Life_ An Exploded Diagram - Mal Peet [118]
“Yes, it is. I’m very rich, and it’s what I want.”
“Yeah, okay, but . . .”
“Listen, Clem. Since I’ve been back here, in between poking pulp into my father’s mouth and wiping it off his chin, I’ve been working. Doing research. Looking at old maps. Old photographs, old prints. Talking to old people. Trouble is, there are fewer old people than there used to be. We are the old people now.”
And here I got a first glimmer of what she wanted. I blinked it away, though.
She said, “I’ve got a picture, a model, in my head of how the estate used to be in my grandfather’s time. When I was a girl. What I haven’t got is someone to share it with. Someone who remembers it the way I do and who cares as much as I do. Someone who’s as sentimental as I am.”
I was not, absolutely not, going to rise to that.
“Look, Frankie — it’s incredible, wonderful, to talk to you. To hear your voice again. And I feel terrible saying this, but it so happens I’ve got a meeting in half an hour. It’s important, and I’m going to be late.”
“I’m sorry. I won’t keep you. But will you think about it?”
“Think about what?”
“About coming home, Clem. About helping me remember. Being my artist again.”
I was stunned. That’s a cliché, I know. You can only be stunned if you’ve been whacked aside the head. I was stunned.
“You can’t be serious,” I managed to say. “You don’t know what you’re . . .”
“Yes, I do know what I’m asking. What I’m not asking is that you give up your brilliant career or anything. You could do your own work while you’re helping me. The Garden Cottage is vacant, and we could make you a beautiful studio in one of the courtyard buildings. All rent free, naturally.”
“Frankie, for Christ’s sake, it’s not the money.”
“No. It’s the love.”
I said, “Pardon me?”
“A code word for anything truly valuable. A child’s life, for example. Or the place you belong.”
“Frankie, please. I left a long time ago. And I never belonged there.”
“We’d be a great team. Three good eyes between us. Three ears. Two good legs. Nothing could stand in our way.”
I tried to laugh.
“I’m strong, Clem, but I’m lonely.”
“Please, Frankie. Don’t. I have to go. Look, I’ll ring you back.”
“Will you? Do you promise?”
“Yes,” I said. “I promise. Later today or tomorrow. What’s your number?”
I wrote it down.
“It used to be Bratton Morley 239,” I said, sort of absently, while I was writing.
“Fancy you remembering that,” Frankie said.
There was an aha! in her voice, as if she’d caught me out.
“So, okay,” I said.
“Go,” she said. “But think about it, Clem. Think about it very seriously. Think with your heart as well as your head.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll do that. Bye, Frankie.”
“And Clem? Losing you hurt a lot more than losing my eye.”
She hung up before I did.
I sat in the crowded, southward-racketing subway car with the awkward portfolio of drawings between my knees. I was angry more than anything else. After a lifetime — a lifetime of hurt, of wondering, of remembering, of erasure — she’d chosen this morning, of all mornings, to reach out of the past and mess with my head. Damn her!
I hate being late. Punctuality is one of my obsessions. I looked at my watch again. No way was I going to make it to Val Leibnitz’s office by a quarter to nine.
I tried to focus on Fantastic Machines, on my pitch to the skeptical accountants.
It had taken me a long time to master the American art of boundless enthusiasm. That innocent, volcanic bubbling about almost anything. It went against my grain. During my early years in New York, I’d lost a number of jobs by being understated, apologetic, ironic. British, in short. It was Val Leibnitz who’d taken me to lunch one day and laid down the law, revealed the commandment: Thou shalt believe absolutely in whatever shit you’re selling. Because if you don’t, why the hell would anybody who’s buying?
Obvious, of course. All the same, I couldn’t quite do it. It didn’t come naturally.
Then I read an interview with some actor, can’t remember who, who said, “It’s bull, that stuff about finding the character