“You’ve met?” Jasmine’s mother broke the silence as she and Marvin stood staring at each other. That smirk on his face was devastating Jasmine, while all she could do was gape in surprise.
“At the beach,” he explained and from the corner of her eye, Jasmine could see her mother nod nervously.
“Ah, lovely! So no introductions necessary,” her mother said with a flourish and stretched her arm again, offering Marvin a seat on the couch. Marvin remained standing and finally dragged his eyes away from Jasmine and back to inspecting the room.
“Jasmine, why don’t you pour us some Scotch and we can all sit down for a chat,” her mother urged again, her polite smile not leaving her face. Jasmine turned mechanically towards the bar and began pouring out two fingers of the whiskey into three recently polished glasses.
“None for me, thank you,” Marvin said politely and took a few steps in the direction of the open window at the end of the room.
Jasmine and her mother exchanged looks.
“You’ll have to forgive us. The house has been locked up for years, as you know. We arrived only today and didn’t have much of an opportunity to clean up,” Camilla said with a nervous laugh, expecting Marvin to comment on what a good cleaning job had been done in such a short time. Marvin, again, said nothing, narrowing his eyes instead while inspecting one of the paintings hanging on the wall next to the window.
“My father didn’t really have an eye for art,” her mother nervously laughed again and walked over to where Marvin was standing. He silently turned to look at her and then slowly looked away. His face seemed expressionless. His lips closed tight while his arms were crossed behind his back. He looked more like an art critic than a potential buyer for the house. Jasmine was also growing increasingly embarrassed by her mother’s attempts to please him.
“I’m sure Mr. Byrne is aware of the house’s qualities,” Jasmine said curtly; Camilla and Marvin both turned around to look at her. She hadn’t spoken a word until then. A look of fright entered her mother’s eyes while Marvin seemed to smile sadistically. Those blue eyes were focused on Jasmine again, and she held his gaze bravely.
“Those qualities are long gone Ms. Kiberd,” Marvin finally said. Jasmine could see her mother flush a bright red as she stood beside him, barely able to meet his eye or come up with a response.
“The house has not been lived in for several years,” Jasmine said, hoping that her voice did not betray how shaken she felt by his eyes on her.
“Neither has anybody bothered to look after it,” Marvin replied immediately.
“Our family faced difficulties which, unfortunately, took our attention away from looking after the house,” Jasmine said. She was clutching one of the glasses of whiskey in her right hand, and now she swirled the liquid around for lack of something to do with her hands.
She was equally as surprised as her mother when Marvin suddenly laughed. It sounded cruel and almost inhuman when he did that.
“I’m well aware of that,” he said and looked around the room again.
“Mr. Byrne, we are certainly aware that the house requires some attention. But I’m sure you can see that it won’t require much,” Jasmine’s nervousness was now giving way to irritation. Marvin’s behavior was rude and she could see her mother panicking.
“This house will never sell in this town. Especially in this condition. You must certainly be aware of that as well,” Marvin said and both her mother and Jasmine stood staring at him in silence. She almost expected her mother to faint and fall to the floor.
“We were expecting an interested buyer Mr. Byrne. We didn’t know you were meeting with us to criticize the condition of our house,” Jasmine managed to say. She knew her eyes were wide and angry; her lips were quivering, and she couldn’t hide the shakiness from her voice any longer.
Marvin shrugged his shoulders and threw her another smile.
“Mr. Byrne,” Jasmine’s mother squeaked, after several minutes of silence. “What my daughter is trying to say is that we know that the house hasn’t been looked after, and we appreciate your interest in it,” her voice was meek and submissive, and all Jasmine wanted to do was show Marvin the door – and maybe push him out of it. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her mother look so utterly subdued.
Marvin seemed to grunt and look around the room again.
“Why don’t we show you the rest of the house and you can sleep on it?” Jasmine could see her mother visibly struggling with keeping a polite and straight face.
“I think I’ve seen enough. I’m well acquainted with the layout of the house, thank you,” Marvin said and dug his hands into the pockets of his pants.
“Oh yes! You mentioned you’d met my father,” she said, forcing joviality into her voice. Marvin didn’t respond to that, but instead just threw Jasmine another look and began walking out of the room.
“Are you sure you won’t stay for a drink?” Camilla called after him, but he didn’t respond. Just like that evening on the beach, Marvin was walking away from the scene without a parting word.
“Jasmine, what did we do wrong?” her mother wailed the second they heard the front door bang shut. She watched as her mother collapsed onto the couch with her face in her hands.
“I don’t understand, Jasmine,” she was repeating, her voice muffled by her hands. Jasmine remained standing where she had stood throughout the entire episode. Without thinking, she gulped down all the whiskey from the glass in her hand.
“I’m going over there,” Jasmine said, almost to herself.
“What?” her mother raised her head to ask. Her eyes were puffy and her voice was screechy.
“I’m going over to his house. He has no right,” Jasmine said and banged the glass down on the bar. Her nerves as rattled as the glass against the wood.
“Are you crazy?” she heard her mother yell as she strode out of the house into the moonlit driveway of her grandfather’s house.