London Calling (2 page)

Pinak could remain silent no longer. “Father Thomas, that is a pack of lies. Nothing in it is true.”

“What? Are you saying he didn’t throw the concrete and hit me?”

“No one said your shirt looked gay! No one said anything to you at all. You attacked us.”

Father Thomas raised his hand to stop them both. “All right. That’s enough. It’s immaterial how this fight started. What matters is the result. You boys damaged that marble pedestal. That is a serious and . . . indefensible act of vandalism. Vandalism! At All Souls! The Heroes’ Walk belongs to everyone at this school. It is a place that we can all treasure and take pride in. This is unacceptable. Totally unacceptable.”

Father Thomas pointed out his window to the row of pedestals. “Your behavior today jeopardizes the construction schedule. That means that it jeopardizes the dedication of the Heroes’ Walk on New Year’s Day.” He pointed at Manetti. “Mr. Manetti, how would your father feel about that?”

Manetti bowed his head. “Not good, Father.”

“Mr. Lowery, how would your father feel about that?”

“Not good, Father.”

Father Thomas threw up his hands in exasperation. “That was Carrara marble, boys! Do any of you know what that means?”

Pinak halfheartedly raised one hand, but Father Thomas ignored him. “It is the finest marble in the world, imported from Italy. It is the same marble that Michelangelo used to sculpt his statue of David, and his Pietà.” He looked at my mother, and then back at us. “Do you have any idea how hard it will be to repair it? And to get the construction back on schedule?” He paused to compose himself. Then he turned back to my mother. “I’ll need to get some figures on repairing that pedestal. I’ll meet with these students again, and their parents, after we have determined the exact cost of repairs. Sometime before the start of next term.” He pointed toward the door. “Now go. All of you.”

My mother had to work late, presumably getting estimates for Carrara marble. She made me sit across from her and write out my statement about the incident on a sheet of All Souls stationery. When I was finished, she looked it over quickly. If she was surprised at all by what she read, it did not show on her face. She just sealed the statement in an All Souls envelope, addressed it to Father Thomas, and placed it in a blue file.

We finally left the campus at about seven p.m. The ride home was, predictably, worse than usual. Instead of just hearing about how I had to apply myself harder to measure up to my sister, and my grandfather, and President John F. Kennedy, I had to hear about how I had nearly destroyed All Souls Prep School, and my family’s reputation, and my own future.

I wasn’t really listening. All I could think about was that slap in the face. What should I have done about it? Should I have hit him back? Yes, I should have hit him back, or at least tried. So why didn’t I?

When Mom finally stopped ranting, I answered her briefly. “First of all, it wasn’t me. It was Manetti who threw the concrete. Second of all, he chipped off a little piece of a corner. So what?”

“So what? You heard Father Thomas. That was Carrara marble.”

“I’m sorry. It wasn’t a piece of a corner, it was a piece of supermarble. So what? So superglue it back on. Nobody will ever know.”

“Martin, you
will
take this seriously. This is your life. How you will live in the future depends on . . .”

And blah, blah, blah. I had heard this too many times before. How I will live in the future depends on how I live now, in the present. She says that over and over, but she doesn’t really mean it. Mom doesn’t live in the present at all. She lives in the past and in the future, but not in the present. She hates the present. The present is all bad for her; it is a punishment time that she has to endure. She lives in the glorious past of her father and mother, and in the glorious future of her daughter and son. Well, forget about that. There’s no glorious future for me, not the way she has it planned. I told her, for the thousandth time, “I don’t want to go back to All Souls Prep. I want to go to Garden State Middle School.”

Our house was hidden from the street by a row of skinny bushes and leafy trees. In the fall and winter, however, it became clearly visible, and clearly an eyesore. After we pulled in to the driveway, Mom turned off the ignition and yanked out the key. “Fortunately for you, you don’t have to go back to All Souls on Monday, but I do. I have to go back there every day, to work to ensure that you have a future. You will, though, be going back there in September.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Yes, you will.”

“No, I won’t.”

We left it at that, like we always do. We walked through the front door of the faded green Cape Cod house. Mom headed into the kitchen. I veered off and went straight downstairs to the basement, to my bedroom.

Cape Cod houses come to a point on the second floor. That means the upstairs bedrooms have ceilings that slope to the sides. Once you grow to a certain height, you can start to bump your head on the ceiling in your own bedroom. My sister Margaret reached that height at age ten, but she never bumped her head. When I reached that height, though, I immediately started bumping mine. I demanded to move down to the basement.

Our basement had a finished bedroom to the right side of the stairs and a computer room to the left. The rest of the space was unfinished; we used it for laundry and storage. The bedroom in the basement had been built originally for my uncle Bob, which was something we rarely talked about. Its second tenant was my father, which was something that we
never
talked about. I became the basement’s third dweller.

Mom and Margaret helped me move down my furniture, which consisted of a double bed, a dresser, and a nightstand. Mom allowed me to decorate the room any way I wanted, which meant that its four green walls remained completely bare. As the room only had two narrow windows near the ceiling, level with the ground outside, and as I was afraid of the dark, I kept my father’s little TV down there to use as a night-light.

Just across the way, in the computer room, the walls were fully decorated with photographs of family members. By that I mean members of my mother’s family, the famous Mehans. My father’s family, the not-famous Conways, were represented only by a crowd photo from my parents’ wedding day. Most prominent on those walls were the black-and-white glossies of my grandfather, Martin Mehan, for whom I am named. He was shown posing in a group with President Franklin D. Roosevelt; posing alone with United States Ambassador to London Joseph P. Kennedy; and posing alone with General Henry M. “Hollerin’ Hank” Lowery.

When Margaret came downstairs to get me for dinner that evening, I told her that I was not coming up because I wasn’t feeling well. I must have dozed off shortly after that, because the ringing of the telephone startled me. I rolled over toward the nightstand, checked the name on the caller ID, and picked it up. I answered, as cheerily as I could, “Hi, Nana. It’s Martin.”

“Martin! Hello! It’s London calling!”

“Yes, Nana. How are you?”

“That’s what the overseas operator always used to say. Every night. When your grandfather would call from England.”

“Yes, Nana. I know.”

“London calling.”

“Right.”

“Did that little boy ever find you?”

“What, Nana? What little boy?”

“A boy was looking for you. At least, I think he was looking for you.”

“I . . . I’m afraid I don’t know who you’re talking about. Do you mean a boy in Brookline?”

“Tell me something, Martin: Do you like to listen to the radio?”

“Uh, sure. I guess.”

“I love to go to sleep with the radio on. I always have. I had a dream about a radio, a beautiful old radio that your grandfather put in the attic years ago. I asked Elizabeth to bring it down for me, and now I have it right here. It’s a Philco 20 Deluxe radio. Would you like to listen to it?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

I suddenly heard a click on the line, followed by Mom’s voice. “Martin? Are you on the phone?”

“He’s on talking with me, Mary!”

“Oh, hello, Mother. I didn’t know it was you. How are you feeling today?”

I interrupted. “I guess I’ll get off now.”

Mom assured me, “You don’t have to, Martin.”

“No. That’s okay. I’ll talk to you later, Nana.”

“Goodbye, Martin!”

I clicked off and replaced the phone in its stand. When I looked up, I found myself staring straight into the mirror on the dresser. What I saw made me sick at heart. If you looked at just the right angle, at just the right spot, the red imprint of Hank Lowery’s hand was still faintly visible on my white skin. I sat there staring at that imprint until it was too dark to see it anymore.

NINE FIRST FRIDAYS

Certain days from the past come back to me perfectly clear, like a strong radio signal. Other days, even weeks, are a complete blur. I remember that I spent most of the next month in the basement. I slept a lot. I did some instant messaging. (I had a very short buddy list; only Pinak and Manetti were on it.) I also pretended to read the books of the All Souls Prep summer reading list. But mostly I did absolutely nothing. My days were empty and pointless. I took to napping twice a day—midmorning and midafternoon—and going to bed as soon as it got dark. During the day, I moved through the summer heat like a sleepwalker.

While lying in the basement, I sometimes had dreams that were actually set in the basement. I call these “real-place dreams.” Real-place dreams are the scariest kind because you have no way of knowing if you’re dreaming or not. Some of my grandmother’s phone calls that summer seemed like real-place dreams. She got into the habit of calling me late at night. Sometimes her words made sense; sometimes I couldn’t figure them out at all. On Friday, July 5, she called me very early in the morning. I groped for the phone on the nightstand, not sure if I was really answering it or if I was dreaming about answering it. I heard the question “Martin, did you make your nine First Fridays?”

“Nana? Is that you?”

“This is very important, dear. Did you go to mass and communion on the first Friday of each month for nine consecutive months?”

“Yes, ma’am. Mom had me do that in first grade. Then she had me do it again in second.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“At St. Aidan’s Church? In Brookline?”

“No, Nana. Down here. At Resurrection.”

“Because your soul is everlasting, Martin. Remember that. I know that for a fact.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Have you heard from the boy yet?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“You must help him. He’s lost.”

Suddenly I heard Aunt Elizabeth’s voice on the line. “Who is this?”

Nana didn’t speak, so I did. “It’s Martin, Aunt Elizabeth.”

“Martin? What time is it?”

“I don’t know.”

She paused, and then answered, “It’s five a.m. I’m very sorry, Martin. I should be keeping a better eye on her. Mother! You can’t call people at this hour. Remember? We talked about that? You can’t call people when it’s dark.” I heard the sound of my grandmother hanging up. “Mother?” Aunt Elizabeth turned her attention back to me. “I’m sorry, Martin. She has you set up on speed dial. I’ll deprogram the phone so she doesn’t do this again.”

“That’s okay. I don’t mind.”

“Well, I mind. And I’m sure a lot of other people would mind. Let’s all go back to sleep now.”

“Okay.” I hung up and shuddered. Aunt Elizabeth was my mother’s only sibling. She had never married; she had never really left the house where she grew up with my mother, my grandmother, and my grandfather. As the family story went, Aunt Elizabeth had entered the convent to become a nun, but she changed her mind at the last minute. Now she was the administrator of a big Catholic hospital in Boston by day, and she took care of Nana by night.

I did not go back to sleep. I sat thinking about Nana’s words until I heard sounds from Mom and Margaret upstairs. Mom still went to work at All Souls every weekday to run the office during the summer session. Margaret went to work every day, too. She had just graduated from intern to temporary employee at an encyclopedia company in Princeton.

I walked up to the kitchen and got some orange juice. Mom said, “I put a grocery list on the refrigerator, Martin. Please go to the Acme for me today and get those things.”

I muttered, “Okay.”

When I joined them at the kitchen table, Mom started in on me in earnest. “Why don’t you invite someone over today, Martin? How about Timothy Connelly?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“He seems like a very nice boy. He’s from an All Souls family.”

“That’s right. He’s a legacy. That means he doesn’t hang out with scholarship kids.”

“Martin. I’m sure that’s not true. I’m at that school every day. I see all the students getting along together.”

I thought,
Right. Did you see him in Lowery’s wolf pack? Surrounding the three trembling geeks? Yelping for their blood?
But I just answered, “No, I don’t think so. Not today.”

“And what are you going to do today instead?”

“I’ll read one of those books on the list, I guess.”

“How many have you read so far?”

“None so far, but I’m working on it.”

“The summer is halfway over, Martin, and you have a total of eight books to read.” She looked over at Margaret, trying to enlist her help. “Remember when you did the Newbery project? You read every Newbery Medal winner from 1922 to the present?”

Margaret smiled slyly. “Yes. And l lived to tell about it.”

Mom frowned. “Please, Margaret. I’m trying to encourage reading.”

“Martin should start by reading things that he likes.”

“No, he should start by reading the books on his list. He’ll be tested on them in September.”

I spoke up. “No. I won’t.”

“I believe there will be a test on them.”

“I believe there will be, too. But I won’t be taking it. I won’t be at the school.”

Mom shook her head, exasperated. She looked at Margaret. “See if you can talk to him. I don’t have time to argue this morning. I’m doing the work of three people at that place.”

Mom left shortly afterward, but Margaret hung around. She followed me down to the computer room, where I pretended to log on for an early-morning chat. She stood by the rows of family photos, studying them while asking me casually, “So, Martin, what do you do all day?”

“Nothing.”

“That can be good. Sometimes.”

I glanced at Margaret’s face while she wasn’t looking. It was eerie. If you could take them out of time, Margaret, Mom, and Nana could all be the same girl. They are all on the small side (as opposed to Aunt Elizabeth, who is large). They all, at one point, had curly dark hair, blue eyes, and light freckles. And they all flatly refused to smile in photographs, no matter if it was 1940, 1960, 1980, 2000 . . . not a smile from any one of them at any time.

Margaret wasn’t smiling now, either. She had a job to do, with me. She took a step forward, folded her arms, and looked me in the eye. “Why do you think you stay in this basement all day, every day?”

I answered carefully. “I don’t know. I guess because I’m still too young to get a summer job?”

“Really? Is that it?”

Of course that wasn’t it, but I wasn’t going to tell her. I changed the subject. “How is your job at the encyclopedia?”

Margaret took a slow step back. “It’s really good. It’s excellent.”

“What do you do there?”

“I do research—fact checking.”

“About what?”

Margaret smiled openly at my brazenness. “So you’re asking the questions now?”

“Yeah. I want to know.”

“Well, I check facts for the new entries in the encyclopedia. Every year they add people and places and things. They drop stuff, too.”

“Uh-huh. So who are they adding this year?”

She pointed to one of our grandfather’s photos. “Someone I’m sure you’ve heard all about at All Souls, General Henry M. Lowery.”

I felt a flash of humiliation, but I answered lightly, “Really? Hollerin’ Hank?”

“That’s the guy.”

“Why him?”

Margaret thought for a moment. “I don’t know. Mr. Wissler handed me a file from an attorney’s office. It was full of papers about General Lowery. He said, ‘See if any of this is true.’ ”

“He thought some things were
not
true?”

“I’d say so. Yeah. Mr. Wissler didn’t like getting that file sent to him. He likes to collect his own facts.”

“And he’s your boss?”

“Yes.”

“Who else works there?”

Margaret stepped toward the door. “Two permanent staff people, two interns, the IT guy, and me. That’s about it.” She fixed me with a stare. “Martin, is there anything you want to talk about? It doesn’t need to be with me. It could be with a therapist. It could even be with Dad.”

“You’re kidding. Dad?”

“Yes. He’d do that for you, if we gave him enough notice. You need to talk to someone.”

“I do talk to someone. I talk to friends online. I talk to Nana.”

“Nana?” Margaret sputtered. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“Does she understand you? Do you understand her?”

“Yeah. We understand each other.”

“What does she say?”

I thought about that morning’s wake-up call. “Today she asked me if I had gone to communion for nine First Fridays.”

Margaret mulled that over. “Interesting. That’s what’s on her mind?”

“Yeah. She seemed really worried about it.”

Margaret clenched her jaw and looked down. Then she continued in a confidential tone. “There’s a family story about that. Have you ever heard it?”

I held out my arms. “Who would have told me?”

Margaret shrugged. “Dad, maybe. In an indiscreet moment.”

“No. I haven’t heard it. What happened?”

Margaret pulled over a chair and sat. “This is Mom’s version. She calls it ‘the short version.’ It seems that Nana used to tell a long story about meeting an angel, but Grandfather made her stop because he thought it sounded crazy.”

I looked up at the photo of Martin Mehan. “And we can’t have that.”

“Oh no. That might jeopardize his status as a prominent Catholic layman.”

“So what did Nana say?”

Margaret stole a glance at the doorway to ensure that we were alone. “This happened the night Mom was born. Nana was rushed to the emergency room, fearful of losing the baby.”

“The baby? Meaning Mom? Meaning we wouldn’t be here now?”

“Correct. Nana’s heart actually stopped beating during the delivery. The doctors managed to save the baby—Mom—but they concluded that they couldn’t save Nana. After doing the crash cart thing and the chest-pounding, she was officially pronounced dead. They covered her with a white sheet and everything.”

I felt a sudden chill that made my head and shoulders shake.

Margaret went on, “Nana said that she remembered, clearly, floating up and away into an ether.”

“A what?”

“Like a white cloud. Then she found herself in the presence of an angel.” Margaret paused for effect. “According to Nana, she had the nerve to speak to the angel, although no sound came from her lips. She said, ‘Wait a minute. I was promised by the church that if I went to mass and communion on the first Friday of the month for nine consecutive months that a priest would be there to give me the last rites at my death, guaranteed. Well, I made my nine First Fridays, but I saw no priest before my death.’ The angel made no sound, either, but obviously agreed with her. She immediately found herself floating through the ether again, and then she came back to life on that table. She threw off the white sheet, causing one doctor to shout out an expletive and another to fall on his knees in prayer.”

I sat with my mouth open. I finally managed to say, “But she only asked me about the nine First Fridays. Why wouldn’t she tell me the rest of the story?”

Margaret shrugged. “Maybe Grandfather Mehan still has a hold on her. Who knows?”

“Or,” I suggested, “maybe she was going to, and Aunt Elizabeth cut her off.”

“Aunt Elizabeth?”

“Yeah. She got on the line and started yelling at Nana about calling people in the middle of the night.”

“That’s not bad advice, I suppose.” Margaret looked at her watch. “I’m going to be late.” She reached over, touched my hand once, and pulled it away. “I meant what I said about talking to someone. Someone other than Nana.”

I nodded noncommittally.

“Mom asked me to ask you to read a book.”

“Okay.”

“And to go to the store.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. I’ll see you tonight.”

I stayed in the computer room, thinking about Nana’s frail voice and Margaret’s death story. At about nine, I heard a
ding
on my instant message board. It was Pinak. He was on with Manetti, so I joined them: