Apprehensions and Other Delusions Read online

  “But it had to be done,” she had explained during one of her long, late-night discourses. “He was running through all Lysander’s money, and the Depression was on, so what could I do? He had insurance, a lot of it, and his trust fund that would pass to Albert, so there was nothing left for me to do. I did try to make it as easy on him as I could—without making it seem I had done anything, of course.” Marjorie had told Jessie how she had learned how to disable the brakes in Ernest’s sedan, that she had stepped out one evening when she knew Ernest would be going to the country club and made sure he would not make it home. Ernest always drove fast, and it was only to be expected that he would do the same this night. His Ford went off the road and down the steep side of Stewart’s Bluff, and the insurance money had put Marjorie and her three surviving children back on easy street: Albert, Melanie, and Edmund had been able to prosper when others were struggling to get by. It had been a pity about Edmund, the youngest of Ernest Noyes’s children: Edmund had died in Korea, his plane shot down on an early morning reconnaissance run.

  From the table with the cheeses came a sudden eruption of weeping, and the various people standing nearby hurried to comfort or escape the outburst of Louisa, Marjorie’s youngest child, a thin woman of fifty-seven who had been born when Marjorie was thirty-nine, three years after her last marriage, to Theodore Bateman. She had given him William within a year of their nuptials and considered him a late child; but Louisa came later. Everyone in the family believed Louisa to be high-strung and usually said her long-delayed arrival in her mother’s life accounted for it. Her half-brother Albert hurried over to offer his shoulder for Louisa to cry on, much to the annoyance of her husband Jim, who stared at his wife as if he couldn’t bear one more outburst.

  “What do you think?” asked a voice slightly behind Jessie.

  “Daniel’s going to make a toast,” said Jessie, not looking around.

  “Not yet. He’s waiting for the good champagne.” The voice laughed slightly. “I don’t blame you for what you did, Jessie. You knew her better than anyone, I bet.”

  “I suppose so,” said Jessie, and turned to face Christian Wilmot, Marjorie’s grandson, one of only three grandchildren.

  He tugged on the neck of his black turtleneck, worn under a navy blazer, his fair skin a bit flushed, by heat or drink was hard to tell. His face was handsome enough, but with a certain softness about it that showed he lacked resolution. “I bet she told you all kinds of shit. She really liked to talk, and you had to listen, I bet,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “I’m sorry she’s dead, but she was ninety-six. I didn’t want to come, but since none of the Averys are here, I thought I might as well.”

  “There are only two Averys who could come,” Jessie reminded him. “Michael and Charlotte. Charlotte is ill, and Michael is in Europe.” Charlotte, Gardner Avery’s spinster sister, had lived with Gardner and Marjorie for five years, and Marjorie had still blamed her for the troubles she had had in that marriage, decades after Gardner Avery and four of his children had died in a small-plane crash. Michael had been home with chicken pox, and lived. The rest had gone down in the mountains; it had taken almost a year to find the wreckage, and to gather up the bones that could be found in order to have something to autopsy and bury.

  “Charlotte would have done more than laugh if she’d been here,” said Christian. “She hates Marjorie’s guts to this day. She still says Marjorie’s responsible for the crash, you know.”

  “Why does she say that?” Jessie asked, curious about what that old-style Bohemian potter had perceived in Marjorie that roused her suspicions.

  “Because she’s jealous, of course. You know how possessive she’s always been about her brother; she clung to him like a leech,” said Christian. “She has to say Marjorie did it or she has to admit that her sainted brother fucked up. That could never happen.” He shook his head. “She claims that Marjorie put something in the thermos, something that made him crash the plane.” He pulled at his single ear-ring, the gesture oddly flirtatious. “Why would Marjorie do that? I can understand killing Grandfather Gardner—not that I ever met him, but still—but not her kids. Marjorie wasn’t the type to do that.”

  Is there a type? Jessie asked herself, and felt a smile squeeze out the corners of her mouth. “Then it’s probably just as well that she didn’t come.”

  “Y’know,” Christian remarked, “machines sure had it in for Marjorie.”

  “Machines?” Jessie repeated incredulously.

  “Yeah. Her first husband got cut up working on his car, didn’t he? And the brakes failed on Ernest Noyes’s car, didn’t they? And then Grandfather Gardner went down in his plane, and Theodore Bateman had that boating accident: who would’ve thought that a powerboat could catch fire and burn like that? Something wrong with the engine, isn’t that what they decided? All machines, one way or another. And didn’t Marjorie’s oxygen machine go out on her?” He snapped his fingers. “Oh, yeah. It was the power failure during the thunderstorm. More machines. You see what I mean?” He gave Jessie his best impish grin. “Dad could’ve come, you know. If he really wanted to.”

  “He’s in Europe, Christian. His business—” Jessie said, feeling she had to apologize for Michael.

  “Business? In Paris? My dad? He’s just farting around. He’s probably just as glad he has an excuse to stay away. There’s always a way to get back here in twenty-four hours from almost anywhere on earth, and Paris is easier than a lot of other places. Year before last, he made it home from Karachi in twenty hours, and that routed him through Australia and Hawaii.” Christian almost smiled. “I think you’ve got guts, Jessie. I don’t blame you for letting go that way. You might as well laugh. Half these sticks probably want to do what you did, or something like it, but they don’t have the balls.”

  “Christian, that’s a terrible thing to say,” Jessie admonished him.

  “Do you think so?” He kissed his fingers in her direction. “Then where’s Lindsay and Gerald? Why am I the only grandchild here? Where are my half-cousins? Where’re Louisa’s kids? Or William’s? You don’t see either of them here, do you?” He stepped back with a flourish. “See what I mean?” And with that he was gone.

  Jessie pressed her lips together, and wondered if Christian might be right. Could some family members have known what Marjorie had told her, or might they have heard whispers over the years? Might Marjorie have told someone else about her activities? Certainly Marjorie was proud of her accomplishments: could she have boasted of them to someone other than Jessie? She went over to the bar, longing for a cognac, but asking for mineral water.

  “Quite a show you put on,” said Annis Lealand, her head at an angle and her hip cocked. She was forty-nine, but admitted to forty-two, a fanatically fit and skillfully maintained woman with the kind of determination that Jessie found unnerving. “It takes the mind off all the shock.”

  “I’m sorry about it,” said Jessie, taking her mineral water and sipping carefully. “I never meant—”

  “Whatever possessed you? Did you do it deliberately?” Annis interrupted her apology. “Or did things just catch up with you?”

  It was hard to tell if this was a literal or allegorical question, for Annis subscribed to any number of cosmologies that might explain her behavior. “I don’t know,” said Jessie, giving the safe answer.

  “Well, I can tell you had a lot on your mind. It’s not surprising at a time like this.” She ran her finger around the rim of her glass. “You know, not every culture weeps at death.” She looked at Jessie.

  “How many giggle?” Jessie asked, chagrined.

  Annis paid no attention to this. “You carried it all for them. Don’t think I don’t know it. Desmond thinks he was helpful with Marjorie, but he really wasn’t. He just fussed a lot, and called it caring. It spared him having to do anything much.” She gave Jessie a long, sympathetic look. “I know how h
ard your job has been. Most of them couldn’t do it, and wouldn’t do it, so they just dumped it all in your lap and tried to forget about it. And it can’t have been easy, dealing with Marjorie.”

  Jessie would have been glad of a sympathetic ear, but she doubted that Annis was one, given the amount of family gossip that filtered through her. “It wasn’t easy for Marjorie—to have her body give out before her mind went.”

  “The other way isn’t much better. Not that any way is really good, unless you’re prepared for it and your soul is ready to move on,” said Annis, posing elegantly; her chocolate-colored silk pantsuit was a bit too low-cut for formal mourning, and the brilliant diamonds that dangled from her earlobes were ostentatious, but it was what everyone expected of Annis.

  “No,” said Jessie.

  Annis sighed. “So have you made any plans yet? You do need to start thinking about what comes next, you know. Don’t mind my asking, do you?”

  “Well, I have to help inventory and close up the house so it can be put on the market. That will take a couple of months, according to the lawyers, and it’ll take that long to get all the paperwork done. What happens after that will depend upon—” What would it depend upon? she asked herself, and giggled. “Oh, dear.”

  “Hey, don’t worry about it.” Annis held out her glass for a refill. “Barkeep. Single malt. Make it a double.” She turned back to Jessie. “Might as well splurge a little. I’ll do another half hour on the treadmill tomorrow.”

  “For a drink?” Jessie asked.

  “And that yummy brie,” said Annis. “I’ll say this for Albert—he set up a good send-off for his mom; best of everything and plenty of it. Desmond didn’t want any part of it.”

  It was Jessie who had made the actual arrangements: Albert had signed the checks. “Yes.”

  “I know Albert will give you a good letter of recommendation, Jessie. And he’ll make some calls on your behalf—I promise. You did so much for Marjorie. I suppose I could get Desmond to write one for you, too. I wouldn’t count on the others. William doesn’t do favors, and Louisa isn’t useful for that sort of thing. Melanie might.” She offered a practiced, brittle smile. “Desmond was pretty fond of Marjorie, and he knows he’s lucky to have had you to take care of her. I let him know she needed someone full-time a couple years before you were hired. The rest of the family couldn’t see that Lorna was out of her depth. Lorna was a good maid, but she wasn’t up to anything like what Marjorie needed. And she wanted to go home in the evening. Her family didn’t like her being gone overnight. Marjorie needed someone with her ’round the clock. You were a godsend.”

  “Lorna didn’t want to stay on once Marjorie had to use the wheelchair. She said Marjorie was too demanding.” Jessie said this with the full intention that Annis would tell the rest of the family. “Not surprising, really. She wasn’t trained for anything more than keeping house, and Marjorie needed more than that.”

  “At least you’re a nurse. That relieved everyone, in spite of what happened before,” said Annis, taking her drink from the bar and leaving a dollar coin in the tip glass.

  “That was twenty-three years ago,” Jessie said without a trace of hesitation or embarrassment.

  “So it was,” said Annis as if she had forgotten that. “And nothing was ever proven, was it?” She took a long sip. “You’ve always said there was nothing to prove.”

  “Because there wasn’t.” She wanted to get away from Annis but couldn’t do it without fueling Annis’s worst speculations. “As the investigation revealed. They proved the vials had been in the wrong place and improperly labeled.” It had been a long time since anyone had brought that up—except Marjorie, who would make some reference to that incident almost every day.

  “Not the kind of thing to talk about now, is it? I didn’t mean to distress you,” Annis said with too much an air of satisfaction to make her contrite expression mean anything.

  “No,” she said.

  Annis smiled. “Well, I didn’t mean to touch a nerve.”

  “You didn’t,” said Jessie quickly. “I’m still edgy from Marjorie’s death. We all are, don’t you think?”

  “I’d say so,” Annis agreed, and had another sip. “This is very good.”

  Jessie drank more of her mineral water and wished she could come up with something to say that would send Annis away without offending her. She stared up at the ceiling, at the exposed beams with their Celtic carving. “It’s a handsome building.”

  “So it is,” said Annis, and glanced at George again, pursing her lips. “Excuse me, Jessie. I have to ask George about an IPO.” She turned on her heel and went off at a rapid clip.

  Jessie stood by herself, relieved and forlorn at once. She put her hand to her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, as if to block a sneeze. It would be so easy to laugh again, and she couldn’t stand the thought of losing it again. Her face ached from her efforts to keep her expression somber.

  “Want another?” William Bateman asked in a stiff tone.

  “Mineral water?” Jessie asked, holding up her glass. “Not yet, thanks.”

  William studied her, his face expressionless. “It’s been a difficult day.”

  “It has,” she agreed. “But that’s nothing new,” she added.

  “I wanted you to know that I’m trying to understand about what happened,” William said.

  “She stopped fighting. It was time. She was tired. The power failure just gave her the opportunity to stop breathing,” said Jessie, and bit the insides of her cheeks as she sensed more laughter gathering in her solar plexus.

  “No. I mean about what happened with you.” He folded his arms. “You, of all people.”

  “I’m sorry. How many times do I have to say it?” She knew she sounded testy. “It was a long, hard battle, and I suppose I’m just thankful it’s over. For both of us.”

  “But laughing?” He shook his head.

  “That ... that was unfortunate.” Jessie sighed. “I didn’t intend to. And really, I don’t know why I laughed. I just did.” She was becoming exasperated, in large part because she couldn’t shake the remnants of amusement that had not released its hold on her. Her hands began to cramp around her glass.

  “Well, these things happen,” said William in a pious manner, as if excusing a major disaster, like a hurricane or an earthquake. He glanced toward his sister, Louisa, who was nibbling on a small helping of pasta salad. Shaking his head, he studied her. “It always seems strange to eat at these occasions, don’t you think? For Chrissake, someone’s dead: I should think we ought all to fast.”

  “I see you aren’t eating,” said Jessie in what she hoped was a respectful tone.

  “Of course not; nor should anyone else,” said William sharply. “Oh, I know it’s tradition, and most of the family wanted it. I went along, because it would have meant putting the funeral in a bad light: I wouldn’t do anything so disrespectful.” The implication that much worse than eating had already been done was not lost on Jessie.

  “Well, Marjorie wanted food at her funeral reception; she said so. Everyone is supposed to have a good time, so that their last memory of her can be pleasant. She didn’t want to call it a wake, because she said once she left, she had no intention of changing her mind and coming back. Once she left, it was her intention to stay gone.” She chortled and averted her face. “I’m sorry. It’s just that your mother had such a decisive way about her.”

  “Decisive,” said William. “She did it all for us, of course, making up her mind about this ... funeral reception, and spelling out how she expected it to be. She wanted to spare us any possible disagreements. If she had bothered to ask me about it—but she never would. It’s all her doing.”

  “Of course,” said Jessie, who had often been treated to long tirades on the inadequacies of Marjorie’s children: Albert was wishy-washy, Mela
nie was foolish, William was fussy, and Louisa was a flibbertigibbet. “I don’t know why I bothered so about them,” Marjorie would exclaim. “None of them is worth half the effort I put out for them. None of them appreciates me. None of them knows a hawk from a handsaw.” At those times, Jessie would make commiserating noises and fluff Marjorie’s pillows, trying to ease her discomfort. Now, recalling the harangues, she was hard-put not to tell this self-important man what his mother had said about him. Somehow she managed to hold her tongue.

  “I know you did your best for her. I know we ought to be thankful about it, but it’s never easy.” He went to the bar and ordered a second glass of white wine, saying over his shoulder to Jessie, “Not very good, but adequate for this, I suppose.”

  “I suppose,” said Jessie, who had chosen the wine as the best value for price. “I know Marjorie liked it.”

  “Well, toward the end, with the drugs and all, I don’t suppose there was much left of her ... discernment. And she used to be so fussy about wine and food. Still, it was right to go along with her requests, I suppose. It’s our duty to fulfill her wishes.” He took the glass of wine and carried it toward the table where the salads and cheeses were set out; he lurked over them, rather like a vulture on a light-pole waiting for roadkill. “It’s a shame you had such an unbecoming outburst, but I don’t suppose you could help it. You’re probably over-tired, with all the preparations for this, and organizing all the paperwork for the estate.” He didn’t wait for her to speak, but turned to Nowell Harbinger, Marjorie’s lawyer, and began to ask him prying questions which Harbinger dodged artfully, promising full disclosure at the formal reading of the will.