Perhaps they didn’t have the slightest idea of what they were saying or what Marty was talking about.
Polly was there, but her mother was absent. He should have been pleased, and yet he had been prepared for the two of them. It was all rehearsed.
He wasn’t prepared for this.
As the congregation straggled out into the morning mist, with patches of alternating sun and cloud on the distant hilltops, he stood there blinking for a moment, off to one side so as not to be in the way.
Surely there must be at least one man on the planet who was lonelier than Hank, but if so he’d never heard of the fellow.
It didn’t look good. Perhaps some other time. She hadn’t even looked at him. Polly had gotten there and took her customary pew long ahead of Hank, whose mount was cantankerous, unusually so for the critter was usually gentle as pie when ridden.
Admittedly, the critter hadn’t been ridden in some time and that may have accounted for its skittishness and reluctance to go where pointed. It was the best looking one of the bunch and he rode them all in a kind of rotation, otherwise they got spoiled for lack of work.
Critters was a lot different from horses, that was for sure.
He was just turning to go around and find the animal, most likely it would be scrounging in the field out back, when Polly cleared her throat and diffidently addressed him.
“Hello, Mister Beveridge.”
“Oh. Hello, Polly.” Swiftly taking off his hat, he bowed to her, a little stiffly to be sure. “And how is your mother. I hope she isn’t ailing?”
“She was a mite poorly this morning, but I hope she will be well by now.” She had an empty basket in her hands, by which he surmised it must have been her flowers on the side-alter behind the votive candles.
As he recalled, people took turns at it.
The local faith was a curious mix of previously-irreconcilable denominations, Protestant, Catholic, with an admixture of Jewish, Zen and Moslem tenets and sayings thrown in for good measure. Marty was all-inclusive.
“And yourself?” Hank thought he was doing well so far.
“I’m fine, and looking forward to the summer.” Her gaze traveled over the clusters of parishioners, with Marty moving among them and seemingly reluctant to acknowledge old Hank this time. “It has to get here sooner or later.”
“I agree with that.” He wondered if Marty would latch onto him again, but no, he was moving through another bunch.
Marty had enough sensitivity to understand that Hank might easily be scared off and stay away for good, and a good man was nothing without religion. A good man was nothing without a wife either. Marty knew a lot, in Hank’s opinion.
Hank had been meaning to speak to the Morgensens, and Polly, and here she was coming to him. In the immediate vicinity of the pair of them, he was aware of no young men, no wannabes hanging in the wings so to speak, and it occurred to Hank that he might have a chance if only he had the courage to act.
Young males were notoriously difficult to entice into the place, under almost any circumstances. Hank had been tempted to suggest liquor instead of wine, especially at nuptials and christenings, funerals and the like, but was sure glad now that he hadn’t. They had a suggestion box, perpetually empty, just inside the door.
But they were missing a pretty good bet, as most of the fairer maidens of the village were in attendance by his reckoning.
She was at least worthy of the possible embarrassment, while some of the older biddies did indeed represent a fate worse than death. What people thought was the right age for him was of little interest to Hank and often outlandish in its vision.
“I was wondering if you might like to come around for brunch.” Her eyes were on him, warm and mysterious.
“Oh, aye, argh…” Hank choked up, perhaps a bit of saliva had gone down the lung-hole, and it took a minute to get it out. “Of course, Miss Polly, I would be delighted.”
He gulped and sucked in air.
“It’s nothing fancy, but there’s always plenty and it’ll save washing up.”
“Perhaps you and I might go riding one of these days.” When she was knee-high to a grasshopper, he had promised her that once.
They sat on her mother’s porch one day as Missus Morgensen fed them cookies and milk. What a strange and horrible thought.
He supposed he’d always been kind of in love with her, but Fate was always an uncertain thing. He’d read that somewhere.
“Will you come over?”
She’d always loved old Pal, short for Palomino, unusually marked as far as the local critters went, with big splotches of black and white all over him. Pal was long gone now, though.
“Why sure!” It came out a little too fast.
She smiled and it was a beautiful thing to see, if only it didn’t take a man’s breath away and leave him giddy. “I’ve always wanted to see your place.”
She had never been there, and had heard so much about it. Hank was one of the richest men around these here parts, and with no wife and no kids, it was said he was a lonely man. But everyone saw him as a very nice man, and it just seemed so sad.
Anything she could do to help him would be a good thing.
Ducking his head, wringing his hat-brim and stammering in amiable confusion, Hank agreed to come around in about an hour and take his midday meal with them.
“…and if mother is still feeling poorly, it will do her no end of good for a talk and a visit with you.”
Hank couldn’t argue with that as it wouldn’t be polite and it fit in well enough with his own puerile fantasy.
There were some kind of what do you call them, butterflies, walking around on his balls, but he had resolved that he had nothing to lose except a little face if things went wrong. It would have to suffice. He would ask someone about it later, if it felt right and everything.
A man never knew until he asked.
Third World had its own savage beauties, but the thought of butterflies and the home world he would never see again also had some romantic associations. They had been introduced, but the place was just too damp and the winters too long, and so they had never acclimated to the environment.
Butterflies, and moths. He missed them when he thought about it, which wasn’t often.
With a curtsy and a nod, she turned to go, just as tongue-tied as Hank all of a sudden, and there was much food for thought there. A girl her age must have been putting some thought into marriage. It only stood to reason, bearing in mind the mystery that was woman, at least in Hank’s limited experience, not much of it of the worldly kind.
The racing of his heart and the cold shot of gut-juice in his midriff did nothing to bring peace to his mind or placidity to his soul.
Further thoughts in his primitive fore-brain could be safely ruled out for the time being as this was neither the time nor the place for lechery or lewdness. Mental pictures could drive a man mad and that served nothing and no one well.
That’s not to say he didn’t have them, only that they were unwelcome.
She went down the road with another young woman about the same age, one who gave an impression of softness of countenance and big, doe-like eyes when she took a quick and startled glance back over her shoulder. He wondered what they were saying about him and all of this.
It wasn’t a pleasant thought.
The other one’s name was Mattie, and if worst came to worst there were one or two others who might do in a pinch.
***
Hank had just disentangled himself from Marty and another old termagant whose name he would sure like to remember but couldn’t for the life of him.
He set off up the church’s un-named side street and was just turning left onto Main Drag when he spotted Red coming up from the opposite direction. Hank was leading the old critter on the halter as he felt like a short walk and he had some time to kill. The day was hot so he hitched her to the rail where she could have a long drink. He and Red could have a gossip as the other man’s eyes lit up and
he raised a hand in cheerful greeting.
By some passing coincidence, there was the saloon right there, and as a courtesy to non-churchgoers, it was open at noon on a Sunday although it closed at six-thirty.
Red dismounted and they got out of the heat and humidity and into the cool dank of the interior.
His friend grabbed a table in a corner by the window where he could watch the street and Hank went and got him a short glass of draft and a cup of free coffee for himself.
“So. Two weeks in a row.” Red grinned across the table.
Hank sipped the scalding hot brew, thick enough to float a cartridge as some said, and he also wondered if that was maybe something other than cow’s milk for whitener, but he said nothing.
“What?”
“In church.”
“Ah.”
Red waited but then so did Hank.
Yet he couldn’t resist a smile.
“What?” Red could be a persistent devil, perhaps it was the inevitable boredom and isolation.
A big strong fellow, just hitting his peak at or so he claimed, Red was a widower. His wife died maybe ten years back. Hank envied the man his confidence, but he lived right in town here. Red got to talk to people every day.
Living just on the north end of town, he came in once a day whether he needed something or not. It gave Excelsior, a grandiose-enough name for the shaggy old critter he rode, a little exercise. Lower and squatter than a horse, critters gave the impression of a very large mastiff with thick ankles and elephant’s toes on the feet, but they were good mounts and easily domesticated.
Red had raised the creature from a pup, having found it wandering on one of his hunting trips.
The bawling of the thing was what led him to it, but then they were cute as the belly button on a dead flier at that age and he didn’t have the heart to shoot it, let alone eat it.
“Have you got religion, Hank?” Red had a knowing air.
“Not really.” No one around paid them the slightest mind.
It was no one’s business but his own and Hank normally kept his own close counsel on many things.
Other than that, he didn’t get out much and was a man of few words. Which was one reason for the difficulties, he supposed. He might as well let him in on it.
“I’ve been invited over for lunch. Or brunch—whatever that is, I think eggs and rolls and salad and things.” Hank sipped carefully at the coffee, grateful that it was always free.
It’s not like he abused the privilege. It wasn’t good enough to be any sort of a draw.
“Who? Where?”
“The Morgensen’s.” They lived down a side street, he would make a right turn and then a left after the one and only block, and then the street went about another three blocks.
They lived on the north side at the other end in a small bungalow with a veranda on the front, buff-coloured brick, one of the few brick houses in town, and a cottage-style roof of shakes.
He couldn’t miss it.
As a boy, Hank had lived in a tent on the outskirts of town, scrounging a living and doing all right until he began to have ideas. He wasn’t sure if the Morgensen’s had lived there at the time or not.
The look on Hank’s face was priceless.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Red stared fixated on Hank’s shifty eyes and flushing red features.
“Whoo-ee.”
Red said nothing more as he took a careful sip. Hank settled a little lower into the chair, afraid to look around and see who might be eavesdropping. Hopefully Red would have some sense and not press too hard.
“She’s not bad.” Red bit his lip, and his eyes went into that why didn’t I think of that? look he got from time to time.
Hank didn’t enlighten him.
“I got to talking to them last Sunday.” Hank was sort of misleading Red as to exactly when all this happened, and what brought it on, in order to stall off too many inordinate questions. “Anyway, Polly asked me and I said yes.”
The fact was, his belly was rumbling now, just thinking about it. Hank tended to a pretty staple diet, not much variety there that didn’t come from all-too-familiar sources.
“Ah, yes.” Red rubbed his chin. “How long have you been thinking about all this?”
“It’s just company, Red.” Hank cleared his husky throat.
He was beginning to get a little nervy thinking about the afternoon. He pulled out his silver wind-up wrist-watch. The band had broken long ago, and he checked the time. A half hour or twenty minutes should do it. It had been his father’s watch, and he was lucky it still worked.
Scratches and dirt on the solar pickup always worried him, as that was how it got its power.
“What’s her first name again?” Red couldn’t quite recall.
Red was bad with names although he knew who Hank was talking about.
“Polly.”
Red grinned in delight.
“I meant the other one.”
Hank blushed beet red.
“Andrea—Andrea Morgensen.”
With eyes showing a bit of subtle white around the edges, Red studied his friend.
“I see.” He studied him some more.
Hank just sat there. He stared out into the street, thoughts obviously elsewhere.
“Why, you old hornswoggler!”
“Huh?” A blushing Hank had heard him just fine.
Hank wouldn’t touch that one with a ten-foot pole. As for Andrea Morgensen, he’d never actually considered it.
She was all crippled up with arthritis, walking sort of bent at the waist and with stiff movements in the lower body. While not bad looking, and from what he’d ever seen of her body, it wasn’t a bad one, the thoughts had never really grabbed him. He figured she was beyond child-rearing age.
She was no substitute for laying in an adequate supply of firewood. While she might be all right if all a man wanted was companionship and housekeeping, someone to talk to on those long winter nights, the problem was that Hank wanted more.
He wanted it all, and sometimes you just couldn’t have it.
Polly, at least, was worth a try.
The thought of her and him having babies together and all that sort of thing always grabbed him in the chest, just under the cleft where the diaphragm attached to the ribcage.
Chapter Seven
Smarter Than the Average Bear
“You always were smarter than the average bear.”
Red’s final words still rang uncomfortably in Hank’s ears as he settled into a seat at a table unexpectedly set for two. What in the danged hell did old Red mean by that?
Polly bustled to and from the kitchen into the dining room but Mrs. Morgensen, (and that was the way he always thought of her) was nowhere in evidence.
“Ma’s feeling a mite under the weather. I’m sorry, it’s just the two of us as she’s lying down with the doctor.”
So she was that bad then, and it would be costing money too.
“Well, I am sorry to hear that.” Hank was disturbed by the amount of food on the table, and she kept bringing in more. “I hope she gets better soon.”
The rule of thumb was to have a bit of everything, even if you didn’t like it, but this was a clear challenge.
He would have to work doubly hard, he was tongue-tied already and Polly looked so young and fresh in the afternoon light coming in the tall side windows on the drive side of the house.
Polly filled glasses with milk from a jug covered with a bit of cheesecloth and took her seat.
“Would you say grace please?”
What?
Dang.
He thought furiously and then recalled the words.
“Thank you, Lord, for thy bounty, and have mercy on what we are about to eat.”
Her tinkling laugh rang out and she appeared delighted with his discomfort when he realized that wasn’t quite right but it was all he had.
“Hah! I like that.” She reached for his plate and with a long two-tined fork, with no
lack of utensils and accoutrements in their kitchen, judging by the looks of all the copper pans and pots hanging in the room behind, she began loading his plate up with all sorts of good things.
Hank watched gravely in approval as he wondered just where to start and what they were going to talk about.
Her beautiful eyes danced and she seemed to be in a hell of a good mood.
***
After the best meal Hank had seen in some years, certainly since he stopped going to the parish’s big Christmas dinners, he helped clean up the table while Polly loaded up the stainless-steel washbasin that seemed to be the center-point of the kitchen. She poured in a couple of large pots of hot water from pots on top of the stove and then put in some from a bucket of cold water she had right there.
“I’ll just go check on Mother.” She went out and turned the corner to the right.
Hank heard her moving around to the back of the house and then her mother’s low voice, soft and indistinct. He fought the desire to have a nap, although he would as soon as he got home.
He moved into the front room and stood looking out at the quiet street, shaded and cool in the brilliance. The sun had come out. Maybe the wet spring was just a fluke and better weather might lie ahead. A man rode by on a fine bay horse, still wearing his shiny black Sunday suit. It was Bill Carruthers. Hank didn’t know he lived along here. They’d been on the ship together as boys. He hadn’t seen Bill in years, and it was a small town. Bill didn’t seem to recognize him, not through the dusty window, although he returned a polite nod. The man went up the street but looked to turn in about four houses up on the same side.
Shadows danced on the dusty thoroughfare, and children’s voices rang out nearby. People filled him with curiosity sometimes.
Her footsteps sounded on the floorboards behind him and he turned. The sunlight lay across the floor and bathed everything in a warm golden light and she was a vision of loveliness.
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