27
South Derry, Vermont
The
midsize, NetJet Hawker landed at the private, Mt. Snow Airport in West Dover,
Vermont. A colleague of Julius Novak, from the University of Paris, had made
the plane available to him at Westchester Airport outside of New York. Novak
normally drove to Vermont from either Boston or JFK – a couple of times even
Montreal, but he accepted it might be fun to descend directly into the
mountains. Indeed, the experience of dropping out of the clouds and seeing
first the rounded tops of the fabled Green Mountains, then the specks of the
little mountain villages was a reasonable high and made him feel as excited as
he imagined a little boy might be.
His
only experience with Mt. Snow had not been its fine skiing but nearby Adams
Farm – an agrotourism offering that included a petting zoo, apple picking, hay
rides and scary stories with hot cocoa and marshmallow roasting. Marianne had
been bringing Isabel to Adams Farm throughout the child’s life. Anytime Novak
was in Vermont, he and Marianne would bring their little daughter to Adams
Farm. Always there was something new for her to see. One time, she marveled at
the spitting llamas; next time it would be the Merino sheep. When she was about
eight, she could not take her eyes off the 800-pound hog that just lie there in
the mud with flies all around. It was the biggest porker any of them had ever
seen.
The
farm had evolved over the years from a working dairy concern to a recipient of
Reagan-era farm subsidies to a full-on tourism destination. Pre-Civil War, the
family reportedly had harbored fugitive slaves as the runaways made their way
from south of the Mason-Dixon line to the legitimate asylum of Canada. After
the passing of the cowardly, federal Fugitive Slave Act, bounty hunter scum
roamed largely unhindered in feeding on the potential of catching a
dark-skinned American scurrying north to freedom.
Novak
now found himself coursing north on mountainous route 100 in a rented and fully
loaded Infiniti M45X. His friend Francois, knowing that his colleague was a
beat-up jeep kind of guy, had called ahead and insisted. Of course, if Novak
chose to play along (which he did), he would be stuck with the massive hit on
his VISA. He would register this harmless incident and return the favor, with
interest, at the appropriate time. A private jet? A snazzy sports car? Game on,
Fran-swar.
Novak’s
assistant, Beverly had cleverly timed the professor’s visit to Marianne in
Vermont to coincide (strategically, she thought) with Mother’s Day. They talked
about possible gifts and decided on a magenta IPod Nanochromatic. He downloaded
(or is it uploaded?) the ridiculously small and featherweight device with what he
deemed to be some rather tasteful Uncut magazine CDs and other forward-looking,
British-based sounds he hoped Marianne might enjoy while creating her art. To
complete the mix, he threw in a thoughtful selection of Chet Baker live sets.
He found some recordings of shows they had actually seen together, or he
believed they may have seen, in the mid-80s featuring Chet and the German
vibist, Wolfgang Lakerschmid.
Novak
sometimes used to sing ‘You Don’t Know What Love Is’ to her. Marianne had
always treasured the rare moments when her lover would lose himself and give
the entirety of his modest emotional output to her in ways big and small. His
guide in such matters would be to imagine Chet Baker on stage, as he had seen
the living legend, the tragic jazz icon pouring into his songs an excruciating
level of voice and soul and fragile energy that looked as though the effort
could easily kill him. He always seemed, to Novak and others, like a
deeply-weathered homeless man who just happened to play the most impossibly
sublime trumpet and flugelhorn on the planet. Astonishing and unforgettable to
have witnessed and one of the many reasons Novak treasured the fact of living
in Europe.
As
Novak progressed along with the up/download, the Chet selections began to
outnumber the alternative selections, and the corresponding feeling that Art
Brut and Arcade Fire and Antony were taking over the world dematerialized. He
shipped it FedEx, so she would receive this uniquely personalized trinket prior
to his arrival; and he included connecting wires and simple instructions for
her to plug into the big receiver with the speakers. He was feeling really good
about it.
May in
Vermont was not like May in the other parts of the world in which Novak had
lived. In the midwest United States, in Cologne, in Essex, London,
Gloucestershire, even in Slovakia and especially in Spain, May meant spring and
flowers that would live after you planted them. In Vermont, buying and planting
flowers for Mother’s Day is a risk mostly not worth taking. Unless you have the
flowers in pots that are not too heavy to carry inside at night when the
thermometer dips below freezing, or you just happen to own a greenhouse on
wheels that you can position on top of your garden. Otherwise, the delicate
blooms require a blanket at bedtime.
Marianne
(unlike many full-time Vermont residents as well as the great majority of
tourists -- if the empty shops and inns were any indication) reveled in
Vermont’s idiosyncratic version of May. She’d never had occasion to be
adversely affected by the mud. She never thought, frankly, that things got that
muddy at all. Well, of course, the first time you come to Vermont during what
most refer to as mud season, the cars do appear to be covered with mud and
dirt, the driving only possible by constantly deploying the windshield wipers.
Washing fluid is as valuable as gold and could be sold for much more than the
going rate of three dollars a refill. Everyone’s cars are filthy; one just
can’t allow oneself to care.
Most
often, Marianne found, mud season arrived little by little. A thaw in late
February just before the three feet of snow that falls every first day of
March; another a few weeks later; another in April together acted to mitigate
the potentially torrential lava flow of May. Now, if the ground remains frozen
for a solid four-to-six months before the temperature goes up in May, then you
would have a mud season of science fiction horror film intensity.
The
only people who claim this happens every year, she felt, are those who have sunk
into the quicksand of bitching about everything. Marianne heard these folks
complaining in the village store or at the bank or post office. When anyone
would comment to Marianne that they hate this time of year, she seems to recall
that same person as having said that they hated the cold or the ice or when the
tourists come or when the flies appear at dusk or when the ladybugs come into
your house on hot October days or when they have to rake all those damn leaves
or how expensive everything is or when it rains too much or when it doesn’t
rain enough or when it gets dark too early or when the school bus is in front
of them on Route 100.
To
these people, Marianne takes great pleasure in declaring, “I think Vermont is
beautiful during every season. That’s why I choose to live here. If I didn’t
love everything about it, then I’d live somewhere else.”
To
herself, she would think, ‘You should try Belgrade during an ethnic cleansing
rally.’
She
then would take her leave with her biggest smile and a hearty, “I’m off. Bye,
now.”
By the
time Novak pulled up the hill, through a large copse of evergreens and onto the
Gourlie-Papineau’s rocked circle drive, the wheels of his temporary
high-performance machine were splattered brown. Streaks and splotches of grit
had sprayed all along the lower parts of the car. Novak stepped out wearing a
predominantly brown, wool Corneliani sport jacket and an untucked, French blue
Joseph & Lyman cotton twill dress shirt over jeans and his favorite,
multi-purpose boots. His sunglasses were Persol, purchased in Bologna. His hair
was cut in London. Still, he considered his tastes to be proletarian.
Marianne,
whose heart … OK, it fluttered, collected herself on the cedar walkway a few
feet from the drive. Not the kind of man one usually sees in South Derry, she
thought.
“Nice
car,” she grinned with her arms crossed, accepting that her chest was heaving a
bit.
“The
clown Francois called ahead and insisted,” he laughed. “Too bad I’m not Ben
Hampton; they’d have let me have it for free if I’d agree to a photo in front
of their sign.”
“Maybe
after his book, you’ll be more adequately famous.”
“Yeah?
Do you think it’ll be ‘all good,’ as they say these days?”
“Oh, of course,” she laughed, as they kissed
both cheeks. “There won’t be one, single negative to come of it. This book will
be the first perfect thing to have ever happened in this world.”
“People
will no longer be able to utter the phrase, ‘Nothing’s perfect.’”
“And,
as they say up here, you’ll be all set.”
“All
set!” Novak bellowed like a Vermonter.
For
those who have never lived in Vermont, the ‘t’ in ‘all set’ is jarringly silent
and the subject of much scrutiny. The degree to which a person drops one’s ‘t’
at the end or sometimes in the middle of certain words (such as ‘Stratton’ or
‘mountain’) often signifies a point of no return to one’s previous linguistic
civilization.
If you
really want to say the word ‘mountain’ correctly, then you disregard both the
middle ‘n’ and ‘t’ for a sort of ‘mou-in.’ Novak, as a wordsmith, was intrigued
by the Vermont branch of the rural New England accent.
After
their greeting kiss, the two moved away from each other; but Novak’s left hand
and Marianne’s right hand came together. They held on timidly, then locked
fingers and stared at one another with an easy smile -- an alarming development
for both parties.
“Thank
you for the Nano,” she said softly. “Really not fair putting music on that
would make me cry, you fuck; but it was a lovely gift. Very Julius and very
typically … tender, and … definitely … no one knows me like you, and … I’m
babbling.”
She
pulled her hand way and said, “Let me carry something.”
“I’m
really, really happy you liked it.” He handed her his laptop briefcase. “I
wanted it to be … you know … something … you know.”
“Yes,
I know. A Julius gift. Nothing off the rack.”
“No, I
mean … a piece of, you know, mixed in with something … I don’t know,
entertaining or … useful or …”
“I get
it, sweetheart. Believe me, I get it.”
“OK,
good,” he said, relieved.
The
former couple moved up the cedar, plank walkway toward the main entrance of the
multi-building, Gourlie-Papineau compound. The groundskeepers had been, in the
days prior to Novak’s arrival, clearing away all the dead things that had been
missed in the autumn or had turned brown while under the snow in the winter.
An
indispensable feature of Vermont landscapers and yard crews was the power
broom, which looked like a small steamroller, used to quickly and efficiently
remove small rocks, gravel and other debris from lawns. How did the debris find
its way to the grass? It is pushed there amid large piles of snow by the
constant plowing from December through March.
Marianne
offered Novak a drink. He picked out a beer. Marianne had found a Vermont-made
Kölsch just for him. She made herself a fast tea from the Keurig brewer.
The
only other human sign of life (other than the Bernese Mountain dog, who was
treated like a beloved aunt) was Sissy, the housekeeper and all-round dogsbody,
who offered to take Novak’s bags up to the guest house -- where Ben Hampton had
stayed back in January and Novak’s usual accommodation. He allowed her after
she insisted she was headed that way to finish preparing the bedding.
When
Sissy was gone, Marianne said, “She loves you, and it makes her happy; gives
her something to talk about with her husband and their friends. You have no
idea.”
“No
idea, eh? Remember Mrs. Baynes at the cottage? She was essentially the town
crier.”
They
sat in the kitchen and discussed all things Isabel, which evolved into talk of
Joanna and Roger, Marianne’s work, Novak’s work, and, ultimately, the Ben
Hampton book.
“Do
you have any clue what he plans to do with all of it?” Marianne asked, meaning
the hours of interview material.
“I
thought I did, at first,” he said, oblivious to what he’d set in motion. “Now,
I’m not so sure.”
Novak,
indeed, had no idea how far Marianne herself had gone in her depiction of the
footballer (during and after his sports career) as an affected, self-centered
prick. And, like many self-centered pricks, completely self-unaware.
“He
became inordinately interested in our years together,” Novak continued
preposterously. “Although that was, admittedly, wrapped up in all the Wüppertal
stuff. But Ben really seemed to be trying to get at how everything was
connected – you, me, football, sculpture, teaching … how we …”
After
a long pause, Marianne offered, “Fucked up our relationship?”
She
spoke it in her usual manner, like one might say ‘how about a week from
Wednesday?’
“Yeah,
I suppose.” He smiled at the dry way she uttered momentous things. She’d always
been that way – when she wasn’t sobbing and spitting and hurling malleable
materials, that is.
“Well,
I think you should know that he and I spent a fair amount of time going over …
pretty … personal, private things that went on between us in Germany.”
Novak
went a bit pale. “Not like … “
“I
don’t mean pornographic,” she assured him. “I mean the emotions we experienced,
good and bad. You know … emotions? Those human feelings that can be so
irritating to acknowledge?”
The
ex-Arsenal midfield warhorse felt that familiar twinge of serious discomfort
that came on whenever he was obliged to face something deeper than which
student to select for the Council of Europe Committee on Culture, Science and
Education internship; or whether to drive to London or take the train. But he
knew ‘such matters would be forthcoming.’ He’d actually either agreed to a
settlement of accounts regarding himself and Marianne or brought it on himself,
hadn’t he? So, whatever was fated to happen was beginning its course. Or had it
begun at some point previously … and rather not of his doing? His life was
about to change; and he was here, in historic New England – birthplace of
Yankee sensibility, to learn what form it would take and what role he would
step up to play. Novak was not accustomed to ‘getting forward’ all that much,
having been designed at birth, probably, or else formed by Hermann Roth and
Bela Magurany, to bullishly man his position and provide cover for others. He
considered getting stuck in, in the
shape of saying something, but changed his mind.
“Since
you’re momentarily speechless, I’ll take the opportunity to tell you that Ben
insists the reason he became so ‘inordinately interested’ in us was because you
went out of your way to mention me every five minutes. So the red flags went up
in his writer’s mind … or whatever colors the writer’s mental flags happen to
be. Help me out.”
“Ben
really said that?”
“Is it
true?” she asked, giving nothing away as to whether or not she hoped it were.
Marianne
had spent nearly half her life developing a workable sobriety when it came to
confronting her former lover. Ten years ago, she would have tried to cut him
verbally by this point. Twenty years ago, she might have gone at his face with
her chisels.
‘Enter the room, Novak – the same room
occupied by Marianne. Standing outside watching hasn’t gotten you anywhere.’
If
this were a Greek drama, that bit would have been spoken by the Chorus played
by most of the rest of the cast of the story – Ben Hampton, Isabel, Roger and Joanna,
Rosalie McMahon, perhaps Nayim, three waiters from a Benicassim tapas bar and,
most importantly, the Highbury kit man.
“I
don’t know ‘every five minutes.’ But
…”
If
he’d come all the way here to make some kind of positive impression, she
thought, he’d not got off to a very good start – except for maybe the impact
generated by his … hotness.
“Yes,
well, whatever,” Marianne was willing to allow Novak a little time to shift out
of first gear. He had just landed, after all. Give him a few more beers, maybe
he’ll even cry. “I’ve got a few errands in the village. Would you honor me by
coming along?”
“Let’s
take my car. XM Radio. Hands-free
phone system,” he fell back into laddish humor. “And, I think its algorithm has
already adapted to my driving style. It’s fucking unbelievable.”
“I
knew it,” she said, without emotion. “All this time, you’ve been a typical,
American gearhead. You probably have a ’72 Malibu in the bat cave right now.”
“Yes,
I do,” he joked. “It’s bright yellow, and the hood is open with connecting
wires hanging out the sides so I can plunge right back into the overhaul when I
get back home. I would be very popular with the Blockley teenagers, if there
were any.”
“I
thought the stone wall company was meant to keep them around.”
“That
might take a generation actually,” he smiled, as he pointed out the control on
her 10-way power seat. “We’re constantly adjusting the business plan.”
She
knew all about adjusting the business plan. They motored down the hill for no
more than a pulsating mile to the village. Novak asked Marianne if she noticed
how all four wheels seemed to be turning as one, almost caressing the road like
a brush would a canvas. She ignored him and told him where best to park,
somewhere good for walking to the things Marianne needed to do. The nursery to
order some special potting soil from Provençe for her father’s white roses.
Novak understood perfectly. The bank and post office, of course. And the little
village grocer as well as the specialty pantry – associated with the country
inn – renowned for its unbeatable French cheeses.
Of all
the women to meet in New England in 1961, Roger Papineau of Bayonne, Aquitaine,
was devilishly fortunate to have fallen in love with a girl from a small
Vermont town in which a chef from the Vaucluse would one day choose to park his
sauce pans. Marianne’s parents were in New York where Roger was receiving a
Hemingway Grant, from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, for his
translation of Pierre Bayard’s puckish “Comment parler des livres
que l'on n'a pas lus?”
("How to talk about books you haven't read.")
They
chatted as they strolled the uneven marble sidewalks. The 200-year-old village
with the West River running through it was somewhere between picture postcard
and rustic scruffy. SUVs, pickup trucks and high-end, foreign sports cars
slowed to allow driver and passengers to get a better look at the Papineau girl
– Bill and Pips Gourlie’s granddaughter -- walking with, yes, that’s the man we
see from time to time. The little girl’s father from away.
They were never married, you know. He
was here around Christmas time with some bald novelist from London. I heard …
yadda, yadda, yadda …”
Unlike
the Gourlies back in the day, the Papineaus didn’t mix all that much. They
tended to have a miniscule group of very close friends, people whom we consider
to be more like family than those we can’t help actually being related to.
So
whatever gaps there were in the locals’ knowledge about the reclusive artists
and academics and such up at the old Gourlie place were filled in with gossip,
speculation, half-truths and wicked falsehoods. Sissy couldn’t come close to
afford living in the town, so whatever spice she divulged seasoned the soups of
a faraway community – not South Derry. Oh, one might get hold of a taste of
insight through the grapevine, but such fruit was not low hanging.
The
handy man, Hazelton, when interrogated, would smile and nod and remove his
Baltimore Colts cap and scratch his hair and respond in upstanding
generalities, giving scant satisfaction.
He
would say things like, “Aw, they’re just folks like anybody else. Same
problems. Just quie(t) and priva(t)e. Nothin’ wrong with tha(t). That’s how
they’re wired. I’d say they’re more decent and generous than most around here.”
‘But what about that young woman who
was staying with them a couple of years ago? I heard she was the French
teacher’s daughter from one of his affairs when they lived in Paris.’
That
kind of stuff.
To
which Hazelton would chuckle, “Aw, c’mon.”
It was
killing the locals that they did not have much to gnaw at. They yearned for red
meat still on the bone. And, in reality, there was plenty of it. Much of the
juicy details existed on Ben Hampton’s tape recorder, in his head, and –
sometimes painstakingly; other times fluidly, tapped into the RAM of his laptop
and e-mailed, often chapter by chapter, to Rosalie McMahon.
The
problem inherent in waiting for the book (which they had no clue was being
written anyway) was that very few, if any, of the South Derry residents would
have the horsepower to plow through what was intended to be the real story –
the inspiring tale of the obscure but plucky soccer player. And there was no
way that any of the excerpts worth excerpting in the mainstream press would be
of any use to the tellers at Chittenden Bank or the ladies who organize the
annual church rummage sale or the historical society fanatics or any of the
gaggle of ex-Darien, Connecticut questionable minds unnecessarily put off by
and envious of the cerebral and aloof Papineaus.
Their
sunny afternoon talk migrated naturally to the topic foremost on Marianne’s
list – the so-called biography of her Julius’ Arsenal years around which no one
could seem to wrap the mind. Her marathon-length scything of the man, in direct
conversation with Ben and through extended written replies on her laptop, had
first given her a feeling of euphoric, if misplaced vindication. Now she was
experiencing mild guilt at the thought of humiliating this gentle, easy-going
man with whom she parented their fabulous daughter, who was now the same age as
Marianne was when the future sculptor so pivotally signed up to be a nude,
artist’s model in 1982.
But
first, approaching them on the marble walk were three women from the town, the
town manager’s wife who walked as though she had two very chapped thighs; a
realtor Marianne found distasteful in the extreme; and one of the many
Republican, trust-fund busybodies who always behaved as though they were
entitled to something exclusive.
Marianne,
wrapped an arm through Novak’s and whispered, without moving her mouth or her
head, “I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to avoid this ...”
“Delegation?
Fine with me,’ he said, flashing his biggest smile and assuming his most
refined and charming, Cary Grant attitude. “I won’t let you down, pet.”
Felicia
(middle-aged, personal-trainer-fit, trust-fund baby) spoke first.
‘Hi,
Mary Ann. Gwen (distasteful, fifth-generation Vermonter realtor) and I were
just telling Penny (chapped thighs) all about the sculpture class we’re doing
with you. Nancy can’t make it to anymore Wednesday afternoons, so Penny’s going
to step in.”
“Oh,
nice,” Marianne said with a fake grin.
As was
her birthright, Felicia assumed anything she decided would become the law of
the land. She had once phoned Roger Papineau, out of the blue, to tell him she needed him to remove some fallen trees on his property so that she and her boyfriend could ride their horses
through his property to more quickly
reach a trail they both enjoyed (also mostly on his property). Roger informed her,
as nicely as he could, that he planned on getting around to it, Felicia my
dear, at some point since he and the dogs walk that way quite often and had
been having to step around the branches, etc.
Felicia
said, in effect, ‘Oh, good. Kent’s brother and sister-in-law are here, and we’d
like to go riding up there this afternoon.’
Roger
countered, in effect, with, ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to portage, then, mon
cherie.’
When
he shared the details of the phone call with Joanna, he had said, “Believe me,
zat woman would do well to avoid me when I am carrying a chainsaw.”
Penny,
then, did step in.
“I’ve
actually been working with clay for many years,” Penny sniffed in an insecure,
sort of attention-seeking behavior. “I’ve sold a few pieces; and you may have
seen my work at the Southern Vermont Arts Center.”
Marianne
raised her eyebrows and increased her grin.
Gwen
came forward with her right hand extended. Maybe she was hoping to sell Novak a
house.
“I’m
Gwen Long. You must be …”
All
three women looked hungrily back and forth between Novak and Marianne. Marianne
hoped it wouldn’t have come to this. She hated giving these people anything to
work with. Novak was not about to introduce himself. That would be improper
under the circumstances. He actually enjoyed seeing how long it would take
Marianne to fulfill her unavoidable duty to tell these women who he was. She
gritted her teeth and got on with it.
“Julius
Novak, Isabel’s father,” she said, with as little affect as possible.
Gwen
was not ready to let go of Novak’s hand just yet, but she was, frankly, nudged
aside by Felicia Allen. Both women looked as though they were about to wet
themselves. They knew this was potentially a scene of great moment and one rife
with social and fundraising, not to mention shameless and inappropriate
name-dropping possibilities – in other words, a score. Novak moved down the
greeting line like the humble yet exciting gentleman he was, as Felicia and
Penny duly provided name, rank and serial number.
“The
ladies are part of my sculpture class, Julius.”
“Oh,
wonderful,” Novak pretended not to be clueless. “How’s it going?”
Marianne
hadn’t gotten around to mentioning what was, to her, not that big of a deal. An
acquaintance of her mother’s had asked Marianne if she could please donate
something to the Theatre Festival auction event (Felicia Allen, chairperson)
held last March. Joanna suggested six sculpting instruction sessions, from a
somewhat well-known artist, for a group of ten. The winning party bid a bargain
basement $750 – about a tenth of what someone like Marianne Papineau could
reasonably charge.
“How
long are you in town, Julius?” Felicia asked -- a married woman, by the way. Or
partners, they called themselves. “You live in … Paris, don’t you?”
‘Oh, she makes want to vomit,’ Marianne
thought to herself.
“A few
days, I think,” he answered. “And it’s England. I wouldn’t live in France if
you paid me. Brilliant place to visit though.”
The
three women looked stunned by the news that someone would not want to live in
France.
“Well,
we’ve got a few more errands,” Marianne squeezed Novak’s arm, pulling him
forward.
Then,
the sham-intimate bombardment.
“Nice
seeing you all,” Marianne was already looking the other way.
“Yes,”
Gwen looked crestfallen that it was all over so quickly. “Wednesday, then.”
“See
you then.”
“Bye.”
“Great
to have met you.”
“Give
my love to Joanna and Roger.”
“Lovely
to have met you.”
“See
you again.”
“Bye.”
Marianne
walked the star of the show quickly away toward one of the newer and quite good
cafes in the village.
“Gwen
… Long??” Novak asked. “Poor woman. That’s really her name?”
“Shhh,”
Marianne pulled him closer and looked over her shoulder. The gaggle still were
within earshot.
He
began to sing, “Gwen to run all night. Gwen to run all day …”
“Please
stop.” Marianne was laughing and trying to run while clutching Novak’s arm.
“Bet
my money on a bob-tail nag …”
“All
right. All right. Somebody bet on the bay. Just keep moving.”
“I was
going to say, ‘I did it myyy way.’”
She
looked at him, honestly straining to fathom the joke.
“Sorry,”
he grinned. “Fawlty Towers. Never mind.”
They
continued, arm in arm, past the shops, the twenty years apart peeling away.
Both Julius and Marianne would remember if pressed, but neither would celebrate
the fact that one month from today would be exactly twenty years since she
asked him to get out and stay out.
“Reminds
me of a secretary in the social anthropology department at Selwyn,” Novak went
on, as he does. “Name was Mary Barge, which was unfortunate enough, really,
because, while she wasn’t actually the size of a barge, she did have rather a
brusque way about her that you got the sense she couldn’t quite help. I always
thought if the poor girl had had a different name, things could turn around for
her. Then she got married.”
“Mm,”
Marianne was resigned to play the straight man. “So it got better.”
“Sadly,
no,” he said. “She married Tom Hoar from mathematics.”
“Mary
Whore?”
“If
only. No, bizarrely, the fool kept her original name, Barge, in there and went
all hyphenated. Mary Barge Hoar.”
“Oh,
that’s awful,” Marianne tried to stifle the laughter unsuccessfully.
“Kind
of made her sound like a pub, The Merry Barge Whore. I’d certainly stop in for
a pint.”
Marianne
was lost in laughter but managed to sputter, “Maybe even drop your bags for the
night.”
“Drop
my what?” He let that one sink in before closing with, “Not before polling the
other punters at the bar, you silly girl.”
“Figures.
You always did have to ask around first before you tried anything.”
“That’s
from being told to ‘be careful’ about 10,000 times before the age of five -- a
victim of my environment. Speaking of ‘Bag Drop,’ isn’t that where those three
women have to stand at the Field Club while their husbands play golf?”
“Now
that’s just shocking,” she stopped laughing.
“Yeah.”
“Before
I forget, ‘Wouldn’t live in France if you paid me?’” she twisted her face.
“Sorry,”
Novak was sheepish. “I thought you’d like it if I said something memorably
staggering. You know, shake ‘em up a bit. I somehow got the feeling you found
them revolting.”
“Oh,
God.” Marianne groaned. “Did you?”
“So,
forget about that. We were talking about Ben and the book.”
“Right,”
she perked up and commented, as they entered the cafe. “Let me tell you, I
honestly won’t know what do with myself now that my literary interviews have
come to an end. I began to feel I was part of something big. And it felt good
to work through some of the memories.”
“Mm,”
he winced. “Can you believe I’ve gone and gotten us all mixed up in this?”
She
was through playing around. Small talk concluded. Queue the real world.
“You
know exactly what you’re doing, Julius. You always have.”
“That
didn’t take long,” he said, as he eyed the pastry case and the specials board.
“Suppose I deserved that.”
“Oh,
please,” she whispered, so the girl behind the counter wouldn’t be able to
easily hear. “Do you want to have an actual conversation, or would you rather I
continue to be the snarling wolf and you be the passive victim?”
When
the girl turned to prepare their cappuccinos, Novak answered. In fact he fairly
leapt into it like someone who has crammed for the final exam and wants to
answer the questions as quickly as possible.
“Conversation.
Definitely, conversation. I’ve thought of nothing else for some time now.
Talking to you, being with you, and raising Isabel together – well, you carried
the burden there; but everything having to do with you is … the only real thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
“Have
you rehearsed this?”
“Only
for about twenty years.”
“Well,
at last you’re doing passably well,” she said in her normal voice, bending over
to peer in at an appealing carrot cake and a flourless torte tower. “Carry on.”
“Ok …
um … how do you feel about all this?” he backpedaled.
“Ohh,
no. We’re not to me yet, hot shot. We’ve only just started hearing from you.”
“What’s
all this royal We? Don’t stop. I kind
of like it. Gives everything a little more pomp and substance.”
“‘We’
is … um … I suppose, ‘Us’ – the overarching ‘Us.’ Like you say, everything
having to do with me … and you, like one big entity.” Her eyes took on that
look normally reserved for being lost in beaux arts work. “It breathes; it
moves; it cries; it has a shape. And that thing, that ‘We,’ is eager to learn
what comes next in its life.”
The
days of Novak being fazed by artists and the way they express themselves were
long past. In fact, it was one of the things that turned him on all those years
ago in Cologne. The Bohemian coven was a foreign world to which he wanted to be
connected. Now his own daughter was throwing Beckett in his face. She’ll be a
handful for some unsuspecting male, he thought. Unless she goes native with
certain of the Mount Holyoke and Smith crowd, whereupon she’ll be getting it
right back.
“So
you’re its spokesperson,” he said.
“Yes,
well, I thought it needed a pretty face.”
Novak
smiled, gazed into her eyes, and the years drifted off like ashes from a fire.
“All
right, so, would you like me to begin with all of my mistakes? Grab a table. We
could be here for a while.”
“I’ll
let you know when I’m ready to move on to something else.”
“Very
kind of you.” He took a deep breath as they sat. “Well, uh, first of all, I
hurt you terribly; and it wasn’t just once. I hurt you for years while we were
together. I was an immature fool, and we’ve all suffered because of the choices
I made. We had a child, and I just, in effect, went on my merry way. I didn’t
want to endure what I would have needed to endure to grow up and be with the
woman, first of all, and, secondly, the little girl I was meant to be with.”
“What
do you mean by endure? I have an idea, but I want to hear it.”
“Face
what needed to be faced. Look at myself honestly. Do some uncomfortable rooting
around and unearth who or what exactly I was and … am. Instead I took the easy, relatively
painless road where I could exist or hide, really, behind a façade of …
whatever. Soccer man. Teacher man. Continental, Intellectual man. Rather than
just … man. A man responsible for himself and a woman and a daughter. A man who
puts his family above everything else in his life, and everything he does is
meant to add joy and security and love and abundance in the hearts of those to
whom he’s connected – spiritually, for want of a less hackneyed notion.”
Marianne’s
look said to continue.
“I
learned, and it hasn’t just been recently, that … uh … adult human beings are
meant or required actually to take care of their, like you called it, the big
‘We’ before anything else. For most people, I imagine enviously, the human
quality in your brain or in your soul guides your thoughts and your choices; and
you instinctively know what the right thing is to do. For others, the ability
to know what to do requires strength and experience – more strength than I was
willing to put aside for us. You, me, Isabel. I’ve known this, understood this,
I think, for quite a few years now; but … I’ve still been too weak in character
or merely unwilling to put it forward, I guess. I could make all kinds of
excuses about why I’m just now getting around to being honest and apologizing
and committing, I suppose, to do something positive, something truly meaningful
about it.”
“Don’t
bother. I’ll tell you why,” she cut in, squaring her Gallic jaw. ‘Because
you’ve done every single thing for yourself that you ever wanted to do. Now
you’ve reached middle age, and you’re thinking, ‘Ooh, I’ve left something out
that I wanted but didn’t get because I wanted all the other things more. But
now that I’ve got those other things all locked up and established, and I’m
betting they’re not going anywhere, I can now shift my energy and attention and
my cleverness over to that thing I chose not to get. And if I play my cards
right, I can kill every bird with one stone without having to give anything up.
I can have a full-time, mature and loving mate, wife, bird, whatever, and a
grown-up woman, daughter with whom I can travel around Europe and show off and
continue to get all the good things without having to experience any of the
negatives.”
She
stated this opening salvo with almost nonchalance. She sipped her espresso
drink.
“I
didn’t expect you to be convinced halfway through the first act – not that it’s
an act.”
He was
rattled but kept his cool.
Marianne
laughed pleasantly once again and Novak continued, as they got up from the
table. People were looking.
As he
held the door for her, he said, “Did you not take note of the bulge … in my
suitcase? I’m here for as long as it takes to show that I’d like to keep
talking … and listening ... about whatever we both want to talk about. I’ll
listen to anything you want to say to me. And if I don’t understand it
immediately, then I’ll stop and try to get a grip.”
Marianne
paused when they reached the sidewalk and gazed at the face she had fallen
madly in love with twenty-five years ago and had excised (from her bed only)
five years later. If anything, his face had grown even more handsome and
alluring. She was certain that she had cried all of her tears available to cry
regarding one person; yet now she feared there were more on the way. He was
beautiful, and she felt her inner arguments, for keeping clear of him,
winnowing.
She
had known this man long enough to know that his words and his expression were
genuine. Novak seemed truly to believe what he was saying. But that didn’t make
it all true or right or, her new favorite word, authentic. Of course, she nearly
leapt from her socks when he said ‘bulge.’
While
she was mature enough and experienced enough to know that you shouldn’t turn
your life inside out just for the sake of an erotic attraction, she was
beginning to accept the notion, put forth by everyone whom she knew, that it
was not too late to take Novak back into her life on a permanent basis. Weirder
things happen every day in the world. This was nothing.
With
that in mind, “Well, honestly, it’s not like you abandoned us in a turnip
field. And you contributed much more than was actually fair money-wise and
presents and holidays and being helpful and showing up at unexpected moments
and so much more. I know of quite a few deadbeat dads out there. You’re quite
the opposite. Other than the fact that we weren’t the conventional family unit
straight out of a catalogue, I’d say you’ve never given us a stitch of trouble,
really.”
“Well,
thank you,” Novak responded humbly. “I felt like shit, and, like I say, I
continued to …”
“You
were there for quite a bit of it, considering.”
“I
just never allowed myself to visualize or dream, even, that we could go forward
together like, you know, like … we were, or not like that but, yeah, like that
– like before,” he stammered, “but more seasoned, not as lunatic, not as self-centered.
That’s me; not you.”
“I was
the lunatic. I was. I had impossible expectations of you. I mean, you’re good;
but you’re not that good.”
“I can
tell you mean that,” he grinned. “You seemed really to hate me there for
awhile.”
“Yeah,
a little,” she wrinkled her nose, “but what I need for you to know is that no
one is as complete a model as what I demanded of you. There is not a man alive
who could have passed my infantile series of litmus tests and character
requirements. It was my own adolescent problems that I never worked out. I was
lashing out at Roger through you. I was totally fucked up. Why on earth did you
stay with me for as long as you did?”
“Are
you kidding? You don’t mean that. I was the fuck up. You completely committed
yourself to me and were trying to get me to grow up, rightly so. Yeah, sure,
maybe I was a little young …”
“No
excuse.” Marianne, not Novak, would decide when to decrease the tension.
“No
excuse,” he quickly agreed, as they got back into the car, the errands
completed. “Absolutely none. I do think I understand, though, how it happened …
how we both got it so wrong. Because, listen, I wholeheartedly accept my piece
of it …”
He
paused, hoping to be met somewhere near the center circle, as the car climbed
back up the hill toward the Papineau lodge, West River rushing with spring
fever past them in the opposite direction.
“How
would you describe your piece of it?” she asked, instead.
“I
have to tell you, I was really hoping you might have offered as to how you
accept your bit.”
“Yes,
yes, of course. Tell me what you think you
did.”
Novak
sighed. “Well, I was …”
“Absent
… sorry. Go on.”
“Would
it please you if I used the word ‘absent’?”
“It’s
not a matter of pleasing me, Julius. It’s more a matter of accuracy.”
“I
don’t think you mean accuracy,” he said. “We’re not studying radiocarbons.
We’re talking about what our feelings were.”
“Authenticity,
then, Mr. Literal.”
He
emitted a soft grumble.
“I
think we both know what I did or didn’t do. And I think we’re agreed that you
needed certain things for certain reasons and didn’t get them. And you were
probably entitled to most everything you wanted from me. It didn’t happen. I
didn’t make it happen. I let everything else get in the way, and we missed our
chance. It’s like we fired our arrows and just … barely missed each other. We
missed our chance – our … first chance.”
That
was it. Was he going to say it?
Novak
pulled into the courtyard, and they walked out onto the granite flagstone
terrace with the dogs. They pondered the view of the greening hills and perhaps
considered what lie beyond. The thing for Novak to do, the thing he owed
Marianne to do, was to take a running leap into what might, as far as he knew,
be an empty pool. Not exactly off a terrifying cliff or an Olympic high dive;
he didn’t deserve to die. But maybe some broken ribs or a few weeks in the
hospital; perhaps some slight disfigurement, extra difficulty getting up in the
morning or a pain whenever he laughed. Something to cause him to think of
someone else.
Of
course, if he had an injury, then he would just be thinking how much it hurt …
himself. He had never taken a leap in his personal life. The leaps he had taken
were: leaving home at seventeen and moving to Europe; agreeing to play in a
world cup for a crap side; opening himself to painful ridicule (and just …
pain) by teaching at one of the finest universities in the world while
simultaneously playing football for one of the most famous clubs on the
continent; and, only just recently, agreeing to be the subject of a book by a
massively popular author.
Can a
man take massive risks all along the way in his professional life, while at the
same moment expose himself to potentially heart-crushing and terrifying, yet
somehow edifying anxiety on the serious and mature, love relationship front?
What would that even look like? I’m thinking, like, gay songwriter in the
pre-gay acceptance age. Billy Strayhorn or someone. There must be heteros in
the list, some mainstream man of action from whom Novak could draw inspiration.
Clearly he rates himself among the more heroic in society, as though a man need
achieve a certain level of renown in order to be deserving of veneration.
Did he
not know anyone in his Cotswolds village who fit the bill? Anyone from Oxford
or Cambridge, or his old village in Essex? Whom did he know who appeared to
have it all in balance, all in perspective while still maintaining an
impeccable reputation? Who worked at his relationship just as passionately and
honestly and with the same drive and ethic as he did his professional calling?
How
about … the author of ‘Revolutions per Minute’?
How
about Ben Hampton?
Arsenal’s
most celebrated supporter, for months, had directed his writer’s gaze toward
Julius Novak, reforming the same questions, looking for simple answers to why
there was such a criminal disconnect between what the American had achieved in
football/academia and how dramatically he had failed as an ordinary man. For he
had failed, or so would think anyone
with a conscience.
As he
stood there with Marianne, Novak saw Ben Hampton as something other than an
effortless wordsmith, lionized storyteller and someone many blamed for the fact
that we now go to football matches and are sat next to a solicitor. Novak
suddenly twigged there was more than just a man who had put his balls on the
line with a deeply personal football memoir, followed by one unorthodox
bestseller after another. He now registered Ben as a man who had bravely faced
a difficult first marriage right up to its final, heartbreaking conclusion and
was now in the midst of another relationship with wife and kids where nothing
could be taken for granted.
There
were days, Ben had told Novak, when he preferred staying under the covers or
sleep on the love seat of his Camden office rather than face what he knew he
would have to face regarding some thorny aspect of his marital relationship.
Nothing in his writing career had ever been so difficult and painful as the
emotional tug-of-war that he had endured in his two marriages. He is aware, is
Ben Hampton, of the challenging and wrenching days ahead if he is to, along
with Kate, successfully navigate marriage number two until death do them part.
Ben’s
reputation, among friends, is that of a tender and thoughtful husband who often
invites his wife to Arsenal matches.
“Things
are different now,” he accepts reluctantly. “Lots of girls go – for better or
worse.”
Marianne
suddenly felt, on the surface, like a teenage girl instead of a mature,
forty-three-year-old artist who had once represented France at a Biennale. But
Julius Novak had the knack for splashing cold water on a woman’s face just when
she was about to become suitably intoxicated.
“If
Isabel were to want to leave New England, for any reason; say, if she failed to
settle in the autumn, or if she decides now not to return for another year …”
‘What an arsehole,’ she
thought.
“I was
going to say … or … I wanted to say, would the two of you … do you think she’d
want to come to England? Would you come to England, Marianne?”
She
stared at him as though he had just asked her for the name of their child.
“Why
would I want to come to England? I don’t really know anyone in England, except
for you. I’ve only just moved back here; it was quite traumatic, leaving
Paris.”
Strike
one.
“Well,
it’s not so much … Marianne, I would want you to come … to England, to the
country. I think we should be together. I want to be together. I came here to
find out if that’s something you might want …”
Still,
she stared expressionless.
“ … or
had thought about … at all.”
At
this point, she might have acknowledged that this man had just made something
of a, kind of, commitment. For Julius Novak, this went beyond sticking his neck
out. This was a blind gallop into no-man’s-land. Instead, she treated his first
crack at a proposal like he was suggesting a restaurant or a film.
“Julius,
I … don’t really think I want to live in the UK just now. I’m quite settled
here with my parents and my studio and Isabel not far away at university. I
would not leave her here. We can’t. She’s not a grown woman just yet. I like it
here. Actually, I love it here. What
are you talking about?”
What
does she mean, he wondered? That she was open to the idea of getting back
together but not in England? Was she deliberately missing the point to have fun
with him?
“Right.
I said, if she didn’t want to stay at Mount Holyoke, if-if she missed Europe
too much and wasn’t happy for whatever reason. Of course, she should have
family nearby – one of us, certainly; both
of us … even. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
“I
think I heard you say something about Isabel and myself halting our lives to
come and live near you.”
“Not near me, with me.” He took her hands in his.
“Shouldn’t
we go to bed with each other first to see if we like it?”
“I
seem to recall that not being a problem,” he said with great tenderness. “In
fact, I’ve never come close to duplicating it.”
“I’m
sorry to hear that.” Marianne, in fact, had experienced two or three seriously
gifted lovers over the years, though, granted, not for as consistently as long
a period of time as she had enjoyed under the musical yet wild tutelage of
Julius Novak.
‘She’s giving me nothing,’ he
thought. ‘I deserve it.’
“I
would consider … coming to Vermont,” he took a large swallow of air, “or
wherever it is you are.”
“You
couldn’t live in the United States,” she said, playfully shoving him away.
“George Bush and Dick Cheney’s America?”
He
laughed. “If Roger Papineau can do it, I can do it. Of course, he retired; and
I still love what I do.”
“Here
it comes,” she smirked. “The many reasons why Julius Novak must do exactly what
he wants to do instead of stepping outside of himself and doing something
solely for the woman he claims to care about.”
“That’s
not what I’m doing. That’s not what I’m saying.”
“But?”
“No
buts,” he said. “Yes, I finally have the career I’d always dreamed of, and it
could only happen at Oxford or one of the Europaeum universities; but …”
She
smiled and crossed her arms.
“No,
this is a good ‘but,’ not a Julius
bad ‘but.’ But … I would work something out if it meant we could carry on
together. But I’m very fulfilled at the Europaeum. That was a bad ‘but.’ You
win.”
“You’ll
be shocked to know we have some quite passable colleges in New England. My
father taught at one. Your daughter is attending one. Or would you get more fulfillment
out of doing the exact same thing the rest of your life.”
“Well,
it’s ever-changing as Europe evolves; but, yes, I get your meaning. Of course,
there’s the stone wall company. That just getting some wind in its sails.”
“We
have crumbling stone walls and more stone for more walls,” she said, quietly
extolling the virtues of the Green Mountain state.
“We’ve
just begun to make some headway with some of these kids.”
Marianne
remained patient.
“We
have kids here who could use some worthwhile jobs so as not to leave the
countryside. Look around; it’s rural.”
Novak
ducked his head, then looked at her and smiled once again.
“But
most of all, we have me.” She looked
into his eyes. “Does Gloucestershire have Kiki Papineau?”
“Gloucestershire
could, if Kiki moved there.”
That
was it.
“Putain
merde!!!” she turned abruptly away, moving across the terrace toward the
kitchen door. She began to shout. “Enough! Forget it, Julius. You haven’t
changed. You’ve gotten to live out your selfish dreams for twenty-five years
now, with no thought of me in your life at all. You want everything to go your
way. This is the same fucking argument we had before I had Isabel. If you say
‘before we had Isabel,’ I swear to
god I’ll strangle you. I had her! I raised her! You played football and
seduced 20-year-olds in your little lecture rooms and waltzed in and out of
universities all over Europe and developed your stupid writing projects and
student groups and … ruined Ginevra’s life, by the way; and you’ve gotten to do
all of this without any of the constraints of being a parent or a partner or
spouse or anything. Why was I stupid enough to think you’d learned anything?
Ben told me as much.”
“I’m
sure he did. He was stunned at what a fool I’ve been my whole life. Why didn’t
I listen to you when I was twenty-five? Why didn’t you hit me over the head?”
“You
wouldn’t stand still.”
“I …
couldn’t afford to miss the next match.” He laughed at his own absurdity. “Some
German hot shot would have taken my place.”
“I
know. I know. You mentioned that a few times.”
He
moved toward her, and she held up her hands.
“I’m
not arguing anymore,” she turned away and looked for a corkscrew in the cutlery
drawer. She felt it was time to share a bottle of … anything. “It gets me
nothing, and … I just can’t.”
“This
is not an argument, Marianne, because I don’t dispute anything you’re saying --
except the part about my not changing.”
“What
is it that you came here to say to me, Julius? Stop and think about it this
time. What exactly do want me to know?”
“That I’ll
do anything to get you back.”
A very
long, ten seconds went by before she spoke.
“Anything?”
Novak
didn’t like the look on her face.
