The Wintering (34 page)

“He's getting to have a name. That's good. He's our age, too.”

“He's got lousy liquor.” Tony thrust his glass up and stared at the bottom, as if hopeful of finding something like sediment. “Let's get out of here,” he said.

“But shouldn't we talk to
somebody
?” Amy said. “I feel dumb, leaving. I feel it's my fault now if I can't talk to people. We can't say they're all stupid.”

“Hell, they are,” he said, starting her toward the door.

“I think we ought to stay,” she said worriedly.

“Then stay,” he said, heading for the door. Reaching out as if for his coattail, Amy followed. Picking up her purse, from among many left on a side table, she saw her face in a mirror and looked away. No one noticed their leaving. It had seemed a nice party, she thought. She went out automatically when Tony opened the door. She might have joined a group by going up and saying something first. Anything would have done, as an opener. Too often, she waited for people to make overtures to her. As the door closed and set them into abrupt silence, she thought that waiting was why her life might seem to consist so much of nothing happening. She settled, with simplification, on the thought that she must learn to start conversations.

Though he used all his coaxing methods, tried pressing her again ardently against a building, himself onto her, Amy remained firm about not going home with Tony. He was angry, but surprisingly, for him, that mood disappeared. The next moment, he was all smiles and nuzzling. She thought, dumbfounded at not having had an argument, that perhaps Tony also wanted to change. They might be growing up, she thought, a little sadly over wasted time. And it must be true, for he was spending money. At an open stand, Tony insisted on buying two slices of pizza and presented her with one. The mixture began to slither off the crust, melting cheese and tomatoes and anchovies deliciously running into her hand. They were laughing and ate rapidly, despite the hotness. To walk along the street, laughing and eating, gave Amy one of her unexpected and fragmentary moments of happiness and well-being, which she and Jeff had discussed. Thinking that, the call to him bore down on her conscience again.

Above them at her steps, the landlord's window let out light in a thin stream, as she and Tony stood, kissing. She liked even the taste of pizza lingering on Tony's breath, its warmth. He apologized, in a whisper, for his behaviour the time they tried peyote. That didn't matter any more, Amy said, forgiving happily.

He said, “Your knowing Almoner, in fact, gave me an idea. I'm going to make a play out of
Reconstruction
. Would you show him the script?”

He leaned so close that Amy had to lean backward to see him. Then in the inadequate light his face had its pointed look, like a fox's. Despite his closeness, Amy spoke stronger than her normal voice.

“Have you finished it?”

“God, no.” He lifted meager shoulders. “I haven't even started it. I wanted to know first if you'd show it to Almoner. I don't want to do all that work for nothing.”

“I don't know him that well.”

“I thought you knew him pretty well,” he said grumpily.

Amy's foot sought a step behind her. Rising, she teetered but kept herself carefully from Tony's reach. “No,” she said firmly, “I don't.”

Even in the dim fake moonlight streaming from the landlord's window, she saw dismay on Tony's face. Having taken a step backward he stood below her like a waif; his arms thrown out were beseeching and scrawny. “I see. Well, see you, Amy.” His hands went into saggy empty pockets as he turned away. Impulsively, she thought of asking if he wanted back the quarter for the pizza. But he looked meek disappearing. She was sorry again for the times she had begrudged lending him money. Standing at the avenue, looking both ways, he seemed about to look back. Amy automatically lifted a hand to wave. He rounded the corner. Her hand dropped against her thigh, as if, all along, she had intended to strike herself.

Never will I know what she's doing walking uptown, but my feets ain't going to make it. Jessie said, “Miss Inga, ain't you tired?”

She would find strength in her body to make it if it were the last thing she ever did, and Inga said, “No. I'm not tired.” She pulled nervously tighter the drawstrings of a crocheted handbag, already as tight as they need be. Having bought it from Mrs. Decker, Amelia had said, “It's the new shade for fall,” meaning it as incentive for Inga to get up. Then she had rolled her eyes toward Amelia asking, For what? Jeff was gone.

These sidewalks once had been wooden planks set above the road. They had walked them fearful of wasps' nests beneath. No longer now around the station ahead were there any vacant lots. Still it was a lounging place for men, some now leaning against dusty car fenders. A car slowed. Its driver stuck out a ruddy face and said, “Give you a ride?” Turning on him a bright smile, Inga shook her head, despite Jessie's eagerness. When he drove on, she apologized. “I'm sorry, Jessie. I just had to make this walk again. I made it so easily when I was young.”

Well, she sho was foolish if she was going to try to act young again, Jessie thought. She had to undo the drawstring Inga had tangled. Stopping beneath a sycamore, Inga fumbled with the purse. The mirror she took out flashed in half-realized gleams along the shady sidewalk. Inga saw it had been a mistake to order over the phone. When the girl at Chester's had read off “Light Suntan,” she had asked if that wouldn't give her a healthy look. Then the girl had answered, “Yes, mam, it says on the label a healthy glow.” But the make-up was caked in creases along her face. Would nothing work out right as hard as she tried? Inga wondered. The Vaseline touched to her eyelids, instead of giving her eyes a shiny look, made her look as if she had been crying.

“Who was that man?” Inga said.

“Mister Vida, runs the bait shop out on the highway. I thought sho you knowed him, you looked so friendly.”

“I get confused about who I know and who I don't,” Inga said. “But wasn't it nice he stopped?”

“Anybody round here see anybody out walking in this heat going to stop,” Jessie said. “Miss Amelia would have carried us uptown.”

“I hate to ask her with Latham at home. Queer to me why he wants to change around that old cabin out back.”

Menfolks was queer. Never any telling what they would do. Looked like she'd know it by now. Jessie lagged passing the movie. Inga said, almost excitedly, “Cary Grant. I'd like to come to that tonight.”

“No'm, don't come tonight. You be's tired to-night. Stay home.” Jessie then nodded her head, barely saying “How do” to a Negro man sweeping the sidewalk, who in return barely spoke. They looked away from one another quickly.

Counting the man in the car as one, the man coming along now, lifting his hat, was two. He was looking, wasn't he? “How do,” Inga said. She could sound like them, every one, if she wanted and wondered whether white people here had ever realized how much they talked like the Negroes. In other days, men had looked at her first. “Jessie, whatever happened to that great big market basket I used to have?”

Going down one side of the station and now heading for the other. My feets giving out. Jessie wondered, What was she shopping for? She said, “Honey, that basket done been gone, wore out with age.”

In his little garden, still full of cinders after all these years, the stationmaster stood up and said, “Afternoon, Mrs. Almoner.” Seeing her come toward him, he had thought she had something to say. She only stared, a wet look to her eyelids, while the Negro woman with her sat down and eased off her shoes. “I was pinching my mums,” he said. When she only repeated, “Mums,” he realized Mrs. Almoner had nothing on her mind, after all. He suggested a tour of the garden.

Inga found herself walking between flowery rows. The old man, whose hand was shakier than hers, guided her along the cinder-block path. It would be better, Inga thought, if she were helping him. She wanted to laugh despite everything. Afterward, waving to Jessie, and signifying her eventual return, she went on past an empty-looking feed store and to the post office. Outside there, a little boy lifted his puppy to drink from the bronze fountain. Thinking how listlessly the flag hung in the hazy autumn, only at the last instant did Inga think to count, “Three,” when the man coming down the post office steps lifted his hat. When he had gone on, looking a little miffed, for she had barely spoken in return, she recognized that girl's uncle. He always wore the same perforated shoes. Inga made up for that lack by speaking over cordially to a Negro on his knees, polishing the post office's brass spittoon.

When she came in, the mail clerk slapped down the Delton paper. “'Fraid you didn't catch another thing today,” he said.

She said, feeling foolish, “No news is good news.” She tried to smile. As she turned away, he called, “Heard Mr. Almoner had left town. He didn't leave instructions about his box. You want the mail, if any comes, for March Walsh?”

It rang a bell, like a tinkle, as removed in memory as the long-ago bell that had sent her trudging up a hill to school.

Inga shook her head, wanting no letters for any (whoever he was) March Walsh. It probably wasn't really amazing that people lived together almost a lifetime without ever knowing one another. Inga went down the steps again as delicately as a dancer, her toes in yellow shoes carefully pointed. Crossing back to the shade beneath oaks, she said, “Jessie, it's taken more out of me than I realized. I think we'll have to take the taxi home.”

Praise the Lord; Jessie said, “I just seed Vern. He can carry us.” Catching sight of the old green car meandering past the Negro stores, she yelled, “Boy, come on over here!” He came only after turning his head and staring a long moment, then his green fenders shimmied, the car stopping, a drum's rhythm in time to the motor's overly apparent running. Stretching an arm along the seat, Vern watched Jessie open the back door, watched Inga get in. Her smile was so quick it seemed gone before it got there and her eyes were like blind people's eyes. Don't see me, he said to himself, his hand roving airward toward the steering wheel, without causing her to glance his way. “Be careful, you going to knock somebody in the head,” Jessie said. “How come you ain't working?”

“Ground's too wet,” Vern said. In the rearview mirror, he saw Mrs. Almoner reading the paper, not caring who driving her long as somebody was. “Whoa, boy! Slow down,” Jessie warned. The car bumped a curb going around a corner. “What time the show start tonight?” Jessie said.

“Seven,” Vern said.

Only when they passed the movie did Inga look up to say, “Cary Grant. I'd like to come.”

Who going to keep her from it? Vern wondered. Come on and come, he thought, I'll sit next to you. Driving on as fast as possible, he saw her slide to a corner and hang on to a strap as if for her life. “Going to let you out before the gap,” he said. “I got meetin' to go to.”

“Us done walked uptown, guess us can walk from the gap to the house,” Jessie said, beginning to climb out. Inga, already out and waiting, said, “Jessie, I'm going to clean up Jeff's study.”

Jessie sat a moment, catching her breath. “Ain't supposed to go in there when he ain't home,” she said. “Us don't need to do nothing this evening, but rest.”

“That's a good time to get it done when he's not here.”

'Zactly why she's doing it, too, cause he ain't. Looking for something. “Umm-umm,” Jessie said, and heaving herself to the ground stood with Inga beside the panting car. Closing both doors, Inga said, “Thank you for the ride.”

Looking like she's dead, Vern thought; has to look at me now. “Got through with your paper?” he said.

Reaching back through the window to take it, Inga said, “Oh, I didn't know I had one.”

It might have been her own baby, if she'd had one, who had written these sad lonely letters, Inga thought. They struck more than one void in her heart. So young as Amy, she did not believe she had been as full of urgent grief and asking. (I'm unhappy. I don't think the feeling is ever going away. It's not the feeling sorry for one's self kind of unhappiness. You told me to do away with that. I've tried. It's dissatisfaction and unrest, wanting something and not knowing what. An ever-present lump of deep-down sadness never goes away, except briefly. I must have been born with it inside me. I wish someone—not you who've had enough—but someone could have it for me. I'd sail along without thinking. Yet I do want the capacity for sadness, even if I don't see the reason or purpose for it. I hope I will, as you think. I only don't want sadness that's of no purpose, except unhappiness. It's raining. I don't want eternal sunshine.) The letters, read often, opened easily onto Inga's lap. Careful of their creases, she read at random. Tender as first green shoots, Amy must be protected. (Probably, I'll always have to be pushed.) Jeff would be the right one to help her, Inga thought.

Having despaired over getting her to unlock the door and come to supper, Jessie had gone to bed. Her feet in echo again ascended the stairs. The iron headboard of her bed thumped the wall, bedsprings protested, and she got in. Inga, soothing letters, thought wearily of sleep, herself. Everyone must have the same sense of relief about stretching out at night, glad that a day had been gotten through. (I want to live every day as if it were a whole new lifetime, a whole new world! I want every day to run the gamut of emotions, to feel everything anew—suffering, unhappiness, trouble, sorrow and laughter. In the streets I want to see those things reflected in the faces of people, imagine and think about each person's story; keep conscious all the time of the things going on inside people.) Inga lifted her face, as again the headboard thumped the wall, and again the bedsprings tried resisting Jessie's restlessness. She saw the letters without seeing them, tears in her eyes. She saw underneath all their various surfaces people suffered the same. Before, she had not had much curiosity about people, their lives, and what they anguished over or dreamed of. To suddenly think people anguished the same anguishments, only separately, made her want to put back her head and bawl like a calf. She might have, except that only night, hushing an instant, would hear.