Trussed successfully into her snow boots at last, Ida Mae now stood behind Duncan, pulling his knit watch cap down to cover his ears. She moved around to the side of his chair to fuss over his scarf and cinch his chest strap more snugly over his jacket, until he simply toggled into motion and she had to step out of the way as he began to roll down the zig-zag ramp. He relished the opportunity to have a moment in the fresh air by himself, and when he reached the end of their front walk, he didn’t wait for her before turning onto the sidewalk and heading up the block at a good clip.
He navigated the length of the block, turned right on Livingston Street, rolled to the end without incident, and turned right on Cottage Street. The air was very cold on his face and the exposed fingers of his left hand. He wore a mitten on his right hand, which lay in his lap like a small helpless creature. He could do this. He rolled down Cottage Street, slowing to bulldoze through a couple of empty plastic trash bins lying on their sides which blocked his path, and when he reached the next corner, he turned right on Foster Street. The houses on this block were smaller, but there was something pleasing about the rhythm of all the narrow gable ends as he sailed by. He had always aligned his Monopoly houses very precisely. Foster Street had a number of two-family houses. Low chain link fences demarcated occasional property lines, something Duncan had never noticed before. Had he ever walked all the way around his own block? He couldn’t remember having done it in all the years of living in this house, when walking out the door and going for a quick turn around the block would have taken but a moment, and been so easy.
Duncan encountered only one person on foot, a woman on the other side of Cottage Street, walking a pair of briskly waddling dachshunds saddled with matching plaid coats. He came to Lawrence Street and turned right again. A barberry bush that protruded onto the sidewalk through a low chain link fence was alive with little twittering birds. Wrens? They were the same birds who nested in the dryer vent every spring. They abruptly took off as he approached, and rose in a loose skein into the overhanging maples. A chime of wrens?
It had not occurred to Duncan to go the other way around the block. Most people automatically choose a clockwise direction. That’s why the queues on the left are always a better bet in places like airport security checkpoints. He passed Frank and Jesse’s house. Are you pro- or anti-clockwise, he had overheard Frank ask Jesse playfully one night at dinner, when everyone was a little silly after the third bottle of Zinfandel had been poured and the cheese board was being passed, with Laura’s raisin walnut bread, and a watercress salad. Next time he would go around the block anti-clockwise.
Duncan rolled along, spotting his own house up ahead. The glimpse of haint blue porch ceiling was pleasing. When he reached home, there was no sign of Ida Mae. He had assumed she would be waiting for him. Had she followed behind him? He couldn’t easily turn his chair to see on this very narrow patch of sidewalk, and he wasn’t in the mood to execute a three-point turn where he could get a wheel wedged over the edge of the sidewalk in the mud and snow, just to look for her. A rearview mirror would be handy.
Duncan kept going, passing his house, relishing the tiny recklessness of this unsupervised jaunt. He could feel his nose dripping. He certainly wasn’t lost—he knew where he was. Ida Mae would find him. He had now circumnavigated the block. Maybe he would go all the way around again. As he rolled once more toward the corner of Livingston Street, he could see the McCarthy children bobbing along on the far side of Livingston, coming from Whitney Avenue, walking rather than being transported home from school in the old red Saab on this enjoyable afternoon, the two boys’ unzipped parkas flapping like wings. They were pursued by their glamorous au pair Ingie, who herded their toddling little sister in front of her.
As they charged closer, Duncan could see that Ingie was struggling to keep up as she pranced along the sidewalk behind them in her spiked, knee-high boots. Her short white jacket with a puffy rolled collar was snugged tight on her, like a life vest. Her fine blonde hair was tucked inside a blue and yellow cap with a pom-pom that had probably been knitted by her grandmother beside the family fjord during a cold Scandinavian winter. Could she be wearing nothing else but a pair of tights? Laura had a thing about women who dressed this way, even tiny-bottomed ones like Ingie, or perhaps especially tiny-bottomed ones like Ingie, and would often mutter “tights aren’t pants” under her breath when she espied offenders. Duncan was supposed to share her opprobrium, though sometimes he thought it was marvelous.
The boys galloped across the street in front of Ingie and their sister, straight toward Duncan as he motored in their direction, until they came face to face at the corner. The little girl halted in her tracks and turned toward Ingie with both arms outstretched, whimpering, “Up me! Up me!” until Ingie scooped her off the sidewalk, though she was a substantial toddler, and her muddy snow boots left streaks on Ingie’s white pants or tights or whatever they were. Duncan stopped his chair, lurching a little bit and rebounding against his chest strap.
“Cool!” the older boy exclaimed, reaching for the toggle control. “How do you drive it? How fast does it go?”
“Jackson, do not be a bother to the man,” Ingie said, grabbing for his shoulder to pull him back with her one free hand. She grasped only his jacket, which slid off as he ducked out from under it and whirled around to reposition himself in front of Duncan.
“Are you the loose wreck?” the other boy demanded.
“Do not be a rude, Bailey!”
“Do not be a rude, Bailey!” the now-unjacketed child shouted.
“Woo-ood, Baa-wee!” chimed the sister.
“I am not being pleased with you children!” Ingie implored, struggling to deposit the clinging toddler back onto the sidewalk, but she retracted her little legs with each dip, keeping her boots from touching the sidewalk. “We are not at all having a polite time!”
Jackson and Bailey surged forward together, and Jackson climbed confidently halfway onto Duncan’s lap while Bailey reached for the toggle control. “Can I touch it?” he asked, touching it. The chair lurched forward. Duncan’s clawed left hand in its splint splayed over the small smooth child’s hand as he took control, stopping the chair.
“Cool! My turn!” Jackson shouted as he slid off Duncan’s lap, reaching over for the toggle while clinging to Duncan’s chest strap with his other hand.
“Boys! Do not be without your control! It is imperative!”
“It is imperative!” they shouted together in remarkably accurate accented falsetto.
“Impewatif,” echoed the snowsuited limpet. Ingie’s command over the McCarthy children was as successful as her mastery of English.
“Careful! Careful!” Ida Mae called out breathlessly as she caught up to the contingent on the sidewalk. “Duncan, are you all right? Is something wrong with the controls? You just kept going and going and I was worried you couldn’t stop!”
“I’m fine, nothing’s wrong,” Duncan said, a little more irritably than Ida Mae deserved. She was panting with the exertion of following him around the block.
“Oh, I was so worried,” she puffed, as she reached out to adjust his knit cap. And then she dabbed at his dripping nose with a tissue. How could she?
“Lay off,” he barked.
“Well, excuse me! Somebody’s got on his grumpy drawers!” Ida Mae said, playing to the crowd while withdrawing the wadded tissue in an elaborate gesture of obedience. The McCarthy children shrieked with laughter.
“Grumpy drawers!” Bailey shouted.
“Bumpy bores!” the little girl enunciated with surprising clarity.
“Dumpy doors!” shouted Jackson. Duncan had hopes for what might come next.
“Humpy—”
“Bailey!” Ingie implored uselessly. “You are without order! Come here!” Both nannies had disrespectful charges on their hands.
“So are you?” Jackson demanded of Duncan.
“Am I?” Duncan answered. “I don’t know. Maybe. Are you?”
“Am I what?” Jackson stared up at Duncan while Ingie stuffed his arms back into his jacket.
“I don’t know. You asked me first. What did you call me?”
“Are you the loose wreck? My daddy said you don’t go outside or talk to people anymore because of your accident and now you’re a loose wreck.”
“Well, look at me,” Duncan said. “I’m outside, and I’m talking to you. How much of a loose wreck could I be?”
Jackson shrugged elaborately in a way that made Duncan wonder if it was a gesture copied from some show on television. Bailey copied him, and then their sister squirmed away from Ingie’s grasp to lean out so she could shrug too, which gave Ingie the opportunity to attempt another landing. The chubby little legs folded up the first two times, and only on the third try did she allow Ingie to set her down.
“So if he’s Jackson, and he’s Bailey, what’s your name?” Duncan asked her. She didn’t answer but took a step towards him, and then another, until she was touching his knee.
Ida Mae declared that Duncan was getting too cold and needed to get back inside and warm up before he became hypothermic. All three McCarthy children were now crowding in and leaning against his legs, eager for more news from the loose wreck. “Step back!” she instructed them crossly. Duncan suddenly felt weak and exhausted. She was right.
“Watch this,” he told them as they backed away, and he toggled the control to spin the chair around in a tight circle to face in the opposite direction.
“Cool!” Bailey exclaimed. They trotted after him as he motored the half-block towards home, followed by Ingie, while Ida Mae stumped along at the rear. A headache was nagging at his temples. When he turned in at his front walk and aimed for the ramp, as a dramatically huffing, puffing Ida Mae caught up with the group, Ingie told the children to say goodbye.
“See you later, alligator!” Bailey and Jackson chorused together.
“Cwocodile,” their little sister echoed, as Ingie grabbed her hand to pull her away.
Duncan paused just before the bottom of the ramp and carefully executed a three-point turn as he had learned to do in the many tight corners of the house, so he could face them. “Hey!” Duncan’s lung power was weak, and he had no projection. It felt like winter after all. The air was raw and the overcast sky was suddenly blunting into darkness. “Hey, you guys,” he tried again, louder.
The children were now across the street in front of their own house, walking up the steps with Ingie, who was looking down at her phone, which she jabbed at intently with both thumbs as if she were wringing the neck of a small animal. The boys turned at the sound of Duncan’s hoarse, raised voice.
“Do you kids want to meet my monkey helper?”
“Eeeewww,” Bailey shrieked with exaggerated incredulity. “Monkey helper! Is that like Hamburger Helper?”
“See for yourself,” Duncan heard himself call back. He could hardly believe it.
“Scout!” called the little girl.
“What?” Duncan was really breathless and exhausted now.
“My sister’s name is Scout,” Bailey shouted helpfully.
By the time Laura drove home from work, though it was only a little after six, it felt like the middle of the night. Before sunset, the skies over New Haven had darkened like a bruise, with rumblings of thunder and flashes of lightning, bizarre for January but unsurprising for the day, given the temperature, and so the warmer air masses were now colliding with the next blast of arctic air. Hailstones like gravel began to fall, clattering on the roof of her car as she drove very slowly. As she approached Lawrence Street the hailstones grew larger, and were bouncing off the street like popcorn popping in a pan, though as she was parking the car the hail stopped as abruptly as it had started.
Duncan’s headache was a bad one, probably made worse by the barometric pressure, opined Ida Mae sagaciously, not that she could have explained to anyone the first thing about barometric pressure. He had been so exhausted after his excursion into the open air that he wanted to go to bed early, so Ida Mae had stayed later than usual to complete his evening routine and transfer him before leaving, though Laura had grown comfortable and adept by now with these tasks.
Laura found Duncan propped in bed, glazed by the narcotic he had been given for the now throbbing headache. Ottoline was sprawled contentedly on his shoulder, rummaging in his hair. Neither of them seemed to be watching the show on Animal Planet, though the station was clearly Ottoline’s choice (whenever she had the television remote, that was the channel on which she stopped). Duncan would have opted for one of the numerous Canadian home renovation shows on HGTV. He loved the predictability of all the open plans and kitchen islands and granite countertops and subway tile and identical finished basements and the way prosperous Canadians talked about what kind of “hauwse” they wanted.
When Ottoline saw Laura, who was still in her coat, having rushed through the house hunting for Duncan, disconcerted by the empty living room and kitchen where he would have ordinarily been waiting for her to come home and start dinner, the little monkey squealed with delight and sprang across the bed to jump up into her arms. She hugged Laura tightly around the neck, making the grunty, squeaky, hooty noises of happy welcome that she reserved for members of her inner circle.
“Do you think I’m a loose wreck?” Duncan asked Laura.
“A what? Are you feeling off? Another headache?”
“I met the McCarthy children when I went out for some air. I went around the block. They were a riot. The little girl is named Scout.”
“You’re kidding. To Kill a Mockingbird Scout?”
“Don’t you think it’s the perfect name for the child of the world’s most modest criminal defense attorneys? At least they didn’t name one of the boys Atticus. Just think how they’d feel now.”
“I get Jackson, that’s her maiden name, but where do you think Bailey comes from?”
“I’m guessing F. Lee.”
“Oh Christ, I’m sure that’s it.”
“Anyway,” Duncan said, his voice fading into hoarseness, “They’ve really got Ingie, that beautiful au pair, on the run. But the cold air triggered this nasty headache, and I probably stayed out too long. I don’t think I can eat anything. Maybe soup.”
“I’m sorry about your head. But that’s great! You went all the way around the block with Ida Mae?”
“That’s probably not how she would tell it. She followed me.”
“So wait. Those kids called you a what?”
“I figured it out. Think about it. The older boy, Bailey, he said their father told them I had become a loose wreck since the accident, now that I stay home and don’t see people. In other words, a wreck loose.”
“Ah! Well, he’s our very own wreck loose, right, Ottoline?” Laura leaned down, with Ottoline still clinging to her, and kissed Duncan on his forehead, which felt clammy to her. Ottoline rappelled down Laura’s coat, using an end of Laura’s scarf, and clambered back to her place beside Duncan. She grabbed Laura’s hand and tugged at it impatiently until Laura sat down at the edge of the bed.
“Ottoline really likes it best when the three of us are together,” Duncan said. He closed his eyes while Ottoline inventoried the cuticles on his curled right hand, carefully delving into his fisted palm and extending each finger one at a time.
Laura got up to take off her coat and then she sat down in Duncan’s wheelchair, which was parked close enough for her to rest her feet on the foot of his bed. He was dozing off again. An African wildlife show began. Giraffes floated silently across a savanna. Ottoline picked up the television remote that lay beside Duncan’s leg and pressed the mute/unmute button. A plummy British voice explained that although a giraffe’s neck is more than a meter and a half long, it contains the same number of vertebrae as a human neck. Duncan’s lips parted as he began to snore. She would have to settle him for the night with the CPAP, but he didn’t need it for a nap. Laura closed her eyes too and listened to news about giraffes. Giraffes have
the largest hearts of any land mammal. A group of giraffes are called a tower. Male giraffes fight with their necks over female giraffes, and this is called necking.
Laura’s afternoon in the conservation lab had been unsettling in a number of ways. Dud and Jinxy Cavendish had dropped in unexpectedly. They were dressed in jeans and flannel shirts and sneakers, and they wore matching puffy down vests. They had matching short white hair and matching pale blue eyes. Their profiles had been chiseled from the rockbound coast of Maine. The Cavendishes seemed friendly and approachable, and they immediately instructed her to call them Jinxy and Dud, but given their well-known reputation for institution-hopping, Laura knew not to be too casual with them, no matter how down-to-earth they seemed. She had given the beautiful catalogue of their Shaker furniture collection to Duncan one Christmas. Were they still committed to Winterthur, where many pieces were on extended loan? Did Yale have a chance at it, given the Garvan Collection?
Nobody senior to Laura in conservation was present at that moment, as it happened, owing to preparation for an imminent colloquium on chairs in the Furniture Study, and she knew the Director and chief curator were both in London, so she did her best to host them in a warm and gracious—but not obsequious—manner. (Obsequiousness did not come naturally to Laura, so it was a small risk.) She would handle the Cavendishes with the same delicate touch she used when deploying a three-bristle badger brush to dust the most fragile Qing dynasty red porcelain cup in the Gallery’s collection.
Dud was carrying a scuffed L.L. Bean canvas tote, from which he drew out a rectangular suede box that he placed on Laura’s worktable. “You are just the person we hoped to find here today! We hope you don’t mind,” Jinxy said, gazing at Laura, who couldn’t imagine the Cavendishes having any awareness of her existence, “but we’ve brought along something that is rather urgently in need of a conservation report, really just for insurance purposes, so we were hoping you could actually do that for us today while we’re here in New Haven visiting Paige—”
Still Life with Monkey Page 19