The Last Little Blue Envelope (6 page)

One More for the Road

“Is my American accent bad?” Keith asked quietly, once they were on the bus.

“It was fine,” Ginny said, looking down at her lap. The accent still burned her ears, but there was no point in telling him that.

“I’ve been working on it for a while. Mimicking Marlon Brando in
A Streetcar Named Desire
. And I’ve been trying to copy
The Wire
, but that one is kind of hard. . . . Anyway, I have to text. . . .”

The sentence trailed off, so that had to mean he was texting Ellis. It seemed that the policy was going to be that Ellis would never be mentioned directly. It was hard not to hate Ellis. This wasn’t her fault. But she could hate Oliver. That was a perfectly acceptable activity. He was sitting two rows in front of them on the top of the bus. His hair was cut very cleanly and precisely, with a ruler-straight line along the back of his neck. He had a mature bearing—seated straight, shoulders back. Not rigid, just very
adult
. Keith was more slouchy and scratchy and free-flowing. Keith looked like a student. Oliver looked like someone with . . . some kind of responsibility.
Evil
responsibility.

When they got off the bus Oliver kept about ten feet behind them as they walked to Keith’s house.

“I’ll wait out here,” he said.

“Yes,” Keith replied. “You will.”

The house was cold and mostly dark, but the lights were on up in Keith’s room. Ellis was already up there, looking out the window.

“Is that
him
?” she asked. “Down in the garden?”

“That’s Oliver,” Keith said, opening his closet, shoving some things aside and pulling a bag out from under a pile of stuff. “He’s the wanker who’s got Gin’s letter.”

“He’s more normal looking than I thought he would be.”

Ginny peered between of the blinds on the other window. Just below, Oliver was patrolling the garden, his one arm behind his back, the other working the cigarette. He gazed at the cracked pavement like it was a map he was using to plot a siege.

“He’s a prize,” Keith said. “I’m just going to get my things from the bathroom. I’ll be ready to go in a minute.”

Then it was just Ellis and Ginny, smiling strangely at each other. It took Ginny a second to realize it but David wasn’t home . . . which meant that Ellis had let herself in. Which meant she had her own key. And that . . . was not something Ginny was going to dwell on. She let the blinds go and they fell back into position, sending a spray of dust up her nose.

“So,” Ellis said cautiously. “I have nothing in my diary for the next few days. And I packed a quick bag. I don’t want to intrude, but if you wouldn’t mind . . . I’d love to come. Really. Only if you don’t mind.”

In the bathroom, Keith could be heard crashing through the medicine cabinet. Either he was intentionally being loud, or he had temporarily lost muscle control. He must have known this question was coming.

“It’s all right to say no,” Ellis said. “I know this is personal, and important.”

That sounded very sincere. Ellis was genuinely asking Ginny if it was okay. But what else was she going to say? No?
No, Keith’s friendly girlfriend, you cannot take a trip in your own boyfriend’s car?
Even when it was her, Keith, and Oliver, at least it was two against one. They would stick together. But now, the dream was well and truly over.

“Sure,” Ginny said, trying to sound enthusiastic. “Of course.”

Ellis clasped her hands together in excitement. “Oh, I’m so glad. I’ve never been to Paris before. Weird, right? Since it’s just a short train ride away, and I studied French for years. I grabbed a few things from Sainsbury’s. . . .” She picked up a shopping bag by her feet and held it up. “Biscuits, crisps, fruit, water. Some Top Trumps for the long, boring bits on the train. We’ll need to take the Chunnel—I looked up the route online. Plus, I bought a map of France just in case we can’t get a signal.”

Keith decided this was a good moment to return. He had an overstuffed backpack, and was punching the contents down with his fist.

“I’m coming!” Ellis cried. “Ginny said it was okay.” Keith kept squishing and pushing the contents into the bag, trying to get it closed.

“Brilliant,” he said. He gave the zipper one final tug and strode out of the room. “We should get going.”

“Is that your car?” Oliver asked when they came outside. He pointed to the humble, turtlelike automobile parked at a slight angle in front of the trash.

“Awe will soon take the place of jealousy,” Keith said, brushing past him. “I’ve seen it before.”

Keith opened the trunk and examined the contents. He had cleaned it out a good deal, but it was still fairly full. He grabbed up two large bags, looked inside, and dropped them into an open trash bin. Though Ginny loved the little white car and had many fond memories of it, she understood Oliver’s trepidation. It didn’t exactly look like the ideal vehicle to take around Europe. For London, sure, it was perfect. It was small and pre-dented, ideal for zipping between buses and cabs and down narrow streets that were never built for cars. You could park it anywhere—you could probably park it
in the house
if you had to. Plus, it wasn’t something anyone would want to steal. The white was faded, like old T-shirts that had been washed too many times with black socks. There were dings and scratches and tiny, coin-size spots of rust near the bottom. It screamed, “I have manual locks.”

“We’re not
all
going,” Oliver said, glancing at Ellis’s overnight bag and shopping bag full of food.

“Oh, but we are.” Keith shoved his bag in first, then gestured for Ellis and Ginny to pass theirs over. Oliver tried to put his in as well, but Keith slammed the lid down before he could.

The car was a two-door—a fact that had never been relevant before. Ginny had always been in the front seat. Today, she would almost certainly be in the back. She never thought about the back of the car as being an actual place you could sit. It was more like a glove box extension.

“I’m shorter,” Ellis said. “I’ll get in the back with Gin.”

“No,” Keith said. “Let
him
manage in the back.”

“Gin’s taller than me. She should ride in the front. This is her trip. I’m intruding.”

“It’s fine,” Ginny said. That conversation needed to end. “I’ll take the back.”

She folded down the front seat with a bang and plunged in headfirst, getting briefly tangled in the seat belt, before squeezing herself in. The backseat was not a happy place. It was covered in musty-smelling fabric—fabric that had seen dirty sets and smelly costumes and piles of old take-out bags of hamburgers and fried fish and chips. In fact, the first thing it brought to mind was the swimming pool Dumpster, except it wasn’t as big and it wasn’t as clean.

What was mildly uncomfortable for her must have been torment for Oliver, who was at least six or seven inches taller. His head scraped the roof and he had to keep his neck slightly bent. He stuffed the backpack by his feet and held the leather satchel on his lap. The combined effect forced him into a squashed, leaning position, with his shoulder pressed up against Ginny’s ear. She tried to move closer to the door, but there was simply no more room. They had been packed in like freight. Keith got into the driver’s seat and immediately adjusted it back into Oliver’s already cramped knees.

“All set?” he asked everyone.

He put the key in the ignition and turned it. The engine made a terrible screeching sound, then coughed itself off. “This car is never going to make it to France,” Oliver said.

“Don’t worry about the car,” Keith said, jiggling the key. “Worry about yourself.”

“Who are you two? Do you have names at least?”

“I’m Mr. Pink,” Keith said. “She’s Mr. Shut Your Face. Now, tell us where we’re going.”

“Paris,” Oliver replied stiffly.

“Yes,” Keith said slowly, with mock patience, “you told us that already. But can you be a bit more specific than that? I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but it’s actually
quite a big place
.” He reached down and folded his seat back, completely crushing Oliver.

“I’ll tell you when you get off my lap.”

“I just want you to know what to expect from this trip,” Keith said, folding the seat back up into a driving position. “Pain. Not nearly as much as you deserve, but we will try our best.”

“I already worked it out,” Ellis said, holding up both a map and her phone. “We take the M20 to Folkestone, then from there we get the train to France. The trip to Paris should take about five and a half hours, total, so we’ll be there by dinnertime.”

“I’ll tell you the rest when we’re closer to Paris,” Oliver said coldly.

“‘I’ll tell you the rest when we’re closer to Paris,’” Keith repeated, in an exact copy of Oliver’s voice. He could do other types of English accents very well, at least to Ginny’s ear. “Posh boy speaks posh. Bet you went away to school. You a public school boy? Sent away from home at a young age? Is that why you’re so well-adjusted?”

“Yes,” Oliver said. “That’s why. Can we go now?”

The Talking Letter

Most of the route to Folkestone was a highway—so the next two hours were mostly spent looking at the backs of flatbed lorries, vans, other cars, and the many sheep and horses that seemed to graze along England’s major traffic arteries.

Keith’s car, never a prize, was even worse in the winter, in the backseat. It was thin and poorly insulated. The heater was a concept joke that was probably funnier closer to the vents in the dashboard. Ginny huddled inside of her jacket and zipped it up over her chin, breathing hot air back on herself. In the front, Keith and Ellis were talking, but Ginny could just about hear them over the terrible noise of the engine. Oliver had his headphones in the whole time. She was in a little bubble, all on her own.

Once they got to Folkestone, they made their way into a long line of cars at a dock, where they sat for half an hour. Then a man in a glowing yellow-green jacket was waving them along a train platform to a series of wide doors and directly onto the train. This was an odd experience, being in a car on a train. All the cars trundled along through the silver train compartments. There were ads on the walls, and everything was bathed in a soft yellow light. Then another man in a vest flagged for them to stop. Doors closed and a heavy metal grate dropped down, locking them in. There were no windows around, not that there would be anything to see. They were going through a tunnel, passing under the English Channel—a kind of very long, sideways elevator ride.

Oliver tried to stretch a bit, accidentally digging his elbow into Ginny’s ribs. She pushed it back.

“So,” she said. “Are you going to show me the letter now so we know where we’re going?”

“There’s nothing to see,” Oliver said. “I don’t have it with me.”

On that, Keith and Ellis swiveled around.

“You
don’t have the letter
?” Ginny said. “You forgot it?”

“I memorized it.”

“You
are
joking,” Keith said. “I realize that you are not like the other children, but you
are
joking about that.”

In reply, Oliver tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and began to recite.

“ ‘Oh, you’re still reading. Good! All right, Gin. You’re in Greece. Greece is a fine place to be. . . .’ ”

Okay, so he wasn’t joking. This was weird, listening to Aunt Peg channeled in a deep male English voice. This was like a horrible séance. In a car, on a train, under the English Channel.

“ ‘Have you ever seen water like this? Felt sun like this? Is it any wonder that the Greeks were among the first to really start asking questions about the nature of beauty and art and life itself? This is the birthplace of Western thought. This is where the Big Questions were forged out of the stuff that had been eating at mankind’s collective brain for millennia—the big What the hell is going on? What the hell is going on? has been the central question of my life.

“ ‘Sometimes I’m asking it in a big sense. Sometimes I mean it in a very small, immediate sense, like when I am trying to do my taxes. Lately, what with the brain cancer and all, I ask it all the time. I ask it about the TV remote (which, to be fair to me, is insanely complicated). I ask it when I can’t remember which way it is to the grocery store. My disease has taken me on a journey of wonder, Gin. Wonder, and a lot of trying to buy bread at the post office.

“ ‘Even I know that some of the things I have asked you to do are strange, and I’m a weirdo with a tumor the size of an egg in her head. But I have a method to my madness.

“ ‘I want us to make a painting together. This painting is inspired by something my friend and idol Mari Adams did called Paint This for Me. She did a series of sixteen identical paintings—really simple ones—and then she left them in various places around Edinburgh to be touched, admired, rained on, stepped on, drawn on, sliced up . . . whatever happened to the paintings, that was all part of it. Then she collected them up and did an exhibition. I always liked the idea that the paintings were out there living their lives, being changed by the world. My idea is a little different. I am making one picture out of different materials that I have placed around in various spots. In order to collect them, you’re going to need to revisit some places you’ve been, and go to one place you haven’t. I’m marking your route home.

“ ‘The first place you’re going back to is Paris. No one “gets” Paris after one visit. No one. How you get there is up to you. I know how I would want to do it—I’d jump ferries all the way across the Mediterranean, stopping in Sicily and Sardinia. Or you could stay along the coast of Italy and France, bouncing your way along the Rivera. Or you could just take a plane. Whatever floats your boat. Or plane. Just get to Paris. And what’s there—the first part of this piece is the background—the sky.

“ ‘Sometimes, Gin, I wonder what inanimate object I would like to be, if I could be any inanimate object in the world. There are so many good choices. I’d love to be an airplane that crossed the Atlantic twice a day. I’d love to be the Tivoli fountain, where poets have perched for hundreds of years, and tourists have come to understand the joy of living art. But the one I always come back to is much more humble. I’d love to be a tabletop in Paris, where food is art and life combined in one, where people gather and talk for hours. I want lovers to meet over me. I’d want to be covered in drops of candle wax and breadcrumbs and rings from the bottoms of wineglasses. I would never be lonely, and I would always serve a good purpose.

“ ‘I suppose you remember going to my friend Paul’s restaurant, the one I decorated? I made four tabletops for it. They’re all made out of doors, and I painted each by hand. The paint I used wasn’t really designed for the wear and tear of a restaurant, so they should all be well-marked. It’s up to you to take the one you know is right. You’ll know it when you see it. Use your instincts.

“ ‘Paul knows that you will be coming back to take one of the tabletops. I asked him not to mention this to you when you first came by—so I hope you are pleasantly surprised that you are going back.’ ”

Oliver stopped and fiddled with the clasp of his bag.

“That’s it for now,” he said.

It was only then that Ginny realized she was clenching her stomach muscles to the point of nausea, holding in whatever reaction hearing this letter produced. It wasn’t sadness or excitement—it was homesickness and nostalgia. It was like hearing the voice of a ghost. No one said another word until the train came to a stop and they made their slow way out and onto a French road, which looked more or less exactly like the English road they’d just left behind.

“It’s in the café,” Ginny said quietly. “Les Petits Chiens. That’s what it’s called.”

It took about three hours of driving through France, punctuated by a few dodgy turns and bursts of swearing from Keith. Ellis navigated while Keith negotiated a car with right-side steering on what was, for him, the wrong side of the road. Oliver went back to his music and staring out the window. Ginny was left to her own thoughts, which was honestly the last place she wanted to be left.

They reached Paris right around five, just as the streets were snarled with traffic and the dark had descended and the streets glowed orange from the streetlights. It was bizarre how quickly generic highway could turn into . . . well, Paris. For the first time since she had gotten in this car, Ginny felt a surge of excitement. There was the Eiffel Tower, just illuminated for the night. There were the long stretches of creamy white buildings with their big gray-black roofs and their skylights. There were the Art Nouveau Metro signs from the turn of the twentieth century, with their sinuous green iron workings that looked like curling plants. This weird, impossible place that looked like a collection of palaces, a grubby city, a museum, a tight cluster of cafés—everything, all at once.

In the summer, the trees had been thick and green. Now, the trees were bare, but heavy with lights, so many lights, the color of champagne bubbles. Paris took its decorating seriously. The smells of the city seeped in—the bread coming from the bakeries, the toasty smell of a crepe truck, the occasional gust of sewer or garbage. Then, right back to the bread and crepes. Ginny’s stomach grumbled loudly.

“I could eat one of those little dogs,” Ellis said, pointing at someone walking a ratlike creature. “I am honestly that hungry.”

“Me too.” Keith swerved to avoid a pedestrian—or maybe toward a pedestrian. It was hard to tell. “I’m glad we’re going to a café.”

They drove on to increasingly smaller and more familiar-looking streets, finally arriving on a narrow artery where motorcycles had completely taken over the sidewalks for their driving and parking purposes. The car barely fit down the road. Keith stopped when he could go no farther and they seemed to be in the right area. They climbed out of the car. Oliver immediately grabbed for his cigarettes and shoved one in his mouth.

“I know where we are,” Ginny said. Somewhere in her brain, she had stored the layout of these little passageways. She started walking, surprising herself with her own assurance. Sure enough, she turned a corner and saw the tree that blocked the front, now bare of leaves. Les Petits Chiens was dark. There was a sign stuck to the door, which was barely visible. It’s never good when there’s a note on the door of a shop or restaurant. It never means, “We’re open and everything is working just
fine
.”

Ginny held up her phone to illuminate it.

“It’s in French,” she said. Her three and a half years of high school French had led her to this moment. “It says . . . ‘Dear Customers, Jean-Claude and I have gone to Orange for the holiday. The restaurant . . . will open . . . something, something . . . on January third. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. . . .’ Oh my god. It’s closed until January.”

That was it. Instant failure, right out of the gate. Oliver cupped his hands around his face and pressed his face against the window to look inside. He tried the door as well, even though it was pointless. Keith immediately began laughing the tired laugh of someone who has just driven all the way to Paris in a backwards car.

“So we came all this way for nothing,” he said. “Brilliant. Maybe this is something we could have checked on if we
had the letter
.”

“All right!” Ellis said brightly. “This is just a little setback. We made it all the way here, we can figure this out.”

No one replied, so she tried again, this time bouncing a bit as she spoke. “We haven’t eaten properly all day,” she went on. “We just need some food to buck us up, and we’ve got the best food in the world all around us. Let’s find ourselves a nice little café and have some dinner. Then we can think about what to do next. Right?”

Nothing.

“Right?”

“Might as well,” Keith said. “I’m starving.”

He threw one arm over Ellis’s shoulders. With the other hand, he beckoned Ginny over. Ginny stepped over quietly. He draped his other arm over her shoulders, making them a friendly threesome. Behind them, Ginny could hear Oliver walking quietly in their footsteps.