Now I want to talk to you about the lecture "If...
Now I want to talk to you about the
lecture
"If you do a bunk on the lecture, you'll find it
twice as hard to go to the opening-night party-"
I looked at him incredulously"You disagree?"
556
"Do a bunk?" I asked"Do a bunk? What the fuck is
that?"
"To cut and run," he said, sounding slightly
defensiveSee for instance Evelyn
Waugh, Officers and Gentlemen, 1952
"See my ass and your face," I said"Edgar
Freemantle, present day
He flipped me the bird, and just like that we were
mostly okay again
"You sent Pam the pictures, didn't you? You sent
her the JPEG file
"How did she react?"
"She was blown away, muchacho
I cheap chanel jewelry sat silently, trying to imagine Pam blown away
I could do it, but the face I saw lighting up in
surprise and wonder was a younger faceIt had
been quite a few years since I'd been able to
generate that sort of wind
Elizabeth was dozing off, but her hair was flying
against her cheeks and she pawed at them like a
woman troubled by insectsI got up, took an
elastic from the pouch on the arm of her
wheelchair - there was always a good supply of
557
them, in many bright colors - and pulled her hair
back into a horsetailThe memories of doing this
for Melinda and Ilse were sweet and terrible
"So how do I do it?" I askedI was hermes birkin 35cm holding my
palm on the side of Elizabeth's head, feeling the
smoothness of her hair as I had often felt the
smoothness of my daughters' after it had been
shampooed; when memory takes its strongest hold,
our own bodies become ghosts, haunting us with the
gestures of our younger selves"How do I talk
about a process that's at least partially
supernatural?"
ThereThe root of the matter
Yet Wireman looked calm"Edgar!" he exclaimed
"Edgar what?"
The sonofabitch actually laughed"If you tell
them thatthey will believe you
I opened my mouth to refute thisThought of
Dalí's workThought of that wonderful Van Gogh
picture, gucci bag black Starry NightThought of certain Andrew
Wyeth paintings - not Christina's World but his
interiors: spare rooms where the light is both
558
sane and strange, as if coming from two directions
at the same timeI closed my mouth again
"I can't tell you just what to say," Wireman said,
"but I can give you something like this He held
up the brochure/invitation"I can give you a
template
iv
"Hello?"
I was sitting on the couch in the Florida roomMy
heart was beating heavilyThis was one of those
calls - everyone's made a few - where you
simultaneously hope it will go through the first
time, so you can get it over with, and hope gucci laptop bags it
won't, so you can put off some hard and probably
painful conversation a little while longer
I got Option One; Pam answered on the first ring
All I could hope was this conversation would go
better than the last oneThan the last couple, in
fact
559
"Pam, it's Edgar
"Hello, Edgar," she said cautiously"How are
you?"
"I'mI've been talking with my
friend WiremanHe showed me the invitation the
two of you worked up The two of you worked up
That sounded unfriendlyBut
what other way was there to put it?
"Yes?" Her voice was impossible to read
I drew in a breath and jumpedGod hates a coward,
Wireman says"I called to chloe bags paddington say
thank