"No." He glared at Noel with drunken hostility. "You'll never hear it." He rose from the table unsteadily. From his back pocket he extracted a crumpled note of ma.s.sive denomination and flung it on the table. "At least not from me."

[image]

Norval stayed two months at Mrs. Pettybone's B & B. The proprietor a.s.signed him the finest room in the house, which happened to be across the hall from her daughter's. Gally had also been a.s.signed a room, on the ground floor, next to Mrs. Pettybone. But Gally stayed longer than Norval; in fact, he never left. A week after installing the skylight and telescope he proposed to Mrs. Pettybone, for the second time in twenty-two years, and this time was accepted. The wedding was to be held in the spring, a civil wedding at The Orangery at Newstead Abbey.

A double wedding? thought Norval. The idea was so preposterous, so ant.i.thetical to everything that he-the very symbol of bachelorhood- believed in that he suggested it to Teresa. It had the right touch of the absurd, the anachronistic, the harebrained. She hasn't long to live, a few years maybe (and who knows how long I've I've got?), so why not seize the Christly day, do something shockingly, uncharacteristically unselfish? But that's not even the right word, he thought. It got?), so why not seize the Christly day, do something shockingly, uncharacteristically unselfish? But that's not even the right word, he thought. It is is selfish-I want to spend every last second with her. And maybe they'll find a cure ... selfish-I want to spend every last second with her. And maybe they'll find a cure ...

Teresa, after realising Norval wasn't kidding about the proposal, said no. "Don't be mad. It's just ... not done anymore."

"Must I arrange it with your mother? A forced union? And what if you're pregnant? Gally will come after me with a shotgun. Or putty knife."

Teresa laughed. "A marriage would would make my mother happy, deliriously happy. But a double wedding? Not in a million years. I wouldn't want to steal her thunder, and I don't want to deal with old relatives and friends. But ... if you're absolutely sure about this, Norval, if you're not doing it out of some Florence Nightingale motive or to obtain a Boy Scout badge, then I make my mother happy, deliriously happy. But a double wedding? Not in a million years. I wouldn't want to steal her thunder, and I don't want to deal with old relatives and friends. But ... if you're absolutely sure about this, Norval, if you're not doing it out of some Florence Nightingale motive or to obtain a Boy Scout badge, then I will will elope. Anywhere you like, any time." elope. Anywhere you like, any time."

For Norval, it was the first time he'd been happy since the age of nine. He was in his first relationship that lasted more than a week, a place he never thought he'd be. He could scarcely believe what was happening- he was falling in love falling in love, for Christ's sake, something he thought was impossible, an emotional state he had ridiculed his entire life. But that was pre-Teresa ...

They arranged to marry in London, in Camden, partly because Norval had to be there to reshoot the ending of Rimbaud in London Rimbaud in London. The two left on the train together but Teresa, who had been feeling ill all morning, complained of double vision. Norval had noticed that one of her eyes wandered, and that she seemed to be tilting her head to the right. So she got off the train to see her doctor in Nottingham, insisting that Norval ride on without her. They would meet up the next day, she promised, on the steps of the Camden Town Hall.

The following day, an hour before they were scheduled to meet, Norval was there waiting, worried, his back against the wall of the building, sheltered from the pouring rain. He waited two hours, checking his watch every five minutes, peering out from behind a rain-battered column. I had a feeling she wouldn't come. How could I think she would come? She's changed her mind, can't go through with it. Or is there someone else? Her ex? Craig Slandon, beer-guzzling imbecile, aged twenty-one? Another hour pa.s.sed, maybe more, before he phoned Mrs. Pettybone's B & B. No, she wasn't there. We thought she was with you in London. Oh dear.

Norval took the first express train north, to Nottingham, then a taxi to Queen's Hospital. Yes, a receptionist informed him, Teresa spent the night here, but went home this morning ... He flew out the door to hail another cab. At the train station, a tree down at Newstead kept him waiting for another murderous hour. After standing the entire way, chain-smoking between carriages, he jumped off the moving train at Hucknall, and ran with bursting lungs through fields of decaying vegetation and stagnant pools of water, to Mrs. Pettybone's B & B.

Teresa was not there. Norval raced up and down steps, opened up doors and closets of rooms that hadn't been used in years, madly, rampageously, even climbing up to the attics. "Teresa!" he shouted repeatedly. "Terry!" The three of them-Mrs. Pettybone, Gally and Norval- scoured her bedroom for a sign, a farewell message, a suicide note. Nothing. She had vanished and clearly did not want to be found.54

Chapter 19.

Norval & Company Liszt's Symphonic Poem No. Symphonic Poem No. 2 was starting as Noel placed a fake log on the fire. Lounging in Mr. Burun's La-Z-Boy, his right cheek and sandwashed Nepalese silk shirt uncharacteristically smudged with black, Norval observed his new environment while cracking nuts and inhaling Armagnac. 2 was starting as Noel placed a fake log on the fire. Lounging in Mr. Burun's La-Z-Boy, his right cheek and sandwashed Nepalese silk shirt uncharacteristically smudged with black, Norval observed his new environment while cracking nuts and inhaling Armagnac.

"Fish rule in effect," said Norval.

"Fish rule?"

"An old Danish proverb: 'Fish, like guests, begin to stink after three days.' On second thought, I'll get a hotel." In his head Norval began to rewind the evening, scarcely able to believe he was sitting where he was. He had taken a taxi home from the bar less than an hour before, seen something there that sobered him up at once, took another cab to Noel's. Where for the first time in his life he was admitted-by Mrs. Burun.

"You can stay here," said Noel, "as long as you want-especially after what you've just been through."

Norval paused to listen to the cellos and double ba.s.s evoke the spirit of Byron's Ta.s.so. "Got any cigarettes? Where's JJ and Sam, by the way? Upstairs s.h.a.gging? Oh, h.e.l.lo Mrs. Burun."

Mrs. Burun had returned from the bathroom. "Call me Stella," she said, while reaching for a cigarette case on the mantel. "Noel, I think this gentleman will be a bad influence on you."

"Everyone needs a bad influence from time to time, wouldn't you agree, Stella?"

"That's how I fell in love with my husband."

Norval laughed. "Shall I pour you one of these?"

"Yes, why not? Would you like one of these?" She opened up the silver and cloisonne enamel box, a birthday gift to her husband.

"You're too kind. Say when."

"Mom, I'm not sure if ..." Noel paused, distracted by a coppery head that popped through the doorway then withdrew behind a wall, like a tortoise into its sh.e.l.l. "Salut, Jean-Jacques." Jean-Jacques."

JJ gradually materialised, squinting in the direction of Norval. He was wearing shiny pyjamas of interstellar blue, covered with planets and stars and smiling moons. A cell phone protruded from his pocket. "Nor? Is that you?" He rubbed his eyes, like a bad actor seeing a miracle. "A-yo, dude! What brings you here at one in the morning?"

Norval reached over for a toss cushion on the sofa, examined its running wave border. "It's two in the morning."

"Norval's place was torched," said Noel. "He's going to be staying here for a while. For three days."

"Not another arson! Jesus c.o.c.kadoodle Christ! This is getting scary. This time we've got to report it, I'm sorry." JJ pulled out his cell and punched in zero. "h.e.l.lo, operator? Get me the number for 911. I mean the number-"

"JJ, put your phone away," said Norval, with an indulgent half-smile. "Everything's been taken care of."

"Everything's been taken of, operator," JJ repeated into the line. "Sorry." He snapped his phone shut, all atwitter, then fumbled it onto the floor. "Do you know who did it, Nor? Is everything OK? Are you OK?"

"Everything's fine. We'll talk about it in the morning, all right?"

"Any damage? Do you know who could've done it? You sure we shouldn't report it? I really think-"

Here Norval got up and walked towards him, carrying the toss cushion. To Noel's surprise, instead of stuffing it in JJ's mouth, he tossed it back onto the sofa and stooped to pick up the cell phone. He slipped it into JJ's breast pocket, put his hand on JJ's shoulder. "I appreciate your concern, JJ. I'm just going to the bathroom now and then to bed. I'm dead. I'll fill in the blanks tomorrow."

"I'll show you where the bathroom is," said Mrs. Burun. "Then I'm off to bed myself."

"Good night, guys!" said JJ as the two disappeared down the hall. "Oh, Noel, I almost forgot. The sun is square to Saturn. Mars and Jupiter in your fourth house. Buy no new footwear."

"Got it," said Noel.

[image]

Noel fixed his eyes on the multicoloured flames, which fluttered like a school of tropical fish. Orpiment, nacarat, aurora, cinnabar, ultramarine ... He sipped his cranberry juice, not tasting a thing, wondering what he had just done. Norval and Sam here, together? My mother and Norval? My mother and Norval? Not good combinations, not good at all ... Not good combinations, not good at all ...

Norval settled back into his chair, reached for the Boingneres Folle Blanche 1994. "Nice bathroom, Noel." He poured out the biggest gla.s.s of brandy Noel had ever seen or heard of. "Just what I always wanted when taking a c.r.a.p-an instruction manual."

"Yeah ... it's ... I'm going to take all that stuff down ... soon."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"About what?"

"About your mother."

"Because ... JJ already told you."

"Why didn't you you tell me?" tell me?"

Noel sighed, took another sip of juice. "Because ... because you would've ridiculed the whole situation, said I was running a 'mommy daycare' or something, suggested I put her in a home, that I was wasting my time."

"Yes, I would have. And you are."

"Some things are private."

"So that explains why you look so dug-up lately. And why your house is falling apart, like some decaying mansion out of Poe."

"Should've seen it before Sam and JJ arrived."

"And yet your mother seems ... fine. I mean, in the few exchanges we've had."

"She's getting better."

"Was it ... is it Alzheimer's?"

Noel nodded.

"At fifty-six? s.h.i.t. Wasn't that the age that Claude-"55 "Yes."

"So you feared ... what? You thought that since I couldn't stand my mother I wouldn't understand your ... your devotion to yours? Your martyrdom, sacrifices?"

"Martyrdom? Sacrifices? What am I sacrificing? I've nothing else. She spent practically her entire life caring for me. She used to drive thirty miles out of her way, daily daily, so I could go to a special school. And after Dad died it got even harder for her, to say the least. And she didn't go out with other men-she didn't have time, she said ..." Here Noel flashed to a colleague of hers in the history department who was mad about her, whom he had stupidly objected to one evening, for no valid reason, whom she immediately stopped seeing. "So why wouldn't I care for her? Helping her, on a small scale, as she helped me?"

Norval was surprised by this sudden outpouring. He was moved as well, on a small scale, but made sure not to show it. He undid a smokedpearl b.u.t.ton on his shirt before covering his face with the brandy snifter. An intoxicating perfume of almonds, vanilla and poached pears.

Noel watched him, almost enviously. He would never be able to knock back an amount like that, not without retch and spasm.

Norval savoured the long spicy (clove and pepper?) finish. "I hear you're working with JJ," he said evenly, feeling a pleasant internal flush. "Down in the dungeon."

"Correct."

Norval gave a slight nod. "That sounds promising. To save time, why don't you just tie a millstone around your neck and jump in the Saint Lawrence?"

"No, you really don't know him-"

"What's that, that cl.u.s.terf.u.c.k over there?" Norval pointed to a sideboard with a marble top and bra.s.s rail at the back, on which mounds of faded papers and airmail envelopes were scattered.

"Samira and JJ found them. They're my grandmother's stuff, her doc.u.ments. She was a witch. Who cast spells."

"Your grandmother cast spells."

"Correct. She also had a great memory. Probably a synaesthete too, although I can't find any references to it. She ended up in an inst.i.tution."

"So you'll end up in the same place?"

"Very likely."

"So what are you going to do with it? Put it in a recycling bin?"

"Well, Samira and JJ suggested I throw a bit of mysticism and spirituality and irrationality into my ... research."

"You're going to cast spells."

"In a nutsh.e.l.l."

"Great. Now all you have to do is trade a cow for some magic beans."

"We're already starting to get results. Samira's already cured her insomnia with an insomnia spell."

"I'm afraid to ask what that involves. Eye of newt and toe of frog? Six pinches of powdered orangutan nuts?"

"Look, it's right here: 'Hot milk, turkey, nutmeg and oregano.' Lactose is a sedative-that's the scientific part-and milk is 'sacred to the Mother G.o.ddess, containing the spiritual power to comfort, soothe and nurture.' Turkey contains tryptophan, an amino acid that causes drowsiness. Nutmeg has medicinal and magical properties similar to those of opiates or peyote. And then you just repeat this chant-"

"Jesus Christ, Noel. Has JJ bit you on the leg? Is this what you three Cuisinartists have been up to? Staving off the inevitable with spells spells?"

"There's nothing 'inevitable' about my mother's condition. You'll see."

[image]

The television was echoing in the cathedral-ceilinged family room when Norval stumbled down the steps the next day at noon, unkempt, unshaven and underdressed. He made his way into the kitchen as if sleepwalking, a smouldering filter in his mouth. Half-moons under his eyes matched the dark stains on his smoker's fingers.

At a table heaped with the wreckage of breakfast, Noel was absentmindedly filling in the squares of a cryptic crossword. "What can I get you, Nor?"

Norval looked briefly for an ashtray before tossing his cigarette b.u.t.t into the sink, which sizzled like an electrical short. "I don't know," he said with a gravelly voice. "What do you Scots have for breakfast? Haggis? Arbroath smokies with stovies? Soor plooms and chittery bite-"

"There's coffee behind you."

In the family room Samira was arranging blue irises in two vases on a side-table made of split-bamboo. Red-gold sunlight lay in bright puddles on the rush-matting beneath her bare feet. Behind her, on an overstuffed sofa, JJ and Stella sat side by side, watching soccer on an arcane sports channel.

"OK, Brian, it's time for the second half of our feature match, Holland versus Saudi Arabia, which is shaping-"

"Saudi Arabia?" Norval said from the doorway, coffee mug in one hand, cigarette in the other. "The Saudis couldn't score in a brothel."

Samira turned. "Well, well, well, a breath of French air."

"Nor!" said JJ, looking as bright and alert as a squirrel. "Join the party! Have a seat." He wiggled closer to Mrs. Burun, patted the seat beside him. "Here."

Norval remained standing, took a gulp of coffee.

"Hey Nor, why did the coach give lighters to his players?"

"Careful now. You wouldn't want me to spit out my coffee."

"Because they lost all their matches."

"You hit the hilarity motherlode with that one, JJ. Let's all take five minutes to slap our thighs, shall we?"

A belated burst of laughter came from the sofa. From Mrs. Burun. Looking her way, JJ dissolved in a jelly of giggles, which started Samira up.