Frolic of His Own (45 page)

—Yes she called, while you were both out shopping she . . .

—Well thank God. When do you expect her.

—Well she, I don't. I told her I didn't think we could . . .

—That we can't afford her? My God, it's costing us more in sheer carnage than whatever her miserable wages came to isn't it? and you'd like to see everything around here taken care of by me and this poor girl out there right now mopping the kitchen floor just to save a few dollars?

—It's, no Christina it's her sister, she . . .

—It's no more her sister than the man in the moon, I think your mind's beginning to go Oscar. I trip over her every time I walk through the door don't I?

—I mean Ilse, Ilse's sister the one with the cataracts. She wants to get back out here to work but she's afraid her sister will have an accident because she can hardly see and gets confused about the gas stove, so she offered to . . .

—She offered to bring a blind woman out here for the rest of us to wait on while she's busy blowing up the house?

—No, no she just thought she could put her sister in the cubby in the top floor where she wouldn't be in the way, that she could peel vegetables and things like that to help out just until spring when the weather gets . . .

—Till spring! My God Oscar, has it occurred to you to worry about getting through the winter first? sitting here with the television running while you stare out at the, look. Look, can you see him out there? Reared up on the top step of the upper lawn beneath the window clutching an acorn, head darting, tail twitching, the squirrel scampered off at the wave of her hand, —did you see him? You think maybe he was trying to tell you something? One of Hiawatha's mangy little refugees setting up his layaway plan for the hard times ahead while Hiawatha sits here on the shore of Gitche Gumee, the minute old Nokomis walks into the wigwam he opens a book, his eyes seeking sanctuary on the page where
It seemed to me that the surface of the lake had changed, often dramatically, each time I looked back at the water
—you're not even watching this grisly thing then? are you? with a wave at the silent screen where, as though abruptly dismissed by the toss of her hand, the stretcher borne writhings of survivors of a tenement fire blazing away in the background gave way to the decorous designer sheeted writhings of a middleaging arthritic enduring languorous massage with a heat penetrating unguent and a Florida backdrop Kissing Pain Goodbye, had he called that therapist? Well not exactly, no, he'd told Ilse he didn't think things would work out so he'd just send her the money and —Send her what money! Well, that last week she was here and had to leave when her sister called on such short notice that —She left us in the lurch with nothing in the house but half a dozen eggs while we're paying her through the roof to handle your God knows what in there in the bathtub? Get that down to a quid pro quo now for every gallon of gas that goes into that death trap when we go shopping
and maybe she can take right up where Ilse left off, of course I'm sure she already oh, Lily? you've finished out there? Yes sit down for a minute, something I meant to ask you talking to him till I'm blue in the face while he sits there staring at a book, will you look at him?
A minute later a sudden wind had transformed it into a blustering Scottish loch with a surface current and whitecaps. The light can change with an equal suddenness
—and can we turn that thing off if no one's watching it? Yummy! a waffle crowned with peanut butter being drenched with maple syrup abruptly displaced by a barefoot procession of bulging eyes and distended bellies fleeing a famine in Ethiopia —and bread? do we need bread? and flour, there's a pencil right there under that napkin we'd better make a list, go shopping without one when you're hungry and you come home with everything in sight, flour. I said flour didn't I, if we need it or not just to be safe there's no earthly reason you can't make a perfectly smooth béchamel sauce with this new processed flour Lily, you can try it again tonight with, write down cauliflower yes, we haven't had cauliflower it should be quite cheap now it's that time of year after all, isn't it. Oscar? do you think of anything? That time of year? watching those fragile fingers stumble paused over the spelling of cauliflower when yellow leaves, or none, or few he could have told them, and here came the squirrel again emptyhanded back down the steps to scamper off across the lower lawn toward a white oak for another acorn till at last when hard times came he'd have not the faintest notion where he'd buried any of them in this frenzy of survival serving neither himself nor even his kind but another vast kingdom, a different order entirely, planting white oaks broadcast —and while we're at it, tea, we always need tea, and yes sugar, just to be safe. Wasn't that what all this was about, after all? from the squirrel down there in the throes of its own monstrous miscalculations to that rabbit lunching nearby, panic quivering through every fibre of its being and beauty nothing but beginning of terror it was still just able to bear for what might that very instant be circling overhead or slithering toward it in the discoloured grass? All this, as she'd charged a minute before, trying to tell him something, there was simply no getting through a thought, let alone putting two of them together to make an idea, before she came up with something else out of nowhere, something in yesterday's paper about the parties in that ridiculous Cyclone Seven case exchanging places? renewing the fray now that horrid dog was out of the way with its genuine simulated Spotskin® and all the rest of it, Minjekahwun, Wear 'Em With The Skinside Inside, of simply getting through a page of the book here by the shining Big-Sea-Water, dark behind it rose the forest where the pigeon, the Omeme, building nests among the pine trees?
At times there is a clarity of detail at great distances when, for example, each
branch of a thorn tree on the far bank is minutely sharp to the eye. Instantly it will become a dull strip of grey, and without a cloud in the sky to account for the change. This can produce mild hallucinations as the middle distance advances and recedes
where a moment before gusts had flung up the branches of the pines like the skirts of the beautiful Wenonah being ravished by the West Wind, by the heartless Mudjekeewis bending low the flowers and grasses and
you can soon begin to feel oppressed by the strange gloom of this lake, with its isolated houses and its wide lawns that slip into the water as if the lake were slowly flooding
and in flocks the wild goose, Wawa, flying to the fenlands northward and the squirrel, Adjidaumo, rattling in his hoard of acorns and the serpent, the Kenabeek —all coming right around full circle and probably getting it wrong at that, she came on, —have you heard a single word I've said Oscar? What is that you're reading. The jumble rattling around in your head, how can you expect us to know what you think when you simply sit here without a word, it's really quite rude. Pretending to read while I'm talking to you, can you answer my question? What was it I asked you. Have you thought any more about calling Father? Changing sides in that idiotic lawsuit they're just trying to drive him around the bend, as though things weren't already bad enough with all this nonsense about impeachment, about inherited madness running in the family, to simply sit down and write him a letter? Well? Well, he could have told them about all that, how John Brown's mother and grandmother both died mad —but on second thought he'd probably pass for Exhibit A himself will you take a look at him right now?

—Me? Oh, but they always told me that these things you inherit go from father to daughter, from mother to son like Bobbie had this nice head of hair, only Daddy was bald ever since I remember and Mama . . .

—Before you carry this too far Lily, Oscar is simply my step brother, I'm not his sister or his half sister either.

—Oh. I thought they're the same, he . . .

—Well thank God they're not, you talk about a nice head of hair if his gets any longer he can wear it in braids and stick in a couple of eagle feathers, the wealthy recluse on the family estate sitting here gaping out at the Big-Sea-Water while his father sits down there and lays down the law, of course he doesn't dare call him up, or put on his magic mittens and write him a letter.

—But maybe he'll just forgive and forget? Like Daddy, when Daddy knows how sorry I am that I did these things I shouldn't have done? and these things he thought I should do and I didn't? That it was all my fault, these mistakes I made and how sorry I am that I got him upset and I don't deserve him to pity me, and I can ask Mama to talk to him and help me
out because I know deep down how he loves me and always wanted me to have the best so he won't stay mad at me, he'll forgive and forget and . . .

—You've made your point, but I think you should know that your mealymouthed Daddy and Oscar's father are about as alike as night and day, and the day Judge Crease forgives and forgets you'll know the moon is made of green cheese. Yes and write down cheese, let's get this over with before it rains. I thought we might try veal.

—Oscar liked the chicken the way we had it.

—Well he's always been fond of veal, we haven't had it in an age, Oscar? We'll have to have some wampum if you, my God now where has he gone. Sitting here pretending to read a book while we're in the midst of talking to him, the minute he hears me mention money he disappears while we're waiting on him hand and foot, you won't be warm enough in that. There's a jacket of mine you'd better slip on, it's a sort of grey tweed right there in the hall and bring my raincoat while you're at it. And you have the list? when they got outside, and then once in the car —drop me at the drugstore while you're getting gas, as they swerved up the ruts in the driveway —and for God's sake, will you please tell them to wash the windshield? If we're going to be killed I'd like to see what hits us, will you meet me right there in the grocery? Back by the fruits and vegetables, —mushrooms, while I'm finding those you can look for some heavy cream, just a small one, it goes bad so quickly with only the three of us.

—But what about Harry?

—What about Harry.

—But I thought, so we wouldn't have to go right out shopping again, I thought he might show up any minute.

—What in God's name made you think that.

—But you, back when he called? about how he was exhausted and taking that Nembutal? How he had to be in court and I thought you said well it can't go on forever, that he'll come out here for a rest when it's done?

—Well why on earth did you think that was Harry.

—Just if you weren't on the warpath with him anymore and . . .

—I'll tell you when I'm not on the warpath! I haven't heard a thing since the day he drove out of here after that disgraceful performance, I wouldn't think of calling his office with that ninny of a secretary he's got she'll say anything he tells her to, leaving calls on our answering machine I don't even know if he ever gets home. God knows he's exhausted but he'd never take Nembutal, he'd pour a drink instead no, that was for a dog.

—I didn't know you had one. You want me to carry that?

—A dog? My God no, here, you can carry both these bags out to the car. That was an old girlfriend I went to school with, she bought a snaggletoothed little Lhasa apso and has to hide the Nembutal in the pâté she gives it because it's simply driving her crazy. She forgets it's there and keeps stepping on it when she doesn't look where she's going and she hadn't slept for days since her daughter's breakdown, people calling her night and day to be of help and she thought she could get some rest out here but she may have forgotten it the minute she hung up, she's been in court constantly over her mother's will and that kind of thing can go on forever. You're sure you don't want me to drive?

—No, it's tricky sometimes just once it gets started. They said it needs a new alternator.

—Well I'm sure Oscar can help you with that.

—All he said was how much would it cost.

—He's always been quite careful with money, he hasn't changed since he was ten, digging under the furniture cushions for change that had slipped out of Father's pockets. We thought he'd be a lawyer when he grew up, that he was constantly reading those law books in the library but sometimes Father would use a dollar bill for a bookmark, or even a five, and that's what Oscar was looking for.

—From what I saw of lawyers that's all any of them's looking for, that and a little tail if you pardon the expression when you never suspect it, as they finally drew off the highway down a road, down a byroad and through the gate past
STRANGERS REQUESTED NOT TO ENTER
—you never know what somebody will do.

—My God Lily, as the car slid down the ruts of the driveway, —people will do anything.

—Look! as they turned in toward the veranda —there he is, this Mister Boatwright, I told you, see him in there? where he's barely walking all bent over? Didn't I tell you? he's . . .

—My God! Stop the car! it's . . .

—It's this old plumber, it's this Mister Boatwright I told you before when I saw him in there walking across the . . .

—It's, it's not Mister anybody it's, look at him! It's Oscar! Well what are you stopping for! hurry! and she was out of the car, through the rain running up the wet steps of the veranda to tug at the doors —Oscar! What's going on!

—Damn.

—Here take my arm before you, look out!

—Let me go I said!

—Can you, simply tell me? she'd sunk to the edge of the nearest chair —what, in God's name, is going on?

—What does it look like's going on!

—Well it's, look at it! Where are you going? Will you, my God Lily don't squeal like that! Made my blood run cold just, just put down the groceries and help me pick up this mess will you? Oscar? will you tell me what these papers are doing all over the floor? and where you think you're going with your be careful! Is it empty? on her feet again, —is this what you . . .