A Place on Earth (Port William) (24 page)

When she has finished, Mat says, "Ida, you oughtn't to be down here
by yourself. Why don't you come up and stay with us-for a few days
anyhow? It wouldn't put us to a bit of trouble."

She shakes her head. "I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Feltner. But I got
this stock here to look after, and these chickens, and them old cows to
milk."

Mat does not insist. "Well, if you get to wanting to come, you come.
We'd be glad. Margaret would be." He hesitates. "Do you reckon it could
be a good while before Gideon gets back?"

"Mr. Feltner," she says, "he'll be back. I know if a man's going to make
a crop he ought to be here getting ready. But I'll see to things."

But her next words are borne on a pride that divides her from them:

"Of course, that's up to Mr. Merchant. It's his place."

"No," Mat says, "That's one thing I wouldn't worry about."

She nods, and then smiles. By another change of voice, she again
makes them her guests: "You all have another cup of coffee."

But Mat gets up. "We'll have to get on. We want to go down and look
at the barn before we leave."

They all go out together to the barn. They go from one upright to
another, studying the sprung framing, now and again pointing to a burst
mortise or a loosened brace.

"Well," Burley says finally, "she looks like she's sort of got herself
propped up. She might stand up in this shape for a long time."

"Yes," Mat says, "but, still, I wouldn't trust her too long to a hard
wind. She'll either have to be straightened back, or torn the rest of the
way down."

They go out. At the house Ida thanks them and leaves them.

They wade the creek again, and start toward the river road.

It is past the middle of the morning by the time they get to the truck and start back up the hill. As they approach the entrance to the Coulter lane,
Mat says, "I'm going out to Roger's. But there's no use in your going,
unless you want to."

"Well, I ain't got anything better to do."

At Roger's, as they expected, there is no one in sight. The only sound,
after Mat shuts the motor off, is a loose sheet of tin on the barn roof
grating in the wind. As they come up the slope of the yard a groundhog,
sitting erect on his dirt mound at the corner of the front porch, tumbles
into his hole.

As they turn the corner of the house and come in sight of the back
porch, Roger's half-dozen old Dominecker hens come running toward
them.

"Hungry," Mat says.

They go on to the back door. They shoo the hens out of the way, and
the ragged old birds trot out to the limits of their fear and then come
back like so many yo-yos.

Mat knocks, and they listen, and he knocks again, louder.

"Roger!"

No answer. They stand there a moment, the hens watching them, the
flap of loose tin grating on the eave of the barn.

Mat turns the knob and gives the door a shove, expecting it to be
locked; but it flies open, banging against a chair. The hens rush in and
begin pecking at the corn piled against the chimney.

Roger is lying in the big four-poster bed, wearing shirt and tie and coat
and hat, generously covered with quilts, his head propped against the
bare headboard-sound asleep, his bottle propped beside him, a large
briar pipe lying extinguished on his chest. That he has escaped burning
himself up is owed, according to some, only to the Lord's noted solicitude for drunkards and fools.

Mat and Burley stand outside the door, looking in, a little startled by
the sight of what they had expected to see. And then, as if by a sudden
exhalation of the old room, they are hit by the stench of it.

"Pew!" Burley says, "Good God!"

"I reckon you can see now where you made your mistake," Mat tells
him. "You'd have found things smelling a good deal better at your place."

"I will admit," Burley says, "them old hens have got a good deal better stomach than I do."

Breathing as little as they can, they go into the cluttered room. They
plunge through the wrangle of furniture and tools to the windowswhich come open with considerable difficulty, and once opened won't
stay. Through all the rattling and banging Roger sleeps with the composure of a funeral effigy, emitting a series of remarkably lively snores.
Having breathed the corrupted air as long as possible, they hurry back
outside. Searching the yard, they pick up sticks to prop the sashes and
plunge in again.

They come out this time ahead of the wind, which comes pouring
through the opened windows behind them, and they stand in the yard to
let it work.

"Let her blow. Let her breathe."

They stand a while and let her breathe, and then Mat says, "Well, do
you want to see if we can wake him up?"

They drive the chickens out and toss several ears of corn into the yard
to keep them busy, and go over to the bed. Mat leans and taps the old
man on the shoulder.

"Roger."

Not a stir.

"Wake up, Roger!" He shakes him. "Oh Roger!" He shakes him hard,
and the old man's eyes open.

"Roger, wake up! You've fouled yourself like a baby. Are you sick?"

"There's none here, sir," Roger says in a weak thin voice, raising a
hand. "None here. In the bank, in the bank. There's not any here. It's in
the bank."

"Roger, it's Mat and Burley. You've stunk the place up till a normal
man can't breathe in here."

"Cousin Mat, I've lost control of my unavoidables."

Roger, remembering the bottle then, feels along the headboard for it,
and slips it under the covers.

"What we want to know, Roger-are you sick?"

"I've-ah-been slightly under the weather. You might say. Yes."

"Or are you just drunk?"

"No, Cousin Mat. Indeed not."

"You've been here all night without a fire, Roger. How long has it been since you got up out of that bed?"

Roger's voice chirps with righteous sarcasm. "Why, I would imagine,
not since about Washington's birthday."

Mat walks away. When he speaks again he speaks to Burley. "Let's
build a fire."

They soon have the little stove roaring and crackling with as much
fire as it will hold. They find a washtub and fill it and set it on the stove.
While they wait for it to heat they set the room to rights. They carry out
and pile up and rearrange and sweep until it is possible to cross the room
in a fairly straight line without climbing. While they work Roger lies as
they found him-asleep or awake, they cannot tell.

When the water is warm they set the tub on the floor in front of the
stove.

They find a piece of soap, a scrap of a rag, an old towel, and put them
on a chair beside the tub.

Mat goes back to the bed.

"We want you to take a bath, Roger. Can you get up?"

"If you please, Cousin Mat, I wish to sleep. Your visit, and Mr. Coulter's too, is appreciated, I want you to know. But now, perhaps, you will
be so kind as to leave."

Mat jerks the quilts back and takes a handful of Roger's shirt.

"Get up! Stand up!"

And he brings him up, and stands him upright on the floor beside the
bed.

Roger stands there in hat and coat and shirt and soiled underwear,
sagging a little, but standing up, surprised-for once, silenced-by Mat's
anger.

The two cousins stand face-to-face. They seem to balance a moment
across Mat's pointing forefinger, which then buries itself up to the first
knuckle in Roger's coatfront.

"Roger, I want you to clean yourself up. I want you to wash yourself.
And when you get those clothes off, put them in the stove, you hear?"

And Roger turns, obedient as a child, and gets started on his buttons.

"Have you got other clothes to put on, Roger?"

"I should think so, cousin."

"Clean?"

After looking in the wardrobe, Mat takes the cleanest of the quilts
from the bed and folds it and puts it down beside the washtub. "You just
wrap up in that, Roger, when you get clean. And keep close to the fire."
And to Burley: "Let's just carry that mattress and the bedclothes out and
burn them."

And they do, each of them taking two corners of the mattress and
doubling it, lugging it off the springs and out into the yard. They pile the
debris of their earlier leaning on top of it, soak the whole mess with
coal oil, and set a match to it. A big fire stands almost instantly over the
pile, the flame-end cracking like a whip.

"There's nothing here fit for a human to wear or sleep on or eat," Mat
says. "If you don't mind staying with Roger, I'll go to town and see what
I can find. We'll need to eat before long. And I'll have to stay here, I
reckon, until I can get Roger straightened out."

"You go ahead. If Mr. Merchant lives through that bath, I'll see to
him."

Margaret has taken off her hat, and put on an apron over the clothes she
wore to church. She looks around at Mat and smiles as he comes into the
kitchen, and turns back to the stove. She is wearing her grey dress that so
becomes her-a pretty woman. He takes that in. He comes into her
presence as he would come into the pleasing shadow of a tree-drawn
to her, comforted by her as he has been, usually, all his life. And in spite
of all that he has to do, he pulls a chair out from the table and sits down.

"Widow woman, you look mighty nice."

"I was wondering when you'd be back. Did you all get down to the
Crops'?"

He nods. "They lost their little girl, Margaret. Annie. She drowned in
the flood. And Gideon's gone."

'Ah!" Margaret turns toward him, and though he does not look up he
feels her looking at him while he tells her.

"We saw Ida," he says, finishing, "and she seems to be doing as well as
you could expect. Better." He utters a kind of laugh, a sound of amazement and pity. "She's farming that old place like there never was anybody there but her."

"Mat, she oughtn't to be there by herself."

"I know. And I told her to come up here, but she wouldn't hear of it. `I
got this stock here to look after, and these chickens, and them old cows
to milk."'

"Well, I must go down there."

"Yes. You must. The next time I go. But now I've got to do a family
duty."

She looks at him.

"Roger. He's been down drunk, and got in awful shape. I suppose
we're going to have to arrange to take care of him, whether he wants it
arranged or not. I'm going to call Wheeler and see what can be done."

'What are you going to do now? Today, I mean?"

"Well, Burley's out there with him. And I guess I'll have to stay a night
or two until he's straightened up, and by that time maybe we can find
somebody to live with him. First thing, though, we've got to have something to eat, and Roger's got to have something fit to wear. And since
Burley and I burned up his old mattress and his bedclothes, I'd better get
some bedding out of the attic.

"So"-he goes to the door, stops, and looks back-"why don't you see
what you can scrape us up in the way of vittles? And I'll get the bedding."

"Lord, Mat, things are happening here, aren't they?"

"Yes. They are-and have and will." He comes back and kisses her.
"Maybe you can find one of my old suits for Roger. He's particular what
he wears, you know."

Half an hour or so later Mat finds Roger sitting by the stove in his hat,
wrapped in the quilt. And Burley, having further simplified the order of
the room, is finishing a second sweeping of the floor. The room smells
of burning locust wood and the fresh wind.

Mat sets his load down on the table. "Well, did he get washed?"

`All but his hat, I think."

Mat hangs the fresh clothes over a chair beside Roger. "How're you
feeling, Roger?"

"Somewhat refreshed, thank you, cousin."

"Good. Put these clothes on, then. And we'll fix a bite to eat."

He and Burley finish unloading the truck, and make up Roger's bed and a cot for Mat, and prepare a meal.

Roger sits across from them at the table, as bodiless-looking as a coathanger in Mat's suit, his frail old face and hands sticking unaccountably
out of the collar and sleeves. There is a certain exaggerated delicacy in
his handling of the knife and fork-a certain tilt to the face, as if he is balancing an invisible straw on the bridge of his nose. He looks, Burley
thinks, like a cross between King Louie the Fourteenth and a turtle.
When he finishes eating he leans his head against the chair back and goes
to sleep.

That night, after dark has fallen and the supper dishes have been put
away, Mat sits in the small light of a lamp in a corner of Roger's kitchen,
reading the Sunday paper that he brought back from town when he went
in the late afternoon to do his feeding. In the bed on the opposite side of
the room Roger lies asleep.

Mat is more than a little lonely, more than a little depressed at having
to be away from home at such a time. Once or twice he has had to fight
off the temptation to get in the truck, along with this fruitless dying
branch of the family, and go back to Margaret and his own house. But he
has plenty of reasons not to do that-not to be fetching in the worst to
be served by the best. But still his own house tugs at his mind.

In this alien house, troubled only by its slow weathering and going
down, Mat is aware of other houses: Gideon Crop's, the Coulters', his
own-and others, at all distances, in all times of day and night, troubled
by deaths and absences.

He sits alone with the brutal history of his time, reading bad news
and bad good news, as if there is nothing else to read, believing that
probably there is not. Once, in Port William, they might not hear of a
death in Hargrave until after the burial. Now they know the outcome of
a battle on the other side of the world before the dying are dead.

He sits, making his mind be led by the words, under the fall of light
from the lamp. The narrowly opened window above the table breathes
the freshening of the year, the moist night, the shrilling of frogs. And
across the room continue the audible entrances and exits of Roger's breath.