Chapter 9: Family

Monsieur Trousseau trundled home, a bag of the finest selections from Molbe's House of Drink under his arm, tightly rolled and taped shut to protect their aromas from the early summer breeze. He stepped around a well-polished Mercedes-Benz, looking upon it with disapproval, and under a pair of workmen installing the apartment's new sign over the front door. He tipped his hat to Monsieur Ripley (a talented young man renting Monsieur Golgo's old flat), and turned towards the long climb up to his home. "Really should look into an elevator one of these days," he thought.

"Oi, Papa!"

"Mm? Peter?"

His son was leaning out of the door of his first floor office, cradling a phone on his shoulder. "Come here for a minute, eh?" He kicked off the door-frame and slid back behind his desk.

Monsieur shrugged, and hobbled over to what was (last year) his place of work.

His son had changed things considerably when he moved in. Gone were the precarious piles of bills, receipts, and invoices slopped on top of every available chair, table, and shelf, replaced by three large, immaculate filing cabinets. The old desk was still there, dents, scrapes and all, but now he could actually see its surface. One of those new computers was on it; the typewriter it had displaced was in a place of dignified obsolescence by the far wall. The pitted oak walls were now smooth and lacquered; family photos dotted them, including a recent colour picture of Marien and her family. Peter had thrown open the far window and positioned an electric fan by it.

"Yes, yes, I'll see to it," said Peter, into the phone. "Send your man by tomorrow for the quote, okay?" He hung up. "Back from Molbe's Papa?"

"Mm," he nodded. He waved his cane-hand at the receiver. "What was…?"

"Oh, that was this fellow I know from Otis. I asked him to come by, take a look at the place, and see if we could build an elevator in by the old fire escape or something. It's just preliminary," he added, seeing his father's curious expression, "nothing definite. But it would be great for the tenants who have bicycles. And for Mama, of course."

"Huh. Good, good thinking."

Peter snapped his fingers. "Right. I almost forgot." He motioned his father over to a desk by the window. There was a large package on it. "It just came in the mail."

"From Delft? The Netherlands?" he said, reading the return address. "What's this?"

"Well," said Peter, sheepishly, "I was going to save it for dinner tonight, but…ah, what the heck. Open it!"

Eyeing the package suspiciously, he meticulously removed the wrapping paper, opened the cardboard box, dug through several layers of packing material, and stopped.

Peter had a huge grin on his face. "Well?"

Carefully, as if he were handling solid light, he lifted one of the objects out of the box using both hands.

It was, for lack of a better word, perfect. The china, milk-white with a tasteful, yet intricate, sky-blue pattern, was light as air, and so thin he could practically see through it. A ring of 24-carat gold ran round the rim of the tea cup, and flowed over its long, fluted handle, which was moulded in the shape of a swan. And exactly the size and shape he liked, too.

"There's a little moustache catcher you can fit over the rim somewhere in there, too," said Peter. "I asked them to throw it in."

Monsieur looked over the other twelve pieces of the tea set, carefully.

"So? Do you like it?"

He set the cup back in its place, replaced the packaging, and closed the lid. "Send it back," he said, softly.

"What?" said Peter. "Papa, this is special order!"

"And it cost a fortune, right?"

"Well, sort of, yes, but —"

"So send it back," he said.

"I, I thought you'd like it?"

"Too rich for my blood," he muttered. "And for yours."

"Oh, don't start that again, Papa," moaned his son. "It's like I said to Mama, money is not a problem nowadays."

"Don't try that with me, young man!" snapped Monsieur.

His son stepped back. "Start what, Papa?"

The old man straightened up. "I ran this apartment for some fifty years," he began. "I know every crack in the walls, every leak in the roof, every loose board in the floor. I know about the leak in 3-B and the broken radiator in 1-B. And I know how the window in 2-A sticks when the humidity goes up. I know all this because they've been like that for some ten years, son. I've always meant to fix them all, spruce this place up, but I never had the money to do it. Last year, I asked you to come here and help. Today, all those things are fixed."

"You know, Papa," said Peter, "most people just say, 'Thank you.'"

"I'm not finished," he said. "And neither are you, apparently. You did all that, and more. Satellite television. A new car. A new sign. A second hot water heater. An elevator. And now this?" he said, meaning the package.

"I looked over the books, Papa; there was money everywhere, if you knew where to look for it."

"Don't insult my intelligence!" He shuffled over to the desk, and rested his hand over the latest sheaf of rent deposits. "I know exactly how much we make and how much we spend. And for thirty years those numbers were exactly the same. We never made much, but we never went into the red, either." He looked his son straight in the eye. "Peter, there is simply no way you can afford all of this."

Peter rolled his eyes. "Papa…"

"What did you do, eh? Take out a loan? Borrow from a friend? You're not spending your retirement fund from your Agency job, are you?"

"What? No, no, it's not that, not that at all…"

"Then what is it, eh? I've always lived within my means, Peter, and I've tried to teach you the same."

"Where are you going with all this, father?" said Peter.

"Slow down, Peter. No need to change the world overnight. You've got a good 10, 15 years in this place yet." His son sighed audibly at this remark. "But if you keep this up you'll burn right out. Why rush things?"

"'Rush things'? Papa, this stuff should've happened ten years ago! This isn't forging ahead; it's catching up!" He slid onto the desk. "It's why you asked me to come here, isn't it? To take care of things? Fix the place up? Well, that's what I'm doing."

"So much to keep track of," mumbled his father in reply. "I worry you might —"

"Well, don't. Whatever happens here, I'll take care of it. I know what I'm doing; I've got things under control. Just trust me on this, okay?"

"Trust?" He shuffled towards the door. "How can I? You never tell me what's going on anymore; have to find out from the neighbours."

"I thought," said Peter, a slight edge to his voice, " that since you'd retired you wouldn't need to know everything that happens down here."

"Doesn't mean I don't want to. And then there's you. In and out at all hours. Come home bleary-eyed in the middle of the morning. Even smoke now, never smoked before, now I smell it on your breath all the time. All those whispered talks you have with those men in your club…"

"It is sort of a secret club, Papa."

"So secret you can't even tell your own father? Your mother, she stays up every night until you get in the door. You know why? Because she thinks that one night you might not come home."

"Papa…"

"I read the news; I know what it's like out there. Crimes, murders, betrayals everywhere. It's not safe out there. But now you're back in the thick of it again, back at the Department."

"Because I want to do something about it, Papa," said Peter. "Because I can make a difference there, really change things."

"And you can't here?"

Peter sighed. "Papa, you and Mama won't even let me move you down to the first floor."

"We've lived up there 50 years, son," replied Monsieur. "It's home. And that should never change."

"The world does, Papa," said Peter. "It's human nature to change things, to plan, set events in motion. And if you're not ready to move with them, then you're better off getting out of the way."

Monsieur shot him a glare. "Are you implying something, son?"

He returned the glare, sighed, and rubbed his forehead. "I'll send the tea set back tomorrow."

Monsieur grunted, grabbed his bag of groceries, and headed for the stairs.

"Happy birthday, Father," said Peter, to his back.