Shortest Day (18 page)

We are six dancers bold, as bold as you can see
,

We have come to dance this dance to please the company
.

Traditional British Mummers' Play

O
nce, in Sarah's childhood, the hot-water boiler in the basement had nearly burst. Her father had raced around the house turning on the faucets, and the boiling water had burst out in torrents of scalding steam. There had been a dangerous smell, a sense of foreboding, a certainty that something terrible was about to happen.

She felt it now, she could almost sense the same smell. This new death, the sudden collapse of Tom Cobb, it was not merely a repetition of the tragedy of Henry Shady, it was a shuddering in the pipes, a pounding rattle in the radiator, a hissing of furious steam.

And of course there was the other thing. Her fear about her motionless child was a dull perpetual ache. Surely something was the matter? The idea of the baby, the overwhelming concept of the person inside her, was crucial to her now. It was so strange, the way she kept thinking of herself as the progenitor of a pyramid of descendants. They had come to seem important, her nonexistent posterity. They were looking backward at her from the future, tugging at the hem of her skirt, reminding her they had yet to be born.

And last of all there was Morgan. What was the matter with him? He had seemed all right again. He had been so glad about the baby. But she had come home the very same day to find the ruined little garment on the table, slashed to ribbons—what a hideous, wild thing for Morgan to do, what a crude and horrible thing. How he must hate the baby!

If it were really dead, thought Sarah mournfully, it might be the best thing after all.

On the day after Tom's funeral, Sarah sat at the breakfast table across from Morgan, saying little, unable to mention the things that needed to be said. She sipped her coffee and looked at the front page of the
Cambridge Chronicle
, where there was a column about Tom Cobb's death, an interview with the police.

“Look,” she said, holding up the paper, “they've been talking with the Cambridge Medical Examiner.” She read his opinion aloud. “
A toxic substance is thought to have been the culprit in Cobb's death, but whether administered accidentally or with malicious intent has not been determined
.” Sarah put the paper down. “I just don't understand it. Why would anybody hurt a wonderful guy like Tom? Everybody loved Tom.” Sarah's eyes filled, but she shook her head and jumped up from the table. “I've got to get busy. We have to recruit another Morris dancer.”

Morgan looked at her with his stony face. “I'll do it. I'll take his place.”

“
You'll
do it!” Sarah couldn't believe it. “But, Morgan, you've never tried Morris dancing.”

“I'll learn.”

Sarah looked at him thoughtfully. “Well, it's true, you're a really good dancer.” She turned away briskly. “I'll speak to Jeff.”

And when she asked Jeffery Peck, he threw up his hands and said, “Why the hell not?” Jeff had been one of the Morris dancers from the beginning, but he had never before been a stage director, he had never been responsible for whipping a performance into shape. It was a frightening responsibility. Already he was suffering from pre-performance despair. The thing didn't hang together, part didn't follow part, people were never ready to come on when their turns came, and when they did, they just stood there looking at him. Half the little kids were sick. And now the best of the Morris dancers had died horribly, right in front of his eyes.

At this point Jeff didn't give a damn about the performance. They would blunder through somehow or other. Sarah would tie the loose ends together. Sooner or later, thank God, the whole damn thing would be over, and he'd be off to the Virgin Islands. In the meantime he'd carry on with rehearsals and patch together whatever edges Sarah gave him to work on.

But when Morgan Bailey appeared at the next rehearsal, ready to go, Jesus, it was the last straw. Jeff hated taking the time to break him in. Fortunately, the guy learned fast. Sarah's confidence in her husband was justified. Morgan learned the figures quickly, and at leaping and stamping he was a phenomenon. “Step, hop, step, hop, step!” cried Jeff. “In place, singles! Back up, doubles!”

Mary Kelly sat in the back row, looking on, keeping an eye on Morgan. His wretchedness was apparent as he danced, it was visible in his vacant face, in the way he kept glancing at Sarah. Mary was not entirely without sympathy for the poor klutz. She had felt the same misery herself, a few years back, when Homer had been a little too friendly with one of the teaching assistants. When she had burst out with her feelings and accused him, Homer had been flabbergasted, and she had understood at once that a transcendentalist in a state of continuous effervescent euphoria could not be blamed for admiring one of nature's wonders. “I don't want to go to bed with her,” explained Homer. “I just want to look at her.” And Mary had laughed, her jealousy extinct.

But Morgan's case was different. His torment seemed unending. Any fool could see the misery choked up inside him.

Mary leaned back and watched the stick dance. She liked the noise, the simultaneous thunder of stamping feet. Here there was none of the sinuous perfection of other sorts of dancing. It was a display of old-fashioned masculine strength. It was like fighting, a substitute for battle. The crack of stick against stick echoed the clash of spear against shield, and when they danced with swords in their hands, it was like Carthage and Agincourt and Waterloo.

Morgan was catching on. He was a natural. His leaping was wild and high, it had an animal ferocity and grace. The pounding of his stick against Jeff's was like the clash of horns in a mating battle between two stags. It reminded Mary of a film she had seen. She had been awed by the headlong power of the attack, the primitive, wild lunging, the ringing crash of antler against antler.

Morgan was like the stags. In the dancing of the other five men, the wildness was restrained, it was a response to the rhythmic beat of the concertina. But in Morgan something stronger was letting itself go. There was a savage power in his leaping, barely under control.

The merry music stopped. The six men lowered their sticks, breathing hard. “Bravo, the new man,” said one of them, clapping Morgan on the back.

Jeffery Peck said nothing. He was gasping, wiping his forehead, looking at Morgan Bailey. Mary suspected that Morgan had struck Jeff's stick with too much violence, as though he were the enemy in a genuine battle.

Sarah seemed to have no such painful suspicions. She clapped her hands. “Oh, Morgan, that was marvelous. Now, do you think you can handle a sword?”

But in the sword dancing Morgan made a mistake almost at once, missing the first step-back-step. “No, that's wrong,” shouted Jeffery.

They all stopped marching in a thundering circle and looked at Morgan. “Sorry,” he said, wiping his forehead. “Try again.”

This time he was perfect. He had memorized the patterns, he needed only a little prompting, a hoarse whisper, a nudge. The swords flashed blue and clattered against one another as the six men marched in a circle. It was a complicated dance. The men wove in and out, and their swords wove in and out, until at last they interlaced and Jeffery lifted the locked swords high in a miraculous six-sided star. There were whistles of approval from the tech table, while the concertina continued its jolly music, and the six men went on tramping around and around.

“All right, Saint George,” cried Sarah, “slip into the middle. Ready?
Now!
”

Arlo Field dodged into the circle, and the men marched around him heavily, their feet pounding on the floor. He stood still, the silent axis of the turning wheel, as Jeff lowered the locked swords over his head. The pace increased, with each man reaching out to grasp the projecting handle of a sword, and then—
snick!
—on a single beat they pulled them out and held them high, and Arlo dropped to the floor. The dancers fell back, as though mortified at what they had done.

Again Sarah clapped her hands. “Arlo, that was perfect. Good for you, Morgan.”

“Oh, ow,” said Arlo, lifting his head from the floor and rubbing his neck. “Could you guys be a little more careful next time? Jesus!”

“Oh, sorry,” said Jeff.

The children came running in. “No, no, not now,” cried Sarah. She laughed and swung one of the little girls high over her head. “All you dancers can go home now. Where's the Doctor? We've got to bring Saint George back to life, or spring will never come. Is there a Doctor in the house?”

A bank teller named Arthur Kline had the part of the Doctor. He sprang up on the stage, put on his top hat, and bounded up to Arlo, who obligingly lay back and pretended to be dead.

“Which end is which?” said the Doctor in mock bewilderment. Bowing over Arlo's feet, he said, “Stick out your tongue.”

The Morris dancers had been released. They walked off the stage in procession into the high windy spaces of the memorial corridor—Jeff Peck, Bill Foose, Bernard Fox, Jim Yung, Dan Cone, and Morgan Bailey. Morgan was surprised to see a cherry tree lounging at the north end of the corridor, one of its branches holding a cigarette. He was further surprised to see Chickie Pickett come in from outside, a small luscious figure in a short skirt, her plump legs delectable in black pantyhose.

Morgan started forward, but the cherry tree was ahead of him, throwing its branches around Chickie. Squealing her Betty Boop squeal, she allowed herself to be engulfed.

The morning shift of departing Revelers milled around in the corridor with those arriving for the afternoon rehearsal. Lunch bags came out of knapsacks. There was a fragrance of tunafish and peanut butter. The north and south doors opened and shut, letting in streaks of sunshine and blasts of cold air. No one paid any attention to the guy in dark glasses who was holing up in the telephone booth.

It was Palmer Nifto. “Hello, is this the Furniture Bank? Oh, hi there. I'm looking for sofas. How's your supply today?”

“Sofas?” said the woman at the Furniture Bank. “Hey, have we got sofas. What kind do you want?”

“I don't care what kind. Any old kind. But I need a lot of sofas.”

“Consider them yours. What's this for, your tent city? Sure, we've got sixteen, seventeen sofas. Like people buy one of those big white sectionals, and pretty soon it's filthy, and the dog pees on it and the cat throws up, and it looks horrible, so they give it to us and then they go out and buy another sofa. Terrible extravagance. But, listen, like we're overstuffed with sofas. Get 'em off our hands. There's no room for anything else. Shall I send a trucks? You want all seventeen sofas?”

“You bet I do,” said Palmer Nifto. “I've got this little plan.”

CHAPTER 23

In come I, the royal Duke of Northumberland

With my broad sword in my hand
.

Where's the man that dares to bid me stand?

I would cut him as small as flies

And send him to the cookshop to make mince-pies
.

Traditional British Mummers' Play

I
t was an emergency meeting in University Hall, in the office of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The sun poured in through Bulfinch's handsome windows, Copley's portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel Apple-ton looked out from the wall, and the Simon Willard clock over the mantel made a gentle sound,
tock, tick, tock
.

“It's ridiculous,” said the Dean. “You mean to say we can't get rid of a bunch of squatters on Harvard property?”

“The question is,” explained Ellery Beaver, “whose property is it, really? Does the overpass belong to the university or the city of Cambridge? Remember Mayor Vellucci? He used to bring it up all the time. He claimed it belonged to the city.”

The General Counsel made a note. “I'll look into the matter. If it doesn't belong to us, then it's not our problem. Let the Cambridge City Council deal with it.” He rocked back in his chair and brought up an amusing technicality. “It seems that the original charter for Memorial Hall forbids any other structure on the Delta—you know, the triangular piece of land it was built on. What do you think, is a tent a structure? What about a ramshackle wooden hut?”