—
Francie had gone to St. Paul’s Girls’ School, London, where she had been educated within an inch of her life. Will said St. Paul’s was Brearley squared. Both parents taught there. She was a scholarship girl. At Cambridge, she was also a scholarship girl. It was a bond between Rupert and his daughter-in-law, though Francie said it was much easier in the ’80s and ’90s to be poor at King’s. “Very little tipping. We made our own beds.” Their immigrant status was also a bond but they felt differently about it. Rupert had come to America, fleeing England, wanting a better life. He did not look back or hold back. He gave everything he had to America and America gave back. His success was complete; he became a Republican. The first time he voted after becoming a US citizen, he voted for Nixon. Over time, he moved slightly leftward, “?‘correcting’ toward the center,” he said. He deplored Reagan’s trickle-down economics. He remembered the humiliation of being poor at Longleat and Cambridge; he knew what it was to be the resentful recipient of rich men’s largesse. Government benefits didn’t have the sting of private cap-in-hand charity.
Francie came as a bride, confident and assured, knowing and loving her parents, thinking of going back someday, ambivalent about America. She was Labour until Tony Blair, whom she called Thatcher’s Pussy, then George Bush’s. “Always someone’s pussy,” she said, “including Cherie’s.” She said she and Rupert were Churchillians, he Winston, she Caryl. She became an American when she got pregnant, registering as a Democrat but keeping her British passport. “In case the country goes berserk and elects Cheney president.” She often used bad language, which Rupert, to his sons’ surprise, found funny. “Nostalgie de la boue,” he said at a family gathering to celebrate Will and Francie’s seventh anniversary in 1999, not long after he had shared his grim diagnosis with his sons. The conversation had been circling around Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Francie, an English rose with a pukka accent, asked: “Would you call Clinton a cocksuckee?” Will, who loved Francie’s dirty mouth, laughed. So did Rupert and Eleanor. The others weren’t sure what to do. “I don’t remember table talk like that,” Harry said. “What happened?” Eleanor looked around the table. “We were waiting until you all grew up.” Jack thumped the table.
“We had foul mouths at the orphanage, every last little bugger,” Rupert said. “I didn’t know the correct word for a woman’s private parts until I went to Cambridge.” The boys shifted in their seats. Rupert went on. “I knew it only as ‘cunt,’ which we called each other at the orphanage.” All the boys, except Sam, stared at their father in astonishment. Rupert continued, “Americans don’t use it much. A shame.” Eleanor shot him a look. “Americans take it so seriously; they’d rather be called an asshole.” Harry fiddled with his flatware. Tom put his head in his hands. Francie shook her head, as if in commiseration: “I’ve known so many, I can’t count. England is cunt-try.” Lea looked at Harry: “I didn’t know I was allowed to say it. This is very interesting.”
“Do you miss England?” Rupert asked Francie after dinner. They were sitting together in the living room, away from the others. Francie had brought along her wineglass. Rupert was drinking scotch. The cancer had spread to his bones and whiskey helped with the pain. “I’m more lucid with scotch than morphine,” he had said to Eleanor. Eleanor ordered four cases of Black Label. “Optimistic, are you?” Rupert said when he saw the boxes in the pantry. “Thank you.”
“All the time, but it’s all right,” Francie said. “Your family is so offbeat, I feel at home. I feel I can say anything to you and Eleanor. And Sam. Jack is his horn. Tom shies, like an Arab horse. I’m never quite sure of him. Harry is, well, Harry. Wonderful and maddening. He’s like Kip, my old dog, our border collie. There were five of us in the house then, my parents, my sisters and me. In the evening, when we had all gone to our rooms, Kip would spend ten minutes, more sometimes, trying to find a place to lie down. It was her job to lie equal distance from all of us. In case of wolves. We were her sheep. Harry’s like Kip. He’s always looking out for his brothers, not perhaps the way they’d want it, but the way he sees it. I find his devotion, his protective impulses, moving. I think his fundamental identity is as the oldest of five brothers.”
“I missed out on a lot when the boys were growing up,” Rupert said. “I wonder if that’s it with Harry, making up for the missing dad.”
“I don’t think so. Harry took on the responsibility of the Oldest, the First. What are they, the five famous, fierce, fearsome Falkeses?” Francie laughed. “Will can recite the whole series. They all can.”
Rupert poured himself another scotch.
“Do you miss England?” Francie asked.
“Never. I have no nostalgia for it. I wish Father Falkes had lived longer. He was a decade younger than I when he died.”
“Do you think about your parents ever? Will said you hadn’t wanted to know. Is that still true now? You might be able to find them with the Internet.”
“Good God, no,” Rupert said. “The Internet is a curse. I’m so glad I came up before everyone could find everyone else, before everyone knew what everyone else was doing. The thought of English relations crowding around my hospital bed, looking for my bank accounts and will…” Rupert stopped, overcome by visceral disgust.
“Are you dying?” Francie asked. “Everyone’s afraid to ask.”
He nodded. “?‘Most things may never happen; this one will.’ Eleanor knows, of course. She says the boys, the men, are not afraid to ask; they don’t want to know.”
“Are you afraid?” Francie said.
“Cross. Too soon.”
“Are you still getting treated?” Francie asked.
“Yes, experimental protocols. I’m being kept alive by poison. Eleanor wants the end to be as good as it can be. I want it to be as long as it can be. She’s right, of course, but I can’t let go. I want a scientific breakthrough, a miracle.”
“Not very English of you,” Francie said. “We still ‘go gentle into that good night.’ ‘So sorry to bother you, Sister, but I think the liver transplant has failed. Eyes awfully yellow. My fault I’m sure,’ Old World fatalism.” She shook her head. “Americans think they can beat the reaper with bench pressing and cod liver oil. Maybe that’s only L.A. Midwesterners must know they’re going to die. They’re farmers. Charlotte’s Web. Will had me read it. ‘When Charlotte died, she died all alone.’ Heartbreaker.” She shot Rupert a sly smile. “?‘When Charlotte passed, she passed all alone.’ Not the same.”