Confidence Read online

  “Yes.”

  “And I think he’s lying.”

  “Yes,” said Kara, “he is lying. Sometimes grown up men lie.”

  “Okay buddy,” said Ivor. He stood up, cracking. “I’m going to get ready to go now. Kara—”

  “Ivor,” she said, standing in the dankness and shading her eyes, “Sweetie, you know when you tidied up all the sunglasses that were on the chest, that now I can’t find mine, the prescription ones?”

  He could smell calendula moisturizer on her, as if she had washed her hair in it. “I just moved them, my love, I put them all inside the bicycle helmet that’s in the trunk.”

  “But you didn’t, they’re not there.”

  “Daddy,” said the Bean, “Let’s pretend let’s pretend we’re Mounties.” He had grabbed a club, a piece of the old fencing that Ivor had yet to remove, and was waving it.

  “Okay sweetie.”

  “And we’re looking for dragons. On the racetrack. And they’re Hondas.”

  Ivor said, “I assure you I didn’t move any sunglasses away from there, I promise you that. I would have no reason to move your sunglasses.”

  “ But you did, you just said, you moved them.”

  Ivor let out a burst of air. “I kept them all together. I promise you I would have no reason to move your sunglasses. What would my reason be for doing that?”

  “ I don’t know, but I know that I left them there and they’re not there now.”

  With her back to him, he nudged the hat box further under the weight bench with his foot. He said, “I see. I see. What is your theory, exactly, as to what I did with them, or have reason to do with them?”

  “What?”

  “Your theory. What is your theory. That I took them, removed them from where they were sitting and hid them from you? There would have to be some malice involved in that. Quite a lot of malice.”

  “Daddy, let’s pretend we’re in Chicago.”

  “What are you so angry about?” said Kara.

  “I’m not angry. I’m not angry. Listen, I’m going to load a bunch of things into the car. I’m going to scoot them down to the Salvation Army.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, why not? I’ll get it done before lunch and then I can take this fellow for the afternoon and you can do your mindfulness.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Daddy,” said the Bean, “can a Honda fight a bear?” He slammed his stick into the side of the metal shed. This was very loud.

  “Are you absolutely crazy?”

  “Daddy’s not crazy.”

  “I have told you three times I’m out with Julianne this afternoon.”

  “That’s this afternoon? Beanie, stop that.”

  “What is distracting you today?”

  “Beanie, stop it right now.”

  “Daddy, are you crazy?”

  “I’m doing my mindfulness right now, and then you have him all afternoon.”

  “Oh, good. Fine.”

  “Don’t bore him by taking him to the stupid Salvation Army. You have to entertain him, you have to be—”

  “Daddy! Daddy!”

  “Not now, Beanie, mummy’s talking.”

  “Daddy! Mummy said stupid!” The boy was jumping and pointing.

  “Yes, she did, and she shouldn’t.”

  “Oh for God’s sake,” said Kara.

  “Everything’s fine,” said Ivor. “You go now and do your thing. We’ll play out here.”

  “I’m not going to tell Marianna,” said the Bean.

  “What’s that?” said Ivor, bending again.

  “I’m not going to tell Marianna mummy said stupid.”

  “No, you don’t have to. Sometimes grownups can say stupid.”

  “It stinks in here,” said Kara.

  “I think that’s the raccoons.”

  “Daddy, can you say hate?”

  “Who says hate?”

  “Mummy.”

  Ivor exhaled again. “Listen,” he said to her, “you’re right about not taking him to the Salvation Army. So I’ll just go on my own now, really fast, I’ll be there and back in an hour, and you can start your—”

  “Are you completely smoking crack? We planned all this yesterday. I am on my way out now.”

  “Daddy, are you smoking crack? Is Daddy smoking crack?”

  “Beanie,” said Ivor, “if you don’t stop banging that thing right this second I am taking away your blue tow truck, the big one.”

  There was a second of silence before the Bean’s face folded up into its mask of misery and he began to wail. Kara put her hands over her ears and walked towards the house.

  Ivor called after her: “That’s a nice shirt.”

  She shouted back: “Nothing!”

  “What?” he said with genuine puzzlement.

  She stopped on the path. “Oh,” she said. “I thought you were accusing me of something.”

  After she left he made the Bean a grilled cheese sandwich and sliced red peppers, then melon balls and sliced pears, none of which the boy ate. The peppers he threw with some force onto the carpet. The sandwich he took with him for a run around the ground floor and halfway up the stairs; Ivor found it later stuffed under the sofa. He made a train track out of the pear slices and then cried when he was told not to. He drank two glasses of milk and demanded gummy bears and apple juice, and cried hysterically when denied them.

  When Ivor was cleaning up after this, his phone rang again.

  Her voice, raspy, as if on the edge of shouting. “When are you getting here?”

  “I told you, I can’t today. It’s impossible.”

  “You are getting here today. You are getting here right now.”

  “Or what?”

  He heard her breathing. Too fast. The television snarling as if in pain. She disconnected with a bang.

  “Christ,” said Ivor.

  “Daddy, was that the police?”

  “The police? Why would it be the police? No, sweetie. It wasn’t the police. Listen, we’re going to go for a drive in the car now.”

  In the car the Bean sang the morning song, which went, “The good morning train is coming, choo-choo. We say good morning to Bernard, choo-choo. We say good morning to Jamal, choo-choo. We say good morning to Tsao, choo-choo. We say good morning to Asha, choo-choo. We say good morning to Aqif, choo-choo. We say good morning to Yumiko, choo-choo.” This song had to be completed in its entirety according to ritual.

  But the moment the news came on the radio and Ivor instinctively turned it up, the Bean went silent, for of course it was all about the mayor and crack cocaine. Ivor could feel the stories imprinting on the little brain as if on wet concrete. The idea that the mayor smoked crack cocaine, whatever that was, was like a first series of commands that were going to become part of the boy’s operating system; they would be hardwired like the idea that you can’t say stupid or that boys can’t wear pink or that you say grace before every meal (which must have come from Marianna, at daycare, against all regulations no doubt, but what could you do when you entrusted your child’s socialization to peasants?)

  “Daddy, is he lying?”

  “Well, we don’t know, Beanie. We don’t have any proof.”

  “What is called proof.”

  “Proof is evidence. Evidence is when you know something. They have no video evidence.” As he said this he put his hand over the hatbox in the front seat, as if to restrain it from flying out the window. He didn’t know why he did this. He was eager to get it out of the car and away from the boy. “Look, a Jeep.”

  “Thass not a Jeep. Thass a Subaru.”

  “So it is. Good for you.”

  “What is called proof.”

  “I just told you.”

  “Why.”

  “Okay.”

  “Daddy why.”

  “Okay then.”

  “Daddy, are the police going to come?”

  “Why do you—listen, the police aren’t going to come for anyone, all rig
ht? Nobody is in any trouble. Not even the mayor.”

  Her door was in an alley, at the side of a house; it led to a basement. So he could nose down the alley and park the car right there, leaving, he hoped, the narrowest of gaps for passing, and leave the Bean strapped in his seat and just do the exchange at the door. He wouldn’t even have to go in. He could possibly even leave it running.

  But when he arrived, there was a car in the spot. He parked behind it. But then he wouldn’t be able to leave the Bean in the car because he wouldn’t be able to see him from the door. He sat there for a minute thinking about this.

  He checked his phone. 40yearoldmom had just tweeted, When husbands move around a couple of boxes in the garage, do they expect the rest of the day off? #mommytime #entitlement

  “Daddy, what are we doing.”

  “I’m just going to drop these things for poor people, like I said.”

  “Where are the poor people.”

  “In this house here. This is the Salvation Army. The door is where you leave things.”

  “What’s the ssavayshinuhmee.”

  “It’s a church, and they give things to poor people.”

  “Where’s the church?”

  “There’s a lady—there’s someone here. I’ll be right back, okay?”

  Quickly, he grabbed the hat box on the front seat, and slipped out. He looked behind him and saw the Bean’s eyes wide and sad.

  “Daddy!”

  “I’m going to be right back. I’m going to be one minute.”

  “Daddy. Daddy!”

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Instagram.”

  “Okay sweetie.”

  “No, no, no, my name is fire escape.”

  “Yes it is. Now sit tight here, and I’ll be—”

  “Daddy, what’s a capybara?”

  “Okay. I’ll be right back.”

  He slammed the door without looking at those guilt-squeezing big eyes and walked to the door. It was only about ten yards from the car to the front door but still he couldn’t keep a close eye on the Bean. He could see the side of the car but not the Bean’s face. He rapped hard on the door.

  Inside, the television roared murder.

  Ivor knocked twice before it opened. She opened it and stepped away. He said, “Here,” and held out the box. “I can’t stay. My kid’s in the car.”

  She left the door ajar and walked away. The flat smelled of weed smoke and litter box.

  “I can’t stay,” he said. He saw her flop onto her sofa in the dimness, light another joint. The scrawny cat jumped on her lap. She was wearing a flimsy tank top and grey sweatpants, and bare feet. Her eyes were red. But her hair was its usual glossy massive clean spray. He wanted to put his nose in it. “Here.” He opened the top of the box and pulled out the camera. “You can have the camera too.”

  “All right. Let’s see them.”

  The place stank of catshit.

  “You have to get up and come over here.” He looked over his shoulder at the car. He could see its side but couldn’t see or hear the Bean. “I have to watch my kid. In the car.”

  “I can’t get up or Zero will run out the front door,” she said, stroking the cat. “She’ll run outside. Bring your kid in here.”

  He almost laughed. “No.”

  “Oh, what, it’s not his class, kind of thing?”

  “Jesus. Look. Take them. They’re all here.”

  Slowly, she got up, the joint between her teeth, holding Zero, dumped him in the bathroom and closed the door. Then she took a long suck of her joint, put it down and stretched, her arms above her head. This caused her nipples to be displayed through her stretchy top and her shaved underarms to be revealed. Then she began gathering her hair in her hands and working it into a ponytail. She took her time about this. Finally she moved to him and began to pick through the tapes in the box he held out to her. She did this at arm’s length, with her fingertips, as if they were both getting too close to something radioactive.

  “They’re all here,” he said. “I have to go.”

  “Let me count them.”

  “Why do you want them so badly?” he said. “They’re my memories too.”

  “If you have them, then you have me,” she said. “You can use me, my body, any time you want. And I don’t want you to have me.”

  “But of course I have you. I will always have you.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  He thought he perhaps heard the boy shout, so he was silent, craning his head around again. The car was motionless. “What about postcards, I have to destroy those too?” he said. “Or notes? Or photos of the two of us in the Walmart parking lot? Is it disgusting for me to keep those too?”

  “And you,” she said, “said you don’t want me. So you can’t have me.”

  “Okay,” he said, “fine. By the way, you can’t have them either.”

  “What?” She was close enough he could smell her hair now, a green appley smell from the stuff she used.

  “You’re not going to just keep them,” he said. “Then you could use them against me.”

  “What?”

  “Yup. If I can’t have them then you can’t either.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  There was a car coming down the alleyway, he could hear it. He stepped back and twisted to look: a big SUV pushing its way through, slowing to slide by his parked car with the Bean sitting there. He said, “You’re going to destroy them right now, and I’m going to watch you.”

  “How?”

  He put his head into the dim room, looked around. The sink was full of dirty pots and plates of caked cat food, and soapy water. “Throw them in there, in the sink, then pull the tape out. Get them wet.”

  “Wow, you are really crazy, you know that?”

  He laughed again. “I’ll leave that alone,” he said. “Just do it. Or I’m taking these back.”

  “Fuck,” she said, viciously, “fuck’s sake,” and he could feel her rage rising again.

  “Just do it. Now.”

  She grabbed the box roughly and dumped all the contents, including the camera, into the soapy water. The water slopped onto the floor. The tapes floated.

  “Destroy them,” he said.

  She sighed and, swearing, began to rip at the cassettes, pulling out the copper strands. Soon the sink was a tangle of wet filament and cat food. In all of those ribbons were the taste of her, all the high afternoons and the weepy mornings with his mouth full of her. All the rainbow of her undergarments was turning to mud in the sink.

  She said nothing.

  He said, “All right? Happy? Are we done now?’

  “Get out of here.”

  “Oh, you’re welcome. You’re very welcome.”

  “Go.”

  “Is there anything else you want from me?”

  “You leave me the fuck alone.”

  He laughed for real then. “Okay. Okay. That’s funny. I’ll leave you alone.” He stepped back into the alley, the light.

  She came to the door. She leaned against the frame, her hands behind her back, her chest pushed out. She said, “What’s your boy’s name?”

  He said, “Bernard.”

  “That’s a nice name,” she said, and her voice quivered. He saw her mouth tense as if she was about to cry and he turned quickly so as not to see it. He ran to the car without looking back.

  When he pulled out and past her door it was shut.

  “Now,” he said to the Bean when they were on the street, “now we’re going to go to the other Salvation Army, and drop these things off. And you can tell mummy we just went to the Salvation Army, that’s all.”

  “And there was a lady there?”

  “You can tell her there was a lady at the Salvation Army, sure. There are often ladies there. Ladies to take the things you give.”

  “Who was that lady?”

  “Did you see a lady?”

  “No.”

  “Ah. Did you finish the morning song?�
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  “Daddy, what is ingredients?”

  “Ingredients are—”

  “What is fascinating?”

  “Fascinating is very, very—”

  “Ingredients!” shouted the Bean in the back of the car. “Fascinating!” And Ivor drove on to the Salvation Army, where they dumped the Diaper Genie and the portable toilet and the rocking horse, a process that made them both cry.

  That evening he was a great husband. He loaded and unloaded the dishwasher, he scrubbed the pots, he carried loads of the Bean’s laundry from the basement and got the Bean to help him fold and stack the tiny underpants and socks and the shirts covered in dinosaurs that made him so emotional in a hysterical, non-euphoric way. They did this while singing chain-gang work songs of Ivor’s invention, which the Bean found hilarious. And then he volunteered to give the boy a bath and read him stories. He did this very cheerily, telling Kara that he didn’t mind because she must be exhausted after her long day with the mindfulness and then Julianne. And didn’t the mindfulness make her sleepy?

  She was on her tablet most of the evening. Ivor checked his phone periodically to read her posts. There was a long entry on trust in marriage and why access to each other’s email accounts was evidence of trust. Then there was a funny story about trying on new bras. There were a couple of tweets: You may see a messy house, but I see an artistic expression of the chaotic nature of modern society #acceptance #housework. And: How many calories does telling people you’re on a diet burn? #glutenfreeforever. And: If I get really skinny, will my sex drive come back? #cureformotherhood #nolibido

  When it was time to kiss the boy goodnight she said, “What did you guys do all afternoon?”

  Ivor said, “Didn’t you see? We took all that stuff to the Salvation Army.”

  “Was that fun for you, Beanie?”

  “We had great fun, didn’t we Bean? Let’s go, up to bed now.”

  “And to the lady,” said the Bean.

  “Aren’t you pleased?” said Ivor. “The shed is all emptied out now. I feel a great relief, I feel lighter.”

  “A lady?” said Kara, kneeling.

  “There was a lady who took the stuff, at the Salvation Army,” said Ivor, tugging on the boy’s hand. “Let’s do your teeth.” He looked down at him with a firm smile on his face, and the Bean looked up at him with cool eyes. He gave a little smile and almost imperceptibly nodded. “Good boy,” said Ivor. “Good boy. I love you.”