The Funeral Makers (12 page)

Marcus retired to the summer kitchen and his cot, saying his reading had suffered lately. There had been no note that day, no whispers or kisses on her neck, but she reminded herself he'd been busy. And surely the wonderful tone set at supper was an indication of how things stood between them. He had smiled at her often, and she had seen a moistness in his eyes, as if they had suddenly teared. And she took this as a sign that the sentimentality of the moment had captured him.

She had sent the girls out to play, allowing them to escape the chore of washing dishes. This she wanted to do herself, afraid someone else might wash her lover's plate and saucer, might trifle with the fork that had been in his mouth. It was her duty as a woman, as a wife-to-be, to take care of her man's needs.

It was Thursday, November 1, 1923, when she went into the parlor to finish her embroidery in front of the warm fire and to bask in the warmth she felt within. The Reverend had removed his shoes and was wearing his ancient slippers, ones he'd owned even before his marriage. The family dog, a yellow animal of mixed descent, came to the Reverend's chair and stood quietly, waiting, watching him closely with its black eyes. Unnoticed, the animal moved closer and put its nose against the Reverend's hand, its tail in a halfhearted wag.

“Get, you!” the Reverend shouted. With a folded newspaper he swatted the dog's head until it retreated back to its mat by the kitchen door.

“Poor thing,” Marge had thought. “Still trying to be his friend after all those slaps on the head. Just like his daughters are still trying.”

And she had risen with her embroidery, thinking how unpleasant the room had suddenly become. That's when the Reverend, without looking up from his paper, cleared his throat and said, “Marcus Doyle has left us.” She stopped where she was, at the entrance to the parlor, and put one hand out to steady herself, just as she had done the first day she met Marcus Doyle. That first day her stomach had squirmed as if full of something, as if she were pregnant, like a morning sickness. Now it was lead inside her. Something dead. About to be stillborn. She kept her back to him, not wanting to see the pleasure she knew must be in his eyes.

“Left why? Gone where?”

“Gone back to his wife and children. After supper this evening, I told him to leave.”

“He isn't married!” She had never shouted at him before. She had never shouted at anyone.

“A young woman from Portland. Anna Doyle. He has two sons.”

“Who told you this? It's a lie someone in Mattagash has started out of jealousy. It's a lie!” But who would be so cruel to slander Marcus so, and leave her looking like such a fool.

“I wrote letters to the missionaries he mentioned having worked with. I thought it my duty to check on him. They had never heard of him. One had even died ten years ago and so certainly never had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Doyle. Then the police helped. They have his record. He's a bit of a con man. The last gimmick he came up with was as a geography teacher down on the southern tip of the state. Any place where he can get a good meal and some diversion until he's tired of it and ready to move on.”

“Africa?” She had turned to him now.

“Lucky if he's been out of Maine. I suppose his stint teaching geography helped with his tales of Africa. He was more than happy to get the chance to leave without being reported. But we were lucky too. The scandal would have ruined us all. Tomorrow I'll say that he went back to Africa, and your reputation will be safe. You should be thankful no one else discovered this first.”

“I'm glad Mama died,” she whispered. “I'm glad she didn't have to live a whole lifetime with you.” She left the room without ever knowing if he had heard. She pushed through the screen door and ran down the dirt road to Henry Taylor's house. Ida Taylor was cutting dead flower stalks from around her front steps when the shaken Marge reached her.

“Child, have you just talked to the devil?” Ida asked.

“Did Marcus walk by? Did you see Marcus?”

“He went by two hours ago. Henry wasn't home to drive him to Watertown so he went on to Ned's to catch a ride there.”

“What did he say?” Marge's hair had come loose and fell about her face in wet curls. She reminded Ida of a painting she'd once seen of Joan of Arc with fire all around her.

“He didn't say nothin'. Just walked down the road like he owned it.”

“Did he look back, Ida? Did he turn around and look back?”

Years later Marge would wonder why she had asked that question. Ida never told anyone what she knew about the day Marcus Doyle left Mattagash, that Marge McKinnon had come running down the road. At least it never came back to her as gossip, and in Mattagash it would have to surface, like oil to water. In 1937 Ida Taylor died of cancer, taking with her Marge's secret. Up until the last day, Marge cooked her soups and sat up with her during the long nights when Ida wished for death like some people wish for money. It was the least Marge could do. And for all her life she would remember crying out that day to Ida, “Did he turn and look back?” And for all those autumn evenings that would follow her down the years, when the deer would come to the edge of the road to eat, and the leaves raged red and orange as fire, and she would bring her handiwork to the front porch, she would remember Ida Taylor. “No, Margie. He was just whistlin' and kickin' at pebbles. His hat tipped back on his head. He just went walkin' down that road like he built it.”

***

Now that Marge seemed restful again, the nurse came to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Sicily poured them each a cup.

“Just black,” the nurse said.

“You're lucky not to use sugar. It's so fattening.”

The nurse moved to the back window that looked out on the river. The far mountain was ablaze with red and yellow leaves, and under the autumn sun it seemed on fire.

“You're so lucky to live in such a pretty place,” she told Sicily.

“Yes, I guess we are. It can get lonely, though.”

“I suppose. But I grew up in Philadelphia and I think I'd be less lonely here.”

“Maybe it depends on where you were born and raised. Do you want a doughnut with that?”

“No, thank you.” The nurse turned away from the window, rinsed the cup, and set it in the sink.

“I'd better get back to her,” she said. “She's having a hard time resting.”

“It's so unfair, isn't it?” asked Sicily.

“She's been mumbling a lot. It's as if she's trying to say something.”

“Poor soul,” said Sicily. “There should be a better way for us to go out of this world.”

“By the way,” the nurse said. “Who is Marcus?”

If no one ever marries me,

And I don't see why they should,

For nurse says I'm not pretty

And I'm seldom very good.

If no one ever marries me

I shan't mind very much.

I shall buy a squirrel in a cage

And a little rabbit hutch.

And when I'm getting really old,

At twenty-eight or -nine,

I shall buy a little orphan girl

And bring her up as mine.

—Laurence Alma-Tadema

Never a late sleeper, Violet arose at eight o'clock. She had been restless the night before, waking several times with the alarming thought that she had forgotten something important, like a candle left burning. Or a pot smoking on the stove. Each time, she glanced at the little clock by her bedside and saw that the hands had crept only a short distance since the last time she'd awakened. She sensed a fear that she hadn't felt in years. The room she had so lovingly made a home seemed ready to attack her. The chair sat menacingly, its open back a large mouth that would snap at her legs if she walked too near. The items on her dresser were alive, the brush standing on its countless legs, the comb a row of razor-sharp teeth. Even the stuffed Raggedy Ann that had been hers since childhood was ready to leap from the corner the minute Violet's back was turned and strangle her from behind.

When daylight finally came and she saw the objects in her room for what they were—a chair, a brush, a comb, a doll—she was finally able to relax. But that feeling of doom still lingered.

“Exercise,” she thought. “A good workout will take it away.” She pulled on her leotards and did a few minutes of warm-ups before stepping out onto the pavement. But outside there was a thin, stringy rain falling. It was then she saw the envelope attached by tape to her door. She pulled it free and noticed that the paper was damp.

“It must have been here all night,” she thought. Inside her room she laid the envelope on her bed. She was afraid to open it, afraid that if she tore back the flap, something she had never seen before would jump out like a jack-in-the-box and frighten her. She didn't doubt that it was from Ed Lawler, but what it might say she could not decide. When he had left her room the previous morning in the full light of Mattagash, there was no doubt in her mind that he would not be returning, to her bed again. There was a finality in each of his movements, in the tone of his words. He had left her, shirt slung over his shoulder, saying, “Be good to yourself.” And when she had tried to ask him, “When can I see you again? Will you be back?” he had merely put one finger to her lips. And then he kissed her and was gone.

For all her citified ways, for all her unorthodox philosophies, Violet was a small-town girl. As a professional dancer she was Violet La Forge from Boston. But in truth, and according to the birth certificate she kept carefully hidden under the secret flap in her purse, she was Elizabeth “Beth” Thatcher from Kingsman, Maine, population 729. And as ten-year-old Bethie Thatcher, she had watched the circus set up their tents each year in the field behind her house. The tents were full of unusual animals and flouncing performers. The Ferris wheel reached above the treetops in the Thatcher yard and from her bedroom window Beth could see the excited faces of the riders, a strange combination of enjoyment mingled with fear. She would lift her window to let the noises in, the metallic whirring of the rides, the screams, the jaunty music. For one week each year, the world lay in her yard. She would run between the tents, taking in all she could, but stretching her allowance to last the whole week. At eight o'clock she was back in her room for bedtime but much too excited to sleep. As her mother switched off the light she would warn her, “Now don't you be at that window watching the circus.” Beth would lie in bed as the flickering lights performed for her on the ceiling. She would wait for her mother to be busy downstairs, and then she would slip from bed and run to lift the window. For hours, she would gaze out at the gay lights and colors etched against the darkening sky. It might have been Piccadilly Circus, because from her perch above the glitter, she saw all the world pass by. In the morning they would be only huge rusting machines, asleep in the field, but at night the monsters reared their heads and stretched their arms and beckoned to Beth to come and ride them forever.

Then the last Sunday night came and went in a blur of cotton candy and laughing crowds. She tried not to look, on Monday morning on her way to school, at the silent machines, the tents being dismantled, the animals loaded onto trucks. On her way home from school, it would all be gone, as if the earth had opened and swallowed it whole. And later, when the closest she could get to those lights and that glitter were the spangles she wore on her costumes, and whatever spotlights the joints she danced in had packed away in the basement, she came to see it all as a circus. It was all a Fourth of July blaze that could only get so big and so spectacular before it got smaller and smaller until it wasn't there anymore. One morning she woke up and realized she could no longer tell reality from her dreams. She had read once about a man who fell asleep in a garden and dreamed he was a beautiful butterfly, fluttering about among the luscious flowers until he awoke. And when he did, the dream about the butterfly was so vivid that he couldn't be sure if he was a man who had been dreaming he was a butterfly, or if he was now a butterfly dreaming he was a man. Violet had copied this from the book she found it in and still carried it folded in her wallet. Something about its simplicity led her to believe that it had value to her. She no longer knew if she was Violet La Forge dreaming she had been Bethie Thatcher or if she was still Bethie Thatcher, asleep with her Raggedy Ann in the swing on her mother's porch while the image of Violet La Forge danced beneath her twitching eyelids.

But no longer did she deceive herself about the men who paraded themselves through her life. They were ringmasters, all of them. They came with shouted promises of what was waiting inside if you paid the price of a ticket. Touters. Nothing more.

When Ed Lawler left her room that morning she knew what it meant. That the merry-go-round had stopped, that the horses were tired of spinning endlessly and getting nowhere. It meant the circus was leaving town. And she was left again to kick her toe about in the colored remnants, to stand alone on the spot where the Big Top had been and wonder what exotic place the circus was headed without her.

Now here was a note taped to her door. Did it mean that Ed, being an educated man, felt he must put good-bye in writing, must shape the letters with ink on a paper so that she could read and reread the painful words forever? But what if? She was afraid her heart might fail her if she dared to think the alternative. What if it said: “I love you. I can't live without you. I'll leave the circus. There'll be no more shows.” What if it said that? After all these years of looking for a man who would love her, who would respect her for carrying the story of a man dreaming he was a butterfly into shabby nightclubs and bleak strip joints, had one really come along this late in her life?

“I'll just make a cup of tea before I read it,” she thought and turned on a burner on the hot plate. She poured water from a thermos into a small pan and waited, tea bag in cup, for the water to boil. The cup shook in her hand.

“Silly,” she thought. “You've coped all these years. Don't break now. It can only be the best news you've ever had, or the kind you've grown accustomed to. What've you got to lose?”

The water boiled and she filled her cup with it. She brought the letter over to the chair and, taking a deep breath, tore open the envelope.

“TO VIOLET LA FORGE. IT HAS COME TO OUR ATTENTION…”

Violet read the letter carefully, read each word as though such painstaking perusal would change them into words of love from Ed. She had never been one to cry, preferring quiet meditation instead.

But this time her eyes filled with tears. She read the last line a second time, “P.S. WE STILL HOPE GOD WILL FORGIVE YOU AND SAVE YOUR SOUL. PLEASE BE GONE BY THREE O'CLOCK TOMORROW.” Sarah had added the last line herself before taping the letter to Violet's door.

“What have I ever done to God?” Violet thought. “What have I ever done to these women?” And she crumpled the letter within her fist, the tears now coming so quickly that one rolled into another. She crawled beneath the quilt on her bed and clutched a pillow to her chest. How nice it would have been to have Ed there, to hear him lambaste those women, calling them hypocrites and liars, and telling her to ignore them, that they were only jealous.

It was late afternoon before Violet left her bed. After so many hours of tears, her eyes were swollen and she rinsed them with water from her thermos. She had spent the afternoon tearing apart each fragile lie that she had spun around herself like an ugly cobweb, growing larger each day, catching up only the undesirable, creeping, crawling things that life shoved laughingly at her. There had been the numerous club owners who took a romantic interest in her, promising her love as well as her overdue paycheck until the audience had learned all the secrets of her body and were no longer surprised when her breasts came bouncing out. Onto the street she would go, brokenhearted over another man's lies, and short of a month's pay. Another costly ticket paid to ride on the merry-go-round.

And there were faces in the crowd who pursued her with drinks and hints of a family life and security, who no longer watched her dance once they'd taken her upstairs to a room, rented for twenty-four hours, and spent thirty minutes with her. A room rented for twenty-four hours and used for thirty minutes had always seemed such a waste. After the man had gone, she would run a bath and soak for as long as she could, then crawl into bed and sleep the night through, alone, some man's smell still lingering between her thighs and among the sheets. She would use up as much of the twenty-four hours as she could. It had been another ticket bought, and it was another lonely ride.

In Room 3 of the Albert Pinkham Family Motel, Violet La Forge sobbed for hours before she admitted that she was not a modern dancer but a second-rate stripper. That at the age of forty-six the last shabby circus had dragged its tattered tents and aging animals through her town and had passed her by forever.