Дуглас Кеннеди - Five Days

‘Did he hit all the usual developmental marks?’

‘Absolutely. And when he had some of those early aptitude tests he was shown to be off-the-scales bright. Especially when it came to math. That was always his great saving grace throughout school — the fact that, when it came to all things mathematical, he was a wizard. I remember getting a call from his tenth grade calculus teacher — I think his name was Mr Pawling — asking me to come in, and him telling me that Billy had the most gifted theoretical mind he’d encountered in twenty-five years of teaching, and would I agree to extra tutoring after school, and enrollment that summer in an intensive math camp that was held at MIT, of all places. Muriel felt it was all too much — ‘What’s he going to do at a math camp except become more withdrawn?’ was how she saw things. But I argued that his was a great gift that we needed to encourage, and that math really could be a way out of the isolation and loneliness that had categorized his life so far. The way I figured it, once he got to that math camp at MIT he’d be with like-minded kids — what Billy himself called “us numbers geeks”, and of which there were none at Bath High School. Muriel also complained about the cost of it all — almost three thousand dollars, which was a stretch for us back then, despite the good times. Still, I prevailed. Billy went to MIT Math Camp. For the first two weeks he seemed so incredibly happy. Loved the professors. Loved his fellow math whizzes. I even dropped in on him after ten days. I had never seen him so focussed, so at ease with himself and his surroundings. And this professor who was teaching Lambda Calculus — I had to look up what that meant — took me aside and told me that he was going to put a word in with the admissions department about getting Billy fast-tracked for entry into MIT the following autumn.

‘I drove back to Bath elated. My son the math genius. My son the future math professor at MIT or Harvard or Chicago. My son the Nobel Laureate. And yes, I know this was all the stuff of pipe dreams. But what this professor was saying to me really made it seem like Billy could do it all.

‘And then, five days later, we got a phone call from MIT. Billy had tried to set fire to the sheets and mattress in his dorm room. Fortunately there was a fast-thinking proctor down the hall. He smelled smoke. He got a fire extinguisher and put the flames out. But Billy had caused several thousand dollars’ worth of damage. When he admitted that he’d started the fire himself he was expelled on the spot.

‘Of course I was devastated by what had happened. What devastated me more was the fact that, when I came to pick Billy up, he wouldn’t talk about what happened.

‘“Guess I just wanted to screw up,”’ was all he said.

‘When he repeated that statement to his mother she wanted him committed to the nearest insane asylum. Then again they hadn’t been getting along for years. Billy knew that his mother considered him nothing less than strange and different. Muriel has never been comfortable with anything or anyone outside of her comfort zone. She hates to travel. She’s only been out of Maine twice in the last five years — and that was owing to family funerals in Massachusetts. And she can’t really cope with her brilliantly gifted, but truly eccentric son. I’ve tried repeatedly to talk with her about all that — and tried to get her to show some empathy towards the boy. But when Muriel has decided that somebody is bad news, that’s that.’

He broke off the sentence, reaching again for the bloody mary. I too took a long sip of my drink, my mind now endeavoring to work out the complex contours of Richard’s marriage. From the way he was reporting things, Muriel sounded cold, judgmental, emotionally detached. But was I thinking that because I could see the immense distress that her husband was embroiled in right now?

‘We all have our private griefs, don’t we?’ he said. ‘And I certainly didn’t want to go upending our lunch with—’

‘Do not apologize. What has happened to your son is so evidently huge and terrible. ’

‘What has happened to my son?’ he said, his voice just above a whisper. ‘You make it sound as if all this was visited upon him. Whereas the truth is. he visited it all upon himself.’

‘But you said he was bipolar. And if you are bipolar—’

‘I know, I know. And you’re right. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Muriel threw that line from Luke at me when I tried to explain away Billy’s behavior after getting expelled from the MIT Math Camp. “Making excuses for him as usual. You should march him down to the nearest Marine Corps recruiting office and get him signed up. Three months of basic training at Parris Island will knock all that craziness out of him.”

‘Now I know that all makes Muriel sound rather extreme. But the truth is, when I brought Billy home from MIT and he refused to talk with her, I woke around three in the morning to find Muriel sitting in a chair by the window in our bedroom, crying uncontrollably. When I tried to comfort her she told me that she blamed herself for so much that had befallen Billy. “I know I’ve been a bad mother. I know I’ve never given him the love he needs.” And it was wonderful hearing that. Because she had articulated a certain truth that I was always afraid of discussing with her.’

But why were you afraid? I stopped myself from posing that question. Because I knew just how much of a long, difficult marriage is often based around sidestepping so many painfully evident truths, and how we all are afraid of opening up the sort of conversations that can lead us into the darker, distressed recesses of the lives we have created for ourselves.

‘I’ve always hated myself for not confronting her about the antipathy that she felt towards our son. And the way she was incapable of showing any nurturing affection.’

‘Towards him and towards you?’ I asked.

I could see Richard tense, and silently cursed myself for overstepping a mark.

‘Sorry, sorry, that was an inappropriate question,’ I said.

He took another sip of his drink.

‘Actually, it was a perfectly appropriate question. And one which I think you already know the answer to.’

Silence. I broke it.

‘So after the MIT Math Camp. did he get help?’

‘Naturally I got the school therapist immediately involved. She was a very nice woman, if something of a lightweight who talked all this touchy-feely stuff, but was very out of her depth when it came to dealing with the clinical reasons why Billy had done something so destructive, so calamitous. She did send him to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist diagnosed depression and put him on Valium. A reasonable year followed. He saw the psychiatrist once a week. The medication seemed to be working. Billy finished his senior year in high school. He scored high on his SATs — including a 750 in math. The incident at MIT was in the past. I paid the four thousand dollars in damages. They never pressed charges, so there was no record against Billy. Several colleges were seriously interested in him — including Chicago and Cornell. Another great triumph happened when CalTech came through with a complete four-year scholarship. CalTech! Billy was thrilled. I was thrilled. Even his mother was truly chuffed that her boy got into one of the world’s great science and math schools. The thing was, Billy was going out with a girl from his class. Mary Tracey. Lovely young woman. Quite the chemistry whizz. And she seemed to really understand our quirky son. She’d even gotten accepted on full scholarship to Stanford. It all looked so good.

‘Then, around three weeks before his high school graduation, he disappeared. Vanished completely. The local and state police were involved. His photo was in all the papers and on all Maine news bulletins. The fact that he had taken Muriel’s car and stolen her ATM card — he knew her PIN number because she’d asked him to get money out on occasion — well, naturally, this was serious stuff. The bank informed us that he’d only made one withdrawal of three hundred dollars on the day of his disappearance. We didn’t stop the card because, as the police advised us, they’d be able to easily track his whereabouts. But after that first withdrawal, nothing. No sign of him anywhere. The trail had gone cold. And I couldn’t help but fear the worst: that he’d taken his own life.