The Visitors (12 page)

I went into the Indian restaurant and asked the host in the starched white shirt and silky black bow tie to please seat me away from the street and the window. When I walked across the wild battle scenes on the carpet I knew I was heading out to Michigan with Brendan. I didn’t want to go to that wedding. Didn’t want to see Una and her engineer. Didn’t want to ring Kevin. But you would have to ring him. Your neighbor from home. Have to. All that. Your fathers the best of friends. All that.

The waiter put the plates of food before me. I thanked him. The buzz from the booze and the pot was fading in its dismal way. I tore into the warm bread. I’d forgotten how hungry I was.

I rang him a few days later. We arranged to meet on Friday of that week at his new offices. He told me the address, and mentioned that the offices were under construction.

—One of them is yours for the taking, Jimmy, he added.

I thanked him.

That Friday I got on the T at Davis and sat across from a group of chipper college students. At Harvard Square they slipped out the opening doors and skipped laughing along the platform. The train picked up speed. I watched them, feeling that dreadful envy, but down in the dark tunnel between Harvard and Central everyone I ever loved and everyone I didn’t give a damn about vanished.

His office building was on a side street not far from the T. On the pavement was a large Dumpster. Two chutes led from it to two fourth-floor windows, where men with Irish accents were shoveling mortar into the chutes. The front door of the building was open. On the phone he’d said for me to come up to the second floor. He’d be there.

I headed up a stairs. On the second floor landing was a new stained glass door. A plaque:
O’NEILL AND LYONS
. I opened the door. The floor of the large room was covered with drop cloths. Stepladders and tins of
paint. The high ceiling and the walls smelled like they had been painted that morning. On the right side of the room was a desk, with a lamp and a phone. Behind the desk, a leather office chair. On the wall behind the chair was a photograph of the Limerick hurling team. I went around the desk and stared at the photograph. I felt sure it was one of the ones I saw on the wall of his father’s shed. I checked my watch. Half-eleven. I was dead on time.

The door to the next room was open. One wall was lined with filing cabinets. A card table and four metal chairs in the middle of the room. On the table the
Boston Globe
, a tin teapot you’d see in every house at home, mugs, a milk carton, a box of Barry’s teabags, a bag of Irish sugar, and an opened packet of Jacob’s Cream Crackers. I went over and ate one in two bites. A large rattling fan was jammed into the open window. To be heard in that room you’d have to shout.

I wandered down a short, newly painted corridor and stopped before a large framed map of Ireland. Around the map were portraits of famous Irish people. In their time they were mostly hated, or so few had ever really learned about them, but now money was to be made from them. Beside the picture was a small photo of the Lyons family. I only glanced at it. Michael was wearing the trilby.

At the end of that corridor a door was ajar. I pushed it in gently. This room was smaller than the others. The sunlight was dull, because the big window faced a red-brick alley wall. I liked this room the best. Before the window was another new desk, and on it a bottle of ouzo and two empty plastic tumblers. To my right a man’s jacket and a black cloth bag with strings hung from a coat stand. Mortar rolled along the chutes and plunked into the Dumpster. The boisterous talk and laughter from the workmen above. The noisy fan. And now the happy voices of workers set free for lunch.

I noticed another door to the right of the desk. I hadn’t when I walked in. Maybe because the door was the same shade of white as the walls. I walked around the desk and carefully pushed the door in. This room was like the first. It had the same type of desk as in the others,
but this one was bigger. It sat before a huge bay window. A lovely view of treetops and tall Boston buildings.

Kevin was half-sitting on the end of the desk. His hands were flat on top of his head. His shoes were on, his shirt opened, and his pants and boxer shorts were around his ankles. Small American flags were printed on the shorts. Kneeling on the carpeted floor before him was a woman around our age. She wore denim shorts. Her hair was dark and in a ponytail. Her feet were bare. On top of the desk was a pair of jeweled flip-flops, the sort you’d get at Target. The fan and the noise from the chutes and the voices from the street and the workmen stifled whatever noises they were making. And it was when I was pulling the door carefully after me that I remembered him saying his fiancée was blond.

And that was the second time he saw me. And what he saw was a retreating shadow.

I was down those stairs quickly. At the T’s hot mouth I stepped into a phone booth. Allison had rung three or four times that week. She was heading back earlier than planned, and wanted to meet one last time. I hadn’t rung her back. I was busy working. I stayed up for four nights in a row and painted sets at Bloomingdale’s for their fall furniture collection. And when I wasn’t working I was drinking beer and wandering sidewalks after dark with anyone who would take me. I took every drug that came my way. I did because I wanted to. And I enjoyed all of that in a way I will never again enjoy anything. An electronic voice said Allison’s number was no longer in service. I put the receiver back and pressed my forehead against the burning metal box. Drops of my sweat marked the filthy phone booth floor. My shoes were cheap.

Half an hour later I was standing in the hallway of the flat. Brendan was packing in the kitchen and he asked how the meeting with my old neighbor had gone. Did I like the office he gave me? I said the old neighbor left a note, he had an unexpected meeting, and I added that the sooner we hit the road, the better. Brendan asked what we should do with the heap of unopened mail on the hall table.

—This I can handle, I said.

I took the pile and a trash can out onto the deck. I sat in the armchair with the mail in my lap and riffled through it until I found the thick wedding invitation, which was the first envelope I ripped to bits without opening. And I dropped every piece into the trash can.

A mowed path ran between the cornfield and a wooden fence. On the other side of the fence was the river, which was really a stream. Zoë and I sauntered along the sunlit path then stopped in the shadow of an oak whose roots were knotted up on the bank. Zoë said this was the perfect place. I pulled the striped blanket from the bag and spread it, and after we ate the sandwiches we sat with our back against the oak and talked about books we should be reading, music we should listen to, movies we should watch, the upcoming election, and then we talked about my job at the bakery, the grant-writing gigs Zoë’s dad sent her way, the classes we had to take and teach in the fall, the dissertations we were to start writing in the next year or so, and we laughed, kissed once, and said how boring that talk was. And so we got up and walked farther along the path. I carried the bag, and we were holding hands when we stood at the fence and looked into the water and across the bank at the Friesian cows and the two silos, and after we began walking again Zoë told me she’d mentioned the photograph to her father that morning. She’d never brought it up before, though she thought it was fine to now; the incident had happened years ago. Anyway, her father denied the photograph and the woman existed. He told Zoë he was true to her mother right till the end. When Zoë insisted she did see the woman, the swimsuits, the motorbike and the helmets, her father said she was confused. The man in the photograph was one of his buddies, or her divorced uncle who sometimes took girlfriends up to the cabin.

—It was not my uncle, and not one of Dad’s friends, Zoë said.

—He doesn’t want to hurt you, or maybe he feels guilty, I said.

—But it’s a lie, James. When he’s drinking, he tells me how much he still loves my mom. He says their marriage should never have ended, he regrets it did, but I’m just not going to call him or answer his calls for a long time.

—That will send the proper message, my dear.

On the walk back, the shadows of the corn stalks darkened the path. I sliced my hand up and down through the swarming midges and made jokes about
The Three Musketeers
. At the oak Zoë took the blanket from the bag and spread it. I leaned over her shoulder and unzipped the green dress down her curved and bony back while she fumbled with my shirt buttons and unzipped my pants. And things worked. And it was over within the usual time and you felt sore in the usual places. You were both lying back and that feeling was washing over you—maybe like when a well slowly fills back up. Zoë had put her sunglasses on. We passed a cigarette back and forth. And we didn’t talk for a long time.

I sat up and buttoned my shirt. Zoë sat up. I zipped her dress up.

—Only connect, my dear, she said.

—If only, my dear, I said.

We were laughing when I knelt beside her and crushed a mosquito that was digging into her upper shoulder. A drop of blood appeared. I dabbed the blood with my sock. Then I put my socks and shoes on, stood, zipped my pants, buckled my belt, and said we should hit the road before some trigger-happy farmer found two townies having their sweet way with each other on the bank of his so-called river.

—You have watched too many bad American movies, my dear, Zoë said.

—I’m ready to be back home, my dear, I said.

I was looking across the stream, into the field. The cows were gone. A milking machine was buzzing.

When the brown roof appeared, Zoë took off the sunglasses and
said she was not breaking up with her boyfriend in Austin. They had been together for too long. In three years he’d finish medical school and they’d move back east.

—I can’t start over again, my dear, she added.

—You don’t have to say anything for my benefit, my dear, I said.

—I know I don’t, my dear.

Zoë slipped the sunglasses back on.

I pulled into the driveway. We talked about knocking on the door but decided to wait. He and his aunt would see us out here. A few radiant stars shone on the edge of the dusky cornfield. Frogs were croaking.

—Whatever happened between you and that woman, Sarah, my dear? You have never mentioned her.

—Yes, I have, my dear.

—Not once, my dear.

—You’d remember it, my dear.

—I would, my dear.

—You mention the starving millions to Sarah and she starts talking about the awful food in her private high school cafeteria—

—It’s not an uncommon response in our little world, my dear—

—Her family didn’t trust me, my dear. They saw me as immigrant trash. I’d struggled at the community college, and had just started at the university. Sarah had written her dissertation, and the family complained that I should be more accomplished, that I lacked ambition. Of course, they were dead right there. But why didn’t you go to university in Ireland? Don’t they have them over there? Those sorts of questions they asked me every time we met. And I couldn’t explain it. And why the fuck should you have to. Once her lawyer brother-in-law railed at me as to why the bloodthirsty Catholics didn’t all leave Northern Ireland. Leave it if they were so discontented. I tried to explain to him it was about home. And there was a long and complicated history to it. He didn’t get it. Nightmares, Zoë.

—Your average, ignorant American clan, James—

—It was me who was ignorant, Zoë. They were being who they were, and if we don’t knock on his aunt’s door, my dear, we might be sitting out here all night watching stars and fireflies and listening to frogs that don’t turn into shit.

We stepped out of the car and headed across the yard. I walked ahead.

—But you must miss her, my dear—

—No, I don’t, my dear. She hooked up with an old professor. He had recently divorced. It was his third, and Sarah got some sweet position where he worked.

—How convenient, my dear—

—But I needed her, my dear. And she needed me. Or I’d like to think she did—but we were in different places. And when it was good it was fine. When it was bad it was unbearable. And she mostly acted like she was doing me a favor, to tell you the truth. But I was new then. I was lonely, I could put up with things. Put up with people. I suppose I was afraid, and wanted to fit in. And Sarah helped me fit right in—

—You were not in love with her—

—Who and what I thought I was supposed to be—

The steps were wet. Or it was the shadows of the flowerpots. I pulled open the screen and knocked once on the stained-glass door. The small empty porch and the glass lit up. The door opened and a tall, skinny woman with a long, furrowed sunburned face and blond streaks in her hair stood there. She was probably in her late fifties. I held on to the screen. I smiled. The woman did not. Behind me I felt Zoë was smiling.

—We’re here to pick up Walter, I said.

—And who are you? she asked.

—We got held up. A nice river, like your nephew said, I said.

—There’s no nephew of mine here, she said.

—The gentleman with the backpack, Zoë said. —We dropped him off here and told him we would return. We’re late. The river was beautiful. It was hard to leave it. But you are not Walter’s aunt?

—He’s not Walter. I’m no aunt. And he ain’t no gentleman, she said.

—Well, fancy that, I said.

—He left a while ago. Made him leave.

—We should have been here earlier, Zoë said.

—So if Walter is not his name, what then is it, I said.

—Jeremy, she said. —And I ain’t seen him in almost twenty years. Not since the day he left. But he came to give money to our son. Said he wanted to do it years ago. Got close to doing it before, he said, but got cold feet. Cold feet. But I said to him it was too late. Years too late, because we don’t have no son anymore. My husband is here soon. And your vehicle is where he likes to park.

—I’m sorry to hear about your son, Zoë said.

—Me, too. I’m very sorry, I said.

—Second time he got into a car, she said. —Drove too fast and drove into a telephone pole. If the pole wasn’t there, his car would have went on into the cornfield. But I have another son, and a girl—

—So Walter is Jeremy, I said.

—My son’s name was Walter, she said. —The man you dropped off here is Jeremy. His dad’s name was Walter—

—He said his dad was a preacher, Zoë said.

—Don’t remember anymore, the woman said. —And I didn’t ask him where he’d been all these years. Don’t need to know. Don’t care. He got up one day and left. Didn’t say anything about where he was going. Why he was doin’ it. But I don’t want to know why he done it. All’s I know is he did.

—Do you know where Jeremy went? I asked.

—I don’t know, and I didn’t want to take his money, she said. —He left it here. Don’t want his money. Right on the table. I’ll give it to my church. And my husband parks where your car is at.

—We should be getting back, Zoë said.

—I don’t mean to be unkind to folks, the woman said. —But I haven’t had the best day.

—We apologize, Zoë said.

The woman waved her hands at the bugs, stepped away from the door, and shut it. The key turned. The porch and the hall light were quenched. I released the screen door. Zoë and I headed down the steps and across the yard to the car.

—Christ, Zoë.

—Bizarre, James.

I backed up that driveway in a flash.

—That gave me the creeps, my dear, but how sad, Zoë said.

—Very sad, my dear, I said.

—Way sad for her and for Walter, Zoë said.

—Loosened from our dream of life, my dear.

—We must be mindful of those we don’t know who show up after dark, my dear.

—I hear you again, my dear, but let’s not talk about them.

—Okay with me, my dear. Today was mostly perfect.

—One of the best in a long time, my dear.

I made the turn at the trailer homes. Lights shone in small windows. Barking dogs tore at the wire fence. I rolled the window up.

—I must ring the family tomorrow, I said. —I should find out about Kevin Lyons.

—How long has it been since you’ve spoken with them?

—A long while.

—Why a long while, my dear?

—I don’t know, my dear, I don’t live there anymore.