All this cohabitation was new. The house in Queen’s Crescent had been home to Julia Alden since before Gwen’s birth. She and Daniel had bought it when she was heavily pregnant, moon-faced and cumbrous as she unpacked boxes and helped Daniel to paint the baby’s room in pale willow and stronger mint greens. The room would become a grassy landscape against which their tiny, red-faced, orange-haired daughter would resemble a furious, insomniac leprechaun, demanding and bewitching in equal measure. When Daniel died five years ago, succumbing in six months to the efficient liver cancer he had long before managed to beat with such misleading ease, Julia could not bring herself to move. Queen’s Crescent was where he was, or wasn’t, and his palpable absence had been all that she and Gwen had of him. She was no longer on speaking terms with her own bitter and disappointed mother but Daniel’s parents, Philip and Iris, had helped her with the practicalities. How they felt about this latest development was an uncertainty that made her anxious; asked directly, they were unfailingly elegant and generous. Iris Alden had for some time been suggesting, hinting, commanding that Julia ought to “move on.” It was unhealthy for Julia and Gwen to live in such intense and inward symbiosis, Iris had reproved her daughter-in-law, and each now needed a man around, for different, equally valid reasons. But “moving on” was abstract, where “moving in” was concrete, deliberate, and unavoidable. Julia had first met James through Philip Alden, who had befriended him at an obstetric conference. This ought to have eased her conscience, but didn’t. Philip had recommended her to James as a piano teacher, not a life partner. When she found the time Julia worried for her in-laws, in between worrying about everything else.
Along with five suitcases, several crates of expensive red wine, twelve cardboard boxes of books (many of which proved to be the U.S. paperback editions of novels already in the house), an elaborate sound system with large, freestanding speakers, and a cherished American coffee maker, James Fuller and his son, Nathan, had arrived one afternoon in the balmy golden light and warmth of early September, and for the eleven weeks since then, the household had been black with tension and thunder. Gwen was constitutionally incapable of concealing her loathing and distress; Nathan, a year older and slightly more socially sophisticated, was equally unhappy but would not admit it. To Julia he was obsequious and detectably patronizing.
Alone with Gwen he mostly ignored or bullied her, idly, correcting her grammar or mocking the blog she kept, on which she re-created key scenes from her week with miniature plasticine figures staged in elaborate shoebox sets. James was represented by a Lego figure of Darth Vader, black-helmeted, sinister, wreaking destruction. Nathan appeared in clay, always hand in hand with his girlfriend, Valentina, a polished and imperious little sprite who stayed over whenever he was home for the weekend from boarding school. Gwen had made Valentina beautiful, had faithfully rendered the girl’s silky blonde hair and prominent bust, but she always made the couple’s clothes match, and put them both in sunglasses, even inside, even at night. This was a clever and irreproachable way of making them look slightly ludicrous. Julia, Philip, and Iris made frequent use of this blog to gauge Gwen’s mood. Once upbeat and sunny, it was now unfailingly despairing, since her mother had fallen in love with Darth Vader.
? ? ?
“I JUST WANTED TO SAY bon voyage, darling.”
Julia wedged the phone between ear and shoulder and continued to do battle with the zip of her luggage. Poised and unflappable, unfailingly judgmental of those who were neither, Iris had an unerring instinct for Julia’s most chaotic moments.
“Thank you. The voyage part might be a bit stressful, we’re late already, nobody’s downstairs. You’d think we were preparing to go away for a month.”
“Under the circumstances three days may come to feel like a month. Have you and Thing planned anything à deux while you’re there? A little breathing space?”
“No, I don’t think it’s possible this time. It doesn’t seem fair to the kids.”
After a heavy silence Iris observed, “Traveling with babies can be so wearying.”
“Iris”—Julia tried once more and the zip slid effortlessly up to its hilt, several fine threads of her favorite wool scarf snared halfway down between its teeth. She lowered her voice to a whisper: “I took on board what you said. I’m trying not to infantilize her, but there will be a lot happening for her—”
“There will be a lot happening for you, too. Last time I checked you were meant to be having some fun.”
“We will.”
“Well do, please. No martyrdom while you’re there, it would be very unfashionable, Americans don’t believe in it. Channel the national spirit. Be plucky and aspiring.”
Julia promised to try. Neither of these characteristics came easily to her, though they were the twin peaks dominating Iris’s own natural territory. Julia poured the remains of the milk down the sink, scanning the surfaces for anything else that might turn into a disaster in three days of neglect. When the doorbell rang she was squeezing a perfunctory spray of kitchen cleaner onto the hob where light splashes of Nathan’s porridge had already set, hard as concrete. Iris was now describing her own most recent trip to America, and a production of Indian Ink on Broadway. Julia of all people really ought to get tickets to the BSO, and Thing loves music, too, doesn’t he? Couldn’t they sneak off to the Symphony Hall? Didn’t Julia think she might deserve it?
“Oh, God, sorry. Cab’s outside, I’d better go. Oh, wait! Iris?”
“Yes, I’m still here.”
“Are you sure Philip can handle the dog? I know how much he loves him, but Mole’s just so big . . .”
“Philip Alden will be just fine, it’s good for his knees to walk. He’s always threatening to rescue some abandoned scrap from the pound, you know how dotty he is about anything with four legs. They’ll be two alte Kackers together.”
Julia bit her lip. An image arose of the dog bolting after an insouciant London squirrel, pulling slow-moving Philip to the pavement and thence to broken ribs, pneumonia, death. She suppressed this. Mole had not bolted for many years, and his cataracts occluded large items of furniture, so he was unlikely to spot squirrels. His arthritis rivaled Philip’s own.
Julia turned her attention to the thermostat. It had a holiday setting, she was certain of it. She pressed buttons, experimental, pessimistic. Iris interpreted her silence, and responded.
“You want me to say I’ll take him if it doesn’t work out. Julia, that animal reeks. In fifty years I’ve never let a stinking beast into my beloved house.”