Constance (25 page)
I banged at the door of the hotel. It was opened. The old man recognized me and let us in.
—It’s Miss Constance, he said.
—Hello, Simon.
The doorman. He told me they’d kept him on as a caretaker until the demolition began. I said I wanted to take a look at the place one last time. He told me how sorry he was to hear about my sister. He was genuinely distressed. I thanked him. The lobby was empty and all the furniture had gone. The rain continued heavy. I took Howard through to the cocktail lounge. A few chairs stood against the wall and the piano was still there but little else. I sat in my usual booth and Howard wandered away. The room seemed much larger than it had before. I lit a cigarette.
I thought about Iris. How could I not? I saw her as she was before the affair with Eddie ended, Iris in that absurd red cocktail dress, flaunting her body to the world. Sidney believed I’d caused her death. Perhaps I had. I didn’t realize her heart was so fragile. Howard played a note on the piano. I looked up and he was standing with his mouth open, staring at the ceiling. The note he’d played hung in the dusty gloom then slowly died away. I thought about Eddie Castrol, who had no heart at all. Impurity is contagious and so are secrets. It’s not the dead who haunt us, it’s the empty space they leave inside us with their secrets: the crypt. Then Sidney appeared in the doorway. I’d almost lost him. He’d known where to find us. Howard saw him before I did. He ran across the empty room, then he was clinging to his father’s legs. Sidney put his hand on the boy’s head. He was looking at me where I sat smoking in the booth with the red plush upholstery. Detaching Howard from his legs he came over and sat down beside me. His clothes were wet and so was his hair, and with his shirt and trousers glued to his body he looked like a wild mad hobo and he moved me. Now he was gazing at me like he used to in the early days before the wedding
when he was still in love with me. I hadn’t seen that face in such a long time. It had gone badly wrong with us but I didn’t want it to fall apart now, no I did not, I was exhausted and so was he. He’d suffered enough. He’d paid for what was done to me and I couldn’t ask him to do more. He put his hand in his pocket and laid three damp railroad tickets on the table. I shook my head.
—No? he said.
—Never again.
He took my fingers to his lips and held them there with his eyes closed. What a sentimental man he was. Howard watched us for a few seconds then returned to the piano. I heard a chord this time then it too died in the ceiling. The boy stood at the keyboard looking at us. He played the chord again.
—What do you want to do now? said Sidney.
—Go home with you.
—And Howard?
I didn’t want to say the words aloud. Instead I mouthed them:
I’m his mother now.
He seemed not to understand. I did it again.
—You’re his mother now?
I nodded. He reached across the table for my hand again. He pressed it to his cheek. It was still damp.
—And who am I? he said quietly.
—You’re his papa. You’re Daddy.
And you will never do him harm.
Patrick McGrath is the author of seven previous novels, including
Asylum
and
Trauma
, and two collections of stories. He lives in New York.
Blood and Water and Other Tales
The Grotesque
Spider
Dr. Haggard’s Disease
Asylum
Martha Peake: A Novel of the Revolution
Port Mungo
Ghost Town: Tales of Manhattan Then and Now
Trauma
Bloomsbury Publishing London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney
Copyright © 2013 by Patrick McGrath
First U.S. edition 2013
Electronic edition published in April 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
For information address Bloomsbury USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McGrath, Patrick, 1950–
Constance : a novel / Patrick McGrath.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Fathers and daughters—Fiction. 2. Dysfunctional families—Fiction. 3. Family secrets—Fiction. 4. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 5. Psychological fiction. I. Title.
PS3563.C3663C66 2013
813′.54—dc22
2012025657
eISBN: 978-1-62040-056-2