The English American (15 page)

I
’M SITTING IN THE BACK OF
B
ILLIE’S CAR
,
sandwiched between Ralphie and my obese, manic-depressive aunt Marcie, while Billie careers down Buck Mountain at top speed toward the church. My aunt Octavia is sitting in the front next to Billie, telling me all about her daughter.

“Your cousin Augusta could be your double. She’s got the red hair and the dimples when she smiles. Only she’s got no arms and legs.”

Rocks and dirt are spraying out from the side of the car.

“She lost her limbs the day she tried to kill herself. She threw herself off a bridge, but failed.”

“It’s the family mood disorder.” Marcie’s voice is as deep as a man’s and she speaks very slowly. “It affects different family members in different ways.”

Ralphie is staring blankly out of the window.

Octavia pulls out a gold-plated compact mirror and puts on some bright red lipstick, which is a challenge, because the road is bumpy and Billie’s pushing seventy.

“I am just shocked at the way Molly Alice forced Daddy to have a traditional funeral and is just
refusing
to allow me to read my poem!” she says. Octavia has written a poem in memory of Earl entitled “My Father, My Self.”

“She knows Daddy wanted us to celebrate his life, not mourn it. Now she’s finally got him where she wants him, she can control him,” Billie says, taking a furious swig of coffee from her no-spill coffee cup. It misses her mouth and splashes, unnoticed, onto her coat. It smells of hazelnut. “Well, she can’t control what we wear.”

I am wearing a dark green chiffon dress of Billie’s mother’s, itchy and tight at the waist, and a pair of Billie’s high-heeled velvet shoes. Billie and Marcie are both dressed in cherry red. Octavia is wearing a winter white cashmere suit. Poor Ralphie has been forced into a gold jacket and a red tie. We look like figurines on the top of a Christmas cake.

Unused to high heels, I hobble into Mapleville Episcopal Church behind Billie and Octavia, who stride in front of the rest of us, with their heads held high, wearing the only colored clothes in the church.

The right-hand side of the church is filled with about seventy of Molly Alice’s family members. In the dim church light it’s difficult to tell whether they’re hunching their shoulders or a family with very short necks. Their black eyes dart suspiciously around the room. They look like a gang of moles. There isn’t a blonde or a redhead among them. In the front right pew, Molly Alice is seated quietly next to her daughter, Lee, who is as tiny as her mother.

On the left-hand side of the church is Earl’s family from his first marriage. Billie, Octavia, Ralph, Marcie, me, and, at the back of the church, a short, furry, red-haired man in his fifties who has to be my Uncle Irv, the convicted felon.

Octavia is sitting ramrod straight, with her poem folded on top of her white velvet purse. She is trying to catch the attention of the Reverend, who is trying to ignore her.

“Reverend!” Billie says. “Reverend!” Her words echo loudly through the church.

The Reverend Carpenter turns his attention to Billie and scuttles toward us.

Billie smiles at him. “You remember my big sister Octavia?”

“Tommy, I have known you since you were in shorts,” Octavia says, “and you will listen to me with something resembling respect. I would like to read a poem I have written about my daddy.”

Reverend Thomas Carpenter’s voice is strained, but calm.

“Octavia, we have been over this already. Earl’s wife requested a traditional service, with no additional readings.”

“Daddy would have hated that!” Billie is almost spitting. “You know that, Tommy!”

“There will be no poem,” the Reverend says, all serenity gone. “Do you hear me? There will be no poem!”

“But…”

The Reverend Carpenter’s green eyes bulge. He is trying to keep his voice low while his blood pressure visibly rises.

“Mrs. Parnell”—he is annunciating his words so carefully, he sounds almost British—“Molly Alice was married to your father for thirty years. She doesn’t want to hear Octavia Stanford at her husband’s funeral. She wants to hear Saint Luke.”

Octavia draws herself up to her full height. “That’s no way to speak to Earl’s oldest living blood relative!”

But the Reverend has already left for the other side of the church.

Octavia is shaking. Billie’s gone red. The service has begun.

“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound…”

The accent doesn’t matter. Anglican or Episcopal, the church service is the same on both sides of the Atlantic. Long, slow, dull, but comforting because, and perhaps only because, it is familiar.

But dull is not an adjective that can legitimately describe this particular service.

“We’re not going to Molly Alice’s reception after the service,” Billie whispers loudly in my ear during the first reading. “Pass it on.”

Next to me is Johnny Taft. Earl started him in business when he was eighteen and helped him buy a house on the mountain. He’s a gentle, still, bearlike man who loved Earl. He is crying quietly.

I pretend I haven’t heard Billie and stare at my hands, which are clasped, tightly, in acute embarrassment, around the funeral program on my lap.

When the third hymn has been sung, Billie stands up.

“Reverend Carpenter, Molly Alice, friends, relatives, a word, please.”

Oh no.

There is a murmur in response to Billie. The Reverend stands. Then sits. Then stands. Then sits again.

“I was the person holding Daddy’s hand when he passed, and I would like to say a few words if I may.”

Billie bows graciously in Molly Alice’s direction. Molly Alice stares back at her, frozen. Billie’s voice fills the room. Her tone is soft, respectful, sincere.

“I know you’re all going to go to Molly Alice’s gathering on Pine Drive after this funeral. And I can understand you would want to do that, out of respect and all.” She nods in Molly Alice’s direction again, smiling graciously. “But if, after that, you’d like to celebrate Daddy’s life in the way he wanted, with music, dancing, and poetry written by a family member, I’d love you all to come on up to my place on the mountain after the formalities are over.”

She claps her hands like a child.

“I even have Daddy’s favorite bluegrass band coming!”

And then, as if it’s an afterthought, Billie turns toward Lee. She is staring at Billie, blank-faced and still as stone.

“And, well, as we’re all in God’s house, I would like to take this opportunity to say something to my half-sister Lee.”

Her voice drops low, but every word echoes through the church.

“Lee, I love you! We may have very different mothers, but you will always be my sister! And I want you to know that Daddy forgave you. Yes, he felt a little sad that you waited until the winter of his final year, when his body was riddled with cancer, before telling him. But both Daddy and I were so proud of the fact that you finally found the courage to tell him the truth about your sexuality.”

Despite themselves, the congregation turns to stare at Lee, whose expression is still blank.

“Lee, Molly Alice, everyone, I’ll hope to see you all later. And Lee, I want you to know that, in my house, you will always be welcome to bring your lesbian lovers.”

The organist plays Bach’s funeral fugue as the rest of the congregation scrambles to its feet.

Friday afternoon I’m in New York City putting up flyers for Billie’s next workshop. The traffic going back to Adler will be horrible until much later, so I decide to take the man in the balaclava up on his invitation and go to British night at The Gold Room. It sounds like a fancy place, and I’m in my overalls, but so be it. At least they’re the velvet overalls with the pretty buckles.

With visions of all the British friends I will have by the end of the evening, I enter the small, brightly lit bar with gold tables, bar stools, and a piano in the corner of the room. A fat, friendly waiter in lederhosen with a bell around his neck takes my coat, tells me he loves my accent, and points me toward the only available seat.

I perch on the gold bar stool, which is unusually high up, and look around. I note that half the people in the room are wearing lederhosen. The rest are dressed in long dresses with sequins and boas and wide-brimmed hats. All of them are men.

A man in a large white wig stands up at the microphone next to the piano and introduces “The Fabulous Sal,” at which point the man who took my coat leaps toward the microphone. When he gets there he sings the song about the lonely goatherd from
The Sound of Music
. He yodels beautifully, in perfect falsetto.

Everyone in the room knows the lyrics and sings the chorus with him in tune and in time. I’m applauding and yodeling with the rest of them when I see Jack, who is also dressed in lederhosen.

“You came!” he says, hurrying toward me with a broad smile on his face.

“Yes,” I say, laughing. Then, “Sorry. Bit underdressed.”

“No, you look beautiful,” he says.

I like being called beautiful, even if the chap saying it is a flaming homosexual wearing shorts in the middle of January.

“Are all these chaps British then?” I say. Jack looks at me for a moment, then he laughs loud and long.

“No,” Jack says, finally. “We sing songs from British musicals on Fridays. Tonight’s
The Sound of Music
and
My Fair Lady
. Sorry—again. I should have known you wouldn’t know. The Gold Room is a cabaret bar. Which means most of our clientele are gay.”

Two old men dressed in pink and purple boas stand up to leave, and Jack whisks me to their table, which is right at the front.

“What can I get you to drink?”

“Chocolate milk?”

He seems charmed by my choice of beverage. Good. I can be myself here. I start to relax.

The pianist starts to play, and Sal is talking now. “It’s british night, ladies and…ladies,” he says. “And we have a real live Brit among us. What’s your name, sweetie?”

The adrenaline is up. I’m not going to be able to resist this.

“Pippa Dunn,” I say.

“Can you sing?”

“Well, yes…”

“Know any
My Fair Lady
?”

I grin at him. “Oh yes.”

“Come on up here!”

I leave my seat for the piano.

“Gorgeous outfit, darling. Where did you get it?”

“Harrods,” I say. Everybody laughs.

I’ve never used a microphone before and tell him so. He shows me how. My hand is trembling slightly. But when the pianist starts playing “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly,” and I start to sing, the music takes me over, as it always has done. I’ve known and loved this song all my life.

All I want is a room somewhere,

Far away from the cold night air

The crowd stops talking and listens. Half of me is in the room, singing to Sal, Jack, and the cluster of handsome, gloriously clad gay men who are smiling up at me. The other half of me is back at boarding school.

It is my first day of term and I’m the new girl. I was a year and a half younger than the other girls in the dorm. Mum and Dad were moving again, and I somehow managed to pass the Eleven Plus when I was ten. “She’s got a gorgeous voice! Come, Flora, listen to this!” Six girls are standing around my bed in their long flannel nighties. I am standing on the bed, high as a kite on the excitement of being at boarding school, just like the girls in the Malory Towers books. I’m singing them the same song I’m singing now.

Singing makes me feel connected somehow. At peace.

Now I’m back in the cabaret club again. At the end of my song the boys applaud wildly and ask for more.

“Who are you?” Sal is talking to me from the front row.

Good question.

“My name is Pippa Dunn,” I say.

“Where are you from?”

They’re all looking at me, waiting for an answer.

“Buck Mountain, Georgia,” I say, in my poshest English accent. They all laugh and clap. “No, seriously,” I say, “I came to America two months ago to meet the mother who gave me birth for the very first time. You see, I was adopted and brought up in England. Two months ago I thought I was English. But I’m not. I’m a redneck.”

They laugh louder and clap longer. The guy at the piano starts playing “Redneck Woman.” Unable to resist, I sing the lyrics in the most upper-crust English accent I can muster, and, to my surprise and delight, the crowd goes wild.

At one in the morning, I say good-bye to Jack, who gives me his address and phone number and tells me to call him anytime. I promise to come back to The Gold Room and sing again.

I drive back to Adler yodeling at the top of my voice. And as I yodel, in my mind the New York skyline transforms into the Swiss Alps. And the toll collector at the George Washington Bridge becomes a lonely goatherd shepherding his flock along their way.

B
ILLIE AND
I put moisturizer on our faces in front of her mirror. She won’t allow me to use soap and water on my face in her house and insists that I adopt her nighttime skin-care routine, stage by stage. I’ve just told Billie I want to spend the weekend with Walt in Washington.

“But you only just got here!” Billie says, dabbing toner on her face in short, fast movements. “And it’s a three-day weekend! I thought we could do something fun together. We could start by getting our hair sun-glitzed.”

“We’ll have lots of time to do things together, Billie, and I’ll work hard for you, I promise. But first I really want to spend some time with Walt.”

“Well, we’d all like to spend time with Walt, honey. But your father is a very busy man.”

My heart thuds.

“He did say he’d love to see me,” I say, sitting on the love seat next to her dressing table and watching her finish her routine. “In fact, he said that if I didn’t come and visit him he’d come up here and put me in the car himself.”

Billie tips the yellow Clinique bottle upside down and puts more moisturizer on her face.

“Well, honey, Walt is the kind of man who says the things he thinks other people want to hear. Why don’t you spend this weekend in New York with me and go and see Walt in a month or so, when you’re more settled?”

My need to touch base with Walt wins out over my guilt at disappointing her.

“I really do want to go to Washington, Billie. Just for a few days.”

I think she’s forgiven me, but just as I’m falling asleep, she turns over and says, “You’re very manipulative, honey. But that’s okay. I was exactly the same at your age. I love you. Good night.”

The next morning, as I’m getting in the car, Billie says, “I may stop by and say hi to you and Walt on Monday. I’m not promising, but if I can get everything done…”

“That’d be lovely,” I say, guiltily hoping she doesn’t.

As I drive along the interstate between my mother and my father, the weather takes a turn for the worse. I call Walt on my cell phone. “The chap who filled my tank up with petrol said I’m probably about an hour away.”

“Hope you’ve got some warm clothes, kid. It’s colder than a witch’s teat down here.”

I have never had a good sense of direction. One summer Dad found me ten miles up the A23 looking for the sweet shop that was two minutes round the corner from our house. Dad knows that I am likely to get lost under the best of circumstances. My other father simply assumes I am competent in this area. He believes I can find my way to him by telling me to find the Washington Monument, turn left on Elk Street, and right at the light to the front of the Furama Hotel.

Four hours later, after an unfortunate detour in the direction of Lynchburg, I pull into the well-lit parking area of the Furama Hotel in Washington, D.C. Walt is downstairs in the lobby in a heavy coat. He almost drags me out of my car, tipping the valet to take out my luggage.

“Don’t ever do that again.”

We’re standing on the smooth concrete outside the hotel entrance, which oozes safety and comfort. Walt has his hands on my shoulders, so I have to listen to him.

“For years I didn’t know whether you were safe or in danger. I don’t ever want to be in that position again. For God’s sake, kid, where were you?”

I tell him.

“Pippa, if anything happened to you I wouldn’t even know who to call.”

“You’d call Billie, I suppose. And Mum and Dad, of course.”

“I don’t know how to reach them. I don’t have their number.”

“I’ll give it to you,” I say.

“You do that, kiddo.”

Walt’s apartment is a penthouse suite with cherry-red oak furniture, a thick light carpet, and huge glass windows looking out over Washington, D.C.

On the walls are pictures of Walt with Presidents Reagan and Bush. There are also prints of men in red coats and hard hats on horses. When Mum and Dad were living abroad, I used to spend long weekends away from school with my friend Amanda. Her father was the Master of Foxhounds, and they went hunting every Saturday. Groups of people in red jackets and hard hats, just like the ones on Walt’s wall, gathered on horses on their gravel drive until a horn sounded. Then they’d charge off into the afternoon rain, chasing dogs chasing a fox. Amanda would ride with everybody else and I would follow on foot, in a sopping-wet parka and gumboots, counting the minutes until we could go inside the big old manor house and have tea and chocolate digestives by the fire.

Now I stand next to Walt Markham, looking out over the Washington Monument. He feels like my father. He smells like my father. I am no longer chasing foxes in a wet world where I do not belong. Here I feel at home.

Later we eat dim sum in a noisy Chinese restaurant by the Capitol.

“I’ve told my wife,” Walt says. “I’ll tell the kids soon.”

My heart leaps. I can’t wait to meet Walt’s kids. Perhaps it’s because Ralphie’s so much younger than me that I don’t really click with him, I’m not sure, but I’m hoping I’ll connect with Walt’s children on a level that’s soul-deep. Or at least recognize them as my own kind.

“What did you say to Margaret?” I ask, trying to sound casual.

“I said, ‘Margaret, you remember the baby that was given up for adoption twenty-eight years ago? Well, she’s a little bigger now. And she’s come to find me.’”

“Did she mind?”

“Oh, I don’t think she minded the idea of you. It’s Billie she’s worried about.”

The dim sum sticks to the roof of my mouth. I unstick it with a sip of hot tea.

“Why is she worried about Billie?” I say. “It’s been decades.”

Walt drinks the rest of his beer in one swallow.

Later, Walt takes me to a fancy hotel restaurant with a lobby to hear some jazz. We’re sitting at the bar eating peanuts and drinking margaritas when a man walks into the bar. He’s about seventy years old, tall and thin, with a long face and a long coat. He waves at Walt.

Slowly, carefully, Walt turns his back to block the man’s view of me.

“Go to the ladies’ room,” Walt says firmly. “Now.”

“But I don’t need to!”

“I don’t want this guy to see you. He’s a spook.”

I roll my eyes. Mum and Dad always used to accuse me of being dramatic. Now I know where I got it from.

“There’s no need to be so dramatic,” I say, in a voice that sounds exactly like Mum’s.

“Go.”

“Okay.”

The bathroom has a comfy velvet sofa in it, a huge gold-plated mirror, and all sorts of makeup-related items girlie girls like to use. A hairbrush and comb, hairspray, hair gel, hair ties, Kleenex, Tampax, perfume, Q-tips, the works.

I spray a little perfume on my neck. I clean my ears with a Q-tip. I brush my hair. I sit on the couch. I brush my hair again. I sit down on the couch again. They have toothbrushes in individual packets, with the toothpaste already on them, so I brush my teeth. I look at my watch. Ten minutes. That’s more than enough.

I leave the bathroom. The man is still talking to Walt. Walt is moving his hand behind his back in a subtle gesture clearly intended to send me back into the bathroom. But I don’t feel like going.

“Hallo,” I say, walking over to them, smiling at the man and holding out my hand.

“Hi,” he says. He looks at Walt and back again at me.

“I’m Pippa.”

“Pippa’s a friend of mine,” Walt says quickly. “She’s here on a trip from England.”

I don’t know why I expected Walt to acknowledge me as his daughter, but I did, and for a second I feel dirty. Then years of British training take over.

“Very nice to meet you,” I say.

“And you,” he says. “You have such a pretty accent.”

“I’m from England,” I say. “Have you been?”

“Oh yes,” he says. “My wife and I have spent a lot of time there.”

“Really?” I say, in my most charmed voice. “How interesting! Which part?”

The man and I continue to have exactly the same conversation I have with every American of a certain age who has spent time in England. He and his wife just love England. They especially love it when the Brits call road bumps sleeping policemen. His great-grandfather was from a town just outside London called—now, what was it? Oh, if my wife were here, she’d know. That’s right. Streath Ham. And isn’t it funny that the hotelier told his wife, “I’ll knock you up in the morning?”

When he leaves I turn to Walt and say, “He’s not spooky. He’s very nice.”

“I didn’t say he was spooky,” Walt says. “I said he was a spook.”

I look at him blankly.

“A ‘spook’ is a spy, Pippa,” he says.

“Oh,” I say. And then, “Do you know a lot of spies?”

There’s an edge I’ve not heard in my own voice before. Who are you, Walt?

“I want to keep you out of all this.”

“All what?” I say. “What?”

I can sense something I don’t want to sense.

“What could he possibly do?” I say.

“Well, he could start by revoking your American citizenship,” Walt says.

“Why on earth would he do that?”

“I’m not saying he would. But he could.”

“No, he couldn’t,” I say, suddenly afraid. Suddenly aware of how attached to America I already am. It feels right for me, somehow. Accepting. Familiar. Big enough. Whatever threat this man represents now feels personal.

“No he couldn’t. I was born here. No one can take my American citizenship away from me! My ancestors came over on the Mayflower on both sides! Hell, I’m an illegitimate daughter of the American Revolution!”

At this, Walt is unable to stop laughing, as is my intent. Then, “I get it, kid. I’d have come over too when I was your age.”

“You’re completely overreacting. He was very nice. He’s been to Harrods.”

The pianist is arriving now.

“Come on!” I say to Walt. “Let’s get a better seat.”

Everything is forgotten as the man at the piano starts to play. Music has always had the power to wash away whatever’s going on for me. Even confusing, upsetting things.

When he is done, the piano man asks if anyone in the audience would like to sing. He starts to play again. I know the song. It’s “If I Were a Bell” from
Guys and Dolls.
My adrenaline is up and I can’t resist. Grinning at Walt, I stand up and start to sing. The people at the bar stop talking and listen. The pride in Walt’s face has replaced whatever was going on earlier. When I’ve finished, Walt and the people who are left stand up.

“She’s good!” the people say, applauding. “She’s really good!”

“You’re more than good!” Walt says. “I knew you were the real stuff! My God, kid, you’ve got a Broadway voice!”

I’m basking in his praise, and then Walt starts to laugh. The music and the margaritas and the euphoria that comes whenever I perform start me laughing too.

“You do know Billie wouldn’t let you do that if she were here,” Walt says as I sit down again. “She has to be the corpse at every funeral.” Then, “How is she, anyway?”

The question is meant to sound casual. But something in his eyes tells me it’s not. I respond in the way English people have responded to the “How is she?” question since the dawn of the English.

“She’s fine,” I say. And then, “She said she might stop by tomorrow, actually…”

Walt orders another drink and asks no more.

Back in Walt’s apartment we both put our feet up on the oval glass table. We are both wearing odd socks. I’m telling him about everything I want to do.

“I’ve got all this extra energy, Walt, and now I know I’ve come by it honestly—well, there’s so much I want to do! I’d like to be a writer of some kind, and sing perhaps, and help Billie with her company, and, oh, I don’t know, I’d really like to try and
do
something politically.”

“You’ve got the genes to do whatever you want, kid.” His faith in me is catching and I’m on a high.

Now he’s on the telephone in the kitchen talking to his mother, who lives on a golf course in Sarasota. That’s what American grannies do, if they can afford to. British grannies stay in the houses they raised their family in and then get pushed off to an old folks’ home in Bognor, where they live out the rest of their days being spoon-fed pink blancmange and getting sponge-washed by women in their fifties who sit them in front of very loud televisions and get irritated when they wet the beds.

“She’s
exactly
like I was when I was her age,” Walt says over the phone to his mother, who was only eighteen when she had him. “She’s got our genes, Mother. And she’s ready to fly.”