“No, you’re right in a way. I see it’s not as simple as … I see I’ve been very forward about it, and you’re right to resist. I mean, especially if I gave you the idea that I did it because I felt guilty about my father’s buying your father’s land or because you saved my life. Or, God knows, if you think the main effort of your life is suddenly in the hands of a couple of women—I’m trying to see this from your point of view, you understand—a couple of women who don’t really know anything about boats.” Elsie sat up square on the sofa. “But one thing Miss Perry and I both know is that Joxer Goode would have loaned you the money if his freezer hadn’t broken. So why can’t we step in? Especially since Miss Perry got some advice from Captain Texeira.”
Dick nodded but didn’t say anything. He was having a hard time concentrating on how reasonable she was being.
“And Miss Perry and I both know this is just the last little bit. Just the last tenth. Less than a tenth, if you count all your labor. Do you understand that Miss Perry and I aren’t just … jumping in blind?”
“Yeah,” Dick said. “I can understand that part.”
“And this is a loan. No one’s giving you anything. You’ll have to pay it back.” Elsie laughed and poked his knee with her forefinger. “Miss one payment and Miss Perry and I may just repossess your ass.”
Dick moved away from her touch. He jerked to his feet. He stopped at the plate-glass window. He would have left the house, but he couldn’t turn around to face her.
She said, “Oh, Dick—”
“Don’t talk.”
He was trying to disconnect what was driving him away from her. Her last little jolly joke. Her flock of reasons. He could see her telling it all to Miss Perry—and Captain Texeira. That too. He couldn’t hear her voice, but he saw her hands moving, the lapels on her jacket moving like gills. Her face shining with her good deed. Maybe when she asked her brother-in-law for a thousand she’d been dolled up and half naked in her backless dress.
He knew that was terrible. He knew he was being disgusting.
It was the two of them who had mixed everything together. She was caught too. Maybe she was trying to get clear and this was the way she knew how.
He shook himself, breathed through his nose. Now he was angry because he couldn’t think straight. His anger eased off. He felt depression come in and flatten his anger.
“Well,” Elsie said, “I can see you think I’ve done something wrong.”
Dick said, “You wouldn’t tell your brother-in-law’s business to someone else. You wouldn’t try to do his business for him without his say-so. You wouldn’t tell people what kind of trouble he’s in. But someone who was last seen earning a few bucks fixing a clambake for the gentry, why, anything at all you can do for him, he ought to be pleased.”
“That is just so wrong!”
Dick turned to face her. He said, “No. Maybe it’s not so simple as that for you. Maybe the complications make it hard for you to see it as plain as that. I shouldn’t boil up about it either. There’s so much else mixed in.”
“So much else to get mad about?”
“No. You know what I mean. I see how you’ve made some efforts so your life doesn’t just stick close to shore. Some of that’s just for your own fun. But you aim to do good. I see that.”
Elsie looked down and straightened her skirt across her knees. “I’m … I really don’t dare say anything.” She folded her hands in her lap, her eyes still down.
Dick couldn’t believe he’d ever slept with her, so trimly rigged out in blue and white.
At the same time he had a sharp sense memory of her—his face over hers, her clenching her jaw, breathing fast and shallow, then going rigid with a hiss that frothed through her teeth.
Elsie looked up at him, looked him over. He felt the knot of his tie on his throat, his shirt collar riding as high as the lowest razor scrape. His scrubbed hands stuck through the ironed shirt cuffs.
Elsie stood up. “Look, Dick, I may not have arranged it perfectly.…”
Dick said, “The thing is, I pretty much have to go along. On account of May and the boys.”
“Well, there you are,” Elsie said. “It does come down to that.”
At Miss Perry’s door for the second time that day, Dick was impressed with the stonework. The doorway was round-arched, made of gray stones rough-hewn to the size of bricks, except the keystone, a handsome wedge the size of a loaf of bread.
Dick said out loud, “Christ Almighty,” and rang the bell. A nurse in a navy-blue jumper opened the door. Dick told her his name. She said, “Just a sec,” and left him in the front hall.
Dick had been in the house before, but the clearest memory now came from when he was seven. Because he’d been scared that time too? He recognized the walking sticks with carved heads hanging in a rack on the wall. He looked down at them. They had been at eye level then. They had terrified him. The Indian head, the bulldog with red garnet eyes, the eagle’s beak. The relief of the plain ivory handle. The blackthorn topped with a two-humped gnarl, yellowish in the fissure. It had been most terrifying because it was trying to be something, caught half alive under the layers of shellac.
The nurse came back and led him into the house. Miss Perry was in the library lying on a sofa, a thin wool blanket across her legs. Her glasses lay on her chest. Her white hair was pinned up, as usual, but was untidy. Even in the dim light Dick could see her eyes were red.
“Please sit down.”
Dick looked around, found a straight-backed chair. The curtains were drawn across the tall windows on either side of the fireplace. At one narrow end of the room there was a bull’s-eye window high above the bookshelves. The outside shutter was closed.
“I’m afraid you see me at my worst.”
Miss Perry’s voice was so low Dick could scarcely hear her. He started to move his chair closer, but she raised her hand. He sat down again.
“I don’t like to see people when I’m this way.”
Outside it had been a hot day. Here the air was cooler, but motionless. Dick began to sweat.
Miss Perry said, “Elsie and the doctor want me to take a drug. ‘… let me my senses in Lethe steep.’ That is a line from Webster. Neither Elsie nor the doctor understands why Lethe is terrible. I quote Webster. Webster is morbid, melodramatic, inferior to Shakespeare. But Webster is apt for the way I am. Webster is glittering and unwholesome. I should get him out of my head, but I can’t. The trouble with Webster is that he didn’t meet life head-on the way Shakespeare did. His plots are full of drugs and potions. ‘Sweetmeats which rot men’s nostrils.’ ”
The nurse came in with a tray. Miss Perry said, “Would you like some tea?”
Dick said, “No thank you.”
“No tea, nurse, thank you all the same.”
“It’s all made. I’ll just put it down.”
Miss Perry closed her eyes. “This is like Elsie. Elsie has become insistent too.” Dick winced.
The nurse said, “Let’s just give it a try. If you don’t like it, I’ll take it back out, but I bet you end up liking it.” She left.
Dick felt terrible for Miss Perry. He’d been momentarily baffled by her talk about Webster—he’d thought it was the Webster who wrote the dictionary. When he got clear of that idea, he saw what she meant. It also came to him that he’d never heard her be rude, he’d never heard her complain. For that matter, he’d never heard her talk about herself at such uninterrupted length. She’d always seemed to have a built-in conversational timer—it was as though a bell rang in her head every so often and she’d cock her head and switch over to asking about May and the boys or how the lobster season was. But now …
And there was that remark about Elsie—it sounded like Elsie had pushed the old lady hard about taking pills. And maybe about the money.
Miss Perry looked at the tea service. She said, “I suppose it is teatime.” She pushed herself up to a sitting position and poured two cups. She eyed a plate of little sandwiches. “And
what are those? I have no idea. Do you know what those are? What’s in them?”
Dick ate one. “It’s crab.” He held the plate out to her. “It’s fresh. Maybe Joxer Goode’s back in business.”
Miss Perry shook her head, took a sip of tea, and leaned back. “I feel like such a child. I simply can’t do anything. I’m absurdly exhausted without having done anything.”
Dick cleared his throat and said, “I’m sorry you feel so bad.”
“Each year I say to myself it won’t happen, and then I simply let down. I don’t go to pieces. I simply let down.”
Dick could see that. He felt some sympathy, which he knew was useless. He had no business being here. His being here was just making Miss Perry struggle. She as much as said she wished he hadn’t seen her like this. He wished he hadn’t seen her like this too. Her naked eyes were bleary, unfocused, unguarded … worse than unguarded—feebly guarded. The way she looked was like the way she talked: signs of distress but no signal he could respond to. She wasn’t crazy, she could see what she was like and she would remember it.
Another painful thing was how almost herself she was. It was like standing onshore and watching a boat just getting into trouble. Her bow still rose to the waves, you could see signs of life, someone at the wheel, someone moving on deck, but she wasn’t right. You could imagine she’d fouled her prop or her rudder or lost power. You could imagine, but you couldn’t tell. And you couldn’t help. You could hope she’d get help, or better yet recover herself, but all you were was one of the gawkers. You’d seen her graceless, even if you kept your mouth shut.
Miss Perry said, “Elsie was to drive me to church this morning, but she sent for the doctor instead. I must let her have her way sometimes, I suppose.” Miss Perry’s face was turned toward the back of the sofa. Dick saw that she was really talking to herself, or that she would rather be talking to herself.
Dick was angry with Elsie. And then angrier with himself. What had got him in here was his own distress. Elsie’s part was only that she’d told Miss Perry about his trouble, told him about Miss Perry’s. Elsie, with all her young and easy sympathy, thought that trouble was just trouble; she had no idea how heavy the sense of fault was, and how heavy the shame of being seen.
Miss Perry rang for the nurse. Dick got up and said, at last, “Thank you. That’s what I came to say.”
Miss Perry didn’t speak for a moment. Then she said with some difficulty, “I am afraid that I have already reached the point at which conversation is too perplexing. I’m sorry.…”
Miss Perry was distracted by the nurse, who came in and began to put their teacups on the tray.
Miss Perry said, “Please don’t do that until I ask you.” She turned to Dick. “Please go away. You must come again.” She was out of breath. She said hoarsely and fiercely, “But not now. Now you all must go.” She tucked her head down to one side and pushed her hands at them.
When Dick and the nurse got to the walking sticks, the nurse said, “Don’t take it personally.” The bulldog head, the bulbous gnarl of the blackthorn. He felt a fear of Miss Perry’s illness. And a simultaneous revulsion from her body and his, as if he’d bludgeoned her.
Dick stopped at the end of Miss Perry’s driveway. This time he turned away from Elsie’s house. He drove home and walked into the kitchen. May looked up. Dick said, “Miss Perry will do it. She’s lending me the money.” There it is, Dick thought, I’ve closed the circuit. No way to turn it off now.
He sat down and covered his eyes with his hand. He felt dizzy and undone. May looked up. She came over and touched his shoulder. “You’ll pay it back. She’s a nice woman, but you’ve earned your way. You’ll make it good.”
Dick felt May’s power. He wished he could receive it.
He said, “There’s another thousand too. Elsie Buttrick wants to lend it.”
May tilted her head. “It’s not a whole lot, is it? But it’s something.”
“It was Elsie Buttrick went to Miss Perry and set up the ten thousand. Miss Perry is just into her spell. Elsie’s the one in charge of looking after her this year.”
“That’s good,” May said. “When do you think you can put your boat in?”
“Depends. If I can get the loran without too much wait. If I can get Eddie to help with the wiring. If I can use the boatyard to launch her. Another week or ten days.”
May nodded. “And when can you start work with her?”
“Depends. If Parker agrees that half the pots out there now are mine, on account of what he owes me. And if I can buy out some more from him—then I’ll have pretty near a thousand pots out there to start with.”
Dick got up and looked out the back window at the shed. What he’d just said to May sounded strange to him. It was all reasonable, but he didn’t feel connected to it. The boat, the engine, now seemed less physically true than when he used to see them in his dreams. His resolve then had been bright and sharp. The boat’s lines had cried out to be made whole. And the spurts of anger every time he went out in his skiff past Sawtooth Point—they’d helped.
Could it be that he’d gone to bed with Elsie Buttrick because she was part of Sawtooth Point? Because she was one of the Buttricks, the Perryville School, the life of tennis courts and sailboats that had overgrown the point, squeezed him up Pierce Creek to an acre of scrub? Of course, it had squeezed him into a concentrated purpose too.
When the boat was half done, he’d been the boat’s other half. Now the boat was almost whole, he’d hoped he’d feel whole. He didn’t. He’d got himself into all this mess.
May said, “Call the boys in, would you? They’re down at the wharf. Supper’s ready.” When he didn’t move right away, she touched his shoulder again. “Dick. Maybe you don’t know how hard it was. Maybe you thought it was just giving in, and so you thought it’d be easy. Going to those people and getting money is work. You have a good supper and a good sleep, you’ll be all right.”
Dick said, “I’ll get the boys.”
A North Star loran. Five thousand bucks. Eddie Wormsley looked over Dick’s shoulder as he wrote the check on his account at the Wakefield bank. Elsie had called once to get his account number, and again to tell him the ten thousand was deposited. The dealer went into his back office to call the bank. He came out all smiles. It was Eddie who thought to ask for help with the hookup. The dealer agreed, he had a man free.
Eddie also came with Dick to buy the radio. Eddie was having so much fun it carried Dick along.
By the end of the week they’d spent the ten thousand on the loran, VHF, RDF. The sonar took the swordfish money. They got the stuff hooked up. The antennas, along with the topmast and crow’s nest, had to wait till they pulled the boat out of the shed.
Eddie was with Dick when the boatyard manager came to talk about launching. All three of them walked out to the shed. Dick held the plastic sheet aside. The manager stepped inside and said, “Jesus H. Christ!” Eddie laughed and stamped his feet and said, “You’re goddamn right.” Dick said to the manager, “You think you can move her?”
“Goddamn,” the manager said. “That’s just fucking amazing.” He bobbed his head down. “I didn’t do you a bad turn, then, laying you off.”
Dick said, “I never held it against you.”
The manager walked around her, checked the cradle and poppets. “We can do it. So long as you don’t mind what happens to the shed.”
Dick said, “No. The shed don’t matter.”
“Okay. We can do it. This’ll be the last piece of business for the marine railway. You’ll have to arrange something over by the state pier in Galilee if you want her hauled after this. I got a new boatmover but it can’t haul you, big as you are. Just yachts from now on. I’m tearing out the old rails.”
Eddie said, “So you’ll put Dick’s boat in for old times’ sake?”
The manager looked sideways at Eddie, then back at Dick.
“I’ll do right by you. I got to make it a job, but I’ll do right by you.
We’ll do it Monday. I got yachts coming out every day from now till mid-September, but I’ll fit you in Monday, for old times’ sake. It’ll still be four men and the use of all that equipment.”
Eddie said, “We could keep the cost down if Dick and I—”
“No,” the manager said, “my insurance is only good if I use guys on my payroll.”
“How about if you could use some piles,” Eddie said. “I got some I cut this past winter—big straight ones, size of phone poles.”
Dick said, “I’ll take care of it, Eddie. I got some more money in the hole.”
The manager left. Eddie said to Dick, “I know he’s going to need those piles. If he runs the bill up on you, we’ll stick him for the piles come October.”
“Yuh.”
“Look, Dick. You’re all set with this, right? You don’t strike me as feeling as pleased as you might.”
“Yuh. Maybe I’m tired. Maybe I don’t think it’s all there yet. Maybe when I see her in the water.” Dick made a little effort. “Look, Eddie. You’ve done a lot of work for me.”
“Not that much,” Eddie said. “I’m glad to see things work out. These last couple years, I’ve been doing okay. I wouldn’t want my luck to turn.”
Dick knew what he meant—if you don’t help out, it shows up sooner or later. Dick thought that might be why he himself was feeling so skittish. He’d been pretty much living for his own boat. He couldn’t count helping out Parker, he’d been in that for the money—whether he got the money or not. He couldn’t count hauling Elsie out of the drink—he’d turned that into something he sure as hell couldn’t call helping out.
Eddie said, “Well, then. See you Monday.”
“See you Monday, Eddie.”
Dick called Elsie again Sunday evening. He’d talked to her the two times on the phone, but he hadn’t been back to her house all week. Now she made it easy for him.
She said, “I ran into Eddie Wormsley yesterday. He told me the two of you were up to your eyeballs putting in all that stuff you bought. Look, I’ve got your other check here. Do you want me to drop it off or will you come by? Why don’t you come by?”
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