Chapter Twenty-eight

I CAME DOWN the stairs and was halfway across the foyer, twenty feet from the front door and freedom, when I heard her. ‘Scott …? Scott Murdoch? Is that you? ’

The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t put a face to it. I kept walking – another few paces and I would be safe, swept up in a crowd approaching the exit. Four paces now. Three—

Her hand caught hold of my elbow and brought me to a stop. ‘Scott – didn’t you hear me? ’

I turned and recognized her. She was wearing the purple rosette of a committee member and I realized I should have known she would be there – she had always loved gardens. It was the one thing she and Grace had in common and it was the primary reason for their friendship.

‘Oh, hello, Mrs Corcoran, ’ I said, smiling as best I could. She happened to be Dexter’s mother, the creep who had been on the Caulfield squash team with me, and I had suffered through any number of team-building events at her house.

‘I can’t believe it’s you. What are you doing here? ’ she said.

‘You know – just looking around … for old times’ sake, ’ I replied. Her eyes flicked across my jacket and failed to find the identity tag that would have given me entry. I could tell she was desperate to ask how the hell I had got past security, but she decided to let it ride.

‘Walk me to lunch, ’ she said, linking arms with me. ‘We’ll catch up on everything, then I’ll introduce you to the owner. Delightful man. ’ Her voice dropped conspiratorially. ‘Nothing he doesn’t know about the markets. ’

But I didn’t move, an edge to my voice. ‘No, I was just leaving, Mrs Corcoran – I’ve seen everything I wanted to. ’ She looked at me, and I think in that instant she realized the visit had meant something important to me.

She smiled. ‘You’re right. Silly of me. Forget the owner – he’s an awful man, to be honest. The wife’s even worse – fancies herself as a decorator. ’ Her laugh had always been brittle, like a glass breaking, and it hadn’t altered.

She took a step back and ran her eye up and down. ‘You look well, Scott – the years have been good to you. ’

‘You too, ’ I said, shaking my head in fake wonder. ‘You’ve barely changed. ’ I couldn’t believe I was saying it, but she nodded happily – flattery and delusion were part of the air she breathed.

We continued to look at each other for an awkward moment, neither of us quite sure what to say next. ‘How’s Dexter? ’ I asked, just to get over the hurdle.

A shadow of confusion fell across the tightly drawn skin of her face. ‘That’s strange. Grace said she wrote to you about it. ’

I had no idea what she meant. ‘I didn’t have any contact with Grace for years. Wrote to me about what? ’

‘That’d be Grace, ’ she said, doing her best to smile. ‘Not interested unless it was about her. Dexter’s dead, Scott. ’

For a moment I couldn’t get the gears to mesh: he was a strong guy – always sneering at people – but still, dead? That was a bit extreme. Because I was an outsider who never spoke to anyone and he was loathed, the rest of the squash team always made sure we were paired together and, more than anyone, I had to endure his racquet-throwing and taunts.

His mother was watching my face, and I was thankful I didn’t have to fake it – I was genuinely shocked. She herself was fighting to blink back the tears – no easy thing given how much skin the plastic surgeons had cut away over the years.

‘I asked Grace to tell you, because I knew how tight you two were, ’ she said. ‘He was always saying how often you would go to him for advice, not just on the court either. ’

Corcoran said what? I would have rather gone to Bart Simpson for advice. Jesus Christ.

‘We can be honest now, Scott – you didn’t belong, did you? Dexter said that’s why he always stepped forward to partner you – he didn’t want you to feel like you were excluded. He was always very thoughtful like that. ’

I nodded quietly. ‘That was a part of Dexter a lot of people didn’t see, ’ I said. I mean, what else could I do – he was her only child, for God’s sake. ‘What happened? ’

‘He drowned – he was at the beach house by himself and went for a swim one night. ’

I knew the stretch of beach – it was dangerous even in daylight; nobody in their right mind would go swimming there in the dark. Fragments of things I had heard drifted back – he had flunked out of law school, ugly stories about hard drinking, time spent at a rehab clinic in Utah.

‘Of course there were spiteful rumours, ’ his mother said. ‘You know what people are like – but the coroner and the police both agreed it was an accident. ’

I remembered his grandfather had been a prominent judge – on the Supreme Court – and I figured somebody had put the fix in. If there was a note in the house I suppose it was handed privately to his parents and they destroyed it.

I’ve had too much experience of death for someone my age but even that couldn’t inoculate me. I always thought it would be me, but Corcoran – the dumb sonofabitch – was the first of my class to pass from this world, and it must have taken the colour from my face.

‘You’re pale, ’ Mrs Corcoran said, touching my arm to comfort me. ‘I shouldn’t have said it so directly but, Scott, I don’t know any correct—’

She was swallowing hard and I thought she was going to cry but, thankfully, she didn’t. Instead she forced herself to brighten. ‘And what about you – still in the art business? ’

Grief hadn’t unhinged her – that was the legend I had created for friends and family when I first went into the field for The Division. Legally, nobody was allowed to know of the agency’s existence, so I had spent months crafting my cover story before the Director finally signed off on it.

Arriving at Avalon unannounced one Sunday, I told Grace and Bill over lunch that I was sick of Rand, sick of research, sick of psychology itself. I said the greatest thing the two of them had given me was an interest in art and, as a result, I was leaving Rand to start a business dealing in early twentieth-century European paintings, basing myself in Berlin.

As legends went, if I do say so myself, it was good – it allowed me to travel anywhere in Europe for my real work and at the same time provided a reason to lose contact with my former acquaintances until I was virtually forgotten. And, obviously, it had been believable – here I was, so many years later, listening to a woman who had been a friend of Bill and Grace asking me about the art racket.

I smiled. ‘Yes, still chasing canvases, Mrs Corcoran – still squeezing out a living. ’

She looked from my cashmere sweater down to my expensive loafers, and I realized my mistake – out of deference to Bill’s memory I had dressed up for the occasion.

‘I suspect more than squeezing, ’ she said, eyes narrowing.

I didn’t want her to think my fictitious business was successful, or else people might start asking why they had never heard of it, so I took the almost revolutionary step of telling the truth. ‘I was lucky, ’ I said. ‘Maybe you already know – Grace left me some money. ’

She paused. ‘I would have bet everything I owned against that, ’ she said softly.

‘Yeah, she could be pretty aloof, ’ I replied, ‘but underneath I suppose she must have felt something. ’

‘Obligation, if you ask me, ’ she replied tartly. ‘They’re dead now, so I don’t suppose it matters – Grace never wanted you, Scott, not even from the beginning. ’

Whatever difficulties I’d had with my stepmother, I had never expected to hear it put so bluntly. I wondered if Mrs Corcoran was exaggerating, and a look of doubt must have crossed my face.

‘Don’t stare at me. I heard her say it – about a week after you arrived from Detroit. We were having coffee out there. ’ She pointed towards the lawn that overlooked the lake.

‘Bill, Grace and I were watching you – the nanny had you down at the water’s edge, looking at the swans, I think. ’

As young as I was, I remembered that – I had never seen swans before and I thought they were the most beautiful things in the world.

‘Bill wouldn’t take his eyes off of you, ’ Mrs Corcoran continued. ‘To be honest, I’ve never seen a man so taken with a child. Grace noticed it too. She kept looking at him and then, very quietly, she said: “I’ve changed my mind, Bill – a child doesn’t fit in with us. ”

‘He turned to her. “You’re wrong, ” he said. “It’s exactly what we need. More kids – give this place some damn life. ”

‘There was a finality to it, but Grace wouldn’t let it drop, determined to have her way – apparently they only had a few days to tell the agency if they were going to keep you. ’

Mrs Corcoran paused to see my reaction. What did she expect – is there anyone who doesn’t want to think their parents loved them? ‘Yeah, Grace was an experienced shopper, ’ I said. ‘She took everything on a sale-or-return basis. ’

The old woman laughed. ‘That’s why I always liked you, Scott – you never let anything hurt you. ’

I just nodded.

‘Anyway, the argument between them became increasingly bitter until finally Grace lost her temper. “You know your trouble, Bill? ” she said. “You’re a porter – you see anyone with baggage and you’ve always got to help them. ”

‘With that, she told him you’d be leaving in the morning, and headed for the house, claiming she was going to check on lunch. Nobody saw her for the rest of the day. Bill sat in silence for a long time, his eyes still fixed on you, then he said, “Scott will be staying at Avalon until he goes to college, longer if he wants. He’ll stay because the porter says so – and Grace will have to accept it. ”

‘I didn’t know what to say. I’d never seen that steely side of him – I’m not sure anybody had. Then he turned to me and said the strangest thing.

‘You probably know Bill wasn’t a spiritual man – I never once heard him talk about God – but he said that every night he sat by your bed while you slept. “I think Scott was sent to us, ” he told me. “I feel like I’ve been chosen to care for him. I don’t know why I think it, but I believe he’s going to do something very important one day. ”’

Standing in the old house with so many years gone by, Mrs Corcoran smiled at me. ‘Did you, Scott? Was Bill right? Did you do something very important? ’

I smiled back and shook my head. ‘Not unless you think finding a few lost canvases is important. But Bill was a fine man and it was good of him to think like that. ’

From out on the lawn, we heard someone calling Mrs Corcoran’s name – she probably had to give a speech. She patted my arm, starting to go.

‘Well, who knows? ’ she said. ‘You’re not old, there’s still time, isn’t there? Goodbye, Scott. ’

But there wasn’t – time, I mean. I was still in my thirties, but my race was run. Only a fool would think it could turn out otherwise. So – say hello to the fool, I have often said to myself when I think back on those days.