The Rope Walk

by Carrie Brown

“Thank you for the mobiles,” Alice said suddenly, remembering them and feeling ashamed that they had not said thank you before, that she could not think of the words to express their pleasure at the gift, their understanding of its great value.

  He reached out and she came near, giving him her hand.

  “I miss being outdoors, in the woods,” he said. After a moment, with more conviction in his voice, he resumed. “But I'll be on my feet again, wouldn't you say? Only, this fall has been a bit of setback.” He let go of Alice's hand and reached up gingerly to touch the bandage on his head.

  Alice thought of what Archie had told her about Kenneth climbing mountains and looking down on the clouds, the shifting blue and white scaffolding of vapor beneath him, the valleys below. He could not climb a mountain now, she thought, and for a moment she felt inside herself the grief of that loss for him, a prisoner in this house. She was suddenly aware of the open doors behind her, the woods at the edge of the lawn, and beyond that the river twisting away invisibly toward the sea. It came to her with a shock that she hadn't been anywhere yet, that every road was open to her. Her life, she thought, had barely even begun.

  “Where were we?” Kenneth said abruptly. “In the Lewis and Clark. They were presenting the Missouri Indians with medals for their chiefs, and whiskey and gunpowder.”

  “And the lost horses had come back,” Theo said, stretching out on the floor as he had done the day before, his arms behind his head.

  Alice sat down at the table and opened the book. The party had halted, waiting for the return of two men who had been sent off as scouts to look for Indians. Many Indian villages had been decimated by smallpox, Clark wrote. “I am told when this fatal malady was among them they Carried their frenzy to verry extraordinary length,” Alice began reading, “not only of burning their Village, but they put their wives & children to Death with a view of their all going together to some better Countrey. They Burry their Dead on the top of high hills and rais Mounds on the top of them.”

  She was interrupted—snow had fallen on the explorers early in October, and the banks of the river were often lined with Indians come to view the curious party—when the door opened and Miss Fitzgerald came in with a tray. She did not seem to notice that Alice was reading aloud and set the tray down on the table with a clatter. She bore a tall glass of something foamy and yellow over to Kenneth on the settee. “Eggnog,” she said. “Mother used to give us this. Remember?”

  He took it from her clumsily—Alice wondered whether he had been asleep. “Rum,” he said indistinctly, and took a careful sip. He cleared his throat. “Isn't that what's added to eggnog?”

  “Oh, Kenneth” she said, as if he'd been teasing her.

  She wants to do it all for him, everything by herself, Alice thought, with a flash of understanding. She wants to be in charge. That's why she wasn't sorry to see Sidonnie leave.

  “And here's a plate of cookies for the children,” Miss Fitzgerald said. She didn't look at Alice or Theo. She took the plate off the tray and put it on the table, like setting a saucer of milk on the floor for cats. She stood at the table for a moment, gazing around the room, her eyes following the slowly revolving shapes of the mobile that Alice and Theo had hung.

  They heard the sound of the lawn mower starting up outside. Alice turned to look out the French doors. Eli, wearing an old white tennis hat, came into sight, leaning over the mower and forcing it through the tall grass. The sun was lower in the sky now, and the light outside had softened. She noticed how the trees at the edge of the lawn stood together in a dense mass of dark green, just as Kenneth had rendered them in his charcoal drawing, a single solid shape against the sky.

  “The industrious MacCauleys,” Kenneth said. “The heroic twins were here this morning, Alice, hacking away at the rock of Gibralter.” He took a sip of the eggnog. “Do you think your father would simply adopt us? How could we earn our keep at the MacCauleys’ house, Hope? Do you think we seem pitiful enough to be adopted?”

  Alice was embarrassed that he should refer to the shameful state of the house in his sister's presence, but Miss Fitzgerald only stood quietly, her hands hanging limply at her sides, watching Eli outside as if she'd never seen a lawn mower before. Alice thought of all the times Miss Fitzgerald had come to the MacCauleys’ house, her face bunched up under its headscarf, some matter of civic interest on her mind, a clipboard and a pen in her hand. How strange it was to discover that someone so apparently purposeful and in command should be simultaneously, privately, so helpless.

  On their way home, Alice told Theo what Archie had said about Kenneth climbing mountains, about his having adventures and exploring the world.

  “Now he's cooped up in that house with her,” Theo said. He shuddered. “She is so weird. Why doesn't she ever say anything to us? She acts like we're not even there, like we're not even a person.”

  Alice noted that he had referred to them collectively as a single person. She was oddly pleased, even if it was just a syntactical error. “And he's sick, too,” Alice said, rising to Theo's indignation. She heard the outrage in her voice. It seemed so unfair. Why did people have to get sick? A bell-shaped cloud of gnats hovered in the road before them. Alice waved her hands wildly in front of her face to disperse them. The late afternoon sun hung ahead of them, burning with a gold light under the trees’ lowest branches, as if the road were a stage in a dusky theater, its upper reaches in darkness.

  “I don't think he can see very much,” Theo said. “But he can still walk around if he has his cane. He could get out if he had a guide dog.” He spoke as if he were considering something. He took aim and kicked at a rock by the side of the road, sending it sailing into the weeds, and squinted after it.

  They walked along in silence. When they came to the corner, Alice saw the mother of one of her friends from school, Mrs. Kiplinger, out in her side yard taking in laundry from the line. When she saw the children she stopped and waved. “Hello, Alice!”

  “Hi,” Alice said. She didn't want to stop. Mrs. Kiplinger was one of the mothers Alice thought felt sorry for her. She made a fuss over her, asking if she was hungry, as if no one ever thought of food in the motherless MacCauley house. She was always wearing some kind of tracksuit or athletic gear, her blond hair twisted into a knot at the back of her head. Sometimes Alice was invited to play with Sarah Kiplinger, who was in her class at school, but in general Alice preferred the games of boys to the dolls and tea parties most girls her age enjoyed. Still, girls weren't invited to play at boys’ houses very often.

  “We just took Sarah to summer camp this weekend,” Mrs. Kiplinger said, bouncing over to the picket fence in her fancy sneakers, the basket of laundry under her arm. “I'm sure she'll send you a pretty postcard.”

  “That'll be nice.” Alice nodded encouragingly, as if she'd been longing for a postcard from Sarah Kiplinger, away at summer camp.

  “Who's your little friend?” Mrs. Kiplinger said brightly, looking Theo up and down.

  “This is Theo,” Alice said. “He's the O'Briens’ grandson.”

  Mrs. Kiplinger's expression changed, and Alice saw an unguarded, almost greedy curiosity come over her face. Did everyone in Grange know that Theo's mother had married a black man? Alice wondered. And why did it seem to matter so much?

  “Ohhh,” Mrs. Kiplinger said, drawing out the vowel, her tone full of comprehension. She stared at Theo. “Oh, he is. Well, I know your grandmother, Theo. She's a lovely person.”

  Alice nodded again, more enthusiastic confirmation of Mrs. Kiplinger's many opinions: Picture postcards were nice. Helen O'Brien was nice. “Well, we better be going,” she said. She could feel Theo beside her, a silent, glowering presence.

  They trudged down the road toward home. Alice wanted to apologize for Mrs. Kiplinger, for her proprietary knowingness about Theo, for every adult's way of seeming to know more about you than you knew about yourself, but she wasn't sure what to say. Theo marched along next to her, looking at the ground. After a little whil
e, he lifted his chin and sighed.

  “I'm hungry,” he said.

  “Me, too,” Alice said, realizing that he had identified exactly what she had been feeling. It was as if wind were gusting through emptiness inside her. She sighed, remembering that Wally and James would not be there when they got home. Maybe the twins wouldn't even be there for dinner, or Eli, or her father. This past school year, when she was alone for dinner, Archie being occupied with something at Frost, Elizabeth would make Alice scrambled eggs or baked beans on toast for supper. Elizabeth herself, if she was staying late because Archie wouldn't be home until after Alice's bedtime, ate different food she cooked for herself, strange-smelling concoctions mixed with rice, which she ate with her fingers. Once, Alice had asked if she could taste what Elizabeth was eating, and Elizabeth had put a little spoonful on a saucer for her.

  “This is what Vietnamese babies eat,” she had said to Alice. “Very good.”

  Alice had tried a little, but she hadn't liked the taste or the smell, and she had been unable to conceal her dislike, looking up apologetically at Elizabeth with watering eyes.

  Elizabeth had laughed. “You're not a little Vietnamese baby, Alice,” she had said. “Have to grow up with it.”

  Alice had smiled politely, not wanting to hurt Elizabeth's feelings, but she had felt strangely unfit, as if it were she who was the stranger in this country, not Elizabeth, who had continued to eat with a sure, knowing pleasure. After dinner that night, Elizabeth fixed them both bowls of orange sherbert and took Alice on her lap at the table, even though Alice was too big for lap sitting. “Never mind, never mind,” she had said, holding her cheek to Alice's. “It doesn't matter that you are not Vietnamese baby.”

  They continued along the road, feet dragging. Lights were beginning to come on in the houses they passed. Here and there through the windows Alice could see the blue light of television sets being turned on.

  “What do you eat for dinner at home?” she asked suddenly.

  “Takeout,” Theo said, shrugging. “Thai. Chinese. Indian. Mexican. Ethiopian.”

  Alice had never had Thai food or Indian food, let alone Ethiopian. “Doesn't your mom cook?” she said. She thought all mothers cooked.

  “Yeah, she cooks.” Theo didn't say anything else for a minute. “We like takeout, though,” he said finally. “In New York you can get anything you want to eat. I like dim sum.”

  Alice didn't know what dim sum was. She sensed that Theo's mother didn't really cook. Maybe it was because of her sickness, what Wally had called her being “blue” and depressed. She wanted to ask Theo about this, but she didn't know how to phrase the question.

  “Your mom's dead, right?” Theo said.

  Alice said, “She died when I was a baby. I don't remember her.”

  Theo nodded, as if something in his own experience compared to this, and he was familiar with the terrain. He did not say he was sorry the way adults did when they learned Alice's mother had died. Usually when children found out Alice didn't have a mother, they didn't say anything; theyjust stared at her as if she had described her mother's death for them in horrifying detail. Theo didn't seem impressed, though. He just walked along beside her.

  Alice, feeling something behind her suddenly, glanced back and saw that their shadows trailed behind them, two ragged giants with flapping coattails and miniature heads, swaying along the street. She nudged Theo, who turned to look over his shoulder. He lifted his arms, and shadow arms flew out from the giant's side, two long sticks flapping into the darkness of the trees on the side of the road. It was a helpless gesture, as if the figure had suddenly taken fright and tried to lift off from the ground but had failed, its lead feet tied to the earth. Theo jumped, both feet off the ground, as if he were feeling what Alice felt, which was that she wanted to break free of this black, mournful figure attached to her ankles, to shake it away from her, leaving a paper man folded in accordion pleats on the road, lifeless as dust, like Peter Pan's silken shadow lying over Wendy's knees while she searched for a needle and thread.

  Alice had read in the newspaper about the tidal wave that had engulfed the beaches in Thailand this past winter. The animals had known something bad was coming, and goats and cows and dogs had tried to break free of their chains or their pastures and make for the hills, knocking down fences and wildly tearing stakes from the ground. Alice had imagined the animals streaming toward the mountains, running away from the still invisible tidal wave gathering out in the sea. One man, who finally understood what it meant when the animals started to run away, had gathered up his children and his wife and tried to hurry with them through the crowded streets, but the wave had overtaken them before he could get far enough away. He had survived, but his wife and his children had been torn from him in the wave that had crashed over their heads, and he had lost them in the swirling waters. Ever since then, Alice had tried to pay attention to Lorenzo's lazy meanderings around the yard, but she never sensed any urgency in his movements. Consulting her atlas, she had determined that there was no way a tidal wave could reach them in Vermont, but she had been sickened at the thought of the people trying to run, dragged down by their own weight, their own inadequate human instincts, their own fear … even by the people they loved.

  She jumped, too, like Theo, and her shadow stayed right behind her, pitifully attached to her feet.

  “Let's run,” Theo said, flapping his arms, and he caught Alice's hand.

  They ran the rest of the way home, the sun burning red in the sky ahead of them.

  NINE

  ALICE AND THEO were in the kitchen making ice cream sundaes on a Friday night two weeks later, when Archie came in the back door. Tad and Harry had left the week before to go back to Frost; Eli was out in the barn with his friend Sam, working on Sam's old black Saab, a car for which Theo had expressed fervent admiration, though he had been banned from the barn for talking too much while Eli and Sam tried to puzzle through a problem with the car's transmission. Elizabeth, who usually stayed until Archie arrived home from Frost, even if he was late, as he was this evening, had left early to go visit a niece who had just given birth to twins. She had been working all day in order to bring food to the new family, a succession of salty-smelling Vietnamese dishes and a pineapple studded with gumdrops on toothpicks. Alice, witnessing the hectic level of Elizabeth's preparations, had suffered a moment of worry that the arrival of the infant twins might mean that Elizabeth herself would leave the MacCauleys in order to help her niece instead. She had been relieved when Elizabeth, banging pots on the stove, had said that she was glad it wasn't going to be her, looking after those twin babies. “One time was enough for me,” Elizabeth told Alice. “Your bad brothers, they wore me out. Lucky for you, you were a good baby.”

  Archie hung his jacket over the back of one of the chairs in the kitchen and sat down at the table, glancing at the stack of mail and the evening paper from Brattleboro folded in half by his place.

  “Do you want a banana split, Arch?” Theo said, waving the ice cream scoop. “I can make you a humongous one.”

  It pleased Alice that Theo had developed an obvious affection for Archie. He spoke to him as if to a familiar his own age, using a jocular form of address that sounded to Alice as if it were an unconscious imitation of Archie's own faintly ironic manner of speaking to Theo. She thought that Archie's restraint on the night Theo had climbed into the tree at the hospital had elevated Archie in Theo's mind. Probably Theo had expected a punishment, and she knew herself that sometimes Archie's polite refusal to mention an obvious transgression, as if he were carefully allowing you to save face, had the effect of making you especially sorry for whatever you had done and especially grateful to him for his tact. Once Alice had cut off a length of the silky fringe from the drapes in the dining room to use as trimming for one of the fairy houses she built in shoe boxes. She knew that Elizabeth, who had discovered the hacked-up curtain, had reported this to Archie, but Archie had been only rather quiet and tender with Alice
when he had come home that evening, as if aware of the enormity of her guilt, the possibility that one more ounce of disapprobation would have been overwhelming.

  “Thank you, Theo, but I try to avoid ice cream until I've had my dinner,” Archie said. “I assume Elizabeth fed you before she left?”

  “I'll bring you a plate,” Alice said. “It was meat loaf.”

  “You're lucky you didn't get some of that ooo-wong-tang or whatever it was she made,” Theo said gaily. “It smelled like a dead fish.”

  Theo's spirits had been restored after a funny dip earlier that evening. A dank summer rain had begun to fall around five p.m., forcing Alice and Theo inside. Theo had wandered around restlessly for a while and then finally settled on sliding down the fireman's pole on the porch again and again, sometimes headfirst, muttering under his breath as if he were narrating a story to himself. “You,” he said, pointing to an invisible spot on the floor. “Take a brigade and protect us from the flank.”

  Alice, lying on her stomach on the upstairs porch with her chin on her folded arms, had watched Theo below her through the round hole in the floor. She concluded that in the game Theo was playing, he had the starring role as the beleaguered general. Hands laced behind his back, head down, he paced back and forth as if considering his strategic options. Alice had wanted to join in the game, but Theo was playing with such concentrated, even unhappy intensity that he took no notice of her when she sat up and dangled her legs through the hole, knocking her heels noisily against the fireman's pole. It was the first time he had excluded her from something, and after a while she had drifted away, bored and lonely.

  When Theo grew tired of his game, he had come looking for her. She was stretched out in retreat on Wally's bed reading Robert, the Quail, which she'd already read once before. She ignored him when he first came into the room, but after a minute or two of him aimlessly clinking the pennies in the little bowl on Wally's bureau, she put down her book and turned around.