Laura Lippman - The Last Place

As for the other-he cannot believe they went to his mother, frightening her so that she walked three miles, crossing two highways, until she found a pay phone where she felt safe. “What was she talking about, Billy? Are they DNR? Do they know what you’re doing?”

He was at once relieved and horrified. At least they had not revealed all his secrets to his mother; at least she was still safe, still innocent. He told her that the visit meant nothing: The girl was a little crazy, maybe even a pathological liar. He would take care of it. In the meantime, his mother was not to open the door to anyone without asking for a badge or ID, and she was not to talk to anyone without a lawyer present.

She began to cry, telling him she couldn’t do this again, couldn’t go without seeing him. He reminded her that they had managed in the early years, when she was still on the island, and they would manage now. No one could keep them from seeing each other.

But beneath his soothing voice and calm assurances, he was furious.

How dare she go to his mother? How had they found his name, the one thing he had kept for himself? Who had betrayed him? Luisa O’Neal would not dare speak his name, even if she had known it. But they knew whom they sought when they visited Notting the second time. Fuck June Petty, with her big yapping mouth, her love of gossip, and her never-ending rivalry with all the women on the island. She had dined out on this story-the expression had never been more apt-for years, smacking her lips and shaking her head in mock sympathy for a woman she had never liked. He supposed June Petty would say it was ironic, if she knew what irony was: Drey Windsor helped her son’s girlfriend escape her terrible father, only to see that son kill himself in despair over her disappearance.

But it had been his mother’s idea-he appeals to some invisible jury-a brilliant idea, at that. After all, she had not needed to be a particularly good actress to portray the grief of a mourning mother. He was dead to her all those years-the “good” years, as he thinks of them now, the years of going to school and building his business and finding release with the occasional prostitute. Strange, it was just before his mother joined him on the mainland that the pull began. Not because of her, but because things were finally settled. Anchored at last, he was free to search for the love he craved, to create the love he needed.

But when he persuaded his mother to leave Harkness, it was as if he took her away from the source of her strength and power. On the mainland, she is weak. She is dying. Not physically but emotionally. His father’s accelerated death had shown him how a parent can disappear before one’s eyes, and he knew he would someday have to face this with his mother. But he had expected that her mind would be unchanged, that she would always be sharp and shrewd, capable in a crisis.

After all, she was the one who knew what they must do when he came home sobbing, overwhelmed by what had happened. It had been her idea to weigh Becca down, let his boat drift on the tide, and then take him across the bay dressed in women’s clothes. If anyone had noticed the boat that arrived at Saint Mary’s that night, they would have seen two women on the dock. She had put him ashore with all the cash she could manage to find, hugged him, and headed home to wait for the knock at the door and the announcement that her son’s skiff had been found with a note, indicating he had killed himself because Becca Harrison had told him she was running away to be an opera singer. Which was all true, after a fashion. Becca was gone, and he couldn’t live without her.

The thing is, she’s right, his new girl, his oh-so-clever girl, she’s gotten to him. Whatever happens, he cannot risk seeing his mother for the time being. So she has taken something from him, punished him. He who has given her so much. Doesn’t she know her debt to him? The others didn’t understand, but then the others were not capable of accepting his gifts. He knows that now. He chose poorly, time and time again, and finally despaired of ever getting it right.

He had tried to explain this once, not in so many words, but the doctor had proved to be even dumber than the women he had tried to help.

The doctor. That’s why the stupid question is ringing in his ears, after all this time. “Do you see yourself as a godlike figure?”

“Of course not.”

The doctor had persisted. “Do you think of yourself as superior to others, better?”

“No,” he had said. “Not at all. Are you listening to me? I identify with Pygmalion. He’s a mortal.”

“It’s a Shaw play. I’ve always been partial to Shaw.” The doctor gave a self-conscious, meant-to-be-deprecating smile. “For the most superficial reasons, I admit.”

“Yes, I know all about his Pygmalion . The basis for My Fair Lady , unfortunately .”

“Unfortunately?”

“I don’t like musicals.”

His voice had been too vehement and the doctor pounced. He pounced on everything, without discrimination.

“You like plays but not musicals? Why?”

“Actually, I don’t like plays either. They’re phony: all that emoting, all those big gestures and voices. I like film. Once sound was developed, the idea of people standing on a stage, reciting lines, became ridiculous.”

“Sound was developed quite some time ago.”

“Theater has been ridiculous for quite some time.”

An uneasy silence fell. He knew he had punctured the doctor’s professional shell. The doctor probably liked theater. And opera too, of course, which he loathed to this day. Poor dumb bastard. How could this man ever help him, stupid as he was? He had done his research so carefully, looking for someone with the experience he needed. He wasn’t used to making mistakes.

“The theater has its moments, I suppose,” he said, trying to make amends. “I prefer film, however.”

“What kind of films? Are there certain genres or directors to your liking?”

“Bertolucci,” he said, and instantly regretted it, for the doctor seemed to sit at attention. Oh, everyone knew Last Tango, with its silly, obsessive sex. Nothing could have interested him less. He was thinking about 1900 and The Last Emperor. The latter was his all-time favorite, because it was about a boy born to greatness-and the world he lost. “I like all the Italians, for some reason. Fellini. Sergio Leone.”

“You have sophisticated tastes.”

“Sergio Leone? He made spaghetti Westerns.”

“Ah, Westerns. You like those? Classic tales of good and evil, a huge underpopulated landscape. And very few women.”

“Most people like Westerns.” He looked pointedly at the doctor. “I’d be skeptical of the man who didn’t.”

An awkward silence fell. He did this now and then, reminded the doctor that he knew all about him and what he liked. Who was the doctor to say who was a man and who wasn’t?

“Shaw,” the psychiatrist said, “was a vegetarian. And a friend of Harpo Marx.”

He shrugged. The doctor often produced such self-referential non sequiturs when at a loss.

“I’m sorry, we’ve wandered away, haven’t we. We were talking about…”

“Pygmalion. The myth, not the Shaw play.”

“Yes, I don’t know that so well. A man makes a woman-”

“A man sculpts a statue of the perfect woman.”

“And asks some goddess-”

He could not bear to hear the story told in such inept, unknowing words. “He makes the perfect woman, only she’s a statue. He prays to Aphrodite, who makes the statue real.”

“Aphrodite?”

“The only god on Olympus without parents. She rose from the sea, perfectly formed. You may know her better as Venus. But I’ve always been partial to the Greek names. They’re much prettier. Zeus, Poseidon, Hades-they’re a thousand times better than Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto.”