by M Dressler
I keep to the trees, my sorrow bottled. It’s been a long while since I’ve gone down to visit my parents by traveling the tunnels left by the mice and the ground squirrels, only to find their bones yellow as wax. I don’t know why they didn’t become ghosts, as I have; why their wills didn’t live past the hours of their deaths. Unless it was that they never thought they belonged, really, to this place.
Pratt sits on a stone so weathered it has no face, and talks into his device. “Ellen. Hope you’re well this morning. Good. And your cat? Excellent. About the ladder … Yes, I got your message. For insurance reasons, I understand, but it’s generally better if I go up and check on things first, not a layperson. I’ll talk it over with Manoel Cristo. And what about that list of abandoned spaces? Thank you. A question or two. Tell me more about Mr. Cristo, please. I see he has relatives in this cemetery … I see. An old family. I see. He found Alice? No. She’s stone cold. Yes, it’s surprising. The newly dead usually leave some residue. No, it’s more like she was dead before she was dead … The stroke. Yes. Possibly. Listen, do me a favor. Call up Manoel again and tell him to wait outside the house for me. Don’t let him go inside or have him go around back yet. Have him wait for me out front. Excellent. Hope your other appointments go well today. I’ve heard from Dane … Impatient. I’ll be in touch.”
He stretches his neck and seems to uncoil. I wonder why. Maybe it’s done him good to make contact with the living. I don’t know. And I don’t care. We have nothing in common. We’re both cleaners, but I was paid by Mrs. Lambry only to make myself go away. Philip Pratt is paid to make others vanish from the sight of the sun itself.
He stands again and buttons his coat and walks at a faster clip through the rest of this yard, stretching his bare hands out beside him, his fingers rippling on either side, as though he’s running his fingers quickly over piano keys. I can hear him whispering “Sweet chariot, sweet chariot,” though no ghost rises, foolishly, to his bait.
When he reaches the boundary of Evergreen, he drops his arms and wanders comfortably between the oldest, unmarked graves, those empty plots set aside, in memory, for the bodies washed out to sea or in from it; for the logger whose pieces couldn’t be gathered after he fell across his own dynamite; for the sailor who hit a sou’sou’easter and was washed overboard, never to be seen again. Some call this the Garden of the Lost and Unknown. In its center a white angel bows, her drooping wings nearly touching the clover. Some of the graves here have no etching on them and house unnamed bones. Others are marked but lie hollow. Pratt slows. He’s come to the plainest stone in the yard, a stone old and familiar to me but that has no meaning left to it, or feeling. Pratt stops, all at once. It’s as though a wall has come and hit him square in his black chest. He lifts his hand and begins beating his heart, like a drum.
“Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.”
What can it mean?
I wait until he’s run back to his car so that I can come down and stand right where he stood—but I feel nothing at all facing this marker I’ve known for a hundred years. What did he feel hovering over it? I look toward him, scanning the green slope, and see his bright automobile pulling away. It’s safe for me to be angry and worried now—but nothing comes. I wander to the edge of the cemetery where the turf is blank and unused. If I were below ground, sleeping with my family, maybe I wouldn’t feel this nothingness. But you don’t have to be lonely, you don’t, you don’t, I remind myself. You only need to find some new company, Emma Rose, now that Alice is gone. But it might be best if it were company that wasn’t so very dangerous.
9
Pratt holds out his hand. “Call me Philip.”
The Portuguese handyman takes it. “Manoel. Cristo.”
Here’s what’s certain about Manoel Cristo: he’s one of the uneasy living. He doesn’t know if he’s a lucky man or isn’t. He doesn’t know if he’s living the best life he can manage or the worst. He doesn’t know that just to be living is the luckiest thing in the world. He’s foolish, in a way.
He’s a skilled, hard worker. But he’s a man who’s always afraid he’s being cheated. He’s thin and strong with the face of a pug dog. He can be generous and selfish and hungry. He often hides his hands in his pockets but he lifts his shoulders up at the same time, as if he’s going in two directions at once.
But Alice loved him. He was the young man who, for many years, tended her old woman’s garden. He built her things. He came when she called. He was never sure that he liked doing it. But now it’s too late. Now he’s growing older, and Alice isn’t.
“Ms. DeWight said for me to wait out here? Oh, and to give you this key.” He digs his hand out of his pocket and hands the key over to Pratt with the slightest bow. It’s the Portuguese in him. Like us Irish, they came to this coast looking for work (after the Spanish, but before the potatoes all rotted). They built ships and docks and apron chutes so strong they were supposed to last a hundred years. It was only after my Da was struck in the head while stacking an order of planks that they admitted their chutes were too fast-moving and stopped using them to lurch the lumber down to the ships, and built winches instead, so the cut wood could be lifted and set in place rather than flung at the loaders like an ax.
I know the Portuguese. They were never the bosses of Benito. Like us, they only did what they were told. So I’ve held no grudge against Manoel’s blood. When the picture of my Da with his head cut haunts me, I’ve thought up penances for Manoel instead. Alice, tell him the porch needs sanding again. Alice, tell him all the roses need dusting for black spot. Every one.
“Thanks.” Pratt takes the key. He pockets it and turns the bulk of his black coat toward Manoel’s white truck, loaded with tool boxes and scrap metal. “Nice wheels. Your sign says Fort Kane?”
“Live up there now. Work there too now, mostly.”
“I thought maybe you were from the village.”
“Born and bred. My family goes way back here. But we don’t live in town anymore.”
“Why is that?”
Manoel starts to move around to the side of the truck where the ladder hangs strapped. I sit on the roof of the cab, my white skirt spread in a circle all around me.
“Made more sense to sell the old place,” Manoel says at my feet. “We made a bundle handing it over to some Silicon Valley-type. And things are cheaper up north. Cuts down on the overhead.”
“But you still work here.”
“People who can afford to live here can afford to pay.”
“Like Alice.”
“Where do you want this?” He’s businesslike and just wants to get on with his job.
Pratt comes alongside him. “Do you mind just setting it inside the fence? I have a few things I need to go over with you before we go in.”
Manoel nods and heaves the ladder by himself—he doesn’t like help, I know, except when he asks for it—and carries it and lifts it over. He’s strong for his size. He loosens his shoulder with a twist and hooks his hands into his pockets again, tucking his thumbs away. Pratt mimics him, as if he’s trying to be a handyman, too.
“So I guess you know what’s been going on in this house,” Pratt says.
“I do.”
“Are you still okay with working around here?”
“I’m fine with it. I’ve dealt with some old houses that needed cleaning out before. Comes with the job.”
“But you never had any problems here.”
“Not of that kind. Not once.”
“And you worked for Alice Lambry for a number of years.”
“I did. Cigarette?”
“No, thanks.” Pratt taps his chest and smiles. “Part of the job.”
“Mind if I?”
“Go right ahead.”
“I’ve been around this place”—Manoel bends and lights—“for about fifteen years.”
“Good work?”
“Enough. Sometimes a bit much. Alice—I mean, Ms. Lambry—she needed help, but she didn’t like people around her very much. So
, when she hired me, she sort of latched on. Had me doing everything you can think of. Carpentry, errands, yard work. About the only thing she kept an eye on herself was trimming these roses. All the women in her family did that. Big on roses, all the Lambrys. But the rest was up to me. Dusting. Weeding. Kitchen. Electric. Painting. Roof. Sometimes she’d ask for work that, in my opinion, shouldn’t be done. I’ve always thought the Lambrys were over-doers. All that added fussery.” He points his lighter at the widow’s walk. “Steeple and balconies and whatnot. But anyway, a man needs work, so I pretty much always said yes. Even if I thought it was getting a little freakish. Like that conservatory. I told her: we’ll be cleaning salt off the glass the whole time. And I still am, for Ms. DeWight. Ask me, an addition like that is just a burden. But Alice threw a fit when I tried to stop her, and then the permit office. She might have been old but she was determined. So that’s how it was. Twenty years. Nice lady. Not saying she wasn’t. But demanding.”
“You were the one who found her body. Upstairs.” Pratt points to the gable over Alice’s window.
“Not a good day. Some things you never want to see.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I was supposed to come in a little earlier, but …” Manoel blows his smoke and looks uncertain.
He should. He should forever wonder if the fight they had that afternoon brought on Alice’s stroke. He’s never said anything about the fight to anyone. Only I know what he did and said, and what she did and said, in her bedroom.
“I came in to do some work in her studio. I guess you’ve seen all her paintings? She was obsessed. They’re all over the house, framed in gold and all that. I never really got if they were any good, but she was proud of them. Anyway, she didn’t like anything interfering with her painting or her work, and there was, I remember, some little something wrong with one of the shutters in the studio and the way they hung. Nothing, really. Anyway, I told her I would take care of it. And I went off to the mercantile to buy some screws, and when I came back, that was that. She was looking up at the ceiling. Just—gone.”
He looks down. He isn’t going to tell Pratt what really happened. How he’d shouted at her that she was always making him do these nothing-jobs just to make him feel like nothing, like less than she was. How she shouted back at him that he was a high-school dropout who didn’t know a thing about light and shade. How he said she was senile, of course he knew about light and shade, he wasn’t stupid. How she said Then do what I tell you to and what I pay you for and give me all the light I want.
Pratt studies the ground with him. “You were sure about her being gone.”
“I touched her.” He shuffles his work boots. “She was cold. I couldn’t find a pulse. I put the call in. They said later, stroke.”
“Did anything about her surroundings look … disturbed?”
“No, not that I noticed.”
“Would you say the expression on her face was … peaceful?”
“How do you mean?”
“I know it might be hard to judge.” The hunter rests his hand for a moment on the handyman’s shoulder, as if they’ve become friends. “But this is important. Did she seem surprised? Terrified? Or at rest?”
Manoel shakes his head. “I honestly don’t know how to answer that, Phil. The stroke didn’t make her face look natural. She looked … shriveled, I guess. Shrunken inside her clothes. She liked to wear these fancy robes, these long, Oriental things. So she had on all this color but she just looked … white. Dull. And so small. Not bad, really. Not like she’d been struggling, or anything. Like it dropped her like a hammer.”
“I see. And there was no other sign of injury that you could see.”
“Nope. She was old but she was still pretty fit, till then. She could manage a paintbrush and rose trimmers. I’m not sure she needed me as much as she claimed she did. My wife would get on me about it all the time, how I was spending too much time at the Lambry House. But, like I say. A man’s got to make a living.”
He isn’t telling Pratt about all the other fights, either, and how at times they threw themselves at each other so hard they ended up in bed, wrestling and squealing like two weasels trying to escape the same trap. And when they started to moan, I went away, confused. It’s funny how, when it comes to love, you can’t hear the music others hear.
“I guess we should be getting after the water tower now?” Manoel asks, trying to change the subject, moving away from Pratt and dropping and stomping out his butt. “I have some other responsibilities today. My wife …”
“Of course. I don’t want to take up your whole morning. Please, lead the way.”
“Just so you know,” Manoel says, opening the gate, “I’m not here just for you this morning. The historical commission has an interest in all this. They want to know if the tank shouldn’t be rehabbed or torn down. Alice—I mean Ms. Lambry—could never make up her mind about it, even though it hasn’t been functional since I don’t know when. I might get her close to agreeing it was a waste of space and then she’d change her mind and end up going on and on about how you need to leave the past rotting right in front of you where you can see it so you can have a sense of how long it takes. Artsy stuff like that. Anyway, in this village, you have to show something is unsalvageable before you can have it removed. But if it’s unsalvageable, then you have to remove it. That’s why so many people have turned the structures into guest houses, instead. Because they don’t want to lose the history, but history has to pay, so to speak.”
“I understand. One more—Need help with that ladder? No? Then one more thing. When you found Alice—Ms. Lambry—did you in any way—ah—rejoice?”
The ladder dips suddenly in Manoel’s hands and brushes the rhododendrons in the side yard. “Excuse me?”
“I guess I’m asking”—Pratt helps him guide the back of the ladder around the branches— “did you stand in any way to benefit from her dying?”
Manoel’s pug face closes, and he says nothing, lugging the metal rungs, carrying the ladder himself all the way around the house, and still nothing as he plants the ladder’s feet in the heather at the base of the water tower. He pulls the rope that snakes and clanks the highest rungs into place. The flashy, expensive watch Alice gave him peeks out from his work sleeve. Then, with everything ready, he grunts, “No, I didn’t, as Jesus is my savior. I never expected anything out of this job except decent pay. Besides, anyone’s dying in this town means less work for a man like me, not more. And I know as well as anybody Alice left everything to her family. And that’s exactly where it should go. So let me help you move things along so that can happen.”
He’s almost upset. If only Pratt knew; he’s seeing the same Manoel who stormed out of the house that day, cursing the woman who gave him his orders.
“Manoel.” I can see by Pratt’s face he wants to slow the handyman down, but is trying not to show it. “Let me ask you. Do you think Alice Lambry is the ghost who’s troubling this house?”
“What do I know? But if she is, it doesn’t make any sense to me. She liked people who helped her get her ideas done. She wouldn’t want to stop anyone from selling this house if that was her idea. She wants people to do what she wants—even if there aren’t very many of us patient enough to do it. Now. I guess I’ll be going up there to check things out. Ms. DeWight was supposed to tell you I need to go up first.”
“She did tell me. But I’m not in favor of it, insurance or no insurance. I’ve got my eye on that tank because it’s a possible refuge. You understand what that means?”
“I’ve worked with cleaners before. I won’t go in. All I’m checking is the bolts and the struts and the soundness of the platform. That’s it. Up, down, that’s what’s required. I told Ms. DeWight. She understands the situation.”
“With all due respect, I think I understand it better.”
“Maybe when it comes to your line of work, okay, but not ours, Benito’s way of doing business. Ms. DeWight is new but she seems to get the ri
ght way to do things. Just brace the bottom for me, that’s all you have to do. Because there are no ifs or buts about this. I’m going up first. You let me know if you notice anything other than structural.” He starts up.
A flash of impatience crosses Pratt’s face, but he holds the ladder and braces its feet with his, calling up to Manoel as he climbs, “Once you give me the go-ahead, I’m coming up.”
“Let’s see how stable she is first.” Manoel looks up at the screwed boards under the tank. “Once I’m all the way up, you stand aside from this ladder, just to be safe.”
In the old days, the Lambrys’ Chinese gardener used to climb the wooden grapplings. It was part of his job to make sure there was nothing dead and floating in the water. But also, I learned later from watching him, he needed a moment to look out across the ocean, as if toward his own country, far away.
Manoel makes a clicking noise with his tongue as he nears the top and my boots, dangling over the edge.
Pratt steps back, as he’s been told to do, his hands loose at his sides. “All right up there?”
“So far so good. I’m feeling a slight vibration. Not too bad.”
“Come down if you have to.”
The tower shivers underneath us. Manoel stops and waits and whistles, then nods.
Pratt’s face, down below us, is small and worried. It’s the first time I’ve seen him anxious for someone else. I wonder if he has a wife, too, or any family.
I slip to the side of the tank where some planks are missing and into the opening I glide and hide. It’s shaded and nice here, bedded with dry needles and leaves mixed in with squirrel droppings and downy bird feathers. A fine, fine nest for a ghost. I can see why Pratt would think to find what he’s looking for here. And I’ll be happy to let him think he’s found it.
Little shafts of light quiver through the missing slats and fall on my black shoes. The top of the tower is wobbling now, as Manoel walks around it. “This side seems okay enough,” he calls down. “But let me make sure the rest of the platform is secure.”