Apologize, Apologize!

CHAPTER NINETEEN

IT WAS THE FIRST WEEK IN AUGUST, AND THE FALCON WAS HAVING a dinner party.
I found him in the kitchen going over the menu with the cook, who had a nervous smile plastered to his face.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. “I can’t believe you think that it’s okay to entertain so soon.”
“The faster you get on with it, the sooner you get over it,” he said, putting a terse end to the obligatory tedium of mourning.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, Lord, I’m too old for this conversation.” He put both hands on his hips and, closing his eyes, tipped his head back, arching his spine, stretching conspicuously, as if he’d spent hours confined to a box.
“Well, you can count me out. What am I supposed to do? Stand around and talk about the stock market with a bunch of your friends?”
“You could do worse. I expect you to be there with bells on,” he said. “There’s enough talk circulating about you. You’re in need of a little social rehabilitation, and the quicker we get to it the better,” he said, his eyes sweeping the ceiling corners for evidence of missed cobwebs.
Earlier in the day, he’d thrown a vase at one of the servants, narrowly missing her, a young girl who had mistakenly introduced color into the all-white music room.
“Only white, idiot!” he’d said. “I told you all white. I want everything to be white!”
“I’ll tell you what,” I said, suddenly inspired by the opportunity to redeem myself for the New York party. “I’ll show up if you agree that Pop and Uncle Tom can come.”
His back to me, his shoulders stiffened and then relaxed. “All right,” he said unexpectedly. “Invite them if you want to.”
“Are you serious?”
“I never joke when it comes to Tom and Charlie Flanagan.”
Tiny ivory candles flickered in the tree overhead—junior members of the household staff were expected to keep them lit despite a persistent extinguishing August wind. Cocktail dresses blew about like the flames from torches dipped in pitch and dug in along both sides of the driveway. The camphorated air from the roses was sweet and heavy, a fuel made for burning, as if at any moment the night might catch fire.
Little white lights illuminated the tree canopy overlooking the pool. A narrow path of moonlight led to the open garden doors of the dining room, softly awash in candlelight; deeply red roses amassed in burgeoning arrangements spilled onto the table’s creamy linens. The wind lifted up the corners of the tablecloths.
A smoky trail of gray birds passed overhead as I approached the front door, back from hours spent waiting at the ferry for Pop and Uncle Tom, who never showed up, despite all of Pop’s extravagant promises. I paused, my hand on the doorknob, feeling alone and unequal to the evening that loomed ahead of me.
The leaves of poplar trees made a temperate, pleasing, summery sound as I fingered my car keys and thought about running away.
“Kitty! . . . Kitty! Where are you?” an angry male voice called out from somewhere near the pond.
A woman stepped from the shadows and stood next to me. She clutched my hand and giggled. Shit.
“Mrs. Paley,” I said, fumbling, trying not to swallow my tongue.
“Oh, God, that’s Steven, I can’t stand it. Let’s run away together, shall we?” she said, not exactly surprising me with her shrill subversion. “You’ve no idea how dreary a middle-aged man can be. Come help me hide. Look, over there!”
A curve in the path led away from the house and into a cove made up of dense shrubbery and tall ornamental grasses. I reluctantly followed her there, and once inside she pulled me toward her like some style-minded Apache dancer. We sank to the ground, where it was crunchy and moist and covered with periwinkle.
“Collie Flanagan, I can’t believe it.”
Tall, with short-cropped platinum hair, she looked vaguely architectural, a contemporary structure, all glass and mirrors. Kitty Paley was married to the junior senator from New York. Steven Paley was considered the likely Democratic presidential nominee; the convention was still a few months away, and he was looking for the Falcon’s endorsement.
I went to Andover with their daughter, Edie—I wasn’t likely to forget Kit Paley: Her ribald laughter at graduation decorated the room like string art, wrapping itself around her husband as if it were a brightly colored garland. In public, she stuck to him like brilliant feathers.
She and Ma went to the same boarding school as kids—Ma detested her, loudly and in great detail. To Ma, who could grow a second head at the sight of a woman in stilettos, Kitty Paley was “a public washroom, a talking vagina with serrated teeth.”
“Here, here, Anais, there’s no need for a biology lesson. You’re frightening the boys,” Pop rebuked, “although I’ll concede your point—that woman is s-e-x in a convertible.”
“Look at you. You’re all grown up! You always were a marvelous-looking boy. You look more like Peregrine every day. By the way, I think you’re big enough to call me Kitty.”
“What are we doing out here?” I rubbed my right temple, my unease throbbing like an awkward cliché.
“Hiding from Steven, of course. Just indulge me a moment, won’t you?”
“Sure.” She had a way of making me feel as if I were five years old.
“Your mother . . . I felt terrible when I heard the news. And that darling brother of yours . . . well, it’s just the most horrendously cruel thing to have happened. . . . It’s such a tragedy for everyone, particularly for you. I’m sure you suffer terribly. . . . poor thing. But isn’t Perry lucky to have you? You must be such a comfort to him.”
She turned around so that her back was facing me, and reaching behind, she put my hands on her shoulders.
“Be a doll, won’t you, Collie, and rub my neck? I’m so tense—all this campaigning is such a dreadful ordeal. You’ve no idea.”
Painful discomfort humming away like a dull headache—I’d been avoiding this woman since I was fifteen years old and she hunted me down at a school fund-raiser, plopped herself in my lap, and started blowing in my ear.
“Kitty, this isn’t funny. Where are you?” Senator Paley was shouting her name. “Goddamn it.”
I could see him from where we were, an irritable presence on the terrace, impatiently waving away mosquitoes.
“F*ck,” she said. “What’s the use? He’ll never give up.” She slipped from my hands and turned around to face me. “I’ll take a rain check on the massage, okay?”
I looked into her eyes, understanding what I saw there, her black eyes glowing back at me and all around us the saturated scent of clover, her serrated teeth sparkling.
Slightly flustered, I was standing in the entranceway to the living room, watching the Falcon, elegantly cloaked in his dark suit, as he smoothly navigated the room, pausing to chat, to joke, to gossip, to perform the laying on of hands, convivial maestro of the incisive remark, each immaculate gesture flawlessly executed.
He was so subtly integrated into his surroundings, I was having trouble distinguishing him from all that enhanced his presence—white candles gently flickering, white linens politely enshrining each table, white gardenias and red roses making music on the softly perfumed air.
Wherever I looked I saw him there, in the gleam of reflection, the crystal clarity of the glass, the sparkle of the cutlery, the transparency of polished windows.
I was quiet, sipping my ginger ale and smiling a little, laughing a little, talking a little.
“Don’t mind my grandson. He thinks it’s sexy to be sullen,” the Falcon explained, looking both amused and appalled at the same time—a fairly standard expression for him.
Deadening explosions of laughter greeted his most bland observation.
Members of his household staff had to sign an employment contract stipulating no eye contact with him unless he authorized an exemption.
“Where do I sign?” Bingo said, thirteen or fourteen when he heard about it for the first time. Uncle Tom called it the Medusa clause.
The Falcon sidled up to me. “So where are the Flanagan brothers? Still dressing?” He laughed and looked for a place to put his glass, his eyes focused on a conversation occurring across the room.
“You knew they’d never show up. That’s why you agreed to let me invite them, because you knew they wouldn’t come,” I said, feeling like a very slow learner.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the Falcon said, patting me on the arm, lifting his other hand high over his head, loudly greeting a new arrival, making his way through the parting waves.
The dreaded Senator Paley caught sight of me loitering near the doorway, inching into the hallway, yearning for the sanctuary of my bedroom, looking to disappear. He snapped his fingers and pointed. I jumped, and Kitty glanced up sharply, her false eyelashes descending like an immodest veil.
“I know you. Perry’s grandson Kevin, isn’t it?” He walked toward me as I corrected him, his hand extended like a loaded gun, the Falcon watching attentively as the other guests took notice. He’d met me at least a dozen times before over the years but acted as if each time were the first time. The senator was a big black bird of a man, landing among us like a crow at a bird feeder, aggressive and carping—you were always waiting for him to steal your bread crumb or drown you in the birdbath. Not in the same league as the Falcon, more like a top predator’s sadistic, sharp-beaked henchman.
“Your brother died a couple of months ago. Your mother, too, right? Sorry about that,” he said indifferently, trampling on the niceties, rushing to his purpose. “He drowned. A surfing accident, wasn’t it? Some others died that day, too. You were the only one to survive.”
“Not surfing,” I said. “We were in a cave. . . .”
I stopped and stood up straighter, swallowed deeper, knowing what was to come, aware that I was in the presence of someone determined to make me aware of exactly what he was thinking. Kitty was looking uncomfortable. She and Steven exchanged a swollen glance—their flushed faces and overall humidity suggested an incoming storm. I shuffled from one foot to the other, fiddling with the papery contents of my pants pocket.
“It’s all coming back to me now. Your brother was in trouble. The others went in after him. They drowned trying to save him. But you were”—he paused, glanced around at the gathering crowd, the corners of his mouth curling in contempt—“different. You didn’t go in.”
“No. I didn’t go in.”
“You should have gone in after him. Your brother, I mean.” He jabbed me in the arm almost playfully, as if I’d missed the big catch in the game. “What was his name?”
“Bingo. Bing.”
“You and the Ferrell kid—I know his uncle, Whitney Ferrell—it was your idea to go caving that day, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess. . . .”
“Well, why the hell didn’t you go in after him? You might have made the difference. Now you’ll never know. First response, gut response, the thing you do before you think—that’s the measure of a man.”
“It was aerated water. If I’d gone in, I wouldn’t be here talking to you. I would have drowned, too. Even the rescue divers wouldn’t search at the base of the falls.”
The senator ignored me. He was gesturing broadly, looking around and nodding, trying to recruit support. Beaming, visibly proud of himself for diving in, he took a drag on his cigar and puffed smoke in my direction, hoping I’d cough. “I don’t care if it was sulfuric acid. There’s an old saying, kid: A brave man dies once, a coward dies a thousand deaths. Anyway, here’s the thing—when you decide to do something risky, even something stupid, then it’s all for one and one for all—you kiss your own ass good-bye if you need to. Is that clear enough for you?”
“Steven doesn’t understand the concept of small talk,” Kitty said, tittering nervously. “He likes to think life is a Charles Bronson movie.”
“Kit, please, Collie’s a big boy. You don’t mind, do you, kid? It’s just talk. I’m trying to help you wade through this mess. I’m sure you’ve had it up to here with everyone p-ssyfooting around your feelings.”
He framed his reference to my feelings with a sneer, looking at me as if he suspected me of menstruating.
“Anyway”—he confronted Kit—“don’t you need to fix your hair or adjust your makeup or something?” He gestured derisively with both hands before motioning for me to sit down.
I shook my head. “No thanks.”
“I’ll give you a good case in point so you realize that I know what the hell I’m talking about.” He was just getting warmed up, the ice cubes in his glass colliding loudly.
“When I was in my early twenties, some friends and I took a trip to Austria for backcountry skiing. Helicopter dropped us into some pretty treacherous territory and took off. We’d been there a couple of days when there was a small but deadly avalanche and my buddy was swept into a glacial lake, hundreds of feet deep and freezing cold. He was loaded down with equipment and calling for help. We immediately went in after him, regardless of the consequence. We got him out, by the way, although we almost died in the effort. I’m not telling you this to shoot my mouth off or toot my own horn. I’m no hero. It’s what we signed on for. Do you get it?”
“Yeah, I get it, but it’s not the same.”
“It’s tough. These things are hard, but the failure to act is the toughest act of all to follow. You don’t strike me as a coward, but more the kind of guy who doesn’t appreciate what it means to sign on. Am I right?”
“Look, I don’t know what you want me to say. . . .”
“For Christ’s sake, Steven . . . ,” Kitty objected as the other guests, some of them nodding in agreement, most of them embarrassed and murmuring, began to move on.
The Falcon, on the other hand, was riveted—oh, he was concealing his raptness well enough, grazing and nibbling, mingling, indulging his penchant for light, insincere laughter, but I could feel his intensity from across the room.
I got the impression he was evaluating my worth somehow.
“Look, I’m not trying to put you on trial here.” Having made his point, the senator was trying to reposition himself as having my best interests at heart. “You must be going through hell over this. Jesus, you look terrible. How old are you, anyway?”
“Nineteen.”
“Is that all? You look like shit. You’ve got to stop beating yourself up over this thing. You’ve got a long road ahead of you. You need to ask yourself these questions for the sake of the rest of your life.”
“And Steven, you need to stop this now,” Kitty said, sounding firm.
“Please . . .” The note of pleading that I heard in my voice surprised me. “Try to understand. It was hopeless. No one stood a chance, and anyway . . . I didn’t think he could drown—”
“Enough small talk. Shall we retire to the dining room?” the Falcon interrupted, smiling coldly, gesturing for the others to precede him. He brushed forcibly against me as he passed by, the corner of his shoulder jabbing me in the chest and briefly knocking me off balance.
“How dare you let that nincompoop speak to you that way, and in my house,” he hissed into my ear.
I was astonished. “I thought you’d get mad at me . . . I didn’t want to make a scene. Anyway, you could have said something. Why didn’t you stick up for me?”
“For the same reason that General Patton never called on his wife to make his case to Eisenhower—stop trying to be all things to all people. I can’t make up my mind whether it’s cowardice or arrogance that makes you behave as you do. Now if you don’t mind, my guests are waiting.”
“I don’t know about this,” I said as the senator’s wife lowered herself under me.
I was retreating to my room, walking backward, trying to make my getaway, when I ran into her on the landing of the back staircase off the kitchen.
“Ma Griff,” I said, inhaling her perfume as if it were chloroform. Ma would have been horrified to know that she and Kitty Paley shared the same taste in fragrances.
“Shut up!” She put her hand across my mouth.
Somewhere in the cosmos, Bingo was splitting a gut.
Twenty minutes later, I was alone in my bedroom, throwing up into my pillowcase.
Two weeks after the party, I was sneaking into the unused side entrance of Cassowary, tiptoeing by the Falcon’s bedroom at four in the morning, when Carlos, his parrot, caught sight of me.
“Son of a bitch!” he hollered, peering out into the hallway.
“Shhh . . .” I put my fingers to my lips. Carlos was a mainstay of my childhood; I felt about him the way Candice Bergen must feel about Charlie McCarthy.
“Motherf*cker.” He said it as if he meant it, head bobbing, showing off his spectacular four-foot wingspan and cobalt blue feathers. Bingo taught him to swear like a death row inmate, and the Falcon never forgave him for it. Jailbird, Bingo nicknamed him.
I heard my grandfather’s voice preceding him around the corner. “What’s the racket, Carlos. . . . Oh, I see . . . well, if it isn’t the playboy of the Western world.” The Falcon, in slate gray silk dressing gown and pajamas, stood in the doorway.
“Hi, Granddad.”
“Hi, Granddad,” Carlos mimicked as I glared over at him, and he smirked at me in return.
“How kind of you to put in an appearance,” the Falcon said, pretending to examine his fingernails. He looked up. “Where have you been all this time? Entertaining the senator’s wife?”
He recoiled in disgust. “Good God! Look at you. What rock did you crawl out from under before coming home?”
“I shouldn’t have come here. I’ll leave.” My eyes were trained on the floor.
“Where will you go? That’s right. Run for cover. Take flight. There’s an answer,” he said as I began to back away, preparing to descend the stairs, my hand on the balustrade. He reached out to stop me. I glanced down at his fingers pinching my forearm.
“Before you leave, Collie, I’m curious. Where will you go tonight? Back to service the lovely Mrs. Paley? She’s already run through the entire graduating class at Groton and Andover. Rumor has it you’re seeing her daughter, Edie, as well—the possibilities are positively ill making. I’ve had the senator on the phone every night this week, apoplectic with rage and making threats all over the place. Seems it’s a game they play—she taunts him with her young lovers, and he’s willing to pimp out his wife and daughter and keep silent about it in exchange for generous support from me for his campaign.” He tightened his grip.
“It’s not like that. . . .”
“Oh yes, it’s exactly like that. I can smell it on you. Tell me. Are you punishing yourself for what happened or are you trying to make yourself feel better? Or are you just living up to the abysmally low standard of performance you appear to have set for yourself?”
“It’s not true.”
“Well, prove it, then. Pull yourself together. Get over it.” He released my arm and took a couple of steps back, as if he were trying to regain his perspective, looking me over as if he were assessing an unfinished painting.
“I can’t.” I was becoming a sheet of ice that had begun to crack, intricate ventricles spreading soundlessly across a vast and barren frozen lake.
“Don’t tell me that you can’t when you can,” the Falcon said, sounding firm, almost angry. “For goodness’ sake, Bing was a lovable boy, there’s no disputing his appeal, but he was at the peak of his attractiveness, believe me. The rest of his life was going to be conducted on a downhill slide. He was cut from the same cloth as Charlie and Tom—he was destined to become just like them, eccentric, silly . . . a hopeless drunk . . . Collie, this must be said. The very things about Bing that so amused you in your youth would eventually become the same things that made him intolerable to you. I regret his passing. I do.” His voice softened a little as he folded his arms across his chest, hesitating for a moment before continuing. “And it pains me to say it, but men like your brother, Bingo, come a dime a dozen. . . . Well . . . now I see I’ve made you cry. Good Lord.” He threw up his arms in exasperation. “I’m trying to make you feel better.”
Was I crying? I guess I was. I touched my hand to my face. My cheeks were wet.
My grandfather always preferred me, made it plain to everyone. His choosing me left a stain that resisted scrubbing. By picking me, he put me on the wrong side of everything—money, power, privilege, love. The Falcon seemed to have no trouble forgiving me for what happened. To him, Bingo was not worth dying for.
I couldn’t sleep after my encounter with the Falcon. When the sun came up, I wandered down to the rose garden, took off my shoes, and sat beside the fishpond. The koi, orange, blue, red, and gray, some of them twenty, thirty, sixty years old, swam to the water’s surface to greet me, greedy mouths gaping, heads poking out, looking for breakfast. I tossed some pellets into the water—Bingo loved to feed the fish. He gave them crazy names: the Empress of Japan, Tangerine Dreams, Huckleberry Fin. The Falcon’s koi had outlived Bingo and Ma, and I was starting to think they accomplished it by swimming around in circles.
The aging koi at swim, the topiary elephants stopped in midtrot, for a moment I thought I saw him there, hiding in the grass, the breeze picking up. He smiled, wanting me to spot him and calling out for me to come catch him.
“How about having a little fun for a change? The Falcon’s right, you’re getting to be a drag with this grief stuff. Hell, you couldn’t stand me when I was alive, and now that I’m dead all you do is moon over me. You’re turning into a giant, hypocritical pain in the ass.”
“I want you back, all right? You win. You’re right. I can’t think of you without feeling as if someone has punched me in the stomach. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being a prick to you when you were alive. I’m sorry I didn’t go in after you. Just come back. Come back. Give me another chance.”
I looked for him everywhere, but he’d vanished. “Bingo, come out from where you’re hiding. I said I’m sorry. I didn’t want to die. Now I don’t want to live anymore.”
“It’s okay, I forgive you, Collie.”
There he was, standing under the old willow tree on the other side of the pond. I walked toward him. I could feel the tremor of his hands as he spoke. In the light cast from the early morning sun, I saw the events of the past preserved in all their original intensity, and calling out clear as a bird for me to hear was the beating of his open heart.
“Don’t,” I said. “I don’t want you to forgive me. I can’t stand it.”
For the first time, I felt despair for the future because I knew that for me there was no redemption in forgiveness and so there was no redemption at all.