The Winter of Our Discontent (13 page)

By now there was a large pile of empty cartons on the floor. I carried them to the storeroom to be trimmed and kept. Lots of people carry supplies home in them and, as Marullo would say, “It saves bags, kid.”

There’s that “kid” again. I don’t mind it any more. I want him to call me “kid,” even to think of me as “kid.” While I was stacking the cartons, there came a battering on the front door. I looked at my big old silver railroad watch, and do you know for the first time in my life I had not opened on the moment of nine. Here it was plainly quarter after nine. All that discussion with the groceries had thrown me. Through the glass-and-iron screen of the door I could see it was Margie Young-Hunt. I had never really looked at her, had never inspected her. Maybe that’s why she did the fortune—just to make sure I knew she existed. I shouldn’t change too quickly.

I threw open the doors.

“Didn’t mean to rout you out.”

“But I’m late.”

“Are you?”

“Sure. It’s after nine.”

She sauntered in. Her behind stuck out nice and round and bounced slowly, one up and one down with each step. She was well enough stacked in front so she didn’t have to emphasize them. They were there. Margie is what Joey-boy would call a “dish,” and my own son Allen too, maybe. Perhaps I was seeing her for the first time. Her features regular, nose a little long, lips outlined fuller than they were, the lower particularly. Her hair dyed a rich chestnut brown that doesn’t occur in nature, but pretty. Her chin was fragile and deep-cut but there was plenty of muscle in the cheeks and very wide cheekbones. Margie’s eyes had had care. They were that hazel to blue to steel color that changes with the light. It was a durable face that had taken it and could take it, even violence, even punching. Her eyes flicked about, to me, to the groceries, and back to me. I imagined she was a very close observer and a good rememberer too.

“I hope you don’t have the same problem as yesterday.”

She laughed. “No—no. I don’t get a drummer every day. This time I really ran out of coffee.”

“Most people do.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the first ten people every morning ran out of coffee.”

“Is that true?”

“Sure. Say, I want to thank you for sending your drummer in.”

“It was his idea.”

“But you did it. What kind of coffee?”

“Doesn’t matter. I make lousy coffee no matter what kind I get.”

“Do you measure?”

“Sure, and it’s still lousy. Coffee just isn’t—I nearly said ‘my cup of tea.’ ”

“You did say it. Try this blend.” I picked a can from the shelf and as she reached to take it from me—just that little gesture— every part of her body moved, shifted, announced itself quietly. I’m here, the leg. Me, the thigh. Not better than me, the soft belly. Everything was new, newly seen. I caught my breath. Mary says a woman can put out signals or not, just as she wishes. And if that’s so, Margie had a communications system that ran from her pointed patent-leather toe to her curving soft chestnut hair.

“You seem to have got over your mullygrubs.”

“I had ’em bad yesterday. Don’t know where they come from.”

“Don’t I know! Sometimes with me not for the usual reason.”

“You did quite a job with that fortune.”

“Sore about it?”

“No. I’d just like to know how you did it.”

“You don’t believe in that stuff.”

“It’s not belief. You hit some things right on the nose. Things I’d been thinking and things I’ve been doing.”

“Like what?”

“Like it’s time for a change.”

“You think I rigged the cards, don’t you?”

“Doesn’t matter. If you did—what made you? Have you thought of that?”

She looked me full in the eyes, suspicious, probing, questioning. “Yeah!” she said softly. “I mean no, I never thought of that. If I rigged them, what made me? That would be like un-rigging the rig.”

Mr. Baker looked in the door. “Morning, Margie,” he said. “Ethan, have you given any thought to my suggestion?”

“I sure have. And I’d like to talk to you.”

“Any time at all, Ethan.”

“Well, I can’t get out during the week. You know, Marullo’s hardly ever here. Going to be home tomorrow?”

“After church, sure. That’s an idea. You bring Mary about four. While the ladies jaw about Easter hats, we’ll slip off and—”

“I’ve got a hundred things I want to ask. Guess I better write them down.”

“Anything I know, you’re welcome to. See you then. Morning, Margie.”

When he went out, Margie said, “You’re beginning fast.”

“Maybe just limbering up. Say—know what would be interesting? How about if you turned the cards blindfolded or something and see how close they come to yesterday.”

“No!” she said. “That wouldn’t work. You kidding me, or do you really go for it?”

“Way I look at it, it doesn’t matter about believing. I don’t believe in extrasensory perception, or lightning or the hydrogen bomb, or even violets or schools of fish—but I know they exist. I don’t believe in ghosts but I’ve seen them.”

“Now you’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

“You don’t seem like the same man.”

“I’m not. Maybe nobody is, for long.”

“What caused it, Eth?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m sick of being a grocery clerk.”

“It’s about time.”

“Do you really like Mary?”

“Sure I do. Why would you ask that?”

“You just don’t seem to be the same kind of—well, you’re so different from her.”

“I see what you mean. But I do like her. I love her.”

“So do I.”

“Lucky.”

“I know I am.”

“I meant her. Well, I’ll go make my lousy coffee. I’ll think about that card deal.”

“Sooner the better, before it cools.”

She tapped out, her neat buttocks jumping like live rubber. I had never seen her before. I wonder how many people I’ve looked at all my life and never seen. It’s scary to think about. Point of reference again. When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you’ve got two new people. Maybe that means— hell, it’s complicated. I agreed with myself to think about such things at night when I couldn’t sleep. Forgetting to open on time scared me. That’s like dropping your handkerchief at the scene of the murder, or your glasses like those what-you-callems in Chicago. What does that mean? What crime? What murder?

At noon I made four sandwiches, cheese and ham, with lettuce and mayonnaise. Ham and cheese, ham and cheese—when a man marries, he lives in the trees. I took two of the sandwiches and a bottle of Coke to the back door of the bank and handed them in to Joey-boy. “Find the mistake?”

“Not yet. You know, I’m so close to it, I’m blind.”

“Why not lay off till Monday?”

“Can’t. Banks are a screwy lot.”

“Sometimes if you don’t think about something, it comes to you.”

“I know. Thanks for the sandwiches.” He looked inside to make sure there was lettuce and mayonnaise.

Saturday afternoon before Easter in the grocery business is what my august and illiterate son would call “for the birds.” But two things did happen that proved to me at least that some deep-down underwater change was going on in me. I mean that yesterday, or any yesterday before that, I wouldn’t have done what I did. It’s like looking at wallpaper samples. I guess I had unrolled a new pattern.

The first thing was Marullo coming in. His arthritis was hurting him pretty bad. He kept flexing his arms like a weight-lifter.

“How it goes?”

“Slow, Alfio.” I had never called him by his first name before.

“Nobody in town—”

“I like it better when you call me ‘kid.’ ”

“I thought you don’t like it.”

“I find I do, Alfio.”

“Everybody gone away.” His shoulders must have been burning as though there were hot sand in the joints.

“How long ago did you come from Sicily?”

“Forty-seven years. Long time.”

“Ever been back?”

“No.”

“Why don’t you go on a visit?”

“What for? Everything changed.”

“Don’t you get curious about it?”

“Not much.”

“Any relatives alive?”

“Sure, my brother and his kids and they got kids.”

“I’d think you’d want to see them.”

He looked at me, I guess, as I’d looked at Margie, saw me for the first time.

“What you got on your mind, kid?”

“Hurts me to see your arthritis. I thought how it’s warm in Sicily. Might knock the pain out.”

He looked at me suspiciously. “What’s with you?”

“How do you mean?”

“You look different.”

“Oh! I got a little bit of good news.”

“Not going to quit?”

“Not right away. If you wanted to make a trip to Italy, I could promise I’d be here.”

“What’s good news?”

“Can’t tell you yet. It’s like this. . . .” I balanced my palm back and forth.

“Money?”

“Could be. Look, you’re rich enough. Why don’t you go back to Sicily and show ’em what a rich American looks like? Soak up some sun. I can take care of the store. You know that.”

“You ain’t quitting?”

“Hell, no. You know me well enough to know I wouldn’t run out on you.”

“You changed, kid. Why?”

“I told you. Go bounce the bambinos.”

“I don’t belong there,” he said, but I knew I’d planted something—really something. And I knew he’d come in late that night and go over the books. He’s a suspicious bastard.

He’d hardly left when—well, it was like yesterday—the B. B. D. and D. drummer came in.

“Not on business,” he said. “I’m staying the weekend out at Montauk. Thought I’d drop in.”

“I’m glad you did,” I said. “I want to give you this.” I held out the billfold with the twenty sticking out.

“Hell, that’s good will. I told you I’m not on business.”

“Take it!”

“What you getting at?”

“It constitutes a contract where I come from.”

“What’s the matter, you sore?”

“Certainly not.”

“Then why?”

“Take it! The bids aren’t all in.”

“Jesus—did Waylands make a better offer?”

“No.”

“Who, then—them damn discount houses?”

I pushed the twenty-dollar bill into his breast pocket behind his peaked handkerchief. “I’ll keep the billfold,” I said. “It’s nice.”

“Look I can’t make an offer without I talk to the head office. Don’t close till maybe Tuesday. I’ll telephone you. If I say it’s Hugh, you’ll know who it is.”

“It’s your money in the pay phone.”

“Well, hold it open, will you?”

“It’s open,” I said. “Doing any fishing?”

“Only for dames. I tried to take that dish Margie out there. She wouldn’t go. Damn near snapped my head off. I don’t get dames.”

“They’re curiouser and curiouser.”

“You can say that again,” he said, and I haven’t heard that expression in fifteen years. He looked worried. “Don’t do anything till you hear from me,” he said. “Jesus, I thought I was conning a country boy.”

“I will not sell my master short.”

“Nuts. You just raised the ante.”

“I just refused a bribe if you feel the urge to talk about it.”

I guess that proves I was different. The guy began to look at me with respect and I liked it. I loved it. The bugger thought I was like him, only better at it.

Just before I was ready to close up Mary telephoned. “Ethan,” she said, “now don’t get mad—”

“At what, flower feet?”

“Well, she’s so lonely and I thought—well, I asked Margie to dinner.”

“Why not?”

“You’re not mad?”

“Hell, no.”

“Don’t swear. Tomorrow’s Easter.”

“That reminds me, press your prettiest. We’re going to Baker’s at four o’clock.”

“At their house?”

“Yes, for tea.”

“I’ll have to wear my Easter church outfit.”

“Good stuff, fern tip.”

“You’re not mad about Margie?”

“I love you,” I said. And I do. I really do. And I remember thinking what a hell of a man a man could become.

CHAPTER FIVE

When I walked up Elm Street and turned in at the walk of buried ballast stones, I stopped and looked at the old place. It felt different. It felt mine. Not Mary’s, not Father’s, not old Cap’n’s, but mine. I could sell it or burn it or keep it.

I’d taken only two of the back steps when the screen door whapped open and Allen boiled out yelling, “Where’s the Peeks? Didn’t you bring me the Peeks?”

“No,” I said. And, wonder layered with wonders, he didn’t scream his pain and loss. He didn’t appeal to his mother to agree that I had promised.

He said, “Oh!” and went quietly away.

“Good evening,” I said to his retreating back and he stopped and said, “Good evening,” as though it were a foreign word he’d just learned.

Mary came into the kitchen. “You’ve had a haircut,” she said. She identifies any strangeness in me as a fever or a haircut.

“No, pin curl, I have not.”

“Well, I’ve been going like spit to get the house ready.”

“Ready?”

“I told you, Margie’s coming for dinner.”

“I know, but why all the festive hurly-burly?”

“We haven’t had a dinner guest in ages.”

“That’s true. That’s really true.”

“Are you going to put on your dark suit?”

“No, Old Dobbin, my decent gray.”

“Why not the dark?”

“Don’t want to spoil the press for church tomorrow.”

“I can press it tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll wear Old Dobbin, as sweet a suit as you’ll find in the county.”

“Children,” she called, “don’t you touch anything! I’ve put out the nut dishes. You don’t want to wear the dark?”