Spartina

by John D. Casey

  “You got a long ways to go till forty,” Dick said. “What are you—more than ten years younger than me?” He looked at the picture. “I remember you at that age there. You came down to the boatyard to tell me you were sorry my father died.”

  “I remember that,” Elsie said. “It still makes me blush. I remember all the men in the yard staring at me, but by then you’d seen me, so I couldn’t turn back. I’d thought I’d be … I thought because I was doing a good thing I’d be invisible and it wouldn’t matter. I was just wearing my bathing suit. Sally wouldn’t come, but, then, she knew men stared at her, and I still didn’t quite believe they noticed me.… Well, I did sort of.…”

  Dick said, “It was nice of you. No one else in your family ever said anything to me about my father. I appreciated it.”

  “Well, our whole family was falling apart that summer.”

  Dick nodded. “I remember all you Buttricks kind of disappeared for a while. But I saw you around some.”

  “I was going to the Perryville School. I stayed on as a boarder for two years. We’d sometimes go sailing. The school had two boats in the yard where you worked—do you remember those two pond boats? All the kids were scared of you.… You were a famous grouch.”

  “You were scared of me, were you?”

  “Not me. But you were grouchy.”

  “I don’t remember being grouchy to you school kids.” Dick was embarrassed.

  Elsie laughed and said, “ ‘School kids.’ Good God. I certainly didn’t think of myself as a school kid. What a blow that would have been. I mean, maybe crackerjack sailor, or star rebel. But school kid …”

  Elsie went off with the soup bowls and came back with coffee.

  “Tell me,” Elsie said. “What am I now? I mean, there I was then, little Elsie Buttrick, school kid. Now what? One of the Buttrick girls, not the pretty one. And maybe one of the Buttricks who had the nice house on the point. Or maybe—’Officer Buttrick,’ as you sometimes say with a certain sneer. Or maybe I’m just one of the rich-kid crowd?” Elsie laughed. “I remember in college teaching myself to say tomayto instead of tomahto so the lefties wouldn’t hate me.” Elsie looked up. “So—is it A, B, C? None of the above? All of the above?”

  He shook his head.

  “Oh, come on. You can if you dare—where’s your nerve?”

  Dick took a while. “I’m not so concerned about what you think of my nerve that I’d go ahead and make you feel bad.”

  “Ooo. Well.” Elsie sat up. “Schoolgirl gets taken down a peg.”

  “No,” Dick said. “You pushed yourself into that one.”

  “In fencing that’s called a stop thrust. You just hold your blade out there when the other guy jumps in, and there she is with a new button.”

  “You do fencing?”

  “I did.”

  “I guess there’s nothing you don’t do.”

  “Just about.”

  “Except let other people get a word in—”

  “Oh, for God’s sakes! No one’s stopping you! But I guess that’s an answer in a way. What I think of as just my way of babbling engagingly, you think is obnoxious pushing.”

  “Yup.”

  Elsie said, “ ‘Yup.’ ‘Nope.’ Now I’ve made you go all swamp-Yankee.” Elsie smiled at him, started to say something else, didn’t, left her mouth open.

  It made Dick laugh.

  “Well,” Elsie said, “good. Now that we’ve got that all cleared up. Do you want a peach?”

  Dick said yes.

  Elsie went to get them, kept talking. “What I meant to get to somehow … I’ll just skip right to it. I had an eerie feeling not long ago. It was about Miss Perry. I’m devoted to Miss Perry. I admire Miss Perry. What she’s like is one of those eccentric eighteenth-century English vicars who knew everything about the place they lived. Crops, flora and fauna, local geology, social facts, everything.

  “Miss Perry is pretty eighteenth-century in her formality too. You know how she’s known Captain Texeira for ages, how she adores him? She still writes him little notes saying, ‘May I call on you next Sunday?’ She only sees him once a month. And you know how much she likes you, but she only sees you on your kids’ birthdays. It’s all so crystallized it might as well be in a glass case. And there’s her one hour a week at the library reading aloud for children’s hour. She likes that. But I remember asking her about her other good works, which she’s not so fond of. She said she asked her father the same question when she was young and he said, ‘Life is a series of minor duties, most of them unpleasant.’ She said she was horrified at the time. I told her I was horrified now.

  “Anyway, what happened was this. I started giving my ecology talks in the school, the ones Charlie and Tom came to. And I moved in here. One of the first days I was here, I came in, and I was just stopped cold—it was as if the house was haunted.… I thought, So this is what it feels like to be Miss Perry.” Elsie put the peaches down on the table, her fingers lingering on them. “It wasn’t so much a thought as a sensation. I felt her spirit, no, not her spirit. I felt the form of her life. I felt as though that form, that formal form, was hovering and it might suddenly crystallize the rest of my life.”

  Dick was startled. It wasn’t the same thought he had yesterday, but it floated nearby.

  Elsie said, “Of course it’s ridiculous, there are so many ways Miss Perry and I are … not just different but miles apart. But at the time the feeling was absolutely terrifying. It went away fairly quickly, though my reaction to it didn’t. I mean, every so often I find myself underlining differences between Miss Perry and me.” Elsie laughed. “Which probably sounds pretty silly.” Elsie leaned over her plate and chomped down on her peach.

  Dick said, “I was thinking the other day … something like that. One thing I was thinking is how my father was, how he left me things I didn’t even know about. For one thing, how hard it is not to be so …”

  “Yes?”

  “Not to be so goddamn gloomy.”

  “That does seem to be the local problem,” Elsie said. “At least Miss Perry concentrates her melancholy all into one spell. That’s sort of formal too, every year at the same time. I can’t tell when I’m going to feel melancholy. It used to be whenever I went by our old house. Or smelled a certain smell, a sea-breeze-through-a-damp wooden-house smell … I used to blame everything on that house, on that one summer. That summer was the sun of my solar system. Now I don’t know, I’m more in outer space.… That was seventeen years ago. What were you doing seventeen years ago?”

  Dick said, “That year. I remember that year. I got married in January, Charlie was born, my father died.”

  “But Charlie’s birthday’s in June,” Elsie said.

  “Yup.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to …”

  “And I left the Coast Guard, went to work at the boatyard,” Dick said. “Don’t worry about it. Charlie came out nine pounds, so it was hard to call him premature with a straight face. I remember May’s mother giving it a try.”

  Elsie laughed, then looked to see if it was okay.

  Dick said, “And I built our house. May stayed with her parents in Wakefield while I was finishing it. I’d get off work at the yard, drive over, and keep going till after dark. Eddie Wormsley and me. Sometimes another couple of guys from the yard. That was just before Eddie’s wife left him. He knew she was going, so he wasn’t too cheerful.”

  Elsie said, “Ah. So it wasn’t just my family. It was a bad year for all of you. Almost enough to make you believe in astrology.”

  “No,” Dick said. “To tell the truth, that time wasn’t bad for me. I liked all that work. I’d been bored in the Coast Guard. And I was glad I had at least that little piece of land left, and the house going up. And I had a son.”

  Elsie said, “Yes. There was baby Charlie. I don’t envy my sister anymore except for her children. Last year I even went to an agency and asked about adopting.” Elsie laughed. “Now, there was an odd scene.�
��”

  Dick said, “You better talk to Eddie Wormsley about that. He got his son back from his ex-wife when the kid was ten. Practically grown up, or so Eddie thought. The kid was a good kid too. But, my God … you talk to Eddie about that.”

  Elsie said, “I talked to Mary Scanlon about it—”

  Dick said, “Mary? Mary doesn’t have a kid.”

  “No, no. She and I were joking about …” Elsie fluttered her hand and said, “Our spinsterhood. You see, she works evenings, I work days, so we were talking about sharing a daughter. Add a room for Mary out there.” Elsie gestured to the side. “And I’d move my room over to that side. And we’d get Miss Perry to be the honorary grandmother. We might keep some slots open for male relatives. My brother-in-law for rich uncle.” Elsie’s hands flickered back and forth with each idea. “And a black-sheep uncle … You think you might like that one? Rogue uncle …”

  Dick laughed. “Mary Scanlon and you. That’d be a pair all right.”

  “I don’t know why you say that,” Elsie said. “Mary speaks well of you. In fact she’s very fond of you.”

  Dick said, “And I like Mary. I like Mary fine.”

  “Then, what?”

  Dick shook his head.

  Elsie said, “Then it’s something about me!”

  “No. I like you fine too. It’s the pair of you. I was thinking of some poor guy walking in here, he’d get skinned on two sides at once.”

  “I don’t know why you say that. Mary and I could very well be the two nicest people for miles around—”

  “That’s right. Could be.”

  “But just because we’re independent women … Of course maybe you just feel threatened.”

  Dick laughed. “That’s what I said—if the two of you got going, I surely would.”

  “Well,” Elsie said. “So that’s what you think. I suppose you prefer women to be like Marie Van der Hoevel, little whispering voices, and tiny narrow feet, pale noodle legs. You probably can’t even tell she’s meaner than Mary and me put together.”

  Dick checked himself. He didn’t want to get into talking about Parker and him mixing with Schuyler and Marie. Dick said, “No. But, then, I don’t know Marie. Just from the clambake. Didn’t look like she was having much fun.”

  “Well, it’s her own fault,” Elsie said. “No, I shouldn’t say that. Schuyler’s impossible sometimes. But really I’m glad they’re both going to stay here. And that is a measure of how few friends I have left around here. There’s Mary Scanlon, but it’s hard to see her, the hours she has to work. So really my best friend is Miss Perry.… I really do love her, but … I grew up here, and everyone I knew then has moved away. New York, Boston … Away. I see my sister, but now that she and Jack have two children, it’s not the way it was. It’s still nice, but … One thing I admire about Miss Perry is her friendships. Of course her best friend died, old Mr. Hazard. But she has Captain Texeira.…”

  Elsie stopped short, sank onto her elbows, her fingers on her forehead. “I suppose I’m afraid of being here the way Miss Perry is here. But at the same time I admire the way she’s here. And I want to stay here, I want to be here. I believe in staying here. It’s just so hard sometimes. Of course it’s my own fault.… I can be so difficult. I’m not really, I’m …” Elsie put her hands over her eyes, said “Oh shit,” and began to cry.

  Dick was alarmed. He felt a sharp sympathy for Elsie, as quick as a piece of paper being ripped down the middle. He had no idea what to do. It seemed like years since May had her crying fits. Or since he’d been nice to May when she did cry.

  Dick held out his napkin to Elsie. When it touched her hand she made a noise so much like a growl that he pulled back.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Give me that.” She wiped her eyes and blew her nose and went right on. “One thing I was thinking is that we ought to be able to do anything. I mean, compared with plants and animals, we can see the whole world. But everyone seems to end up … shriveled into a corner. Have you ever seen a water shrew? They’re little, smaller than my little finger. They’re almost blind. They have to eat and eat.… When they make a new nest, they have to scout the fastest way from their nest to the water so birds won’t catch them. They can only afford to feel out the path once. If there’s a stone in the way, they run around it, if there’s a twig, they hop over it. Then that’s their path. If you take away the stone and the twig, they still run around the place where the stone was, they still give a little hop where the twig was. They’re wonderful, but when they’re in their preprogrammed mode they’re just absurd. I like being an animal, but not that part. I mean, I’m grateful for being alive, I like having to do most of what I do, I just wish I wasn’t so … caught by … I don’t mind the real problems, the real rocks and twigs. It’s being in a maze of things that aren’t really there that makes me … it makes me sad for Miss Perry, it makes me sad about myself. When you live by yourself, you spend so much time going around rocks that aren’t there. You spend lots of time making sure you’re not something. That you’re not afraid, that you’re not lonely, that you’re not absurd.” Elsie looked up at him. She looked a little bewildered. She said, “Do you know what I mean?” She rolled her hand on the table so it touched his. The touch straightened his spine.

  Tough little Elsie Buttrick. Far-off, fast-talking Elsie Buttrick, as quick and neat as a tern skimming the water. Dick had been alarmed to see her crumple, he was glad to see her rise again.

  She stood up, picked up her coffee cup, put it back down, and shoved it aside. She took both his hands, and he floated to his feet. He bumped the corner of the table. When she touched his cheek, they were clear of the table, in the center of the room.

  She said several things but he didn’t take them in. He felt weightless, but when their bones touched he felt their weight against each other, as though they were small boats at sea rising on the same swell, jostling, fendered by their flesh.

  He had one complete sting of conscience when they drifted apart for an instant. Elsie shoved aside the red curtain and they floated through.

  Elsie said, “It’s okay, it’s all right.” He didn’t say anything. His mouth felt numb, his hands felt numb, even though he could feel her transmitted through them. She was transmitting her skin, her teeth, her breath, and her odd fit of tears for herself. And her sixteen-year-old self from seventeen years before—it came back to him now on a single beam of memory that as she’d walked up to him she’d pulled at her swimsuit. He saw it again—as she’d crossed the boatyard, she’d slipped her fingers under the edge of her red swimsuit ridden up on her haunch and slid it down with a neat inside-out twist of her hand. And said she was sorry about his father’s death. Now she was only a step closer. She reached him now. He felt that everything that was happening and the sensations that were about to overcome him were as remote as that memory. Her sharper full-grown face was as remote as a star, light sent years ago reaching him now, fixing him on the surface of the sea.

  Elsie shocked him. Not because they’d gone to bed, though that too put him in a state of shock. He understood that state of shock, felt the form of it, absorbed it. He knew that he was absorbing it willingly, that he was being bad, that he was going to come to Elsie’s house again, that he would be harmed by what he was doing, that he was willing.

  But in addition Elsie shocked him in a way that he hadn’t foreseen: she didn’t hide anything. It was more than that—she as much as said that now they could say anything to each other. What she looked forward to as much as making love was telling him things and giving him the run of her house and in the same way the run of her whole life. He wasn’t sure about taking the invitation. What it turned out to feel like was that he was the one being opened up, that he was the one being penetrated by what she told him.

  It was little things at first. The next afternoon he came to give her a ride to the Volvo dealer to pick up her car. When she climbed into his truck she laughed and said, “I certainly couldn’t have ridden my bike
today. I forgot how stiff I feel after, I mean when I haven’t done it for a while.” He must have looked startled. She added, “No, don’t feel bad, it’s nice, I hobbled around all morning thinking of how nice.…”

  He thought, Why shouldn’t she say that? But that “haven’t done it for a while” came from a distance.

  Another time, several days later, they went swimming in her pond. They managed to squeeze the two of them into one large inner tube. They floated around, kept on floating even after it began to drizzle. She tucked his arms under her shoulders. The drizzle was a little warmer than the pond, it made his body feel oiled.

  She said, “When I first slept with a boy—I was still at the Perryville School. My girlfriends who’d done it warned me I’d be disappointed. And I was in a way. But in another way I was amazed. I thought, What a wonderful way to get to know someone. I wanted to go to bed with all the men in the world.” She laughed.

  They drifted into the rhododendron branches. Elsie reached up and shoved against a branch. They spun slowly to mid-pond.

  “I mean, it didn’t take long at all to stop actually sleeping with everyone I liked. It was why it wasn’t a good idea that puzzled me. And I’m still glad I thought that thought. And I’m glad that later on I thought, Why have sex at all? Almost the Catholic position. So to speak. Sex is just to have babies and the rest is a bad French novel. That was theoretical too. I still had my share of bad French novels.”

  Dick didn’t feel he could complain. He just wished she wouldn’t talk that way. He also felt ashamed that he wished she wouldn’t, since he was doing what she was talking about. And he was equally ashamed that he was glad she talked that way, since it let him off the hook, he was just one more of her bad French novels.

  He liked talking to her about almost anything else. He even liked hearing her talk about sex when she got off the topic of her sex life in general and just talked about the two of them. “I noticed the way you looked at me at the clambake,” she said. “Admit it. That was just plain lust. I understand—it was early in the summer, you hadn’t seen anyone in a bathing suit for a long time.”