LITMIR.BIZ

      Madeleine followed me into the nursery and I suppose half an hour passed while she filled me in with details, some of which I could have survived without, regarding the conversation she had only that morning overheard between Mrs de Saulles and my father.

      ‘Though it wasn’t really a conversation, to be honest with you, Jennifer,’ she was saying. ‘More a series of grunts.’

      ‘I don’t believe you.’

      ‘Yes, you do. And with me in the room, too! Good God, to look at them both – him an old man and her fragile as feather – on the outside. The crazy bitch. You wouldn’t believe they had it in them.’

      ‘Yes – well. The racket they make, I should think the whole of Long Island knows it by now,’ I said.

      ‘And there was me thinking, after a certain number of years, the mechanism stopped working. Didn’t you? A man as old as your father . . . ’

      ‘He’s not that old . . . ’

      ‘But the mechanism—’

      ‘Anything! Please! Can we talk of anything but my filthy papa and his ancient mechanism!’

      We were laughing loudly, both of us, sprawled out lazily on the nursery floor. I looked up and there, standing side by side, were Rudy and Jack.

      Madeleine gave a silly shriek.

      ‘Sounds like I missed an excellent beginning,’ Rudy said.

      ‘Not at all,’ I said, scrambling to sit up. ‘Actually Madeleine was being disgusting.’

      ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt.’

      ‘No, no,’ said I. ‘No no no.’

      Madeleine guffawed.

      ‘Only Jack told me,’ Rudy said, ‘there was a steam engine up here, not working as well as it once did?’

      ‘Quite the opposite, Mr Guglielmi,’ gurgled Madeleine. ‘On the contrary. Ask Jennifer’s papa!’

      How I longed to knock her out! Rudy looked for a moment as if he might be about to laugh himself – but then I suppose he saw the mortification on my face and thought better of it. He said, ‘Jack said he had a toy train that was broken. I thought perhaps I could fix it.’

      ‘And Jack is absolutely right,’ I said. ‘Madeleine—’ I looked at her, and almost – very nearly – started giggling myself. ‘How clever of Jack to remember. He and I have spent days trying to put the wretched thing back together. I’m not sure it can be fixed. Nothing we try seems to work . . . ’

      ‘Well, perhaps I could – ah!’ He spotted the components, strewn across the table, and right away settled himself before them.

      And so the four of us wiled away a little time, with Madeleine and me on the floor, Jack on my lap, and Rudy at the table, with his back to us, bent intently over his work. We talked of this and of that – of nothing, really. I don’t remember a word of it. But I do remember Madeleine, as Rudy worked away, slotting together small pieces of metal – I can see Madeleine now, pulling a face at me, rolling her eyes and pretending to swoon.

      Jack said, ‘Mr Guglielmi, poor Madeleine is coming down with something pretty serious.’

      He didn’t look up. He said, ‘Oh, I don’t really think so, Jack . . . ’

      Rudy moves like a cat. You don’t hear him when he approaches. And he sees things when he doesn’t seem to be looking. Hardly reasons to fall in love with a man, I know. Nevertheless, when he said that, as cool as anything, and without even turning around, I remember even Madeleine blushed. Afterwards she always pretended she disliked him.

      The steam train was put back together in no time. Too quickly. I believe that short half-hour, with none of us saying anything much, was the happiest half-hour I could remember. His voice, the faint smell of his cologne, his quiet concentration, the warmth of his presence – they softened the edges of the world for me. I could have stayed there for ever, with the boy on my lap, and Madeleine sulking, and Rudy, so very much there with us and yet so peacefully abstracted. I was in Heaven.