New Cardiff

by Charles Webb

  ‘Washes people.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Among other things.’

  ‘Like what.’

  ‘She feeds them, Vera. She turns them over.’

  Vera nodded. ‘I can see Mandy being very good at turning people over.’

  He started walking away. ‘Bye.’

  ‘Colin, I’m sorry I said that. Mandy’s a very kind person to do that sort of work. I’m not a kind person. You’ve gone to her because you need someone who’s kind right now, and it’s very painful for me. But I shouldn’t have said that.’

  He stopped but didn’t look back at her.

  ‘And I know she‘s waiting for you. But I wish you’d give me just a couple more minutes.’

  ‘She’s not waiting for me.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘After making her underwear delivery the other day,’ he said, turning back toward her, ‘she left.’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘Yes really, Vera.’

  ‘Well I’m sure you see her.’

  ‘Actually I don’t,’ he said. ‘I’ve gone twice to her work, but each time her co-worker has come out to tell me how busy she happens to be at that particular moment.’

  Vera looked over at the women who were speaking to each other and looking back at her as they pulled their golf carts over the grass in their direction. ‘Well I really don’t think it was my fault she moved out, Colin. I was utterly polite to her in the car park.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  Vera took a final drag on the cigarette. ‘I was,’ she said. ‘Ask her.’

  ‘How. She’s gone.’

  After she’d exhaled, Vera bent down to lift up the piece of sod she’d turned over before, dropped the cigarette and replaced the divot over it.

  ‘May we conclude our little forum now with our mission statements,’ Colin said.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Neither of us knows how to say goodbye, Vera. We both want to. We’re miserable, clinging to each other because we don’t know how to do anything else, but each of us desperately wishes we could think of some way out of the relationship without bringing our worlds crashing down around us.’

  ‘No, Colin,’ she said, glancing at the approaching women. ‘I made a very serious mistake. I’m now getting what I deserve. And when you feel I’ve been punished enough, we’ll get in my hired car, drive it down to New York together, drop it off at the airport, fly home and this unhappy chapter will be over.’

  The two women pulled their bags up on to the tee area and stopped several yards from Colin and Vera. They all stood looking at each other for a few seconds, then one of the women turned her eyes down to a wisp of smoke rising up from under the piece of sod beside Vera’s foot. ‘What’s that.’ she said.

  ‘Smoke,’ Colin said.

  ‘You’re allowed to smoke as long as it doesn’t bother other people,’ Vera said. ‘I should have picked up a little plastic bag to carry the cigarette butt back in, but unfortunately I forgot.’

  One of the women glanced at her partner. ‘You may be able to smoke on the course,’ she said, looking back at Vera, ‘but you didn’t read the other rules in there very closely.’

  ‘Actually I did,’ Vera said.

  ‘The rules on the clubhouse wall,’ the second woman said.

  Vera nodded. ‘I read them.’

  ‘Which rule or rules do you feel we’re not obeying,’ Colin said.

  ‘The rule to play golf,’ one of them said, turning toward him.

  The other one looked at Vera. ‘The rule that when you’re on a golf course you play golf.’

  ‘Which one was that,’ Vera said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Which number rule was that.’

  ‘Number?’

  ‘Oh a comedienne,’ her partner said. ‘We’ve got a comedienne.’

  ‘I’m not trying to be funny,’ Vera said. ‘You asked if I’d read the rules. I said I had. Then he asked you which rule we were breaking.’

  ‘Excuse me, Vera,’ Colin said, stepping forward. ‘Maybe I can …’ He nodded, then turned to one of the women. ‘My friend and I needed a chance to have a private talk together.’ He paused a moment, then faced the other woman. ‘And as it happens, she’s trying to give up smoking at the moment.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘May I just quickly explain,’ Colin said.

  ‘I know what to say,’ Vera said, stepping forward.

  ‘Miss?’ said the woman standing a foot or two behind her partner. ‘Are you playing golf?’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘A very simple question, miss. Are the two of you playing golf or are the two of you not playing golf?’

  ‘We’re not.’

  ‘Well we are, miss.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Because it’s a golf course,’ she said, ‘and guess what people do on golf courses.’

  ‘I think I‘ve just put my finger on the basis of the misunderstanding here,’ Colin said.

  ‘Sir, answer my friend’s question please.’

  ‘What was it.’

  ‘What do people do on golf courses.’

  ‘For the most part they play golf.’

  ‘Bravo, sir.’

  For a long time it was quiet as the four of them stood looking at each other, then finally Colin cleared his throat softly and turned to the woman nearer him. ‘My friend and I have some fairly deep-seated personal problems that go back to our childhoods.’

  Vera had started back toward the clubhouse. ‘Colin?’

  ‘And quite by chance,’ Colin said to the women, ‘we find ourselves here on this beautiful golf course as we try to work through these difficult issues.’

  ‘Colin.’

  ‘But you’re right,’ he said, taking a step back, ‘this is not the place to try and come to grips with private matters. So let me apologise …’

  ‘Colin!’

  ‘… if our personal difficulties have impacted negatively on your enjoyment of the number one hole. And in our absence I’m sure your enjoyment of the number two hole will proceed as it should.’ He turned around and hurried after Vera.

  13

  It had become Colin’s habit to go across the street each morning for breakfast at the Deep Cup Diner, and it was on one of these trips that Joanie called to him as he approached the highway. She was standing next to the maids’ room. ‘Colin?’ She motioned for him to come. ‘Could I see you a minute?’

  She finished giving instructions to a maid as Colin walked toward her, then came to meet him in front of one of the rooms.

  ‘I haven’t seen much of you lately,’ she said. ‘What’s going on.’

  ‘Not much.’

  The door beside them opened and a man came out with his suitcase. ‘Let’s just step out of the way here.’ She took his sleeve and led him off a few feet. ‘What have you been doing.’

  ‘This and that,’ Colin said. ‘Reading.’

  ‘Oh?’ she said. ‘In your room?’

  ‘No, actually at the library.’

  ‘Don’t you just love our little library?’ she said. ‘Listen, I can’t really talk now, but Mandy called.’

  ‘She did?’

  ‘Last night,’ Joanie said, reaching into her shirt pocket for a piece of paper. ‘She wanted me to give you this.’

  Colin took it.

  The man had put his suitcase into the boot of his car, which was backed up to his room, and was holding out his plastic entry key. ‘What do we do with these.’

  ‘Just leave it in your room,’ Joanie said, smiling at him. ‘Did you have a nice night, sir?’

  ‘It was okay.’

  ‘I’m so glad.’

  He returned inside.

  Colin was studying the slip of paper she had given him. ‘Who’s Doug Reed,’ he said.

  ‘That’s his phone number,’ she said, pointing at a number on the paper. ‘And this is his address over at the Chamber of Commerce.’

  ‘But who is he.’
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  ‘Okay, Doug’s an all-round great guy. We recruited him out of Hartford a couple years ago to give our town a little more pizzazz. Which he’s done like a house afire—our tourist trade is way up. You’ll fall in love with Doug just like the rest of us have.’

  ‘And his name came from Mandy.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘She thought I needed a friend? I don’t …’

  ‘No, no, Colin, he was out at the Shores for some reason yesterday, he and Mandy were chatting, and I guess it came up that he’d be happy to sit for his portrait, if you’d be interested.’

  ‘Oh,’ Colin said, ‘oh.’

  ‘Unless you have all the drawings you need.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ Colin folded the slip of paper, removed his wallet and put it in with his dollar bills. ‘Well thank you so much, Joanie.’

  ‘Don’t thank me, Colin,’ she said. ‘You know who to thank.’

  He returned the wallet to his back pocket.

  ‘Colin?’

  ‘I do,’ he said, ‘and I will.’

  Beside them the man’s wife came out of the room with a clothes bag and set it into the open boot on top of the suitcase.

  ‘It was hard, wasn’t it,’ Joanie said, ‘for her to keep staying here once her job started again. She needed that structure of her apartment, didn’t she, when she went back to work.’

  ‘If she calls again,’ Colin said, ‘I hope you’ll put her through.’

  ‘I told her last night I was sure you’d want to talk to her.’

  ‘Of course I did.’

  ‘But she said it was late and she didn’t think she should bother you.’

  ‘What time was it.’

  ‘Seven-thirty.’

  The man came out to open the door of his car, reached inside to turn on his engine, then went back into his room again.

  ‘I wish people wouldn’t warm their cars up like that,’ Joanie said, waving her hand in front of her face, ‘they stink up the whole place. Come down here.’ She walked off in front of the next room and Colin followed. ‘She is in the phone book, you know, Colin. I think there’s just one M Martin in there. There’s no law against calling people up.’

  ‘I went to Shining Shores twice, Joanie.’

  ‘And.’

  ‘She doesn’t want to see me at the moment.’

  ‘Well call her, Colin. She’s out there working away for God’s sake. Call her up at home when she can talk.’ Joanie shook her head. ‘Don’t be such a mouse.’

  ‘I’m not being a mouse, Joanie.’

  ‘Of course you are.’

  ‘Joanie, sometimes there’s a fine line between a mouse and a stalker.’

  ‘Colin,’ she said, ‘that is by far the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard anyone say in my entire life.’

  The door beside them opened and a woman came out carrying a pillow. Colin watched her walk across the car park with it. ‘Is she stealing that?’

  ‘Some guests like to bring their own.’

  ‘Oh.’

  They watched her put it into her car.

  ‘She misses you, Colin.’

  ‘Did she say that?’

  ‘She didn’t have to.’

  ‘Look, I have to get some breakfast.’ He started away.

  ‘Is Vera still in town?’

  He stopped. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where’s she staying.’

  ‘The Cardiff Arms.’

  ‘Oh they’re very good. They won the Hospitality Award three years ago, the year we missed because Fisher’s back was out.’ It was quiet a moment. ‘What are her plans.’

  ‘Vera’s?’

  ‘Does she have any?’

  Colin shrugged. ‘She doesn’t seem to have that many.’

  ‘Just enjoying our little corner of the world for a while I guess,’ Joanie said.

  ‘That’s a good way to put it.’

  Again it was quiet, except for traffic passing on the highway.

  ‘Call Mandy, Colin.’

  ‘I want to.’

  ‘Don’t “want to”,’ she said, ‘pick up the phone and do it.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Promise me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Say it.’

  ‘I promise I’ll call Mandy.’

  ‘Enjoy your breakfast,’ she called after him, as he hurried across the highway.

  When Colin got to the Chamber of Commerce, Doug was standing beside his desk talking on the phone with someone about installing a historical marker next to the covered bridge. ‘They shouldn’t have to get out of their car to read it,’ he said, as Colin stopped outside the open doorway. ‘Big lettering. Not more than two or three short sentences. Keep it simple, Brad.’ He motioned for Colin to come into the office. ‘Here’s a thought. Why don’t you put together a mock-up of the thing there at your plant and I’ll come over and drive past it in my car. We’ll figure out how much a person can grab with their eyes at twenty miles an hour or whatever the bridge speed limit is.’ As Colin entered the office, Doug pointed at a chair on the other side of his desk. Colin seated himself, resting his case and drawing pad in his lap. ‘What should it say? Brad, you keep asking me that. For the mock-up just put “Mary had a little lamb” of something on it.’ Doug leaned across the desk briefly to shake Colin’s hand. ‘You’re a broken record on this final version thing, Brad. We’ll cross that bridge later—forgive the pun. But show me one covered bridge in this state that doesn’t have a historical marker next to it. Just one. You can’t. Except ours. And that’s a disgrace, Brad. It reflects on us all. Get that mock-up ready by Wednesday.’ He hung up the phone. ‘Colin Ware, the British artist,’ he said, seating himself and grinning across the desk at Colin. ‘Mandy out at the Shores tells me I’m going to be immortalised today.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Oh listen, before we get started,’ he said, pointing to a water cooler in the corner, ‘have you sampled our spring water yet.’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  He got up again. ‘It’s in all the local stores as of last month,’ he said, walking across the room. ‘And if you’re wondering what makes ours so special, it’s because it comes from deeper in the earth than any of your more well-known waters.’ He removed two paper cups from a holder on the wall. ‘So it’s older. Now you might not think you want older water.’

  Colin watched him fill one cup from the cooler, then the other. ‘But it sounds like maybe I do.’

  ‘Old is good, so says my geologist,’ Doug said, carrying them back across the room. ‘It sits down there and ages, like wine, then has farther to travel up to the top, more sedimentation to go through, which means more purification.’ He handed Colin a cup and carried the other around his desk and sat down again.

  It was quiet for a moment as the two of them drank the water.

  ‘What do you think,’ Doug said.

  Colin nodded. ‘A nice fresh taste.’

  ‘You like it.’

  ‘And old,’ Colin said. ‘A nice fresh old taste.’ He finished his water.

  ‘By this time next year, we’ll be crowding your other New England waters off the shelf Doug finished his and dropped the cup into a wastebasket beside the desk. ‘My geologist refers to New Cardiff Deep Spring Water as the sleeping giant of the twenty-first century.’ He reached across for Colin’s cup. ‘And as soon as I come up with the right gimmick,’ he said, dropping it into the basket too, ‘waters of America? Watch out. You’ve been given fair warning.’ He looked down at the computer keyboard in front of him. ‘Colin. Would you mind if I just quickly went through this little dah-dah-dah I do with foreign visitors.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  ‘Won’t take a minute.’ He tapped a key to light up the monitor screen beside him. Colin watched as he tapped several more, then put his hands over the keyboard. ‘How are we spelling that last name today, Colin. W-a-r-e? Or W-e-a-r.’

  ‘The former.’

  He typed it. ‘
Nationality, British. Good old John Bull.’ He glanced up at Colin. ‘Hometown? Don’t tell me. London.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Had to be, had to be, man of the world that you obviously are.’ He typed it in. ‘Okay. Reason for coming to New Cardiff.’

  He held his hands over the keyboard waiting for Colin to answer, then looked up at him again when he didn’t.

  ‘Art,’ Colin said.

  ‘Could we be a little more specific’

  ‘I’m preparing an exhibition.’

  ‘More specific still?’

  ‘I’m doing drawings of some of the people here—such as the one of yourself—for an exhibition in London in the spring.’

  ‘That’s what I need.’ He typed it in. ‘What’s the title of your show.’

  ‘I don’t give them titles.’

  ‘Always a first time.’ Doug looked up over Colin’s head for a few seconds. ‘Here’s one for you. “Faces of New Cardiff, Vermont—Birthplace of American Art.”’

  ‘Birthplace?’ Colin said.

  ‘Does that have a ring to it?’

  ‘How is New Cardiff the birthplace of American art.’

  ‘Don’t get testy, Colin, I’m just trying to help. By the way, have you ever been to the other one? It’s over there by you.’

  ‘Other what.’

  ‘Cardiff,’ Doug said. ‘The old one.’

  ‘Oh. Yes I have.’

  ‘What’s that one like.’

  ‘Yes,’ Colin said, nodding, ‘I can easily see how the original settlers might compare this landscape—’

  ‘Let’s talk settlers later,’ Doug said, typing again. ‘First we need to finish up this little dah-dah-dah. Now. I want you to be totally frank with me, Colin, that’s the only way we grow, people like yourself being honest about how they see us. “Doug,” they said when they hired me, “you’re here to suck those tourist bucks into New Cardiff, don’t let them keep floating over to Bennington or Brattleboro any more.” So lay it on me, friend. How can we improve on our little piece of heaven.’ He stopped talking, fingers remaining on the keyboard as he looked over at Colin, waiting for him to answer. ‘Don’t spare my feelings. That’s not how New Cardiff grows.’

  ‘How to improve the town,’ Colin said.

  ‘Big things. Small things. Whatever comes to mind.’

  Colin looked down at a corner of the desk.