by Charles Webb
‘Sorry?’
‘Did you enter the country by yourself?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you sure?
She frowned.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll take your word for it.’
‘Who else would be with me.’ When he didn’t respond, Vera looked down at the cement beside her chair. ‘Oh,’ she said after a few moments, ‘my new husband.’
‘Your new husband,’ Fisher said, ‘among others.’
‘Others?’
Fisher nodded.
‘What others.’
‘Oh I wouldn’t know that, would I. Other members possibly?’ He raised his hand to attract the attention of a teenage girl in a bathing suit preparing to come through the gate. ‘Miss? No glass in here.’
She looked at him a moment, then turned and walked away with her glass of Coke.
‘Other members of what,’ Vera said
‘May I call you Vera?’
‘Of course.’
‘I thought you might have been given a different name.’
The woman in front of them got to her feet and picked up her towel.
‘You what?’ Vera said.
Fisher looked up at the sky. ‘Let me think of the best way to put this.’ It was silent a few moments, then he turned his eyes back down to the pool. ‘Vera, I have a very wonderful wife—Joanie, you met her—who I have every intention of spending the rest of my life with, and we have a boy off at college that we’re so darn proud of neither of us can stop bragging about him. In other words, we’re a cohesive and loving nuclear family unit.’
Vera sat in the chair beside him, still looking down at the cement.
‘And that’s the way we’re going to stay.’
Except for the children yelling and splashing in the pool, it was quiet again for a few moments before she spoke. ‘You’re going to remain a cohesive family unit,’ she said finally.
‘You bet we are.’
The woman finished folding her towel and walked away from them.
‘Sir,’ Vera said, ‘you seem to have some reason for telling me all this.’
‘You bet I do.’
‘But I have no idea what it is.’
The large branch of a tree extended partially out over the pool overhead, and one of its orange leaves fluttered down between them.
‘I’m just here to try and get things sorted with Colin.’
‘So you say.’
‘And forgive me,’ she said, ‘but you keep implying I have ulterior motives of some kind.’
‘Vera,’ he said, reaching down to pick up the leaf and put it in his hand with the cigarette butt, ‘I’m going to let you in on a little saying we use here in America for situations like this, and it goes like this: “If the shoe fits, wear it”.’
‘That’s used in England as well,’ she said, ‘but my point is I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Fisher cleared his throat. ‘Vera, does the word Swami mean anything to you?’
‘Swami.’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘Why would you ask me that.’
‘Well because personally,’ Fisher said, ‘I wouldn’t recognise one if he jumped up and bit me on the nose. But your experience with them may be different than mine.’
She turned toward him and for several seconds the two of them looked quietly at each other. ‘It is,’ she said finally.
‘It is.’
‘Yes, I haven’t had a Swami do that to me.’
‘It was a figure of speech, Vera.’
She nodded. ‘I see. Well let’s just hope it never happens.’
Again the two of them sat in silence, till Fisher looked at his watch. ‘They’re putting on a gay wedding reception out here by the pool this evening,’ he said, scraping his chair back as he got to his feet. ‘Staff will need my supervision setting up for that. And tomorrow we’re getting ready for a flock of maple syrup conventioneers. So I can’t give you any more of my time right now, Vera. Enjoy your day.’ He walked past her and to the gate.
8
Mandy had moved into number twelve with Colin before returning to work. She’d invited him to stay at her apartment, but Colin felt this would have been an irresponsible imposition on his part, so she brought over the dress she wore at her job to put in the motel closet, and when Monday morning came she drank two cups of the powdered coffee from the tray on the bureau, put the dress on and drove to Shining Shores.
At the end of Mandy’s first day back at work, Colin was waiting for her outside the entrance of the rest home, and this routine was repeated the second day, although on that day she needed to go to a nearby pharmacy to fill a prescription that one of the residents needed the next morning.
Standing at the rear of the drug store as the pharmacist counted out the tablets and put them in a container, Colin’s attention was drawn to the man’s face, and he found himself stepping closer to study his features as he placed a label on the container, put it in a small white sack and carried it out to Mandy.
After Mandy had received the pills, Colin introduced himself to the pharmacist, explaining quietly, since other customers were waiting, that if there were any chance of taking half an hour or so to do a sketch of him it would be a great honour for Colin and the drawing would be hung in an exhibition in Colin’s London gallery, to which the pharmacist would be sent an invitation, a custom that Colin followed with all his subjects.
The pharmacist looked over at Mandy as Colin was talking, and after she nodded her endorsement agreed to let Colin do the drawing, even asking him to come behind the glass partition to do it as he worked.
After bringing his case and sketch pad in from Mandy’s car, Colin began to draw, pausing each time the pharmacist had to carry an order out to a customer, assuring him when he came back that the interruptions weren’t detracting from the quality of the work.
Because Mandy had begun to feel restless since returning to work and wanted to get away from familiar surroundings, they decided to go to a restaurant in another town to eat dinner. On the drive there Colin expressed a misgiving over whether the sketch pad he’d been sold the week before did in fact contain acid-free paper as he’d been told, and although Mandy asked him a few questions about acid-free paper it clearly wasn’t a topic that fired her enthusiasm. However, she did want to see the sketch he’d done, so Colin brought the pad into the restaurant with them, and when the waiter had finished taking their orders and poured each of them a glass of wine, he opened the pad and leaned it against the wall at the side of the table.
Mandy studied the drawing without talking.
‘I can tell you’re a stern critic,’ he said finally.
‘I’m not a stern critic.’
‘It looked like you were preparing to deliver a scathing review.’
‘I guess you didn’t have time to do his ears,’ she said.
Colin picked up his glass and held it as he looked at the drawing.
‘They’re not there,’ she said.
‘I know.’
‘I just wondered why.’
Colin set the glass down on the table without drinking from it.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.’
‘You should have,’ he said, ‘it’s just that I’ve just never defended my work exactly on this basis before.’
‘Look, you don’t have to defend your work to me, for God’s sake.’
‘I respect your judgement.’
‘Well you shouldn’t.’
‘But sometimes it’s difficult to translate visual things into verbal ways of saying them.’
‘I guess you just didn’t want to put them on there,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘There’s the translation I was looking for.’
‘Did he look at it?’
‘The chemist? Yes.’
‘What did you just call him?’
‘Chemist,’ Colin said. ‘That seemed to be his profession.’
She shook h
er head. ‘We don’t call them that.’
‘Pharmacist,’ Colin said.
‘Right.’
‘He did see it.’
‘Did he say anything about it?’
‘He thought it was a good likeness.’
‘Did he say anything about the ears?’
‘No.’
‘Because I would have if it was me.’
‘What would you have said.’
‘Put them on.’
It was quiet for a few moments as each of them looked at an empty table beside theirs.
‘Can I say something, Mandy?’
‘I’m not stopping you.’
He reached across their table to put his hand on hers. ‘Now you said you wanted to drive all the way to a different town for dinner because you’re starting to feel suffocated in New Cardiff.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘What did you say.’
‘Suffocated since I went back to work.’
‘Whatever it was,’ he said, ‘the point is that you’re sort of snapping at me tonight.’
‘Look, put ears on him or don’t put ears on him. Why do you ask me about it.’
‘Mandy,’ he said, squeezing her hand slightly, ‘I don’t really think it’s the drawing that’s bothering you.’
‘Did you ever think something might be bothering you?’ she said, looking up at him. ‘Like the person you loved all your life suddenly gets married to someone else?’
‘You feel I’m thinking about Vera.’
‘Anyone would be.’
He looked down at a small vase of flowers at the side of the table. ‘I agree. It seems like I would.’
‘Of course.’
‘But once the initial shock wore off…’ He shrugged.…It’s like the time had come for things to end with Vera, and they did, unexpected though it was, but now it’s over and I can see it’s for the best and that’s all there is to it.’
‘Why is it for the best.’
‘Because it is. And in the moments I was honest with myself—few and far between as they were—I think I’d already begun to recognise things had reached the point where the two of us were just going through the motions with each other.’
‘Did you ever tell her that?’
‘I tried.’
‘And what did she say.’
‘She’d laugh it off.’ He looked back across the table at Mandy. ‘But the point is you said I was bothered by thoughts of her and I’m really not.’
‘Well nothing’s bothering me either,’ she said, pulling her hand out from under his, ‘so why are we even talking about this.’
‘May I suggest what I think’s on your mind?’
‘Nothing is.’
‘But, Mandy, what about having someone drop into your life out of the blue—from a foreign country on top of everything else—and turn it upside-down. Might that not be slightly upsetting to you?’
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘Anyway it’s not a foreign country.’
‘England,’ he said.
‘I know the country you’re talking about.’
‘I thought it was foreign.’
She shook her head.
‘What is it.’
‘You can’t tell me why you left the ears off. I can’t explain why England’s not a foreign country.’ He tried putting his hand on hers again but she rested it in her lap.
‘Mandy.’
‘I happen to be depressed at the moment,’ she said. ‘Don’t you ever get depressed?’
‘Yes, and when I do I try to work out why. And the reason you’re depressed—one of them—is that I’ve come over here and scrambled your life up.’
‘God, will you please stop saying that?’ she said, looking across the table at him.
‘But it’s true.’
‘I don’t care. I’m asking you to stop saying it.’
They sat quietly a few moments looking at each other. ‘Will you?’
‘Of course.’
‘Thank you.’ She picked up her wine glass.
Colin picked up his own. ‘Do you ever watch old movies,’ he said.
‘What old movies.’
‘Any old movies. Black-and-white old movies.’
‘What are you talking about this for.’
‘Do you?’
‘Why.’
‘Just bear with me.’
‘I’ve watched some.’
‘Old World War Two movies. The old romantic ones with the war as a backdrop.’
She shook her head.
‘You don’t know those.’
‘I don’t know why we’re talking about this all of a sudden.’
‘I’m working up to a parallel.’
‘Work up to it then.’ She put down her glass.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘let’s say you have this Yank over in London. And he has an English sweetheart. She’s a nurse, say. And the two of them are sitting in a canteen. In fact it looks a little like this place.’
‘Colin.’
‘Could you let me go on with this.’
‘It’s just stupid.’
‘I know,’ he said, putting down his own wine glass again, ‘but there they are, sitting in the empty canteen together. The other soldiers and sailors have all left. The last musician puts away his trombone. An unbearably poignant moment.’ Colin raised his hand. ‘Now the scene changes. We’re on a British hospital ship, on its way back from France.’
‘Colin.’
‘The war’s been won. Home and hearth lie ahead as the ship makes its way across the Channel.’
‘Colin,’ she said again.
‘But who’s on the ship,’ he said, ‘lying in a bed, bandaged from head to toe.’
‘Who.’
‘The nurse’s ’, he said, ‘an RAF pilot named—oddly enough—Colin, presumed lost in a daylight bombing raid over Stuttgart.’
‘Are we finished talking about this yet,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘What’s the parallel.’
‘It didn’t work out. Give me your hand.’
‘No.’
‘I went off the track when you stopped me talking about the other subject.’
‘Say what you want then!’
‘You don’t even have the sense of security any longer from being in your own apartment.’
‘Yes, you’ve upset my life.’
‘You acknowledge it.’
‘What difference does it make,’ she said, reaching up to wipe her eye with the back of her hand. ‘My life’s been upset since the minute I was born.’
‘Do you ever think about my going back to England?’ he said.
‘Why should I think of that.’ She looked away.
‘Do you?’
‘No.’
‘Never?’
‘Why should I,’ she said again.
‘Because I don’t live in America,’ he said, ‘and I’m doing the drawings for an exhibition in London. So it for no other reason, I’ll have to go back for that.’
Mandy took a deep breath.
‘But you never think about that.’
‘Colin, I do happen to have a few other things going on in my life besides you, you know.’
‘I think about going back,’ he said.
‘I’m sure you do. You have to make plans.’
‘Do you want to know what I think about it?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘That I don’t want to.’
‘Why not,’ she said, after a moment.
‘Why do you think, Mandy.’
She shrugged. ‘I guess you like America.’
‘I may like America,’ he said, picking up his glass again, ‘but that’s not why I don’t want to go back.’
‘Why don’t you then.’
‘See if you can guess, Mandy.’
‘Better weather here?’
‘Try once more.’
‘Because I’m here,’ she said, making a face at him across the table
.
‘Good, Mandy.’
‘What a great reason not to go back.’ She wiped at her other eye.
‘Oh I am going back,’ he said.
‘Obviously.’
‘I have to.’
‘So why are you bringing all this shit up,’ she said, ‘just to torture me?’
‘I’m bringing it up because I don’t want to go back alone.’
For a long time Mandy looked down at the red-and-white chequered tablecloth in front of her. ‘What do you mean by that,’ she said finally.
‘Just what I said.’
‘You don’t want to go back by yourself?’
‘That’s right.’
Again it was quiet. ‘I don’t… you mean you want to take someone with you?’
‘Only if they want to come,’ he said. ‘I don’t plan to tie them up and kidnap them.’
She shut her eyes tightly, then opened them again. A tear rolled down one of her cheeks and fell on to the tablecloth. ‘Sorry.’
‘Oh sure, I’d tie them up and kidnap them if I could, but the airlines have got so nit-picking about hand luggage lately …’
‘So who is this person,’ she said, still not looking up. She reached for the salt shaker, held it a moment, but then returned it to the table.
‘That I’d like to take back with me?’
‘Id be sort of curious.’ She moved her hand toward the salt shaker again, but before it got there he took hold of it.
‘Only one guess this time,’ he said.
She shook her head.
‘You want more?’
‘I don’t want any.’
‘None?’
She sat looking down at their two hands, resting on the tablecloth beside the flowers in the vase. ‘I’m afraid I’ll be wrong.’
‘You won’t be.’
‘How do you know that if you don’t know what my guess is.’
‘I do.’
She looked slowly up at him. ‘What.’
He shook his head.
‘You’re not saying?’
‘No.’
‘Why not.’
For a long time they sat looking at each other across the table. Then finally Colin raised his glass. ‘Cheers, Mandy.’
When they got back to the motel, lights had been set up around the pool and there was a crowd of people in the enclosure. ‘What’s all that,’ Colin said, pulling into the space in front of their room.