Small World (39 page)

‘That’s what I mean, she’s been self-destructive.’

Lucy listened to the voices of her children, to Dolly’s rasp. She was faking her interest in their flowers, talking down to them.

‘Laurie, Laurie, quite contrawrie,’ her voice distorted the rhyme, ‘how does your garden grow?’

Laurie giggled but she would giggle at anything. Lucy thought her mother-in-law might very well mean to hurt people, might even Jike hurting. This odd man, more like an overgrown kid in his puppy-clumsiness, wanted her to feel sorry for Dolly, to put herself out for a woman who had made a practice of treating her like an indentured servant. She would like to ask Nick; perhaps he would understand. But he wasn’t due back from London until the evening.

She made her decision. ‘I don’t think so.’ Her own voice sounded faint and faraway to her. She met Roger’s kicked-puppy eyes.

‘I’m very sorry,’ he said. ‘That’s too bad.’ Then he smiled again, and she wondered if he really was.

Dolly came up the garden path with the children. Lucy met her glance directly. The eagerness in Dolly’s eyes changed to anger, like a sudden massing of storm clouds.

Roger had gone back to noisily crunching up crackers. He seemed oblivious to the awkward silence between the two women.

Lucy’s father broke it, clearing his throat, and saying to Dolly, ‘This business about Nick Weiler’s mother was certainly shocking, wasn’t it?’

The mention of it dissipated some of Dolly’s steam. She smiled at Mr. Novick sadly. ‘Yes, it was very painful. Poor dear.’

The plate of crackers and banana slices was empty, the pitcher of iced tea down to shards of ice, slices of lemon, and a puddle of the tiniest tea leaves. Roger stared at the remains of the snack with the same solemn sadness Dolly gave to the recent tragedy of Lady Maggie Weiler.

He stood abruptly. ‘We’d better go.’

Dolly, relieved, made a show of kissing the kids, and allowed herself to be led away, bearing their bouquets. She had Roger drive, having decided to be queenly, grasping her smelly, bug-ridden bunches of flowers, waving at the kids.

Lucy felt mildly nauseated. Her father patted her shoulder. You did the right thing,’ he reassured her.

'I hope so.’

Expecting to hear from Nick, Lucy was startled to hear Dolly’s voice when she answered the phone that evening.

‘Lucy?’

Lucy tensed. ‘Yes?’

’Listen, I have been a jackass, haven’t I?’

Lucy held her tongue.

‘I’m apologizing, Lucy.’

‘Accepted.’ It was a genuine acceptance on Lucy’s part, if not fulsome. It was a relief to tie up the loose ends of anger and resentment and prepare to put them out of her life.

There was a decent hesitation from Dolly. ‘Will you work for me again? You’re absolutely the only person who can do it.’

Lucy laughed in spite of herself. ‘I doubt that, Dorothy.’

She paused. How to gracefully say no without antagonizing Dolly, breaking the brand-new truce?

I’m already committed to a lot of work,’ she said doubtfully. Dolly pressed her. ‘You’ll think about it, at least?’

It would do as an exit, Lucy decided. She could say no later. ‘Yes, I’ll think about it. Perhaps I can locate someone else to help you.’

‘Good.’ Dolly sounded gratified, as if the possibility were all she had really thought she might gain. ‘Are you terribly busy right

now?’

Well, yes.’
No I can't start right away.

'Then I’ll send some pictures, to give you the idea.’

'Okay.’ Looking at pictures didn’t constitute a contract. And she was curious to see what Dolly had done.

When will you let me know for sure?’

'Soon. Two weeks, no more than three.’

Oh, thank you, dear.’ Dolly hesitated again. ‘Have you heard from Nick?’

’ As a matter of fact, when the phone rang, I thought it was him. ’ Dolly giggled. ‘Sorry, dear. I must have been a disappointment.’ She sobered. ‘Really, though, tell him for me how upset I am over his mother. He must be devastated.’

‘I will,’ Lucy assured her, repressing the sudden urge to sing a song into her ear:
Liar, Liar, pants on fire . . .

‘Well, I won’t tie up your line any longer, then. Thank you again, sweetie. Stay in touch.’ And Dolly was gone again.

Lucy hung up the phone thoughtfully. There was always such a sense of relief when her former mother-in-law left her, or ended a phone conversation. Dolly was like quicksand, or a tar pit, Lucy thought, always trying to draw her in.

‘She said
thank vou
? And
I’m apologizing
?’ Nick was incredulous.

‘She did.’

‘And you told her to stuff it?’

‘Not exactly.’

Nick groaned. ‘Don’t do it. Break a leg, get pregnant. But don’t do it. Please.’

Lucy rolled over and slipped out of Nick’s bed. Her navy blue nightshirt, rucked up over her breasts, slid down as she swayed gently. Nick reached for her; she danced away.

‘I am not going to,’ she said airily.

Piling pillows behind him, he sat up, and said, ‘What
are
you going to do?’

‘Get some iced water. Want some?’

‘Whatever happened to the romance of champagne?’ he mocked. ‘Iced water sounds wonderful.’

Lucy flitted away. He heard her humming, and the chink-clunk of the ice-maker in his refrigerator. Both his cats must have heard,-too; they stalked in, jumped onto the bed, and curled up next to him, claiming him back from this woman of his. It was pleasant to recline there, stroking his old animals, and thinking about that dark band of navy blue caught above the curves of Lucy’s breasts. Thinking about it was all he was going to do at this point; she would want to leave soon, to be home when her children stirred to wakefulness.

She sat down next to him. He took the glass of water with one hand and slipped the other round her waist.

‘Fly with me,’ he whispered, ‘Let us abandon all our duties and be foolish.’

She laughed. ‘I should shock you into impotence. I should say yes. Then you’d have to leave your real true love, the Dalton.’

'Bloody cruel tease,’ he protested, and nuzzled her. ‘I do love you more. A little bit,’

At that instant, with his nose buried in her hair, his spine was flooded with iced water, as she tipped the glass gently down his

back.

‘Aargh,’ he screamed, and jerked away from her, spilling his own glass over the sheets and knocking her hand so that the residue in her glass spilled over his shoulders and into his lap. She leapt back from him and rolled across the bottom of the bed, giggling.

Jesus, Lucy,’ he gasped, ‘my bed is soaking wet, and I think I
am
going to be impotent for the rest of my life.’

She covered her mouth and lowered her eyelids but her shoulders still shook with laughter.

Bitch,’ he complained.

He tore a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around his shoulders as a cloak. ‘If I catch my death of pneumonia, it’s on vou.
Will
you tear yourself away from your bloody workshop and take a trip with me?’

What?’

Pay attention. Stop your lascivious giggling. I have to go see my father. It’s only to Maine, not the end of the world.’

'Your father?’ Lucy, suddenly sobered, sat up.

■Yes.’

Lucy hiccuped.

On second thought, I’ll go alone. I’m not sure you're fit for civilized company.’

‘Oh, no, you don’t. I'm not passing up a chance to meet the greatest living painter in the world. Even if he is your father.’

’Is that what you see in me?’

'Christ, no. I never knew you were related until Dolly told me, ind by then, we’d, ah, become intimate.’

Nick, reassured, stood over her, one eyebrow cocked. ‘What a ill you do for the honor?’

Pig,’ Lucy answered. ‘When do we go?’

Are you sure we’re not going to the end of the earth?’ Lucy -Ked, standing by their heaped luggage. Laurie tugged her hand -rgently. ‘Yes, just a minute, sweetheart,’ she was promised.

Nick, carrying Zach on one hip, winked at her. ‘Have courage. Look on it as an adventure.’

Zach clapped his hands at the very thought.

'I have to pee,’ Laurie insisted, ignoring, as women will, the call to adventure.

Lucy looked frantically around the Washington National :erminal. Travelers crowded its unassuming spaces in all

directions. She had never used it before.

‘Do you know where it is?’ she demanded of Nick.

He shrugged gallicly. ‘I know where the men’s is. Maybe the women’s is near it.’

The baggage checked, they set off for the restrooms and found the women’s quickly by the line outside the door.

‘Oh, no,’ Lucy wailed, while Laurie danced from one foot to another.

‘I’m taking Zack to the men’s. I’ll meet you at the gate,’ Nick told Lucy, and leaned close to her to whisper, ‘This is a romantic flight?’

Lucy couldn’t help laughing. At least while he was walking away from her, with Zach trotting along next to him, she had his broad back to contemplate. After that, there was nothing but her own wits to distract Laurie from wet pants and hysteria as the line moved slowly into the sickly sweet-smelling facility.

The Delta flight stopped in Portland, a city where Lucy’s father had once lived but that Lucy had never seen. It seemed small after Washington, though Lucy knew Washington was only marginally a metropolis, and, viewed from the air, rather old-fashioned with much red brick and masses of green, trees. Sea smell entered the airplane as passengers debarked and then others boarded; Nick told her it was Casco Bay, the body of water their plane had crossed to land at the tiny airport with its terrifyingly short runways.

That good smell was left behind in Portland as they flew north and inland to a larger airport at Bangor. The runways there were long and smooth and rather new-looking. There was building, as there had been at the Portland Jetport, but this airport looked expensive and prosperous. In contrast, the city of Bangor, seen from the sky, was much smaller, built on the banks of a river, rather than on a peninsula into the sea, as Portland was. Where Portland was all red brick and trees, Bangor, though green with summer, ran to gray-white masses of concrete, and the center of the city was curiously empty, an interesting but rather inhuman sculpture composed of multistory buildings gleaming in the sun and irregular collages of parking lots.

This was not their day to tour, though; Bangor too was only a waystation. At this airport, they shifted to a small charter plane flown by a young woman with a cheerful Downeast accent and rather startling turquoise eye shadow complementing her young-businesswoman uniform of purple blazer, neat white skirt, and turquoise-and-purple striped blouse. The plane passed low over increasingly unpopulated country; the woods did not stop but seemed sparser, stunted. The land flattened, and was patched with marshland, blueberry bog, and blue water, as the sea’s long fingers reached inland. The salt perfume was once again in the air.

Again, they landed, at a tiny one-horse airport in the bush. The children were tired and fractious; only the promise of a helicopter ride staved off the tears: The chopper came in behind them, only a few minutes after their small plane landed. Watching its descent occupied the children until they could be whisked on board.

It was impossible to talk over the thunder of the blades so they all watched the land disappear. In a matter of minutes, they flew over endless blue sea dotted with occasional boats, from sailing craft to fishing and lobstering boats, to tankers and freighters. Here and there an island poked a battered bit of rock and fauna through the cold blue waters. Lucy thought she would remember always the new perspectives of her planet that this perfect day for flying had presented. At first the works of man on the surface of the world had been something to admire, and then had shrunk, with every passing hour, every change of plane, until it seemed as if the human race did no more than infest, by sufferance or indifference, the bits of land it had claimed. And then came the sea, where man’s mark simply did not exist, and she shivered, feeling small and vulnerable in this noisy mechanical bubble beating its way through the cloudless sky. Nick, next to her, felt her shiver, reached out to draw her close, and warm her with his body. Behind them, the children had dozed off, oblivious to all that passed, above and below.

The island was one of a chain, most of which, their pilot screamed at them, were too small to support life more demanding than turtles and a wide variety of sea birds. It was a fish-hookshaped bit of mountaintop peeking out of the sea, perhaps a hundred and ten square miles of stunted trees, sand, and rock. In the folds of the rocky summit, a few rich wrinkles of laboriously created topsoil supported a patch of forest, Sartoris’s gardens, and the meadows where his goats and cows grazed. Sartoris’s house and studio, the only buildings other than rude shelters for his animals, were nestled in one such wrinkle, in the hook of the island, where the sea came close to its heart.