Chapter 4
They lay together; the bed was really big enough for them not to touch each other unless they wanted to.
Julia could not get comfortable. She would roll and roll and try to rearrange the pillows and the blankets, and every two minutes she would apologize for disturbing Mason. Finally he had to tell her, gently, that her apologies disturbed him more than her restless movement. She mumbled she was sorry, again, and a quarter of an hour passed in silence.
“Shall I massage your back?” said Mason suddenly.
“I do have a backache – but Mason—”
“It’s ok. I want to do it.” He rubbed the upper part of Julia’s back and her shoulders with his hot palms.
“Thank you,” she whispered. After this short massage, she laid her head on his shoulder, and soon her breathing got even; she was asleep in his arms.
Now Mason could, once again, plan his actions concerning the mysterious Elena Nicholas. What was his mother about, he wondered. He was vexed to admit he never knew that. When he was a captive he heard the Indian and others refer to their boss as ‘she’, so there was a chance Elena was involved. Was his mother endangered because of her contacts with Elena? Someone had tried to hurt Eden, Kelly and himself; he was sure there had been no harm done to Pamela yet.
Anyway, he thought, he was her grown-up son, and it was his duty to find out if she was in danger, and prevent it.
At this, Mason fell asleep, too.
Of course there was no immediate miracle. The nightmares had not gone away; this night, just like any other, he had to suffocate in a room full of smoke, to spit into the Indian’s smirking mug – how well he remembered every feature! – to be dying of thirst, and burns, and heartache, and to wriggle in helpless humiliation… At a certain moment, as always, the horror and the pain came out in a groan.
He had not quite woken up yet when he felt the cool hand on his brow. “It’s okay; everything’s all right,” he heard an affectionate voice. “You’re safe, you’re home, everything’s fine.”
He was still half-asleep, and for a shortest moment he turned into a five-year-old that cried in his lonely bed. “Mummy?” he said with hope.
There was a pause, and he realized it could not be mummy with him; she had left him never to come back. A sob was forming in his throat.
“Mason,” the voice said, “I’m not your mother; but everything’s all right, you’re safe. I’ll stay with you.”
‘Julia,’ he thought with sudden, unexpectedly immense relief. This was Julia, and she was sure to stay with him. Pamela was alive; but this was Julia; thank God. He smiled and sighed, letting the sob out like this, and caught her hand without opening his eyes. “Stay with me,” he pleaded.
“Of course I will.”
He was fast asleep again, and this time he was standing in a kind of cellar together with Pamela. He was quite grown-up, in his suit and his tie and everything, and the Pamela he was looking at seemed a stranger to him; not at all the mummy he was longing for. Why had she come back? Why had she let him believe she had committed suicide? Why on earth was she doing what she was doing; he never knew.
“Mother,” he was saying, “tell me. What is this Elena to you?”
“Elena?” Pamela pretended not to understand him.
“You know, Elena Nicholas.”
No answer.
“Is Dr Nicholas your lover?”
“No; he’s my old friend; how could you say anything as preposterous—and think so of your OWN mother--”
“Mother,” he was saying patiently, “you’re a grown-up woman, divorced and widowed, you can have a lover, and of course it’s no business of mine; just tell me what this Elena is to you; does she blackmail you or what?”
“Mason you know I’ve always loved you and never wanted to go away—so there’s no need to torture your own mother like this--”
It was the same old story. She would not listen – she did not hear him.
It was long and hopeless, but, thank God, this was not a nightmare.
Mason woke up with the first rays of sun and lay for a while, thinking.
Soon Julia stirred, too.
“Good morning,” he said. “Sorry, I had a nightmare again.”
“I know. You thought I was your mother.”
“I know whose mother you are,” he smiled, gently touching Julia’s belly. She smiled, too.
“What have you been thinking of?” she asked. “Your face was so grave.”
Mason did not want to answer, and he did not want to be rude, either. “Remembering some poetry. John Donne,” he said.
“Poetry.”
“U-huh.”
“Tell me.”
“Hope not for mind in women; at their best,
Sweetness and wit they are…” Mason quoted, looking at Julia with laughter hidden in the darkness of his eyes.
She interrupted, immediately filled with indignation, “HOW dare you quote this to a woman who--”
He loved this game. “It’s not of you I was thinking,” he ‘amended’ quickly.
“No?” Julia said with more threat in her voice.
“No. I was thinking of--” he couldn’t help smiling. “Another woman.”
“You were lying here with me in your arms, and thinking of another woman?” Julia specified.
“Yeah…”
At this, he got a good kick. And then a pillow almost landed on his head – but he dodged it. “You’re in the habit of making scenes about THIS woman,” he explained.
“Who?” said Julia, breathless. She was standing on the bed on her knees, looking down at Mason who was still lying.
“Mother.”
“Oh. And pray tell, why don’t you hope for mind in your mother?”
After the jealousy was charmed, in Julia there raised her head the feminist. It never ceased amusing Mason.
“Because,” he said seizing her wrists. “Just because what Donne formulated is a general rule I know only one exception to, and this is my sweetest fiancée.
For she’s not forward, but modest as the dove;
She is not hot, but temperate as the morn;
For patience she will prove a second Grissel…”
“Have no idea who that Grissel is,” Julia grumbled. “I hope THIS is not your stupid Donne but decent Shakespeare?”
Mason laughed. “Right. Now kiss me, Kate!”
And she did; wondering to herself what’d come over Mason, but blessing it nevertheless.
Chapter 5
Mason got drunk later on the same day.
He had done all he had to, both in the office and in court. He had given his detectives exhaustive instructions concerning Elena Nicholas, her past and present. He had found Pearl and suggested that he describe the Indian to an artist, so that they’d have the portrait of his kidnapper; and this had been done. And it was known that he had been to Pamela’s. After this, Mason stayed at Johnny’s and got drunk.
Sophia wanted to talk to Brick and to see Johnny; CC accompanied her to the café. And while his wife was busy with her son, he noticed his.
CC shook his head. On the one hand, it was only too predictable, he told himself; Mason had been through such an ordeal. On the other hand – he was CC’s son, why should he have been such a weakling? Quickly, CC crossed the hall and sat at Mason’s table.
“Good night, son,” he said grimly.
Mason’s eyes flashed with what CC thought to be malicious joy. It was so good to have your invariable opponent, if not enemy, come at such a suitable moment, when your mind was balancing between the desirable darkness of oblivion and the merciless light of reality. Who better to lash out at then if not the one you’d been blaming all your failures on, your whole life?
“Hi dad,” Mason said hoarsely. “Came to gloat? To say you knew as much?”
CC shook his head again. “No Mason.”
“You know dad, at first I thought they were holding me to ransom,” Mason intimated. “I already bid farewell to my miserable existence…”
“Why would you say so?”
“Because I knew you’d hardly stir a finger – let alone spend a cent – on your loser of a son.”
“Now, this is uncalled-for,” CC said, trying hard to keep his temper in check. “You are my son--”
“Has this ever meant anything to you? I don’t recall such times.” Mason paused, looking at CC through an empty glass, using it like a telescope. “Dad,” he added then, sarcastically.
“Son.” CC leant across the table and lowered his voice. “What are you doing with your life?”
“Nothing new. Don’t act as if you cared, dad; it doesn’t become you.”
Why was he ever so relentless, thought CC with overwhelming bitterness. How much time was wasted on hate. And how easy it was for Mason now to turn down anything his father would say.
Still, he tried again. “Mason, you have Julia waiting for you. She must be worried. You’re marrying her--”
“You think I forgot?” Mason frowned. “I don’t think I could; but maybe I should.”
“What do you mean?” CC frowned, too, his mien the very copy of his son’s.
“Ah. Just when did you become such a partisan of Julia’s, dad?”
CC was not a patient man. “Are you going to make the mother of your child suffer?” he boomed. “Don’t you think she can reconsider marrying you?”
He looked into his firstborn’s eyes. “Or is it exactly what you’re trying to make her do?”
“Oh dad,” said Mason in a weary tone. “Your attempts at paternal affection--”
“Just a minute, Mason,” CC was very obstinate when he wanted to. “Is this the effect you’re trying to achieve? – But why? Have you quarreled?”
“No.” Mason raised his eyebrow as if challenging CC to guess.
“Got disappointed in her?”
“No.”
“So?”
“She’s a wonderful woman, dad.”
“But you’re unhappy with her?”
Mason shook his head. “Wrong again, dad.”
“She’s a wonderful woman you’re happy with, that’s why you do everything to make her leave you,” CC summarized, in disbelief.
“This time you got it right.”
“No, Mason!” – but CC already knew this was true; it was scary to look at Mason’s ghost of a smile, just like peeping into an abyss. “Why, son?”
Normally, Mason would never answer such a question, not his father’s anyway. But this time – either it was today’s meeting with Pamela that influenced him so, or alcohol after a long period of abstaining, - this time he spoke up.
“Mother left me,” he said. “She loved me but she left me.”
CC knew it was a wound never healed, an act never forgiven. He just did not know what to say, so he kept silent; and this was for the better, for Mason took a long, long dramatic pause.
“Mary,” he said, and then he coughed, covering a nervous spasm in his throat. “She loved me and she left me forever.”
“And you’re afraid Julia will leave you?” To CC this was unfathomable. “You’re so afraid you’re pushing her away? Too much afraid to risk? Too much afraid to take the responsibility for the breakup?!”
Mason laughed. “No, I’m not afraid.”
“Right,” CC said, aghast. “You’re terrified.”
“You’ll see,” Mason argued. “She won’t want me. No one does.”
Helpless, CC looked at his firstborn, and in him, fury mixed with the painful realization he was responsible for his son turning out like this.
“Just go away now, please, dad,” Mason asked. “Please. Just go away now.”
“Mason--”
“Go away.”
Sophia had come quietly; now she squeezed CC’s shoulder. “Let’s go, honey.”
CC stood up and turned to look at his son again. “Mason. Do you--” His voice failed him. “Do you want to go home with us? Spend the night in your own old room--”
Mason shook his head, the same strange smile playing on his lips. “No dad. There’s no coming back.”
To Be continuted
Olga Lissenkova
