The Edge of Doom Read online

  “Well, he did reform in the end, after all, and buy that huge turkey. Or was it a goose? Jay’s parents might have thought they needed something rather unusual to go with Smith. Or, here’s a thought: Maybe he was born on Christmas. You can ask him when you meet, after we get confirmation of these results.”

  “You don’t doubt them, do you?”

  “No. It would make no sense as some sort of con game. Your brother may not be very up on his literary references, but just given who he is and the firm he’s a part of, someone would have to be balmy to try to put this sort of thing over on him as a swindle.”

  “I expect you’re right. Well,” Kate finally put her feet up and seemed to relax slightly, “while we’re waiting for the confirmation, I’ll try to think what to ask him when we meet. There are many obvious questions, even exciting ones, but I think I’ll begin with why he’s called Ebenezer.”

  “It does prove,” Reed said, “that unlike Laurence, his parents had read Dickens. He may not have been your brothers’ tutor, since they didn’t have one, but he probably wasn’t the gamekeeper either. All this is ridiculous speculation; I shall be silent and await news of your encounter with your father.”

  “I still can’t quite believe it,” Kate said.

  “You might consider the definition of a father. Is he the man who oversees his child’s life from birth to maturity, or the man who happens to have been in the room when his child was conceived?”

  “I’m sure there’s some kind of definition between those two,” Kate said, “even leaving biology and genes out of the picture.”

  “Perhaps. Your second question might be whether he ever met you before your meeting now.”

  “I shall ask that, of course. But all this has started me thinking about my Fansler father. He wasn’t the most attentive parent on earth, but given the period in which he lived, when fathers like him were expected to spend their weekdays at the office and their weekends on the golf course, he wasn’t inattentive. He did seem pleased that I was a girl. Now that I think of it, they had rather hoped my youngest brother would be a girl. How did I know that? One of the things children pick up, no doubt. I expect it’s what made David so macho, much more so than William, the middle brother.”

  “David’s a Dickensian name,” Reed pointed out.

  “Perhaps Jay was around for that birth and suggested it. You don’t suppose . . .”

  “Not for a minute. Remember, I’ve met David a number of times, and if he looked much more like the pictures of your father I’ve seen, he would be a clone. And Dickens hardly had a copyright on the name David.”

  “Unlike Ebenezer. Well, that’s a relief anyway.”

  “Good,” Reed said. “Of course your parents may have seen the movie of David Copperfield, the long-ago one, with W.C. Fields and Freddie Bartholomew. ‘Another boy: What shall we call him? What about that nice movie we saw the other night?’ ”

  “I’m not sure my parents ever went to the movies; I suppose they must have, really. I used to go with my governess to approved films.”

  “Your brother David is named after a movie; that’s my story and I stick to it.”

  And to Reed’s relief, they both laughed and went on to speak of the day’s happenings in their usual manner.

  The question was where were Kate and her father Jay to meet? When speaking with Reed she had tried calling her father Ebenezer but soon found Jay came more readily to the tongue; also Ebenezer when often said seemed to occupy an inordinate amount of time. That Jay Ebenezer Smith was her father had been twice confirmed, and meet they must. After dismissing several venues, Kate had decided on the Oak Room at the Plaza; challenged she could not defend this choice, but felt it the appropriate ambience for so Victorian an event as meeting, in middle age, one’s father for the first time. This, however, was not to be.

  Laurence had taken on the role of sponsor to this odd encounter; he called it a reunion, but Kate was not yet certain if she and Jay Ebenezer had ever had a first meeting, however long ago. Whether because he clung to lurid doubts of Jay’s intentions which no DNA test could erase, or whether he was simply curious and unwilling to miss out on a dramatic moment was hard to determine. Nonetheless, Laurence claimed the role of host to this meeting, and insisted it must take place at his club where he had first broken the news of Jay’s paternity to Kate. Kate suspected that Laurence had not yet told the rest of the Fanslers, including his wife and brothers, about Jay and wished to have an ample report when he came to do so, including the first meeting of father and daughter.

  Reed, agreeing with her interpretation, urged her to acquiesce. Meeting one’s father for what was probably the first time at so late a date might best be undertaken, he argued, in the presence of a third person. Why deprive Laurence of the pleasure of introducing the two of them to one another? There were, as Kate had to admit, few enough significant human events in Laurence’s life—events, Reed meant, not dehumanized by elaborate ceremonies and celebrations—so that one hesitated to deprive him of this one.

  So Kate went yet again to meet Laurence at his club. She had agreed to arrive some minutes before Jay Ebenezer, and indeed found Laurence in the same corner they had occupied previously, as though, Kate thought, he saw this as a drama and the setting the same as that of act one.

  Jay was prompt. He appeared before them, led by an employee of the club. Laurence and Kate both stood. “I’m Jay Smith,” the man said, before the other two could gather their wits. He was over seventy—Kate had already figured that out—but clearly vigorous, standing quite straight. He bowed slightly toward her before sitting down.

  “I’m Kate,” Kate said. “Obviously,” she continued, though why obviously she didn’t quite know. True, she was the only woman present, but she might have been another relative sitting in for Kate, either because Kate had funked it or had asked someone else look this stranger over. Pull yourself together, Kate told herself.

  But indeed, who she was, and who he was, was obvious because of the resemblance. Like Kate, he was tall and on the slim side, though like her now without the slimness of youth. Later, Reed would find the resemblance startling, though perhaps, he thought, only to someone looking for it, or to a portraitist. Jay’s eyes were the same greenish gray as hers (why, Kate thought, have we never wondered why I am the only one in the family without blue eyes?) and both their two front upper teeth crossed slightly one upon the other. No wonder Laurence had not immediately sent the man packing.

  A memory flashed across Kate’s mind of a college friend who had confessed to an affair and subsequent doubt as to the father of her expected child. Anyway, she had startled Kate by saying, it hardly matters; the husband and the lover have the same coloring and the same eyes. Such a thought had clearly not occurred to Kate’s mother. But then, she had probably had no doubt about who the father was, or the child’s likely failure to resemble her husband in the slightest. Men like Fansler, as she would have known, took their wives’ fidelity for granted; no doubt he attributed Kate’s dissimilarity to her brothers either as the result of recessive genes exhibiting themselves, or, more probably, to the fact of her being a girl.

  These thoughts, though rapid, had taken a little time. Kate realized they were all standing, and she sat, as did the other two. Laurence waved for a server. Kate asked for Scotch, as did Laurence. They both turned to Jay.

  “Might I have tea?” he asked.

  “Tea it is,” Laurence said. “Tea for you, Kate, or will you stick to Scotch with me?”

  “Scotch, please,” she said. Some old-time family loyalty seemed called for. “Do you not drink,” she asked Jay, “or only not in the afternoons?”

  Aware that this was an impertinent inquiry, Kate shrugged to herself and waited to see how he would answer the question.

  “I don’t drink,” he said. “A matter neither of principle nor addiction. I simply don’t care for it.”

  “Fair enough,” Kate said. A tea-drinker for a father; well, the resemblance was
hardly likely to cover all elements. But she did feel disappointed, which was ridiculous.

  “May I tell you the reason for my dislike, or what may be the reason?”Jay asked.

  “Please do,” Kate said, certain this promised to be the most bizarre conversation she had ever had in a life hardly devoid of oddball conversations.

  “My mother was an alcoholic. As is not uncommon with the children of such parents, I came to loathe the smell of drink. Even wine, I’m afraid. I haven’t, however, become a fighter for temperance or an advocate of prohibition. Liquor doesn’t bother me now when others drink it, and hasn’t for a long time; I just don’t wish to join in. You, may I guess,” he said, smiling at Kate, “are of quite the opposite view, finding drink a happy companion to food and good conversation. I wish I could join you in that.”

  And, Kate thought to herself, I shall tell Reed that we began by speaking of drink. Jay’s mother drank. Perhaps he was attracted to my mother because she didn’t; it wasn’t, of course, ladylike then, except for the careful sip of wine with dinner, and I don’t even remember her doing that. Another unsummoned memory; this could become tedious.

  Laurence seemed to feel that such an odd subject—even if Kate, in his opinion, always seemed to have peculiar conversations—needed some alteration.

  “Kate is a professor; teaches literature. What do you do, Jay?” Thus Laurence commanded the dialogue onto another plane.

  “I’m an architect; I specialize in the reconstruction of landmarks and other beautiful aging buildings. To combine modern convenience with the elegance of an earlier time is a challenge I find exciting.”

  “Can you really make a decent living doing that?” Laurence asked. Kate stared at him, only just remembering that when Laurence was nervous in a family situation, he was likely to say something downright rude, though he didn’t realize it.

  Jay looked unabashed. “A decent living, yes,” he said, as his tea arrived, and he put sugar into the cup and stirred. Kate, who seemed currently given to unexpected recollections, recalled having been told that nondrinkers liked sugar, while drinkers, who often didn’t, found their sugar in liquor. “But not a lavish one,” he added. “No one, you see, is reliant on me for financial support, so I can do what I love to do—a great blessing.”

  This, the man’s second private revelation, woke Kate to the fact that he might feel as though he were being interviewed, judged whether or not he was qualified for a position he did, after all, already occupy. She turned the conversation around to a comparison of architecture and literature, made easier for her by the fact that architecture had become a popular subject in academic literary departments. When it became clear that no other provocative matters were to be discussed, Laurence announced his intention to leave. It was, however, evident that he had not the smallest intention of retreating while they were still there. And so, shortly, they all stood up, ready to depart. While they were claiming their coats downstairs, Kate and Jay managed unobtrusively to exchange telephone numbers.

  Outside on the street, Kate and Laurence shook Jay’s hand. Laurence insisted upon seeing Kate into a taxi; the meeting must not continue without him. And so, with a moment of meaningful eye contact, Kate and Jay Ebenezer—for she could not quite yet think of him as her father—parted.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  . . .thee my daughter who art ignorant of what

  thou art, naught knowing of whence I am.

  Kate called Jay on the following day. She had, after some thought, decided that it was up to her to make the next move; reaching him by telephone, she suggested dinner in a quiet restaurant.

  “Lovely,” Jay said. “I’d like that. Soon. For now, what would you say to a walk in the park tomorrow? It’s supposed to be a breezy March day; I’ve always liked breezy March days. We can just stroll about.”

  “Might I bring my dog?” Kate asked. “She’s a rather large dog, but perfectly calm, either indifferent to overtures or casually friendly.”

  “Sounds the perfect companion to conversation. May I meet you on your corner whenever you say?”

  “How about two?” Kate said. On this Friday, as on most, she had some sort of meeting in the morning, but would be free by two.

  “Two it is,” he said. Kate gave him her address and the location of the nearest corner.

  “We’re going to meet a new member of the family,” she told Banny, who, deciding an immediate excursion was not being offered, stayed where she was.

  For once, the weather forecast had been accurate: it was cool and breezy, with a feeling of spring in the air. Banny stood still to be greeted by Jay, but then looked at Kate, reminding her that the park had been promised. They crossed the street and set off around the lake. As they walked, they talked, but only intermittently. It occurred to Kate that in a restaurant they could have gazed at each other; strolling side by side, their words carried more meaning than their expressions or their appearance. Not a bad way to become acquainted, Kate thought.

  In fact, their walk began in silence. Theirs was not a situation for which conventional or even mildly suitable dialogue had been established. Everything Kate wanted to ask she dismissed as outrageous even before it could be expressed. “How did you and my mother become lovers? How often did you sleep with each other? How, in sum, did it all come about?”

  He seemed to sense her perplexity through her silence. “Ask anything you want,” he said. “Or would you rather I began? I want to know so much about you.”

  “Perhaps we can take it by turns,” Kate said, smiling. She would have liked to add that what he wanted to know about her fit more readily into the bounds of ordinary conversation than what she wanted to know about him. “I’ll start. How old were you when . . . ?” She had been going to say when I was born, but she really wanted to know about the nine months before that.

  He understood her question. “I was not yet twenty when I met your mother. She was thirty-six. We became lovers soon after we met. It was the love of my life, and, I suspect, of hers. Sorry to sound so like a romance novel, but it does happen sometimes; I can testify to that.”

  Kate smiled at him. “Did you ever see the Noel Coward movie called Brief Encounter? I saw it on television not too long ago. It was the essence of impossible, perfect love, to the accompaniment of Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto. When they part, the man says to the woman: ‘I will love you all my life.’ Is that the sort of thing?”

  “I’m afraid it is. I adored her, and she was, I think, actually in love for the first time.”

  “Meaning, among other things, that she enjoyed sex for the first time?” Kate said, determined to be disgraceful and even scandalous. It was all very well, fathers turning up when one was getting along in one’s fifties, but they could hardly carry on as though this were a play by Noel Coward, however much the endurance of original passion in that play testified to Coward’s dramatic flair.

  “Oh, yes,” he said, unperturbed. “You are the child of passionate love. They used to say that made a person special, but I doubt it’s true.”

  “I doubt it, too. It’s more likely to make a person illegitimate,” Kate said. “Fortunately, you two were hedged about by custom, and the Fansler talent for noticing nothing even under their noses until and unless it exploded. As it has now done.”

  They had, by this time, turned at the edge of the lake, but instead of following the lake, they headed east for the boat pond. It was too early for children’s sailboats, or the more complicated toy vessels driven by radio controls; the pond was drained. They sat on a bench, contemplating the passing scene; Banny lay down. The sun was in their faces, which they both found pleasurable.

  Jay took her hand and held it for a moment, forcing her to look at him. “We both have questions; yours are about the past, and however personal, I intend to answer them honestly because you have the right to ask. My questions will be about the present: what you are now, what you think now, how you got there (some past allowed in this connection), where you expe
ct or hope to be going. My questions will sound interested, which they are; yours may seem to sound probing, even audacious. You must ask them anyway; I really do see that, and hope you agree to this assessment of our different roles.”

  “I agree perfectly,” Kate said. He let go of her hand, and they both again faced outward toward the pond. “So I’ll begin, if only to say tell me about it, from the beginning. From when you met, and how. I’ve been trying to remember her, my mother. She’s rather vague in my mind, probably because she was inclined to be offhand with me, apart from seeing that I was taught correct behavior, sent to good schools, dressed properly and never left to the mercy of my brothers—all of which seemed very much in the ordinary way of things. Had I been asked, and of course I wasn’t, I would have said that she was indifferent to me, beyond her familial obligations. You mustn’t think I minded. That was how mothers were expected to be, in those circles, in those years. The terrible fifties were really terrible.”

  “I suspect she was afraid of showing too much preference for you. True, you were a girl and therefore could be treated differently from the boys, but she feared to cast suspicion on your birth; your difference from your brothers seemed so obvious to her.”

  “It just occurs to me,” Kate said. “She must have given my father reason to think I could have been his. Were they sleeping together then, my father and mother?”

  “Oh, yes. He still made his marital demands with regularity; there was no problem on that score.”

  “Oh, the hell with the details,” Kate said. Her imagination temporarily balked at contemplating the situation. “I just want to know how she acted in love; how it was with the two of you. I want to know she had that happiness, even for a while. I can’t sound more like a soap opera than that, surely.”

  “She was happy with me,” Jay said, “but she never would consider leaving Fansler for an uncertain, less endowed life with me. We parted finally a short while after you were born. I guessed, and I think I was correct, that she waited to see if you would be accepted as Fansler’s child, with no questions asked by anyone. Once that was certain—and she appeared so proper, so firmly in her rather stiff role as wife and mother of Fanslers, that suspicion was unlikely. I departed soon after. She asked me not to try to get in touch with her again, and I consented. And here, half a century later, we are.”