The Pagan House. David Flusfeder

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      By the time that Edgar, the aficionado of flight, announced that the small, jittery plane that they had taken from New York to Syracuse was coming in to land, Mon’s skin had turned yellowish white with the exertions of the day, with the effort of keeping airplanes in the sky with the power of her will.

      ‘It would be nice if someone was there to meet us,’ Edgar said.

      ‘Fay won’t be up to that kind of thing. And your father always leaves everything to the last minute. We’ll have to make our own way.’

      But they were met, by a self-possessed man in pressed white jeans and blue T-shirt, who was scanning the faces of the arriving passengers. To Edgar’s great pleasure and silent promise of friendship he held up their names, correctly spelled in neat capital letters on a white card.

      ‘I’m Warren,’ he said. Warren had short dark hair and a lightly tanned skin and the manner of someone who did things well. He shook their hands and steered their airport trolley out towards the car-park, while others from their flight stood hapless in the arrivals hall, opening and closing their fists; and Edgar, enjoying how important he and perhaps his mother must be seeming, endeavoured to look sternly businesslike.

      Warren drove them out of Syracuse in a wood-panelled station-wagon. He was friendly and polite and informative, speaking in a not-quite-American accent. He neither ignored nor talked down to Edgar, who was allowed the privilege of the front passenger seat while Mon half dozed in the back. It was all very easy and adult and civilized, and Edgar turned to look at his mother from time to time just in case she had not noticed the disparity between this man and Jeffrey.

      Edgar, more tired than he would choose to be—but after all, he had experienced much and accomplished something truly grand this day—drifted in and out of Warren’s commentary. The heat made wavery lines out of everything, the financial towers and bridges and billboards and roads, the fields of corn, the toll-booths, distant blue hills, and it all looked bigger than he was used to, which was what he had expected, but he hadn’t expected to feel smaller too.

      Warren smelled of pine and lemon and cream. He looked straight ahead while he drove, both hands on the steering-wheel, the air-conditioning vent blowing the dark hairs on his arm to stand soldierly straight. Edgar cleared his throat. Warren glanced his way. Edgar had said nothing so far on this journey, just nodded every so often to show he was listening. He had to say something now, no matter how banal; he had to speak, push his voice into America.

      ‘We thought we were going to die,’ Edgar said.

      Warren’s eyebrows rose. ‘Oh?’

      ‘The plane went into a dive and kept going and it looked like we were going to crash and everyone thought we were going to die. The big plane. Jumbo jet. The one we came from London on.’

      ‘Wow. A near-death experience. That’s the sort of thing that changes a person,’ said Warren.

      ‘Yes. I think so too,’ said Edgar.

      Warren had kind eyes. He was very well shaved and his skin was smooth. He drove carefully, without show. ‘We’re coming off the thruway now,’ he said. ‘That was the interstate. We’re on three sixty-five now. Not far to go.’

      ‘What’s that?’

      Edgar pointed to what looked like an artwork from one of Jeffrey’s magazines. By the side of the road, surrounding a dark wooden shack, four large men in shorts and T-shirts sat impassively on garden chairs with guns on their laps.

      ‘That’s the bingo hall. It’s run by the Onyatakas, the local Indian tribe. It’s pretty small-potatoes stuff, cleaners going there to gamble their money, welfare checks. It’s a sad state of affairs. They want to build a casino but no one thinks the Governor will let them.’

      ‘Does my dad know about that?’

      ‘I don’t know, Eddie. I couldn’t say.’

      ‘Is he at the house?’

      ‘Uh, not yet, I think he might have been delayed a couple of days, but I’m sure you’ll enjoy your time with us.’

      Monica stirred and yawned and stretched. Her leather jacket that she had been using as a pillow creaked. ‘God, I needed that sleep. Where are we?’

      ‘We’ve just come off the interstate.’

      ‘There’s a bingo hall. It’s run by Indians. They carry guns,’ Edgar said.

      ‘You’re not meant to call them Indians. Isn’t it First Nation or Native Americans or something?’ said his mother.

      ‘This tribe calls itself Indians so it’s okay,’ Warren said, and winked to Edgar. ‘We’re on the road to Onyataka.’

      They drove through small towns, past fire stations and sports fields and boxy СКАЧАТЬ