The Post-Birthday World (37 page)

“Why didn’t you back me up?” Irina whispered once they’d repaired to her old bedroom. “I say you’re famous, and you leave me swinging in the wind! She probably thinks you’ve dazzled me with a few shiny trinkets and your posh clothes, so now I’ve deluded myself that I’ve married a celebrity instead of two-bit hustler!”

Ramsey rolled back on the bed and chuckled. “I were winding her up is all. Joke’s on your woman, innit?”

“No breakfast?” Ramsey asked the next morning, which was Christmas Eve.
“No, the joke’s on me,” she grumbled, nestling next to him. “But it may not matter. I think you already blew it. She expects a lot of brownnosing, a real snow job. For my mother, to have flattery withheld is tantamount to being insulted.”
“What am I meant to say, like?”
“Any man who walks in here is immediately supposed to start going on about how gorgeous she is and what incredible shape she’s in and how it doesn’t seem possible that she’s old enough to have a daughter in her forties.”
“Well, I wouldn’t, would I? ’Cause she looks like a bloody cadaver!”
Irina sat up. “You don’t think she looks pretty good? For sixty-four?”
“That bird looks every year of sixty-four and then some. She’s so skinny she makes the skin crawl, and her face is hard—with that ghoulish smile what barely moves. Fair enough, she’s her parts in the right place, and them parts is nicely wrapped. But she’s sexless, pet. I’d rather shag a cold baked spud. Your mum’s not got a patch on you, pet. Ain’t you figured it out yet? Why she’s always having a go at you, like you told me? She’s scared of you ’cause you’re
beautiful.
And she’s made bloody well sure that at least you don’t know it.”
“Well, you never saw her in her heyday—”
“Don’t need to,” Ramsey cut her off. “You was
always
the bigger knockout. And don’t you forget it.”
Irina smiled and kissed him gratefully, but it was funny; she didn’t want what he said to be true. Maybe she didn’t see her mother quite objectively. Yet when she was a little girl her classmates were in awe of her mother, and could never fathom how a buck-toothed ugly duckling could have issued from such a swan—impeccably groomed, imperial in manner, and dressed like Audrey Hepburn. That was the picture of Raisa that she wanted to keep. The alternative vision of an emaciated, pinch-faced neurotic growing old alone was anathema.

Irina was perched at the kitchen table over the

New York Times
with a lone glass of coffee, whose bottom she had carefully sponged before setting it first in a saucer, then on a coaster. In preference to explaining that in this household eating was a sign of weakness, she waved him off with a mumble about not being hungry.

Naturally Raisa had been up since dawn, having already worked out at the bar for hours. She was still wearing white tights with cherry-red leg-warmers and matching ballet shoes, whose familiar tap on the lino brought back a whole childhood’s worth of inadequacy.

Ramsey was having none of this austerity lark. When his mother-inlaw asked if he’d like toasted black bread he said fine, or scrambled eggs, too, and he said brilliant, and he turned a blithe blind eye to her rising horror when he accepted sausage as well as a side of kasha.

“Bozhe,”
said Raisa as she rushed perkily around the kitchen pretending not to feel put-upon. “When I here just me, I go to shops on Avenue and come home with one little sack! Now, with man in house! Whole sack, gone, in one day. So nice,
tak mylo,
to have appetite in house again. Like your father, Irina—who eat like bear!”

“Don’t worry, Mama,” said Irina; the one advantage of her mother’s sledgehammer subtlety, you never had to rack your brains to figure out what she was getting at. “If you’d like us to reimburse you for the groceries, I’m sure that can be arranged.”

“

Irina’s hands. “Oi, what’s with the gloves?”
Chepukha,
Irina, I no mean that!”
“Sure you didn’t.”
Ramsey had gnawed through three pieces of toast before he noticed

It was awkward to turn the pages of the paper. “You know, Raynaud. It’s frigid in here. It’s always frigid in here, so I brought several pairs. Thought I’d save the red ones for Christmas.”

“You make no notice,

Rumsee,
” said Raisa huffily. “Irina wear gloves so her mama feel bad. Big making-point no work if we ignore her.”
“But she’s dead on,” said Ramsey. “I’m freezing my bollocks off. Why don’t we crank up the boiler?”
“Because you should see gas bill!” said Raisa, wiping counters feverishly. “
K tomu zhe,
little nip in air keep you awake. Good for circulation,
da
?”
“No, Mama”—Irina kept her voice flat—“my circulation is just what living in a meat locker is
not
good for.”
“Wake up in morning and
exercise,
Irina, you stay warm all day!”
“What’s the sodding thermostat set at?” Ramsey had removed one of Irina’s gloves and was rubbing her chill fingers between his palms.
“Oh, something Arctic. It’s in the living room.” When he walked down the hall, she called after him, “But Ramsey—!”
He came back. “What’s your sixty in Celsius?”
“Sixteen?” Irina supposed. “Maybe more like fifteen.”
“That’s bleedin’ savage!”
Irina lunged after him and grabbed his arm in the hall. “Don’t,” she whispered. “I had the presumption to boost it a couple of degrees once, and you wouldn’t believe the row. It’s not worth it. I can wear gloves. I don’t mind.”
“
I
fucking well mind.” Ramsey strode back into the kitchen and announced as Raisa sponged maniacally around his half-eaten breakfast, “Tell you what. I don’t fancy my lovely wife trussed up like an Eskimo just to read the paper.” He fished out his wallet, and threw four $50 bills on the table. “That should cover a day or two of your gas bill, ’ey?”
“
Nyet,
this too much, you must take back!” Raisa protested, waving the bills. “No money for gas, you my guest!”
“Keep the change.” Ramsey strolled off to the parlor, and Irina looked on in amazement at his brazen apostasy as he twisted the thermostat to 75.

After breakfast, Irina showed Ramsey around Brighton Beach, disappointed when nothing about the area piqued his curiosity. His eyes searched blankly the line of shops under the el, their marquees printed in Cyrillic, their help-wanted signs in windows specifying, “Must speak Russian!” He was polite enough when she led him into stores full of imports from Israel and the Baltics, with their long counters of smoked fish and shelves of black bread. He did engage briefly when they stopped at a caviar store, where he bought two ounces of beluga for Christmas dinner in the spirit of generosity-as-act-of-aggression that was beginning to typify his approach to her formidable mother. Yet Ramsey Acton’s point of entry into any environment was terribly specific. When his eyes swept her old neighborhood, they were compulsively scanning, in vain, for a snooker club.

Irina picked up a few things to forestall (temporarily) her mother’s resentment, making small-talk with the cashiers. For over a year she’d spoken so little Russian, a language that allowed for the torrential emotions that English was too angular to express. Lawrence comprehended more than he could speak, and she missed rolling through a Slavic diatribe about London’s larcenous water bills and being roughly understood. Ramsey often asked her to “talk Russian” in bed, but to him the susurrant murmur was gibberish.

They had arranged to meet her mother for lunch at one of the boardwalk’s outdoor cafés, in December zipped up with plastic sheeting. When they arrived, Raisa was already regally seated at a prominent table. Her form-fitting dress was a rich billiard green, as if in unwitting tribute to Ramsey’s profession, and maybe if she hadn’t accessorized the gear to death with accents of an identical midnight blue the outfit might have passed for classy. For that matter, after encountering on the boardwalk countless old bags wrapped in fake leopard-skin coats and dragging yappy little dogs, Irina was able to see her mother as a beacon of tastefulness in comparison.

Irina opted for a salad. Raisa made do with two tiny toast points laced with salmon caviar. Ramsey ordered pickled herring, lamb-and-rice soup, a refill of the bread basket, chicken Kiev, and a beer. Raisa often enjoyed watching other people gorge themselves, but the injustice of this conspicuous consumption would grate. Ramsey ate like a pig and Ramsey wasn’t fat.

He asked respectfully about her history as a ballerina, allowing Raisa to drop,

again,
that it was getting pregnant with Irina that had brought her professional dance career to a close. When he inquired after her teaching, she vented her disgust that these days American children had no discipline, no tolerance for pain, and no capacity to forgo a Ho-Ho in the service of art.

“You find anyone to play

snookers
with?” she said, as one might ask a five-year-old if he had found a little friend to play marbles.
“After playing four tournaments near back-to-back,” he said levelly, “winning one and making the finals in three, I reckon I can take a few days off from
snookers.
”
No pick-up.
After downing his third beer and virtually throwing his Platinum MasterCard at the poor waiter, Ramsey announced that he’d an errand to run. Since his reputation as a gentleman on the circuit was not entirely a pose, he did remember to fold his napkin, place his fork tines-down across his plate, and wish Raisa a pleasant afternoon. Nevertheless, he steamed off in what was, to Irina, a state of undisguised fury.
“Your
husband,
” said Raisa in his wake. “He have nice table manners.”
That damning-with-faint-praise was all the comment that Raisa deigned to pass for the remainder of the day on her daughter’s choice of mate, though Ramsey’s absence that afternoon provided ample opportunity to express approval or share private reservations. Raisa may have been forced into retirement as a dancer at twenty-one by the horrifying burgeoning of her first child, but she was still a performer to the core, and dramatic pronouncements would be squandered on an audience of one.

Ramsey returned wearing the composed determination that Irina recognized from tournaments. He took his wife and mother-inlaw out to dinner at a swank (if garish) restaurant on the Avenue. Raisa ordered generously for herself, which Irina knew better than to take as a good sign. The point of each dish was that her mother wouldn’t—the conceit ran, couldn’t—finish it.

Raisa regaled Ramsey with tales of his wife’s artistically precocious childhood. A mother was supposed to brag like this to a new son-in-law, but maybe that’s what made Irina uncomfortable with the hard sell. Raisa was following protocol. She seemed less proud of her daughter than proud of herself for being proud. Besides, Irina would have been powerfully more touched had her mother dwelt instead on her substantial achievements as a grown-up.

By the main course—of her cutlet, Raisa would eat three bites—the conversation curled.

“Nu, rasskazheetye,”
she said. “How you two meet?”
“I used to collaborate with Ramsey’s first wife,” said Irina.
“Bozhe.”
Raisa raised her eyebrows. “As Americans say,
the plot thickens.
”
Good Lord, she used an article. Irina wanted to pin a ribbon on her mother’s chest. “No, Mama, the plot’s not that thick. When Ramsey was married to Jude, we were only friends. Lawrence and I used to dine with them a couple of times a year.”
Unfortunately, Irina’s introduction of the L-word granted Raisa implicit permission to use it too.
“Tak,”
she said, “
Rumsee
—you and Lawrence friends?”
“We was friends,” said Ramsey tolerantly.
“But no more,” said Raisa.
“No, you couldn’t say just now we’re best mates.”
“And Irina”—Raisa’s gaze shuttled between them—“how Lawrence do? He sad?”
“Lawrence,” Irina borrowed from that anguishing cup of coffee in Borough, “is
managing.
”
Ramsey looked at his wife. As she’d ostensibly not seen Lawrence since she left him, shouldn’t she have said she had no idea? Caught in the middle, Irina was irked. She might have willingly answered her mother’s questions in private this afternoon, but in private they’d have meant something else.
“But how this come about?” Raisa pried. “You have dinner, two couples, and then, just like that, you marry man across table?”
“Mama, look. One night Lawrence was out of town, and Ramsey was divorced. We got together as friends, and it was perfectly innocent. Except that we fell in love. I wasn’t looking for it, and neither was he. Falling in love isn’t something that you decide to do, any more than you decide on the weather. It descends on you, like a hurricane.”
Alas, Irina’s set piece was tainted with a hint of talking herself into something. The question of whether you were responsible for your own feelings—whether emotions were bombardments to which you were helplessly subjected or contrivances with which you were actively complicit—tortured her on a daily basis. Are they something you suffer, or something you make? You can control what you do, but can you control what you feel? Did she choose to fall in love with Ramsey Acton? And should desire have indeed thundered from the heavens like a “hurricane,” given that the subsequent downpour had rained upon Lawrence a grievous injustice, in that theoretical universe whereby she could choose, would she have opted to forgo it?
“Ten years ago,” said Raisa, “you say you fall in love with Lawrence. What happen?”
“I don’t know what happened.” Even with Ramsey beside her, Irina sagged. “And I do still love Lawrence—in a way . . .”
“So, when this new love fall from sky. You walk out, next day? Go marry
Rumsee
?”
“No, Mama, I am an adult, and we obviously had to think about it.” “How long you do this—
thinking
?” A reflexive generational disapproval may have battled appreciative amazement that her plain, underconfident daughter had mustered the pluck and sex appeal for adultery.
“Not that long.” Irina folded her arms. “Mama, I know I said I was in love with Lawrence, and I was. I still think he’s a wonderful man, and I won’t hear a word against him. Still, what’s between me and Ramsey is different.”
“How different?”
“We’re
closer.
”
“Da, ya vidyela,”
Raisa said dryly.
Yes, so I’ve seen.
“Obviously, Mama—” With a hand gesture of exasperation, Irina knocked over her wine glass. Ramsey’s signature Chateau Neuf du Pape Rorschached over the white tablecloth. Her cheeks burned to match the stain. “Oh—nothing’s changed, I’m still a klutz!”
“You ain’t no such thing, pet!” Ramsey patted and covered the spill with his napkin without seeming to make a fuss, then refilled her wine glass to the brim. Finding no one with whom to share it, Raisa’s pitying smirk floated in space.
“As I was saying, Mama,” Irina recovered, darting a grateful glance at her husband, “obviously falling in love with Ramsey was the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me. But I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea. Leaving Lawrence was incredibly painful, not only for him but for me. This isn’t some flighty little whim of mine.”
Irina should not have had to say any of that, and as soon as it was out of her mouth she felt humiliated. Somehow whenever you’re obliged to swear that a romance isn’t “a flighty little whim,” a flighty little whim is exactly what it appears.
“Yes,” said Raisa, putting down her fork summarily; she saved grammatical English for special occasions: “I’m sure it was very unpleasant.”
Maybe the problem was exclusive to her mother, but Irina suspected not. That is, maybe for any parent the hardest prerogative to grant grown children isn’t the right to be treated like real professionals, with their own homes and the respect of important people, but the right to annex adult
feelings.
You’d have grown too habituated to consoling weepy moppets who are “in love” with the boy in the front row, while certain in the knowledge that next week they would be equally smitten by the boy in back. Raisa still spoke of her marriage to Irina’s father as a tragedy of Tolstoyan proportions, while the droll story of their meeting—broke, Raisa was playing a bit part in a B-movie called
Tiny Dancer,
in which Charles was supposed to coach her on her Russian accent—was straight out of Chekhov. But it wouldn’t come naturally to accord a little girl with buck teeth, inordinately attached to the worn-down stumps of her Crayola-64, the capacity for heartache on the same epic scale. So there was likely no rendition of the Ramsey-Lawrence triangle that wouldn’t, to Raisa, sound tinny, trite, and dubious. When Irina put forward that leaving Lawrence had been “painful,” Raisa could only hear “It was sort of awkward and Lawrence said mean things to me.” When Irina said that falling head over heels for Ramsey was “the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her,” Raisa could only hear “He takes me out to dinner, and he has a pretty face.” And now that Irina had asserted in womanhood that she’d “fallen in love” with more than one man, her mother would revoke her provisional license, itself only granted begrudgingly after years of her loyalty to Lawrence, to have ever properly “loved,” the way real grown-ups love, anyone in her life.
After paying the hefty bill, Ramsey was fuming, whispering in Irina’s ear on the way out of the restaurant, “Your mum is
rude.
” He clarified later that he was referring to her having ordered such an array of delicacies only to have the better part of every course swept away. While he didn’t care about the money, somewhere in the affected finickiness lurked ingratitude: “Like chucking it back in my face!” But Irina thought at the time that he was referring instead to her mother’s having put them both on the spot like that, trying to uncloak a sleazy, duplicitous affair as the provenance of all this
happiness.
Yet there was just enough truth in that charge to make Irina pensive on the walk home. Back in 1988, once Lawrence had moved into West 104th Street, Irina had visited her mother in Brighton Beach to break the news that she had finally met “the love of her life.” She remembered employing the shopworn phrase without self-consciousness, and meaning it with all her heart. The scene had engendered a rare sweetness between mother and daughter, even if it did take years for Raisa to credit the extravagant claim, and to achieve a reluctant (if now unfortunately tenacious) fondness for Lawrence herself. But that is not an announcement you can make twice. As splendid a man as Irina believed fiercely she’d shown up with the night before, a shabbiness, a sheepishness, had contaminated the introduction, and retroactively sullied as well that erstwhile precious memory from 1988. Irina told herself that these days people married two or three times as a matter of course, and to have a second great love was hardly incredible. But she was, at core, a romantic of an archaic cast. While she loved Ramsey, she did not, quite, love their story.