The Spirit Wood Read online

  “I'm sure he will,” Byron said. “He's got a lot on his mind right now.”

  Diogenes barked from across the street, where he'd finished with the garbage cans. “I think you're being paged,” Meg said. “Congratulations again on the job.”

  Byron leaned down and pecked her on the top of the head. “Buck up,” he said, tucking one finger under her chin. “He'll come around.” Her eyes, he thought, were the blue of Dresden china. Turning quickly, he walked away, each of his steps punctuated by the soft, rhythmic thwap of a loose sole on one of his shoes. Diogenes disappeared around the corner.

  The moment the door was closed again, Meg could hear the sound of the shower running. Peter had always been a fan of the hot shower, but lately it seemed as if he couldn't get clean enough no matter how long he was in there. And he locked the bathroom door, which he'd never used to do. By the time she heard the water turned off, she'd undressed, put on her nightgown, and slipped into bed with an Agatha Christie mystery. Peter came out wearing a faded pair of blue pyjamas. That was another manifestation of his new-found modesty. The most he used to wear to bed had been a pair of loose boxer shorts; now he always had on pyjamas, and a robe, too, if he got up for a midnight snack. Anything, it seemed to Meg, to discourage intimacy.

  “I left all the dishes to soak,” he said, and dropping his sling on the night table, got into bed. “You really pulled out all the stops tonight. I don't think Byron's had a feast like that in years.”

  “Neither have we.”

  Peter pulled the sheet up onto his chest and gently laid his left arm across it.

  “How's it feeling today?” she asked.

  “Better. The hot water seems to help.” Then he turned his head on the pillow to look directly at her. “How're you doing?”

  She closed the book and turned on her side. “I'm fit as a fiddle, I think. Tomorrow I'm going to call the pottery shop and see if they've got a wheel free for me. I'm dying to get some work done again.”

  “The knee's okay, then?”

  “Um-hum,” she said, raising her leg beneath the sheet, so that it lay across his own. She nestled herself closer to him, and when he didn't seem to tense up, she raised one hand to his face. She gently stroked his cheek, and then wound her finger in one of the soft black curls of his hair. His eyes closed. She slipped the earpieces of his glasses free and laid the glasses on the night stand; she flicked the lamp off, so the room was filled with just the faint, silvery light from the street.

  Please, she thought, please.

  As if in response, his right hand gently descended the outside of the sheet, and came to rest on her knee. His fingers lightly enclosed it, as if it were something very precious and fragile.

  Her hand slipped beneath the sheet; she delicately unfastened the buttons of his pyjama top, and spread it open. The hair on his chest was as black and curly as the hair on his head; it spread across him, just beneath his collar bone, in what had always appeared to her as two neat and symmetrically extended wings. Her hand roamed across him, before gliding down to follow the trail of fine black hair that ran the length of his abdomen. When she unsnapped the lower clasp of his pyjamas, she felt a sudden, slight tremor pass through him.

  Please . . . please.

  Gently, in ever increasing circles, she stroked his body. His hand moved from her knee to caress her thigh through the sheet. She felt his breathing quicken, but his eyes remained shut. Squeezed shut, it seemed, as if he were trying to concentrate, to think of only one thing—this—and forget about everything else.

  With her feet, Meg drew the sheet down to the foot of the bed. His hand grazed across her smooth, bare thigh, and then slid upward, deftly but absently, as if it were operating somehow independently. Peter's eyes remained closed, and but for his one hand, he lay perfectly still. Meg raised herself and allowed the nightgown to slide up to her waist.

  She wanted to say something, even if it were only his name, to tell him that she loved him, that she wanted him, that she needed him to make love to her. But she knew she couldn't do that, that to say anything at all would break the spell, that her only hope was to somehow slip silently past the barriers, to infiltrate his senses and arouse him to the point where he could no longer stop himself, where sensation—immediate, passionate, all-consuming—could drown out memory and guilt and sorrow.

  She pressed herself against his shoulder and felt his hand respond, clenching her skin. She raised her head above his, so that her hair fell across his neck and chest like a fragrant veil. She bent and kissed him on his eyes, then his forehead, just beneath the fringe of black curls, then down to his mouth, ever so tentatively. His lips were dry; she wet them with her tongue. His mouth opened, and she pressed downward, at the same time slipping up on top of his body. His left arm came up and around her, just as it used to do, and she rubbed herself against him, hearing the slight scratching sound of their bodies coming together, feeling him growing harder beneath her.

  He held her now with both arms, each finger burrowing into her flesh, his hips beginning to rise and fall, more and more insistently. “Peter,” she murmured, his warm breath rasping in her ear. “Peter . . . “ And she leaned up above him, then almost imperceptibly slid herself down his body, until she felt him touch and enter her.

  “Peter, I love you . . . I love you. Please don't ever go away from me again.”

  In the pale glow of the streetlamp, she saw him open his eyes and stare up at her. His hands, which had been clutching her hips, moving up and down with them, suddenly loosened their grip. She ground down harder, but felt his movements slowing down, felt him already slipping out and away from her.

  “Peter, please . . .” and she pressed herself against him, her hair against his cheek, her lips on his shoulder. She stared at the rumpled corner of the pillow, and knew that his own eyes were fixed on nothing at all, or on something that had happened months before. She lay still and felt his right hand fall to her side. It touched her knee, and one finger, like a dark divining rod, unerringly moved to and lightly traced the crescent scar that marked her there . . . back and forth, across the slightly raised, shiny smooth patch of new skin. A car on the street puttered to a stop at the corner and honked twice. Peter reached up with his bad arm and laid his hand consolingly against the back of her head. Meg squeezed him gently, and slipped off him to her own side of the bed. The car honked again, still running its engine. Who was it honking for? Ask not for whom the car honks, she thought . . . that was something Byron might have said. Any other time it might have made her smile.

  Two

  FENSTERWALD'S BEEN TOUCHING my stomach again.”

  "What's he expect to feel at this stage?"

  "Me.”

  “You want I should kill him?” Gruff gangster inflection.

  A laugh, a kiss.

  "Peter, let me replenish that for you.” Phelps, the host, flushed, wobbly. “Meg, how about you? Not drinking for two now, huh?"

  Tina Turner on the stereo, dancing in the living room. Whole English department. Fensterwald flailing his arms like a windmill. Horniest guy in the grad school—not an easy title to come by.

  One A.M. "Peter, I'm fading. How about it?"

  Putting the glass down on the littered kitchen counter. Phelps shouting good-bye from across the crowded room. Outside, cold, night air, arm in arm, walking to the car—red Datsun that looked gray under the streetlight. Fumbling with keys, dropping them.

  "Want me to drive?"

  "No, I'm all right.”

  "Sure? I don't mind.”

  "No, no, I'm fine. Just can't see in this light.”

  Kissing in the front seat, hand on her stomach. “Copping a feel—hope you don't mind.”

  "Long as Fensterwald doesn't.”

  Driving with window open, left arm propped outside. Cold air to clear head. Too much wine. Down dark, quiet Bunker Hill Road, to Route 6 intersection. Past athletic fields, skating rink, math-physics complex. Across small artificial lake, built for rowing
team. Hand on Meg's thigh, warmth rising up from under plaid skirt.

  "You looked gorgeous tonight.”

  "So did you.”

  Turning to look at her, long hair, glinting with amber comb, tossed back over seat, eyes shining in glow of streetlights.

  "Enjoy the party?"

  "I give it a six, maybe seven.”

  "What did you think of Phelps's new girlfriend? She's the first—"

  "Peter—” Hands thrown forward, sudden bright light, headlights. A horn blasting, loud, louder. Swerving to right, a crunch, a jolt, metal screeching against concrete, flash of amber, falling forward, spin, slam . . . silence, pain . . .

  He awoke, as he did so many mornings, staring up at the ceiling, playing back the accident, not aware of ever having really been asleep, unable to remember ever waking up exactly. One second he was dreaming of that night, the next he was lying in bed, with Meg asleep beside him, remembering it, reliving it. His left arm, laid across his chest, beat with a low and steady ache. Drawing away the sheet, he sat up in bed, then tucked the sheet back under Meg. He thought for a moment she had stirred; he sat perfectly still, then rose very slowly, one hand gently easing the mattress up. In the shower, he let the hot water play over the arm.

  When he'd finished dressing and opened the door, he was startled to find Meg right outside.

  “Your mother's on the phone,” she said, looking worried.

  “At this hour? What's wrong?”

  “I don't know—she just said I should get you.”

  He straightened his collar on the way to the phone; Meg sat beside him on the bed.

  “Mom? Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, dear, I'm fine,” she said, though her voice didn't sound it. She was calling him from home, her apartment in New York. She had to go to work shortly. “But something's happened that I need to tell you. I got a call last night from a lawyer, Mr. Kennedy—it seems he's executor of my father's estate.” She said “my father” only with the greatest reluctance and evident distaste.

  “Executor? You mean he's died?” Meg looked concerned; Peter himself felt confused. In all his life, he had met his grandfather only once; he dimly recalled coming down the grammar school steps and meeting a fat man in a black overcoat there. He had white unruly hair escaping from under a black felt Homburg. He walked Peter home, holding his hand, but at the door there'd been shouting, all of it in Greek; Peter's mother had yanked him inside and slammed the door in the old man's face. That had been it. Now he was dead.

  “His body was found two days ago, by his caretaker. He was living in Passet Bay.”

  “Passet Bay, on Long Island?” Peter asked. In the last five seconds, he'd learned more about his grandfather than he had in his entire lifetime. His mother had always steadfastly refused to discuss him. And now it turned out he'd been living just a couple of hours away—and in a town with a very posh reputation.

  “Yes,” his mother replied, “and it seems the police have some questions about the death.” She said it as if that were only to be expected of such a person as her father. “The body washed up in the bay, with some odd bruises on it; it isn't clear whether he accidentally drowned or was hurt in some other way first . . . In any event, I've given instructions, whenever they're all finished with what they have to do, to cremate the remains. There won't be any need for a funeral. But there will have to be a meeting at his lawyer's, I'm afraid. You'll have to come in for it this Friday, at four.” She paused. “There's a will.”

  Peter was still trying to assimilate all the rest— police, caretakers, lawyers. He fumbled for a second, then said, “Have you got any idea what's in it? Or why I need to show up at the reading?”

  “No, I don't,” she said, but with a hesitant note in her voice that made him think that she might. “It would be impossible to guess. The lawyer didn't say. But I'm going to be late for work—let me give you the address for Friday.”

  Peter repeated it out loud while Meg jotted it down.

  “Mother,” he said, just before she got off the line, “is there anything you'd like me to do? Come in to be with you, or anything like that?” It was so odd; her father—his grandfather, the only grandparent he had, in fact—had died, and all it seemed to boil down to was an afternoon appointment with a midtown law firm.

  “No, really,” she assured him, in a subdued voice. “I'll be all right. I always knew this would have to happen sometime. It'll be nice to see you—and Meg, too, I hope—on Friday. Give her my love.” And then she was off to her job as executive secretary at Soloman and Kurtz, textile distributors.

  “I think I was able to gather most of it,” Meg said, taking Peter's hand. Peter explained the rest.

  “How do you feel about it?” she asked.

  “It's hard to say. I never knew him, so I can't say I'll miss him. But one thing I know—on Friday, I'll finally get some answers to the questions my mother's been ducking all my life.”

  The alarm clock Meg had set the night before suddenly went off, startling them both.

  Three

  ON FRIDAY, RIGHT after Peter's twelve o'clock class, they met at the town train station and caught the express to New York. The law firm that had handled his grandfather's affairs turned out to be located in a Park Avenue skyscraper, and as Peter observed in the elevator on the way up, it also occupied offices on three other floors. “No small outfit. I wonder if it was Gramps that kept them all busy,” he said.

  The receptionist told them that Peter's mother had already arrived and been shown into the lawyer's office. They followed her down a long, quiet corridor lined with English hunting prints and into a room furnished in the same flavor, with red leather armchairs drawn up around a gleaming cherrywood table. His mother, in a dark blue suit, her black hair streaked with gray, was conferring at the far end of the table with a heavyset man idly twirling his spectacles in his hand.

  “Mr. Kennedy . . . ,” said the receptionist, and he looked up from the table as Peter's mother turned in her seat. “This is Mr. and Mrs. Peter Constantine.”

  “I'm very glad to meet you,” he said, coming around the table with his hand extended. “Sorry it had to be under these circumstances.”

  Peter and Meg each shook his hand, then embraced Peter's mother. Peter looked closely at her face for any sign of sorrow, but all he could discern there was a kind of weariness and resolve. She laid one hand on his shoulder for just an instant before they all took their seats around the table.

  “Would you like something to drink?” asked Kennedy. “It's getting to be a scorcher out there.” Peter noticed a coffee cup at his mother's elbow.

  “If I could get an iced coffee that'd be terrific,” he said. “Meg?”

  “Yes, that'd be fine.”

  Kennedy swiveled in his chair, buzzed the intercom box on the sideboard behind him. “Connie, could we get two iced coffees—no, make it three, I'll have one, too—and whenever you're ready with the papers . . . “ He flicked off the box. “So, your mother tells me you're finishing up work on your Ph.D. What's it on?”

  Peter hated to be asked. “Late nineteenth century English literary criticism. It's sort of a survey and analysis.”

  “Now who exactly would that be? Ruskin, Arnold, Pater, the boys?” Peter was surprised that he knew them, and it must have been apparent because Kennedy laughed and flipped his glasses in his hand. “Amherst would be proud—I haven't forgotten everything they taught me. But how can you write with your arm in that sling? What was it—a softball game, basketball, or just a slip in the tub?”

  “An accident,” Peter replied.

  “Well, I hope it's soon mended. Ah, Connie . . . “

  A middle-aged woman came into the room with three glasses on a tray, and under her arm a thick white folder. She served the drinks, gave the folder to Kennedy, then sat down in a chair pulled a few feet back from the table, with a steno pad in her lap.

  Kennedy flipped the folder open and riffled through the pages inside. “Today, on the n
ineteenth of May,” he said, “we are meeting here to read the last will and testament of Mr. Alexander Nicholas Constantine, late of 10 Huntington Road, Passet Bay, Long Island.” He went on in his rapid, pro forma tone to record other details of the meeting and all those in attendance. Peter was surprised that things were suddenly underway with no one else present. He had simply been assuming that there would be other people there, people who had somehow been related, or close, to his grandfather. To think that of the three people present, two had never even known him, and the third had refused for over twenty years to acknowledge him in any way . . . Peter wondered what it meant. Had his grandfather been a hermit? Had he had no friends, no other family? If other people had been included in the will that Kennedy was about to read, wouldn't they also have been summoned to the meeting?

  “Each of you can follow along with the reading,” Kennedy was saying as he distributed copies of the will to each of them. “After we've gone through it, we can discuss any questions you might have—though, to be perfectly honest, legally speaking it's one of the most straightforward wills I've ever drawn up.”

  Peter felt he was back in the classroom somehow, about to take an exam he wasn't prepared for. He and Meg bent over their copies of the closely typed pages and followed along as Kennedy read aloud. When he arrived at the section detailing the bequests, the first name mentioned was clearly foreign to them all. Spelled “Kesseogolou,” Kennedy stumbled over its pronunciation.

  “To Gregory"—and then he simply spelled out the last name—"of Heraea, Greece, I leave the sum of ten thousand U.S. dollars and the following items from my household inventory.” The items were each numbered and carefully notated, but what they were was another matter altogether—an antique olive-wood chest with iron bindings, a silver rhyton—rhyton? Peter wondered—in the shape of a stag's head, a terra cotta pyxis in black glaze, a brass votive wreath in the shape of three wheat stalks . . . There were half a dozen similar items, almost none of which Peter could even imagine. It sounded like a museum catalogue, not a list of household objects. And then there was the ten thousand dollars, left to a man none of them knew and who was identified only by the city in Greece where he lived . . .