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Authors: Margot Livesey

BOOK: Banishing Verona
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“Once, years ago, I had a friend called Marian. She was the opposite of me: tiny, ferocious, funny, incredibly well-organized.
We shared an office at my first real job, and four or five nights a week after work we'd go out for a drink. We couldn't get enough of each other's company.”
But when she'd been promoted and Marian hadn't their friendship had dwindled. “She would phone and write, but I was always too busy to get together. We'd meet every two or three months. Then one night she phoned around eleven. She said she had the flu. She kept talking about a cat she'd had as a child. ‘I'm worried about Pushkin,' she kept saying. ‘I'm worried I forgot to feed him.' I promised to come round first thing in the morning. When I got there at nine-thirty, the ambulance was already parked outside.”
He watched her lips, her eyes, her cheeks, the muscles of her throat and forehead, and fewer and fewer of her words reached him. But when her story was done, the candles guttering, the fire dying, her face wore an expression he understood. He reached across the table and took her hand in his. “You did what you could. You don't expect people to die of the flu, not young healthy people.” As he squeezed her palm against his own, her face changed, the light in her eyes leaping and fading. Had he been too bold? No, the candles were the culprits. Together they snuffed the flames.
She led him up the stairs. “Help me,” she said, presenting the coveralls. Soon she was naked, ample and unabashed. Can this be happening, Zeke thought. Then she was pulling back the covers and he was lost.
 
 
When he found himself again, minutes or hours later, basking in the warmth of her proximity, he began to talk about his clocks. “I buy them from jumble sales and junk shops and repair them. I have nine up and ticking, though two are still erratic.”
“Do you know about the clock in Prague, in the Old Town Square?”
“Tell me.”
A famous clockmaker had made it for the king. When it was finished and everyone had agreed it was a masterpiece, the king ordered his soldiers to blind the clockmaker so that his clock could never be surpassed. For years the blind man lived on the king's charity in a cottage below the castle. At last, on his deathbed, he asked to be carried into the presence of his masterpiece. He passed his hands over the mechanism, and the clock was silent for two hundred years.
“You mean”—Zeke stared up into the darkness—“he did something to the springs?”
“I suppose.”
“But how could he bear to?”
She kissed his shoulder. “Revenge,” she said. “How else can we rewrite the past?”
He kissed her back. “I can't answer that right now, but I will eventually.”
As her breathing grew louder and slower, he felt his anxieties gathering. He tried to calm himself by counting the parts of their bodies that were touching, the parts he still had to touch. He counted her breaths, his own, the cars passing in the street outside until at last he realized the situation was hopeless. “I have to go home,” he said.
“Must you?”
No, he thought, not if you'll talk to me all night long in that drowsy voice. “I'm sorry. It's not you. I just can't handle strange houses, strange beds.” He touched her cheek. “But I can learn.”
 
 
The next morning Zeke knocked only once before setting aside the fried-egg sandwiches—he'd chosen brown bread in an effort to offset last night's beer—and sliding the blade of his penknife under the catch of the side window. He left the bag of sandwiches on the kitchen table and climbed the stairs, hoping to find her still in bed, warm and sleepy, hoping to slip in beside her. And this
time, he thought, however stupid, however embarrassing, he would ask her name.
The bed was unmade, empty and cold to the touch, the suitcases gone. At the foot of the bed the rug was rolled up, and spread-eagled on the bare wooden boards lay the coveralls, neatly buttoned, arms and legs stretched wide, like an empty person. Only when he knelt to pick them up did Zeke discover the three-inch nails that skewered the collar, pinned the cuffs and ankles to the floor.
His first thought was that she had been taken by force, kidnapped, stolen, but when he returned downstairs he saw the keys lying on the kitchen table. In his distraction he had not noticed them as he set down the sandwiches, nor the sheet of paper with a single line written in pencil:
Thursday, 7 A.M. Thanks for everything. I'll be in touch soon
. So then he had to consider the other dreadful possibility: he had driven her to flight. Somehow he had misunderstood when she led him upstairs. His attentions—such a cool word for the exquisite shock of flesh on flesh—had been unwelcome. If that were the case, though, why had she reached into her suitcase and, after some searching, produced a pack of condoms? Well, not his attentions but something in the aftermath, some inadvertent comment or gesture. He went over and over what he recalled of their exchanges as they lay side by side, touching at ankle, thigh, elbow, shoulder. Still nothing came to mind. She had kissed him when he got up to leave and said see you tomorrow. Perhaps there was a third alternative: an emergency had arisen not for her but demanding her immediate presence—a friend or family member in trouble—which had made her rush off without so much as a proper note. Even as he labored
over the explanation, meticulously fitting the cogs and springs together, oiling the movement and tightening the tiny screws, the image of the coveralls, nailed to the floor, hovered on the edge of his vision.
He could not have said how long he sat at the table before he had his first truly consoling thought. She was the Barrows' niece. When they returned from Latvia, all would become clear. With this in mind he was able, at last, to open the paper bag and eat one of the sandwiches, now cold and limp. The other he kept, just in case. Soon, she had said.
He didn't turn on the radio, he didn't go out for lunch, he left the bathroom door ajar and refrained from using power tools, but no one rang the doorbell and the only phone call, on either his answering machine at home or his mobile, came from his mother, who had already left several brief imperious messages. He worked until his usual time and left a note fastened to the stepladder:
Thursday, 5 P.M. I'll be back first thing tomorrow.
After some hesitation he used both locks on the front door; he still had responsibilities to her aunt and uncle. He was loading the wallpaper steamer into his van when he heard a distinctive tapping sound. The fake blind boy was making his way along the sidewalk. Forgetting his fraud, Zeke stared openly.
“Alms, give me alms for the love of God,” croaked the boy, stopping right beside the van and aiming his black sunglasses at Zeke. “How about a pound, man?”
Zeke fished a coin from his pocket. “Do you know where she is?”
“Who?” The boy rapped his cane twice, hard, on the sidewalk as if he were the one demanding answers. Beneath the jagged strands of brown hair, his right ear, Zeke noticed, was missing a V-shaped piece from the lobe.
“The Barrows' niece. She came to the house and helped me and now she's gone.”
“How the fuck,” said the blind boy, “would I know where anyone is? I don't even know where I am myself.” He seized the pound and continued tapping down the street.
 
 
Zeke could have finished the living room the day she left, he had already painted the woodwork, but he lingered hopefully through the following day, postponing his next job. The Barrows—as he retouched an awkward corner, applied an extra coat to the skirting boards—were the winners. At last, when all his tools were packed, the floors swept, the kitchen cleaned, he gave in and climbed the stairs one more time. He stopped first in the master bedroom and then in the study, delaying as long as possible the moment when he must confront her absence. If only he had stayed here, he would know why she had carried away her suitcases and Ms. F. The coveralls, he felt sure, were a message, but not in any language he could understand. Were they a promise or a threat? Was she saying: wait, I will return? Or help, I am in danger? He had removed them the day before when he couldn't stand the sight of them any longer.
Finally, he entered her room. He had not touched a thing, besides the coveralls, since he found her gone. Now he stood just inside the door, taking in the desolate space. Who could believe that furnishings and objects were inanimate when you saw how, ownerless, they lost their luster? And what of us, he thought, turning on the bedside light where she had reinstalled a bulb. Aren't we too diminished when nothing reflects our spirits? That was how he felt about his clocks; their presence amplified his own. He looked at the chest of drawers, the wardrobe, the chairs, and, last of all, the unmade bed whose wrinkled sheets still held, barely, the shape of her. They miss her, he thought.
He pulled his sweater over his head, unbuttoned his shirt, unzipped his jeans. He folded his clothes neatly on the foot of the bed, and naked, almost shivering, climbed between the sheets. I don't want to rewrite the past, he thought, gazing up at the ceiling. I want to rewrite the present. He rolled over and buried his face in the pillow, breathing in the smells of cold and loneliness. Beneath the pillow, his fingers encountered something unexpected. He
drew the book into the light. It was of modest size, maybe nine inches by seven, and bound in soft brown leather, like the books he'd seen in cases at the British Museum. With a little encouragement, it fell open to reveal a page of handwriting.
He stared in surprise. Not a book she was reading but one she was writing. And then, a second surprise, the writing itself. He had expected her script to explode across the page, comparable to the bold manner in which she entered rooms. Instead, the letters marched in small, neat rows from left to right.
He raised his glass. “To Edith, who didn't change.” He tipped his head back and drank until the glass was empty. “Did I mention the farmer's daughter,” he said, “as sweet a piece of crumpet as ever I squeezed? She made such a racket, I had to put my hand over her mouth.”
Quickly he closed the book. None of his business, but all the rooms, all the nooks and corners of his brain, were suddenly filled with sunlight. Her aunt and uncle returned tomorrow, and he had the perfect excuse to see her again. With this thought he slid from the bed, dressed, and straightened the sheets. Let the next guest enjoy the oceanic smudges of their lovemaking. Carrying the book, he made his way downstairs.
 
 
He had been home barely long enough to take a shower and change when the doorbell rang. It buzzed, stopped, and buzzed again. He dropped the dish towel he was holding and ran. Absurd, but she had found him once, why not again? He flung wide the hall door, spun down the stairs, opened the front door. For one second, perhaps two, hope persisted. On the doorstep stood a woman wearing a dark jacket, black-and-white checked skirt, sleek boots, and—this seemed crucial—carrying two plastic shopping bags.
“Zeke, I was worried you weren't back yet.”
“Mum.”
“Gwen,” she corrected, as she did over and over.
Deflated, he stared at her china-blue eyes, her pink cheeks. Familiarity, as he'd tried to explain to the most intelligent of the doctors, didn't necessarily make recognition easier, in fact, sometimes the reverse. Whereas a stranger, an elderly man with bushy eyebrows and high coloring, seen once during a freak hailstorm at a bus stop, was instantly recognizable six months later in the queue at the post office.
“No, no,” she said, as he reached for the groceries, “I'm balanced.”
She was past him and up the stairs in a flash. He stepped out to the curb and, just in case, scanned the dusky street. Only the usual parked cars, dustbins, lampposts, and leafless elms greeted his gaze. Walking among them were those at one end of a lead, on two legs, and those at the other, on four, panting, pulling, peeing. The hour of the dog.
He reached the kitchen in time for Gwen's first volley. When truly aggravated, she sometimes launched her attack before the target was in range, heedless that her missiles fell on empty chairs and tables. “You always did keep the place like a laboratory,” she said, flinging a reproachful red-tipped hand toward his shining sink, his unblemished stove. She herself, working all day in the shop, made a virtue out of unwiped counters, unswept floors. “Don't get me wrong,” she added. “Nothing the matter with some spit and polish, but at your age you should have better things to do.”
“Why didn't you let me know you were coming?”
“Why should I phone when you never answer? I've left all these messages, asking you to call.”
Never was an exaggeration, else he wouldn't stay in business, but it was true that his mother's voice emerging from the answering machine seldom prompted him to pick up the receiver. The machine was among his treasured possessions. If only there were a comparable invention to deal with actual people that you could
carry around to intercede between you and them, he'd give a year's pay.
He watched as she bent to put a pint of milk in the fridge, her skirt riding up her black-stockinged thighs. Not the sort of thing you ought to notice about your mother, but these days everything was in disarray. Besides, Gwen wanted to be noticed. With her swinging blond hair, her vivid lipstick, she could almost pass for one of the schoolgirls he saw most mornings on his way to work. He had been sixteen before he understood, not through any special insight but a comment of the boy next door—your mum's a knockout—that what he was watching in the shop, day after day, right under his father's nose, was flirtation.
Lovely ripe melons, Gwen would say with a wink. Nice firm cucumber. Everyone, she insisted, can always buy one more thing than they've thought of at home. She would go all out, especially with Roger, the dark-eyed waiter from the local Italian restaurant. She would offer him oranges to sample, mushrooms to inspect. Sorry, he'd say, flaunting a sheet of paper, not on the chef's list. One afternoon when she'd been pushing the pears—Don't you use them in your poofy salads?—and Roger was offering his usual denials, Zeke happened to catch sight of the list.
Cress
, he read,
garlic, fennel, 3 lb. pears.
But before he could remind him, Roger had announced, as if granting a huge favor, that he would take some pears. Later when Zeke told Gwen what he'd seen, she had laughed and said Roger liked making her work.
Now, he knew, she had her own list, which, when it suited her, she would reveal. The last time she'd dropped in like this unexpectedly, with groceries, she had wanted him to do a job, at cost, for her sister. He watched her produce a bunch of parsley, too limp to sell. What if he said he had a prior engagement, or simply bolted? But she rolled over him like fog: inescapable. Sit down, she told him, and he did, a prisoner in his own flat.
“Jersey toms, carrots, onions, a couple of beetroot, a nice cauliflower—they
aren't selling, I don't know why—some grannies for your lunch, a lemon.”
The other bag held provisions from the supermarket next door, oil, butter, flour—she wasn't taking any chances on his larder—and from the fishmonger across the street. Zeke had to look away when she unwrapped two speckled trout and dangled one toward him.
“Ray recommended them. Straight from the fish farm this morning. He said to let you know he'll be calling soon about his front hall.”
“No hurry.” With his bulging eyes and minimal chin, Ray bore a strong resemblance to his watery wares; he had always been among Zeke's favorite neighbors.
While she peeled the potatoes, Gwen asked about his customers, the ones who were refusing to pay. “Was there something they wanted you to do over?”
“No, they kept saying how pleased they were.”
“So?” Nails flashing, she quartered the potatoes. “What's the problem?”
Zeke described the various stages of nonpayment: they didn't have the cash, they were out when he went round at the agreed time, they claimed the check was in the post. Then he had gone back with Emmanuel. Mrs. Patterson had cracked the door, still on its chain, and at the sight of them tried to close it but Emmanuel, a veteran of such greetings, had already jammed his foot in the gap. He had pounded on the door, screaming, until Zeke finally managed to drag him away. Two days later he had pretended the check had come and paid Emmanuel his share.
“Bastards,” said his mother now. “You gave them a written estimate, didn't you?”
He nodded.
She slammed the cauliflower down on the stove. Like the niece, he thought happily. “We'll fix them,” Gwen said. “How much do they owe?”
“Four thirty.”
“And do they have it?”
“He's a teacher and she works at a hotel. But Mum, we can't just barge in.”
She gave him a look that long experience allowed him to recognize as withering. “We won't need to.”
A memory, far from reassuring, of his mother marching into his history classroom surfaced. Do you know how many spelling errors there are on this page alone? she had said to Mr. Hoffman, holding out Zeke's essay on the Corn Laws. And your only comment is “good research.” More recently, at various clinics, she had let fly at the vague diagnosis: dysfunctional, Asperger's syndrome. He never should have mentioned the Pattersons, but often when Gwen phoned, he found himself casting around for safe topics and, one beleaguered day last week, had offered them up.

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