Morgan's Passing (26 page)

Morgan noticed someone walking toward them: a man in a business suit that was made of some dull gray hammered-metal fabric. Everyone he passed stared after him for a moment. He ruffled their faces like a wind, and then they turned away again. It was Robert Roberts. Morgan said, “Brindle.” Brindle seemed to comprehend everything, just from the sound of her name. She hunched tighter on her blanket and hugged her knees and frowned, not looking. It was up to Morgan. He rose and spat his match out. “Why, Robert Roberts!” he said, and offered his hand, too soon. Robert had some distance to travel yet. He came lurching up the slope a little untidily, in order not to keep Morgan waiting. His palm was damp. His face glistened. He was a man without visible edges or angles, and his thin brown hair was parted close to the center and plastered down. It appeared that he was sinking into the sand. There was sand across the creases of his shoes, and more sand filling his trouser cuffs. He gripped Morgan's
hand like a drowning man and stared fixedly into his eyes—but that was his salesman's training, no doubt.

“It's Bob,” he said, panting.

“Beg pardon?”

“I'm Bob. You always call me Robert Roberts, like a joke.”

“I do?”

“I came for Brindle.”

Morgan turned to Brindle. She hugged her knees harder and rocked, staring out to sea.

“It's the same thing all over, isn't it?” Robert said to Morgan. “It's the same old story. Once again she leaves me.”

“Ah, well … have a seat, Robert, Bob. Don't be such a stranger.”

Robert ignored him. “Brindle,” he said, “I woke up Thursday morning and you were gone. I thought maybe you were just miffed about something, but it's been four days now and you never came back. Brindle, are we going round and round like this all our lives? We're together, you leave me, we're together, you leave me?”

“You do still have my photograph,” Brindle told the ocean.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

Brindle got to her feet. She brushed sand off the seat of her bathing suit; she adjusted a strap. Then she went up to Robert Roberts and set her face so close to his that he drew back. “Look,” she said, tapping her yellow cheekbone. “This is
me
. I am Brindle Gower Teague Roberts. All that string of names.”

“Yes, Brindle, of course,” Robert said.

“You say that so easily! But since you and I were children, I've been married and widowed. I married old Horace Teague next door and moved into his rowhouse; I bought little cans of ham in the gourmet sections of department stores—”

“You've told me all that, Brindle.”

“I am not the girl in the photograph.”

She was not. The skin below her eyes was the same
damaged color as Morgan's. The dimple in one cheek had become a dry crack—something Morgan had never noticed. She was thirty-eight years old. Morgan stroked his beard.

“Brindle, what is it you're saying?” Robert Roberts asked. “Are you saying you don't love me any more?”

In the little group of women (all gazing politely in other directions) there was the softest rustle, like a laugh or a sigh. Robert looked over at them. Then he turned to Morgan. “What is she saying?” he asked.

“I don't know,” said Morgan.

Louisa said, “If they marry, I hope I won't be sent to live with them.”

“They
are
married, Mother dear,” Morgan told her.

“You have no idea how hard it is,” Louisa said, “not knowing where you'll be shipped to next.”

“Mother, have we ever shipped you anywhere? Ever in all your life?”

“Haven't you?” she asked. She considered, retreating into the hood of her beach robe. “Well, somehow it feels like you have, at least,” she said. “No, I prefer to stay on with you. Bonny, you won't let him send me off to Brindle's, will you? Morgan's difficult to live with but … eventful, I suppose you'd say.”

“Oh, yes,” said Bonny dryly.

“Promise?”

“Mother,” said Morgan. “They're married. They're already married, and no one's shipped you anywhere. Tell her, Brindle. Tell her, Robert, Bob …”

But Robert faced the sea, not listening. His hair blew up stiffly, in spikes, which made him look desperate. While the others watched, he bent to dust the sand from his trousers. He pulled his shirtcuffs a proper length below the sleeves of his coat. Then he started walking toward the water.

He circled a child with a shovel and he stepped over a moat and a crenellated wall. But his powers of observation seemed to weaken as he drew nearer the sea, and he stumbled into a shallow basin that three little
boys were digging. He climbed out again, ignoring their cries. Now his trouser legs were dark and sugary-looking. He accidentally crushed a paper cup beneath his heel. He reached the surf and kept going. A young man, lifting a screaming girl in the air and preparing to dunk her, suddenly set her down and stood gaping. Robert was knee-deep in seething white water. He was waist-deep. When the breakers curled back for a new assault, he was seen to be clothed in heavy, dragging vestments that looked almost Biblical.

Up until now, no one had moved. They might have been little specks of bathers on a postcard. But then Brindle screamed, “Stop him!” and all the women clambered to their feet. The lifeguard stood on his high wooden chair, with a whistle raised halfway to his mouth. Billy barreled past. Morgan hadn't even heard him get up. Morgan threw his sombrero into Bonny's lap and followed, but the lifeguard was faster than both of them. By the time Billy and Morgan hit the water, the lifeguard was in to waist level, heaving his orange torpedo at Robert. Robert brushed it away and plunged on.

A breaker crashed around Morgan's knees, colder than he had expected. He hated the feeling of wet woolen socks. However, he kept going. What he had in mind was not so much rescuing Robert as defeating him. No, Robert would never get away with this; he couldn't escape so easily; it must not be allowed. Morgan swarmed in the water, his limbs wandering off in several directions. A surprised-looking woman lifted both flaps of her bathing cap and stared. The lifeguard took a stranglehold on Robert from behind, and Robert (who so far had not even got his hair wet) flailed and fell backward. He was engulfed by a wave and came up coughing, still in the lifeguard's grasp. The lifeguard hauled him in. Morgan followed with his arms out level, his head lunging forward intently. The lifeguard dragged Robert up on the sand and dumped him there, like a bundle of wet laundry. He prodded Robert with one
long, bronzed foot. “Oh, me,” Morgan said wearily, and he sat down beside Robert and looked at his ruined shoes. Billy sank next to him, out of breath. Robert went on coughing and shrugging off the people who crowded around. “Stand back, stand back,” the lifeguard said. He asked Morgan, “What was he, drunk?”

“I wouldn't have the faintest idea,” Morgan said.

“Well, I got to make a report on this.”

“Really, that won't be necessary,” Morgan said, rising. “I'm from the Bureau.”

“The what?”

“Parks and Safety,” Morgan said. “What's your name, son? Of course I plan to mention this to the board.”

“Well, Hendrix,” the lifeguard said. “Danny Hendrix, with an x.”

“Good work, Hendrix,” Morgan said. He briskly shook the lifeguard's hand. The lifeguard stood around a minute, scratching his head, and then he went down to the water to watch his orange torpedo float out to sea.

They propped Robert up and draped him across their shoulders—one arm circling Morgan's neck, one arm circling Billy's. Robert seemed uninjured, but he was heavy and lethargic and his shoes dragged behind him.
“Come
on, fellow,” Billy said cheerfully. He looked pleased; perhaps he was reminded of his fraternity days, which he'd once told Morgan were the happiest of his life. Morgan himself stayed silent. He wished he had a cigarette.

They hauled Robert past the blanket, where the women were packing their belongings. Brindle was smoothing out towels and folding them. She would not look at Robert. Morgan felt proud of her. Let Robert see whom he was dealing with here! Let him see how they could handle it—all of them together. For this was no mere marital quarrel, no romantic tiff. No, plainly what had happened was a comment upon their whole family—on the disarray of their family life. Robert had
been standing right beside this blanket, had he not, listening to Louisa forget where she was in time, Morgan arguing with her, all the others grouping into battle squads … and then he'd made his break, escaped. The scoundrel. He'd insulted every one of them, each and every one. Morgan felt a flash of anger. Pretending to be concerned about Hendrix, he stopped without warning and ducked away from Robert's arm and turned toward the ocean. Robert tilted and nearly fell. Morgan shaded his eyes. Hendrix was sending signals to the lifeguard on the next beach. Morgan could not read signal flags, but he could easily imagine the conversation that was taking place,
WHAT WAS PROBLEM
, the neighbor would ask, and Hendrix would answer,
MIXUP CHAOS MUDDLE …

Kate was watching too. (No doubt she found Hendrix handsome.) Morgan said, “Can you tell what he's saying?”

She shrugged. “It's just the clear sign,” she said.

“The what?”

“You know—all clear, everything in order.”

“Little does he know,” Morgan said.

9

B
onny told Morgan they were running out of beds. Were the Merediths leaving tonight or tomorrow morning? she asked him. This conversation took place in the kitchen, late in the afternoon, while Bonny was emptying ice-cube trays into a pitcher. Above the crackle and clink of ice, she whispered that it would certainly solve a great deal if the Merediths left before
bedtime. Then she could put Brindle and Robert in their room. But Morgan didn't think Brindle would want to share a room with Robert anyhow. “Let it be, Bonny,” he said. “Send Robert out on the porch with a sleeping bag.”

“But, Morgan, they're married.”

“The man's a lunatic. She's better off without him.”

“You're the one who was against her leaving him,” Bonny said. “Now, just because he walks into the surf a ways—”

“With all his clothes on. With his suit on. Making us look like some kind of institutional outing, a laughingstock …”

“Nobody laughed,” Bonny said.

“It's a mark of how badly this vacation is going,” Morgan said, “that, lately, I've been wondering how the hardware store is doing.”

“He was just showing her he cared,” said Bonny.

“I've half a mind to call Butkins in the morning and see if he's restocked those leaf bags yet. With fall coming on—”

“What are you talking about? It's July.”

Morgan pulled at his nose.

“Go ask Emily what they've decided,” Bonny said.

“You want me to tell them to leave?”

“No, no, just ask. If they're staying on, we'll work out something else.”

“Maybe
we
could leave,” he said hopefully. “The others could stay and we could go.”

Bonny gave him a look.

He wandered into the living room, where his mother and Priscilla were playing Scrabble. Kate was painting her fingernails at a little rattan table. The smell of nail polish filled the room—a piercing, city smell that Morgan liked. He would have preferred to settle here, but he said, “Anyone seen Emily?”

“She's out front,” Priscilla told him.

He went to the porch, letting the rickety screen door slam shut behind him. Emily was taking pictures again.
She photographed Gina, who was lining up a row of oyster shells on the railing. She photographed Robert, who sat stiff and humiliated in a rocker, wearing borrowed clothes—Billy's wedding-white slacks and candy-striped shirt. Then she photographed Morgan. Morgan had to stand still for a long, long moment while Emily squinted through the camera at him. He did his best not to show his irritation. At least, he was glad to see, Emily had got out of that swimsuit. She wore her black outfit and no shoes at all. She was her old, graceful, fairy-dancer self. As soon as Morgan heard the shutter click, he said, “Now I'll snap one of you, since you're looking so fine and pretty.” He came down the front steps and took the camera from her hands. She put up no resistance, for once. She seemed tired. Even when he drew away and aimed the camera at her, she didn't smooth her hair or lighten her expression.

He snapped the picture and handed the camera back to her. “Ah … Bonny was just wondering,” he said. “Should we count on having you three for the night?”

“I don't know,” she said. She rolled the film forward with a little zipping sound. “I'll have to talk to Leon,” she said finally.

“Oh? Where
is
Leon?”

“He never came back from his walk. I was planning to go into town and look for him.”