Fin & Lady: A Novel Read online

  “You don’t need defending.”

  “Does Lady need defending?” Fin asked.

  “You have no idea what we’re talking about,” Hugo said, as if that answered Fin’s question.

  Which was true, of course, he had no idea what they were talking about, except that they were talking about Lady, and that he knew when something was wrong in the house, and something was definitely wrong.

  * * *

  A few weeks later, a tall, elegant lady visited. She was introduced to Fin as Mrs. Hadley. He looked up at his mother, alarmed. She laughed, her musical girlish laugh, and said, “Don’t worry, baby. Mommy’s still Mommy. This is another Mrs. Hadley. This is Lady’s mother.”

  Fin shook hands with the other Mrs. Hadley.

  His father came out of the living room and said, “Well, well.”

  Then Fin was told to go and play. Who, he wondered, when they said that, did they think he was going to play with? He went as far as the dining-room door, and from there he watched them settle themselves, the other Mrs. Hadley on a stiff armchair, his mother perched on the edge of the sofa, his father striding back and forth, saying, “I can’t just leave everything and go chasing after her.”

  “I’ve tried,” said the other Mrs. Hadley, who was dabbing at her eyes with a small handkerchief. “I found her in Paris, it wasn’t hard, there she was at the Ritz. A runaway at the Ritz! She can be ridiculous. She said she didn’t want to get married…”

  “She certainly made that clear. At the last possible moment.”

  “But she won’t get married, even though…” The other Mrs. Hadley paused. Then: “She won’t get married, she won’t take care of things. Does she think she’ll wake up one morning and the problem will have solved itself? You have to do something, Hugo.”

  “Poor thing,” from Fin’s mother, a snort from his father, a sigh from the other Mrs. Hadley.

  Then: “Damn it.” Fin’s father.

  “Think about how alone she must feel.” Fin’s mother.

  “I doubt that Lady is alone.” Fin’s father.

  “You haven’t changed a bit, have you?” The other Mrs. Hadley.

  “She’s a disgrace. Let her rot abroad.”

  “You don’t mean that, Hugo,” Fin’s mother said.

  “She’s nothing but trouble, and I do mean that.”

  “Nevertheless,” said the other Mrs. Hadley, “she is your daughter.”

  “She needs you,” Fin’s mother said.

  “She needs to be brought home and spanked.”

  “And so I thought of you,” the other Mrs. Hadley said in an acid tone.

  * * *

  “We are going on a trip, Fin,” his mother said the next day. “We’re going to find your sister, Lady. In Paris. Won’t that be fun?”

  “Oh, loads,” said Hugo.

  Fin thought of the newspaper photograph of Lady. “Is Paris on the beach?”

  “We are going to find her and bring her home,” his father said. “Put the fear of God in her.”

  Fin didn’t want to put the fear of anybody in anybody. Neither, it appeared, did his mother.

  “I still don’t see the point of taking Fin and me,” his mother said. “It’s such a long trip. And the whole thing is so awkward…”

  “Awkward? I’ll tell you what’s awkward. Having a daughter who behaves like a common…” He looked at Fin and stopped himself. “It will grease the skids, okay? She likes you, Lydia. She always has.”

  He sounded as if he were about to say, God knows why, but he didn’t, just shook his head, patted Fin, and said, “Don’t mind me.” By which he meant, Fin knew from experience, just the opposite. Mind me. Do as I say. Before I say it. As in, go away now, Fin, go away and play.

  * * *

  They were off in search of Lady. His mother said it was an adventure. In an airplane. Like Sky King, Fin said, but she did not watch television with him and just nodded vaguely. The airplane lurched off the ground and into the clouds. Fin was too excited to eat his dinner, but he put the packet of sugar printed with the letters TWA in his pocket, a souvenir. It would take an entire night to get to Paris. They were going to rescue Lady. Fin did not understand what they were rescuing her from, and he did not care. He was in a plane and the clouds were below him.

  The elevator in the hotel in Paris had no walls, just ornate wrought iron you could see through.

  “It’s like Babar’s elevator,” he said.

  “I thought Babar was an elephant,” his father said, and Fin and his mother exchanged a look of superior knowledge.

  The milk in the morning was sour and warm, like no milk he had ever tasted, and he refused to drink it. He ate a croissant, a revelation. He and his mother walked through a park where no one was allowed to step on the grass. They saw a puppet show, which terrified him. The puppets screamed in high-pitched voices and hit each other over the head. The loaves of bread in Paris were as long as baseball bats.

  But Lady was not in Paris.

  “She skipped town,” Hugo said.

  And they took a train to Nice. They stayed overnight in a hotel across the street from a rocky beach. In the morning, while his father was looking for Lady, Fin and his mother saw a camel on the beach, and Fin’s mother lifted him up so he could have a ride.

  But Lady had skipped that town, too.

  “At least,” Fin’s father said, “she hasn’t moved on to the casinos.”

  “She has no sense,” he said later.

  “She’s just a child,” Fin’s mother said.

  “She’s certainly behaving like one.”

  They took another train that night.

  “We’re going to another country,” his mother said. “To Italy.”

  The train rocked and rattled, and Fin slept on the highest bunk of the triple-decker. Their cabin had a tiny sink. The sink folded up, like the beds. Would they ever find her? He was curious about his half-sister who had skipped two towns and skipped her own wedding. “But when we find her,” he said sadly to his mother, “the adventure will end.”

  His mother hugged him and said, “I hope you’re right, my love. But I wouldn’t bet on it.”

  * * *

  They arrived in Rome early in the morning and searched for Lady there; at least Fin’s father did, making phone calls from the hotel, setting off on “wild-goose chases.” Fin and his mother took a walk and ran up and down wide steps and threw pennies into fountains guarded by naked marble men. But Lady was gone again, and that afternoon they took a train to Naples and from there a ferry to Capri. Fin sat on a wooden bench, tired, his hands sticky from an ice-cream cone he’d successfully lobbied for in Naples. He watched the shore recede, his eyes half closed. His mother pulled him onto her lap. That’s a volcano, she said. Would it erupt while they were in Italy? Oh no, it was extinct.

  “The only one who’s going to erupt in this place is me,” Fin’s father said.

  The ferry landed, and Fin was so sleepy his father had to carry him off.

  “Wait’ll I get my hands on her,” he heard his father say.

  “Hugo,” his mother said. “The boy.” Then: “Look, Fin. We’re going in a funicular. Up the cliff.” And: “Look, Fin. The taxis have no tops, just awnings.”

  She began humming “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top,” until Hugo shifted irritably in his seat. “Never mind,” she whispered then, her face against Fin’s, her arms around him.

  Another hotel, another man carrying suitcases, another narrow cot brought in for Fin to fall asleep on. Blissfully.

  * * *

  When Fin saw his sister for the first time, she was sitting in the piazzetta at a café drinking coffee by herself. She was as beautiful as her pictures. She stubbed out a cigarette, stood up as a young woman walked by, and kissed her on both cheeks, smiling, speaking rapidly in Italian.

  Then she saw Hugo Hadley. Her face hardened. The skirt of her white filmy dress danced in a sudden gust of wind. She sat down without saying a word. Then she saw Fin.


  He was holding his mother’s hand. The sunlight made him squint. Lady was wearing sunglasses. She grinned. Fin, helplessly, grinned back.

  “Finino! Fratello mio, vieni!”

  She does not speak English, he thought in alarm, but when she held her arms out, he let go of his mother’s hand and ran to his foreign sister.

  “Howdy, pardner,” Lady said. Perfect English, to his relief.

  Even as an adult, Fin would remember that moment, the harsh sunlight, the circle of crumbly buildings, the cry of the gulls overhead, the smell of coffee, the scent of perfume, and the eyes of his new sister, a young woman in a white dress, those dark eyes. He turned his own eyes away, conscious suddenly of a feeling so overwhelming it made him shy.

  “Ah,” Lady said, moving on to Mr. and Mrs. Hadley. “Papa! And la bella long-suffering Lydia. What brings you to the enchanted isle?”

  Fin had never heard anyone speak to his father in this jaunty, irreverent way. He looked from one to the other. They looked surprisingly alike, their faces long and angry, though Lady was beautiful and young and smiling and angry, while Hugo Hadley was stony and angry. “You know perfectly well why we’re here,” he said.

  Lady said, “Coffee?” and before anyone could answer, she waved to a waiter and said something in Italian.

  “Thank you,” Fin’s mother said softly. She put her hand on her husband’s arm and said, “Let’s sit down.”

  “I don’t have time for this nonsense,” Hugo said.

  “We’ve come halfway around the world to find Lady. I think we can stop for some coffee, Hugo.”

  “To find me?” said Lady. The waiter came back with three cups of coffee and a large glass of orangeade for Fin. “Well, here I am.”

  Here she was. They had found Lady, and the adventure was clearly not over, his mother was right. Fin was fascinated by her. She was not a child, though she was his sister. She was not an adult, either, at least not like any of the adults he had ever met. She never stopped moving. She called out a cheerful “Ciao!” to a young man passing by. She pulled Fin onto her lap and spooned the foamed milk from her coffee into his mouth. Her hair was long and loose, and she pushed it back from her face. She jumped up, carrying Fin under her arm, and ran to babble in Italian at a girl across the way. She put Fin down and ran back, holding his hand.

  “Godamn it, you never could sit still,” Hugo said. “Not even for your own wedding. Look, I don’t want to be here, Lady, I’m only here because your mother asked me to find you.”

  “That was very thoughtful of you,” Lady said. “You have succeeded. You can go back to New York.”

  “We’re taking you with us,” Hugo said. He spoke in an angry hiss. “We’re taking you home, do you hear me?”

  “I don’t have a home.”

  Fin’s father rolled his eyes. “Jesus H. Christ.”

  Lady said nothing.

  “This melodramatic crap has got to stop, Lady.”

  She waved at someone she knew, smiling, the smile fading as she turned again to her father.

  “It’s got to stop,” Hugo repeated.

  “Go to hell,” she said. And she got up and walked away, disappearing into a small dark alley behind the café.

  “Oh dear,” Fin’s mother said.

  “We did find her, though,” Fin said. “Didn’t we?”

  “Typical,” Hugo was saying, pulling out his wallet. “She left me with the bill.”

  * * *

  It took Hugo Hadley three days, a frozen bank account, two long discussions with Fin’s mother, three or four pleading long-distance phone calls from Lady’s mother, the other Mrs. Hadley, and a visit by Hugo to every shop and restaurant in Capri suggesting that the extension of credit to his daughter would be a losing proposition. Three strange, wonderful days for Fin. The town was full of steps and alleys. Enormous lemons hung from vines. The beach was tiny, the harbor full of brightly painted boats. There were dolphins one day. The sun was high and hot. Children kicked a ball in the piazzetta. A bell rang. And he was with Lady.

  They were on a flat rock that jutted out to the water, Fin, his mother, and Lady. It had taken forever to get there. A staircase had gone down a mountain to the flat rock. Practically a mountain. Lady lay on her back in the bathing suit she’d worn in the picture in the newspaper. One arm was over her eyes. Fin’s mother sat on a red towel looking out at the sky, one foot in the water.

  “Everything will work out for you, Lady,” she said. “I know it will.” She rubbed suntan lotion on Fin’s back. Fin made the pebble in one hand jump over the pebble in the other hand.

  “I made a mess of things, didn’t I?” Lady said. “Do you know my mother has a hope chest for me? Don’t you think a hope chest looks like a coffin? But I’m hopeless, I suppose. I should have a hopeless chest.”

  “You’ll find someone you truly love. You’ll find a wonderful husband.”

  “But why?” Lady said, sitting up. “Why do I have to?”

  Lydia looked a little shocked, then she laughed. “Lady, you’re whining like a child. It’s not medicine, for goodness’ sake. It’s your whole life. It’s your future. It’s everything! Don’t you want to fall in love and get married? To the right man?”

  “I want to fall in love. Everyone does. And get married. Of course I do. Someday.”

  “Then someday you will.”

  “Oh Lord, give me a husband … but not yet!”

  They both started laughing. Lady gave Lydia a kiss. Then she dove into the water and swam toward the two gigantic rocks that looked like a bridge and a hat. Fin thought Lady looked like a mermaid. He almost thought she was a mermaid, he told me. Something magical. Everything seemed enchanted. Every moment. At the Blue Grotto, he lay back in a rowboat and watched the arch of rock close around them as he and Lady slipped through a tunnel into the flickering blue cave. A soft shimmering blue light spread beneath them. The water lapped against the sides of the rowboat. “Is it real?” he asked.

  He didn’t even know what he meant by that. But Lady did.

  “Yes,” she said softly. “It’s real.”

  Then she sighed and said to no one in particular, “Unfortunately, so is everything else.”

  The next day they were driven to the harbor in one of the taxis with the striped, fringed canvas tops: Hugo Hadley, Lydia Hadley, Fin Hadley, and Lady Hadley. “The Hadley family,” Fin said.

  “Active imagination,” Hugo muttered.

  Fin’s mother kissed his head.

  Lady said nothing to anyone. Her arms were wrapped tightly around herself, as if she were hanging on for dear life.

  * * *

  The ocean liner was named Cristoforo Colombo, and it would take eight days to sail to New York. There were three pools, one on each deck. Their deck was the top deck, the top layer of the cake.

  People stood on the pier in Naples and waved white handkerchiefs. Fin waved back, Goodbye, whoever you are. The ship’s horn brayed like a lumbering animal, but the ship slid effortlessly into the Bay of Naples, past towns clinging to the mountainside, flocks of white stucco houses perched like grazing sheep. Fin kept waving long after the people on the dock disappeared, his chin on the rail, watching the world recede.

  In the photos from this trip, Fin is always grinning. In one photograph, which Fin kept framed on his desk as an adult, he sits on his father’s shoulders. Standing beside Hugo, Fin’s mother holds a sun hat on her head with one hand, the other clasping Fin’s skinny leg. The wind is blowing—blowing the sleeves of Fin’s shirt, blowing his mother’s hair beneath her hat, even finding a bit of Hugo’s thinning hair to lift away from his bare head. Behind them, to the right, a young woman lies on a deck chair, her head back as if in sleep, her eyes wide open.

  Lydia and Lady spent hours stretched out in deck chairs, their knees covered by plaid wool blankets. Hugo Hadley paced the deck, incongruous in his dark gray suit, his cigar clamped between his teeth. Fin followed him sometimes, other times just watched him pass, onc
e, twice, three times, always serious, always pausing before his wife and daughter as if to assure himself that they were still there.

  One afternoon, as Lady flipped through a copy of Life magazine they’d gotten in Rome, Hugo paused in his promenade and addressed her: “You have never even said you’re sorry.”

  “I’m sorry you felt you had to come all this way to starve me out of my hole like a rat and stand guard over me on this trip across the wine-dark sea.”

  “Not at all what I meant.”

  “I’m sorry you’re here, then.”

  “That does not surprise me.”

  “Now, now,” Lydia piped from the next deck chair. “Now, now.”

  “Look,” Lady said, “I took care of it, okay? I told you. There was absolutely no reason to fly halfway around the world like some Victorian paterfamilias. It’s done.”

  She smiled at him, but there was no joy in the smile.

  “Leave the girl alone, Hugo,” said Lydia.

  “Yes, let us not assassinate this lady further, Senator … Have you no decency, sir?” Lady said.

  “How dare you!” McCarthy? That villain? Hugo, a proudly progressive Democrat, was practically sputtering.

  “Oh please.”

  “You’re … you’re…” He was really angry. He had turned his angry purple. “You’re not fit,” he said at last. He stomped away, his small, uncomprehending son following him, imitating his short, pounding steps.

  “We need a drink,” Hugo said when he noticed Fin.

  Fin drank ginger ale with a maraschino cherry in it. There was a clear plastic swizzle stick, its top in the shape of a ship.

  “Look,” he said, showing his father. “The boat.”

  “You’re a good guy,” his father said. “You know that?”

  “Lady is really a very nice person,” Fin said, sensing this unusual compliment to himself had something to do with his sister, something uncomplimentary.

  “Nice?” Hugo laughed. “‘It is very nice to think / The world is full of meat and drink…’”

  “‘With little children saying grace,’” Fin added proudly. It was a Robert Louis Stevenson poem he had memorized for his mother. “‘In every Christian kind of place.’”