he'll suddenly realize that right next to his basketball posters is one of those famous lost—”

“We have to be realistic,” said Margaret.

“Not unnecessarily so,” said Bruno. “Not if it's terribly depressing. With any luck, we'll have some wonderful new Curtis Newns' work to champion. Are you all right?”

“No, I'm not. I'm doing very badly,” she said, in a burst of feeling that surprised both of them.

“I won't abandon you,” said Bruno. “But I really do need to get back to Rome—”

“I wouldn't ask you to stay here,” said Margaret, close to tears.

“You would be right to ask, Margaret. But I'm afraid my own life is just a little bit of a mess these days.”