The Fearsome Particles (21 page)

Mounting a swaying ladder typically gave Gerald pause, typically triggered a flood of plunging-related imagery, but that was when his objectives were mundane – examining the flashing around the chimney, clearing vegetation from the eaves – but this time his objective pushed him through all his misgivings, until he could see his son, still at his computer, through the leaded window. He watched him for a moment, the light of the screen pale on his face. Then he plucked the shears out of his back pocket, reached up and, doing in a second what might have taken the squirrels months, cut the cable to Kyle’s room.

E
dward Caughley swept back his blond wisps of hair, leaned over the display table, and picked up a small tin car. It was about the size of a whisky flask and painted a gas-flame blue. It had a metal key in a slot in its trunk, just above an outside-mounted spare tire the diameter of an old silver dollar. He held it so that its wheels rested on the platform of his hands, and presented it to Vicki.

“This just came in on Tuesday,” he said, his voice a reverent murmur. “It’s a J. Distler clockwork sports coupe. Circa 1949.”

She picked it up and turned it over in her hands out of a sense of courtesy. The morning was ruined – she had planned to spend a good two hours searching all of her Yorkville shops for the crucial elements of the Lightenham boy’s room, while Hella worked at the house, supervising the last delivery of furnishings and accents, and beginning the final stage of setting tables and making beds. But after the ridiculous business with Gerald and
having to drive him to work, she had been left with time to visit only one of the stores, and so of course she chose her favourite. It was at Caughley Antiques, some years ago, that she had found the set of three stone bisque-headed dolls from Sweden, with their lovely, almost marbleized finish, that were such a popular addition to her young girl’s rooms. And it was Edward who had researched Russian samovars for her and found a wonderful silver one with bone handles from the late 1800s, which she often used as a focal point on the William iv mahogany side table (and was in fact having delivered today).

Though he was a slightly tremulous man with long fingers and limp hair that was forever falling into his eyes, Edward Caughley was the dealer she most trusted. He was one of the few who seemed happy to pursue her tastes and not his own, and he was the only one to whom she had confided her method, an act of faith she had never once had cause to regret.

She handed him back the Distler car. “It’s charming, Edward. Really very sweet, but I don’t think so.”

“Too young?”

“Perhaps.” She scanned the table of toys. “I’m just not sure.”

“That’s all right. It’s a bit expensive anyway.” He replaced the car amongst an array of shiny trains and tin money boxes. Then he clasped his fingers under his chin and gave her a probing look. “What can you tell me about this boy? What are his interests?”

She gave a weak little laugh. “I’m at a bit of a loss, actually.”

“Well, let’s start with his age. Middle school? Slightly older?” He was trying so hard, and she was failing him. “Frankly, Edward, I’m struggling with this one, I don’t quite know why.
But I guess I was hoping to find some inspiration here. It’s happened so often before.”

It was a small thing she could do for him, and he seemed delighted.

“You know,” he said, touching her arm, “I almost didn’t open the shop today – I had a bit of a headache this morning – but now I’m so happy I did. Do you know that no one has …” He stopped, with a far-off look, and waved the thought away. “Never mind. Of all the things to talk about.” He seemed to have an idea. “Victoria, would you like some tea? I have a pot steeping.”

I
n the back of the store, where the space was cluttered with old wooden filing cabinets, broken-limbed hat stands and dusty stacks of magazines, and where the ancient linoleum was chipped and worn away in a trough, exposing subflooring all the way to the rear door, Vicki sat on the edge of a bentwood chair and sipped too-strong tea from the cup that Edward had given her.

He rolled up a tippy wooden office chair that was missing one of its casters and slid into the low side. “I’ve been meaning to ask,” he said, “how’s Kyle? Have you heard from him lately?”

Vicki stared at Edward, not quite comprehending.

“He’s in Afghanistan, isn’t he? Among the dunes?”

“Oh.” She smiled and looked down at her cup. “No, he’s home, actually. He flew home last week.”

“Well, that year went by quickly, didn’t it? I remember you telling me –”

“No,” she said. “He came home early.”

“Oh, I see.”

“There was some problem.”

Edward’s pale green gaze seemed to search for a place to land. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that.” He pushed the hair back from his forehead. “Is he all right?”

Vicki shook her head as she beamed. “Completely,” she said. “He’s taking some time to think about what he wants to do now that he’s home. I expect he’ll go back to school.”

“Pick up where he left off,” said Edward.

“Exactly.”

“He’s quite the science whiz, isn’t he?”

“Oh, yes.” She wanted to set her cup down, because the tea was too acidic for her, but there didn’t seem to be a handy surface. She began to reach with it toward the shelf of a dilapidated cabinet that held what Edward called his “undecidables,” which included a nineteenth-century silver-mounted French violin bow that had belonged to a renowned local prodigy named Stephan Brunett. The odd thing about the bow was that the bow hair had been severed cleanly, as with a pair of scissors, at each end. What made it an undecidable, in Edward’s eyes, was that a few months after the bow had come into his possession, Stephan, then a young man in his twenties, had committed suicide by jumping into the path of a subway train. In the view of some collectors, that raised its value, and Edward was disinclined to profit from tragedy, or allow anyone else to.

“Here, I’ll take that,” he said, reaching out for Vicki’s cup.

“Thank you.” She rose and smoothed her skirt over her hips. “That was lovely, Edward. A lovely break in a hectic day.”

He was hunting for a place to put both cups down and finally cleared a space on his desk with an elbow. “I left the tea steep too long, didn’t I?”

“No, no. I just have to get back.”

“I’m always doing that.” He put a palm to the side of his face. “I get talking with elegant women, you see. And then things like tea just …” He filigreed the air with his fingers to show the thoughts escaping his head.

Just now, looking at Edward’s shy smile, a boy’s smile, Vicki felt a terrible sadness wash over her. “It was very kind of you, Edward. And just what I needed. Thank you.”

She turned and began to walk back through the store.

“So it’s that gorgeous Lightenham Avenue house you’re working on now,” he said as he followed.

“That’s right.” She opened her purse and rummaged for a Kleenex. “The builders want to list it on Saturday, and Avis has a private showing tomorrow, which gives us no time.”

“And it’s only the one room you’re having trouble with?”

“Just that one.”

“Well, when you’ve got some ideas, please call, all right? And I’ll do –”

She had turned at the door, just to say goodbye, and the sight of her had stopped him. His hand went to his mouth.

“Victoria?”

She swept a thumb under her eyes and chuckled. “I’m being silly. Everything’s fine.” The heavy iron door latch seemed to be sticking.

His eyes shone with alarm. “Are you sure?”

“I think I’m just feeling a
lot
of pressure to get this house ready.” She opened the door and then, with a smile, touched the air between them. “Thank you, Edward. I’ll come back as soon as I know what I’m doing.”

He held on to the edge of the door with both hands as she left. “I know it’s a ridiculous thing to say, but I want you to call me if there’s anything I can do.”

At the moment the brick steps took her into the sunshine, she turned and lifted a hand.

Where was the box of artificial fruit?

“Hella?” called Vicki. She was in the kitchen of the Lightenham house, well over her little moment in the doorway of Caughley Antiques, and the Peruvian fruit was missing. Hella was outside, on the front steps, having one of her cigarettes, but Vicki was sure she could hear.

“Hella! Hella, sweetheart!” She heard the front door open.

“Sorry?” came Hella’s voice.

“The fruit,” she called. “Where have you put the box of papier mâché fruit?”

She heard a sigh and the sound of the door closing, and then Hella appeared under the arch between the kitchen and hallway, binding her dark, shoulder-length hair with a thick elastic band. “You’re missing what? The fruit?”

“Yes, all of it.” Vicki stood at a kitchen island whose marble surface should have been polished and blank, save for a reticulated Worcester basket in white porcelain filled with a bounty of oversized artificial apples and rustic pears, but which was instead
laden with four heavy but decidedly fruitless cardboard boxes. “I’ve looked in every one of these,” she said, lifting cardboard flaps at random, “including the one labelled ‘fruit,’ which I gather is old, and I can’t find them anywhere.”

“They should be there.”

“Yes.” Vicki nodded. “They should be.” She told herself not to worry, that Margeaux was not one to fuss over a thing like artificial apples and pears handmade by artisans in Arequipa and she could easily send Hella out to buy six pounds of real fruit if it came to that. But the trouble was Avis would be arriving in half an hour expecting the main level to be ready and this was bad timing for a setback.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Hella.

“Hmm,” said Vicki with a nod and a tight pursing of her lips. “What do you think we should do?”

“What do you mean?”

She set her hands on her hips. “Well, only that we’re expecting Avis at one, aren’t we?”

“I think so.”

“Yes. And she’s going to want to see how we’ve set everything up, and if we can’t find the fruit, I have nothing to put in the Worcester basket.”

Hella stared for a moment at the porcelain basket sitting empty on the counter. Her eyes brightened. “We have that extra set of linen napkins, right? You could put them in there and it could be like a napkin server.”

Vicki offered a thin smile, like a gift. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Hella folded her arms and seemed slightly hurt. “I think it’s a good idea. It’s kind of fun.”

Vicki closed her eyes and shook her head as her smile held fast. “It’s not a napkin server, Hella, it’s meant specifically for fruit. And the point, let’s remember, is colour.”

“Okay, well …” Hella looked off and shrugged. “I don’t know what else to suggest.”

There were days when Vicki wondered whether Hella really enjoyed her job, days when she found wrinkles in the bedspreads Hella was paid to make smooth, when bathmats failed to line up square to the flooring tiles and now when boxes of artisan fruit disappeared without explanation, and without any sense that Hella understood why it mattered. Vicki took these events as proof that, even when one made the best choices available, things didn’t always work out as planned, because when Hella had started with her three years ago, she seemed to have such potential.

“Anyway,” said Hella, “I don’t know why we’re so worried about a bowl of fake fruit when there’s a whole bedroom upstairs that’s hardly been started.”

Vicki dropped her head without a word, then picked up a box filled with Longton Hall china and took it into the dining room, where the drapes and the Matthews series of wood warbler illustrations had been hung (as per Margeaux’s affection for northern hemisphere perching birds), but the table and sideboard had yet to be finished.

She began unpacking the plates and stacking them at the head of the dining table, and kept at it when Hella came in.

“I can do that,” Hella said, wadding up a handful of packing paper.

“Actually I’d prefer it if you located the papier mâché fruit,”
said Vicki, her eyes on the plates. “At the moment that’s where you could be the most help to me.”

“But I looked. I don’t know where they are.”

Vicki lifted her head. “Exactly where have you looked?”

“Well” – Hella waved an arm behind her – “this whole floor to start with. And some of the boxes upstairs too.”

Vicki exerted the great energy to smile. “Then why don’t you try looking in the boxes that you haven’t checked?”

“There’s no point, they’re not up there. I think we should just try some –”

“I can’t
tell
you what a tremendous help it would
be
to me,” stressed Vicki, her jaw as tight as the fist she was butting against the table, “if you would just look
high and low
for the artificial
fruit.”

For a moment Hella, who was already a thin, wiry woman, seemed to become thinner and more wiry. She dropped her eyes to the balled paper in her hands and began pulling at its edges. “There’s probably a better use of my time, though, Vicki,” she said quietly. “Because I know I’m not going to find them.”

Vicki forced the muscles of her neck and jaw to ease, but she still found it necessary to keep her fist pressed against the table. “How do you know, Hella? What are you not telling me about the fruit?”

Hella’s chest rose with a deep breath and fell. “I feel really stupid, but” – she looked up – “you know how one of the apples was chipped on the top?”

“Yes, we always put that one at the bottom of the bowl. It’s never a problem.”

“Well, I was telling my husband about it. He’s a wood guy, you know? Refinishes wood? Mostly pine stuff, for cottagers.” Hella was making intermittent eye contact with Vicki, but most of the time kept her eyes on the ball of paper, which she was now turning in her hands. “And he said he could probably fix it. And I thought that would be a nice thing to do for you. And then, so, I brought the box home with me, because it was easier than searching through the whole thing at the warehouse. And while it was at home with me, my kids got into it.” She paused and looked up, as if to gauge Vicki’s state of mind, then continued turning the paper ball. “I was in the basement, doing the laundry, and I don’t know where the heck my husband was, but anyway my, well, one of my kids got into the box. You know Jeremy.”