Montauk

by Nicola Harrison

  “Men are crazy when it comes to fighting, though. It’s as if they want to do it.”

  “Not Harry. God, he would come up with any excuse to avoid joining the troops.”

  The trees whizzed past us as we continued up the hill, and they opened to vast meadowland when we reached the very top. Elizabeth slowed down and I knew we were close to the cliffs because the air changed—salty, fresh and dewy. And then I saw it, first the steel and glass enclosure high in the sky, then the white tower with the red stripe around its midsection and, at its feet, a grey, modest home with two front doors. Elizabeth parked at the bottom of a pathway that led to the lighthouse.

  “Wow, it’s magnificent, isn’t it?”

  Elizabeth smiled. “Do you want to stay in the car while I run up?”

  “No, I’ll come with you, if you don’t mind,” I said, getting out of the car and walking around to Elizabeth’s side. “Do you need those?” I asked, pointing to a couple of white button-down shirts on the back seat.

  “Oh yes, please, can you grab them?”

  “So how long have you been doing this man’s laundry, the keeper?”

  “Thomas? As long as I can remember,” Elizabeth said. “His wife never took to life at the lighthouse; she left him,” she whispered, “so he needs a little help with those kinds of domestic things.”

  “Goodness, it must be awfully lonely up here.”

  “Well, there’s the assistant keeper and his family; they live on one side of the keepers’ dwellings.” She pointed to the grey house at the top of the hill. “And Thomas lives on the other side, but he’s alone. And in the summer a lot of visitors come through, but for the most part he keeps himself to himself.”

  As we climbed higher, the lighthouse looked even more beautiful, with the summer sun catching it like a picture postcard.

  “Thomas!” Elizabeth yelled, and I just about jumped out of my skin. “Sorry, ma’am, didn’t mean to startle you,” she said, pointing halfway up the lighthouse tower where a man stood on scaffolding painting the exterior wall.

  “I swear, every time I come up here I spend about an hour just trying to find him. He’s either inside the tower, at the very top cleaning the lens or in the engine room around the back or God knows where. At least he’s where I can see him today. I just have to get his attention.” She yelled his name again.

  “Need help?” I asked.

  On the count of three we yelled at the top of our lungs, “Thomas!”

  “Do you think it’s appropriate that I am shouting his first name like this?” I asked. “I mean I haven’t been formally introduced at his place of work.”

  Elizabeth looked at me, then started laughing. “Ma’am, there is nothing formal about this place, but if you prefer we can use his surname.”

  I laughed a little, too. “Okay, if we’re dropping formalities don’t call me ma’am; call me Beatrice.”

  Elizabeth smiled and dropped her glance. “Ready?” she asked. “One … two … three. Thomas!” we yelled in unison. Still nothing. The wind had picked up at the top of the hill and it seemed to carry our voices out to the ocean. “Let’s try the house,” she said.

  We walked around to the front of the house where two identical navy-blue doors stood side by side under a white porch. I looked at them both as if it were some sort of game.

  “This one,” Elizabeth said, knocking on the door on the left. “This side is where Mr. Milton lives, the assistant keeper,” she said, then added in a whisper, “Apparently they don’t get along all that well.”

  A plump middle-aged woman opened the door in a housecoat with an apron tied around her waist.

  “Sorry to bother you, Mrs. Milton,” Elizabeth said, “but I’m trying to get Mr. Brown’s attention. He’s up at the top of the tower painting and it’s laundry day.”

  She nodded her head. “One minute,” she said, and she walked into the house, returning a few moments later with a small brass bugle horn. “Here you go,” she said, handing it to Elizabeth, then nodding to me. “This is what I use to let my Milton know that dinner’s on the table.”

  “I can never get this thing to work,” Elizabeth said as we went back to the base of the lighthouse tower. She stood at the bottom of the scaffolding and blew into it, but no noise came out. She tried again.

  “Let me try,” I said, taking it from her. I pursed my lips and blew into the horn, letting out a loud, high-pitched howl. Elizabeth clapped her hands. “Nice work,” she said. The keeper immediately looked down at us over the scaffolding and acknowledged us; then he began to climb down.

  We watched him carefully maneuver from one level to the next with what seemed like relative ease. He was pretty high up and it was going to take some time to climb all the way down. “It’s really beautiful up here,” I said, looking around us. It was all ocean, cloudless sky and greenery no matter which way I looked. The road we drove up on cut a line through the thick trees, but it seemed as though we were miles away from anywhere.

  Elizabeth followed my gaze. “It is, isn’t it?” she said. “It’s funny, the more time you spend in a place, just getting on with your life, working away, the less you look around and appreciate it.”

  When he approached he looked surprised to see me there with Elizabeth.

  “Did you forget it’s laundry day?” Elizabeth asked.

  “No, not at all.” He ran his hand across his forehead and wiped it on his undershirt. “Hope you haven’t been waiting long?” His skin was speckled with paint and his undershirt had a damp V down the front of his chest with wet rings under his arms and a slight salty odor.

  He briefly glanced my way again, then turned to Elizabeth.

  “I’ve been up there for hours and lost track of time.”

  “It’s fine; we weren’t waiting long,” Elizabeth said.

  “We borrowed a bugle,” I chimed in; then I cringed at the sound of myself saying something so ridiculous.

  He laughed. “Nice to see you.”

  “Oh, where are my manners?” Elizabeth said. “This is Beatrice Bourdeux; she’s a guest at the Manor.”

  “We’ve met,” Thomas said. “At the pig contest.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize,” she said. “Here.” Elizabeth handed him the shirts, folded neatly. “I still had these from last week. I sewed on the missing buttons.”

  “You’re good to me, thank you,” he said. “I could have done that.”

  “I know you could,” Elizabeth said, “but I don’t mind, and you bring our car back to life almost weekly.” She turned to me. “Thomas worked on the armored cars in the war, so he knows a bit more than my Patrick when it comes to engines.”

  He put his hands in his pockets. “How are the kids?” he asked.

  “Good, good, trying to keep them busy and out of trouble for the summer.”

  “And Pat?”

  “Same as the kids.” She laughed.

  When I watched them talk I had a strange pang of jealousy. They seemed so familiar, so friendly. That night at the pig contest he’d acted so peculiar yet interested in what I had to say, his eyes had locked on mine to the point where it made me want to leave, but however uncomfortable that had been, I suddenly wanted his attention again.

  “Do you have to paint that whole thing?” I asked, pointing up to the lighthouse.

  They both looked at me. “Eventually,” he said.

  “How long will it take?”

  “A couple of weeks, at least.”

  “I think I would be terrified of being up so high,” I said, and my eyes fixed on a white scar across his eyebrow where the hair didn’t grow. I wondered if he’d gotten it from a fall. He rubbed it and I looked away.

  “I’m pretty used to heights,” he said. “The tower’s open to the public a few times a week. You should come back and climb the steps, give it a try. I’m sure you did more adventurous things than climb a lighthouse growing up in the country.”

  “That’s true,” I said, thinking of the adventures I’
d gone on with my brother, running away in the woods one day after he had an argument with our father, swinging across the river on rope we found in the garage, trying to keep up with the boys and climbing the trees, then needing Charlie to rescue me because I’d gone higher than I thought and frozen when I saw the ground.

  “Where did you grow up?” Elizabeth asked. “I assumed you were born in New York City.”

  “Oh gosh, no, Pennsylvania,” I said. “I moved to the city after college.” I looked at the lighthouse keeper, perplexed. “How did you know that?”

  “You told me; you must have told me the night of the contest.” He looked a little sheepish and I laughed. I was pretty sure I hadn’t told him, but clearly it was a dead giveaway that I wasn’t a born and bred New Yorker. I wasn’t a Bordeaux by blood.

  “I’ll get the bags then,” he said to Elizabeth.

  He glanced back toward me when he walked up toward the grey-shingled house.

  I wondered, for a brief second, if he had asked about me. But who would he ask?

  “He’s a bit odd, isn’t he?” I said quietly as we stood watching him walk up the hill.

  “He’s not usually, he’s always very sure of himself, but you must make him nervous.” She laughed.

  “Nervous?” The idea sort of excited me. Lately it didn’t seem that I’d had any effect on anyone, except perhaps that Winthrop man. “Why on earth would I make him nervous?”

  “I don’t know, because you’re a summer guest, or maybe because of your beauty.”

  “Ha,” I laughed, brushing away the idea with my hands. “Have you ever been inside?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “The house?” Elizabeth shook her head. “Never. The grounds and the tower are open to the public on weekends, but the house is strictly off-limits; no one goes in there.”

  We waited in silence for a moment.

  “Sorry I didn’t introduce you properly,” Elizabeth said after a while. “I should have said something right away. I didn’t realize you’d met already.”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” I said. “But you know I could just be a friend. I don’t have to be someone from the Manor.”

  She nodded. “It’s just, I’ve never really known any of the summer guests before.”

  “They can get tiresome sometimes.”

  “I think you’re very lucky,” she said, trying to be cheerful for me, despite what I’d told her in the car earlier about Harry. She must have thought I was ungrateful for all that I had, and I had the feeling that she’d never be able to understand how I felt. How could I expect her to? She didn’t have a minute to herself. After picking up this last load of laundry she’d go back to her house, set up the wringer and the tub and start scrubbing complete strangers’ clothes and undergarments with her bare hands, run them through the wringer, then hang them out to dry, iron them, pack them back up into their bags and return them to their owners for $1.50 a bag, at which time it would almost be time to do it all over again. All the while she’d be caring for her baby, keeping her older boys out of trouble and getting them to do their chores, cooking for her family and getting the boys all washed and into bed each night.

  I had no responsibilities, no one to care for and love and keep safe. Nothing that needed to be accomplished by any certain day or hour. Not even much of a marriage to tend to. I looked at her, her plain face and blond wavy hair pulled back into a bun, frizzy pieces curling at her hairline, and I envied her.

  “You’re lucky, too,” I said, and I wanted to say more, to explain how alone I felt, even surrounded by all these people, to tell her that I’d spent hours imagining my life any other way than it was right now. I wanted to tell her that in my daydreams I pictured what my life would look like if I’d married Jimmy Wilkes, the kid who lived one town over from us and helped my father with deliveries. Or what it would be like in the bedroom if I’d married Denny Goodman, the quarterback of the local college football team who’d asked to take me to the picture house my second year in college but who I’d turned down because it felt wrong to entertain the idea of being happy so soon after my brother died. I wanted to tell her all these things, but I was afraid I’d be misunderstood.

  As I stared up at the house I tried to think if I’d been happy as a kid, growing up. I had; I was sure of it. I thought about how different dinnertime was at my parents’ house from dinners with Harry. My mother used to mix white margarine with yellow food coloring and set it in a small glass dish on the table to resemble butter. It was special when Daddy brought home a real stick of butter from the store. Mama would fry up a whole plate of bacon, nice and crispy the way Daddy liked it, and Charlie and I would spread white bread with real butter and eat bacon sandwiches for dinner, and then again for breakfast if there was any left over. As a kid I never wanted more; I didn’t lust after decadent foods or expensive clothes. I felt lucky because Daddy would sometimes bring home treats like that, or milk with cream on top, even when things were scarce. We never went without food or clothes; we may have had to make things last longer, but we didn’t go without. There were always kids worse off than Charlie and me at school wearing pants with holes in the knees and shoes with their toes peeking through the front. We didn’t have much, but it always seemed to be enough; in fact, we seemed to be doing quite well compared to some of the other families I knew.

  At Vassar the incoming freshmen were a mixed bunch. There were the rich Park Avenue, New York, girls, but there were also girls like me from more humble families and others from even more humble families, farm girls who’d won scholarships. We all sat in class together all the same, rich, poor or in the middle, and when we graduated it was fair game. We could go back to our farms and our small towns or we could go out into the world, to New York City or to Paris. It was as if we’d been handed new credentials. But maybe I wasn’t ready for it; maybe I’d been naïve about what that world entailed and how I’d have to sacrifice love and happiness for the sake of luxury and money. It was never something I felt I needed or sought out, but once you had it, it seemed hard to relinquish.

  The keeper returned with a bag full of clothes, and two pairs of overalls hung over his arm. “Sorry about the grime,” he said. “We had a leak in the engine room and my overalls are filthy.”

  “I’ll do what I can, Thomas,” Elizabeth said.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll bring these down to the car.” He picked up the bag and threw it over his shoulder and walked ahead of us.

  “Nice to meet you again,” I said as I got into the passenger seat.

  He looked at me and nodded. “It certainly was.”

  * * *

  On the drive down toward the village I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes. I wondered what he must have thought of me, a summer guest tagging along with the laundry girl. I didn’t know what I was thinking forcing Elizabeth to take me up there the way I had. I just wanted a distraction. I kept thinking of Harry and what would become of us now. Had he seemed sad? Had there been a glimpse of remorse that I’d missed this past weekend? Maybe he realized now that he’d made a terrible mistake; maybe he’d try harder now to be the loving husband he had once promised to be. I felt sick reliving it all over again.

  I forced myself to think of something else and pictured the lighthouse. I imagined sitting on the grass up on those cliffs and reading, away from the rest of the world. Maybe Mr. Rosen might like to know about this side of Montauk, the rough-around-the-edges keeper against the backdrop of all that natural beauty, the old lighthouse, the surrounding meadows, even the old pie shack at the side of the road. Maybe Rosen should interview these locals for a fresh perspective, a look at this resort town from a different angle? But then I recalled him talking about the gossip columnist Hedda someone or other. He said his readers wanted glamour, money, gossip and fancy clothes. I started to imagine what I might write. I closed my eyes and let my mind drift from day dress to day dress, evening gown to evening gown, seafoam chiffon next to layers of purple silk, next t
o golden satin. Just as I began to relax imagining the luxurious fabrics, I began to picture the women’s faces, serious and severe, judging me, staring at me like the faces of a Matisse painting, harsh eyebrows, long noses, from one lady to the next, Betsy to Mary Van de Coop to Clarissa to Jeanie. I suddenly jerked my body upright and gasped.

  “What is it?” Elizabeth said, startled.

  “Dear God,” I said, “Jeanie’s planning meeting!” I sat up straight in the passenger seat and felt my hair, a wild mess. I hadn’t bothered with the head scarf on the way home; I’d let the wind run around me like crazy. Jeanie had asked me to act as her secretary for the meeting, taking notes as she rounded up ideas and requests for our afternoon activities for the upcoming weeks in July. She was allowing me into her planning circle as a favor, she told me, to give me a little visibility and to help me weave my way into her circle. I’d been counting on this opportunity. I debated about heading straight to the Seahorse, but I knew I needed to freshen up, and what would the women say if they saw me getting out of Elizabeth’s car? I considered for a moment what would be worse, arriving late but respectable or arriving on time, disheveled and with the laundry gal. Late was better.

  “Elizabeth, can you drop me at the Manor?” She looked over, concerned. It was one thing for her to allow me in her car that morning for a quick tour of the town, she must have thought, but quite another for anyone at the Manor to notice that I’d spent almost the entire day with her. “If you drop me round the back by the service entrance, no one will see me get out.”

  “Okay, ma’am,” she said. “If you’re sure.”

  * * *

  In my room, I rushed around taking a clean dress from the closet, brushing the tangles out of my hair and powdering my face. I checked the clock. It was five minutes past three. I looked through the newsletter Jeanie had handed out with the schedule for the week and I scanned the column for the planning meeting. Four o’clock. I checked the clock again. Oh thank God, I wasn’t going to be late after all; I had almost an hour before the meeting. It would only take fifteen minutes for me to tidy myself up. I took a deep breath and sat down at the bureau to compose myself and drink a glass of water. I was tired from not sleeping the night before. I didn’t feel like seeing all those women. And why was this even important? The effort was for Harry. Did I even care about helping him anymore? He surely didn’t care about me.