Authors: Margot Livesey
Banishing Verona (20 page)
“I booked a flight for this evening, seven P.M.”
Henry stopped so suddenly that he rocked forward on his toes. “This evening? But we need to talk.”
“Agreed.” The first flake of snow drifted down between them. “And you're simply babbling about the scenery. I've been waiting for a week. I'm not going to wait any longer.”
“Okay, okay. So I'm procrastinating. Please say you'll stay, just until tomorrow. I promise I'll tell you everything if only you'll stay.”
While the pedestrians parted around them, she returned Henry's gaze. His almond eyes, clearer than when he first arrived, were so dark that she could not distinguish a single glint of green; for the first time she noticed faint lines around them. “All right,” she said. “One more day.”
“Thank you.” Another flake drifted past as he suggested that they take the subway to Cambridge and discuss their troubles in a café there. They walked across a park and along a street lined with antiques shops to the station. As the train crossed over the Charles River, Verona saw in the distance the two sights she'd remembered from her earlier visit: the blue glass tower and the red sign; she pointed them out to Henry and he identified the Prudential Center and the Citgo sign. At Harvard Square station she once again called the airline to reschedule. By the time they came above ground, the snow was falling steadily. Momentarily she forgot their difficulties and stared in pleasure. How long since she had
seen proper snow? Maybe two or three years, given London's feeble winters. Mysteriously, when she looked closely, almost as many flakes seemed to be rising as falling. She followed Henry across the street, ignoring a tea shop and a café. Beside the latter an elderly man with hollow cheeks held a sign: SAVING FOR A SET OF DENTURES. PLEASE.
seen proper snow? Maybe two or three years, given London's feeble winters. Mysteriously, when she looked closely, almost as many flakes seemed to be rising as falling. She followed Henry across the street, ignoring a tea shop and a café. Beside the latter an elderly man with hollow cheeks held a sign: SAVING FOR A SET OF DENTURES. PLEASE.
They made their way across another street to a two-story wooden building, the steep roof fringed with icicles. Inside, the walls were painted deep reds and light blues. The customers were either reading or consulting their laptops. She squeezed past apologetically as she followed Henry to an octagonal table next to the window. A waitress took their order for a cappuccino and a mint tea. “Do you want milk with the tea?” she asked eagerly.
“No, thank you,” said Verona and, as the girl's smile faded, added, “thanks for asking.”
“See,” said Henry, “that's one of the few things they know about British peopleâwe take milk in our tea.”
While they waited, he again fell back on tourismâhis visits to the Christian Science Mapparium, the USS
Constitution,
Faneuil Hallâbut Verona could tell from the set of his shoulders that he knew there were no more hiding places. When he paused, she contributed her own visit to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; an easel marked the spot where a Vermeer had hung before it was stolen. “I can't imagine what kind of person steals a painting they can never show to anyone. Is it because they fall in love with that particular painting? Or they like the idea of owning a masterpiece?”
Constitution,
Faneuil Hallâbut Verona could tell from the set of his shoulders that he knew there were no more hiding places. When he paused, she contributed her own visit to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; an easel marked the spot where a Vermeer had hung before it was stolen. “I can't imagine what kind of person steals a painting they can never show to anyone. Is it because they fall in love with that particular painting? Or they like the idea of owning a masterpiece?”
“Maybe for some people,” Henry suggested, “a Vermeer is beautiful but a stolen Vermeer is exquisite.”
On the word
exquisite,
the waitress set down their drinks. Henry thanked her. As soon as she was out of earshot, he said, “Do you remember our grandfather?”
exquisite,
the waitress set down their drinks. Henry thanked her. As soon as she was out of earshot, he said, “Do you remember our grandfather?”
“Jigger? Of course,” said Verona, taken aback. “I inherited his nose. That's what I used to tell myself when the girls teased me at school. You have some notebook of his, don't you?”
“How do you know that?” Now it was his turn to be startled.
“When Toby and I went to your house it was obvious that the men had searched it, so we followed their example. Toby found this leather-bound book. It was addressed to me so I kept it. I've only read the first half.” Her face grew warm as she recalled where she had left the book. As soon as she got back to London, she would ask Zeke to retrieve it from the Barrows'. Then she imagined him caught in the web of her lies. Perhaps she could persuade Emmanuel to go instead.
Henry nodded. “I swiped it after he died,” he said. “He wrote something rather incriminating about me.”
“What on earth could he say that was incriminating? He didn't even know you.” This had nothing to do with why she had traveled three thousand miles; nonetheless, she succumbed.
“More than you think. I went to stay with him once. I told Mum and Dad I was visiting you. I knew they'd never check.”
This was even more surprising. “Why would you go and see Jigger? I mean, I can understand you wanting to get away from home, but to visit your grandfather? What about girls and wild parties?”
Henry grimaced. “I wasn't thinking love; I was thinking money. Dad was always saying that Jigger was rich, and I was worried he'd leave everything to some stupid charity. I wanted to propose myself as his heir.”
“His heir? You were how old?”
“Sixteen, but I already knew that money was what mattered and I didn't want to be hopeless about it, like the rest of you.”
In the street outside, a police car drove slowly by in the snow. “So what happened?” she said, ignoring the insult. “How do you go about telling someone that you want them to hurry up and die and leave you all their money?”
“That turned out to be a problem. In my imagination Jigger saw what a fine young man I was and announced that he was going to make me his heir. Unfortunately, that didn't occur.” He described how he had phoned, pretending to be visiting the Lake
District and asking if Jigger could put him up for the night. At first everything went swimmingly. Jigger had seemed pleased to see him. He made dinner and Henry plied him with the wine he'd brought, but his hints fell on deaf ears. “And then, in the middle of the night, he caught me searching his desk.”
District and asking if Jigger could put him up for the night. At first everything went swimmingly. Jigger had seemed pleased to see him. He made dinner and Henry plied him with the wine he'd brought, but his hints fell on deaf ears. “And then, in the middle of the night, he caught me searching his desk.”
“Christ, what did he say?”
Henry laughed. “I played the oldest trick in the book and pretended to be sleepwalking. I don't think he believed me for a second, but it saved us from having a major row.”
“You did used to sleepwalk, though. I remember finding you a couple of times. Once you were sitting by the fire, stroking the rug as if it were a cat.” She stroked the table to demonstrate. “I still don't get it. What did happen to Jigger's money? Dad got some, but not nearly as much as he'd hoped.”
“He left it to you.” He spoke absently; he was looking at the next table where a young woman with waist-length hair was frowning over a notebook.
“No,” she corrected. “He left me five thousand pounds, which you teased me about mercilessly, calling me the heiress. The money allowed me to move to London and work for a pittance for the BBC. It was hardly life-changing. Didn't he leave the rest to a Lake District trust?”
He leaned forward. His ears were scarlet. “He left it to you,” he repeated.
Her brain was shuddering, struggling to grasp this new information. In the center of the table a bronze circle was embedded in the wood; she ran her finger round the circumference. “I don't understand. If he left me the money, why didn't I get it?”
“I changed his will.”
I am going to open my mouth, thought Verona, and let out a scream so loud that the roof will fly off this restaurant and the walls will fall to the ground and everyone sitting here will be deaf for as long as they live.
The hollow-cheeked man was still standing outside the café as she stormed by. She did not need to turn around to know that Henry was trailing behind her in halfhearted pursuit. During their childhood she had often run off with the luxury of knowing he would come after her. He was her loyal follower, and she in return had protected him against all comers. She had believed herself to be the sole exception to his bad behavior. Now a little red car fueled by fury and lost illusions hurtled round and round her brain. Heedless of shops and pedestrians, she strode up a broad one-way street. A man tried to waylay her with a petition but she brushed him aside. A girl with a pram darted out of her way. Then, on the far side of the street, she saw a woman in an orange ski jacket stepping out of an archway in the wall around Harvard University. Verona plunged in among the traffic.
Automatically, as she did when entering the tunnels of London or Paris, she took a deep breath, but it was immediately clear that this tunnel was no refuge for the inebriated and homeless. The brightly lit space was lined with posters for a mime festival, several films, a lesbian night out, the classics club. “This is Harvard's
main campus,” Henry said behind her. “Oddly, it's called Harvard Yard, as if it were some kind of high-class farm.”
main campus,” Henry said behind her. “Oddly, it's called Harvard Yard, as if it were some kind of high-class farm.”
They were walking alongside a tall brick building. At the front a massive flight of shallow stone steps led up to a façade of pillars and a pediment engraved with the words HARRY ELKINS WIDENER MEMORIAL LIBRARY. In spite of herself, Verona paused and Henry took the opportunity to explain that Harry Widener had been a passenger on the
Titanic.
He had had a seat on a lifeboat but had run back to his cabin to fetch his bookâaccording to rumor a volume of Bacon's essaysâand ended up going down with the ship. His mother had given the library to the university with certain conditions, including, until recently, that every student pass a swimming test. “As if,” Henry said, “swimming would have saved Harry among the icebergs.”
Titanic.
He had had a seat on a lifeboat but had run back to his cabin to fetch his bookâaccording to rumor a volume of Bacon's essaysâand ended up going down with the ship. His mother had given the library to the university with certain conditions, including, until recently, that every student pass a swimming test. “As if,” Henry said, “swimming would have saved Harry among the icebergs.”
Too angry to speak, Verona continued walking; he fell in beside her. The snow was falling faster now, and the snowflakes had grown in size. She could feel the damp seeping into her flimsy boots and down the collar of her coat. Around them young people with backpacks hurried back and forth, and an occasional adult with a briefcase. They passed a brick building with the names of famous philosophers around the top, then a modern building, and a bronze statue of a man and a woman seated side by side, their laps filled with snow.
“By my namesake,” said Henry.
If she went back to the hotel now, she could go standby on the evening flight; she could be with Zeke tomorrow morning.
“We're very near the Fogg Museum,” said Henry. “Why don't we take shelter there? William James, the philosopher, lived on this street. He's the one who wrote about scapegoats.”
Trying to hold her coat closed against the wind, she caught fragments of Henry's musings. Not for the first time, she was struck by how his obliviousness was an armor more powerful than all her self-awareness. “It's still the right decision in certain situations.” He waved a hand at the snow. “Shoving Oates out of the tent. Not that it did any good.”
“Didn't Oates leave of his own accord?” she couldn't help saying as she followed him up the steps of a handsome stone building.
He held open the door. “That's just the rubbish they tell schoolchildren to make them share their lunches. Who would go out in weather thirty times worse than this voluntarily?”
Inside it was warm, dry, windless. She hung up her coat, and shook her head to get rid of the snow. Henry joked with the woman behind the counter about how intrepid they felt. “What would you recommend we see?” he asked.
“It's a small collection. You should have no trouble seeing everything, but if you're pushed for time I recommend the Pre-Raphaelites on the balcony. Though of course”âshe gave a little smileâ“they come from your part of the world.”
“Which means,” Henry said, smiling back, “that we've never seen them.”
He was about to say more when he caught Verona's glare and seemed to recall that they were in the midst of an argument. Ignoring the proffered admission button, she stepped forward into what, she couldn't help noticing, was a beautiful two-story courtyard surrounded by arches. But the large open space only made the red car faster, louder. She had a vision of herself and Henry shouting at the top of their lungs, terrifying the other visitors. She doubled back to the stairs and, without stopping to look at the statues and paintings, ascended to the balcony.
She circled twice, three times, trying to rein in her fury, before she came to a halt in front of one of the Pre-Raphaelites. A woman stood in front of a window that was mostly obscured by hair so abundant that Verona's neck ached. She had worn her hair long through her teens and early twenties until her friend Marian had persuaded her to get it cut. Your hair is a liability, she had argued. It's too gorgeous for the rest of you. Not a problem for this woman, whose green eyes gravely regarded something to which the viewer was not privy.
“What a poseur,” Henry said, joining her.
She couldn't bear to look at him. “I know we've had hundreds
of rows,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady, “but I always thought we were on the same side when it came to everyone else.” Briefly, the red car slowed and she realized it was easier to be furious than to acknowledge what fury concealed.
of rows,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady, “but I always thought we were on the same side when it came to everyone else.” Briefly, the red car slowed and she realized it was easier to be furious than to acknowledge what fury concealed.
“We are,” he said affably. “The odd thing about this picture is that she seems to be simultaneously indoors and outdoors. Look at the sky behind her. Don't you want to know how I did it? A few months after my visit to Jigger, I was over at my friend Blake's house and he showed me this copy of the Magna Carta he'd made for his dad. He went on and on about how he'd made the paper from old rags and practiced the handwriting because you never got the same effect with tracing.”
At the time Henry had been bored rigid but later, walking home, he had had a Eureka moment. “It was one of those misty autumn evenings, and I suddenly thought if Blake could copy the Magna Carta, he could copy Jigger's will. I remember I was opposite the corner shop and I burst out laughing. People must have thought I was drunk. It wasn't even the idea. It was the sense of knowing what I was good at.”
“So you stole Jigger's will,” she said slowly, “and you and Blake rewrote it.”
The sound of footsteps made them both turn. A couple were approaching, the woman wearing a cream-colored pullover, a long brown skirt, and high-heeled boots, the man in a beautiful charcoal suit. They were talking in French, the woman moving her hands, the man smiling. Occasionally one or the other would glance at a picture.
“She's saying,” said Henry, “that he's a superb lover and that he has the most beautiful member she's ever seen. He seems to be agreeing. She'd probably go into more detail if they were in France and she thought other people could understand.”
He began to walk in the opposite direction from the couple; Verona trailed alongside. Far from sounding penitent, Henry sounded increasingly jubilant as he explained what he and Blake had done. They had only changed one page so they didn't have to
forge the signatures. The tricky part was getting hold of the will. It wasn't as if Jigger went to work every day. The other part that had required planning was who the money should go to. He couldn't just replace Verona's name with his. He did some research and used his savings to set up a private company.
forge the signatures. The tricky part was getting hold of the will. It wasn't as if Jigger went to work every day. The other part that had required planning was who the money should go to. He couldn't just replace Verona's name with his. He did some research and used his savings to set up a private company.
“I can't tell you how odd it was, waiting to see if it would work. I went off to university facing two very different futures: one in which I'd have a head start and another in which I'd have to scramble.” He paused in front of a Canaletto, the Piazza San Marco, so exquisitely detailed, even down to a small dog, that it could have been a photograph.
“Scramble like me and everyone else. How much did Jigger leave to the private company?”
“A hundred and thirty thousand. Not a fortune, but enough to get me started on the property ladder. Then I just kept going.”
“And”âshe could scarcely get the words outâ“what about me?”
He turned to her, smiling his most brilliant smile. “You were fine. I always knew you would be because, unlike me, you have a real talent. But if there'd ever come a time when you needed somethingâif you'd fallen ill or lost your jobâI'd have helped. I regarded myself”âhe put a hand on his chestâ“as obligated.”
It's like the snowflakes, she thought. He doesn't know down from up, wrong from right. “Henry, you stole a hundred and thirty thousand pounds from me.”
“Ages ago. Given the statute of limitations, you can't prosecute.” He was still speaking in an affable, slightly bemused way. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you.”
“But you're not sorry you did it, are you? You'd do it again, given half a chance. Mr. Sayers was right about you. You were born without a conscience.”
“No,” he said, “I wouldn't say that.”
In the first room off the balcony, he stopped before a landscape: a village street in winter. A few feet away Verona stared at a painting of a train standing in a sunlit high-ceilinged station, surrounded
by hydrangea-like clouds of steam. Glancing at the label, she saw to her amazement that it was the station in Paris where Jigger had gone with his friend Charles. Suddenly she grasped the other part of what Henry had told her: Jigger had chosen her as his heir. No one else approved of her, but he did. Another thing that she was robbed of. The red car was at a standstill; Henry had tipped sugar into the fuel tank, disconnected the battery. Whatever his more recent crimes, surely nothing could be worse than this youthful betrayal.
by hydrangea-like clouds of steam. Glancing at the label, she saw to her amazement that it was the station in Paris where Jigger had gone with his friend Charles. Suddenly she grasped the other part of what Henry had told her: Jigger had chosen her as his heir. No one else approved of her, but he did. Another thing that she was robbed of. The red car was at a standstill; Henry had tipped sugar into the fuel tank, disconnected the battery. Whatever his more recent crimes, surely nothing could be worse than this youthful betrayal.
From the next room came a voice:
“Tu es fantastique.”
Unthinkingly, Verona stepped back to let the French couple pass and fell in behind them. She could make her feet move as long as she watched theirs. She was back out on the balcony again, once more passing the woman at the window, the
Piazza San Marco.
Where were the stairs? Over there, by the pillar. She was at the top of the stairs and then she was heading down, past the ground floor and on, down, to the door marked LADIES. In the wooden cubicle, she bent over the toilet until every morsel she had eaten that day lay in the white china bowl.
“Tu es fantastique.”
Unthinkingly, Verona stepped back to let the French couple pass and fell in behind them. She could make her feet move as long as she watched theirs. She was back out on the balcony again, once more passing the woman at the window, the
Piazza San Marco.
Where were the stairs? Over there, by the pillar. She was at the top of the stairs and then she was heading down, past the ground floor and on, down, to the door marked LADIES. In the wooden cubicle, she bent over the toilet until every morsel she had eaten that day lay in the white china bowl.
Â
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She remained in the bathroom, leaning against the wall, until someone knocked at the door; she opened it to discover that Henry had enlisted the woman from the counter. Beneath her solicitous gaze, Verona felt obligated to go through the motions of recovery. She washed her face and hands in the large marble basin and rinsed her mouth with the lukewarm water. “Are you sick?” the woman kept asking. Behind the counter she had radiated respectability; now she was revealed to be wearing torn black clothes and combat boots. “Do you need a doctor?”
Obviously I was sick, thought Verona, then remembered that Americans used the word to mean ill. “No, I just had a shock, several shocks, and they upset my stomach.”
“Oh, I'm the same.” The woman patted her studded black leather belt. “I used to think I'd grow out of it but I'm not sure
one does grow out of things at thirty-four. Is there anything I can get you? If only”âher eyes darted around the empty roomâ“we had some ginger ale. Here, why don't you sit down?”
one does grow out of things at thirty-four. Is there anything I can get you? If only”âher eyes darted around the empty roomâ“we had some ginger ale. Here, why don't you sit down?”
Verona sank into a small metal chair. The relief of being told what to do was profound. The woman was still talking, something about a car, did they have one, was it parked nearby? When Verona said they didn't, she hurried out of the room.
Alone, Verona rested her head on the edge of the basin and surrendered to misery and self-disgust. Why had she ever thought Henry treated her differently? “Traitor,” she whispered. In childhood it had been a terrible insult. As an adult, she had seldom used the word, except in a sexual context.
From somewhere in the building came a faint steady beeping. Last spring she had interviewed a woman who, as a teenager, had stopped speaking for two years. Wasn't it awfully frustrating, Verona had said, not being able to ask for what you wanted? No, the woman had said. That was easy. Besides, I did ask: I wrote notes. I pointed. It felt so safe not putting things into words. No one lied to me. And I got so much thinking done. I really came to understand why silence is often part of religious practice.
She did have a nunlike face, long and pale. So why did you stop talking in the first place? Verona asked. Why did you start again?
I don't think I can explain why I stopped. There wasn't some shock. I didn't even make a decision. One morning when my mother asked me a question I didn't answer, and I didn't answer the next one either. As for why I started again, I missed it. Not speech so much but all that goes with it, even the bad parts.
And have you ever wanted to stop talking again?
Ohâthe woman smiled wistfullyâall the time.
Now, shifting her cheek against the cool porcelain of the basin, Verona thought, I should take a vow of silence. No talk, no lies. And soon she would have company. She was picturing herself and the baby pointing and nodding and frowning together when the woman from the counter knocked at the door again.
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