The Last Refuge sahm-1

by Chris Knopf

  She called me when I was in the shower. I stood in the kitchen with my parents’ Western Electric handset at my ear watching the water puddle at my feet.

  “Roy’s in the City and it’s my day off,” she said.

  “Really.”

  “What do you think I should do?”

  “Go to the 7-Eleven.”

  “That’s where it’s happening?”

  “That’s where I’ll pick you up.”

  “How will I identify you?”

  “Gray hair, bent nose.”

  “What time?”

  “Half an hour.”

  “What should I bring?”

  “Suspended disbelief.”

  I thought I should shave and put on a clean shirt. I worried about the Grand Prix a little. I’d cleaned the blood off the back seat, but it hadn’t done much to reduce the dog smell. Eddie liked to lie around in the car even when it was parked in the driveway. Hearing the jingle of car keys always threw him into a frenzy of joyous anticipation.

  “Okay, but you got to sit in the back.”

  Amanda stood on the sticky sidewalk outside the 7-Eleven in a blue windbreaker, yellow skirt and Reeboks. Her hands were clasped in front and she was looking out into the world as if expecting something wondrous to suddenly appear. All she got was me and my dog. I pulled up and she hopped quickly into the Grand Prix. I noticed for the hundredth time her lovely tanned legs.

  “Right on time,” she said.

  “Had all morning to practice.”

  She reached back and ruffled up Eddie’s ears.

  “Guard dog?”

  “Freeloader.”

  She looked very bright and enthusiastic. I felt the need to catch up.

  “Coffee?”

  I’d had a thermos filled at the corner place.

  “Sure,” she said, like I’d offered her a ride on my private jet.

  “You’re in a good mood, Mrs. Battiston.”

  “I’m not at the bank. That’s enough to put anyone in a good mood.”

  “I thought you liked your job.”

  “I love my job. It’s just Wednesdays are so nice.”

  I felt her presence fill up the inside of my car. She poured us coffee.

  “Where to?”

  “Where thou goest.”

  I took her up to North Haven where we caught the South Ferry over to Shelter Island. For a few hours I just let the Grand Prix rumble around the easy hills and shady curves of the island, pausing for a spell at the wildlife preserve so Eddie could flush out endangered species. Then we stopped at Ram’s Head to see the last and hardiest cruisers of the season anchored out in Coecles Harbor. Then finally worked our way over to Sunset Beach, where we ate lunch at the rooftop place.

  When the salads arrived I finally got around to asking her.

  “So, where’d you live when you grew up out here?”

  “North Sea,” she said, without hesitation. “I thought you knew that.”

  “Maybe I did. Memory’s not what it used to be.”

  “North North Sea. Almost Noyac. Right near you. Why?”

  “Maybe that’s why we get along. Shared North Sea sensibilities.”

  “More sensible than the rest of Southampton, if you ask me.”

  “Did you sell the house?”

  She shook her head while she chewed on a mouthful of salad.

  “No, Roy thought we should try renting it. He’s been good about it, though. He hasn’t pushed. I have to clean it all out and I can’t face that yet.”

  “I shouldn’t be reminding you.”

  “That’s okay.”

  We got off on other things over the rest of lunch. But after the check came, she had an idea.

  “We drove right by there on the way up here,” she said. “Want to go look?”

  “It’s not upsetting?”

  “I’d like to see it. Someday soon it’ll all change forever. Everything does.”

  “Entropy.”

  “Whatever you say, Mr. MIT.”

  The ferry loaders were a little challenged by the scale of the Grand Prix, but managed to get it on board. All that sheet metal can intimidate a younger person. I thought they might try to charge me a premium for the effort. The guys in the electrician’s vans and pickups were more appreciative.

  “389?”

  “400. Quad, posi, Hurst 4-speed. Out of a ’67 Goat.”

  “Yowza.”

  Amanda seemed to enjoy the attention.

  “No one ever slobbers over my little Audi.”

  “Not until they see the driver.”

  I was a little unsure about the right turn off Noyack Road. So was Amanda.

  “Yes. No. A little further. Turn. Wait a minute. Okay, go down that way.”

  I drifted up to the single-story white house. There was a short white pebble and gray gravel driveway, but no garage. The siding was the old-style asbestos shingling formed to look like cedar. There were some gangly old yews planted along the foundation, a slate path to the front door and no mailbox. I braked and crunched up into the drive.

  “What do you think?” she asked me.

  “A North Sea classic. Could use a little fix-up.”

  She leaned toward the windshield to get a better look.

  “It does. The lawn’s been cut, but none of the shrubs have been trimmed in a while. My mother and I planted that dogwood in front.” She put out her hand. “It was like this tall. Look how big it’s gotten.”

  Next to the drive was a white gate with a curved top covered with ivy and exhausted strands of clematis. In the backyard were rose vines that looked like tangled netting tossed over a split-rail fence.

  “Let’s go take a look.”

  Amanda jumped out of the car and ran up to the front door. There she stood stymied. I called to her from the car.

  “Keys?”

  “Of course not.”

  She followed me as I walked around to the back of the house. Another little stoop led to the back door. It had a window, so you could see into the kitchen. Amanda made a tunnel with her hands and looked through the glass.

  “Looks exactly the same,” she said. “I don’t know why it wouldn’t.”

  On impulse I tried the doorknob. Locked, of course.

  “My key’s at the house,” said Amanda.

  Next to the back stoop was a metal Bilco hatch. I tried that and it opened. The door at the foot of the stairs had a lock, but it didn’t look like much. Designed more for an interior door. I took out my keys and stuck one of them in the keyhole. The lock mechanism was loose, but wouldn’t give it up. So I took out my Swiss Army knife and selected the slot-head screwdriver, bottle-opener feature. Amanda wasn’t saying anything, but I could hear noises coming from her repressed concerns. The lock quickly surrendered to the Swiss Army.

  “Why it’s good to bring an engineer.”

  “For breaking and entering?”

  “This is your house. You’re allowed to break in.”

  She followed me into the damp basement. It smelled like a compost heap. I found a light switch and snapped it on. It made both of us jump. I had to remind myself, and her, that nobody was home.

  I took her hand and led her up the stairs. Her grip was sure and strong, her palm smooth and dry. She let me pull her along without resisting.

  We poked around like a pair of homebuyers The kitchen was straightened, but oddly lived in. There were dishes and non-perishables in the faux colonial cupboards and drawers. The refrigerator was turned off. The counters were covered in textured, lime green Formica. The kitchen had been thoroughly cleaned, though the house smelled like an empty house. We went out into the living room and I found the thermostat. I put it up to seventy degrees and the boiler came on. I turned it back down to shut it off.

  I followed her down a narrow hallway that led to the bedrooms. I had to flick on the hall light to see where I was going. It took me a while to find the switch. Amanda was standing so close to me I’d hurt her if I moved too quickly.
From where we stood you could see doors to four tiny bedrooms.

  “Which was yours?”

  It was painted pale blue and crammed with furniture and dolls and stuffed animals. Some looked almost new.

  “You liked a lot of friends around?” I asked her.

  “My mother was the doll fanatic. Come see.”

  One of the bedrooms had been converted into a small sewing room. In the center was an ironing board. An iron lay flat on a piece of gingham fabric. There were tables and cabinets lining the walls. All the horizontal surfaces of the crowded little room were covered with large fabric dolls in various states of finish. The strange quality of all those grinning lifeless faces caught me unprepared.

  “Gosh.”

  “See what I mean?”

  Amanda picked up one of the dolls and looked it over, brushing back its hair and pulling at the tiny outfit.

  “She was very talented. Most of these were probably going to charity, but when I was growing up it helped feed us. You’d be surprised how many adults collect dolls.”

  “She didn’t have another job?”

  “WB. Didn’t everybody? At least till it shut down.”

  “Your father, too?”

  “That’s what my mother said. I don’t remember. I was too little when he died.”

  I thought of Jackie’s aerial map showing my cottage at the tip of Oak Point, right outside the invisible walls that enclosed the WB domain. Invisible to me, because there was never any reason for me to know it was there. It wasn’t my world.

  “This is where I found her,” said Amanda. “Right there on the floor. Not surprising, I guess, since this is where she spent all her time.”

  On impulse I picked up the iron and smelled it.

  “A heart attack?”

  “That’s what they thought. We could have done an autopsy, but Roy didn’t like the idea. What difference does it make, he said, how she died?”

  I took a closer look at the old iron. It was very old and heavy. The cord was covered in black fabric with white hash marks. The plug at the end was of the same vintage, so you could see how it was wired just by looking at the bottom.

  “Did you ever see your mother test the iron to see if it was hot?” I asked her.

  She pondered for a moment

  “Well, I guess she must have.”

  “Held it with her right hand, wet her left index finger and tapped the underside of the iron like this. Psst.”

  Amanda nodded as she played the visual in her mind.

  “Why?”

  “My mother always did that. It seemed so reckless. But that’s what our parents’ generation did. Learned it from their mothers, who heated irons on the stove.”

  “I let the cleaners worry about all that. That’s what my generation does.”

  She led me back out to the living room where she spent a few minutes looking around and picking things up off tables and the bookshelves on either side of the fireplace. I hadn’t kept any of my parents’ stuff. I thought I would before my mother died, but then when it happened, I just wanted it gone.

  “You’re right about your mother,” I said to her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I would have liked her.”

  “You would have. Everybody did.”

  “Everybody but Regina.”

  “Everybody but her.”

  “You ready?”

  “I’m ready.”

  We went back out the kitchen door.

  “You go ahead. I’ll lock up.”

  I let Eddie inspect the yard for a few minutes while Amanda settled back into the Grand Prix. She slid down in the old leather bucket and let her head fall back against the back rest.

  “I was fine until we went outside. Now it’s all sort of attacking me.”

  “I’m thinking about something clear in a glass. With ice.”

  “At least.”

  Oriented once again, I quickly found my jogging route behind WB. The Grand Prix tracked along the deep grooves of the sand road like a railcar. We were back at my cottage in about five minutes.

  I equipped myself with a vodka on the rocks. Amanda opted for gin and tonic.

  “Kinda past season, but who’s counting.”

  She dug a bottle of tonic out of a kitchen cabinet and promptly dropped it on the floor. Before I could stop her, she’d scooped up the plastic bottle, gripped it under an arm and twisted off the cap, shooting off a foamy spray of tonic that soaked the top half of her body and most of my kitchen.

  “Oh shit, oh shit.” She put down the bottle and went to wash her hands. “Do you have something to clean this up with? I’m so sorry. I’m soaked.”

  I handed her a dish towel, and while she dried off her hands I mopped up the devastation with a roll of paper towels.

  “I hope this thing’s waterproof,” she said, looking down the front of her windbreaker. She unsnapped the snaps and I helped her slide out of it. Her yellow blouse was unscathed. Underneath, her breasts moved freely, unfettered.

  “I need to rinse this off.”

  “I should make a fire.”

  “You stoke, I’ll rinse.”

  I had the woodstove going by the time Amanda came out to the living room holding her wet windbreaker and hard-fought gin and tonic. I hung the jacket over the back of a chair and slid it up close to the fire. Amanda curled up next to the arm of the sofa, I sat on the floor.

  “That was a wonderful day,” she said.

  “It’s still a day for another hour or two.”

  “I should go after this.”

  “Your windbreaker has to dry.”

  “After that.”

  She’d rolled up her sleeves and bent up the collar of her yellow blouse. And unbuttoned a button. She noticed me noticing.

  “I don’t mind,” she said.

  “What?”

  “If you look.” She unbuttoned another button and spread open the yellow blouse just enough to expose the faded tan lines. “At least it tells me you’re interested.”

  “I’m interested.”

  “But that’s all?”

  “More than interested.”

  “But.”

  “There’s Roy …”

  “That’s why?”

  “Probably not. Though he doesn’t make much sense for you. But, then again, that can’t be a good enough reason.”

  “Good enough to date?”

  “Yeah. Good enough to date.”

  I was grateful that she left it alone after that. I didn’t want to have to explain myself any more than I had to. Mostly because I didn’t really have an explanation. I knew there was one, I just didn’t know how to get at it. Or I didn’t want to try. Anyway, it had been a long time for me. Maybe I was just afraid. Maybe that’s what I didn’t want to explain.

  I took her back to the 7-Eleven in her dried-out windbreaker. We didn’t talk much on the way over there, but it felt nice just to drive along in silence. I smoked a cigarette, she closed her eyes and sat there looking like female perfection. Luckily it was too late to turn around and go back to the cottage.

  “I like you, Sam,” she said to me, getting out of the car. “Any way you want it.”

  “I’m not sure what that is.”

  “Then let’s play it by ear.”

  “I might be tone deaf.”

  She laughed, then leaned back into the car across the seat and kissed me.

  “That’s already well established.”

  On the way back to the cottage I swung past Amanda’s mother’s house. I went back through the kitchen door, which I’d left open, and grabbed a plastic bag out of the broom closet. I made a quick trip to the sewing room. I picked the iron up off the ironing board, curled the cord and dropped it in the bag.

  Then I went down to the basement to look for the electrical panel. I found late vintage circuit breakers mixed in with the original fuses. One circuit breaker was thrown. I switched it back and it held. I got out my Swiss Army knife and unscrewed the facepla
te from the box. I thought about how badly I needed reading glasses to do close-in work, especially in low light. When I was done picking through the wiring I screwed everything back together again. Then I traced one of the lines from the box, across the ceiling to a location somewhere among the bedrooms. Before I left the basement I unlatched the basement door at the bottom of the hatch. I locked the kitchen door.

  I tossed the iron into the trunk. Then I went home and hit tennis balls around for Eddie until it got dark. I was glad to finally have the night to sit inside while I drank and watched the whitecaps dance across the Little Peconic as the southwesterlies gave in to the harder, colder winds from the north. I wanted to think things through, but instead I fought off images of wild-eyed dolls and smooth, olivy tanned skin, the touch of silk and the smell of possibility.

  In the morning I retrieved the iron from the Grand Prix’s cavernous trunk and took it down with a cup of coffee to the basement where my father built a small workbench with a big drafting light. I put on my reading glasses.

  The iron could have been almost forty years old. The handle was made of heavy black plastic, reminiscent of Bakelite. The inset Phillips head screws that held the base to the handle were slightly peened over. It had been opened up at least once, probably recently given the bright metal scratches on the screw heads. I unscrewed them and pulled the handle section up off the chrome base so I could look inside. The smell of burned insulation I’d noticed before was now far stronger. I pulled the drafting light down a little closer and deconstructed the little wiring harness that fed power through the switches and rheostat, and ultimately into the iron base, whose only job was to get real hot and boil some water for release as steam through a row of little vent holes. A fairly heavy piece of Romex copper wire had been neatly introduced into the system, connecting the ground lead from the power cord to a little threaded column soldered to the base that secured an inset Phillips head screw from the plastic handle. The original wiring and the new piece of Romex were partially blackened, but not burned through. The manufacturer’s logo and instructions for operating the iron were printed on a heavy metal plate, probably aluminum, screwed to the black plastic directly below the handle itself. I dug around inside with my long screwdriver until I identified where another new piece of wiring was soldered to the threads of a screw holding down the plate.