Settling back on the silk mohair club chair beside the vert de mer fireplace, Lucy took a sip from her cup, then scrunched her brow. “I didn’t want to tell you, but it looks as though I’m going to be living in Europe.”
Toulouse nearly choked on his crumpet. “What do you mean?”
“England, mostly — that’s where I’ll be going to school.”
“But how? Why—”
“When Trinnie and I were in Iceland, we met the Hectares. As in Lord Hectare. They are bloody rich. I got on quite well with Amanda — she’s their daughter. And they asked if I wanted to come stay with them.”
“Staying with them is one thing. Living is another.”
“Then bugger it all, Toulouse, they asked if I wanted to live with them, OK? It’s not like they don’t have room — they just bought Sutton Place for forty million pounds. It’s a bleeding castle.”
“Bleeding or bloody?”
“They’re so rich it’s both, you arse. We’ll be going to Monte Carlo first; they have a cliff house Aunt Trinnie says is très Belle Époque. They’re quite friendly with the Grimaldis, you know. We’re going to see Charlotte, Princess Caroline’s daughter — we’re almost the same age. She’s got a bulldog called Romeo, isn’t that sweet? I so love a little bulldog! And one of Lord Hectare’s best friends is the man whose family makes ink for all the world currencies. Isn’t that brilliant?”
We shall return to the cousins in a moment, for the above scene is not yet done; but first a little context should be provided, as months have gone by that were relatively unaccounted for.
The departed invalid-genius became both muse and, daresay, mascot for Toulouse and his parents, offering his imprimatur to the baby steps that the reborn family took each day. They invoked him often; the boy became a sacred spot in their secret garden, a wistful, contemplative presence that eased not only the sorrow of his being gone but that of their own sad history. Practicing a gentle psychomancy, Toulouse felt closer to him than ever.
Yet as one family knitted together (two, if we include the Motts), another unraveled in the wake of his passage. Joyce emerged from paralysis to throw herself into work with manic compulsion. The Candlelighters bought up more ground (all that was left, in fact) at the Westwood park, but awakened more phantoms than were put to rest. For it was no longer the cracked tower that haunted her neighborhood but rather the empty monuments of Olde CityWalk — not to mention the east wing of the main house, where sat the tub in which she had poured water over her son’s bird-like, terminal frame. In the hour of the wolf, it was not unusual for Winter to awaken Dodd on the intercom with news that Candelaria had espied the mistress barefoot and febrile, moondancing about the Mauck with its ghostly incubus of buggy within. When, to break the terrible cycle, the doleful billionaire sold off both vehicles without warning, Joyce took to her bed for weeks.
Each day, she visited his grave, which by late summer was surrounded by others, who kept their respectful distance; she could not bear anything encroaching on Edward just yet. As in Castaic, the dumpster tribeschildren were given biblical names, and the Candlelighters (which now included the Palisades lesbians, who had since made Joyce godmother of their son) stuck colorful pinwheels in the fresh plots, with tiny name-banners attached. Whirligigs spun in the wind, and Dot thought them a welcome addition, even though she knew they brought much grief to the eldest Trotter, whose visits to his own humble memorial had for the most part quit. Her sister Ethel said it was a family affair and to stay out of it, which she did.
Among Edward’s papers was an epigram the boy had lifted from the pages of his Roman middle-namesake (a name bestowed by his grandfather); he had pasted it on a photo-montage of stones like an epitaph. Joyce thought the text to be morbid, but dutifully had a plaque engraved and set in the ground — a guilty compromise for having betrayed his dream of anonymity:
EDWARD AURELIUS TROTTER 1990–2001
“Soon you will have forgotten the world, and soon the world will have forgotten you.”
After a few months, the old man returned to the park and for the first time attended his grandson’s grave. He was disgusted by its meagerness. The tacky windmills whirred in the periphery of his vision, but he refused to acknowledge them. Still, he was moved by the inscription — at least she got something right.
Louis Trotter had actually taken the initial steps of filing a suit to disinter the boy and bring him “home”—but the lawyers (if one can imagine), not to mention Katrina, were strongly opposed. Trinnie even brought their old friend Dr. Kindman to bear and warned her father flat-out that she would never speak to him again if he dared follow through with such an action. Besides, she asked, where would Edward be traveling but to another empty field? She had a point. After all these years, the great patriarch couldn’t decide on a memorial for himself, let alone for his grandson. What it came down to, then, was pride and entitlement. In life and in death, it seemed always to come to that.
He began bringing the boy flowers. One afternoon, he even trod the Candlelighters’ turf for a closer look at the “charity cases.” Mr. Trotter clasped his hands at his lower back, clucking and chuffing in largo. How freakish and asinine! he thought. Selfish devil-woman.… He kicked himself for having hired her in the first place — none of this might have happened! But then Edward mightn’t have happened, either. His lip began to tremble with the sadness of it.
With the skillfully combined efforts of Dot and Sling Blade, warring parties were given hints as to when one or the other would most likely be paying respects; in short order, a schedule was mentally drawn and strictly adhered to. Thus, the old man and his daughter-in-law were never to see each other at that cemetery — or anywhere else, for that matter — again.
The reader has not yet been treated to any private moments between the departed wunderkind and his dad, and for good reason. They did not have many. (Though somewhat awkward in each other’s presence, they adored one another no end.) What they did have was an arrangement; the charter and by-laws of their corporation, so to speak, had been drawn up at Edward’s birth and become a living, immanent article of faith. The father, neurotic in a way diametrically opposed to his wife’s dysfunction, had sworn to his Maker he would always be there for his son, a declaration never voided.
But let us dig a little deeper for those who may wonder what effect Edward’s loss had upon a man whose emotions, even under normal conditions, seemed inscrutable at best. Dodd’s worst fear was to have taken his son for granted. Perhaps more than anyone, he had been cognizant of Edward’s mortality, but hadn’t the courage to face it head-on, preferring instead to shower him with the outrageous comforts that only material things can provide. In other words, he was afraid he hadn’t shown the boy enough affection. A psychiatrist briefly consulted some weeks after Edward’s passing helped the billionaire (who, because of recent fluctuations, had fallen on the Forbes list to number forty-one but would give his detractors much comeuppance in coming quarters) to recognize that he had demonstrated his love in the best and deepest way he could — and that Edward had surely felt it. Wiping an eye, Dodd was certain this was true, and left the man’s office satisfied.