I'll Let You Go (73 page)

There were photo flashes as Diane Keaton walked through the gate on the arm of John Burnham (she and Ralph were still seeing each other but had decided to arrive separately), and it was only a coincidence that Boulder Langon and her mother arrived just after. The starlet gave the wannest of smiles to the paparazzi before hurrying along to join the group from Four Winds—Mr. Hookstratten, his lanky friend Reed and the teachers and nurses and flight crew from the world tour. All the globe-trotting kids were there, too, shocked and shivering, deflowered by death.

Trinnie stoically held the hands of son and niece, and, as the casket was lowered, at last began to fall apart. When she saw them watching her, she smiled like a valiant dying superhero: “He loved you,” she said. “He so loved you!”

While his mother gently released the warm water of a sea sponge over his spindly chest, Edward used to speak of the potter's field his cousin visited that famed stowaway afternoon. Toulouse had told him the plaques were inscribed with years instead of names—that's what Edward said
he
wanted. But she couldn't bear to listen—and could not bear it
now
, could not bear to have him in the earth without his name as a marker. She had violated her son's request and begged his forgiveness. Joyce felt a bottomless pang of loneliness for him, but soon there would be others crowding around—the “gang.” She knew how sardonic yet welcoming he would be. He would disperse their fears like doves into the air, and call them by their new names.

The first clump of earth was shoveled in.

A
fter the funeral, a large reception was held on Stradella. Cavernous tents were pitched over heroic amounts of food, and visitors—some, there for the first time, marveling at the cobblestoned village—filed through the Boar's Head to admire the masks Edward had created and the tidy rows of those he'd been crafting at the time of his death. (Candelaria and her elves had made the place spotless.) Ordinarily, such trespass would be anathema, but Lucy and Toulouse felt expansive as the crowds ogled deferentially; they stood to the side like proud curators, their burden for the moment lightened as it was shared.

Trinnie accepted a number of hugs, then pleaded exhaustion and told her son she was going home. Now her grief arrived, borne aloft by the pallbearers of her relatively young life's every regretful moment. Our stay on earth was suddenly exposed as tenuous at best, and of exceeding short term—what if it had been Toulouse they were busy burying? She shuddered at the ease with which the image came. She was perverse; she had no regard for the sanctity of this world or any other; she was a wastrel who ruined everything she touched. Marcus had an excuse! He had myth and pathology on his side—and yet, there he was doing the brave thing, battling his demons, bloody and unbowed. For her, it was business as usual: still playing in the garden and flirting with disaster. Edward was stone-dead and now, on top of everything, Toulouse must factor
that
in, his fragile worldview further rocked. At least he had the role model of his father, a father at war, kind and courtly, fervid, mysterious, brimming with remorse and amends—real amends—back from a hell ten thousand times worse than any of the self-pitying, insipidly pornographic soap operas this brassy golden girl's rehabs had ever provided. There
she
was, a twat ingenue who could only be counted on to pick up her toys and vanish, and who dared feel justified because that's what
he
, Marcus, husband and eternal old flame, had done … done to
her
.

The men in suits waved Trinnie through. She saw him right away, stepping from the Town Car; he must have arrived only moments before. Dressed in dark navy, with a great shock of hair and a week's growth of beard, he wore a recherché vulnerability that drew her in.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I'm looking for Marcus Weiner.”

Startled by this roan-headed woman (handsome and exotic to him
as well) and unable to put the pieces together, he said, with a smile both broad and nervous, “I am Marcus Weiner.”

“It's Trinnie.”

He still looked perplexed, so she held out her hand.

“Katrina Trotter. We were once married.”

“T
his is so strange!”

“Yes.”

“Your letters were nice.”

“It was difficult—to know what to say.”

“It's difficult
now
.”

“Yes!”

They sat under a pergola near—appropriately enough—the “Tête-à-Tête” Narcissi.

“So: you were William Morris.”

“Yes.”

“It's funny—not funny but odd.”

“It
is
funny.”

“It
is
. And kind of fascinating.”

“He
was
an interesting man. He and his circle.”

“You already knew a lot about him.”

“Yes.”

“From when you were at Oxford.”

“Yes indeed.”

“He went to Oxford, too, no?”

“Yes. And I learned a good deal more—I mean, through the years. Firsthand! So to speak.”

“You were always making jokes about ‘the two Williams.' When you were an agent.”

“The joke was on me, I'm afraid.”

He smiled disarmingly while she laughed. “You've got a bit of an accent there.”

“They tell me it's fading.”

“I like it. I mean, it's not too bad on you.” She took cigarettes from her purse. “Mind if I smoke?”

“Not at all!”

“Do you know who has a lot of Morris pieces? Andrew Lloyd Webber, the composer. He did
Evita
and
Cats
.”

“Oh yes.”

“He's a tremendous collector of the Pre-Raphaelites.”

“Is he?”

Marcus seemed quite thrilled, which he actually was, but more because this woman was finally in front of his eyes. Though he did not yet know what that meant.

“Oh yes. I did one of his gardens, in London.”

“
Really
. Whereabouts?”

“Belgravia. He's got Burne-Jones tapestries—”

“My, my!”

“And portraits of Jane, Morris's wife—”

“Jane Burden.”

“Well, of course you know who Jane is,” she said, chastising herself. “He's got a portrait of her by Rossetti.”

“Now,
there
was a character. A wicked, wonderful character, Rossetti. Loved the low life, that one. Took tremendous walks—like Dickens that way.”

A pause wherein it was tacitly acknowledged that Marcus was a well-known—or at least inveterate—walker himself.

“How do you find Santa Barbara?”

“Very tranquil. The beach is lovely—a tonic. Though part of me misses the city, vile as it's become.”

“The bustle.”

The bustle, he concurred. They fell silent again.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. “I can cook something.”

“No thank you. I'm not sure how long I—how long I should stay. The children—”

“Of course.”

“And Joyce isn't well.”

Pause.

“What a horrible, terrible thing. Someone so gifted and so young.”

“Toulouse said you met him—Edward.”

“He came up with his sister when the boy and I had a swim in the ocean. We all rode back together to the house on Stradella. He was a bit introverted, Edward—I drew him out. And now it feels like he may have had a … foreshadowing. He seemed to be very special that way.”

“He was an
extraordinary
boy.”

Her voice was beginning to lilt and dip like a bird on wing; it was contagious.

“And how is our—how is Toulouse bearing up?”

“All right, I think. Thank God he and Lucy have each other.”

“A marvelous girl, that. So perspicacious.”

“Neither has experienced a death before. With you … it was different. I told Toulouse from an early age—” She stopped herself, not wishing to repeat what she'd already written in a letter. Besides, it was gauche.

“I'm so sorry about all of it, Trinnie.” He amended himself by saying, “Katrina.” Then: “I'm sorry about it all the time.”

“No, please. I didn't mean to sound callous.”

“Not at all, not at all.”

“With what happened to their grandmother … well, it's been a difficult year. And it's not half over.”

A pause.

“You look well! You look fit.”

“They work me out all right up here. Still a ways to go though, still a ways to go. There's a marvelous gymnasium on the other side of the property, overlooking the pool. I've had my share of time in
that
body of water. Do you swim?”

“Oh yes.”

“It's marvelous. I'm dropping stones on a daily basis.” Pause. “I meant to say pounds. How is your father bearing up? I've been worried—haven't seen or spoken to him. He was quite close to the boy, no?”

“It's a bit of a mess.”

“In what way?”

“He didn't come.”

“Come?”

“To the funeral.”

“I can't imagine!—”

“I suppose you haven't heard.”

“He's ill?”

“No. There was a bit of controversy—over the placement of the
grave
, of all things.”

“How strange!”

“It's one of those awful, ridiculous
family
things. I'm sure it will make its way to the A&E biography.”

The reference was lost on him, but he let it rest.

There was a long pause.

“Are you certain you wouldn't like me to cook you something?”

“I really shouldn't stay.”

“It'd be no trouble.”

“That's all right.”

“Not even a salad? You're sure, now?”

“No thanks.”

“Yesterday I made a pot of turkey chowder; don't know exactly
why
, but I was very much in the mood. The
réchauffé
's always better, no? Wouldn't take but a minute—”

“I should probably get back.”

“Well—it was good of you to come.”

“Goodness had nothing to do with it. As they say.”

“I'm glad you did anyway.”

“I'm not sure what we do now—where we go from here.”

“As my half-dozen psychiatrists would urge me to say: ‘I think that's OK.' ”

They had a laugh. They stood and he awkwardly shook her hand. Not much voltage there—none of the anarchic, voluptuous ardor that a death sometimes confers in its wake. Still, Trinnie felt herself cleave toward family, the sacramental, primal pull of blood.

They walked in silence along the side of the house until reaching her car.

“Did you ever hear that saying about answered prayers?”

“No,” he said, curious.

“I think it was Saint Theresa—according to Truman Capote, anyway.” She groped for the quote. “ ‘More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.' Or something like that.”

“Is that what I am, Katrina?” he asked, callow and open-faced. “An answered prayer?”

She smiled, with kindness and sorrow. “More a forgotten one, Marcus. I wonder if anyone ever said anything about tears shed over prayers that were forgotten.”