‘Levi,’ said Kiki, ‘honey, I’m interested – do you know who I
am? Pay any attention at
all to anything that goes on around here?
Remember Jerome? Your brother? Jerome no here? Jerome cross
big sea to place called England?’
Levi held a pair of sneakers in his hands. These he shook in the
direction of his mother’s sarcasm and, scowling, sat down to
begin
putting them on.
‘So? And what? I know about Kippses? I don’t know nothing
about no Kippses.’
‘Jerome – go to school.’
‘Now I’m Jerome too?’
‘Levi – go to school.’
‘Man, why you gotta be all . . . I just ahks a question, that’s
all,
and you gotta be all . . .’ Here Levi provided an inconclusive
mime
that gave no idea of the missing word.
‘Monty Kipps. The man your brother’s been working for in
England,’ conceded Kiki wearily. It was interesting to Howard to
see how Levi had won this concession, by meeting Kiki’s
corrosive
irony with its opposite.
‘See?’ said Levi, as if it was only by his efforts
that decency and
sense could be arrived at. ‘Was that hard?’
‘So is that a letter from Kipps?’ asked Zora, coming back down
the stairs and up behind her mother’s shoulder. In this pose,
the
daughter bent over the mother, they reminded Howard of two of
Picasso’s chubby water-carriers. ‘Dad,
please, I’ve got
to help with
the reply this time – we’re going to
destroy him.
Who’s it for? The
Republic?’
‘No. No, it’s nothing to do with that – it’s from Jerome,
actually.
Getting married,’ said Howard, letting his robe fall open,
turning
away. He wandered over to the glass doors that looked out on to
their garden. ‘To Kipps’s daughter. Apparently it’s funny. Your
mother thinks it’s hilarious.’
‘No, honey,’ said Kiki. ‘I think we just established that I
don’t
think it’s hilarious – I don’t think we know
what’s happening
– this
is a seven-line e-mail. We don’t know what that even
means, and
I’m not gonna get all hepped up about – ’
‘Is this serious?’
interrupted Zora. She yanked the paper from her
mother’s hands, bringing it very close to her myopic eyes. ‘This
is
a fucking joke, right?’
Howard rested his forehead on the thick glass pane and felt
the condensation soak his eyebrows. Outside, the democratic East
Coast snow was still falling, making the garden chairs the same
as
the garden tables and plants and mail-boxes and fence-posts. He
breathed a mushroom cloud and then wiped it off
with his sleeve.
‘Zora, you need to get to class, OK? And you
really need to
not
use that language in my house –
Hup! Hap! Nap! No!’
said Kiki, each
time masking a word Zora was attempting to begin. ‘OK? Take
Levi to the cab rank. I can’t drive him today – you can ask
Howard
if he’ll drive him, but it doesn’t look like that’s gonna
happen. I’ll
phone Jerome.’
‘I don’t need drivin’,’ said Levi, and now Howard properly
noticed Levi and the new thing about Levi: a woman’s stocking,
thin and black, on his head, tied at the back in a knot, with a
small
inadvertent teat like a nipple, on top.
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