Free Trauma by Patrick McGrath

with her remained a private affair that would have deeply hurt Nora had she ever found out about it, I mean that Agnes and I continued to meet as we did. For sex.
About Danny I spoke still less; in fact, about him I said nothing at all, for his was not a story I could yet trust myself to tell her with any degree of coherence. It was too tragic, too much about futility, about meaningless sacrifice, about violence, about violent death. And while so much of my work involved the pathology of the mind, the tenor of my relationship with Nora Chiara, by contrast, was one of lightness and even, yes, at times, of joy.
    I did talk to her about Cassie. I found it impossible not to. I very much wanted them to meet, but Nora resisted the idea. She said there was no point in her becoming friends with my daughter until we knew how we ourselves were going to work out. This was sensible, I supposed, though I was sorry not to be able to introduce her to the child I was so proud of. So on the days I spent with Cassie, Nora worked in the library, and in the end they never met. But I noted with pleasure that they were far from indifferent to each other. When Cassie was in the apartment she inspected whatever clothes Nora had left lying around, being at the age when fashion first becomes interesting to a girl; and Nora was no less curious about Cass. At such times I briefly glimpsed a distinctly maternal aspect that in her seemed surprising.

Chapter Six
    O ne Sunday afternoon in May we took a walk in Central Park. It was a cool, pleasant day. Recklessly we picked our way through spent needles and dog shit to the Bethesda Fountain, where we sat on a bench so she could smoke a cigarette. Her cheeks were pink from the exertion. My arm was draped over her shoulders as we watched a group of feral children chase one another around the fountain, screaming obscenities. I asked if we could drop in on Walter. I told her I was worried about the safety of my mother’s furniture.
    “Why wouldn’t it be safe?” she said.
    “Walter’s moved it down to the basement. I don’t think he takes much interest. I should get it, by rights. Nobody else wants it.”
    “Then ask him for it.”
    “It’s more complicated than that.”
    “I know he’d be happy to have you take it.”
    How could she know this? I let it pass; it was the sort of thoughtless thing lovers say to each other all the time. Still, an alarm was sounded. I knew what Walter was like.
    Lucia greeted us at the door. She was a warm, loud, untidy woman who’d come here from Milan some years before to work in the art world, but had instead fallen into the clutches of Walter Weir and borne him four children.
My brother didn’t deserve her.
    “Charlie,” she said tenderly, “and Nora. Come in.”
    She kissed us on both cheeks. We walked down the hall to the kitchen. Her arm was around my waist, her hip plump against mine. One of the children shouted at me from the living room.
    “Hi, Uncle Charlie!”
    Walt was at the stove wearing that apron of his and smoking a cigar. He was wielding a large steel spatula that dripped hot fat. He thrust it into a skillet and put down his cigar, then came and took me in his arms.
    “So glad, buddy,” he murmured in my ear.
    He meant me and Nora, our transparent pleasure in each other. I looked around. Great changes had been made.
Our mother had never run a clean kitchen. The woodwork of her cupboards and counters were alive with bacteria, and it had long been a joke between us that you ate here, the Grand Central of botulism, at risk of your life. Now all was stainless steel and butcher block, and a hanging metal frame from whose hooks Walt’s various copper-bottomed pots and pans dangled like so many weapons. There was an island, as Walt called it, and we sat round it on high stools as he poured us each a glass of what he claimed was one of the great unsung heroes of Burgundy.
    “Try this,” he said, “and tell me it doesn’t break your heart.