Bright, Precious Days (17 page)

“Look,” Russell said, ready with his defense, “this all started right after Hilary decided to tell the kids she was their real mother. That has to have rocked her world, whether or not she's talked about it openly. The fact that she hasn't seems pretty strange to me. If there's been a sea change in her behavior, that might be a good place to start looking for an explanation.”

“Maybe, but you don't have to make them both think food's so damn important.”

“Do you have a problem with my weight?”

“No, you're looking pretty good, considering, but that's only because you're blessed with a high metabolism. And if you really want to know, you could lose a little around the middle.”

“Is that why you don't want to make love anymore?”

“Don't be ridiculous. And anyway, we're talking about our
daughter.
”

“I'm not being ridiculous. Things were good last fall—I felt like we were sexually attuned again for the first time in years—and then it went to shit again.”

“That's a little extreme.”

“Think about it. When was the last time?”

“I don't know, a couple weeks?”

“Seven weeks. I practically had to beg for it.”

“I didn't know you were keeping track.”

“I am.”

“There are cycles in a marriage; you know that.”

“Yes, I do. But it's not like the fucking weather. It's not out of anyone's control. It's volitional.”

“Complaint registered.” She sighed theatrically and threw herself back against the seat. “Now can we finish talking about Storey?”

“We can. I think that her sudden bingeing might just as likely be a reaction to your food and weight phobias as to my issues. But honestly, I think it's just a phase. Like your lack of interest in sex.”

He considered this a rather neat rhetorical maneuver, although it became clear, as the silence in the cab stretched several blocks and followed them into the elevator, that it was at best a Pyrrhic victory. They each greeted Jean, and separately said good night to the kids, who'd just turned out their lights. Ferdie was curled up with Jeremy, who asked, “How was the secret restaurant?”

“It was pretty fun.”

“Mom didn't like it.”

“No, she didn't.”

“What was the secret?”

“The secret was that they have shrimp that dance.”

“That's weird. Night, Dad.”

“Good night, son.”

After returning from the bathroom, she undressed behind the closet door and emerged in full pajamas, a red cotton top and bottom that had never once been removed in the heat of passion, and settled into her side of the bed with her book, Joan Didion's memoir about her husband's death—not necessarily a good sign. He could see from the tight set of her mouth that she was not likely to say anything, the silence settling around them like setting concrete. He picked up a manuscript, an addiction memoir he wouldn't even have glanced at if the agent, whom he respected, hadn't assured him of its literary quality. He just didn't think the world needed another one of these, except that they seemed to continue to sell, even after the scandal of
A Million Little Pieces,
as if there were a bottomless appetite for true-life tales of degradation and redemption. It was by this time formulaic, a genre as unvarying in its stations of the cross as an episode of
Law & Order,
although there were variables—coke instead of heroin or, in this particular case, meth.

“I might just read a little more,” he said when she clicked off her light.

“That's fine,” she said.

Fifteen minutes later he knew that she was still awake, could sense her consciousness from across the king-size bed. The tension was palpable; his continued reading was giving her an additional grievance to store up against him. He put down the manuscript and turned out his light, but while he was trying to come up with a conciliatory remark, he heard the rhythmic breathing of Corrine's sleep.

At one-thirty he went to the bathroom and took an Ambien. He heated a mug of milk in the microwave and stirred in some Ovaltine. Taking it to the couch, he surveyed his kingdom, such as it was—the bookshelves with their signed first editions, the Berenice Abbott portrait of Joyce, the almost abstract Russell Chatham landscape they'd bought from the artist himself on a trip to Montana, the Wiener Werkstätte side table they'd bought at a flea market in Pennsylvania for seventy-five bucks; these were among the few items of worldly value, and they didn't add up to all that much—certainly not enough to cover the down payment on the loft—but everything here had been gathered by the two of them together over the years and he felt a keen sense of conjugal proprietorship in the family portraits and bric-a-brac, the cracked leather club chair from his father's den, the
Those Calloways
poster, the kids' artwork framed on the walls or attached to the refrigerator with magnets—the backdrop they'd created over many years for the ongoing story of their lives.

He couldn't believe that after all this time, as hard as he'd worked, he wasn't sure he could even afford to buy this decrepit loft with its subcode wiring and peeling paint, wavy floors and a single bathroom. Was this too much to ask? He'd known when he chose his profession that it wasn't terribly lucrative, but he hadn't anticipated then that someday he'd be fifty, with two school-age children. Nor had he realized that Corrine would abandon her job at Merrill Lynch early on, that she'd be working in the nonprofit sector. He was proud of her, but her paycheck left something to be desired.

He retreated to the bedroom, with the clock ticking on his Ambien; he needed to be lying down with all the lights out when it kicked in, or else he'd lose the moment and be awake all night.

He lay down at a little after two o'clock and woke up exactly five hours later with the jangly headache that inevitably resulted from taking Ambien after a night of drinking…first the house cocktail, then two bottles of Pol Roger, then who knows how many of those sneaky little carafes of sake. Had he actually eaten that disgusting sack of fucking fish sperm? He
must
've been drunk.

Something else was bothering him, lodged at the back of his mind like a tiny fishhook. It was like that dream song of Berryman's where Henry wakes up afraid he's killed someone, but “nobody is ever missing.” What the hell was it? After he'd awakened the kids and turned on the news, the nagging question finally came to him: Why had Washington passed on Kohout's book?

SPRING WAS COMING TO
the Hemel-en-Aarde valley even as the autumn deepened in New York. Just back from the Transvaal, Luke was restless; the vines and the grass were bright green once again, while the fossilized bones of ancient hominids and the animals they'd killed and the stone tools they'd carved continued their ancient slumber. Sometimes a fragment of a jawbone or a knife point would appear in the vineyard, exposed by plowing or erosion. Along with a handful of Civil War bullets and belt buckles from his childhood home in Tennessee—relics of the Battle of Franklin—three Acheulean hand axes graced Luke's desk: faceted stone lozenges with a pleasing heft in the palm, the oldest and longest-used implements made by human hands, unearthed in the vineyard.

He loved the valley, but he was also tired of it, and at this moment he missed New York, where nothing was ancient and a new crop of stores and bars and restaurants pushed up between the cracks of the sidewalks to flourish for a season or two, before they, in turn, were crowded out by newer ones. Though he'd spent three decades in the city, in recent years he associated it mostly with Corrine; he was nostalgic for interludes they'd never shared, constrained as they had been by the need to hide their affair—picnics in Central Park, shopping sprees on Madison Avenue, leisurely dinners at Italian restaurants recommended by the
Times.
In fact, he'd hardly ever had the leisure for these urban idylls he imagined now, working sixteen-hour days, shuttling by Town Car from apartment to office, office to airport, bound for Columbus or Little Rock, pausing occasionally to refuel at the Four Seasons or celebrate a deal at ‘21' or accompany his wife to one of the charity balls that seemed to be her chief recreation, where he diddled his BlackBerry under the table as she flirted with his friends and the husbands of her friends. He cherished certain memories of urban rituals with his daughter, but in his heart he knew he'd been a part-time father at best. His real life had been lived on LCD screens, Manhattan as the backdrop for due-diligence drudgery and occasional heroic digital feats of high finance. Which is why he'd retired from the private equity firm he'd cofounded. Within days, the planes had crashed into the towers, and all his plans had gone sideways.

At the bar in the living room, he poured three fingers of scotch into a tumbler and retreated to his study, where he checked the closing numbers for the financial markets in New York—the Dow and S&P up again, the rand continuing its slide against the dollar—and tomorrow's weather forecast, sunny, with a high of seventeen degrees centigrade, which he had to convert in his head, non-Fahrenheit degrees still unreal to him after three years in the valley of heaven and earth, though the weather didn't matter so much now that the grapes were harvested, the new vintage mellowing in the cellar, beyond the reach of the elements, except, perhaps, the tidal pull of the moon. While he was not of the dancing-naked-among-the-vines school of viticulture, his midlife foray into farming had given him a new respect for the rhythms of the spheres and the unseen forces of the natural world, which were as inexorable as the operations of markets. He knew that the wine tasted unsettled in the barrel as the full moon approached, just as he knew that the price of bonds moved inversely to interest rates, and he now felt far more attuned to the cycle of the seasons than in the days when he'd lived in conference rooms and airports.

Checking his e-mail, he found invoices for materials for the new school in the township, a request for a water-catchment system from a nearby district and an unwelcome missive from his ex.

Luke

I can never remember what time it is there and I don't want to risk waking your child bride, but need to talk to you about Ashley. She came down to the city last weekend and was a mess. You know I'm hardly one to think a girl can be too thin, but Ashley's beyond skinny. I tried to talk to her about it, but of course she's in total denial. I really don't know if it's drugs or not, but I think she may need to go somewhere and I think you really need to get involved here. You know she doesn't listen to me; you seem to have succeeded in turning her against me. She'll be out of school as of mid-May and I think you need to be on deck. She can stay here at the apartment with us the last two weeks of May, but after that we're going to London and then we've chartered the Lawlors' yacht for two weeks, cruising the Amalfi coast, and I don't think she should be here in the city alone. Sarah Bradley has invited her to stay at their place in Southampton, but I don't think she should be on her own all summer. I know there are lots of needy orphans and teenage brides in Africa, but your own daughter needs you right here in America. Charity begins at home, Dad.

Sasha

Luke immediately dialed his daughter, but his call went straight to voice mail. “Ash, it's Dad. Please call me.”

He thought about calling Sasha but knew that he'd have a hard time keeping a lid on his emotions.

Sasha

Am deeply concerned about your report on Ashley's health. When I saw her last month, she seemed well, if thin, but if you think she's underweight, then the situation must indeed be dire. As you may recall, your sarcastic attitude when she was a little heavy as a teen helped to contribute to these body-image problems, and your diet pills certainly helped launch her drug problems. I'm going to talk to Ash and some of her friends, and you can be sure I will take whatever action is necessary.

Luke

The American obesity epidemic did not extend to wealthy Manhattan and its spheres of influence, its satellite prep schools and summer colonies, where females in particular seemed susceptible to anorexia and bulimia, at least the ones in his immediate orbit, his ex-wife, his daughter…possibly even Corrine. In the case of Sasha and her friends, it was a religion, practiced at Pilates studios and private gyms and restaurants' ladies' rooms. For all those bony Upper East Side women with their sharp elbows, slenderness was a virtue, standing in for all the others that had been discarded.

It occurred to him that the solution to at least two of his own problems might involve a quick trip back to New York.

All at once the lights went out and the computer screen faded. Luke reached for the flashlight on his desk and fished his key ring from his pocket, unlocking the top desk drawer, where he kept a loaded SIG Sauer. The power was somewhat intermittent in the valley—in most of the Cape, for that matter; Eskom, the power company, was notoriously unreliable. On the other hand, late-night farm invasions had become increasingly common to the north, armed gangs breaking in and murdering white families, with the tacit approval of the ANC, which advocated the redistribution of land and sent out periodic calls for “colonialists” to abandon their farms. Rape, torture and mutilation were common features of these attacks, which usually began with the intruders cutting phone and power lines, and Luke couldn't help tensing up whenever the lights went out, even as he felt paranoid for doing so.

He went to the window and looked out over the vineyards, but he could detect no movement; hurrying to the bedroom, he found Giselle asleep on her back, her arm draped across her face, her head in the crook of her elbow—her habitual pose in sleep. He was grateful that she was a heavy sleeper, since he was a restless one. He was about to check the phone, when he heard the generator kick in and saw the glow of the hall light in the bedroom doorway. He picked up the phone and was reassured by the dial tone. As soon as he put the receiver in its cradle, the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Luke, Charles here. Just wanted to make sure all was well.”

“We're fine here for now. The generator's gone on. You've got power there?”

“Same as you. Just another blackout, then.”

“Thanks for checking in.”

“Sleep well.”

“Who was that?” asked Giselle, opening a single eye.

“It was Charles, just checking to see we were okay. The lights went out.”

She sat up in bed. “Oh shit.”

“They're on again now.”

“Jesus. Now I'll be awake all night.”

“It was nothing.”

“No, but it could've been.”

“Let's not dwell on that.”

“How can I not dwell on that? That's absurd. You can't will yourself not to think of something. Did you hear what they did to those women and children up in the Transvaal?”

“It hasn't happened around here.”

“No, but it's only a matter of time. It's not as if we're stuck here. Charles and Emma don't have much choice, but we can leave anytime we like.”

Even as he was listening to her, he was admiring her, the swell of her breasts emerging from under the sheet, framed by her cascading strands of blond hair. He couldn't help desiring her and despising himself a little for it.

“Of course there are problems,” he said, “but I think things are moving in the right direction.” Even as he said this, he realized he was arguing a position in which he no longer believed. He'd lost much of his enthusiasm for his adoptive home, yet he felt it necessary to defend his former position, to maintain the old battle lines.

“Wanting that to be true doesn't make it true. It's only a matter of time before what's happening in Zimbabwe starts up down here. Mbeki thinks Mugabe's a great leader.”

Luke couldn't help recalling a safari he'd taken in Zimbabwe not long after the civil war there finally ended, to Hwange and Victoria Falls, when it seemed that the transition would be successful, when Mugabe appeared to be responsible, even idealistic.

“Sometimes I think you're so afraid of being perceived as racist, with your southern American guilt; you can't admit what's actually happening in this country. This isn't the United States. I grew up here, I love this country, but it pains me to say that I don't really believe there's a future for me here. For us. I wish it were otherwise. But we have to at least
think
about the future. Luke, you know I want to start a family, but I don't want to raise my children in a country that doesn't want them, a country where they'll be blamed for the sins of their ancestors, always seen as colonialists and usurpers.”

Luke could understand this part of her argument; if he'd had any interest in starting a family, then he would want to do so back in the States. But he was fifty-eight years old and already had a twenty-year-old daughter. “Sometimes I worry you married me for my passport,” he said.

“God, Luke, that's a terrible thing to say.” She turned away and buried her head in her pillow.

“I didn't mean it,” he said, rubbing her shoulders. “I'm sorry.” She remained obdurately burrowed into her pillow. “It's just that I can't walk away from the foundation.”

“You don't need to be here day to day. I mean, fund-raising's your primary obligation, and you certainly aren't going to find any funds here. And the winery pretty much runs itself most of the time. As long as you're here for harvest and crush. Or you could probably sell the winery to Charles. It's not like you're making money at it.”

He wasn't even sure why he was arguing the case for staying in the Cape, although certainly the foundation did have something to do with this. It made him feel needed and useful in a way that he hadn't felt before; he'd single-handedly brought fresh water, a new school and a clinic to the township down the road. On the other hand, he'd never felt the same enthusiasm for this place since the accident. He'd grown weary of his whole African adventure.

He knew he was being reflexively contrarian. If Giselle had been dead set on staying in her homeland, he might well have been arguing the other side. In fact, he was ready to go home, but not with her.

“I don't want to wait any longer,” she said, turning to face him and putting her arms on his shoulders. “I want a family. I want a baby. I don't know what you're waiting for, but I know you haven't made love to me in almost two weeks.” Her eyes suddenly welled with tears. “I'm not sure if it's because you don't find me attractive anymore, or if you're afraid I'll get pregnant. But I can't go on like this.”

He climbed into the bed beside her. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I got all caught up in the harvest. And then Ashley was having all that trouble at school.”

“Aren't you attracted to me anymore?”

“Of course I am. You're one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen.”

“Are you worried I'll get pregnant?”

“Maybe a little.”

“Don't you want a family?”

“I just need to get used to the idea.”

“That was what we always talked about.” She was sobbing now, and he found it impossible to speak honestly with her. If he were truly honest with himself, he would have to say that he didn't want to be a father again, that he hoped the issue might be equivocated indefinitely, but she was determined to force his hand. Until he had finally resolved his feelings for Corrine, he couldn't possibly make her pregnant. Nor could he keep denying her forever, and his desire to postpone the reckoning, combined with genuine regret and even love, evolved almost imperceptibly from comforting her into gestures of stimulation, her sobbing transformed to moaning as she thrashed off his belt and trousers, his reservations and scruples melting away as he thrust himself inside her.

He woke shortly after dawn and left his wife sleeping, dressed and took his coffee out to the patio, looking out over the valley, the golden vineyards spilling down to the Onrust River and the rusty mountains rising up to the north. A small troop of baboons ambled up the service road before disappearing into the vines. There was a slight chill in the air, the coffee cup throwing a faint nimbus of steam. At this moment it was hard to credit any of last night's anxieties.

He went down to the chicken yard and picked up five eggs, two brown, two small white eggs from the bantams and one a faint, ghostly blue. In the kitchen he fried them and cooked sausages, then took a tray into Giselle, who stirred and smiled up at him, seeming to float on the feather bed as if on a cloud of postcoital serenity.