by Boyle, T. C.
The first week of June brought word of the victory at Midway and he soared on the news, skipping round the living room and pumping his arms in the air till all the color rose to his face. “We’ve hit a grand slam this time!” he shouted. “Allies four, Nips zero.” And here came the whiskey. “A toast to Nimitz! To the brave boys of the Yorktown! And to our own sailor boys too. Reg, Freddie! To you! And to the defeat and unconditional surrender of those sneaking yellow bastards. Goodbye, Yamamoto! Goodbye, Hirohito! R.I.P. to the whole shitty lot of you!”
The next morning, she overslept. And when she did wake, at half past six, Herbie was still in bed beside her. She eased herself up, careful not to disturb him, thinking he must have been feeling the aftereffects of the celebration—he rarely drank more than two or three whiskeys at a sitting and she’d never known him to be hungover, but here he was in bed still and what else could it be? She made breakfast for the girls, left plates on the stove for the sailors, who also seemed to be sleeping late, and then sat at the table and ate by herself while the girls got themselves ready for school. At quarter of eight, when Herbie still hadn’t made an appearance, she went back to the bedroom to rouse him—he wouldn’t want to miss his morning patrol, which had become a kind of obsession with him.
The room was dark still. It smelled of him, of his sweat and the plain brown soap he used and the faint sweetness of witch hazel, which he liked to slap on his cheeks after shaving. But he hadn’t shaved. He was in bed still, lying on his back, perfectly composed, his arms at his sides and his feet making a tent of the blankets. She couldn’t tell whether his eyes were open or not. “Herbie, it’s getting late,” she whispered.
His voice came back at her, the dead voice, the one she dreaded: “I know.”
“I just thought I’d come in to wake you, for your morning patrol.”
“I’m not going.”
“Not going? But you’ve gone every morning since you got back.”
There was a noise from the courtyard, the gander squabbling with one of the Rhode Island reds Bob Brooks had given them so they could have eggs in the absence of George’s deliveries. They hadn’t seen George since the war began—and wouldn’t, she supposed, till it was over. There were rumors that the Air Corps had conscripted his plane, one more hardship to rise above. But at least the eggs were fresh, at least there was that. “If you hurry,” she said, “I’ll fix you some eggs—I’ve got fifteen minutes before the girls start school.”
He still hadn’t moved, but she could see that his eyes were open now, a dull sheen in the pale oval of his face, staring at the ceiling. “It’s no use pretending,” he said. “I can’t see a goddamn thing out there, even with the binoculars—especially with the binoculars. If the whole Jap fleet came to anchor in Simonton Cove, I wouldn’t know the difference.”
“You need glasses, that’s all. We’ll send you to shore to the eye doctor when Bob comes back.”
“And my hand’s useless. I can’t steady anything with it. The boys had to build practically the whole lookout by themselves. I just stood around.”
“And directed them.”
“A blind man can’t direct anybody.”
“You’re not blind. We’re going to get you glasses.”
“Get me a cane.”
“Stop it. You’re just making yourself crazy. And me too. Now, you can lie there feeling sorry for yourself all day if you want, but I’ve got the girls to see to.” She was at the door now, all the fret and worry of the past weeks souring in her till she could taste it in her throat. “And if you want eggs—or anything else, for that matter—you’re going to have to fix it yourself.”
The Note
Two weeks later—June eighteenth, the last day of school for the girls—she was as busy as she’d ever been, up before dawn to prepare a feast for Bob Brooks and company, who were due later in the day. He’d be bringing Jimmie with him and two of the shearers to help haul the wool sacks down to the harbor for transshipment to Santa Barbara, and she wanted to make a holiday of it—especially for the girls, who’d worked hard and were looking forward to their summer vacation. In addition to two legs of lamb, mashed potatoes, chili beans and the traditional hot sauce, she was planning a pudding of canned pineapple, odds and ends of bread, cornmeal, sugar and the leftover bananas that had gone black and densely sweet since the last delivery, the whole to be tied up in a muslin sack and steamed in her big pot. To start, there’d be clam fritters wrapped in bacon and half a dozen loaves of sourdough bread—and the wine Bob was sure to bring with him, lest the hands set up a revolt.
By seven, she felt she had things under control, or mostly, anyway, the lamb scored, studded with cloves of garlic and set aside in the cool room, the hot sauce simmering on the stove, the loaves browning in the oven, and breakfast—oatmeal with brown sugar and cinnamon, and coffee, of course—all ready to go. Reg and Freddie came in first, both of them looking pleased with themselves—they were looking forward to a break in the routine as much as she was. “Smells good,” Reg said, hovering over the table, cap in hand. “Need any help?”
“No,” she said, glancing up, “I think I can manage.” If Herbie was still at odds with them, she wasn’t. Over the course of these past months, she felt she’d come to understand them—it wasn’t their fault they were stuck out here. They were good at heart, both of them, and they’d gradually begun to pitch in more, once they began to realize how lucky they were—as lucky as the lucky Lesters—to be out of the real fighting, where every day men were drowned, crushed, burned to death in a rain of bombs and torpedoes. To be bored was a small price to pay.
“Today’s the big day, huh?” Freddie said. He’d removed his cap too and was standing just inside the door, careful to stay out of her way as she flew from the stove to the counter and back again.
“Wait till you see how excited the girls are,” she said.
“God, I hated school,” Reg said, casting his eyes to the ceiling. “Couldn’t wait for the last day. And then summer seemed to go by like nothing and it was back to school again. It was like prison.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad, not for my girls.”
A compliment now, from Reg, who wasn’t above currying favor: “But they’ve got a special teacher. If I had a teacher like you instead of those nuns that didn’t seem to care about anything except seeing how hard they could whack you with a ruler, I’d probably be president of a college someplace now.”
“Yeah, sure, Reg,” Freddie put in. “You’re a real scholar. But, Mrs. Lester, should we help ourselves today or are we going to sit down with the girls?”
“Catch as catch can this morning. Coffee’s hot. And you can spoon out your oatmeal and take it into the dining room. Herbie’s not awake yet and I’m up to my elbows here.”
* * *
The morning flew by. She had Marianne in the schoolhouse doing her final exams, so she brought Betsy out to the courtyard and sat her down in a chair on the porch to test her on her reading. The day was cool and overcast, typical for June, but she was comfortable enough in a sweater and the temperature had held steady through the night so she didn’t really need to start a fire in the schoolhouse. She was down on her knees in the garden, edging the flowerbed with abalone shells she’d been collecting on her walks with the girls, looking up from time to time to correct Betsy’s pronunciation and keeping an eye on the harbor—they expected the boat in the afternoon, but there was no telling when it might come. She’d seen it pull in hours before they’d expected it in the past. Betsy’s voice flowed on, fluid and musical, though the text was difficult: “‘The counterpane was of patchwork, full of odd little parti-coloured squares and triangles; and this arm of his tattooed all over with an interminable’—is that right, Mother?”
“Yes, ‘interminable.’ Go on.”
“‘Cretan laby-rinth—’”
“Labyrinth.”
; “Right, ‘Cretan labyrinth of a figure, no two parts of which were of one precise shade—owing I suppose to his’”—and here she broke off and Elise looked up to see Herbie standing there above her on the porch. She’d seen him going back and forth all morning, from the shed to the forge and in and out the gate, but hadn’t taken much notice—he was busy with something, that was the important thing.
“Elise—sorry to interrupt, and that was good, Betsy, very good—I was just looking for that pad of notepaper, and I wondered if . . . I can’t seem to find it.”
She looked at him oddly. It would have been right on the desk in the living room where he did his accounts and she sat down to write letters, but there was something in his voice that caught her out. He was asking her for a reason, asking her to take note. Did he want to say something to her privately, out of Betsy’s hearing, was that it? She pushed herself up, rubbing her palms together to brush off the dirt. She looked down at Betsy, who sat poised at the edge of the chair, the book spread open in her lap. “All right, honey,” she said, “why don’t you take a five-minute break?”
And then Herbie followed her into the house, where she went straight to the desk. She saw the book she’d been reading the night before lying there amidst the usual clutter of papers, unanswered letters, envelopes and stamps, the large manila folder from the school district for the children’s exams and the desk calendar, and there, beneath it and only partially obscured, the notepad. “Is this what you’re looking for?” she asked, swinging round and holding it out to him.
“Yes,” he murmured, his voice subdued, “that’s it.”
“You need an envelope?”
“Yes.”
She pulled open the right-hand drawer, separated an envelope from the stock there and handed it to him. “Just one?”
He nodded.
“All right, well, if you intend to send out a letter be sure to leave it where I can see it or I’m apt to forget all about it—I mean, today of all days.”
There was a moment when they both stood there inches apart, husband and wife, something unspoken hanging between them, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. He looked into her eyes, then down at the notepad, and the moment was gone.
Ten minutes later he was back out in the courtyard, interrupting her again. He’d changed into his white shirt, the one with the epaulettes he wore for special occasions, and put crème oil on his hair, which always tended to curl up across the top, and brushed it tightly to his scalp. He waited till Betsy became aware of him and stopped her reading. “I just wanted to say that I’ll be out on foot, gathering wood, and don’t know when I’ll be back.” He paused, fingering the pocket of his shirt, then waved a hand in front of his face as if to scatter the bugs away, but there were no bugs, not that she could see, anyway. “So be sure to send the boys down with the sled when the boat comes in. All right?”
“Yes,” she said, “I’ll be sure to tell them.”
He bent and pecked a kiss to Betsy’s cheek, then leaned forward to kiss her. “You think it’d be okay to interrupt Marianne for just a second? I can’t go off collecting wood without saying goodbye, can I?”
She wasn’t thinking. She wasn’t listening. “Sure,” she said. “But just a second—and don’t distract her.”
He walked off across the courtyard and she saw him pull open the door of the schoolhouse, vanish a moment, then reappear and carefully shut the door behind him. He didn’t look up as he passed by on his way to the gate, Betsy on to the next passage now—“‘In black distress, I called my God, / When I could scarce believe Him mine. / He bowed His ear to my complaints—/ No more the whale did me confine’”—and then he pulled back the gate on its creaking hinges and went on out of the yard.
* * *
When the boat came in just after four, the boys were there to meet it with the team. She was too busy to go down herself, fussing over the table setting, basting the lamb, rolling the clams in bread crumbs and greasing the frying pan, but she let the girls go down with them, and she contented herself with picturing the scene, Bob Brooks spreading his arms wide, the presents she’d ordered for the girls’ matriculation wrapped resplendently in gold foil, Jimmie hauling things ashore like a man half his age, the dog yapping and the waves rushing in. It was a scene she’d been part of a hundred times, her pulse quickening and her face flushed with the joy of company, of relief and resupply, of things made beyond the shore and presented against the backdrop of the dunes in an accelerating fantasy of privilege and abundance. The parcels came ashore. They found their way to the sled. The sled found its way to the house. That was the way it always was and always would be. Never mind that she’d had to make do with onions that were soft down to the core or that the twin roasts had eaten up the last of her garlic and she was nearly out of flour, cornmeal and sugar, the boat had arrived!
By the time the horses came into view, Jimmie leading them on a short halter and the girls running on ahead, the sun had driven through the mist to play off the rocks and ignite the chaparral with color. The sailors, Bob Brooks and the two hands caterpillared along behind them under the weight of full packs, and all she could think of was those African expeditions she’d read about, Speke and Burton and the native bearers weaving their way through the uncharted lands. She watched them out the kitchen window, busy to the last moment, but when they crested the hill, she put down what she was doing, slipped out of her apron and went out to the gate to greet them. She had to shield her eyes against the brightness, the hills and fields that had been so dull all day lit suddenly with sienna and gold and a green so pale it was nearly translucent, while overhead the haze had dissolved and the sky opened up to a solid clear blue, not a cloud in sight. The day had turned out nice, after all—more than nice, beautiful, the kind of day that reaffirmed every choice she’d ever made. She came across the yard, breathing deeply, gratefully, taking it all in.
The girls got there first—racing the last hundred yards, Marianne, with her longer legs, in the lead all the way—and she saw that they were both chewing something, Wrigley’s gum, as it turned out. Their knees flashed in the sun, their hair, which she’d cut short for summer, sparked blond, and then their elated faces and quick squealing gasps for air burst suddenly on her: here they were, darting round her, singing out their excitement—“What did you get us? Come on, tell us!”—until she put out a hand to stop them. “Now, don’t you run off,” she warned. “We’re going to need you to help bring the things in—and then we’ll see about dinner. And then, once everything’s been cleared away and put back in order, you can open your presents.”
Pomo was next—he’d been guarding the flank like a good sheepdog, and now he broke free to sprint across the field and through the gate, flushing the chickens and terrorizing the gander, which flapped to the roof of the shed and let out a long withering hiss of disdain. And then the sled, and Jimmie, who tipped his finger-greased straw hat and gave her a smile that opened up around a new gap where his front teeth used to be. Bob Brooks and the others were winded, she could see that, and before she did anything more by way of greeting than call out each of their names, she led them into the kitchen so they could set down their packs and she and the girls could get started on filing everything away. She thought of Herbie then—this was his favorite part of the ritual of resupply, sorting through the groceries and putting everything on its proper shelf in his precise way, the cans stacked with their labels turned out, the sacks of rice, beans and pasta upended in the big brown crockery jars set aside for each, greens in the cool room and onions, potatoes and garlic in the root cellar—but she supposed he’d got distracted and let the time slip away from him, which seemed to be happening more and more lately. He’d be making his way back by now, and if he felt bad for missing out on the sorting of the canned goods, he could always come out to the pantry later on and shift things around to his heart’s content.
Before long
they were all gathered on the porch, their feet up, cigarettes at their lips and the bottles of red wine and whiskey circulating. She served the fritters and bread out of doors to take advantage of the weather. Bob Brooks had brought the latest newspapers—war news and not much else—but she didn’t do more than skim the headlines because she didn’t have time, for one thing, and for another, this was supposed to be a celebration, Betsy matriculating to fourth grade and Marianne to seventh, and she didn’t want to spoil the day. There would be plenty of time for her and Herbie to read through every last line and suffer all over again because the world was fraught and savage and men had to make war to justify their place in it.
Both Manny and Jesus, the shearers Bob had brought along, praised her hot sauce, into which they dipped their fritters delicately before leaning out over the dirt to bite into them so that any excess wouldn’t stain the floorboards that had been stained a thousand times before. Jimmie rocked back on his heels, spinning out stories, the sailors joined in and Bob Brooks stirred his whiskey with a twig he’d snapped off the hacked remnant of a sage bush growing just outside the gate, grinning happily. “It’s for the flavor, Elise,” he said, “you ought to try it.”
They all asked about Herbie and she covered for him as best she could. “He’s patrolling,” she said. “The Japs, you know? They really put a scare into us with that business back in February.” Everybody chimed in in agreement and the conversation took off in the direction of the war, though she hadn’t meant it to. In any case, she had dinner to serve, and she went on into the house and took the lamb out of the oven to sit while she mashed potatoes and worked in a good dollop of the butter that had just arrived.
Dinner came off beautifully, the conversation free-flowing, the guests uncritical and appreciative of the chef, old friends and new gathered for the feast, and if they missed Herbie—and they did, every one of them, of course they did—they tried to work around it and ignore the vacant chair and unused place setting at the head of the table. “He probably went all the way out to Point Bennett, that’s probably what it is—he’ll be back anytime now,” Jimmie offered when they sat down at the table, and that seemed to put the issue to rest for the time being. Still, at every noise from the kitchen or thump from the porch—Pomo scratching fleas or a raven lighting on the roof—everyone looked up expecting Herbie to come sailing through the door with a bottle held high and a story spilling from his lips.