The turbulence had eased now and the Fasten Seat Belt sign was off again. Moira rose, smoothed out her clothes, and stepped into the aisle, where she knelt next to Peter's seat. Her green eyes were intense.
"Peter…"
"Moira, you've got to help me with Granny Wendy's speech. It just doesn't sound right."
She put a hand on his arm. "Do me a favor first, Peter. Before we get mere, will you please resolve this baseball business with Jack? He's still very, very upset."
As always, there was a faint hint of an English accent in her speech, a little of her heritage left over from the days before she married him and came to live in the United States. He liked the sound of her voice, the pleasant cadence it carried, different from anyone else's, distinct and resonant.
He nodded dutifully. "I will. Want to hear what I have so far?"
Her hand tightened. "You should have gone to the game, Peter."
Peter stared wordlessly at her, aware of his failure, uncomfortable with it. He knew he had let Jack down, had let them both down, by not coming to the game. He intended to make it up to Jack; he just hadn't figured out how to go about it yet.
Moira fixed him with a deliberate stare, then indicated Jack with her eyes. She reached down and retrieved the laptop computer. She waited. Peter sighed, rose, and moved back to the seat she had vacated, settling down beside his son.
Jack had put away the baseball cards and was tossing his ball in the air and catching it.
"Listen, Jackie…"
"Jack," his son corrected, tossing the ball higher.
Peter took a deep breath, then reached for the armrests as the airplane hit a new series of bumps. The fasten seat belt sign flashed on once more. Jack kept tossing his ball.
"You're going to hit a window," Peter warned, testy now.
Jack kept his attention fixed on what he was doing. "Yeah, well, it's probably the only time you'll ever see me play ball."
"How about if when we get to London we watch the tape of the game?"
"Oh, all twenty minutes of it? The part where I strike out and we lose?"
Peter's lips tightened. "I'll give you a few pointers on beating the curve."
There was no answer. Jack threw the baseball higher. It banged off the cabin ceiling. Passengers all about lifted their heads from their magazines and books. The baby was crying harder. Jack started to throw the ball up again, and this time Peter reached out and caught it.
"Stop acting like a child!" he snapped.
Jack snatched the ball back. "I am a child!"
Peter saw the anger in his eyes and visibly sagged. "I'm going to be there next season to see you play-I promise."
His son looked over at him in despair. "Dad-don't make any more promises, okay?"
"Six games, guaranteed!"
"Dad-I said, don't promise!"
"My word is my bond," Peter insisted, and reached up to cross his heart.
Jack looked away. "Sure." The anger in his face was palpable. "A junk bond."
He flung the ball at the ceiling, striking it so hard that the oxygen mask compartment dropped open and a tangle of masks and lines collapsed downward in front of Peter's face. Peter's hands gripped the armrests for dear life, and he closed his eyes tight.
Granny Wendy
Kensington Gardens offered rows of turreted, gabled Tudor homes built of painted boards and stone and brick, their cloistered domains gated and walled, their patchwork lawns drifted with snow, their gardens brilliant with cyclamen and holly. Tree limbs shadowed the homes with spiderweb designs, the trunks from which they branched old and stately columns bracketing the walkways and hedgerows. From out of shadowed alcoves and niches, lights burned like damp fireflies through the late-afternoon mist. Christmas decorations hung brightly from doors and windows and eaves.
Somewhere in the distance, Big Ben chimed the half hour and went still.
The cab pulled into the drive at number 14, and the Banning family, both exhausted and high-strung, piled out. The driver stepped clear and moved around to the trunk to remove their bags, wheezing from a cold he had been fighting for the better part of a month. Jack started to skip toward the front entry of his Great-granny Wendy's home, lank hair damp with moisture, dark eyes bright, but Moira reached out quickly to rein him in. Maggie, her face and hands washed clean now of Magic Marker, tugged at her mother's hand anxiously.
"Mom!" she kept saying. "1 want to see Great-granny Wendy!"
Standing by the front passenger door of the cab, Peter was engrossed in resetting watches. He held his pocket watch, Moira's Rolex, and Maggie's Swatch.
"Just a minute, just a minute," he muttered to no one in particular.
"There you go, sir," the cabbie offered, after carrying the bags to the door. Peter paid him, counting the English money carefully so as not to overtip, and didn't bother to watch him drive away.
"Mom, is Great-granny Wendy really the real Wendy, the Wendy from Peter Pan?" Maggie asked suddenly.
"No," Peter replied wearily. "Not really."
"Yes, sort of," answered Moira at the same instant.
They stared at each other uncomfortably. Then Peter reached out and handed his wife her watch.
"Okay, everybody," he announced briskly, rubbing his hands to generate enthusiasm. "Let's look your best now. First impressions are the most important." He moved to arrange the children in formation behind Moira, Jack first, Maggie second. "Socks pulled up, shirts tucked in, stand up straight. We're in England, the land of good manners."
He marched them the few steps to the door, checked them a final time, and clanked the knocker-a heavy brass affair attached to a metal plate. They waited patiently. Finally the latch clicked, and the door swung open. A white-haired old man stood framed against the light, dressed in trousers and a plaid jacket with numerous pockets, all stuffed to overflowing. His face was slack and expressionless, and his eyes were rheumy. He seemed to look right through them to something beyond.
"Uncle Tootles," Peter greeted softly. "Hello…"
The old man fixed his watery eyes on Peter as if seeing him for the first time and slammed the door.
Jack and Maggie were in stitches, hanging on to each other gleefully.
Peter colored. "Jack, spit out your gum before you laugh."
The door opened a second time, and a sharp-faced, redheaded woman peeked around the edge. Then the door swung open all the way and out bounded a huge, shaggy English sheepdog. The dog went past Peter as if he wasn't there, spinning him around in passing, heading for the children. Peter cried out in warning, but the kids were already embracing the huge beast, hugging it and shouting, "Nana, Nana!"
The pinched face of the woman in the door reappeared- Liza, the Irish maid, laughing and talking a mile a minute. "Miz Moira! Hullo, now! Lookit 'eze adorable l'ttle children! 'Darlings' down to their pins, they are! Welcome home, welcome home!"
Moira enfolded her in a warm hug. "Liza, it's good to see you."
"Ah, Mr. Peter." Liza looked at him almost pityingly. "Poor Uncle Tootles. He's not hisself today-not most days lately." She sighed. "Well, come in, now, come in."
They trooped in out of the weather, out of the gloom of the misted dusk into the bright lights beyond, Liza and Moira leading the way, Jack and Maggie following with Nana. Peter stayed where he was a moment, brushing at the dog hair that had attached itself to his suit pants, feeling slightly out of place for no reason that he could immediately identify. He paused on the threshold to look upward at the old house, up past the rows of windows, most of them dark, to the gabled eaves of the roof. It was a long way up, he thought uneasily-and a long way down. He stood there, unable to take his eyes away, a feeling of vertigo settling in.
Moira reappeared suddenly, took him firmly by the arm, and marched him inside.
The door closed behind them. They stood in the entry way of die old house, looking ahead into the living room, right into the dining room, and left into the study. Polished oak trim gleamed at every turn-from floors, cornices, and mop boards, shelves and cabinets, beams and paneled doors. Pieces of furniture that dated back three centuries crowded one another for space, strange knickknacks and collectings from antique stores and white elephant sales, beautiful and wondrous or ugly and plain, depending on your point of view. Bits of brass and iron glistened in the glow of the Tiffany lamps and the chandeliers. Books lined the shelves, musty and worn and well read. In the study, the lights of a Christmas tree burned cheerfully.