Nobody's Fool

always referred to Clive Jr. as “The Bank.” “The first of the year would be a perfect opportunity for a new arrangement.”
    â€œI’m content with the old arrangement,” Miss Beryl said.
    â€œYou promised—”
    â€œI promised to think about it,” Miss Beryl reminded him.
    â€œMa,” Clive Jr. said. “Keeping the house is dangerous enough, but Sully has to go.”
    Right on cue, the upstairs toilet flushed. Miss Beryl smiled, grudgingly, and was ashamed of
herself
again.
    â€œYou need another sign?” Clive Jr. was also smiling, smug again. “Even God agrees.”
    â€œThat wasn’t God on the commode,” Miss Beryl reminded him. “Just a lonely, stubborn, unlucky man.”
    â€œWhose bad luck is going to rub off on you someday,” Clive Jr. insisted.
    Miss Beryl sighed. Like most discussions with her son, this one always went exactly the same way. Next Clive Jr. would remind her that Sully had once burned down another house he was living in.
    â€œHe’s already burned down one house in Bath,” Clive Jr. recalled innocently. “You should see it upstairs. There are cigarette burns everywhere. Fresh ones, Ma.”
    Here, so soon after the last, was another point Miss Beryl had to concede. Sully did smoke, did forget lighted cigarettes, letting them tip off ashtrays onto the floor and roll under the sofa, probably even smoked himself to sleep. Clive Jr. swore he’d seen brown cigarette holes in Sully’s pillowcases.
    â€œDon’t believe me, Ma,” Clive Jr. insisted. “See for yourself. Go up and see the condition of that flat. Count the cigarette burns. See for yourself how many bullets you’ve dodged.”
    The last thing Miss Beryl wanted to do was visit Sully’s flat. No doubt what Clive Jr. was reporting would be true. Perhaps not even exaggerated. Sully
was
negligent and therefore dangerous. She wasn’t sure there was any way to explain to Clive Jr. that having Sully upstairs was simply a risk she was willing to take. Maybe she couldn’t even explain to herself why she was willing to take it. Part of it was that she’d always viewed Sully as an ally, someone whose loyalty, at least, could always be depended upon. She still thought of him this way, even now that he was getting older and more banged up and forgetful. Even now that he reminded her more of a ghostevery day, he struck her as a dependable spirit, despite the conventional wisdom that what he could be depended upon to do most was to bollix things up. Resisting Clive Jr. on this issue, Miss Beryl had to admit, was surely bad judgment on her part, yet she couldn’t banish the notion that evicting Sully would constitute a great treachery, a violation that would both surprise and wound him. And, irrational or not, she couldn’t help feeling that her own death, which could not be
that
far off, would not be the result of Sully’s bollixing.
    â€œI could do the whole thing if you don’t want to,” Clive Jr. offered, adding weakly, “I can handle Sully.”
    Miss Beryl couldn’t help smiling at this assertion, and her son’s face darkened, registering the insult.
    â€œHe’s got you snookered, Ma,” Clive Jr. said angrily. “He always did. Even Dad saw that by the end.”
    â€œLet’s leave your father out of it,” Miss Beryl suggested.
    Clive Jr. smiled, apparently aware that this missile had located its target. He’d successfully invoked his father before, knew his mother could be approached through Clive Sr.’s memory.
    â€œI just wish you’d trust me,” he continued after a long silence, his eyes no longer focused on her, but on something else, close enough, almost, to touch. “This time next year, Ma, you aren’t even going to believe this town. The Gold Coast is what it’s going to be. Once they break ground on The Escape …” he allowed his voice to drift off into a pleasant trance, then, as if he understood that his mother was blind to what he was seeing so clearly, quickly came out of it. “Even Joyce is excited,” he said, as if to suggest that getting the woman he planned to marry excited was no easy task, and he looked around, as if in the hope that she’d materialize beside him and verify that, yes, she was excited.
    â€œAnd you plan to wed this Joyce person?” Miss Beryl said.
    â€œYes, Ma, I do.