James Lasdun
The Fall Guy
© 2016
For S., in memory
one
SUMMER 2012
They’d arranged to leave late so as to avoid the traffic. Matthew, trundling his suitcase from the subway, arrived at Charlie’s house in Cobble Hill at seven and helped load Charlie’s bags into the back of the Lexus. It was a humid evening, and by the time they were done his shirt was soaked in sweat.
They took the tunnel out of Brooklyn and headed up the West Side Highway, Charlie slowing the heavy vehicle at every intersection to avoid the speed cameras and accelerating hard for the next stretch. All the way through Midtown the lights cooperated with his progress, spreading green welcomes as if waving some dignitary through checkpoints. Not that Charlie noticed, of course, Matthew observed to himself; Charlie would never deign to notice such a trivial piece of luck.
In Harlem they exited to stock up at Fairway, filling a cart with cheeses, olives, artichokes, caper berries. At the last minute Charlie threw in some tins of Osetra caviar.
“Best thing on earth for late-night munchies…”
Matthew shrugged: Charlie was paying, after all.
A few minutes later they were crossing the George Washington Bridge.
“Why don’t you find some music?” Charlie said.
Matthew had thought they might talk, but did as his cousin asked, selecting Gieseking’s Debussy on the iPod.
“Good choice.”
After a minute, though, Charlie said:
“Actually, could you find something by Plan B?”
Matthew scrolled to Plan B. Hard beats and aggressive voices replaced the rippling piano.
Oi! I said Oi! What you looking at you little rich boy?
“What do you think?” Charlie said. “Great, aren’t they?”
Matthew glanced over to see if his cousin was joking, but he didn’t appear to be.
“Not bad.”
“Needs to be louder, though.”
Matthew turned up the volume.
They drove down the Palisades and onto the Thruway. As they passed the Suffern exit Charlie motioned with his hand that he wanted the music turned back down.
“You know that feeling when you’ve forgotten something?”
“Yes…”
“I’m getting waves of it.”
“Uh-oh.”
“But I’m not getting a fix on what it is.”
“Someone you’re supposed to’ve called?”
“No.”
“Something to do with work?”
“Nope.”
“Family?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Maybe it’s just a phantom version of the feeling.”
“Let’s hope.”
Twenty minutes later, Charlie slowed down and pulled onto the shoulder.
“It’s Chloe’s anniversary present. I bought her a bracelet. I left the fucking thing behind.”
“Shit.”
“Shit is it.”
“Can you get it when you next go down?”
Charlie shook his head.
“No. Our anniversary’s this Sunday. I can’t not have a gift for her. It’s our tenth.”
“Well, okay. Let’s go back.”
“So much for dinner at the Millstream.”
Chloe had left that morning to drop off their daughter, Lily, at music camp in Connecticut before heading back west into New York State to meet Charlie and Matthew. The plan had been to rendezvous at the Millstream Inn in Aurelia for a late dinner before going on to the house.
“We won’t get in till two or three a.m. Chloe doesn’t like being there alone at night. She’ll be deeply pissed and I won’t be able to explain why it happened without ruining the surprise.”
“Why don’t I go back?” Matthew offered. “I can get the train from Harriman and catch the late bus up to Aurelia.”
“No, no. No. Anyway, there isn’t a late bus.”
“Well, I could stay in the city. Come up tomorrow morning.”
“No, this is my screwup. I’ll get the train down and you can drive on up and meet Chloe. That’s what we’ll do.”
“That’s ridiculous, Charlie. Let me go back. You need to open up the house, deal with the pool. Chloe’ll be much more upset if I show up without you than if you show up without me.”
“No, that wouldn’t be right. I couldn’t let you do that.”
“Don’t be silly. Plus this way you won’t need to invent a reason for being late. You can just tell her I had some last-minute hitch and couldn’t come till tomorrow.”
Charlie went on protesting, but Matthew knew he’d given his cousin what he wanted: an excuse to let Matthew fetch the bracelet without it looking too much like he, Charlie, was taking advantage. It would be a matter of purely practical necessity. In due course he agreed to the plan.
At the train station he gave Matthew his Amex card.
“Don’t stint on taxis. And get a decent dinner. Rucola should still be open, or go somewhere fancier. Anywhere’s fine.”
“I like Rucola.”
“Also you can sleep at the house if you like. Lupa’ll be there in the morning, so you can just leave everything for her.”
“Well, I have no choice. My subletter’s moved in for the summer.”
Charlie looked surprised.
“Your subletter? I didn’t know you’d sublet.”
“I can’t afford not to, Charlie.”
“Oh. Well, great. That’s great.”
“I hope so!”
“The bracelet’s in the safe, which is probably why I forgot the damn thing. I never use it.”
Charlie wrote down the burglar alarm code for the house and the combination numbers for the safe.
“I’ll have to kill you, obviously, as soon as you get back tomorrow,” he said, handing Matthew the scrap of paper.
“Obviously.”
“Seriously, though, tear this up when you leave the house.”
“I’ll swallow it.”
“And be careful at the Port Authority tomorrow. We don’t want you getting mugged with a ten-thousand-dollar bracelet.”
“Maybe I should swallow that too.”
“That’s gross, Matty. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
There was an hour’s wait for the train. Matthew had a book-his father’s old copy of Pascal’s Pensées-as well as the summer issue of Vanity Fair. But he was distracted. After a while he realized he was actually a little upset. Not about having to go back for the bracelet, but about Charlie’s apparent surprise at the news that he’d sublet his apartment.
Hadn’t Charlie meant what he said when he’d invited him to stay for the summer? He could remember Charlie’s words exactly: “Come up to Aurelia with us. You can have the guesthouse. We have plenty of room for other visitors. Stay as long as you like. Stay the whole summer, bro…” Matthew had thanked him noncommittally, not wanting to snatch too eagerly at the offer in case Charlie should have second thoughts. But a week later Charlie had repeated it, more firmly: “Chloe and I would love to have you stay for the summer. I’m going to have to be in the city quite a bit and it’ll be good for Chloe to have someone around. We thought we could appoint you official cook and grillmeister…” Matthew had taken him at his word, appreciating the tact of the little quid pro quo. And since he had no reason to come back down to the city for the period, he’d found a subtenant to stay in his apartment until Labor Day.
Now he had to wonder if he’d misunderstood Charlie’s invitation. Had his “stay the whole summer, bro” not been meant to be taken literally? Was it what his father would have called just a façon de parler?
Well, there wasn’t much he could do about it if it was. He’d advertised his apartment two months ago and the subtenant had arrived this morning: a Norwegian art historian who wanted to spend her summer exploring Brooklyn and looking at paintings in the Met. Anyway, Matthew told himself, Charlie hadn’t seemed upset or put out, exactly; more just surprised.