Spartina

by John D. Casey

  “Yes,” Dick said. “I’m at home now.”

  Elsie said, “Ah.”

  Dick said, “When’s a good time to pick it up?”

  “Right away would be a good time.”

  Dick looked around the kitchen. The boys were setting the table, May was at the stove. “After supper,” he said, “if that’s convenient. How’s Miss Perry?”

  “Fine,” Elsie said. “No. She’s not fine. I’ll tell you about that later. It’s no worse than usual, at least that’s what the doctor says. How are you?”

  “Fine,” Dick said.

  Elsie laughed and said, “Fine. We’re all fine. Come over.”

  Dick cleared his throat. “It turns out I will need the money after all, so I’m—”

  “Dick, hey, Dick,” Elsie said, “just come over.”

  “All right,” Dick said and hung up.

  When Dick said he had to go out to pick up some more money, Charlie asked if he could come along. Dick said no, because after he picked up the money he was going to look in at the Neptune to see if Parker was back.

  May said, “Parker? I thought we’d be shed of Parker now.”

  “I told you I got to see him about the pots. What you boys can do is make sure the way is clear for when they show up with their rig. They’ll be here first thing tomorrow morning.”

  Charlie said, “What do you mean, Dad?”

  “What the hell do you think I mean? All that junk in the yard—the bait barrels, the sawhorse.” He couldn’t think of anything else. “I want all that junk out of the way,” he said.

  Charlie said, “We can do that tomorrow.”

  “You do what your father says,” May said. “And I don’t want you going to the Neptune anyways.”

  Tom said, “Charlie’s too young to go to the Neptune.”

  “You’d better pick what’s left of the corn and tomatoes,” Dick said to May. “When they make the turn to back that rig in, they may have to run over the south end of the garden. You boys help your mother with the garden.”

  Might as well go all the way, Dick thought. He pulled out onto Route 1 in front of a station wagon and got honked at when the pickup misfired. The station wagon swung round him and passed. Dick worked the gas pedal twice, sped up, and passed the station wagon on the right. He cut into the left lane in front of it, then slowed down to get into the left-turn lane. The station wagon honked again, a fading blare as it went away toward Wakefield.

  Make it perfect, Dick thought. Be dumb-ass sullen with Eddie, a son of a bitch to May and the boys, leave them working, go off and topple Elsie one more time and take her money too. Along with the old lady’s when she’s out of her mind. Perfect.

  As he went up the narrow lane to Elsie’s house, he knew that in some cracked way he meant it straight. Tie it all up. Make it as bad as could be and leave it all onshore when he took the goddamn boat out.

  Elsie seemed to know what he felt like. She’d made a dent in a bottle of wine before he got there, and she poured some more for the two of them with a sloppy flourish. She drank off half of hers, put her glass down, and stuffed an envelope into Dick’s pants pocket.

  “Before I forget,” she said, “my rich brother-in-law has some advice that goes along with that. It’s his money after all. He says you shouldn’t sign your boat up with Joxer Goode. He thinks Joxer’s not going to make it.”

  Dick said, “The halfway-decent ones don’t do too good with money, do they?”

  “It seems that way. But you’ll do fine. You’ll be all right on your own now.”

  “Yuh.”

  “Don’t be hard now. We’ll have a bottle of wine tonight. Tomorrow I’m going on the wagon. I’m going to devote myself to Miss Perry for one more week, and then I go back into uniform. And you’re off to sea in your brand-new boat.” Elsie patted his arm. “I have some advice for you too. Be cheerful, be blithe.” Elsie laughed.

  The sun was lowering and turning red. It shone under the crowns of the tall trees and under the eaves of the side porch. The long sideways light picked out the half-empty bottle, the glasses, the polished wood. It flickered on Elsie’s face and hands as she picked up her glass of wine and brought it to her mouth through a bar of sunlight.

  The room was as bright as a county fair.

  The pond was in shadow, black and distinct down below the glitter of the greenhouse roof. The near shore and the big rock were vague in shadow.

  They both looked down at the pond for a while. They kissed in a tired, restful way. Elsie laughed, shook her head, and tugged him by the hand to go for a swim.

  They didn’t stay in the water long, but it was almost dark when they got out. They stopped to look at the moon, almost full. Elsie dropped her clothes in the middle of the room and picked up her glass. He could just see it move, a piece of light in the near dark. Her body was as darkly distinct as the pond.

  She seemed fuller and softer than ever before.

  It was hard to tell distances in the dimness, so it was a surprise when he reached her with his outstretched hands. Her skin was cool, a little dispiriting. Her lips and tongue were warmer, spongy and acid with lukewarm wine. She put her arms around his neck and began to dance slowly, tugging herself up on her tiptoes. She said, “You don’t mind if I’m a little sloshed, do you?” She began to hum along to her dancing.

  She turned her head sharply. He heard a car an instant later. The headlight beams popped through the side porch. Elsie said, “Oh shit,” and rummaged for her clothes in the dark. Dick got his pants on just as there was a knock on the door. Elsie said, “Just a minute, who is it?”

  “It’s Mary. Mary Scanlon.”

  Elsie said, “Coming,” and turned on a light. “Just a second, Mary.” She looked at Dick, who was stuffing his shirttail into his pants. She turned again when she got to the door and waited while he buckled his belt. She gestured to him to sit down and opened the door.

  Mary Scanlon, all in black, stood at the top of the three steps, looking taller than Dick had ever seen her. She towered over Elsie. Mary’s face looked pale and bony under her black hat. Her face was set in a way Dick had never seen. He stood up, half-expecting Mary to denounce Elsie and him.

  Mary said, “Oh Jees, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to barge in.” Her face slowly became puzzled.

  Elsie took her by the hand and said, “Oh, Mary, I’m sorry. I called last week, but …”

  “I’ve been up at the hospital the whole week. The funeral was yesterday.”

  “Oh, Mary, I am sorry. How’s your mother?”

  “She’s okay. My brothers are staying on a few days. I thought I wanted to be alone, but when I got this far I couldn’t face it, so I thought I’d drop by.”

  Elsie took Mary’s hands, guided her down the last step, and hugged her. Dick put his hands in his pockets, and ran into the envelope. Elsie led Mary to the sofa and sat down beside her.

  Mary looked up and took Dick in. “My father died.”

  Elsie said, “Are you tired? Would you like a drink?”

  Dick said, “I’m sorry, Mary.”

  “He was good about it,” Mary said. “He was really good about it. Part of it was that the cancer spread to his liver and they say that’s painless. They say it even makes you euphoric. And he hated being old, so …” She turned to Dick. “But you’ve been through all this. And it must have been harder for you, you being an only child, and your mother already dead when you were just a kid.”

  Dick felt pinned by the turn of her sympathy toward him.

  They sat in silence, Mary the most composed. Elsie asked again if Mary wanted a drink. Mary turned down the wine but asked for a short whiskey. She said, “Am I the only one?”, so Dick took one too, with a beer chaser.

  They sat in silence again. Dick felt the power of Mary Scanlon’s gray gaze changing the air of the room, like the first cold day of fall, a fair warning. He felt the justice of her coming to put an end to his desire for Elsie. Dick said, “That was how Elsie and I got to be f
riends, when she came to the boatyard to say she was sorry to hear about my father.”

  “No, that wasn’t it,” Elsie said. “I had my schoolgirl crush long before that.”

  Mary looked at Elsie. “Even then.”

  Elsie said, “Even then what?”

  “Even then you were taking up with us micks and swamp Yankees.”

  “I don’t see why you go on seeing me like that.”

  Mary smiled. “Okay, okay—you’re just one of the guys. I guess it’s seeing your sister and that husband of hers come over here in their coach and four to survey their domain. It reminds me you didn’t start out just folks.”

  Dick thought, This is more like Mary. More like having a beer with her while she took the paint off someone at the bar.

  But this was Elsie’s house. Elsie looked unhappy and fragile curled in her corner of the sofa, her hair wet, her eyes squinting into the light from the standing lamp behind Mary. Dick got up and turned the shade away. His attention went back to Mary. He felt he should do something more for Elsie, but he couldn’t.

  Mary took off her hat, and said, “I haven’t been to mass for years. Except for funerals. Maybe it’s my middle age, but I’m beginning to like it again. We all went to mass again this morning.”

  She laughed. “One thing the old man said … I guess it was a couple of days before he died. My mother got this priest to come see him, a young priest, just a kid. But my father disapproved of deathbed confessions. Too easy. So the old man says he’s not going to confess. But the priest hangs around, tells a few stories, and gets the old man talking. The old man tells a few stories himself. The priest says, ‘Well, Mr. Scanlon, you’ve had a pretty good life.’ The old man says, ‘I have.’ And the priest says, ‘But there’re probably a couple of things you feel sorry for.’ The old man says, ‘There are.’ So the priest tries to finish it off, he slips in, ‘Because they offended God?’ The old man lifts his head up and says, ‘No. Because they offended me!’ ” Mary laughed and looked at Elsie, who looked terrified. “Oh Christ,” Mary said, “maybe you had to be there.”

  Dick laughed. Mary looked at Dick, her gray eyes growing wider and brighter. He could see why she’d scared Elsie.

  Mary said, “Or maybe you have to be Catholic.” She laughed again. “One time my father was working in an office, when he was a salesman for the lace company. There used to be a lace mill here in South County, made lace as fine as any in the world, won a gold medal at the Brussels fair. Anyway, my father used to do this Gallagher and Sheen routine with another salesman standing around the water cooler.

  “ ‘Say, Mr. Gallagher?’

  “ ‘Yes, Mr. Sheen?’

  “ ‘I hear the new Pope’s got all the cardinals on their toes.’

  “ ‘Now, how’d he do that, Mr. Sheen?’

  “ ‘He raised all the urinals in the Vatican.’ Ba-da-da-dom. No, wait. So they all laughed, all except this one young secretary. My father turns to her and says, ‘I’m sorry, dear. Didn’t you think that was funny?’ And she says, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Scanlon, I don’t know what a urinal is—you see, I’m not Catholic.’ ”

  This time both Elsie and Dick laughed. Mary sighed. She said, “It got to be a family joke. If someone was being dumb, the old man would say, ‘I’m sorry, I’m not Catholic,’ and we’d all break up.”

  “How old was your father?” Dick said.

  “Eighty-four. My grandfather got to be ninety-eight. My grandfather came over in time to fight in the Civil War. My father was drafted in World War I and got shipped all the way back across the Atlantic to France. So I suppose I’m lucky I got here at all, what with a famine and two wars. I had a cousin who got killed in World War II, but by then I was safe on first.

  “My father was the tail end of his family, and I’m the tail end of mine. My brothers all have white hair, for God’s sakes. The oldest one just retired from the Navy. And I remember my grandfather from when I was little, and he was in the Civil War. My father remembered twenty-dollar gold pieces, when that was a whole payday.” Mary laughed. “At mass one day—just over here in Wakefield—they passed the collection plate and my grandfather reached into his pocket and tossed his penny in, you gave a penny in those days. Just as the plate reached the end of the row, he realized he’d put in his twenty-dollar gold piece. He started to reach for it, but my grandmother pulled his arm back. He whispered to her what he’d done, and then she started pushing him to get up and get it back, but by then the collection plate was going up the aisle like a bride to the altar. My grandfather said out loud, ‘No, Mary. I gave it to God—and to hell with it!’ ”

  Mary laughed and looked at Elsie. Elsie laughed. Mary poured Dick and herself another shot. Mary said, “One thing that was nice about this last year was the way the old man’s childhood came back to him. He’d always talked about his life as a young man—being in the Army, working for the lace company, the mills closing, having to start all over, having to move to Pawtucket. Hard-times stuff. But this last year it was all the stuff when he was a little boy. He remembered these hills here when they were pastures, filled with sheep.

  “When he was a little boy he had a crush on the prettiest girl at the mill. Mabel O’Brien worked a treadle—pumping away all day, her skirt hiked up to her knees, her calf muscles swelling under her white stockings. She had three bastards by three different men. We think of that time as repressed and intolerant, as though sex got invented in 1960, but there’s Mabel O’Brien, and she went to mass every Sunday with her three boys. The old man remembered her at the Saturday-night parties. It was lovely how clear the old man saw Mabel O’Brien’s legs. Working the treadle or prancing around the O’Briens’ big kitchen on Saturday night. I’d go to the hospital and sit while he and his roommate would watch the Red Sox game. The old man would take a little nap and then wake up from a dream—almost all his dreams were of his childhood here. He saw Mabel O’Brien’s legs, of course, but everything else clear as day too. When he was eight he used to collect the men’s hot lunches from all the wives—the Irish workers lived at the top of the hill in company houses—and he’d load all the lunch pails in a barrel he’d nailed to his sled, and just as the noon whistle blew he’d shoot down the hill, his legs wrapped around the barrel, his face freezing in the wind where he peeped around. He’d coast up to the door of the mill, and the men picked out their lunch pails and let him come inside to get warm, and they’d all talk a blue streak. There was no talking allowed during work, so they were all busting. He heard their voices in his dreams—most of them still had brogues in those days. And he remembers them not being able to stand still after being stuck at the machines. They’d arm-wrestle and dance and challenge each other to walk on their hands. My father’s father was famous for being able to jump over a dye vat from a standing start. My father saw him do it. He’d crouch down and disappear behind the vat and suddenly there he was flying through the air. I’d always thought the mills must have been hell, but when my father was dying it all seemed paradise to him. The way he talked, it was as though he’d never known anything since. He’d wake up from his nap and tell me about his sled shooting down the hill. Near the end he only felt hot or cold in his dream memory. And even taste. He dreamed of the first time he tasted maple syrup. None of them had ever tasted it. Someone gave them a bottle. They’d never seen it. His mother gave it to him as cough medicine until someone showed her how to make pancakes.

  “And Mabel O’Brien, he adored her. They used to have parties in the O’Briens’ kitchen, just up the hill from the house he lived in. After the dancing and singing they’d tell stories. It was mostly ghost stories, you know, a man out alone at night and he hears a banshee. Terrified the old man, he was only six or seven at the time. One night he stayed later than anyone in his family, and he was scared to go home alone. Mabel opened the back door for him and the light from the oil lamps shot out along the snow right down to his own back door. So he started running down the beam of light from the open door and he
could hear Mabel’s father shouting, ‘For God’s sakes, shut the door, Mabel!’ But she kept it open. ‘Shut the door, Mabel, we’re perishing!’ But Mabel held on till he got safe inside his own house.” Mary leaned back and put her hands over her eyes. “You know, it’s not so hard that the old man died at eighty-four, though I’m sad enough for that. But it’s him as a little boy I see. It’s Tommy Scanlon, running down the path alone, little Tommy Scanlon, scared of the dark.”

  Mary began to cry. Elsie put her arm around Mary. Mary pulled out her handkerchief and blew her nose, then she got up and poured herself another shot. Dick got up, and she poured him one too. She slipped off her shoes so she wouldn’t be taller than him, put her glass down, and held on to him hard.

  Elsie said, “Are you a little jealous of Mabel O’Brien? I would be.”

  Mary laughed. “Sure I am. But she never knew how he adored her. And look what she did for him at the end.”

  Mary sat back down on the sofa. She made room for Dick between Elsie and her and patted the cushion. “She must be dead now. She was ten years older than the old man.”

  Dick squeezed in. “What happened to her?” Dick said. “Her and her three boys?”

  “I don’t know. Her father died, and she and her mother raised the three kids. She kept on till the mill closed, but what happened after that, I don’t know. Oh. Her mother worked as a maid for one of the few lace-curtain Irish families in town. So one time Mrs. O’Brien—Mabel’s mother—came into the parlor to clean up, and the daughter of the family and two girlfriends of hers were smoking cigarettes. Mrs. O’Brien said, ‘Shame on you girls. Nice girls don’t smoke cigarettes!’ And the daughter said, ‘How can you dare to say that to me, Mrs. O’Brien, when your own daughter has three children out of wedlock!’ And Mrs. O’Brien says, ‘That’s a different thing altogether! Mabel loves children!’ ”