We all looked at her in surprise and I could see Charles open his eyes anxiously, hoping that she wasn’t going to destroy his plans by saying something untoward.
“The heart of the matter being what exactly?” asked Wilbert.
Maude put her cigarette out despite not having another one ready to go, took a long drink from her glass of wine and looked around the table at her guests before settling her expression into one of pure sorrow. “I know I shouldn’t say this,” she began, using a tone I had never heard her employ before, “I know I shouldn’t speak of this issue while we are gathered here enjoying this wonderful meal and this fantastically spirited conversation but I must speak. I must! I need to let you know, lady and gentlemen of the jury, that my husband Charles is entirely innocent of all the things of which he has been accused and—”
“Maude, dear,” said Charles, but she held up a hand to silence him.
“No, Charles, I will have my say. He has been accused in the wrong and I worry that he will be found guilty and taken off to prison and what is to become of us then? My every day, my every moment, is enriched by the love that we share, and as for our son, as for our poor dear Cyril—”
I looked up and swallowed, wishing for all the world that she wouldn’t drag me into this.
“Cyril has taken to coming into our bed every night, bereft, weeping inconsolably, dreading the fate that might lie in store for his beloved father. Twice now he’s soiled the sheets but we don’t hold him accountable, although it’s costing us a fortune in dry-cleaning bills. It’s heartbreaking for a mother to witness such pain in one so young. Particularly now, when he’s so ill.”
All heads turned to me now and my eyebrows raised. Was I ill? I hadn’t realized that I was. It was true that I’d had a bit of a runny nose lately but it was nothing to knock me off my feet.
“I know this is neither here nor there,” continued Maude, “and you all have your own families to think about, but I am just in awe of how brave Cyril has been, dealing with his cancer in such a brave and uncomplaining way while all this unpleasantness has been building around us.”
“Good Lord,” cried Mrs. Hennessy.
“Cancer, is it?” asked Turpin, turning to me in delight.
“Oh,” said Wilbert, sitting back in his seat as if it might be catching.
“Terminal, I’m afraid,” said Maude. “He’ll be lucky if he’s still here by Christmas. Realistically, I think he’s more likely to be gone by Halloween. And if Cyril were to die without his beloved father by his side and I were to be left alone in this house without the two people I cherish the most in the world…” She shook her head and the tears started to flow down her cheeks, drawing pathways through her makeup. Her left hand began to shake but that might have been because it was unaccustomed to going this long without a cigarette resting between the second and third fingers. “Well, I already know what I would do in that eventuality,” she said quietly. “However, I will not say the words aloud for the act itself is a mortal sin but I believe it would be the only recourse open to me.”
There was absolute silence in the room. Charles was a loving family man, Maude was making plans for her own suicide and I only had a few months to live. All of this was news to me. For a moment, I wondered whether any of it might actually be true but then I recalled that I hadn’t been near a doctor in a long time and it was unlikely that such a fatal diagnosis would be made without someone at least taking my temperature or checking my blood pressure.
“No one should be left in such solitude,” said Turpin.
“A man needs to be with his family at such a painful time,” said Masterson.
“Do you need a hug, Cyril?” asked Wilbert.
“What type of cancer do you have?” asked Mrs. Hennessy, turning to me. “Because I have to say you look as if you’re bristling with good health.”
I opened my mouth, trying to conceive an answer. I didn’t know anything about cancer, other than it was a scare word that adults employed to suggest the imminent deaths of friends and enemies alike, and I racked my brain for what might be the best response. Cancer of the fingernails? Of the eyelashes? Of the feet? Was foot cancer even a thing? Or maybe I could appropriate Maude’s own recent illness and claim that I had cancer of the ear canal? Fortunately, I didn’t have to say anything, for before I could select a tumor-ridden body part the doorbell rang and we heard Brenda walking through the hallway to answer it, followed by a roar from whoever was standing on the doorstep and the sound of our housekeeper trying to keep him out of the living room, and then the door burst open and there stood Max Woodbead, his hair askew, his face purple with anger, looking from one of us to the other until his eyes landed on Charles. He glared at him, his eyes wide with fury, but chose not to speak, leaping across the room, toppling him from his chair and punching him with a ferocity that would have made a man half his age proud. And even in the chaos of the moment, I couldn’t help but glance out into the hallway, hoping that Julian might have accompanied him, but there was no one there except Brenda, who was watching the beating taking place with something akin to pleasure on her face.
The Island of Lesbos
“Of all the women in Ireland, you had to fuck the wife of the one man who’s trying to keep you out of prison,” said Maude after the guests had left. She was drinking whiskey with Charles in the front parlor while I eavesdropped from the staircase in the hallway, a toxic fusion of anger, disbelief and exasperation evident in her tone. From my vantage point, I could see my adoptive father pressing a fingertip tenderly to the developing bruise on his cheek, his tongue occasionally flicking out, lizard-like, to investigate the split lip and broken front tooth that had caused the bloodlines on his chin. Clouds of smoke moved aggressively toward him and as he turned his head away he noticed me sitting outside and offered an apologetic wave, four of his fingers dancing despondently in the air like an imprisoned pianist forced to play one of Chopin’s more depressing sonatas from memory. He didn’t seem perturbed by my presence nor did he seem unduly upset by the farcical events of the evening. “Max might have saved you,” continued Maude, raising her voice now. “And more importantly, he might have saved this house. What’s going to happen to us now?”
“There’s really nothing to worry about,” said Charles. “My barrister will take care of everything. If you ignore the spectacular floor show, I felt that the night went rather well.”
“Then you’re an idiot.”
“Let’s not descend into name-calling.”
“If we lose Dartmouth Square—”
“That will never happen,” insisted Charles. “Just leave it to Godfrey, all right? You haven’t seen him in action. The jury laps up every word he says.”