Chapter 51 Michael
Michael
“Linda’s your niece?” Bingley asks in a voice that’s far too loud for the standards of the Oxford and Cambridge Club. We’re sitting in one of the lounges at the bar, waiting for our annual reunion dinner.
I’ve been back in London for ten days, but I’ve been waiting for him to come back so I could talk to him.
“They can hear you all the way to Trafalgar Square,” I say. I told him what happened with Elisa, what I discovered, and how it ended, all accompanied by massive doses of alcohol, not least the glass of Glenmorangie in my hand.
“Sorry, but it’s upsetting.”
“How do you think I feel, Bing?”
“So, you cut all ties, just like that?”
“With whom have you cut ties?” asks Ashford, the first of our former classmates to arrive and sit on the free sofa.
“A childhood friend he was in love with but then discovered that she had a daughter with his brother,” explains Bingley.
“Someone had a child with her brother?” asks Harring, throwing himself into the armchair next to me, his legs on the armrest. “Incest . . . that’s a little iffy. Keep talking.”
“No, you idiot.” My friend immediately stops him. “Not her brother, Michael’s brother. George!”
“What did George do?” asks Sebastian, the last of the quintet to arrive. Duke stood us up—it’s his wife’s birthday.
I bristle. “I’m going to say this once, so listen carefully: I went to Tuscany with Bingley to evaluate the estate he inherited from his great-uncle so he could sell it to one of my clients. I saw a childhood friend there.”
“Elisa,” specifies Bingley.
“I discovered that she’d had a daughter when she was seventeen; the girl is now thirteen.”
“Her name is Linda,” Bing interjects.
“Something started happening between Elisa and me.”
“They fell in love,” my friend adds again.
“Oh, and is it quite finished now?”
“Sorry, but you’re not being clear.”
“In short, we had a fight, and it came out that George is Linda’s father, and he didn’t want her. Is everything clear now?”
“Incredible, your brother manages to make trouble even when he’s dead,” Sebastian observes.
“Well, he got her pregnant when he was alive,” observes Harring.
“Sorry, can you explain how someone like you managed to graduate?” Sebastian protests.
“I let him copy my work. Sorry, it’s my fault,” Ashford interjects.
“Okay, so how did it end between you and Elisa?”
“It ended and that’s that,” I say, downing my whiskey in one gulp.
“He’s cross with Elisa because she never told him he had a niece. Elisa is cross with Michael because he wants her to come live in London,” continues Bingley, my self-appointed spokesperson.
“And what’s so wrong with that?” asks Sebastian.
“She wants to stay in Tuscany and make Chianti,” I explain.
“Ah, I missed that part,” comments Seb. “You want to take an Italian who’s used to working outdoors and lock her up in an apartment in Mayfair to sip tea?”
“No, well . . . there are a lot of things Elisa could do here,” I reply.
“Ah yes, between Oxford Street and Piccadilly, there’s nothing but vineyards,” Ashford says sarcastically.
“In any case, I don’t think I can be with someone who hid the existence of a niece from me for all this time.”
“Allow me to offer my humble opinion, since I’m the only one here who knows Elisa,” says Bingley.
“She is someone who wouldn’t even ask for help if she were chained to the tracks with a two-hundred-ton freight train speeding toward her.
I think she was afraid of making herself look like a money-sucker and would have rather gone to work in the mines.
Plus I’d venture she’s not particularly proud of having given in to your brother’s advances. ”
“We all knew George. He was a creep, a manipulator, and a narcissist,” says Seb without fear of offending the memory of the dead. “He probably promised her the world, and she fell for it. Too bad he didn’t become an actor. Such a waste of talent.”
“Listen,” Ashford says, leaning forward.
“Don’t focus on the details. Look at the bigger picture.
Study a Monet painting up close and it’s awful.
But from afar, it’s a masterpiece. I was in a situation similar to yours with my wife.
If I’d taken it personally instead of understanding the reason behind her choice, we’d be divorced now, as opposed to having a child and a corgi breeding farm. ”
“It’s thanks to me you guys got back together,” comments Harring.
“That may well be, but Mr. Proudass over there will never bring himself to forgive her,” Bingley replies, pointing to me. “Nor to apologize for assuming Elisa would give up her life for one she didn’t remotely care about.”
“Forgive me if I’m so old-fashioned I want to give my partner a life of ease and comfort instead of letting her kill herself on the farm,” I object.
“Patience, friends,” Bingley interjects in a patronizing tone. “Michael has never understood a thing about women.”
“Oh, so you’re all professors now!” I say, taking my aim. “You, Bingley, fall in love with every woman who crosses your path.”
“Yeah, you’re a lost cause, Charles,” Sebastian echoes.
“And you, Seb, realized you loved someone else when you were one step away from the altar, while you, Ash, married someone you barely knew. We shouldn’t speak badly of those who are absent, but even Duke is no champion of discernment, given that he was helping who is now his wife get together with her former best friend.
” There you are. I have something for everyone.
“What about me?” asks Harring, feeling excluded from my blacklist.
“You’re practically a primate,” I dismiss him.
“A prime mate. Thanks, friend,” he replies cheerfully.
“He said primate, not prime mate, idiot!” explains Sebastian.
“Until very recently, you were all human enough to have a cry on my shoulder, so don’t try to lecture me now as though I have something to learn from you.”
“You may be right, but you need to hear one last thing, Michael.” Ashford and Sebastian look at me as if they’ve arrived to the same conclusion. “Women do whatever the fuck they want.”