The Pagan House. David Flusfeder

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СКАЧАТЬ Mon.

      ‘I’m from Ireland, more or less Dublin but not quite. But people out here, I might as well be from South Africa or Australia or the moon.’

      ‘We weren’t actually expecting to be met by anyone.’ In her habitual arrogance she had awarded herself the right to speak for Edgar. How could someone so supposedly close to him not see the change in him? ‘Are you a neighbour of Fay’s?’

      ‘No actually, I live there. With her. In the house.’

      ‘Oh?’ said Mon in her suspicious tone, her voice going thin and accusing. Edgar hoped Warren hadn’t noticed the rudeness.

      ‘Has she not said? I’ve been there some time. Help out a bit you know. Muck in. She’s a lovely lady.’

      ‘Yes. She is.’

      ‘And I know how fond she is of you. Of both of you,’ he added.

      Mon did not like to be flattered. Edgar knew this, Warren clearly did not. They drove on in silence, into the town of Onyataka (Onyataka welcomes careful drivers!), and Edgar started to pay attention. This was a bigger place than he had been expecting, there were theaters here and a cinema, the expected fire station, the unexpected sex shop; a drunk stumbled into a boarded-up store window but kept his beer can steady throughout in its brown-paper bag, and a pet shop, a video store, and—Onyataka hopes you come back soon!—they were out of town again.

      ‘I thought …’ Edgar said.

      ‘What’s that, Eddie?’

      ‘That we were, that my grandmother, lived in Onyataka.’

      ‘It’s the nearest town, for postal purposes that’s where we are, but actually we live a few miles along, in Vail. The towns of Creek and Vail. You’ll see in a few minutes.’

      Creek, which announced itself to be the smallest city in New York State, welcomed careful drivers no less than Onyataka. It was met by Edgar through half-closed eyes. This was not how he had intended to arrive, sleepily unalert; he forced himself to notice things—a restaurant, a factory, a pizza parlour, a gas station, an office-supplies store, white wooden houses whose front gardens, or yards, he supposed, were open to the pavement where bicycles lay down—

      ‘There’s a farmer’s market out back there on Thursdays,’ said Warren.

      ‘That’s good,’ said Mon.

      —a video store was neighbour to a doctor’s office and a bookshop, none of which looked open; an impeccably healthy gang of teenagers in jeans and grey sweatshirts lounged in a corner of a baseball field.

      ‘You’ll like it here, Eddie. There’s lots of life. Kids and trees and parks and so forth. Do you play soccer?’

      ‘Not really.’

      ‘Of course he does,’ Mon said. ‘God, it’s so long since I’ve been here and the place hasn’t changed a bit. Time just stands still, doesn’t it? Isn’t that the Company headquarters? That’s where your grandfather worked.’

      They passed an ornate, low-slung stone building topped by turrets, which looked as if the architect hadn’t been able to decide whether to build a castle or a bungalow so had invented some unworkable compromise between the two.

      ‘Did my dad work there as well?’

      Mon didn’t say anything. She scoffed silently, as she usually did when her ex-husband was mentioned in the same sentence as money or work.

      ‘I don’t know, Eddie. He might have had a holiday job there when he was young. Most everybody here has worked for the company at some time. It’s a company town.’

      ‘Company town,’ Mon repeated, in a sort of wistful voice, and Edgar could tell she had been smitten with the same sour nostalgia or sentimentality that connected to those moments in London when she stayed up late looking at old photographs, playing records and drinking bourbon.

      ‘It’s got a very interesting history, the company. Creek was where the workers lived, the managers lived in Vail. It all grew out of the Onyataka Association. Nineteenth century. But you must know all about it, Monica, through Mike, Perfectionism, free love, Utopia.’

      ‘Mike didn’t go in for history tours. And I don’t think Perfectionism would ever have been one of his interests.’

      Warren laughed politely to indicate that he had noticed a joke had been made.

      ‘And here we are. Here’s the house now.’

      ‘I’ve always liked it. Look, Edward.’

      Edgar looked. He too liked the house, very much. It could be drawn very simply, as two intersecting triangles with a horizontal line at the top for the roof. Blue-painted wood with white shutters and weird little carved heads whenever a pipe went into or popped out of the wall, weathervane and TV aerial and a chimney behind each of the gables, it accorded to his idea of what a house should look like. It was the house he had tried to draw when he was a young child. It was the house he furnished when they played their game.

      Warren opened the screen door for them. The front door had been left hospitably ajar. They walked along the hallway, past a curving staircase, black and white photographs on green-papered walls, to the kitchen, where an old lady was in the unsteady process of rising from a chair.

      ‘Fay!’

      His grandmother, whom Mon confused with a kiss on both her cheeks, was grandmotherly small and white-haired, in a blue print dress.

      ‘If I remember you, Monica, you’d like a cup of tea after your trip.’

      Her voice was clear and youthful, her face a rivery marvel of lines, which shifted and twisted and showed new tributaries when Mon said how well Fay was looking. Her eyes were blue, like Edgar’s.

      Edgar made up for the confusion his mother had wrought with a candid smile and an English gentleman’s firm handshake.

      ‘And Edward. You look so much like your father, you know. Would you like a chocolate milk, or are you too grown-up for that sort of thing?’

      Delighted at being identified as looking like his father, Edgar replied that, yes, he would love a chocolate milk and, no, a straw would not be unwelcome, and after Warren had brought in their bags, he made the tea and poured Edgar a glass of chocolate milk, which Warren suggested and Edgar agreed was the perfect thing after long plane and car rides in the height of summer.

      Fay took them on a tour of the house, which passed slowly, because she needed to sit and rest at least once in every room, and Edgar, unconsciously, until Mon pointed out what he was doing and made him too embarrassed to continue, would position himself behind his grandmother’s shoulder, like a servant or a guard.

      Edgar had been given the sleeping porch whose ceiling and outer walls were made of glass. It jutted from the house at the back, looking over the rose garden.

      ‘We thought it might be fun for you to sleep here,’ Warren said.

      ‘Warren has moved out into Frank’s room.’

      ‘We’re so sorry СКАЧАТЬ