The Believers (27 page)

"But, Khaled, nothing would ever change if everyone took that attitude."

Khaled shrugged again. "Things
don't
change."

"Yes, they do. You don't think people achieve things by fighting for their rights? Look at the union movement. It's transformed the lives of millions of American workers over the last century--"

"Oh, you're probably right. I don't know what I'm talking about." He began to stroke her back. "Is this nice?"

"But wait a minute--"

"Let's not argue."

"We're not arguing," Karla said stubbornly. "We're having a discussion."

"Okay, let's not discuss it, then," Khaled said.

"Khaled, you really don't have any interest in politics, do you?"

"If I say no, will you be disappointed in me?"

"Yes."

"Okay, then, of course I am interested. Now, I would like to make love to you again."

Karla looked down at him. His face was in shadow and only the whites of his eyes and the gleaming curve of his cheekbone were visible. When she was younger, boys had asked her to "go to bed" with them, or sometimes to "go all the way." These days, she and Mike usually negotiated, in a businesslike way, about whether or not they were going to "have sex." But no one had ever proposed making love to her.

Her cell phone began to ring. She rolled over to examine the caller ID screen. "It's my sister."

"Don't answer it," he said.

"I have to. It might be about my dad." She picked up the phone. Rosa's voice was garbled, and she was speaking very fast. "Slow down," Karla said, swatting Khaled away as he leaned in to kiss her. "Tell me again." She got out of bed and walked into the bathroom.

When she reemerged, she had put on a robe.

"What is it?" Khaled asked. "Is your father all right?"

"Yes. It's...I can't really work it out. My sister says my mom attacked someone at the hospital."

PART
IV

CHAPTER
19

A deer stood at the bottom of the long, sloping garden, listening to the strange sounds that were floating down the lawn. Slowly, with an elegant, high-stepping gait, he moved forward in the direction of the noise. Just over the rise of the hill, he caught sight of Jean kneeling in a flowerbed. She was wearing a boat captain's hat and singing as she dug holes for daffodil bulbs.

Early one morning just as the sun was ri-ising,

I heard a maiden singing in the va-alley below

All through the summer, the grounds of Jean's house in Bucks County had been noisy with the drone of dragonflies and the lascivious croaking of frogs, but it was quiet September now. The wild blackberries along the driveway had gone to seed. The croquet hoops had been put away. Jean's voice rang out through the chill air like a bell in a canyon.

Oh don't deceive me, oh never leave me

How could you use a poor maiden so?

She stopped abruptly and glanced up at the house, fearful that she might have woken Audrey. The poor thing needed her sleep. For the last five weeks, while Joel had been fighting pneumonia, Audrey had been constantly at his bedside, hectoring doctors and haranguing nurses, insisting that he not be allowed to die. Through the sheer force of her will, it seemed, she had got her wish, and Joel had now been officially pronounced out of danger. She, though, was a wreck: pouchy-eyed with exhaustion, and savagely thin. She had arrived last night, planning to return to New York with Lenny first thing this morning, but Jean had taken one look at her and insisted that she stay a day or so to rest.

Jean heard something move behind her. She turned around and saw the deer loitering twenty feet away on the lawn. "Hello, you handsome thing!" she murmured. "How are you today?" The deer pawed at the grass and looked off into the middle distance, like a sulky child.

"Off you go, then," Jean said, raising her voice. "You're not having any of my flowers today." She waved her hands. "Go on! Shoo!"

The deer gazed at her impassively for a moment, then turned away and, with two arching leaps, disappeared back into the woods.

Up on the top floor of the house Audrey lay in a frilly four-poster bed, listening to the throaty sounds of the mourning doves out on her windowsill. She was remembering a disastrous excursion to Kent that her family had taken one bank holiday weekend when she was ten. Her parents, who rarely ever ventured beyond Hackney, had approached the manicured home counties with all the trepidation of travelers entering an uncharted area of South American rain forest. Unwilling to broach the green silence of the countryside proper, they spent the first day of their visit wandering about the drizzly precincts of the local village. (Audrey's mother, who was always hankering after some elusive notion of authentic Englishness, wanted to have tea in a teashop, but Mr. Howard had vetoed this on grounds of expense.) On the Sunday, in one great stab at adventure, they hired bicycles and wobbled off on a ride. Shortly after setting out, however, Mr. Howard developed a painful rash on his legs and, convinced that he had been bitten by a snake, he immediately retreated to the bed-and-breakfast to summon medical assistance. When the doctor arrived an hour later, slightly drunk and extremely ill-tempered at being called away from his Sunday lunch, he took one look at Mr. Howard's shins and clapped his hand to his brow. "Good God, man," he exclaimed, "have you never heard of stinging nettles?" Mute with shame, the family had returned to London that same afternoon.

Audrey was very sorry now that she had agreed to stay the weekend with Jean. She wondered how the two of them would fill the time. There would be a walk, she supposed--there was always a bloody walk--and perhaps, at some point, a game of cards. Then what? She stretched out her arms and surveyed the sea of rustic tchotchkes that surrounded her bed. Jean's modestly sized guest room contained, among other things, a nineteenth-century commode, a sign for an English pub called the Crooked Billet, two milking stools, a rocking chair painted with daisies, ten framed embroidery samplers, and a reproduction Welsh dresser. In the old days, when Jean's husband had been alive, Jean's passion for crap like this had been subject to some constraint. Max had insisted that most of her flea market acquisitions be consigned to the barn and the attic. But since his death twelve years ago, Jean's flea market obsession had been liberated. The house now resembled a shrine to Mrs. Tiggywinkle.

Audrey got up and dressed herself hurriedly in the clothes she had been wearing the night before. On her way downstairs, she passed Lenny's room. There was a sticker on the door--a souvenir from the days when Jean and Max played host to city children from the Fresh Air Fund. "Warning," it read, "Girls Having Fun!" Audrey knocked. When she received no answer, she peeked inside. The room was very clean and orderly--eerily so, for a place being inhabited by Lenny. A folded towel and washcloth hung neatly on a rack in the corner. On the wall over the dresser, Lenny had pinned up the first verse of the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the SERENITY to

accept the things I cannot change;

COURAGE to change the things I can;

and WISDOM to know the difference.

Audrey made a face and quickly closed the door before continuing on down to the kitchen. Here, on a table crowded with butter dishes shaped like cows and honey pots shaped like beehives and teapots shaped like English country cottages, she found a note from Jean: "Am in the garden. Bagels and croissants in the cupboard."

She poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot on the stove and went outside. It had rained the night before, and the ground was soft beneath her Chinese slippers. Her breath formed wet, coffee-scented clouds. At the sound of the screen door banging shut, Jean, who was now digging the flowerbeds at the foot of her barn, swiveled around. "
Hello
, dear! Did you sleep well?"

"Like a log. Where's Lenny?"

"Gone to a meeting in Doylestown."

"
Another
meeting? Wasn't he at one last night?"

"He goes twice a day, one in the morning and one in the evening. He's very good about it."

"How does he get there, then?"

"I drive him mostly. One of his NA friends gave him a lift today."

"Oh." Audrey watched with a small grimace as Jean pulled a fat pink worm from the soil and deposited it on one side. "I had a look in at his room on the way down," she said. "It's ever so tidy in there. Have you been cleaning up after him?"

Jean shook her head. "No, no, he keeps it that way himself."

"Bloody hell.
I've
never been able to make him pick his clothes up off the floor. You must have some power over him that I don't." She hesitated, waiting for Jean to contradict her, but Jean just shrugged and went on digging in the flowerbed.

Audrey wandered down the lawn to the pond. Beneath the lacy-edged lily pads that matted its surface, a goldfish was creeping through the weed-silted murk. She smiled suddenly, recalling a winter evening years ago when Joel had gone skinny-dipping in this pond. It had been a dare of some sort--or a forfeit--she wasn't sure. She and Jean and Max had stayed inside the house and watched from the window as he went streaking through the garden. His cries when he plunged into the icy water had sent all the birds on the hillside squawking into the air. Later on, in bed, she had found a shred of pond weed still clinging to his pubic hair. Joel had never let the countryside intimidate him. He had simply filled its creepy stillness with his energy and noise, transformed it into another outpost of Joeldom.

"Isn't the garden looking lovely today?' Jean called. "I do love this time of year. All the lovely fall
gunge
. I wish you could have been here this summer, though. The fireflies were
stupendous
."

Audrey nodded absently. "Yeah?"

"Oh, yes. The garden just
teemed
. It was a real light show..."

Audrey looked around, wondering how long Jean was going to talk about nature. "What's that over there?" she said, pointing to a freshly whitewashed shed at the back of the barn. "That wasn't there the last time I came."

"Oh, no, it's always been there, I've just had it done up a bit. I've made it my writing nook."

Audrey's eyebrows rose satirically. "Your what?"

"I go in there to write my journal and poems and whatnot. I find it's the only place I can really concentrate."

Audrey smiled. Jean really was a preposterous woman at times.

"Now, look here," Jean said, "I've got hundreds of bulbs to plant. Would you like to give me a hand?"

"I don't think so, Jean. I don't know anything about gardening..."

"Don't be silly. Planting bulbs is as easy as pie. I'll show you."

"Nah." Audrey shook her head. She walked over to the porch step and began to roll a joint.

"I was thinking," Jean said. "You don't need to leave tomorrow night. Lenny's in no hurry to get back. You could stay on a few extra days and really recuperate."

"No," Audrey said quickly. "I have to go. I can't leave Joel for that long."

"But the girls are there. Surely they can handle things for a bit?"

"They can't take care of him the way I can. They don't know how to deal with the doctors. I need to be there."

Jean went on digging. "How
are
things with the girls?" she asked.

"Oh, all right. Karla goes about looking like someone told her Santa Claus doesn't exist. Rosa's still busy being outraged and disgusted."

"Well, I dare say she feels a lot of anger on your behalf, Audrey. Children always feel very protective toward the wronged parent--"

Audrey lit her joint and exhaled impatiently. "Bollocks. Rosa's not worried about
me
. I don't even come into it. It's all about how betrayed
she
feels, how deeply, deeply disappointed she is with her daddy for not being the celibate saint she thought he was--"

She stopped, having spotted Lenny coming up the gravel driveway. "Hello, love," she called out. "Where's your lift, then? Don't tell me you walked?"

Lenny shook his head. "Nah, I got dropped off at the bottom of the drive."

He had caught a bit of sun since Audrey last seen him and put on some weight. "Don't you look handsome?" she cooed. "Come on"--she held out her arms--"come over here and give your old Mum a hug."

Lenny walked a little way toward the porch and then halted. He gestured at her joint. "It'd be really helpful if you didn't do that around me, just now."

Audrey looked at the joint and then back at Lenny. "What--you mean--oh, right!"

Lenny waited until she had snuffed the joint out on the sole of her slipper and put the stub in her pocket before coming forward to embrace her.

"So how are you, sweetie?" Audrey whispered in his ear.

"Good," Lenny said, stepping back. "
Really
good."

Audrey nodded, obscurely put off by his aggressive assertion of well-being. "I'm glad." She patted her pockets. "You got any fags on you?"

"No, I've been trying to cut down. I only smoke in the evenings now."

"Ohhh! Aren't you being good!"

"Well, I've been trying to take care of myself--eat right and whatever."

"Lenny goes for a run most mornings, don't you, Lenny?" Jean said.

Audrey laughed. "My God, I can't imagine you as a
jogger
, Len."

"It's the endorphins," Lenny said earnestly. "They really make you feel amazing. Dave--you know, my sponsor--he turned me on to running."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Dave's a really amazing guy, the best sponsor I ever had. He really kicks my ass, you know? Doesn't let me get away with any bullshit."

"That's nice."

"Actually, Dave's going to come by this afternoon. If that's okay with you."

"Sure, why not?"

"Just to hang out and have a coffee. He wants to meet you."

"Fine," Audrey said, a little mystified. "Whatever you like."

"All right!" Lenny slapped his thigh resolutely. "I'm going in to get changed now. I've got some work to do for Jean."

"What work?"

"I've been stripping down this dining room set for her. I need to get it varnished today."

"Oh, go on! You can stop for five minutes to talk to your mum. It's not as if Jean's running a bloody labor camp, are you, Jean?"

"No," Jean said. "My goodness, of course not."

"See? Jean doesn't mind if you take a break."

Lenny shook his head. "No. I promised I'd get the job finished before I went back. I want to keep my promise." He stepped past Audrey and went into the house.

Audrey gave a little jump as the swing door slammed shut. She looked at Jean. "Well,
he's
very full of piss and vinegar, isn't he?"

Dave turned up at four o'clock. He was a short, bearded man in his early forties--sinewy and handsome in a weathered, sea-captainy sort of way. He stood up when Audrey entered the kitchen and shook her hand with a lot of meaningful eye contact. "It's great to meet you, Audrey. I've heard a lot about you."

"Oh, yeah?" Audrey said, disliking him already. "All good, I hope?"

Dave laughed. "All good."

"So what do you do for a living when you're not looking after Lenny?"

"Actually, Audrey, I own my own carpentry business in Doylestown."

"Oh, good for you." There was something irritating about the way he kept using her first name. It was the sort of smarmy trick that politicians used when they were trying to be matey with old ladies at campaign stops.