Henry henry, p.25
Henry Henry, page 25
“Yes,” he said, “I’ll see you in the morning. Don’t be clever and say it is the morning: that’s the oldest one in the book. Just go.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Thirty years ago, fifty years ago, a hundred, two hundred, three hundred years ago, in spring and in winter, in fine weather and wet, contented or thwarted or hateful or in love, other people slept and woke in this room. In thirty years, in three hundred years, who knew who would be here, or whether here would be here at all? It was Hal’s turn now. He bathed and shaved and applied cologne, then put on his morning suit and the shoes he hadn’t had polished. His waistcoat was pale pink, his tie yellow gold, the lining of his tailcoat a saturated blue that caught the eye when exposed. He got his top hat out of its box, then thought, No, fuck that, absolutely not. He pomaded his hair and parted it to the side and combed his fringe out of his face, and left his head bare.
At eight o’clock, two hours before the Mass began, the children walked over to the chapel, where Father Price heard their confessions. The adults had confessed the evening before, but the children, knowing they would be bad right up until the last minute, had insisted on doing it in the morning. They went in reverse order of birth. Humphrey took the longest, and Hal wondered how many sins his little brother Humphrey could have possibly committed. As Tom exited the chapel, he waved Hal in, saying, “He’s all yours,” and Hal went in and told the truth.
◆
Mary had shown Hal her wedding photos when he was five or six, learning for the first time about the things that happened in the world. He didn’t look at them again until he was fifteen or sixteen and missing her. She and Henry looked so young, he thought, like teenagers at a debutante ball, like children playacting bride and groom. Her dress was so enormous that you couldn’t be quite sure she had a body: she was just a beaming pink face pinned into the center of a monumental sculpture of white silk. Richard was in the pictures too, drinking Champagne, smoking cigarettes with gold filters.
At Monmouth that winter, Hal had looked again and found Jeanne in the background of two shots from the reception. She seemed too attractive and fashionable, too cosmopolitan, to be a guest at an English Catholic wedding, so seemed, in her obvious superiority, to be committing a deliberate infraction. In one picture, she was barely visible over Edward Langley’s shoulder. In the other, she was standing some ways behind Henry, and another man was talking to her while she looked at the back of Henry’s head. She looked at Henry the same way as her father walked her down the aisle. Again she was so beautiful that she seemed to be wrong for it. Henry had had a new suit made, but he looked just like he had when he’d married Hal’s mother, when he couldn’t have guessed what sort of a man he would be, and would have said, if you’d told him, “I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, I won’t.”
Together they knelt at the altar, and Father Price, in his green and gold vestments, assisted by a crane-like acolyte, performed the sacrament of matrimony. “I, Henry Lionel St. Michael …” (What a name! Hal was only Henry John Edward.) “I, Jeanne Marie Dolores …” Saying their full names, they seemed to be making their promises on behalf of someone else. Father Price regarded Hal for a long second, as if he thought Hal might stand up and put an end to it. O ye of little faith, thought Hal. You’re a priest: you know what kind of secrets people keep. He said nothing until the Mass began and the witnesses repeated, “Kyrie, eleison, Christe, eleison, Christe, eleison, Kyrie, eleison.”
Hal felt nothing. He didn’t even feel hollow. He knelt at the rail and opened his mouth and Father Price placed the Host on his tongue. Christ’s body dissolved into Hal’s spit. In Latin, Father Price said, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
And Hal, and the others begotten of Henry, and Henry’s second wife, and all the rest of the witnesses, who were here because they believed in grace and redemption, life everlasting, the world without end, said together, “Thanks be to God.” Hal said it like someone politely accepting a terrible gift: Thank you, but I didn’t ask for this. I don’t want it. Will you take it back? If you really loved me, you would have given me something else.
Pictures were taken outside the chapel by a fashion photographer who had known Jeanne since she was fifteen. Philippa tried to avoid being photographed entirely, and the photographer said, “No, don’t hide, you’re very beautiful, an English rose,” which distressed her so much that she said she felt ill and went back to the house. Presently she texted Hal, “There is a MAN here for you.”
On the lawn in the rear of the house there was the marquee of all marquees, with a glass-paneled ceiling and faux-hardwood floors and arrangements of flowers attached to each supporting pole. Chiffon curtains were tied back to reveal three long tables cut down the center by white-rose garlands, shrouded in tablecloths that floated in and out with the breeze. The cobbled yard between the stable block and the house had filled with cars; in the distance another car made its way over the bridge. Seeing no Percys among the guests on the lawn, Hal started down the path to the car park and was met by Jack Falstaff, sweaty and pink, wearing a bottle-green velvet blazer and a pair of embroidered velvet loafers that Hal had known him to wear while taking out the rubbish.
Jack appeared to expect Hal to be happy to see him. He said, “I haven’t come too late?”
“Did someone ask you to come?”
“I invited myself. Don’t worry, I’ll sing for my supper. I combed my hair—did you notice? Took a train, two buses, and a cab. Roused myself at five in the morning, hungover! See what sacrifices I’ve made for you. You do look good in the morning suit.”
Over Jack’s shoulder, Hal saw the Percys coming up the path from the car park. Hal said, “You’ve got to go, Jack. Is the cab still here?” He got his wallet out of his pocket, took out the £200 or so he had in banknotes, and thrust them toward Jack, saying, “Here, this is more than enough to get back to London. You can get a first-class ticket. Or a coach ticket and enough beer to keep you from delirium tremens.”
The Percys could have walked around the obstruction, but they stopped. Maybe they thought they had to keep off the grass. Percy’s stepmother and sister hung back, and the men approached as if they were the first colonists of the savage outer reaches of the empire, protecting their womenfolk from a predatory animal or native, which probably was how they thought of being in Wales. Hal might have convinced Mr. Percy to boot Jack out if his wife hadn’t said, “I don’t mean to be rude—I know celebrities don’t like it when you do this sort of thing—but I can’t help it, I’m sorry: Aren’t you Jack Falstaff?”
“My dear,” said Jack. “I haven’t been recognized in so long I thought I’d finally become unrecognizable.”
“I should think I ought to recognize you. All my friends at school had pictures of you in their notebooks. I stole a Tiger Squadron poster from the cinema. I scribbled out the girl’s face and put a lipstick print on yours.”
“You know he’s gay,” said Hal.
Mrs. Percy said, “I’m not surprised! The only two straight men I’ve ever fallen for, I’ve married.” She said, “Pamela,” and held her hand out to shake, and Jack, savoring his own humility, said, “Jack.”
Hal said, “You don’t know him. He’s the worst guest you could have. He’ll finish other people’s drinks, and make up stories about himself, and try to get a leg over any man under twenty-nine, and then fall asleep. I tried to tell him he wasn’t invited, but he didn’t take the hint, or he did and he thought he’d try it on anyway. It’s my fault, I’ve let him do it to me for years. I don’t think there was a single night we’ve spent together that I didn’t pick up the tab.”
Jack said, “I never work for free.”
“I’d bet everything I own that you’ve rung all your enemies and told them you were going to this wedding.”
“You don’t really own anything,” said Jack. “Or have I misunderstood what you’ve been complaining about, all this time?”
If Hal had met Jack alone, Jack would have gone away. He always did what Hal wanted, in the end. But the Percys had it in their mind that whatever Hal wanted must be the opposite of what was right, and this was a conviction so strong that it overcame their upper-class tribalism. They circled around Jack, they turned their shoulders to Hal, threatening to turn their backs on him altogether. Mr. Percy called out across the lawn: “Henry! Come here!”
Jack shook Henry’s hand, congratulated him on the happy occasion, and introduced himself as a good friend of Hal’s, explaining that he was terribly sorry for the mix-up, dreadfully ashamed, but he had been under the impression that Hal had extended him an invitation.
Henry said, “A friend of Harry’s! Well then you must stay. Harry never lets me meet any of his friends. He doesn’t even tell me about them. I’ve no idea what he gets up to in London. Perhaps you’ll tell me.”
◆
M. Valois’s toast was blessedly brief and anodyne. Hal took the opportunity to drain his glass of Blanc de Blancs and get a refill, murmuring to the waiter, “Just fill it up all the way, thanks.”
When Henry stood, he was silent for so long that people started to get nervous. The nervousness didn’t subside when he started to speak. He said, “Most of you have known me for a very long time. Most of you were there for my first wedding, which remains one of the happiest days of my life. In fact, Jeanne was there, though I’m afraid she was so beautiful that I took pains to avoid her.” The guests duly laughed. “After Mary’s death,” he went on, forcing everyone to look solemn again, “I felt quite certain I wouldn’t remarry. But two years ago, Jeanne and I met again, quite by accident, and I began to think differently. Now I’m very happy I did, and extraordinarily happy that Jeanne would have me. To be here, today, with you, is a greater gift than I could have envisioned, or asked for, and one for which I thank God, and thank you all, for coming to celebrate with us.”
When Henry sat down, Jeanne put her hand over his. For a second, before welcoming it, Henry seemed to resent the touch.
From the far end of the table, Jack called out, “Why doesn’t Hal make a toast?”
Hal tried to refuse, and everyone took it as the false modesty of someone so egotistical he insisted on making it seem that he was grudgingly fulfilling others’ desires when in truth he was fulfilling his own. Now if he didn’t, it would seem like he was trying to punish them all for not demanding his contribution effusively enough. He stood and raised his glass.
Looking at everyone looking at him, Hal felt he had finally run out of lies. He had used them all up on frivolous things, and now that he really needed to say something untrue, he could only think of the true things he couldn’t say. You would hate my father if you knew him like I know him. You wouldn’t be able to look at him if you had seen him like I’ve seen him. I know him, I know him better than anyone else in the world, I know him better than he knows himself, I know him better than I know myself. I don’t even know if I have a “myself.” Maybe I’m just my father, and he’s just his father, and on and on, all the way back to Adam, so no one has ever really died, and no one has ever really lived.
“Come on,” said Jack, “I know you haven’t got stage fright. Give us a show.”
Hal gave the best performance of himself he could muster. He told the story about how he’d missed the dinner at which Henry and Jeanne had announced their engagement, and his phone was off for so long that eventually John had to break into his flat to tell him the news. He said that as the eldest of the children he knew more than any of them how difficult it had been for Henry when Mary died, and how hard he had worked to give them a happy childhood regardless, and how wonderful it was to know that he had, now, a helpmate in Jeanne, who had been so kind to them all. He said that he was honored to be here, with them, celebrating the beginning of a long and happy marriage, the first day of the second spring of his father’s life.
The first course was a cold pea soup, which, under the direction of Jeanne’s French chef, turned out delicate and refreshing, with sprigs of mint and fresh creamy chèvre. Hal excused himself and went back to the house, into the tiny, low-ceilinged toilet on the ground floor near the kitchen. He splashed water on his face and tried to avoid looking in the mirror over the sink.
There was a knock at the door and Hal said, “Just a minute,” and Percy said, “It’s me.” Hal considered telling him to fuck off, then let him in.
“I’m fine,” said Hal, “I just needed a minute. I’m not taking cocaine.”
“That’s not why I’m here. I just wanted to, you know …”
Hal did look at himself in the mirror then. He noticed another pellet coming close to the surface of his skin. He said, “Was the mask slipping?”
“No, no, I mean … Well, that’s the thing. You’re always disingenuous, I didn’t think it would be that weird to see you actually faking it.”
“It couldn’t have been that good, if you could tell.”
“I know you better than you think.”
Hal smiled at Percy, a little disdainfully, a little lovingly. He said, “Move, so I can open the door.”
As they were walking back, Percy stopped and tugged at Hal’s arm and said, “Let me kiss you,” and Hal said, “No, not here.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
The main course was rack of lamb, roasted in herbs after the fat had been trimmed to expose the bones, which were dried and blackened by the heat. Each plate was arranged so that one pair of ribs was interlaced with another, like the fingers of two hands. A line of bone ran from one end of the table to the other, from Henry to Jack, who exclaimed that he hadn’t seen anything like it since a dinner at the French ambassador’s residence in 1998. M. Valois asked his wife, in French, if she could remember who had been the ambassador to the UK in ’98, and she said something like, “Who knows? If I met him and liked him, I would remember him. I’ve never known a politician to give a really good dinner, but I suppose an Englishman can’t tell the difference.”
Laughing, M. Valois said something like, “Don’t antagonize them, darling, we’re stuck with them now.”
Henry had been distracted by the Woodstocks, but Jeanne, staring down at the lamb on her plate, made a series of aggrieved expressions that she realized too late Hal was observing. Politely he looked to the other end of the table, where Jack was regaling Mrs. Percy with the story of his almostmarriage to the actress whose face she had scribbled out. Hal couldn’t hear anybody else that far down the table, but Jack projected.
By the time pudding was served, Philippa was silly drunk, Freshers Week drunk, eighteenth-birthday drunk. She had knocked over a glass of Bordeaux, soaking the tablecloth and spotting her pale pink dress with red. Blanche took her into the house to apply hydrogen peroxide, and while they were gone Henry instructed the waiters to cut Philippa off. Discovering her wine replaced with water, like a cruel inversion of the wedding at Cana, she said, “I should be allowed to get drunk at my own father’s wedding.”
“You just did,” said Humphrey. “But you’re not allowed to puke or pass out.”
Philippa wasn’t the only one. Eleanor Woodstock had been drinking since the first bottle of Champagne had been opened, and had eaten only a couple of bites of each course. While Philippa had become boisterous, Eleanor had withdrawn, and sat with her hands folded in her lap, her eyes unfocused. Between lunch and the evening party, there were a few long hours of leisurely socializing, and Hal, having lost track of Percy, went upstairs to see if he was in his room. Instead he heard Eleanor in the room next to Percy’s, crying. The door was ajar, not enough for Hal to peek in, just enough to let the sound out.
“You’ve had a year to get used to it,” Thomas was telling her. “He’s done it as decently as he possibly could. He’s waited for fifteen years, which is really longer than the children should have gone without a mother. Look at Philippa—surely all that could have been avoided.”
“You don’t have to justify it. I don’t disapprove at all. It’s all perfectly suitable. I’m perfectly happy.”
“Then buck up.”
“But I miss her,” said Eleanor.
On his way back downstairs, Hal stopped by Philippa’s room. He knocked and announced himself, and she shouted at him to come in. It was incredible how much of a mess she’d made in just two days: her suitcase lay unzipped in the middle of the floor, and the wardrobe doors were flung wide open, while the clothes that should have been located in these receptacles were strewn instead over all the furniture whose purpose was not to store clothes. An iridescent plastic case sat open on the stool in front of her dressing table, spilling out brushes and compacts and pencils and palettes, and the mirror was covered in various shades of lipstick kisses. She lay in her dress on her unmade bed, awake and scrolling on her phone, pulling one earbud out in acknowledgment of Hal’s presence.
“Just wanted to see if you had everything you needed,” Hal said. “Have you got paracetamol?”
“Blanche gave me some. Don’t tell me to drink water, I am.” She gestured to the glass on her bedside table, sweating condensation onto an issue of L’Officiel with another thin blond girl on the cover.
“Fine, then I won’t bother you.”
But when he went to open the door, she took her other earbud out and said, “No, wait.”
“What?”
She said, “What did Dad want, this morning, when he was in your room?”
“I don’t know.” He sat on the edge of her bed; she shifted to make room for him. “Look, Philippa. I can’t promise I’ll never do anything unkind, because I’ve been so unkind to you before. But whatever you tell me, I’ll never tell anyone else.”
“I’ll never tell anyone else what you tell me either. May God strike me down if I do.” Still lying down, she made the sign of the cross.
“You see—um. What should I say … I think—well, no. I know our father hasn’t been—I know he’s been unkind to you, as I have been …”
