The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson
Perdita said, “Dad gave me Walden to read, that book by Thoreau? You can opt out of the system. You can live in your own way.”
Autolycus shrugged. “What was that thing Jesus didn’t say? The rich are always with you. Drop out of the world and find an island where you can live on lettuce, and some venture capitalist will back a sea-plane shuttle service and they’ll build a spa that offers a detox using only the world’s most exclusive lettuce.”
“Aren’t you a businessman?” said Perdita.
Autolycus shook his head. “I’m too honest to be a businessman. I’m a straightforward crook.”
Shep came over to the table with a tall man Perdita didn’t know.
“You want to jump back in for a last round?” Shep asked Autolycus.
“How much more can a poor old man risk?”
The stranger standing behind Zel spoke. “What you risk reveals what you value.”
Zel turned round and stood up in the same moment. The softness in his face froze over like he was staring at Medusa.
“Dad!”
“Hello, Zel. Autolycus told me you would be here. I dropped in to pick up a car and I decided to come with him. I don’t want to interrupt. I haven’t seen you for a while.”
“Fourteen months,” said Zel. He was shaking with anger and confusion and he hoped no one could tell. It was always like this when he saw his father. His body went tense, his mind went blank and, while his father would be urbane and easy, Zel would have nothing to say. Go away. Go away. Go away.
Xeno looked Zel up and down like he was booking a model.
“You look good—apart from the oil-spill down your shirt.”
Zel blushed. He wanted to hit his father out of existence.
Xeno smiled at Perdita. He was taller than his son. Fine features and grey eyes. Thick grey hair combed back like a movie star’s. Attractive and aware that he was attractive. He wore a dark blue tailored suit, lace-up blue suede Oxford brogues and a pink V-neck T-shirt. He held out his hand to Perdita.
“I’m Xeno. Zel’s father.”
“You sound British,” said Perdita.
“I am British. Zel’s American because his mother is American. And he was brought up here.”
“Perdita,” said Perdita. She took his hand to shake it. Xeno held on. Zel wished he had a knife.
The band started up a Jackson Browne number.
“People stay just a little bit longer…”
Xeno said, “ ‘STAY.’ This is one of my favourite songs from a long time ago. A lifetime ago. Before you were born. Would you like to dance?”
Perdita hesitated, then smiled and nodded and went with Xeno onto the dance floor.
Zel looked like he had been sprayed with ice-water and put in the fridge. He couldn’t move and he didn’t speak.
“Well, well,” said Autolycus. “Family life is always a surprise.”
“He’s not my family,” said Zel.
—
Xeno was a good dancer.
He moves like he’s made of water, thought Perdita.
He didn’t try to talk to her. They just danced in the way that people who can dance do dance.
He had the same slow, shy smile as Zel, but his face had an interiority to it that Zel’s didn’t. He seemed to be somewhere else, though not through inattentiveness; there was a quality of detachment to him.
Other dancers cleared a space around them because they were good to watch. Perdita was enjoying herself. Xeno got behind, letting her shimmy as he held her arms. He leaned forward and said into her ear, “You’re perfectly safe with me. I’m gay.”
Outside, on the edge of the dance floor, where he always felt himself to be, Zel was watching them. He stood, a motionless column of misery that couldn’t be managed, and a rod of anger he couldn’t express. He didn’t want Xeno dancing with Perdita. At the same time he wanted his father to be dancing with him, on some other dance floor, where he had a father, and where his father had a son.
Perdita was aware of a doubleness in Xeno. His upper body was accommodating and polite. He twirled her, held out his hand to her, danced back, not forward—but his hips were forward water.
He was yes and no all at once.
The music ended. Xeno put his hand on the small of Perdita’s back and indicated the direction of the bar. He asked for a double Woodford Reserve. The barman didn’t ask Perdita what she wanted—just passed her fresh lime juice and water.
Xeno dropped the bourbon down his throat like he was swallowing an oyster.
“How long have you known my son?”
“Not long. He comes to the bar sometimes.”
“I used to come here myself—years ago—before your family took it on. In those days this place had a reputation.”
“What kind of a reputation?”
“It doesn’t matter. Times change. Or we believe that they do. But if times change, do people change?”
“I don’t know what you mean…”
“That doesn’t matter either. It’s a long story. I think about time all the time—and in part because I am getting older. Don’t mistake me—I am not wistful for lost youth. There’s nothing there I want back. Not the van, the dog, the books, the girls, the boys, or Leo.”
“Who’s Leo?”
“A lion I used to know.”
Perdita had a sense that Xeno’s grey eyes, the colour of magnets, were magnets. He held her without touching her.
“I think about time because I don’t understand it—we’re the same there, you and I—except that you don’t need to understand because you don’t believe it will end. Don’t you find that strange? That we think we’re immortal until we’re not?”
The barman came by and filled Xeno’s glass. He lifted a toast to Perdita and drank back the whisky like he was Tristan and she was Isolde.
He said, “Getting older happens suddenly. It’s like swimming out to sea and realising that the shore you’re making for isn’t the shore where you started out.”
“Where did you start out?”
“At a chilly boys’ boarding school in England. I liked swimming because the water was so cold that it stopped me feeling anything else.”
“I feel like I’m made of feelings.”
Xeno smiled at her. There was something about her that he thought he knew. But that was impossible.
He lifted his hand—he had easy, natural authority. The barman refilled his glass.
“Do you like him? Zel?”
“Yes, I do.”
Xeno nodded.
Then she said, “Do you?”
Xeno downed his drink. He put his hand on her shoulder and they went back to the table.
Zel wasn’t there. Clo was looking like that cat who got the cream, the kippers, the peanut butter, the sliced chicken and a lifetime’s supply of genetically engineered slow-moving mice.
“Hey hey hey!” he said. “Hey! Who wants a game?”
He was magician-trick shuffling the deck of cards one hand to the other, back and forth, like they were the leather pleats of a piano accordion. “I won back the Chevy,” said Clo.
“Excuse me?” said Shep, who had won back the Chevy.
There was a family-sized bottle of Maker’s Mark on the table and a pitcher of ice and a round of glasses. Xeno poured a long straight bourbon into his glass—so much bourbon that he might have been a maiden aunt sitting with an iced tea.
“Help yourself,” said Shep.
“I already lost large,” said Xeno. “I need a drink.”
“It’s my birthday,” said Shep. “I’m lucky tonight.”
“Or does the House always win?” said Xeno, dropping the whisky in one and pouring himself another long straight.
“There is no House,” said Shep. “This isn’t a laundromat.”
“It’s a long way to drive for a drink.”
Shep cut the cards. “Are you in or are you out?”
“I’m in,” said Xeno. “I’ll raise you large or quits.” He threw
“Holy Ghost and all the Saints,” said Clo.
“OK, OK,” said Autolycus, “I’m in. Lowball or Texas Hold ’em?”
“I’m out,” said Clo.
“Can I play?” said Perdita.
“Since when did you learn how to play poker?” said Clo.
“Tonight. Teach me. Can we start with ten dollars?”
The men laughed. The moment lifted. “We can play a junior game,” said Shep. “Starter for ten, gentlemen.”
Xeno looked at Perdita. “Poker is about probability. You could say that poker players are searching for order in a disordered universe.”
“Oh, I agree,” said Autolycus. “Order/disorder. Disorder/order. Can I get some whisky on this ice?”
Xeno continued, “No one can predict the hand they are dealt, but because there are fifty-two cards in the pack you can soon work out what other people are playing. If you pay attention. So pay attention.”
“Let me explain how you play in real life,” said Shep, “separate to all this philosophising—I got enough of that in the DeLorean.”
“There’s no need to be hurtful,” said Autolycus.
Shep ignored him. “Poker is a five-card game. This game, you got two hole cards—personal cards—and there’s five community cards—like this—and here’s what kinda hands you need to win. A hand is always five cards. You got your Royal Flush, your Straight Flush, Pairs…”
Zel came back to the table. His shirt was dripping wet but the oil had gone.
“My son seems to have laundered himself,” said Xeno. “Is that what happens here?”
“Are you trying to say something?” said Shep.
“He’s drunk,” said Zel. “He’s always drunk.”
Xeno refilled his glass, looking steadily at his son. “All I’m saying is that this used to be a Mafia place.”
“Not anymore,” said Shep.
Perdita took Zel’s hand. “I’m learning to play poker. Will you play?”
Zel took ten dollars from his billfold.
“I didn’t know you knew how to play poker,” said Xeno.
“What do you know about me?” said Zel.
“Gentlemen…” said Autolycus. “We are guests at a party.”
“Uninvited guests,” said Shep, “but, as it says in the Good Book, ‘Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise.’ ”
“I thought that was W. B. Yeats,” said Xeno.
“If it is, we know where he got it from,” said Shep.
“This is a funny kinda poker game,” said Autolycus. “I should have stayed home. Clo! Put your bills on the table. You got plenty of money to spare thanks to the misfortune of an old man.”
Shep dealt the cards. It was a slow game because the game was more than the cards. Xeno was drinking, Zel was hating, Shep was thinking, Autolycus was watching, Clo was being Clo, which was the same as being a table or a chair, and Perdita was learning.
She won the first hand. The men clapped.
“OK!” she said. “Here’s my fifty I won. Double or quits.”
Zel was the first to put fifty on the table.
“I pay that boy too much,” said Autolycus.
“Don’t worry about him. He gets money from me every month,” said Xeno.
“I don’t need your money. Why is it always about money with you?”
“I used to deal in other currencies,” said Xeno, “love, friendship, trust, loyalty. And I felt good about myself. And then I discovered that it’s all sentiment. Means nothing. We don’t love others and others don’t love us.”
“That’s not true,” said Perdita.
“You’re young,” said Xeno, “you still believe in love.”
“That’s because she is loved,” said Shep.
“And when she isn’t? Read Oscar Wilde, my dear. Each man kills the thing he loves.”
“Why did you come here?” said Zel.
“I wanted to see you.”
“Then why didn’t you? You have had years to see me.”
Xeno didn’t answer.
“All right, all right,” said Shep. “We’re starting the game.”
Xeno put down the cash. He didn’t look at Zel.
This time the men were playing for real.
Perdita won the second hand. She scooped up the $250 and added her own stake. Three hundred to play.
“I’m out,” said Zel.
“I’ll stake you,” said Xeno.
“I said I’m out.”
“I said I’ll stake you!”
“I’m out,” said Clo.
“You’re in,” said Shep. “Put the money on the table and do as you’re told.”
Autolycus said, “Clo—you know that story I told you this morning, about Oedipus?”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Clo. “What about it?”
“I am revising my thesis. It’s the fathers who kill the sons.”
“Who kills the daughters?” said Perdita.
“We all do,” said Xeno. “If the hero doesn’t kill you—call him Hamlet, call him Othello, call him Leontes, Don Giovanni, James Bond—still you’ll be the sacrifice for his soul.”
“Does everyone except me know what he’s talking about?” said Clo.
“When he’s drunk,” said Zel, “he thinks he’s interesting.”
Xeno said, “My best friend once bet me his wife.”
“Did you play?” said Shep.
“No. But we both lost.”
—
There was $4,000 on the table. Autolycus played his hand. Straight Flush.
“Thank you, gentlemen, and this dear lady.”
“Well, well, well, well, abide with me,” said Shep.
“Better quit while I’m ahead.” Autolycus stood up, folding the cash into his wallet.
“You dropped this.” Perdita handed him a playing card from his chair.
Shep took it from her. “That’s not from our pack.”
Xeno leaned back, his hands behind his head. “The biter bit. The House doesn’t like cheating unless it’s the House that cheats.”
Shep turned on Xeno. “This is not a House.”
“Oh, no? What are you running out here, Shep? Drugs? Women? Underage girls? Boys? No, it’s not boys or I’d have heard about it.”
“Have you lost your mind?” said Zel.
“I think it’s time for you to leave,” said Shep.
Xeno didn’t move. His long fingers were like spider legs, Perdita thought as he played them up and down his tumbler of bourbon like a spider crawling up and down the glass.
Xeno said, “This was a Mafia place when you took it over. I was more involved in the city at that time. I was living here at that time. I know some things.”
Shep was working hard to control his anger. “Yes, it was a Mafia place. I bought them out.”
“No one buys the Mafia out.”
“That’s true,” said Autolycus.
“You shut it,” said Clo. “Perdita—you want to leave us for a while?”
“No.”
“I’m saying leave us for a while.”
“You don’t want her to hear how her father runs his business? You don’t buy your daughter a necklace like the one she’s wearing out of cash from bowls of fish soup and Friday night Golden Oldies.”
“This was my mother’s necklace,” said Perdita.
“Her mother’s dead,” said Zel. “You are crass, drunk, self-obsessed and stupid.”
Clo stood up. He was as tall as his father with double the bulk. “Time’s up, Beano, or whatever you call yourself. You’re lucky. If this was a Mafia place, you’d have a bullet in your head by morning.”
“Like Tony Gonzales,” said Xeno.
Silence.
“Tony…Gonzales…” said Autolycus. “Whew-whee. That was a long time ago.”
“Who’s Tony Gonzales?”
“It was before you were born,” said Autolycus.
“Before she
“I bought the scrap, y’know, piece of local history.”
“What scrap?” said Clo.
“Whoever shot that guy—and they never caught them, right?”
“They were never caught,” said Xeno.
“They made off in the Mexican’s rented BMW and they rear-ended that car under Bear Bridge. The floodwater that night was like God had sent it.”
“Like God had sent it,” repeated Shep, his speech slow and automatic.
“I got the call to come and collect the wreck—I was doing mostly wreck work in those days. To pay the bills. The pistol they shot the Mexican with—it was still in the car when I got there; police never worked out why there was one bullet they couldn’t account for. Six to a barrel, two in the Mexican, three in the gun.”
“They must’a fired and missed,” said Clo.
“Yeah, maybe. There was a witness—a medical orderly—coming out of the hospital, said he’d seen a car with a blown-out tyre and a couple of guys changing the wheel in the rain like some drenched film noir. But they never found them either. Lordy, yes, it’s coming back to me now. It was in the news for quite a few weeks.”
Xeno emptied the rest of the bottle into his glass.
“I was the man Tony Gonzales was looking for.”
Silence.
“That guy was bringing YOU the money and the…?” Clo had started speaking and then he stopped speaking. Shep was on his feet. He was swaying slightly. His face was twitching and he seemed to be trying to say something that wouldn’t be said and trying to walk away from the table that stayed where it was or his body stayed where it was. He was moving and speaking/not moving/not speaking.
“Dad?”
Shep fell like a falling world.
“Dad? Dad!”
Clo was gently slapping his face. People were gathering round. “Get an ambulance! GET AN AMBULANCE!”
—
And the night unwound as those days and nights do—those days and nights that hijack time. Those days and nights that hold up the car on its way home and gun down the driver and the passengers and leave the wreckage in the rain.
You were moving through your days and nights and then the call came. You were thinking about supper or going to bed. You weren’t thinking about death and loss. And now there’s a flood and it’s dark and you’re trying to get there before it’s too late but it’s already too late because the time where there was enough time is over. You don’t know how long it is until morning and in the hospital the hands on the clock crawl round like an insect walking the same pane of glass till it dies.