“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “Just stop calling me Mr. Avery, all right? It makes me feel like your father. Which would be very strange considering I’m only ten years older than you.”
“Well, that is quite a big difference, you know,” she said. “And I don’t want to be disrespectful by being too familiar.”
“It’s exactly the same age difference as the one between you and Ignac,” I pointed out. “And he doesn’t call you Miss Mitchell, does he?”
She took a carton of yogurt from the fridge, peeled the lid off and looked at me with barely concealed amusement as she ran her tongue across the inside, some of the strawberry sticking to her lips. “He does when I tell him to,” she said. “And anyway, I’m not ten years older than Ignac, Mr. Avery. I’m only nine years older than him. And how old was Ignac again when you took him in?”
Before I could say another word, Ignac himself appeared and I had no choice but to let it go. He wasn’t ignorant as to how I felt about Emily and I knew that he didn’t like it when we sniped at each other. She had timed her remark perfectly.
“Hey, Cyril,” he said, turning the kettle on. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Yes, you did,” I muttered.
“You were otherwise engaged, hon,” said Emily without looking up.
“How was school today?” I asked, turning around and wishing that Emily would either go into the other room and get dressed or leave. Or perhaps go to the fridge again, trip over on a piece of loose linoleum and fall out the window into the middle of 55th Street.
“Pretty good. I got an A on my Lewis Carroll paper. And another for my Yeats essay.”
“Good for you!” I liked the fact that Ignac had taken an interest in Irish literature, much more than he ever had in Dutch or Slovene. He was working his way through most of the big Irish novels, although for some reason he’d chosen to avoid Maude’s work for now. I’d thought about buying him some copies from the Strand Bookstore—they had some first editions in there that were quite reasonably priced—but I didn’t want him to feel obliged to read her and was uncertain how I’d feel if he didn’t happen to like them. “Good for you,” I repeated. “I’d love to take a look at the Yeats piece.”
“It’s very analytical,” said Emily, as if I was a complete illiterate. “It’s not really for the layman.”
“I’m pretty good with big words,” I told her. “And if I get stuck, I can always look them up in the dictionary.”
“That’s not really what analytical means,” she said. “But hey, knock yourself out.”
“What is it you teach again?” I asked her. “Remind me. Women’s Studies, is it?”
“No, Russian History. Although there’s a module on Russian women, if that’s what you’re thinking of.”
“Interesting place, Russia,” I said. “The Tsars, the Bolsheviks, the Winter Palace and what have you. You’ve been there many times, I presume?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, I’ve never been. Not yet anyway.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Why would I lie?”
“No, I’m surprised, that’s all. I would have thought that if you were so interested in a country and its past, then you’d actually want to go there and experience it in person. I find that very odd.”
“Well, what can I tell you? I’m an enigma.”
“But you speak the language, of course?”
“No. Why, do you?”
“No, of course not. But then I don’t teach Russian at university level.”
“Neither do I. I teach Russian History.”
“Still, that’s very strange.”
“It’s not that unusual when you think about it. Ignac is interested in Irish literature,” she pointed out. “And he’s never been to Ireland. Nor does he speak Irish.”
“Well, of course, most Irish literature is written in English,” I pointed out.
“Does your country suppress its native writers?”
“No,” I said.
“So no one writes in the Irish language?”
“Well, I’m sure they do,” I said, growing flustered now. “But those books are not very well known.”
“You mean they don’t sell well,” she said. “I didn’t realize you were such a populist. Actually, I read one of your mother’s books last year. They sell very well, don’t they?”
“My adoptive mother,” I said.
“Same thing.”
“It’s not, really. Particularly if she wasn’t exactly a maternal presence.”
“Have you read Like to the Lark?”
“Of course I have.”
“It’s quite good, isn’t it?”
“I think it’s a little better than quite good.”
“The child in the book is such a monster, though. One of the greatest liars and sneaks in literature. It’s no wonder the mother wants to kill him. Was it autobiographical at all?”
“Do you know there’s a poster of Maude in the Literature department at CCNY?” asked Ignac, interrupting us, and I turned to him in surprise.
“Is there?” I said.
“Yes, it’s one of four posters hanging outside the administration office. Virginia Woolf, Henry James, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Maude Avery. They’re all looking away from the camera, except for your mother—”
“My adoptive mother.”
“Who’s looking directly into the lens. She looks absolutely furious.”
“That sounds like her,” I said.
“She’s sitting by a desk in front of a lattice window with a cigarette in her hand. There’s an ashtray on the table behind her and it’s overflowing with butt ends.”
“That was her study,” I said. “In Dartmouth Square. A smoky place at the best of times. She didn’t like to open the windows. Of course, that’s the house that I grew up in. She’d be horrified if she knew that her picture was hanging up in your university, though, even if it is next to writers of that caliber. She wasn’t even published in the States during her lifetime, you know.”
“Some people only achieve success after they’re dead,” said Emily. “And their lives on earth are utter failures. Are you bartending tonight, Mr. Avery?”
“No,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Not until the weekend.”
“I only ask because Ignac and I were thinking of staying in.”
“Well, you could always go to a movie, I suppose. Ignac can get into the over-eighteen shows now so you’ll have some company. You could try Fatal Attraction.”
“Come on, Cyril,” said Ignac quietly.
“I’m kidding,” I said, disappointed by how quickly he defended her honor over mine.
“We should go sometime,” he said after a moment.
“What, to Fatal Attraction?”
“No, to Dublin. I’d like to see where you grew up. And maybe we could go to that house and I could take a picture of you in that same study.”
“The house isn’t in the family anymore,” I said, looking away.
“What happened to it?”
“My adoptive father sold it. He had to when he was put in jail for tax evasion. His solicitor bought it from him afterward. At a knock-down price.”
“That’s ironic,” said Emily.
“It’s not ironic at all, actually,” I said. “That’s not really what ironic means.”