The Republic of Love (21 page)

She would boil an egg. And make some toast. And a pot of tea. An odd meal for a hot night, but less pitiable than chopping watery vegetables for a scrabby little salad she would consume in four minutes.

Boiling her egg reminded Fay of the story of the mermaid who was captured by Manx fishermen early in the eighteenth century. This creature, according to legend, had been held in a house for several days before being returned to the sea, and her only comment was that humans were so ignorant they threw away the water in which they boiled eggs. A ridiculous story. Pointless. Why was she thinking about it now?

Well, she had to think about something, didn’t she?

Her “ideas,” her “attitudes.” They roused her deepest suspicion. Yesterday she used the word “paradigm” twice in a single conversation, and her tongue had stumbled along, unsuccessfully, in an effort to retrieve it.

She arranged the table. Forcing herself. A place mat, an egg cup, a spoon and knife, a small plate, salt and pepper. A paper napkin? Did people eating alone bother with paper napkins? She handled these objects roughly and gritted her teeth with boredom. She supposed tea really could be made of egg water, but wouldn’t it taste of eggshell? Perhaps the water contained calcium. She would have to ask someone; someone would know, but who? And why bother with puzzles as pointless as this, as trivial.

She admitted it: her curiosity was at a low ebb. A dangerous sign for someone fueled by the need to know things.

She ate quickly. Cut, chew, sip. A phrase frolicked on her tongue: old-maid’s fare.

Stop it.

How did she end up at loose ends like this? She supposed if she sat here long enough the mysteries of self-knowledge would be revealed to her.

What did other women do on their own? They ate out of saucepans or straight out of cans. Yes, they did. They chugged wine straight from the bottle, stuck their finger into the yogurt
carton and licked it off. There might be some pleasure in this kind of private vulgarity, giving vent to it, getting away with it.

What, she wondered, was the recently widowed Muriel Brewmaster doing at this precise moment? Knitting, probably. She was always knitting. Sitting in her green-and-white living room, that round posy face of hers, with her needles going. A silent room. Click, click, click. Maybe she should phone Muriel Brewmaster. They might, for the first time in their lives, have things to say to each other.

At one time she felt she understood other people’s lives, but now she doesn’t.

If only Onion weren’t tied to Strom’s hospital bed. Onion knew how to pump courage into her. Onion would squint into the hollow of her loneliness and judge her as roughly as she deserved to be judged.

She could do some ironing. Her blouses, her summer skirts. She could even get an early start on her packing.

No, that was idiotic. No one packed a whole week before going away, not unless they were insanely compulsive.

Nothing, nothing on TV. She might telephone someone. Or what about curling up with a good novel. One of the nineteenth-century novels she loved: predicament, resolution, a happy ending, always a happy ending.

Why not? She recalled how it used to irritate her when Peter interrupted her in the middle of reading. Well, there would be no interruptions tonight. It was only seven o’clock. If she went to bed at eleven, that would leave her four hours.

Four hours!

She would open a bottle of wine.

No. This wasn’t the sort of situation that floated. Well, what sort of situation is it, Ms. McLeod?

It was starting again, the tears that sprang from nowhere, the impulse to jar the room with a whimper of pain. She would have to get hold of herself. What if she became one of those people who talked to themselves or made up lists of pathetic tasks, dusting
their suitcases, waxing their window sills, striking out alone for desperate walks?

There goes Fay McLeod. Such a sprightly stride on that woman. Such dignity. What a shame she never –

She knew what she wanted. She wanted to let the tears come, to let herself slide under the dangerous edge, giving way for once.

No, she said, trying for an astringent tone. Open a book this minute and start reading. Don’t move until you’ve reached page fifty. Until you’ve buried your thoughts in print. Cover yourself with words. Wash yourself away. Dissolve.

T
WENTY-FOUR HOURS
later Fay was sitting on a lawn chair in her brother Clyde’s back yard, saying, “I hereby call this meeting to order.”

She and Clyde and Sonya and Bibbi had gathered for a final session of planning for their parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary celebration. The party was to take place at Clyde and Sonya’s house on the first Thursday in October, a month after Fay got back from Europe. Most of the details had been worked out weeks earlier, the menu planned, a few of the dishes divided among them and the rest ordered from a caterer. Bibbi was making the invitations and in a few weeks would mail them to a hundred old family friends. Fay had organized a program, arranged for music and speeches, for the presentation of gifts. There were only a few items to discuss tonight, and Fay, relishing her big-sister role, presided. She held a pen in her hand and a list on her lap. Who would pick up the wineglasses from the caterer? Also, who was going to keep track of the RSVPs? Should they have a punch bowl or not? What about flowers?

The four of them were drinking mugs of decaffeinated tea; this was the sort of abstemious household that lightly mocked its own austerity. Clyde refilled the cups and at the same time argued the merits of renting a tent – for some reason his stutter was particularly pronounced tonight. No matter how much furniture he and Sonya carried down to the basement, he said, it was still going
to be crowded. A tent in the back garden would hold a hundred easily. Hmmm, Fay said, a tent might be cold. Bibbi was worried about the cost.

“We don’t need a tent,” Sonya said firmly. “You remember, Clyde, how we squeezed more than a hundred in for that open house we had last Christmas. People like to be crowded. Besides, tents feel too
obviously
festive.”

Fay agreed. “It’s probably folksier to huddle,” she said, going back to her list. “Now, who did we decide was going to make the fruit trifle?”

“Me,” Bibbi said.

“Do we really have to have fruit trifle?” Clyde asked. He hated shapeless food.

“Yes,” said Sonya and Fay together.

Sonya leaned back in her chair, knitting steadily, a sweater for one of the boys. Her love of domesticity shamed her at times, and earlier tonight, talking about her plans for improving the garden, she had waved an arm and referred to the yard disparagingly as a curtilage, giving it its ancient legal term, making light of the ground she cherished.

Now she brought up the subject of whether or not the party should be a surprise. Some people, she said, resented being taken by surprise. A surprise can be an act of aggression. A surprise singles out the guests of honor, makes them strangers at their own celebration.

She’d raised all these arguments before.

For a minute no one said anything. The growl of a lawn mower reached them from some distant point in the neighborhood. Crickets sang. Fay and Clyde and Bibbi exchanged glances.

Sonya came from a large quarreling angry family. She was used to heading off trouble.

“I think the folks can survive a surprise,” Clyde said quietly.

“They’ll love it,” Bibbi said.

Fay, who was sleepy, yawned and said, “If people can survive forty years of marriage, they can probably survive anything.”

“Okay, okay,” Sonya said. She threw up her hands. “I surrender.”

“You look tired, Fay,” Clyde said.

“Don’t tell a woman she looks tired,” Sonya scolded. “No one wants to hear that.”

“Well, it’s true,” Fay said. “I was up till two last night reading.”

“Something good?”

She looked at their faces, the three of them, and saw with surprise that they really were waiting for an answer. “Not very,” she said at last. “Just something to pass the time.”

F
AY’S BEEN SEEING
Robin Cummerford for several weeks now.

Or, as her mother would say, and, in fact,
has
said, Fay’s been “dating” Robin Cummerford for several weeks.

Fay’s grandmothers, maternal and paternal, who died before she was born, might have said that she was “walking out” with Robin Cummerford, extracting from that scented phrase several overlapping images of nature, of delicacy, of a determinism dappled with sunlight and forthrightness.

And her grandfathers, one a judge, the other the founder of McLeod’s Dry Cleaning Establishment – and, like the grandmothers, long dead, too long dead to offer comment – might view the situation from a male perspective and say that Robin Cummerford was courting Fay McLeod.

“But are you fucking him?” Iris Jaffe wanted to know when she phoned Fay at her office on Thursday morning.

Fay and Iris have been friends for thirty years, and part of their code of friendship demands that Iris make shocking statements and that Fay feign shock. “Iris!” she said, or rather exclaimed.

“Well, are you or are you not?”

“Not.”

“For heaven’s sake, why not?”

“I’ve only know him for a few – ” She stopped herself. How many weeks had it been? She’d lost track.

“Christ, he’s not gay?”

“No. At least, I don’t think so.”

“Impotent? That’s all you need at your time of life, a man who can’t – ”

“My time of life!” Fay laid on an extra decibel of dramatic shock. “And what exactly do you mean by that phrase, ‘my time of life’?”

“So what’s the matter with him, then, your Cummerford guy?”

“Well – ”

“Well?”

“What can I say?”

“Exactly! What can you say.”

“He’s rather … formal. Quite formal.”

“How old did you say this guy was?”

“I haven’t asked him, but – ”

“You must know.”

“Well, from what I can piece together, from the information he’s dropped, when he graduated and so on – ”

“Yes? Out with it.”

“Thirty-two.”

“So! Not a babe in the woods.”

“No.”

“And he hasn’t been married before?”

“He certainly hasn’t said anything about… no, I don’t think so.”

“So where’s he taking you tonight?”

“We’re driving out to Birds Hill. The Folk Festival.”

“Good, good.”

“You do approve, then?” Fay put on her mock-formal tone.

“Partly. Measured approval, anyway. There’s one thing that rings funny bells, though. Why is it you only see this man on Thursdays?”

Fay paused. “I’m not sure exactly. We’ve sort of, I don’t know, fallen into this Thursday thing.”

“Hmmm.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Isn’t it faintly sinister and werewolfish? The Thursday-night man?”

“I wouldn’t say sinister, exactly.”

“A little overprogrammed?”

“Maybe. Look, Iris, I’ve got to go. We have a staff meeting in two minutes.”

“What about kissing?”

“What?”

“Have you at least brushed your tender lips against his rough manly lips?”

“This is getting silly.”

“Well, have you?”

“No.”

“You’ve got to get rid of this man.”

“You might be right,” Fay said, then added with more despair than she felt, “but who else is there?”

T
OM
A
VERY HAS JUST BEEN STUNG BY A WASP
. S
OMETHING, ANYWAY
, with wings and proboscis that landed on the back of his hand while he leaned on his bathroom-window sill, breathing in the shining powdery morning air and gazing at the condominium across the street, an immense old mansion renovated two or three years ago and jumped up with skylights, stained glass, and slashes of bright hardware on its heavy, rather forbidding oak door. Only occasionally has Tom ever seen anyone coming or going through that door, and he supposes there must be another entrance at the back, next to the parking lot. He can’t actually see the parking lot from his window, but he imagines it to be filled with glossy little Japanese models in bright assertive colors.

He stares at his hand, which in less than one minute has puffed up to nearly twice its usual size, a reddened, meaty paw. The pain strengthens, and seems to sing at the edge of his dissolving surprise. He strokes the swelling flesh reproachfully. Forty years old and this is the first time he’s been stung.

He’s read about people who’ve died of insect stings, and for all he knows he’s one of those afflicted with the deadly allergy. He should drop everything and race over to the drop-in clinic on Osborne Street. Fortuitous. (He imagines himself telling friends at some later date how
fortuitous
it was that this clinic should have been so close at hand.) The waiting room would be full, but he could explode into that circle of arthritic ladies and pregnant women, holding up his arm and shouting, “This is an emergency!”

He feels a bubble of compacted air in his chest. His hand, this stiff red appurtenance which seems no longer a part of his body, demands that he keep his eyes on it, that he blink several times in an attempt to squeeze it into focus. Down below him on the street a young woman rides by on a bicycle. She wears red shorts and a white T-shirt. The harsh light that fills the street is softened by her bare arms, which are fetchingly free, and around her head is tied a printed scarf, knotted there, he supposes, to keep her hair from flying around her eyes. He could love a woman like that. She rides along so primly, with her back so straight and neat. Should he call down to her, ask her for help? Her legs are pale, girlish. Does he have the right to offend her with his ugly swollen flesh?

He might pound on the floor and rouse the old man who lives downstairs, a Mr. Duff, retired, a widower who rarely goes out till evening, and then only as far as the Quick-Shake for an ice-cream cone. Once, on the landing, Tom had had a brief conversation with him about fishing in the Lake of the Woods, about Mr. Duff’s late wife, who suffered from hypertension, and about their son, who has moved to Los Angeles to work in the plastics industry. Mr. Duff might be immensely flattered to be asked to play a role in a medical emergency. How do we know who our rescuers will be, or when we ourselves will be called upon? Tom puts this question to himself, finding it more speculative and interesting than the issue of hypochondria, a shameful condition boiled out of ego and abetted by loneliness. But am I really lonely? he demands of the chipped paint work on the window frame.