London Calling by Edward Bloor Read Free Book Online

here. They deserve to stay here.”
    Margaret took a swig of juice, wiped her mouth, and asked, “Well, what does it say in the will?”
    Aunt Elizabeth shot an angry glance at her. “This isn’t a legal matter, Margaret. It’s a family matter.”
    “Is it?”
    Mom had always been afraid of Aunt Elizabeth, but Margaret had never been. Aunt Elizabeth had once hoped that Margaret would carry on the family tradition of working for the United States government. She had even arranged for an interview for Margaret at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, using my grandfather’s name as a reference, but Margaret hadn’t shown up. To make matters worse, she had bypassed Catholic Georgetown altogether for non-Catholic Princeton. Aunt Elizabeth never forgave her for that.
    Aunt Elizabeth took a stab at humor. “Anyway, Margaret, I thought you went to school to study history, not family law.”
    “History is full of family squabbles,” Margaret replied. “Sometimes they turn into world wars, depending on the families.”
    “Is that so?”
    “World War One was fought by two grandsons of Queen Victoria. Over nine million soldiers died; God knows how many civilians died. No one is sure why.”
    Aunt Elizabeth had nothing to say to that, so that’s where the exchange ended. We all got up and put our glasses and cups in the sink. Aunt Elizabeth asked Mom to accompany her to the funeral home to check on the arrangements. Mom asked Margaret to come along, too. Mercifully, no one invited me, so I stayed at the house. No mention was made of Dad at all.
    I dawdled for a while in the kitchen, eating more little muffins. Then I went back up to the study. Dad was awake. He was standing at the wooden shelves, apparently reading book titles. Suddenly he asked me, “Do you like history, Martin?”
    “Sure. Why? Do you?”
    “Yes. I always have.” He plucked a title off the shelf and showed it to me. “Remember this?
Martin Mehan’s Memoirs.
He had this published privately. We’ve got a whole box of them somewhere down in the basement.” He handed the leather-bound book to me. “I don’t even think your mother’s read it. Have you?”
    “No. I don’t need to. I’ve heard the live version.” I handed the book back, and Dad restored it to its place. That’s when I saw the bottle. Two shelves below the memoirs, right where he was standing, was a bottle of golden brown liquor. I should have known.
    I turned away and settled onto the couch. I reached over, instinctively, and stroked the smooth, round top of that Art Deco radio.
    “That is a beauty,” Dad said. “I’m glad she gave it to you.”
    “Yeah. Me too.”
    “She loved listening to the radio. Hated television; loved the radio. She was from a time when women ‘listened to their stories’ on the radio.”
    I must have looked puzzled, because he explained. “Soap opera stories. A lot of the big TV soap operas started on radio. But your grandmother wouldn’t watch them on TV. You know why?”
    “Why?”
    “Because of her nasty husband. Old Martin bought a TV, but it was only for the girls to watch cartoons when they were little. Not only wasn’t your grandmother allowed to watch it, she wasn’t even allowed to touch it. He’d get up and turn it off when the girls were done watching. Your grandmother came to hate that TV. If you remember, she never watched TV at all. Never. Not even after he died. She only listened to the radio. For her, it was a matter of principle.”
    I had no idea why Dad was talking so much. Then I figured out that he was fixing to steal a drink. Maybe he was talking to me so I wouldn’t tell on him. Still, I encouraged him to go on. “That was a terrible way to treat her.”
    “Sure it was. He was a terrible man.”
    “He was?”
    Dad shrugged. “In my opinion. I never bought into the family story. I guess he went to church a lot, and worked for the government for a long time, and raised two kids, but so what? Lots of people