Chapter 31
The sirens, the police, the breaking glass and shrieking, the people running through the streets, the chaos – it was not, it turned out, just another night in the East Village. Martin Luther King had been shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee, walking through his hotel’s parking lot.
Spring turned into summer, a hot, still, heavy summer when the only release was violent thunderstorms that cleared the air for a matter of minutes before the tension started to build again.
But that was what it was like, that summer: everything felt like it was lurching out of control. And still Tom didn’t leave.
He knew Alice wanted to help him find Teddy. He knew something was wrong. A week after their kiss, she had come to him, and said awkwardly, standing in the doorway of his and Ginger’s room:
‘Teddy’s still away. She hasn’t come back yet. She’s not feeling well. I’ve told her a friend from England wants to see her. When she’s back, she’ll ask to see you. I’m sure.’
‘Okay,’ he’d said. He didn’t know why she was lying, but he knew she was lying. What could he do, though? ‘Thanks, Alice.’
‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘Hey – Tom?’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
And so, he stayed.
About seven weeks after he’d arrived, early one May morning, Tom sat on his bed, the sofa by the window, looking out on to St Mark’s Place, eating cereal, often the only food in the house.
He was sketching the view, taking notes on different buildings – one of his favourite things was to walk round the city, drawing Manhattan fire stations, subway entrances, banks, churches, apartment blocks, all of which were utterly different from buildings put to the same uses in London.
The light was clean and golden; there was hope in the air, the scent of pot momentarily cleared out in the fresh night breeze.
On the side table he had a little package for Alice.
He had wrapped up Edward’s little wooden house in tissue paper and he was going to give it to her.
The final treasure, a link between his family and hers.
He hoped in some way that, if she had it, it would – what?
Make something better for her? Square the circle?
He didn’t know quite what it would do, only that he felt it was the right thing to do. He wasn’t sure what he’d say to her.
Leave him, he’s an idiot. Here’s a present. Aggressive.
Hey, Alice! Shall we see Pillow Talk? It’s playing at the 8th Street Playhouse! By the way … I got you something! Too eager.
Alice, can I smell your hair? Creepy.
Have this wooden house carved by my father to replace the present your father should have given you. I don’t know why you won’t telephone my mother for me, but that’s fine, I think I’m falling for you. Any comments? Far too intense. Proposing-to-Celia levels of intense.
‘Tom! Hey!’
Alice burst in through the open kitchen window, holding a large metal meat fork, sending the little package to the ground. Tom bent down, putting it by his side so she couldn’t see it. ‘Hey!’ He held out his pencil absurdly.
She was giggling loudly. ‘Shh!’ She put her fingers up to her mouth, all of them, and slowly walked over to the alcove by the window, flattening herself inside. ‘He’s coming. Don’t tell him, okay?’ Her eyes were shining. ‘It’s a surprise.’
‘Sure – who’s coming?’
‘Jack. Jack’s coming.’
‘Who’s Jack?’
‘He’s a warlock,’ she said seriously. ‘He follows me around.’ She licked her lips, shining eyes fixed on him.
‘Alice,’ said Tom. ‘Have you taken … something?’
‘It’s the edge of the dimension,’ Alice said.
What was scary was she sounded completely normal.
‘I can see you, and a thousand lights behind you. A thousand and one.’ She pointed.
‘You are on the river. You can walk. I can see her; she’s with you.
Lovely Tom.’ She came towards him and ruffled his hair.
‘Do you know you’re the tidiest person I’ve ever met? Is your father dead?’
‘No, he’s not dead,’ said Tom. He handed her his glass of water. ‘You thirsty?’
‘Mine’s dead. I saw a deer before he died. I drank already, thank you. I drank at the Tree of Life.’
‘Oh, God,’ said Tom. Then he said, ‘Of course you did.’
She peeked out of the window, staring up at the pavement. ‘I don’t see him. The warlock. Jack. He is the master.’
‘Don’t worry, he’ll be here,’ said Tom. He had seen people on acid before. There was nothing to be done to shake them out of it. If they were having a good trip, if they were digging it, who was he to interfere?
The door suddenly banged open behind him, making them both jump, and Merlin walked in.
‘Hey,’ he said, blinking hard. ‘Hey, Allie. I didn’t know you were back. When did you get in?’
‘She came through the window,’ said Tom. Merlin nodded, his blank eyes staring at Alice.
‘You’re a warlock,’ she told him. ‘The Cemetery Suppers, I saw you. I’d see Teddy, and now I’ll see you. You’re dead.’
‘No, honey,’ said Merlin patiently. He took her hand and patted it.
Tom said to Merlin, ‘Has she taken a tab before?’
‘It helps her sleep. It helps her think. She had a rough time before.’ Merlin patted her hand again. ‘We both did. But sometimes she’s so far out I can’t get to her. Allie, shall we go get some rest?’
‘Elephants and black birds and cats and dogs and bears,’ said Alice. ‘All of ’em, on my shelf.’
Merlin nodded, disinterested, and flicked out a piece of dirt from one of his long nails.
‘She and her dad were real close. She was there when he killed himself, you know. Flattened by a train. Day before her sixteenth birthday. She can’t remember it.
None of it. He was a nice guy, but he owed money everywhere. My father said he was a lost cause.’
Tom glanced at Alice, singing ‘Happy Birthday’ softly to herself. He put his head in his hands. His heart ached for her.
‘He never gave her her last birthday present,’ said Merlin, staring at his fleshy, exposed finger under the nail. ‘She’s still looking for it. When she’s tripping, she’s okay, you see. It makes it go away. Where we’re from, it’s too much about the dead. About the dead.’
Alice was nodding, tears running down her cheeks. She tried to climb out of the window. Merlin pulled her back gently. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Hey, Alice, not that way. Let’s go for a walk.’
‘I want to stay here, Jack.’ She was blinking, like something was getting through.
‘Okay, Allie.’
She nodded. ‘I don’t like the world. I wish it was just us. Just us. Just us.’
‘I know,’ said Merlin, and he kissed her, and she whispered in his ear again, and Tom searched her face but it was as though she’d been taken over by someone else, like the terrifying horror comics he and Johnny used to get from the man with round glasses and a beard in military uniform on Portobello Road.
‘Just us,’ he said to her. Tom could not get over how empty Merlin was. His eyes were utterly vacant.
Tom watched them both, then, shifting a little, found the sharp corners of the little wooden house were digging into his thigh. He hid it in its wrapping in his pocket, very glad he hadn’t given it to her.
Nevertheless it was with surprise that, a week later, right before the Memorial Day holiday, Tom found himself at City Hall as a witness to the wedding of Alice Mary Jansen and John Wilbur Maynard III, the Witch and the Warlock.
‘It’s legal, so we can start claiming welfare,’ Merlin said, as a couple of his friends stood there, rigidly unamused at being pulled into a ceremony orchestrated by The Man. ‘It’s playing the system. It’s cool.’
‘It is,’ said Alice, in a twenties lace tea dress. Tom could see how thrilled she was, how she clung on to her new husband like she couldn’t believe it, staring at him with starry, starry eyes and flushed cheeks.
What on earth were you thinking, he wanted to say, and then he remembered her voice as she’d said, I feel safe with him. All the time.
As they kissed on the steps, Ginger, in a sari and silver thong sandals, threw flowers she’d picked from a square near City Hall, and assorted guys in kaftans and long hair stood around saying, ‘Cool.’
‘Hey, honey,’ Ginger said to Tom. ‘You coming with us, get something to eat?’
Tom shook his head. He raised his hand to the happy couple, and walked away. It hurt so much he could hardly breathe.
Bobby Kennedy, at the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr that April, had quoted Aeschylus:
Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.
Hey Dolo
Dolo, everything is a little crazy and I don’t know if it’s because of the last tab I took. I don’t sleep. I keep having dreams – you’re not in them, but it would be neat if you were, because then I’d see you.
I married Jack. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but until the day before I wasn’t sure I was going to go through with it.
I’m not sure why we did it. I know that I love him and it’s what I’ve always wanted.
But everything is messed up, Dolo. I thought going to the city would help and it doesn’t, it doesn’t.
I lied again to Tom, the guy who is looking for Teddy.
I told him another huge lie and said I’d phone and get her to agree to see him when she’s back from a long trip.
I want to help him, but I want to help her.
I don’t want her to have to deal with anything; she needs to be kept safe.
I don’t want him to find out what’s happened to her, because he – well, it’s complicated, Dolo, it would hurt him a lot if he saw her.
I said I would phone her. I haven’t phoned her.
That was weeks ago. I wake up every morning and the pot or the tabs or whatever aren’t doing it any more – I can’t get that vibe back.
I want Teddy to be okay. I want Tom to be okay.
I am the one in the way. I don’t know what to do and I miss you so much.
Allie xxxxxxxxx