‘Nothing.’
He took the shortcut to the long-term parking lot, glided through the check-in process, and sat in the same seat he always sat in, with the best view in the departure lounge. He enjoyed being surrounded by people who didn’t know him and didn’t want to talk to him. He took out his book, but didn’t read it. Watched the mini-skirted stewardesses, wiggling and giggling, marching behind the two pilots. The pilots’ uniforms always reminded him of the army, in a reassuring way. The men would drive and the women would bring him his dry martinis, with those little bags of fish-shaped salty crackers.
Then he was on the plane, lighting up a cigarette, sipping gin and falling in love with Billie again. Wanted to instantly tell her so. Write a letter, phone her. The thought of their reunion in a week shimmered romantically. Jack never loved her more than when he was leaving her. But what was more curious: after a day or two in Frankfurt, she seemed to dissolve altogether. Truly, Billie began to seem like someone he made up, and all those teenagers and babies too. Even Colette. Puff! All gone. The only real people were the ones in front of him. The dark-eyed French woman who was considering buying one of Golden Gate Freight’s novels for translation – she was intensely clear. And the young man from Prague, trying to sell him the rights to a Polish novel. His own wife’s face, not so clear. Each time, each trip, he was caught by surprise. Stunned at his own shallowness. Here I am again. This place. Then his Catholic upbringing paid off, because he forgave himself this flaw, and commenced to enjoy what life was throwing in front of him. Life was good and must not be wasted.
The week passed. For Jack, it felt like a month. La vie est très, très intéressant et le monde est beau! Die Welt ist schön! No one wanted to buy the rights for their big seller, oddly, but he sold If I Touched You to seven European countries, and to Canada and Australia as well. The French buyer seemed to have triggered a landslide of popularity. In turn, he negotiated a deal with a Swedish publisher to buy and translate a literary thriller. A very good deal, if it sold at home all right. He did not phone home. He never did.
For Billie, the week had been strange because it felt both too slow and too fast. If asked, she might have said she enjoyed the break. But now she was pushing Ike off the sofa again. Damn hair everywhere. She squinted at the calendar, sucked in a horrified breath, then grabbed both morning papers to read the date. Within a minute, she rallied the children to the kitchen and commandeered her troops.
‘This is important. Listen. He’s home tonight. Elisabeth, you do the hall and bathroom, and vacuum the living room, please. Donald, you help Elisabeth. Mop! Remember to mop the bathroom with disinfectant, especially around the toilet. And then mop the kitchen floor. Danny, you can go through the refrigerator. Check the dates, throw away everything out of date. Give the shelves a wipe. Make sure the oven is empty. I found the dog dishes in there yesterday, and you know plastic melts. Sam, you— you— you clean out the bedroom. And deal with the dog doo in the yard. Must be a ton.’
‘It’s dog shit, Mom. I’m not five years old.’
Sam had just turned nineteen. Remote and secretive, tall and skinny. His fair hair was pulled back in a long stringy ponytail. He looked at his mother with jaded eyes – but only half-jaded, as if he deeply aspired to the bored look but still had to practise. Even his voice had slowed and slurred recently. It drove Milly crazy to hear him sometimes, talking to his friends. His loose laugh, his drawn out Far out, man! Allllllriiiight! Even so, and even though he had barely graduated from high school and hadn’t got into any college or found a job, he was currently her favourite child. All he had to do was be present and she was happier.
Eighteen-year-old Danny was the quiet one, permanent dark circles under his eyes. He was biddable, but often made her uneasy. If she’d raised him from a baby it might have been different, she told herself. As if changing a person’s diapers predisposed one to a deeper understanding of someone’s nature. But he was a darling, and that’s why she’d given him the refrigerator chore. By far the easiest and most rewarding.
At seventeen, Elisabeth puzzled her: a pretty girl, taking after Jack’s mother. If only she’d make something of her assets. But no, there she was, in her oversized pair of denim overalls again, her uncombed hair hanging limply either side of her unmade-up face. Which, in Billie’s opinion, was an over-serious face. So unflattering, her chosen style. Why? But she could and would help her clean the house today. What was the point of a daughter, if she didn’t lighten the domestic load sometimes?
Donald at sixteen, well! Trouble ahead, no doubt. The number of parent teacher conferences he’d caused. Drinking, driving before he passed his test, smoking joints in school. But who could blame him, really, considering.
And strange, she thought, how she actually felt closer to the difficult ones, like Sam and Donald.
And Willy. Well, Willy was only four, bless his freckled face. He was a bit dreamy, a bit slow, a bit messy and lazy. A bit inclined to sulk when his siblings and cousins teased him, or called him Penis Head. Often he just ignored his mother’s requests, like drink your milk or brush your teeth, but somehow Billie could never get angry at Willy. All he had to do was look at her. Oh come on, Mom. I know you love me best. Actually, now she thought of it, she had two current favourites.
Billie belonged to the concealment school of house-keeping. Carpets were for sweeping under. She started shoving toys into closets, throwing dirty clothes into baskets, dirty dishes into the dishwasher, and everything else into the older boys’ bedrooms, because they never put anything away and wouldn’t notice extra mess. They seemed to possess everything under the sun, aside from bras and make-up. Three hoarders. Elisabeth’s room was neat as a pin. On her desk, her pens were in a pen holder and their caps were on. Took after her dad, thought Billie. She caught a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror and had one of her moments. As if a Martian had suddenly materialised, tapped her on the shoulder and asked: So, is this it? This is your life? Really? One thing happening, then another thing happening, and then something that’s happened before happening again? Her life seemed to be eaten up in waves. Or contractions. Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. Sometimes painlessly, sometimes not, but there was always a rhythm. Some days it felt like her sprawling future was being fed into a greedy, indifferent processing machine, like a meat grinder, so that second by second her lived life was turned into something uniformly grey. Dispatched to a place of cold, dead minutiae. Old shopping lists, dried-up dog faeces, out-of-date television guides. The days and minutes of her one and only life amounting to not much at all. She’d never thought life would be like this, at forty-four. So bitty. So fragmented. When she was thirteen and imagining her future, she’d seen it as a whole entity. Well shaped. Not perfect, but logical and rewarding. A life worth waiting for, worth working towards. And a few times, for instance, her wedding day and the births of her children, she’d felt well and truly ensconced in that imagined future. But here she was, smack dab in the middle of her life, and she still had the sensation, deep down, that she was waiting for it to properly begin. Everyone told her time went quicker the older you got, but Billie didn’t find this to be true. Most days, she seemed mired in mud, and the clock and calendar told lies. Afternoons especially, were often drenched in disappointment. Soft, surprised disappointment. This husband? These children?
Suddenly, still in front of the mirror, she thought of one solution. She’d been mulling this dilemma for weeks now. Wasn’t it brilliant the way problems found solutions while you were having existential thoughts? Billie, no, Milly, felt like a genius.
‘Willy, sweetie.’
‘Uh-huh?’
‘You know how you hate being called Willy these days? And being called Penis Head?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Why don’t we call you Billy instead. My real name is Milly, and I’ll go back to that.’
He stared at her, thumb halfway to mouth.
‘I like the name Milly,’ she said. ‘It’s what my parents called me. I am giving you the name Billy. You can be Billy now. It’s a boy’s name really, and it’s short for William. Which is your full name.’
He stared at her blankly. She didn’t like it when he looked dumb, so she shook him gently by the shoulders, and kissed his forehead.
‘You’ll be okay with Billy. It’s a great name. Suits you, honey.’
‘Billy. Billy, Billy, Billy.’
‘That’s right. Billy boy. My handsome Billy boy.’ She called the children again, held Billy’s hand.
‘From now on, your brother is Billy. Not Willy, right?’
‘Yeah, yeah.’
‘Far out. Love it that you can just change names like that. Can I be Cassidy instead of Donald? I love that name.’
‘No. And no more joking. Willy is now Billy. Please try to remember. No more Penis Head.’
‘What’s he going to piss from then?’
‘Enough. And I am Milly now, in case you’re interested. My birth name. Though I’ll still answer to Mom.’
‘Does Dad know?’
‘Yeah, did he say you could?’
‘Of course. We agreed before he left, I just forgot to mention it.’
‘Mom, you’re a crap liar.’
‘Stop swearing. Go back to cleaning, please. Now.’
‘Why? Why all this hassle?’ whined Donald and Danny. ‘Why do we need to impress him? While he’s been off in Timbuktu, probably sunning himself on a beach,’ said Sam.
‘Stop talking like that! He’s been working in Germany. Doing important, difficult…stuff. Book sales and stuff. Do as you’re told. Your father is…Jack is…’ And here, her voice gave way to a high note, denoting irreverence.
‘He is…the king!’ She waved her hands upwards and curtsied.
