The Other Brother Read online

  But you’d never peg him as being related to someone possessed of one of the most famous faces on the planet. For one thing, even leaving off the height discrepancy, they don’t look a thing alike. Jack has close-cropped, sandy-colored hair that starts to spring back into curls the instant he steps from the shower; kind, brown eyes, as opposed to Denny’s sea-glass eyes that have only a few flecks of brown; a smile that’s more reassuring than Denny’s hundred-watt grin, Denny’s mouth when he laughs so wide it looks like he could eat the world; and in addition to being tall, unlike his slight older brother, Jack is sturdy and strong. If you had to guess his profession on first sight, you’d likely guess copper, and not one of the corrupt ones either.

  So, as I say, there’s no reason, if you didn’t already know, for anyone to connect the two men. And so I didn’t.

  “Can I buy you another one of those?” he asked with a chin nod toward my empty glass.

  I looked him over again. Already he looked better, if only by the barest of increments, than the first time I’d glanced at him. I could certainly do worse, I finally concluded, and in fact, many times I had.

  “Sure,” I said, raising my eyebrows expectantly, hoping he’d guess what I was searching for.

  He did. “Jack,” he filled in for me, and nothing more.

  Well, it wasn’t like I needed to know his last name. We’d probably converse for exactly the amount of time it took me to down my fresh G&T, and that would be that. It’s not like I’d need to know his whole name for my Christmas list or anything. It’s not like we were going to be picking out His and Hers towels the next day.

  Of course, as it turned out, we wound up talking through several rounds of drinks. Well, mostly I talked, at least in the beginning. That’s the thing about Jack. Unlike Denny, who can only be depended upon to talk about what he’s doing and what interests him, as though he expects the whole world to be waiting for every utterance, hanging on every last word—which, I suppose, to be fair, they do—and unlike any other man I’d ever met, Jack was all about finding out what interested me.

  So I told him how I was at loose ends; how I’d recently graduated from university and, having gone to school to study one thing only to realize near the end that it no longer suited, I was killing time working in a book shop until the right idea for what to do with my life came along.

  That may not sound like much to tell another person, but you’d be surprised how much time you can consume talking about how adrift you’re feeling when you’re drifting on the effects of about a half-dozen or so G&Ts. So basically, I just nattered on while Jack mostly listened. Except he didn’t just listen. My recollection of events in the days to follow and right up to now, is that he interjected with meaningful comments at appropriate points and with humor in the few moments when I grew maudlin over my own sorry state. As for that humor, it wasn’t like he was laughing at me—although eventually I started laughing at myself—and it wasn’t over-the-top hilarious; it was just nice, and gentle, like him.

  In fact, I was just thinking about how surprisingly nice this all was—this man, this talking thing—that it was the most pleasant evening I’d enjoyed in I didn’t even know how long, when some guy doing the karaoke launched into “Frustration.”

  And that’s when Jack rolled his eyes, accompanied by an inexplicably sad shake of the head.

  Before I could ask him about that, he changed his own subject.

  “I heard you and your friends earlier,” he said, “singing. You weren’t half bad.”

  “Pfft.” I shrugged off the compliment. “Anyone can sing along with the bouncing ball. What about you?” I gestured with my head toward the D.J. “Do you sing?”

  “I do, actually.” He spoke the words with great care. “But not like this.”

  I did wonder what that could mean, but I also wondered where the barman was with my fresh drink, and the latter wondering took precedence over the former.

  It’s funny how you can go out with your friends several weekends in a row and meet various different guys, potential love interests, none of them clicking, and then you meet one who does. Before long, Jack and I were doing that giddy “we just met and now we’re comparing interests” thing; you know the one, in which somehow it magically turns out you both have a lot in common, as though it might be an omen of something deeper, or at least you manage to manipulate things so that it would appear so. Typically, it’s fairly obvious stuff: you both think J.M.W. Turner is the greatest British artist ever and you’re in agreement that John Cleese is the best Python.

  “What’s your favorite color?”

  “Blue.”

  “You love blue? Me too!”

  “I like breathing.”

  “This is so amazing—me too!”

  It was like that.

  And then of course our talk turned to books, TV, and film, followed by, inevitably, music.

  Even there, it would appear we thought as one; well, mostly. As he reeled off names of bands and individual artists, we were in surprising synch. The only thing we differed on was Bon Jovi; they were brand spanking new on the scene, and while he foresaw a great future, at the time all I could see was hair, and not in a good way. But since his own was more conservatively cropped, I got the impression that my thoughts on the band from the wrong Jersey were as much a relief to him as anything else. And, thankfully, he was wise enough not to ask if I was Beatles or Led Zeppelin. It’s my experience that that’s a debate best not had upon just meeting a new man because while some people can be both Beatles and Led Zeppelin, that’s by no means always the case and it’s just too much of a risk.

  “What do you think of them?” he asked with a head gesture toward the latest karaoke singer, who was murdering “Frustration” even worse than the guy who’d attempted it a half hour earlier.

  “You mean the guy singing karaoke?” He’d said ‘them,’ but there was only one person singing. Perhaps he’d drunk too much and was seeing double? Or maybe I’d drunk too much and was only seeing one where there should be two? No, it was definitely just one singer.

  “No.” He spoke in an even voice. “The band who originally recorded the song.”

  I tried to figure out what he was looking for, in that way you sometimes do with a new man you’ve just met when you think you’re still playing the “we just met and now we’re comparing interests” game; we’d been getting on so well, I didn’t want to louse things up. And I’d already crossed him once, on Bon Jovi, I didn’t want to run the risk of crossing him twice. Unfortunately, his face was neutral, a bloody Switzerland of uselessness. Then I remembered that eye-roll from earlier, which it appeared, might be a clue.

  “Well,” I proceeded cautiously, “I suppose they are a bit overrated.”

  “A bit over…” He barked a laugh. “Yes. I’d say that’s exactly right.”

  “You’re not a fan, then?”

  “You might say that.”

  Then he launched into a laundry-list critique of everything wrong with Denny and his band: the exaggerated dance moves that ran the risk of overflowing into self-caricature; the occasional overeagerness to pump out a hit single attached to the latest music craze, like disco nearly a half-decade ago, almost sure to cause embarrassment later on in a career, not even fit enough for a greatest hits album, even if “Disco Balls to You” had charted at #1 in 1978—what self-respecting rock-and-roll band would commit such a musical faux pas? And what about that label, The Greatest Rock-and-Roll Band In The World—could such a thing be empirically proven, and if not, why claim it?

  I found myself nodding in agreement with what he said because everything he said was technically true.

  “So, really?” he said at one point, stopping his own tirade long enough to solicit my opinion. “You’re really not a fan?”

  “Not in the slightest,” I reassured him.

  It wasn’t even until our second date—well, our first if you don’t count the drunken meeting in the pu
b as a date, per se—that I learned his last name was Springer too, just like the lead singer for the band he wasn’t a fan of.

  I stepped outside, pulling the door shut behind me.

  Denny was already on the front stoop, a lit cigarette dangling from his fingers. On the edges of the concrete, not much bigger than a postage stamp, stood two bodyguards dressed in suits. And in front of the house was parked a long, white limousine, the liveried driver leaning against the front of the car enjoying his own cigarette break. A chauffeur and two bodyguards—Denny had needed all this just to visit his parents for the holiday. What did he need the bodyguards for? In the city, I could understand it, maybe, but here? What did he think was going to happen, that old Mrs. Parker across the way was going to maul him for an autograph? Instead of revering him, she was more likely to pity his parents. “Poor Edith,” I could hear her saying. “At least my Darren comes to see me every week, but when’s the last time that one was around? Oh, I wish for her sake he’d get a proper job, give up all that nonsense.”

  “Mona,” Denny said with what could only be described as a slight leer. “Did you come out here for some alone time with me?”

  I regarded my brother-in-law from my height, even in flats, of one inch taller than him. Only five-seven to Jack’s six feet—Denny’d gotten his mom’s height while Jack got their dad’s—it was always a surprise to see Denny in person, to stand so close to him like this and realize how slight he was, when on stage he always towered larger than life. And yet somehow, no room was big enough for him, no room could contain him.

  I ignored his question as I lit a cigarette, squinting at him through the smoke and gesturing with my chin. “What’s with the sunglasses? It’s not that bright out.”

  In truth, the sun was shining, but it was a late-March shine, not a July one, and the day was brisk. His hair looked amazing—exactly as it did in all the recent pictures—that brown shaggy cut with hints of gold and even silver and bronze glimmering through; honestly, if you got rid of the brown bits and braided up the rest, it’d look like that tricolored jewelry that was so trendy in the shops. But that long scarf around his neck and those sunglasses—was this supposed to be him traveling incognito? Because if that was the case, he should have ditched the bodyguards, the scarf, and the sunglasses in the suburbs in March, and no one would be the wiser for his presence here.

  “They’re prescription,” he said, sounding wounded. “I have light-sensitive eyes.”

  Yeah, right. First I’d heard of that.

  “Let’s walk,” I said, stepping off the stoop. “If any smoke gets in the window crevices, your mum’ll have a cow.”

  Despite my words, I loved Denny’s mum. But I didn’t want her to have another cow because as far as I could tell, she’d already had one: him.

  “Worse than the Americans,” he muttered again, which I guessed was currently the worst epithet he could think of.

  Still, despite his grumbling, he followed my lead. He stole a concerned glance at the empty street—I suspect he was wary of the hordes that would no doubt descend demanding autographs should he step out into it—so I took pity on him, instead circling the house on the small patch of grass surrounding it, Digger nipping at our heels, the bodyguards trailing close behind us just in case.

  I don’t know about him, but I felt ridiculous.

  “You know,” I said, after the silence became unbearable, feeling an unaccountable flash of real anger, “you could try spending more time with your brother.”

  “Why?” he said, startled. Was that a spark of concern for someone else? “Is he dying?”

  Now that anger was more than a flash. “No, he’s not dying!” God, what a prat.

  “Then what then? Is it about money? Because, if so, you know how I feel about—”

  “It’s not about money either—God! Yes, I do know how you feel about that.”

  Not that he’d ever told me directly, but anyone who read the mags knew how Denny Springer felt about giving “handouts” to family. He said other people could do what they liked with their money, but it wasn’t his job to support every relative that crawled out of the woodwork, that each individual had to earn his own way, just as he had had to earn his. Even his two eldest children—Shadow, twenty-two; and Pipe, twenty-one (I know if you read the mags, you already know this, but just in case you don’t, his third child was, indeed, named Dream)—although he was willing to pay their way at university, once finished, they were expected to get proper jobs and not rely on Daddy for constant support and handouts. Not that “Daddy” had been around for support other than financial in their formative years, at least not according to the mags.

  Of course, it wasn’t strictly true to say that Denny refused to financially assist any family members in over-the-top fashion. He’d tried to buy his parents the big house. In fact, he went ahead and bought his parents the big house, without bothering to ask first. But when Edith saw it, it was her turn to refuse him. “What do I need with all that space?” she reportedly told him. “I’d have to get cleaning help in with all those rooms. I don’t want strangers touching my things!”

  So he had tried to help, exactly once, and had been refused.

  Still, that wasn’t what I was after, and I reiterated as much.

  “We don’t want your money. Is that all you think most people want from you?”

  He shrugged, not bothered, a shrug that said, ‘That. Plus proximity to power, influence, and success, and sex beyond your wildest dreams.’

  Well, when a person put it in a shrug like that, another person could maybe see the appeal.

  “If Jack’s not dying,” Denny said, “and he doesn’t need a handout, then what is it you want from me?”

  “I just think you should spend more time with your brother.”

  “Because…?”

  “Because he is your brother.”

  Denny still looked puzzled by my logic.

  “Look,” I said, feeling no small measure of vexation. Then I proceeded to explain our plans for the summer, the plans Jack had tried to explain to Burt twice before being interrupted by Denny’s need to go on and on about Malaysia. I scowled at the Springer family home. For all I knew, Jack was in there still trying to explain and had yet to get the whole thing out. “Things have gone very well for us with the agency.”

  “The agency?”

  I was a step away from tearing my hair out. Or his.

  “The agency,” I said. “The agency. You do know we’re travel agents, don’t you?”

  “Right, right,” he said hurriedly, but I hardly felt reassured.

  “Anyway, things have been going so well, we’ve decided to go away for the summer. We’re taking a house in the States—coastal Connecticut, to be exact.” I didn’t bother adding what we planned to do there, how Jack was going to work on his songwriting and guitar playing. Denny didn’t need to know that.

  “Coastal Connecticut? That sounds rather…provincial.”

  Ignore, Mona, ignore.

  “And seeing you here, I got to thinking…”

  “That it would be good for me to visit? So I could ‘spend more time with Jack,’ as you say?”

  “That was the general idea. With all the time you spend surrounded by yes-men”—not to mention yes-women, I thought—“it would do you good to spend time with real people, with family, specifically your brother—”

  “I think you’ve firmly established that by now, that Jack is, in fact, my brother—”

  “—whom you’ve hardly spent any time with at all in over two decades. Plus, wouldn’t you like to get to know William and Harry?”

  He physically pulled back at that. “You mean the princes?”

  “Not the bloody princes!” And this time, I couldn’t stop myself from adding, “You prat. Your nephews, William and Harry.”

  “You know,” he huffed, “if you didn’t want people to confuse them, you might have thought to pick out different names.”<
br />
  “What’s telling is that you have two nephews, your only nephews, who’ve been on this planet for a combined total of sixteen years, and you only just this minute learned what their names are.”

  He opened his mouth in outraged protest, but no words came out. I suspect even he saw that he didn’t have a leg to stand on. “Huh,” was all he finally said.

  It felt like a minor victory.

  “Well, I suppose you’re a very busy man,” I said.

  “Oh, yes. Always busy.”

  “So I don’t imagine you can get away this summer, not even part of it. You’re probably going to be on tour or something.”

  “Actually, no. We just finished up a world tour in Malaysia. Did I tell you about—”

  “Yes,” I cut him off, “I’m almost certain you did.”

  “Well, then, look. I’ll think about it, OK?”

  I supposed it was as good as I was going to get. But I knew what would happen. He’d think about it for maybe five minutes, and then he’d forget what he’d been thinking. Ah, well. At least I’d tried.

  Later, I’d wonder why I was so specifically focused on him spending more time with Jack as opposed to, say, his parents. But then I’d remind myself that he did at least see his parents occasionally—every once in a while he’d persuade Burt and Edith to let him fly them to one of his many houses for a visit—while for twenty years his relationship with Jack had been virtually nonexistent. If one were lucky enough to have a sibling, something I lacked, shouldn’t there be more of a relationship? I was doing this for Jack.

  We’d circled back round to the front of the house again. Honestly, we’d circled so many times in the same direction, I felt myself going dizzy as I stepped onto the stoop. Placing my hand on the doorknob, I heard him clear his throat. When I turned, he was still on the lawn.