Ritual Read online

  There was a third flash of lightning, even more intense than the first; and for one split second every shadow in the garden was blanched white. But whoever had been sheltering there had disappeared. There was only the old man’s beard, and the dilapidated shiplap shed, and the bushes that dipped and bowed under the relentless lashing of the rain.

  ‘Optical illusion,’ said Charlie.

  Martin didn’t answer, but kept on staring outside.

  ‘Ghost?’ Charlie suggested.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Martin. ‘It gave me a weird kind of a feeling, that’s all.’

  The waitress returned with their plates of apple pandowdy and a jug of country cream. She was grimacing as she came across the restaurant. Walking close behind her was a short, fat woman in a blue and turquoise tent dress. There was an air of ferocious authority about her which told Charlie at once that this must be Mrs Foss, under whose direction the Iron Kettle was going to the dogs.

  Mrs Foss wore spectacles that looked as if they had been modelled on the rear end of a ’58 Plymouth Fury. The skin around her mouth was tightly lined, and the fine hairs on her cheeks were dogged with bright beige foundation.

  ‘Well, hello there,’ she announced. ‘I’m always glad to see strangers.’

  Charlie rose awkwardly out of his seat, and shook her hand, which was soft and limp, but jagged with diamond rings.

  ‘Harriet tells me you didn’t care for the veal,’ said Mrs Foss, the lines around her lips bunching tighter.

  ‘The veal was acceptable,’ said Charlie, making sure that he didn’t catch Martin’s eye.

  ‘You didn’t eat it,’ Mrs Foss accused him. ‘Usually, they polish the plate.’

  The patronizing use of the word ‘they’ didn’t go unnoticed by a man who had eaten and slept in over four thousand different American establishments.

  ‘I’m sorry if I gave you an extra dish to wash,’ Charlie told her.

  ‘The dishwashing isn’t here and it isn’t there. What concerns me is that you didn’t eat your food.’

  Charlie lowered his eyes and played with his spoon. ‘I don’t think I was quite as hungry as I thought I was.’

  Mrs Foss said, ‘You won’t find a better restaurant anywhere in Litchfield County, I can promise you that.’

  Charlie was sorely tempted to say that if there wasn’t anywhere better, then God help Litchfield County, but Harriet the waitress chipped in, ‘Le Reposoir.’

  Mrs Foss turned to Harriet wild-eyed. ‘Don’t you even whisper that name!’ she barked, her jowls wobbling like a Shar-pei. ‘Don’t you even breathe it!’

  ‘A rival restaurant, I gather?’ said Charlie, trying to save Harriet from Mrs Foss’s blistering wrath. Lightning crackled through the room, and for one second they were all turned white.

  ‘I wouldn’t grace that place by calling it an abattoir, let alone a restaurant,’ snapped Mrs Foss.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Charlie. ‘I can’t say that I’ve ever heard of it.’

  ‘Do yourself a favour, and stay well clear,’ Mrs Foss said. ‘Those fancified French folks, with all of their unpleasant ideas.’ She betrayed an upbringing many hundreds of miles south of Litchfield County, Connecticut, by the way she said ‘idee-yuhs’. ‘Most of the neighbourhood children take the long way round through Allen’s Corners, since that place was opened. And you won’t catch any of the local clientele going to dine there, no sir.’

  Charlie reached into the inside pocket of his sport coat and took out his worn leather-covered notebook. ‘What did you say it was called, this place?’

  ‘Le Reposoir,’ said Harriet, leaning over Mrs Foss’s shoulder like Long John Silver’s parrot. ‘That’s Le like in Jerry Lee Lewis; repos like in repossess; oir like in –’

  ‘Harriet! Table six!’ boiled Mrs Foss.

  ‘I’m going,’ Harriet told her, lifting a hand to ward off Mrs Foss’s anger. ‘I’m going.’

  ‘I have to apologize for Harriet,’ fussed Mrs Foss. ‘I promised her mother I’d give her a job waitressing. There was nothing much else she could do.’ She tapped her forehead. ‘You wouldn’t say deficient, but you wouldn’t say genius.’

  Charlie nodded his head in acknowledgement, and tucked his notebook back into his coat. ‘I guess it takes all sorts.’

  Mrs Foss pointed towards his coat. ‘You’re not thinking of going to that place, are you?’

  ‘Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?’

  ‘I could give you just about a hundred reasons. I know folks like that from before. I used to run a restaurant on Chartres Street in New Orleans; Paula Foss’s Red Beans And Rice, that was the name of the restaurant. I used to know folks like that back in those days. Frenchified, and suave. We used to call them the Célèstines. Private, that’s what they were; but secret’s a better word. Secret.’

  Martin said, ‘He’s there again, look.’

  Charlie didn’t understand what Martin meant at first. Then Martin urged him, ‘Out of the window, look!’

  Mrs Foss squinted towards the garden. ‘What’s the boy talking about?’

  Martin stood up, and walked stiff-legged over to the wide French windows. The matrons turned to stare at him. He shielded his eyes with his hand, and peered out into the rain. Charlie said, ‘Martin?’

  ‘I saw him,’ said Martin, without turning around. ‘He was by the sundial.’

  Mrs Foss glanced at Charlie, and then went over to stand next to Martin by the window. ‘There’s nobody there, honey. That’s my private garden. Nobody’s allowed in there.’

  Charlie said, ‘Come on, Martin, let’s see what we can do to this apple pandowdy.’

  Martin came away from the window with obvious reluctance. Charlie thought he was looking pale. Maybe he was tired, from all of their travelling. Charlie was so used to driving and eating and eating and driving that it was easy for him to forget how punishing his daily routine could be. Since they had taken the Major Deegan Expressway out of New York three days ago, heading north-eastwards, they had covered well over 700 miles and eaten at nine different hotels and restaurants, from an over-heated Family Cabin in White Plains with sticky red vinyl banquettes in the dining room to a pretentious English-style Chop House on the outskirts of Darien at which every dish had been given a Dickensian name – Mr Micawber’s Muffins, Steak Dombey and Chicken Copperfield.

  Martin said, in a panicky-suffocated voice, ‘You won’t let it in, Dad, will you?’

  Charlie was ducking his head forward to take his first mouthful of apple. He hesitated, with his spoon still poised. He hadn’t heard Martin talk like that since he was tiny.

  ‘What did you say?’

  Martin glanced quickly back towards the window. ‘Nothing. It’s okay.’

  ‘Come on,’ Charlie encouraged him. ‘Eat your dessert.’

  Martin slowly pushed his plate away.

  ‘You’re not hungry?’ said Charlie. ‘It’s good. Taste it. It’s just about the best thing here.’

  Martin shook his head. Charlie watched him for a moment with fatherly concern, then went back to his apple. ‘I hope you’re not pining for anything, that’s all.’ He swallowed, and then reached for his glass of wine. ‘Your mother won’t be home for ten more days, and I can’t keep you with me if you’re sick.’

  Martin said, with unexpected vehemence, ‘It’s all right, I’m not sick, I’m just not hungry. Come on, Dad, I’ve been eating three meals a day for three days. I never ate so much Goddamned food in my whole Goddamned life.’

  Charlie stared at him. Martin’s faced was hectic and flushed, as if he were running a sudden fever.

  ‘Who taught you to speak to anybody like that?’ Charlie demanded. He was quiet, but he was also angry. ‘Is that what you learn from your mother, Goddamned this and Goddamned that? All I did was ask you a civil question.’

  Martin lowered his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I apologize.’

  Charlie leaned forward. ‘What’s gotten into you all of a sudden? Listen – I don’
t expect you to behave like the Angel Gabriel. I never did. But we’re friends here, you and me. At least that’s what fathers and sons are supposed to be, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Dad.’

  Martin kept his head bowed while Charlie made a theatrical performance of finishing his apple pandowdy. In truth, he thought it was foul. The cook had emptied what must have been half a jar of ground cinnamon in it, which made it taste like mahogany sawdust. He would describe it in his report as ‘wholesome, reasonably fresh, but over-generously spiced.’

  All around the building, the gutters gargled the rain away down iron throats. The French windows were as dark as the glass in a blind man’s spectacles. ‘You know something, it’s hard enough to come to terms with this situation without either of us getting all tied up into knots about it,’ Charlie told Martin.

  ‘I said I apologized,’ Martin repeated.

  The garden outside was lit up by a hesitant flicker of lightning. Charlie turned towards the window again. As he did so, he felt a sensation like somebody running a hairbrush down his back. A white face was pressed against the window, so close to the glass that its breath had formed an oval patch of fog. It was peering into the restaurant with an expression that looked like a mixture of fear and longing.

  It could have been a large-faced child. It was too short for an adult. Charlie was frighteningly reminded of Dopey, in Snow White, with his vacant pale blue eyes and his encephalitic head.

  In spite of the child’s obvious anguish, it was the most terrifying thing that Charlie had ever seen. The lightning flickered one last time and then died; the garden was darkened; the face was swallowed by shadow. Charlie sat staring at the window with his hands flat on the table, rigid. Martin raised his head and looked at him.

  ‘Dad?’ he asked. Then, more quietly, ‘Dad?’

  Charlie didn’t look at him. He kept his eyes on the blacked-out windowpane. ‘What did you see, out there in the garden?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Martin. ‘I told you.’

  ‘You said you saw somebody,’ Charlie insisted. ‘Tell me what he looked like.’

  ‘I made a mistake, that’s all. It was a bush, I don’t know.’

  Charlie was about to bark back at Martin when he saw something in the boy’s eyes that stopped him. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t contempt. It was a kind of secrecy, a deep unwillingness to discuss what he had seen. Charlie sat back in his chair and watched Martin for a while. Then he raised his hand to attract the attention of Harriet the waitress.

  ‘Don’t have the coffee,’ Harriet told them, as she came across the restaurant.

  ‘I don’t intend to. Just bring me a last glass of chardonnay, would you, and the bill?’

  ‘I’ll make sure that Mrs Foss doesn’t charge you for the veal.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, please.’

  Harriet was just turning to go when Charlie lifted his hand again, and said, ‘Harriet, tell me something. Does Mrs Foss have any children?’

  Harriet sniffed. ‘Three – but sometimes they seem like thousands. There’s Darren, who takes care of the accounts. Then there’s Lloyd, who buys all the provisions. And Henry – but the less said about Henry the better, believe me. Henry is really peculiar.’

  ‘I mean young children.’

  Martin glanced up. His sudden interest didn’t escape Charlie’s notice. He had seen that figure in the garden, Charlie was sure of it. What Charlie couldn’t understand was why he didn’t want to admit it.

  Harriet said, ‘Young children, no. You’re talking about kids, toddlers? She’s about two hundred years too old for that.’

  On the other side of the restaurant, Mrs Foss’s antennae picked up Harriet’s slighting tone of voice, and she lifted her head and searched for Harriet with narrowed eyes. ‘Harriet,’ she said, and there were a dozen Biblical warnings in that one word.

  While Charlie was paying the bill, he remarked to Martin, ‘You may not have seen anything, but I did.’

  Martin didn’t answer. Charlie waited for a little while, but decided not to push him, not yet. There had to be a reason why he didn’t want to talk about what he had seen, and maybe the reason wasn’t any more complicated than the simple fact that he didn’t yet trust Charlie enough to confide in him. And considering Charlie’s record as a father, he could hardly be blamed for that.

  ‘Where are we going to stay tonight?’ Martin asked.

  ‘The original plan was to drive across to Hartford, and stay at the Welcome Inn.’

  ‘But now you want to go to that French restaurant they were talking about?’

  ‘It had crossed my mind,’ Charlie admitted. ‘I always like trying new places. Besides, it’ll give us time to spend the afternoon any way we want. Maybe we could go bowling, or take in a movie or something. That’s what fathers and sons are supposed to do together, isn’t it?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Charlie attempted a smile. ‘Come on, then. You go wait for me in the car. I just have to wash my hands, as they say in polite circles.’

  ‘Oh, you mean you have to go the inky-dinky ha-ha room.’ Charlie slapped his son on the back. ‘You’ve got it, champ.’

  *

  The men’s washroom was tiled and gloomy, with noisy cisterns and urinals that looked as if they had been salvaged from the Lusitania. In the brown-measled mirror over the sink, Charlie’s face had the appearance of having been painted by an old Dutch master. He scrutinized himself closely, and thought that he was beginning to show signs of wear. It wasn’t true what they said about life beginning at forty. They only said that to stop you going straight to the bathroom and slicing your throat from ear to ear. When you reached middle age, you started to disintegrate, your dreams first and then your body.

  He bent over the sink and soaped his hands. A faint wash of watery sunlight strained through the small window over to his right. He could see treetops through it, and grey clouds unravelling. Maybe it was going to be a fine afternoon.

  Outside the washroom, in the Iron Kettle’s red-carpeted lobby, there was a cigarette machine. He hadn’t smoked in eleven years, but suddenly he felt tempted to buy a pack. It was the tension of having Martin around him all the time, he decided. He wasn’t used to demonstrating his affection on a day-to-day basis. That was why he had so rarely stayed home for very long. He had always been afraid that his love would start wearing thin, like medieval fabric.

  He was still buttoning up his coat when Mrs Foss appeared, and stood watching him through her upswept spectacles, her hands clasped in front of her.

  ‘I hope we’re going to see you again’ she said. ‘I promise that we can do better for you next time.’

  ‘The veal was quite acceptable, thank you.’

  Mrs Foss opened the wired-glass door for him. ‘I hope I’ve managed to persuade you not to visit Le Reposoir.’

  Charlie made a dismissive face.

  ‘It wouldn’t be wise, you know. Especially not with that son of yours.’

  Charlie looked at her. ‘I’m not sure that I understand what you mean.’

  ‘If you don’t go there, you won’t have to find out,’ said Mrs Foss.

  She straightened Charlie’s necktie with the unselfconscious expertise of a woman who has been married for forty years and raised three sons.

  Charlie didn’t know what to say to that. He turned and looked out through the door across the puddly asphalt parking lot, towards his light yellow Oldsmobile. A new car every two years was the only perk that his publishers ever gave him; and considering that he covered an average of 55,000 miles a year, which meant that most of his cars were on the verge of collapse after eighteen months, it wasn’t so much of a perk as a bare necessity.

  He could see Martin standing on the opposite side of the car with a copy of The Litchfield Sentinel draped over his head to keep off the last few scattered drops of rain. He frowned. The way Martin was waving his hand, he looked almost as if he were talking to somebody. Yet, from where Charlie was standi
ng, there didn’t appear to be anybody around.

  Charlie watched Martin for a while, and then he turned back to Mrs Foss, and took hold of her hand. Those jagged diamond rings again. ‘Thank you for your hospitality. I’ll be sure to stop by here again, itinerary willing.’

  ‘Remember what I told you,’ said Mrs Foss. ‘It’s not the kind of advice that anybody gives lightly.’

  ‘Well, no,’ said Charlie. ‘I suppose it isn’t.’

  He walked across the parking lot under a gradually clearing sky. He didn’t call out to Martin, but as he approached, Martin suddenly dragged the newspaper off the top of his head, turned around, and skipped in front of the car, lunging and swiping at the air as if he were d’Artagnan. Now he’s behaving just like a typical fifteen-year-old kid, thought Charlie. But why is he making such a song and dance about it? What’s he trying to show me? Or, more importantly, what’s he trying to hide?

  ‘You ready to roll?’ he said. He glanced quickly around the parking lot, but there was nobody in sight. Just the tousled grass slope of the garden, and the quietly dripping trees. Just the sky, reflected in the puddles, like glimpses of a hidden world.

  ‘Do you think I could learn fencing?’ Martin asked him, parrying and riposting with imaginary musketeers.

  ‘I guess you could,’ Charlie told him. ‘Come on, it’s only three or four miles to Allen’s Corners.’

  He unlocked the car door and eased himself behind the wheel. The windshield was beaded with clear, shivering raindrops. Martin climbed in beside him and buckled himself up. ‘They have fencing lessons at school. Danny DeMarto does it. It’s fantastic.’

  Charlie started up the Oldsmobile’s engine and backed slowly out of his parking space. ‘Maybe you should ask your mother.’

  ‘It’s only twenty-five dollars a lesson.’

  ‘In that case, you should definitely ask your mother. Besides – what do you want to learn to fence for? You’d be better off learning how to play the stock market.’