Mary McCarthy

by Mary McCarthy

  “You’re ungrateful fools in my opinion,” said old Mrs. Hathaway, Ginny Marx’s mother, “if you don’t take Pickles’ offer while the taking’s good.” She sat on her side porch, serving dandelion wine (with just a tincture of raspberries) to a conclave of dubious young mothers. Across the road, the children were dining in the pool she had dammed up. “You’ve lost nearly the whole month of July already,” she said sharply. “If I were Pickles, I’d withdraw the offer and teach you all a lesson.” “We can’t be taught a lesson, apparently,” said Adelaide Currier, from the steps, with a humorous sigh. “Then you’re not going to do it!” cried Mrs. Hathaway. The young mothers sighed together, swaying like willows on the porch: “We don’t know.” “Look, Mrs. Hathaway,” said Charlotte. “You’ve been here longer than anybody else. Don’t you think this club will make a line between the summer people and the natives? That’s what Bill and I keep coming back to.” “There’s a line right now,” said the old lady. “There always has been. And there’ve always been some that cross it.” “Mother!” cautioned Ginny. Adelaide mixed a good deal with the natives, came up early in the spring and stayed late in the fall; she was also rumored to be very friendly with a tall telephone linesman, who came sometimes in his high boots to the pond, late in the afternoons. Still, cross it or not, the line was there. The summer women did not drink with the natives, but the summer men did, getting out a bottle and glasses with punctilio when the plumber or the carpenter came. The summer women did not wear shorts in public, because the farm women disapproved. The summer children did not speak of their winter boarding schools, except in terms of sorrow, to the native children they played with, or of money or city entertainment. Even Adelaide’s flirtation came within the rules, for the rumored meetings were out-of-doors and casual; she did not invite the man to her house. And, of course, she could not take him to a club.

  “Our equality’s really based on pretense,” said Ginny. “We pretend we don’t have a winter life or any life that’s different from theirs. Come September, we die down like the vegetation.” “Like Persephone, we go back to Hades,” said Adelaide, who hated the city. “That’s the point, I think, Mother,” cried Ginny. “If we have the club, we’ll be flaunting the other side of our lives, the winter side. I can’t help it; it seems tasteless to plump a clubhouse down in plain sight of people we see every day, in the store and the post office, who won’t be able to come to it.” “Perhaps they won’t want to,” said Mrs. Hathaway. Ginny shook her head. “That isn’t the point,” she insisted. “Even if they wanted to, they couldn’t.” Mrs. Hathaway shrugged; she had seen it before. Girls who married Jewish husbands were always touchy on these questions, even when there was no reason.

  “There’s another thing,” said Charlotte. “What if we don’t like somebody and he has the money for the shares?” “Exactly!” cried Adelaide. “You know how it will all end? We’ll be letting in those damned psychiatrists. After having spent thousands of dollars. The last state of the man will be worse than the first.” Rueful laughter shook the porch swing. “You don’t have to let them in,” said Mrs. Hathaway placidly. Ginny’s big round china-blue eyes glared at her mother. “You tell us, Mother, please, how we’re going to keep them out,” she said sarcastically. “On what basis, do you suggest?” “Why, simply because you don’t care for them socially,” replied Mrs. Hathaway. “That’s the basis of every club’s membership policy. A club is like your home; you’re not required to give a reason for not inviting people to it. Not yet, at any rate.” The young women exchanged looks. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hathaway,” said Charlotte, acting as spokesman. “That may be all right for the Chilton Club, but it just won’t do for the country, where you see people every day. You can’t practically say in so many words, ‘We don’t like you.’ ”

  Three young bosoms, gingham, linen, chambray, exhaled a common sigh. Mrs. Hathaway’s voile print underwent a convulsion. “Then what is the point of a club, girls?” “Exactly,” said Adelaide mournfully. “For people like us, maybe there isn’t any point. We couldn’t say no to anybody. You see, we are incorrigible.” She flashed her most winning smile, demure and repentant, on the old lady, and held out her glass. “But you’re willing and able to say no to Pickles?” rapped out Mrs. Hathaway, setting down the pitcher. The three heads, fair, dark, and chestnut, denied the charge. “We feel Pickles is trying to rush us,” said Ginny. “We aren’t sure yet in our own minds. We do see the advantages. A club would keep out transients.” “But there’s another thing, Mrs. Hathaway,” said Adelaide. “What’s going to happen to the beavers when Pickles drives them out of Lodestone?” Mrs. Hathaway’s eyes closed for an instant, as if in silent prayer. “My dear,” she remonstrated, in a kindly, concerned voice that seemed to belong to a gentler old lady, “you can’t worry your head about the fate of the beavers. You must leave that much to Providence.” “It’s not the beavers themselves, Mrs. Hathaway,” proffered Charlotte. “It’s where they’ll go. They’ll be all over the countryside, like a plague. Pickles can’t trap them all, in one open season. He admits that himself.” “Adelaide saw one in Poor Farm Pond, Mother,” put in Ginny. “Stuff!” said Mrs. Hathaway. “Adelaide doesn’t know a beaver from an otter.” “No, truly,” protested Adelaide. “I could tell by the tail. It’s going to be a terrible thing if they pour into Poor Farm. Everybody in Minster will be furious with us.”

  “I shouldn’t be at all surprised,” observed Charlotte, “if the town raised our taxes.” The old lady’s brows shot up, but she recovered herself. “Girls!” she said firmly. “You sound like children. Why, it would take the beavers years to come all the way over from Lodestone. They’ll settle down in some stream over there and mind their own business.” “It seems to me,” said Adelaide, “that Pickles will never be shut of them if they don’t come over to Poor Farm. They must be an enormous colony by now. You’d think Pickles, since he’s so clever, would have given that some thought.” The old lady considered. “Have you spoken to him about it?” she demanded. “Yes, of course,” said Adelaide. “And what did he say?” Adelaide looked rueful. “He just laughed. He says everybody has a private obsession that’s working against the club, and mine is the beavers. He and Margaret are getting pretty annoyed with us. Every day, somebody meets him in the post office with a new objection. Some of them, I admit, are pretty farfetched.” “Including yours, my dear,” said Mrs. Hathaway, rising. “If I see Pickles, I shall tell him what I think of the lot of you. You deserve to have a stick of dynamite put under you.” She made her way into the house. “Mother is dying to have the club so she can start blackballing people,” confided Ginny, with a giggle. “The Historical Society has never given her any scope.”

  On the last day of July, Pickles looked steadily at Margaret. “They’re not going to do it,” he announced. They were sitting alone on the terrace, at twilight. Their friends had been avoiding them for the last few days; the older children had gone with the Husteds to the state beach over the mountains, where there were lifeguards and twenty-foot diving towers; the youngest was in bed, tearful, because he was too little to stay up so late and drive home after dark. Every child, practically, in Minster had been in the dumps for weeks; the Husteds had packed theirs off to camp, where they could have all the swimming they wanted, right outside their tent. “And yet, damn it,” cried Pickles now, “their fool parents won’t raise a finger.” “Perhaps they’ll still do it,” said Margaret. Pickles shook his head. “I know them,” he said. “Once the psychiatrists go and Minster gets its beach back, they’ll forget there was ever an emergency.” “Well,” said Margaret bravely, “we can still fix up Lodestone. We can afford it, Pick.” “It’s not the money,” said Pickles. “It’s the principle. This whole damned community has lost the will to survive.”

  And, of course, on the first of August, the psychiatrists were gone. It was like a miracle, almost. The other invaders were gone, too, as if obedient to a signal. The young mothers, in their skirted bathing suits, were back on
their slabs of limestone; the children were in the water; the rowboats plied back and forth; the old raft buckled as divers hurtled off it. The pond was still, save for the plash of oars and the swash of the raft and the shrieks and gurgles of the children. Pages turned in the liberal weeklies; a clear voice quietly read aloud a dispatch from Yugoslavia in the New York Times. Knitting and four back numbers of the New Statesman came out of a wicker basket. Everything seemed precisely as it had been a month before, as it always had been. At four o’clock, a truck drove up, and it was the telephone linesman; handsome as a bronze and very tall, he nodded tersely to Adelaide and did a perfect jackknife from the raft. Dragonflies dipped; a fish jumped; firs rustled. As the sun descended toward the ridge, a murmurous rippling arose, like a sigh, from the shaded far shore. It can never change, really, the young mothers reflected, because we are the same.

  But it was on the very next afternoon—the second of August, two days after the psychiatrists had gone—that Ginny Marx, walking up to the raspberry patch with her two small children, saw the creature cross the road. There could be no mistake; it was a beaver. The children saw it, too, and it looked just the way a beaver was supposed to look—reddish brown and low-slung, something like a large rat, but with webbed hind feet. It hurried across the road in the direction of Poor Farm Pond, and Ginny let out a little cry. A moment later, coming from the other direction, Pickles Callaway drove up in his new station wagon—on his way, he said, to the post office. Ginny and the children excitedly climbed in. They had just seen a beaver, they all attested, heading for Poor Farm Pond. Pickles raised a skeptical eyebrow. They had beavers on the brain, he said, scoffing; it was probably just a woodchuck. But Ginny and the children all shook their fair heads. It was a beaver; they had just seen one in the Natural Science Museum at the state capital.

  And a minute later, while they were still arguing, the children made a curious discovery. Under one of the back seats was a canvas case with holes for ventilation. “What is it?” they asked, edging it out with their sandalled, dusty feet. Ginny, turning to rebuke them, caught a funny, boyish flicker of Pickles’ light-green eye, magnified by the big lens. The thing under the seat was a cat carrier, empty.

  Naturally, Ginny acknowledged, breathless, when Pickles, bold as brass, had let her off at the beach, you could not prove what had been in it. “But of course we know,” said Charlotte, tucking her chestnut hair into her bathing cap. “How long do you suppose he’s been doing it?” “From the very first, I imagine,” said Adelaide. “The one I saw must have been his maiden effort.” Ginny shook her head. “Perhaps it was the other way round. Perhaps that one came there naturally and gave him the idea.” Adelaide dimpled. “So like Pickles,” she murmured. “He saw the historical trend and lent it a helping hand.” “Dreadful,” pronounced Charlotte. “Do you think Margaret knows?” Adelaide slowly shook her head. “Impossible,” she said. “Inconceivable.” “But why, Mummy, why?” whispered Adelaide’s eight-year-old beauty, who had been sitting in the water, eavesdropping. “Why is Mr. Callaway putting beavers in our pond?” The mothers looked helplessly at each other. “Hush,” said Adelaide. “You’re not to speak of it.” “Is it because he’s mad at us?” “In a way, I suppose, dear,” said her mother. “It’s a sort of joke on us. Run away now and swim.” The child obeyed. “Joke?” cried Charlotte. “Why, I think he’s doing it to pressure us into joining his club.” Adelaide and Ginny shook their heads. “No,” said Adelaide. “Pickles doesn’t care any more where we swim; he’s washed his hands of us. I don’t blame him. In fact, you know, I rather admire him. He had to dispose of the beavers, and this was simple, ingenious, and anti-social. He made us a present of them. Pickles is an actionist; none of us would have had the nerve. And for that matter,” she added, “I don’t suppose he’s even doing anything illegal. Is it illegal to transport a beaver in a station wagon across a town line?” There was a ripple of reluctant laughter. “I think it’s criminal,” said Charlotte, rather feebly, immersing herself in the lake.

  Ginny and Adelaide sat staring into the clear green water—deep, much deeper than Lodestone, and fated, it almost seemed, like something beautiful in a fairy tale, to create trouble and perplexity. All at once, the Currier rowboat came to a stop. The oarsman, nine-year-old Henry Currier, had heard a peculiar sound. “Hey!” he called. “Hush,” said Ginny. Everybody stiffened, as if playing a game of statues.

  Across the pond, near the far shore, two lustrous beavers were swimming. Their flat tails made a distinctive noise as they slapped the water. “Beavers, children!” softly cried Charlotte, her face suddenly aglow. She stood like a classic water nymph, pink and plump, in her ample bathing dress, up to her waist in the water. The rowboat veered about; the little girls on the raft stood up and shaded their eyes. “I see them, I see them,” proud voices called in shrill succession. “Mother, they’re darling.” “Look at their little heads!” The young mothers caught their breaths; the gleaming round heads moving along the green surface were charming, and behind each beaver was a shining silver-white wake. At the same time, in the late-afternoon light, the line of newly cut gray branches was quite plainly visible, etched against the dark bank.

  The rowboat drew up, with businesslike strokes. “Can we row over and investigate them? Please?” Henry Currier had a crew of three aboard. The young mothers’ eyes consulted; each face had a look of consternation. “Very well,” said the mothers. The rowboat made off swiftly, with its four tense explorers. Ginny ran her tongue over her lips. “Henry,” she called, “if you see their house, don’t disturb it. Just investigate and report back.” Her fair neck flushed. “We can trap them later on,” she explained to the other young mothers. “After the children are gone.” “We won’t be here in the winter,” whispered Charlotte. “Perhaps the town could do it,” murmured Adelaide. “They could get a permit or something. Or maybe old Mr. Bascomb could trap them.”

  The eyes met again, and dispersed to the moving boat. “Much the best,” said Charlotte, settling down to a backstroke and thereby closing the subject.

  The Hounds of Summer

  THE VILLAGE had an inn with thirteen rooms, running water, and a bath for general use, two boarding houses, a post office, two dark provisions stores, an open-air vegetable stand, a meat market, a bakery, a fish store, a milk store, a drygoods store, and a newsstand which sold soap flakes, toilet paper, stamps, Italian cigarettes, matches, and the provincial edition of the Nazione of Florence, supplemented for the summer trade by the Corriere della Sera, La Stampa, and Il Giorno. There was a pay telephone in a booth at the inn, and this posto pubblico was the only telephone in Porto Quaglia, except for the doctor’s, so they said. Telegrams came down by bicycle from the hill town of Acquafredda, where there was a telegraph office, a municipio, and a police station. There was only one frigidaire, they said, in Porto Quaglia, not counting the one in the inn, and one bathroom with hot water. There was no cream to be bought in the dairy store, and the milk had to be boiled. The dentist drove over from Sarzana, the nearest market town, to pull teeth in the patient’s parlor or kitchen, and in summer he brought along his bathing suit, to get double value from the trip: there were cabine to rent at the public beach, and a small bar selling coffee, Campari soda, gelati in paper cups, bottled fruit juice, and vermouth. In short, the village was poor. The villagers spoke an ugly Italian and many of them had lost most of their teeth. The older women wore dark-blue dotted cotton house dresses and had hair of that peculiar iron gray found among poor Italians and suggestive of rust and mold.

  It was a fishing village, un petit hameau de pêcheurs, un piccolo villaggio di pescatori. That was how those who went there for their vacations found themselves describing it to their hairdressers, manicurists, pedicurists, concierges, postmen, train and air companions en route from London, Rome, Paris, Milan. True or false?

  True because Porto Quaglia was in fact populated by fishermen whose thin brown nets like hair nets were spread out to dry in the sun behind the whi
tewashed houses, and there was no other industry in the village except for the desultory transport of marble from the nearby mountains above Carrara, which was carried out in boats and barges equipped with giant cranes, grappling hooks, pulleys, and winches that appeared to spend the whole month of August toiling to dump five or six blocks of gray stone on the waterfront and then reload them in a Sisyphean labor. Porto Quaglia’s little harbor had once had a fleet of sailing vessels that carried marble from Carrara as far as Marseille, but then Carrara had built its own harbor at Marina di Carrara, and the sons of the Porto Quaglia mariners became barmen on the United States and Italian Lines. At any rate, Porto Quaglia today was simply a fishing village, and yet to say so to your manicurist or your B.B.C. producer was a lie.

  Partly because the words “hameau de pêcheurs,” et cetera, implied something colorful—a picturesque fishing fleet heavy with dragging nets like dark bridal veils; orange sails, red sails, yellow sails, marked with crescents and suns; bright-blue boats with an eye painted on the prow pulled up on the beach; old men mending their gear. A few old men did occasionally mend their gear but not where they could be observed; there were no sails except the white ones of small pleasure boats; and it was rare to see a fishing trawler, even on the horizon. The prized local catch was muggine—a special kind of white mullet, they said, that lived only in the tidal reaches of the bamboo-fringed River Quaglia, on which the village bordered. Yet muggine was hardly ever to be found in pescheria, which sold chiefly sole and red mullet that were suspected of coming from somewhere else along the coast. Fishing, such as it was, was practiced secretively as a rule. At night sometimes you would hear a lone rowboat push off from a wooden landing, then the plash of oars or the sound of an outboard motor. In the dead stillness of noon, you would see a man or a boy standing in a rowboat casting a white furled hand net into the river with a beautiful circling, swooping motion; this net was called “the hawk” and it struck into the glassy green water like a gauzy bird of prey. But often the man proved to be the doctor from Carrara in white duck trousers, who had learned the hawk in middle age; he was the “other” doctor, married into the local hill gentry, and had a tennis court, a telephone, a frigidaire, and at least one bath with hot water, which were never counted in the inventory, probably because he was not counted, out of courtesy to the indigenous doctor, who had a monopoly on the sick of Porto Quaglia. The boy in the rowboat with the net was always the same boy; he cast it again and again without catching anything, giving a tranced sense of time suspended like the black cranes groping for the gray marble.