Tom Rachman - The Rise & Fall of Great Powers

Duncan crouched by the stereo, working on a welcome-back tape for her, writing its label in smeared rollerball ink: “Year 2000 Mix by D-Mac.” She had still not played his previous mixtapes, since the radio-cassette player in her kitchen in Brooklyn turned out, on closer inspection, to be only a radio. His compilations remained forgotten in her coat pocket, the tapes jiggling in their cases at her every step around the city.

She watched Duncan working the CD player and double-cassette deck, his eyes sinking shut at a favorite chorus, hands swatting the air during a drum solo. Observing him, she came unstuck from the present moment, experiencing it as if viewed a time hence, as if all this were long past, and he at this age resided only in memory. The song exploded, stopped dead. He spun around to look at her. “Amazing, no?”

“Very amazing,” she responded, noting how he sought her approval. She pressed a kiss to his lips, slid her hands up his long-sleeved T-shirt and over his warm chest. She was the person of chief consequence in his world, but he was not that person to her.

“I got totally into classic rock over Christmas,” he said. “It was like high school: headphones on in my old room, listening to my parents’ records.” He double-clicked a track on Napster, playing it through the laptop speakers: “Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. He smiled, but the irony was lost on Tooly, and he had to explain that this was a notoriously clichéd rock anthem.

She paid close attention, glancing sightlessly around the room, then shook her head. “Never heard it.”

“How is that possible?”

The song went on, the singer wailing, “ Lord knows, I can’t change/Lord, help me, I can’t chay-yay-yay-yay-yay-yay-yay-yay-ange! ” Abruptly, the tempo sped up, and Duncan did something unexpected. The meek law student leaped onto his bed and gave the most astonishing air-guitar performance she had ever seen: arpeggios along an invisible fingerboard, hard-strumming every downstroke, eyes scrunched, tongue out, head banging, licking an air pick for effect, stepping on invisible distortion pedals, bending a whammy bar, swinging imaginary rock-n’-roll hair from his face. This act — in addition to being incredibly funny — was absolutely fucking perfect. She watched, trying not to close her eyes.

“What the hell, McGrory!” she shouted at the fade-out, he standing above her on the bed, breathless. “What the hell!” she repeated. “That was genius!”

He tried not to smile too proudly.

“I didn’t even know you knew guitar.”

“That doesn’t,” he said, breathing heavily, “actually count as playing .”

“You could start an air band.”

He hopped off the bed and, fired up by her praise, fetched Emerson’s acoustic guitar from the living room to show what he could do with a real instrument, which amounted to power chords and the opening to “Smoke on the Water,” all of which impressed her. She gave it a try but the frets were too wide for her small fingers.

“I used to play the ukulele in school,” she said, giving a tuneless strum.

“You played well, I see.”

“Music is not among my talents.”

His bedroom door swung open. “Wildfire,” Xavi called to her.

“I know. We need to talk.” She left Duncan to finish her mixtape and went to discuss business in Xavi’s room. After an hour, Duncan entered and handed her the cassette.

“Quit law school and join us,” she told him. “We’ll be rich beyond your wildest imaginings.”

In coming days, her planning with Xavi took hours. Soon she was entering his room without a knock, hanging around late into the evening, long after there was no further work. Duncan gravitated to his friend’s room, too, though he still sought permission to enter. His comments were invariably negative — valid concerns but unwelcome, and Tooly dreaded his appearances.

She consulted with Venn by phone, recounting her progress, which seemed rapid to her. He loved how she really believed in this project, though he noted that it still lacked funding — hardly a trivial oversight. However, they had identified a source.

“Really don’t want to ask him,” Duncan responded.

“You don’t ask,” she said. “You mention that there are these entrepreneurs starting a dot-com, and you actually know these guys. They don’t want outsiders involved because it could be huge. But they asked if you wanted to get in. That’s all true. You don’t ask for a thing. Let Keith think he’s come up with the idea.”

“My father doesn’t operate that way.”

“If he gets involved and it takes off, he’ll think of you differently forever.”

“Differently how?”

“Not as a kid asking for money but as a friend.”

Duncan said nothing for a minute. “I really, really do not want to beg my dad.”

Instead, he spoke with his mother, asking what his folks might consider contributing to Wildfire. Xavi made progress, too, meeting at length with Venn about the business plan. Venn showed him the view from the roof of the Brain Trust and an empty cubicle with a handwritten note: “Reserved for Wildfire.” Xavi filled out all the paperwork to join the cooperative — once the funds came in, they were set.

SHE ATE DINNER alone in the basement suite, a window high in the wall providing grass-level views of the McGrorys’ backyard. The summer grew hot and light lingered far into the evenings now. Children’s bare feet rushed past and little faces peeped at her, squashed against the panes. She was part of their household now, tending to Humphrey by day, back to Connecticut by night. When she ventured upstairs, the family welcomed her. They counted on her steady mood, knowing that, no matter how grouchy they were, she was impossible to upset. Mac, in particular, glommed on to her — except if Duncan returned early from work, at which point the boy trailed behind his father like a faithful pooch.

But Duncan was a rare presence. He missed most family dinners, often returning after the kids were in bed and departing before they rose. When home, he was pursued by emails. His respite was what Bridget termed “anger hour,” a nightly rant at the cable news channels. It was peculiar: he spewed such vitriol in that house, yet acted with notable kindness outside it. Accounts emerged from Bridget of his decency toward new hires at the firm, toward strangers, and to Humphrey in the months before Tooly arrived. Bridget once cited an entire chapter in her husband’s life of which Tooly had known nothing, how he had nursed a sick friend till the person’s death. When she inquired about this, Duncan changed the subject — he couldn’t accept praise.

Then, by breakfast, he was gone. It was Bridget who poured the kids’ cereal and orange juice. She was present, involved, interested. Yet it was Duncan’s absence that shaped the household. The triplets used obscenities because it made him chuckle. When they threw a dart at Mac and it stuck in his butt, Bridget had to clean the pinpoint wound with rubbing alcohol. “Not funny,” she said. But Duncan had smirked, and the girls noticed.

Such dynamics caused tension between Duncan and Bridget, but the hostility abated when Tooly turned up. She had become the glue here, mending and maintaining, but exhausting herself in the process. She longed — longed! — for time on her own, snatching what minutes she could alone downstairs, indulging in ukulele practice to hold them back, until one or another McGrory couldn’t resist leaning into the music room, asking what she was up to. Aside from Mac, the most regular visitor was Bridget, who relished having a grown-up friend on-site.

Each night, Tooly got into bed with a glass of red wine and an old newspaper, since she lacked the concentration for anything more involved. Throughout her waking hours, she was prodded by a sense of responsibility, assuaged only when need did present itself — Humphrey coughing, calling for water; Mac panicking about an imminent sporting humiliation — whereupon she could act. Afterward, her uneasy vigil continued, dissipating only in sleep. But going to bed tipsy produced a shallow slumber, interrupted by trips to pee.