“We should go around and introduce ourselves,” Gretchen said, sitting back, tilting her head.
“Yes,” Alice agreed. “Why don’t you start.”
“Me?” Gretchen said. “Well, someone has to give up being a wallflower, I suppose.” She fluttered her eyelids as she spoke. “My name is Gretchen Phillips. I am, by training, an herbalist, though my degree is in sociology, so I will be bringing that training to bear on our discussions. I think it is very important to understand not just what an author wrote, but the context in which she wrote it. A writer cannot be—and I speak as a writer when I say this, mostly of poetry, though I have also written essays and have just started work on a memoir. But a writer does not exist in a vacuum. I am currently involved in another book club with a dear friend of mine who is a professor at Harvard.” She held aloft the cream-white paperback, from which yellow page markers thrust like weeds. “This book,” she said, “moved me profoundly. It is why I chose to join this group. When I saw this book mentioned on the flyer, I knew I had to come. I—well, let’s finish the introductions first. I did respond very strongly to it.” She turned abruptly to Viv.
Viv laughed. “Ahh, hi, I’m Viv,” she said, raising her hands from her lap as if to wave or surrender. “Welcome to my home. I, ahh…. Well, Alice and I thought a book club might be fun, so here we are.”
“Thank you,” Gretchen said, turning next to Mr. Childs.
“Hello,” he said, nodding to each person in the room. “I am William Childs, former head of the American and European literature department at the Middletown School. Not Harvard, of course, but we did send several graduates a year there.” He adjusted his watch cap and sipped his coffee.
“Thank you,” Gretchen said. “I’m sure your teaching experience will be a wonderful addition to our group. Next.”
“Hi, I’m Sam Morgan. I’m a, ahh, lawyer. I saw a flyer for this in the library and—well, it just seemed like something I’ve always thought about doing, so why not.”
“Yes, why not!” Gretchen laughed. “Next.”
“Hi, I’m Sue,” Sue said. She bowed her head.
“Hi, I’m Alice,” Alice said.
Sam thought she had to be a few years older than he was, maybe in her mid-thirties. There was something nice even in the way she sat.
“Well, so,” Alice said. “Viv and I decided to try a book club, so thank you all for coming. I have—I have some notes here on how—suggestions for how to get going, so we could start with them.”
“I thought the narrative voice was quite strong,” Mr. Childs said.
“I agree,” Gretchen said. “As I said, this work really affected me. What was amazing was how she got the voice of the child. I remember—my own—” Her voice faltered. Her eyelids fluttered. “My mother died, too. Not when I was little, like the writer here, but even though—even though I was in my 30’s it’s amazing how many of the memories I have of her are childhood memories.”
The room was quiet. Mr. Childs’ lip hung open.
“Well,” Alice said. “That’s one of the suggestions I have here: ‘Discuss the nature of the narrator’s bond with her mother.’”
“We cannot discuss this only as a mother-daughter relationship,” Mr. Childs said. “We must first understand the technical aspects of the prose. In that way, that which is universal in the work will come out.”
“How can we not talk about this as a mother-daughter relationship?” Gretchen asked, eyes closed, head tipped back.
“I am not suggesting that we not talk about it as a mother-daughter relationship, only that we understand the prose first.”
“How can we soothe our feelings with technicalities?”
Quiet. Sam looked at Alice. She was looking around the room and when her gaze got to him he smiled supportively.
“Well,” Alice said, reading from her papers again. “What about the narrative voice? ‘How does the author bring the world of an eight-year old to life so effectively?’”
Mr. Childs nodded.
“I love that she calls her mother ‘Mummy,’” Gretchen said. “The whole time. When my mother was alive we always called her Mother. It was so formal. Even as children, can you imagine? And it’s so haunting, too, once we realize that the mother is dead. ‘Mummy.’ Oh.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes.
Quiet.
“I liked the part at the summer house,” Sue offered.
“Which time at the summer house?” Alice asked. “Would you like to read it out loud to us? It’s good to read favorite passages out, if anyone wants to.”
Sue shook her head. “I just liked the way she described the water.”
Gretchen opened her book to one of the page markers and cleared her throat.
“Anyone want more coffee?” Viv asked, getting up, moving toward the kitchen.
Gretchen began to read, her voice husky. Within a few paragraphs she was crying bravely, comforted by Mr. Childs, who had moved closer to her on the couch, his face set in stoic solicitousness as he patted her shoulder.
Sam uncrossed and recrossed his legs, blinking at the group over his mug. He glanced at Alice, who was flicking the edge of one of the papers on her lap.
“Thank you,” Gretchen was saying to Mr. Childs. “I can continue.”
She started reading again. Viv came back into the room and sat down. Mr. Childs interjected, something about a technical flaw, and Gretchen disagreed.
“It’s an interesting group,” Sam whispered to Alice.
She turned to him. “Yes,” she murmured. “Would you like some more coffee?”
Sam nodded.
Alice reached for his mug. “I’ll get it for you,” she said.
“I’ll come with you,” Sam said.
“Excuse us,” Alice said awkwardly, standing up, leaving her papers on her chair.
They left the living room under a sharply-angled glare from Gretchen. In the kitchen Alice filled Sam’s mug. She stood at the sink, rinsing dishes and putting them into the dishwasher.
“So, this—wait, I asked you that already. This isn’t your house,” Sam said.
“Right.” Alice smiled. “It’s a lot like my house. Even to the husband and two kids.” She forced a laugh.
Sam nodded.
“Do you live nearby?” she asked, making a pot of coffee.
“Not far,” Sam said.
“Did you like the book?” Alice asked.
“Yes, I did. It was—well, I thought it was interesting.”
“I thought it was ok. Kind of whiney,” Alice said.
“I know what you mean,” Sam said.
“So, you’re a—you’re a lawyer,” Alice said. She turned away from Sam to check the coffee maker. He had looked at her as if—well. She remembered what it felt like to be looked at like that. Not a long, nasty eyeing but just a quick flash up and down to take her in.
“Yeah, a lawyer,” Sam said.
“Do you like it?” She poured him more coffee.
“Like it? Sure.” Sam looked up at her eyes.
She looked away. “That’s good,” she said.
“Yeah. It’s ok. I mean, no, I don’t like it. Not very much.”
“Do you—have you ever been in a book club?” she asked.
“No, I haven’t. I wasn’t sure what I’d think of it.”
“Me neither,” Alice said. “But it was worth a try.”
Viv’s voice carried in from the living room. “Alice, Hon, would you bring the coffee in?”
“See, right now I’m—I’m helping take care of my grandmother, she’s sick,” Sam said. “And I thought this book might interest her. The mother-daughter thing. I don’t know.” His voice trailed off.
“Do you think she’ll like it?” Alice asked.
“No. Not at all. I don’t think she can stand sentimental things at all.”
Viv came in, holding a mug. “How’s that coffee coming?” she asked.
“Great. Here it is,” Alice said, handing her the pot.
“Hey,” Sue said, coming in. “Can I have a sandwich or something? Something more than cookies. I’m hungry.”
“Sure,” Viv said. “Come on in and help yourself, there’s ham in the fridge.”
In the living room, Gretchen and Mr. Childs were looking through their copies of the book.
“Maybe we should take a break—talk about a book for next time or something,” Alice said. Sam walked in front of her to take his seat. She didn’t look at him.
“I suggest The Red Badge of Courage,” Mr. Childs said.
“A war book? No,” Gretchen asked.
“What about a Stephen King?” Viv suggested.
“I’ve seen most of his movies,” Sue said, coming into the room, chewing. “We could watch the movie of whichever book we read.”
“I don’t feel that I’ve heard what everyone thinks of tonight’s book,” Gretchen said.
“The narration is so uneven,” Mr. Childs said.
“Yes, I feel I do know what you thought of it, Mr. Childs,” Gretchen said. “But what about you, Sam? It’s Sam, right?”
Sam nodded and cleared his throat. “Well,” he said. “I, ahhh…. I agree with Mr. Childs, the narration did seem uneven.”
“Don’t you think it’s supposed to be uneven?” Gretchen asked. “Do you know any eight year-olds who are even? My God. Or any forty year-olds, for that matter? Human beings are just mounds of defenses,” Gretchen said. “No one wants to let an emotion through. As if it might kill them.’
Sam thought of Mrs. Atlee talking about her family.
Gretchen and Mr. Childs were arguing again. Sam was staring at the floor.
Alice leaned over to him. “So what do you think of it?” she asked.
“What?” he asked, turning to her.
“About the book club,” She said. “You said you weren’t sure what you’d think.”
“Oh,” Sam said. “It’s interesting.”
“You must have a lot on your mind, with your grandmother and all,” Alice said.
“Yes,” Sam said.
“What’s going on with your grandmother?” Gretchen asked Sam.
“We really should discuss a book for next time,” Alice said.
After several minutes of conversation it was agreed that Alice would find out what book the TV show was featuring that month and let everyone know. She loaded coffee mugs onto the half-empty cookie platter and took it out to the kitchen.
“Well, goodnight, then,” Mr. Childs said, leaning into the kitchen. “And thank you for your hospitality.”
Sam came in.
“Thank you,” he said to Alice and Viv. “It was an interesting evening.” He pulled on his overcoat.
“You’re welcome,” Alice said. “Do you think you’ll come to the next one?”
“Yes,” he said. “I think so.”
Sam nodded and left. Alice closed the door. She and Viv went back into the kitchen to finish the dishes.
“How would you know if Bob was screwing around?” Alice asked Viv.
“I don’t know. But I would. Why? Is Ed screwing around?”
“I don’t know,” Alice said.
Outside a cold wind had taken up a swirl around the house. The sky was dark like cold black leather, the stars like coins bouncing off it. Currents and cycles of atoms and decay visited all in their sleep or their brick and steel stillness.
Chapter Sixteen
McParland
McParland’s missing heel throbbed. It was late afternoon, dark, and cold; he paused on the cement plaza in front of the modern, misshapen City Hall. He tried to remember where the streets of Scollay Square had been—the little bar South had frequented, the tobacco shop so many of the inverts had spent time in. A good place to hear things. He smiled—Scollay Square had been a good place to see certain things, too, if a man were of that mind. Beyond City Hall he could see the green metal, pot-holed slug of the highway, patchy with rust, that bisected the city, wrapping itself in endless curves and ramps before launching in a vast arc for the north shore. A thousand cars, ten thousand, blinking red and white through puffs of exhaust in the dark. When did they cut the city in half with that thing, McParland wondered. As if the ugliness of the design or the sheer weight of the metal increased its testament to human ingenuity or proved the value of the heavy automobiles it was designed to carry.
Redemption, God willing—the words came to him, metallic like laudanum. He had to stop thinking about it—he would be damned. God willing, a phrase as insidious as So help me God, and look where that had gotten him. In court he’d been admonished to tell the truth, so help him God, nine times, and nine times the condemned had been told, May God have mercy on your soul. Traitor.
He snorted and tapped his cane on the ground. Keep moving, McParland, he thought. Move. Look. Learn. Avoid thoughts of redemption. Traitor. No, not traitor. Purgative. Cleanser.
Three men with fat faces peered at him and he told them to move on. By an entrance to the subway a group of men and women in dark clothes had congregated, streaks of misty blue and green around their pale faces. They were talking to each other but glancing at him; it was endemic to ghosts to always think someone knew more than they did: knew how to die better than they did, how to have peace, how to say whatever they needed to say to whomever needed to hear it in order to move on, to rest. But if he knew anything, would he be there now?
He walked on, toward the river, away from the highway. Where am I now, he thought. Cluttered brick townhouses led up to the gold dome of the Statehouse. Yes, that is the back side of Beacon Hill. To his right there had been a neighborhood, too, a slum, all gone now, replaced by the highway.
Faces of tired men. Lawler. Dormer. Arms on his shoulders, pats on his back. Traitor. Bleach. God willing, God have mercy. The men in the bar that first night. Yellow light warm in the bar, sick in the headlamps of the miners, choked in the narrow crushing shafts.
He followed the curve of the road past the glass entrance to a hospital and a large intersection, over which hung footbridges leading to a subway platform. On his right the wall changed to gray stone and he looked up at the barred windows of a jail, empty now; through the window in the front door he could see a crooked sign ordering visitors to check their firearms at the front desk.
It was the old jail, gray and solid, dirty; in color and stone much like the Old Stoney Lonesome in Pennsylvania where one of the condemned Mollies had made a hand print on the wall of his cell—and now tourists visited it because they would visit anything, even a murderer’s handprint. This was the jail where South had been taken after being arrested with his little friend. When McParland thought of her or him or whatever she thought she was huddled in this stinking jail he could not help the nagging sense that really what it all amounted to was the ultimate humiliation of his career. From chasing Mollies to chasing inverts around Boston for money. But financially, two years of coal mines hadn’t come close to equaling a week in Boston. And now he was in purgatory, he thought. He spat. What of it? Like the miners said: If you’ve been to hell, purgatory’s a step up.
It was cold and windy and across the dark river closely packed headlights moved in spurts. McParland sat on a bench, collar upturned, hat low on his forehead. Unaccountable, sitting like this, thinking all the time: just memories, just old things. Unaccountable. A waste of time. He smiled and nipped from his small brown bottle. Waste. Of. Time. How could one waste something that one was eager to be rid of?
The river was purple—no, black—no, marble-white. The buildings on the far side fluttered, hovered—no, they were anchored by their lights, the brick walls could hover but the lights were weights. Were careening coal carts. The black swirls of water were people crossing the river, chasing him with the vengeance of their careening lights close behind. Redglow of furnaces all around. The very ground smoldering with coal fires. The folds in the river might as well be the faces of the men he’d
helped condemn or his soul, cold and dark; the lights on the far side might as well not exist. Or be the moon. Or be ten thousand particles of decay.
All this remembering now, he thought. Get moving, McParland. Enough of the thinking. Twilight on snow. Wet feet. Harsh breathing. Gowen’s face in his office in Philadelphia, in the courtroom, in the hotel room.
McParland stood up. Twilight then, racing across the field; just past twilight now, in Boston, staring at the river. Always twilight, he thought. He looked at the old jail and thought again how much it looked like a bigger Stoney Lonesome; thought again of the close, sweaty courtroom, Gowen mopping his forehead, Gowen leaning in: If ever a man deserved to have a monument erected in his honor, it was McParland, Gowen had told the juries, over and over again. A fearless and great detective.
Enough. Enough.
As he walked past the jail he touched the stone. A fearless and great detective. A man who had done a job, who had nothing to answer for, no sin to expiate, who deserved peace as much as anyone did. The murder of women and children, he thought again, what do you tell yourself about that, to understand it?
What of it?
He leaned for a moment against the wall. This was Boston, not the Stoney Lonesome with the condemned miner’s handprint on the wall or the courthouse with the hate filled eyes of the Mollies on him. He was in Boston and this was the Boston Jail. What was it called. He’d never been inside it. One of the Pinkerton boys had always said, “Don’t get arrested in Boston, boys.” Charles Street, the Charles Street Jail, it was called. The stones were cold. The Old Stoney Lonesome.
McParland smoked a cigarette and touched the wall of the jail. He walked slowly to his left, looking up, leaning on his cane. Hovering above the very top right corner of a brick building behind the jail was a scarlet mist, a color so red with anger and blue with suffering he doubted he had seen its like before.
He looked quickly from side to side. For a moment he had been absorbed in thought and not paying attention to the world around him. Could have been a costly mistake—a mistake from being too comfortable, really.
THE GHOST DETECTIVE: Boston Page 16