THE HOLE in Matthew’s living room wall now reaches from the window at the far end of the room to the window near his audio equipment, nearly half the length of the room. There is a distinct downward thermal gradient in its vicinity. Belinda hasn’t taken her coat off; she snuggles into it while she squats to inspect the hole.
“Any leads?” she asks.
“None,” says Matthew. “I was out here this morning for nearly an hour, sitting on the floor, hoping I’d smell it while the sun was coming up. I had a theory that the sun warms the cavity here and releases — well, whatever it is. Guess what? Not a thing. All I could smell was coffee. I’m sure the guys working on this think I’m nuts, and this morning I almost agreed with them.”
“Will you be able to have this carpet repaired?”
“I don’t think so. I think all the carpet in here is going to have to be replaced.”
“You’re not going to embrace the esthétique du mal?”
“No, I guess not. It’s tempting, though. Anyway, I asked about just replacing the section they pulled up, and the guy from the carpet company claims that the edges would never match. You’d always see the seam. Do you want a drink?”
“Yes. I want cognac. Lots of it.”
It will give her a headache, but Matthew can see that she wants it, so he doesn’t say anything. He pours cognac into snifters, puts them on his black tray, puts the bottle on too, and carries the whole thing to the glassy end of the living room, where Belinda is waiting, in the dark, looking out over the rooftops. He gives her her glass, and she clinks glasses with him.
“Happy birthday,” Matthew says. Belinda smiles. She drinks her cognac determinedly, in four swallows, and holds her glass out for more. Matthew pours, and she turns away, looking out the window again.
“When I was a girl,” she says, “I wanted a fur coat, and not just the way you think a girl might want a fur coat. Not just some abstract fur coat. And not an ordinary fur. I wanted something really glamorous. I wanted this coat. A white fur coat. I’m not quite sure where I got the desire, or why it became so strong, but I think it might have been Smirnoff ads. Some liquor ad, anyway. I’m almost sure it was Smirnoff. They used to have tall blondes in white fur coats, sort of wrapping themselves around enormous bottles of Smirnoff.”
“Sex sells again.”
“Mm. You’re right. But who thought about that then? Come to think of it, who cares? I don’t, and I sure didn’t then. I didn’t want the vodka — I wanted the coat. I wanted to be a tall blonde in a fur coat. You want to know something about me, Matthew? I didn’t have anything I wanted when I was a girl. Nothing. I used to get hand-me-down clothes from the family next door. It was so humiliating. You don’t know.”
Matthew is about to sympathize. He’s about to say that he does know and tell her an anecdote to show that he understands. It’s about a model sailing ship he wanted when he was a boy. His mother had an enormous model in her junk shop for weeks; someone had left it on consignment. It was dusty and damaged, the spars hung askew, and bits of broken rigging hung down like cobwebs, but to Matthew it was magnificent, just wonderful, and he wanted it. He felt that he had little enough, much less than other boys, no normal house, no yard, no bicycle, not even a father. Circumstances had brought this ship model virtually into his home, all but forced him to look at it every day, and yet it wasn’t his and couldn’t be his. He couldn’t even touch it, because his mother couldn’t afford to buy it if he damaged it more than it already was. Matthew means to tell Belinda this, to show her that he does understand the way the pain of deprivation can endure. She sees that he intends to speak.
“Don’t,” she says. “Don’t say anything. Just don’t say anything. I know you were a miserable boy, Matthew. But this is my story. I want to talk now.”
Matthew nods. He has recalled, against his will, the time when Liz pointed out to him that he was making up for the deprivations of his childhood by working at Manning & Rafter, making the toys he never had. It seemed so obviously true that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t realized it, and he resented Liz’s understanding him better than he did himself.
[to be continued]
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🎧 476: The hole . . .