Paul Theroux - The Family Arsenal

‘Maybe the lady I told you about,’ said Brodie casually.

‘Impossible. How would she get in?’

‘I gave her a key.’

Hood folded his arms and whistled through his teeth.

Seeing hostility in Mayo’s face, and the others’ attention on her, Brodie came awake. ‘Hey, she got a right to be here. Hey, that’s her picture upstairs, ain’t it? Hey —’

‘I stole that picture,’ said Mayo, with an owner’s scream of petulance, as if the picture was being claimed by a stranger.

‘But it don’t belong to you,’ said Brodie.

‘It’s mine,’ said Mayo crisply.

Hood said, ‘So you gave that old bull a key?’

‘She bought it off me,’ said Brodie. ‘Anyway, she’s okay.’

‘She’s okay,’ said Murf, shaking the broken clock at Brodie. ‘That’s why she fucked with me clocks, right?’

‘I can’t cook with you in my way,’ Mayo said.

‘You’re murder,’ said Hood in disgust, and without another word he went into the parlour. He itemized what he owned there, the Chinese objects, the carvings, the silver. Upstairs, he looked through the closets, assessing his belongings, his suit, his stack of clothes, his consular briefcase with the blank passports and the official seal, his Burmese box of drugs. There was little more to do; there was nothing else he owned. He did not look at the painting: he coveted it too much. He went into the spare room, where the televisions were, the appliances, the crates of whiskey and cigarettes, and the two locked trunks with the Dutch words lettered on them. He sat on one and considered opening it, taking a pistol and keeping it. But no — they wanted them all. They’d get them.

He sat for a long time on the arsenal, smelling the stew, hearing the clank of Mayo in the kitchen and Brodie and Murf braying at the television. It was not disorder, it was the routine of any noisy family, an ordinary racket. This was a home, a family arsenal; safety was like remoteness, disturbance was elsewhere. He took the letter out and tore it open. You Are Invited To A Peter Pan Party . He read down the printed sheet, and at the bottom, in a large vain hand was scrawled, Hope you can make it. A.N . And holding the invitation and hearing the clatter downstairs he was reproached again by his safety and pitied Lorna the more. He could stay or go — it didn’t matter. By accident, in this randomly chosen city, he had invented his own struggle. He deserved to fail. It’s up to you , Sweeney had said. Yes, at last; but every delay had saved him, as if inaction itself was, like the surest assault, a celebration of security. At the centre of it all, in an attitude of reflection that was indistinguishable from an attitude of pain, was a mother and child. He was stirred by fear at the thought of them, for he had acted once and only now saw the truth of it — to act was to fail.

Mayo called up the stairs: dinner was ready. She conveyed it in a tone of irritation, and he heard her nagging Brodie and Murf to set the table. He went down and took his place. Brodie banged the soup bowls on the table, Murf poured beer; Mayo carried the stew in a tureen and with a housewife’s disgusted pride, grumpy satisfaction mingled with resentment, ladled it into the bowls. Hood got up and turned off the television. Brodie said, ‘I was watching that.’ Murf said, ‘Watch your gob.’ She reacted obstinately, trying to float the round end of her spoon in the stew. Mayo said, ‘Stop playing with your food!’ There was no more talk; the gas fire sputtered in the wires of the white-hot grate.

Hood said, ‘We’re leaving,’ and before anyone could respond he added, ‘That’s right — we’re all clearing out.’

He ate, the others watched him, and the only sound was from the shelf, where Murf’s clock had begun to tick.

Finally, Mayo said, ‘You’re crazy.’

‘I’m in charge,’ he said, and went on eating.

‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ said Mayo.

‘He’s the guv,’ said Murf.

‘What about all that stuff upstairs — those televisions, that junk?’

Hood thought: In a moment this wife will scream. He said, ‘We’ll leave those for the next tenant.’

‘I feel crappy,’ said Brodie. She put her spoon down and made a sour face.

‘So look around,’ said Hood. ‘Find anything you consider valuable, anything with writing on it — anything that can be traced to us — and put it in the van. All the rest we’ll leave.’

‘What a dumb idea,’ said Brodie. ‘Hey, where are we supposed to go?’

‘No problem,’ said Hood. ‘You can go to Lady Arrow’s.’

‘The hairy giant,’ said Murf. ‘She’ll eat you for breakfast, sister.’

‘What about me?’ said Mayo.

‘Back to your husband, Sandra.’ Hood was going to say more, but Mayo blushed and stared at her hands.

‘I’m sticking wif you,’ said Murf.

‘What about Muncie?’

‘The great Arfa,’ he said. ‘I’m wif you.’

‘Okay,’ said Hood. ‘Then it’s settled.’

‘And you?’ Mayo faced Hood, her eyes meeting his and then faltering.

Hood said, ‘I’ll think of something.’

Brodie looked around the table, and at the walls, the floor, the ceiling. She said, ‘We’re not going to be here anymore.’

‘It’s a nice place,’ said Murf. ‘You don’t get hassled. You can hang out here.’

Brodie shook her head. ‘It’s kind of sad.’

‘I don’t feel hungry,’ said Murf.

‘I made that especially for you,’ said Mayo, sitting up and raising her voice, ‘and you’re going to eat it.’

‘Let’s not have an argument on our last night,’ said Hood. He picked up his glass of beer and winking at Murf he said, ‘This is it, then. The beginning.’

‘Look at him,’ said Brodie. She scraped her chair back and ran out of the room.

Murf followed her, his arms flapping, and then Mayo said, ‘You’re on your own now. I don’t trust you.’

‘Then start packing,’ said Hood. ‘You’re going home.’

But she refused to pack. She followed him around the house, sulking, and then complaining as he collected his artifacts from the parlour. Upstairs, he filled his suitcase, lining it quickly with his clothes, and she stood next to him, accusingly, not making any move to pack. Hood said nothing. She stamped the floor angrily, as if she was being left behind; and she threatened him, but her anger was pathetic, proof of her helplessness. Because she could not do anything more she raged; she was like a wife at the moment of a divorce she demanded as a rash threat, seeing her mistake and knowing she is lost — too late, too late. She kept her wronged face at him. He ignored her.

‘Go to hell,’ she said, and went to bed with unnecessary noise, punching the pillow and switching off the lights and screaming when he turned them on again. He knew she wanted a scene, something final to seal it, and he had felt — with his back to her — that she wanted to hit him. Now, deprived of argument, she lay in the bed with her head under the blanket. He saw her clearly, as he once had when she had spoken of the painting: a child who was used to getting her own way, as if being a clever daughter was an incurable condition for which the only consolation was the fatherly praise of an attentive lover.

Brodie and Murf were on the stairs, in the back room, calling to each other, banging and slamming. ‘Don’t cry,’ he heard Murf saying; Brodie whimpered; Murf’s coaxing turned to blame — he swore and shouted, ‘Shut up!’

‘Tell them to stop making so much noise,’ Mayo sobbed. She burrowed deeper into the bedclothes.

Later, when he was in bed, there were murmurs from their room, Murf insisting and from Brodie an odd pained cry. Then a muffled kicking and the small strangled howls of the two children making love. It ended with a series of brief despairing thumps, and lying there in that large house Hood believed it was the saddest sound he had ever heard.