“Yes,” James lied, closing the kitchen door behind him and lowering his voice. “On call, my house officer rang. Shoulder dystocia and postpartum hemorrhage and— I can’t talk about it twice,” said James, who had not, in fact, even talked about it once, and was a poor liar. He was not on call, and the prolonged dystocia had been first thing this morning, an unpleasant enough birth that he felt guilty using it now as an excuse. The mother had been morbidly obese and suffering gestational diabetes and he ought to have insisted on a section, but she had cried and pleaded and James, overtired after yesterday’s emotional scenes, had not had the energy to resist her. She had tried to push, and the newborn had suffered brachial plexus damage. James did not, now, feel good about this decision.
The truth was that he couldn’t sleep, had longed for someone to talk to, and had no wish to wake Julia as he did not trust himself to remain civil. She had accused him of having no sense of perspective, of snobbery, of inhabiting an elite and rarefied plane while discarding “what really matters.” Hadn’t she heard anything he’d confided about his background? About his own childhood? Did she really think that names and labels were what mattered to him? To accuse him of snobbery was risible—and the hypocrisy had taken his breath away. All he had ever taught his son was the value of hard work, of discipline, of aspiration. It was far more indulgent to raise a child to think that academic education was an irrelevance as long as their self-esteem was thriving, or whatever the hell it was she believed. What really matters? What horseshit. Meanwhile, along the way, Julia had lobbed a series of adjectives at his son for which, twenty-four hours later, he was still struggling to forgive her. Selfish. Immature. Self-absorbed. Inconsiderate. All these on a day when Nathan had needed not condemnation but comfort, a day when the memory of Gwen’s monumental selfishness was heightened, its consequences livid and raw. Julia accused Nathan of disrespect, of behaving badly toward Gwen. Well, Nathan had his whole life ahead and it was understandable if he did not want to remain in a joyless and precociously serious minimarriage with an infantile, spoiled little girl who whined with hectoring neediness. James found himself grieving the Oxford loss afresh. As well as everything else it would have granted Nathan total liberty from Gwen.
He’d walked away expecting any minute that Julia would calm down, follow him upstairs and apologize, and when she hadn’t he had grown angrier and more resentful. Pamela, who loved Nathan as he did, would understand.
“Was the baby okay?”
“What baby?”
“Shoulder dystocia? Never mind, never mind. Nathan sounds terrible. Should I come, do you think?”
“No,” said James, reflexively, but then thought for a moment. “Maybe, actually. I think we should sit down with him. I still can’t believe it. Mr. Markham is shocked; we’ve talked twice today. When did you speak to Nathan?”
“Darling, I’ve spoken to him twenty-five times today; it’s precisely why I’m worried. He barely called all summer and now it’s like the Batphone. I popped to one of Beth’s deliveries this morning and when I switched my phone on I had eleven missed calls. I think I should come. It’s only three weeks till the Paris conference in any case; I could come and just stay through. Are you okay? You sound very cross.”
“You make it sound as if I haven’t been taking care of him.”
“Jamesy, I don’t know what’s afoot with you, but I said absolutely no such thing. I said the boy phones his mother.”
“Julia called him vindictive for blaming Gwen. I don’t see who else we should blame.”
“Julia’s delusional,” said Pamela, shortly.
“We had a crazy fight yesterday,” James admitted.
“I’m amazed you have the energy to fight with everything else going on. You know, I feel I ought to do something nice for Gwen. She’s one of the most spoiled little girls I’ve ever met and I am absolutely consumed with loathing. For my own sanity I need karmic balance. I should give her a gift.”
James, long familiar with Pamela’s complex and contradictory theology of giving, said nothing. He had many times been on the receiving end of these presents of karmic redress, and they were usually tied in a stinging ribbon of acid.
“Listen, for God’s sake, if you really think it’s over between them, don’t let him have break-up sex with her; she’ll get pregnant again, I promise you. Don’t laugh, I’m absolutely serious, she will. She’s a conniving little so-and-so who will have to readjust to the idea that she’s not the center of the universe,” Pamela concluded, apparently abandoning all thoughts of good karma. “Enough flinging herself around like Ophelia and then pulling that bloody exam rabbit out of the hat. Her life’s on track. She made her bed.”
“Yes. But look what it cost Nathan to lie in it. What I don’t understand,” James went on, feeling a guilty rush of disloyalty and relief, “is how it can be possible to put such a premium on children’s happiness and self-fulfillment or whatever, with no understanding that encouraging academic success teaches precisely the delayed gratification that is essential to later happiness in the real, adult world. Happiness isn’t having your needs met instantly, like an infant. Fulfillment in later life is effort rewarded. In work, in relationships, in marriages . . .” Here he trailed off, thinking it unwise to pursue a discussion of marital fulfillment with his ex-wife.
“You can’t eat happiness,” said Pamela, shortly. Her pragmatism had always been robust, if incongruous. “A joyous adolescence playing with Play-Doh won’t pay the gas bills later on. And more to the point, someone somewhere will say no to the girl, and then what will happen? She’ll fall apart.”
“Julia thinks I’m pushy. She called me a snob.”
“Take it as a compliment. Has Nathan said anything to you about America?”
James opened the fridge and stared blankly into its depths. “He’s missed the applications, no? I thought we’d agreed not.”
“That was mid-debacle, if you recall, when the shackles of imminent teenage parenthood awaited him in London. He could start spring semester; it wouldn’t take much, quick SATs, personal statement. Wentworth will write him a reference, and with that he’d be a shoo-in everywhere. What are you chewing? It’s loud. Even Harvard’s still not out of the question.”
“Chicken from yesterday, I’m starving. My God, that would be incredible. It would have blown my mother’s mind, two grandkids at college. A son and a grandson at Harvard! That’s what she busted her ass for, to get me out of Dorchester, to teach me—”
“Take a little credit, you got yourself out. You won the scholarships. And,” she conceded, seizing an opportunity to criticize Julia obliquely, “your mother taught you the value of hard work. We can sort it out, you know; there are enough Ivy League schools. I’ll come to London, and we’ll powwow.”
Someone else was awake in the house. James heard footsteps and the floorboards above his head creaked as one of the children padded across the landing to the bathroom.
“I’d better go.”
“Good luck. I’m really not sure I’d eat yesterday’s chicken at the Free, you know,” said Pamela, confusing James until he remembered he’d said he was at work. “It’s bad enough on day one. Consider a few days a week of veganism. Or even just Meatless Mondays. You’ll feel better, I promise. I’ll e-mail when I’ve booked flights. Kiss, kiss. Ciao, ciao.”
48.