by Richard Ford
The accident hadn’t been caused by much—a small misunderstanding between two friends. Nothing intended to end in death. But Patsy suddenly couldn’t bear it. A moment can come from nowhere and life is re-framed. Stupid. But we all know that it can.
To try to recover, she took a trip. Gathered up the girls. Traveled to Greenland to walk in the great healing cold and ice. He went back to work. But nothing was the way it had been. Though nothing had been the way it had been for some time. Her family had the big house in Inishowen. She had grown up at the sea. It was suddenly all about his false, lawyerly need to “understand.” To interrogate. Which was not really understanding. So American, she’d said. So dishonest. Americans think they can master anything. “I was always that way,” he’d said. “It seemed a strength.” “I know,” she’d said. “I didn’t know you well enough, did I? One’s your great flaw. One’s mine.” To make it easier, he gave up the house in Ranelagh, permitted himself to re-locate to Bristol, where the firm had offices. It was still close to the girls, who came to visit when she allowed.
The young, impassive Irish woman rose, offered a dismissive look, and walked to the canteen queue and took a place. Possibly it was his business attire and the nice Gladstone, and reading the FT. Perhaps he’d been “looking up” where her skirt had hiked. He hadn’t been aware. The gray sea slid below the spray-damp window, chilly as always inside the ferry. The three women were looking at him across the vestibule. You could see Ireland now—the stack, the Nose of Howth, the Wicklow Mountains on the port side. A great silver jet just settling in. It would not be a good, or an especially bad day. Perhaps he could stay, sleep at the Merrion, eat at Pep’s, take a good breakfast in the morning. It would be Saturday. The horse chestnuts in Stephen’s Green would be radiant in mid-autumn. Not a bad city. It could fortify you.
The “Jeremys and the Simons,” Patsy called the English, whom she despised as only—he felt—a Donegal Catholic could. He was thinking of that and her, as the ferry back to Holyhead passed, off a quarter mile, its wake high and surging against a coming sea. Why was this in his mind? The failure of trying to understand. It wasn’t relevant now.
A man with a small brown-and-white terrier moved into the Irish woman’s empty seat—nearer the exit, for the arrival. A houndstooth hacker with the trilby. A silver bracelet and bright red socks. English. You couldn’t hide them. The air of uneasy, undeserved isolation. The two of them caught each other’s eye, acknowledged nothing. The dog, which had a matching silver collar, lay upon the man’s small foot. Possibly he’d seen this man and not realized, which was why “the Jeremys and the Simons” had come to mind.
One of the American women suddenly said—again, much too loud, “Oh. Hel-looo! How’re yeewwww!” They were making fun of someone who wasn’t there. Some disliked colleague they felt free to talk about far from home. They all three looked at him across the shabby lounge and pretended they were embarrassed. Then all three laughed. American fun. “We’re sooo bad!” They weren’t.
One of the women was staring at him, smiling, making plain she intended to come and speak. She whispered something to her friends, then stood, squared her shoulders, thrust her chin in a stagey way, and came forward. He was fifty. She was sixty. He wasn’t dozing or sitting with someone. He was therefore able to be bothered. Or at least approached. They were riding over through the returning ferry’s wake, and her passage across the floor became tilt-y and made her pretend to stagger, but not really.
“Okay. We’re just having a silly contest,” the woman began, now straight in front of him. She wasn’t the one who’d said Hel-looo! But just in six words, there was the unmistakable gravel-vowels of Chicago. The three jolly music teachers from Chicago. On a flyer. “Once, twice, three times . . .”
“What’s your contest?” he said, wanting to be agreeable. Even welcoming. They were countrymen together, here. The accent told. The woman was wearing tan slacks, a pink jumper over a white blouse, and very, very practical shoes to walk in—also in tan. They were all three plump and dressed nearly alike. Happy voyagers.
“We try to guess who’s American. And if we’re right, we find out why they’re here. Later we have a toast.”
“Here, being on a boat to Ireland?”
“Okay!” she said and produced an intensely big, wide-eyed smile, which contained in it a we’re-no-fools warning should he elect for sarcasm, and making a joke about her being a middle westerner. He wouldn’t.
“I’m from south Louisiana,” he said. “Nothing more than that.” She hadn’t asked where he was from.
“Well, that’s good,” she said. “We’re from Joliet. Not the prison. It’s closed.”
“O-kay,” he said, the way they did. “I’d have to turn you in, I guess.”
“You don’t sound like Louisiana,” the woman said.
“I’ve lived away a long time.”
“Is that the Irish Channel out there?” she asked, glancing past him out the thick spray-blown window toward the water and Britain.
“The Irish Sea,” he said. “The Irish Channel’s something else.”
“I’m Sheri.” She smiled more brightly. “They’re Phil and Trudy. The three wild girls from west Joliet.” Not Canada. Not even quite Chicago. The ferry heaved and pitched. “I could get seasick,” Sheri said happily.
“We’re nearly there,” he said. “Mine’s Tom.”
“Tom,” Sheri said as if such a name was surprising. She had a rather large nose, but was otherwise attractively age-appropriate. For someone. “Are you a college professor? That’s Phil’s guess. She’s usually right.”
“Lawyer.”
“A lawyer!”
“They have those here,” he said.
“Well,” she said. “None of us guessed that.”
“I guess I’m doing something right,” he said.
“Well, we’re all divorced, so we know about lawyers,” Sheri said. The big heavy-legged Irish girl who’d sat across and was nearing the head of the canteen queue, regarded the two of them disapprovingly. Noisy Americans. Blabbing their business. Owning the world. “What’re you doing here, Tom? Do you have a big case, or whatever. On vacation? We have to know.”
“A small case,” he said. “Mostly over now. I’m finalizing my divorce. Today.” Surprisingly, he was telling it. Not that he oughtn’t. He simply hadn’t much—to anyone.
“No,” Sheri said. “Get away. You’re not.” She leaned in a bit, toward his face.
“I am,” he said. Then said yes, and realized he could possibly cry—at the thought—but certainly wouldn’t. Idiotic. Though a small un-observed seam behind which were small tears, had been pierced, momentarily. “Diamonds from Ireland” was the old lament Patsy always remembered. From their turbulent times. Though, still, if this frowzy woman—this Sheri—saw tears it wouldn’t matter. She’d cried her own.
“So.” Sheri stood up a bit stiffly, but still leaned toward him. “Isn’t it a shit-show now back where we live, Tom. This imbecile president and all. Who do we blame but ourselves?”
“Ourselves,” he said. A tear had inched free. Touching his nose, he pinched it almost dry.
“We’re all crying now, aren’t we?”
“We are,” he said and smiled cheerily.
“Can you even vote?”
“I can,” he said. “I didn’t.”
“Well. What’s the use. We’re dead ducks.”
“I hope we’re not,” he said. The other two were saying Sheri’s name and peering down together at a mobile phone. “She’s getting his number” could be heard and giggling.
“Would you like to come with us, tonight, Tom,” Sheri said. “We’ve turned out to have an extra ticket through an exuberance of Phil’s. You’d love it. I know you would. Do you know his music?”
“No. But that’s very kind. I’ve got someone I’m meeting.”
“Just so you’re not alone on your hard day,” Sheri said. “We’d make it interesting.”
“I’m
sure,” he said.
“Change your mind . . . We’re at Buswells. Wherever Buswells is. Cocktails at six. On us. We have to toast you.”
“That’s kind,” he said again.
“Come on, come on, come on! Sher-i! Leave the poor man be.” She was holding them back. The ferry gave a big horn blast, nearing its berth, the big engines gathering. They were there. It was just noon.
HE HAD HIS DOCUMENTS IN HIS GLADSTONE. HE WAS A BIT HUNGRY. IN town, he could have a walk, stop at O’Neill’s for the carvery (less the pint), go by the offices and see old Fallon, who’d been stand-up, but now was retiring. At sixty—moving to America where his kids were. Atlanta or Houston.
The three women were off and down the gangway, laughing. Soon they’d be singing. “Once, twice, three times a lady.” He was letting the lounge clear out, taking his time. Voices were echoing. Cars underneath were banging over the iron planks. His hour at the solicitor’s wasn’t until four. The Englishman with the dog watched him, wishing to go last.
He was not one to cry, of course, not even in the worst shit of it. Not that it was a weakness. Times were, it would’ve been good to cry—the opposite of a weakness. Most occasions—standing up now, commencing a little uneasily toward the WAY OUT sign—most occasions, when you cried, you should’ve cried earlier. Still. To leak out a tear in the presence of some busybody from Joliet, inviting him to have cocktails, and for things to become “interesting.” What was that? Was he pathetic now? Most tears, in any case, were theatrical. Actors produced them on cue. And what if he’d gone to pieces, hugging his chest, rocking up and back, howling—as he’d once seen a convicted man do on hearing a terrible sentence pronounced? How would that’ve been? Shedding just this little diamond, at a most unexpected moment had been permissible. A dour gesture of self-perceiving. Nothing to be blamed or red-faced about. It had, in fact, left him feeling a measure better than expected, given all, given the days behind him and all that lay beyond.
The Run of Yourself
The second summer after Peter Boyce’s wife died, he decided he’d rent the little house near the end of Cod Cove Road. Not the house he and Mae had rented for years, but the older, smaller, grayed-clapboard farm place they’d sometimes walked past in evenings, and talked about buying. Previous Augusts, they’d rented the red Cape nearer the head of the road. There, Mae’d fancied the stone pergola and the screened gazebo, the polished woodwork and the spinet, plus the hilarious red appliances. And the ocean view—though it had lacked a beach. The red house, which was owned by gay doctors in D.C., had peonies and daylilies and bleeding hearts that Mae could potter with, a burning bush that turned early, and warm breezes that pushed away the bugs. The absence of a beach had been a drawback; but the house was bright and clean and roomy, and easily defeated the scratchy impermanence of other Maine houses their friends had rented. Their daughter Polly had invited her classmates up from Tulane, and later brought her husband Terry, and later on their daughter Phoebe. New Orleans’ neighbors stopped on their way to Dark Harbor and Stonington, and there were boozy late nights when Mae played the piano and sang, and everyone felt well looked after for having “a Maine place” they didn’t have to worry over the rest of the year. Peter Boyce would always have been as happy to remain in the city, even in the torrid time. Estate practice—his special field—slowed in summer. He liked the patient ease ’n’ ebb of the vacated town, of staying back when others had left. There’d be a chance to start a book and finish it. See a matinée at the Prytania. Eat a quiet meal where it wasn’t crowded. He never complained, however—for the pleasure the red house rendered to Mae, who was from County Kerry and for whom New Orleans had never been the perfect fit in thirty years.
ON SUMMER EVENINGS, WHEN WALKING PAST THE “LITTLE HOUSE,” they’d stepped into the yard to peek in through the wobbly panes, assessing the ancient, empty kitchen with the hand pump that probably still worked; the boarded-up hearth in the parlor—the great gouges in the ceiling where some fixture had hung. “It’s an outright haggard,” Mae had said. “A decent coop for chickens, one of which I’m not. At least yet.” Here there was, however, a beach with a path the caretaker kept mowed through the rosa rugosas and bayberries. The owners occasionally mentioned selling, Fenderson said, but were true Mainers. Scotch Irish. “They die clutching their first penny. And they don’t sell en-uh-thin.” He knew Mae was from the west and said it for her benefit.
In any case, the little house was deemed rude and too small. And neither wanted the carrying charges for only a month a year, and couldn’t imagine renters like themselves. “You’d end up torchin’ it just to get free,” Mae’d said, as they walked back up the road. “Which you could say about most places.” “Lawyers never buy unless there’s no other choice,” Boyce had said. By the day after Labor Day, they’d upped stakes and gone back, never coming round to the subject through the long winter following.
Deciding, then, to take the little house for August was, Peter Boyce knew, only chronic restivenesses brought on by Mae’s death. Grief, he realized, had evolved into jittery, inner, barely governable clamor—a sensation he didn’t recognize in himself but did in others. He was never impatient about anything. Impatience, he believed, was a form of laziness. And he’d certainly have never come to Maine without Mae’s “felt need” for a respite from “the pinks”—her term for his set of old New Orleans friends, who were all in the pink. But restiveness about what? Of course about Mae, that she must soon come back and all of life to carry on—even the Maine part. Or otherwise do what? Follow her greedy example? There was no thought for that. He’d read the line of Trollope’s many times over, the first winter alone in the house on Sixth Street. “There is an unhappiness so great that the very fear of it is an alloy to happiness.” Did it mean, he wondered, that happiness would never again be within his grasp? Or, with grief as its alloy, happiness would come back fiercer? Alloy. It was two-minded. This would be the challenge of loss—to learn about this.
HE’D DECIDED AGAINST COMING BACK THE FIRST SUMMER. MAE HAD taken her life a week past the middle of August, and he’d brought her home and buried her—fully conscious that for a girl born in Catholic Tralee to be buried in suburban Metairie, Louisiana, an alien place (and improperly in Catholic ground) was at the least inglorious and incongruous. Though she’d never gone home to Ireland—not once—even when her parents died, and had left no instructions about her “obsequious details.” There didn’t seem to be a wrong thing to do. Here, he could visit her, if he wanted to. Which so far he hadn’t.
But after Thanksgiving the first year, a winterish fatigue had set in and lasted past Carnival. Nothing surprising. Walter Hobbes, a partner in another firm, invited him for a fishing excursion with other men. To Duck Key. But he’d declined. He liked being in his house—even alone, only blocks from where he’d grown up on Coliseum Street. Reading late into the night was a luxury. Finishing the Trollope. Then commencing the Forster and the Woolf—this generation he liked for its spirited lack of certainty. With grief and thoughts of Mae crashing about, he read to replenish time, not for pleasure or a hunger to learn. He was, he knew, bookishly practical. He tended to see most occurrences as happening the way they should—which required sealing many things away. Mae’s death.
Though being bookish meant that whatever you read, the mind went to the places it needed to go. An unwilled reaching. In spring, only to quit thinking, he bought a bicycle, rode it on the levee and around the park. Somehow, a year and a half managed to escape un-observed.
When the second spring came, he found himself thinking of the red house. Next door were the year-round, scotch-drinking Parkers—an Episcopal “prelate, retired” (Mae’s words) from Connecticut. Parker’s wife Patty had been caught by Mae geezing her from their upstairs bathroom, as Mae sunned on a towel in the grass. “And whut then? The old muff sniffer?” Mae’d said. “As if I’d put the whole product line out on the street.” But in the red house, Boyce knew, he’d only have paced the rooms, rehear
sing what’d been said and seen in this one and that, dinners eaten, wines drunk, who’d imitated who more uproariously, Mae playing Debussy and Satie. Polly had already declared she’d never again set foot in the red house. Now divorced, she’d paid a visit home in April, sat on the back gallery and opined that her father needed to find a new place wherein to re-invent himself. Maine was corrupted now, and emptied out by death. She seemed unusually certain about his grief. Twenty-eight and already an unhappy lawyer in Chicago, she’d thrust herself into the cultural life, subscribed to the opera, enrolled Phoebe in ballet and Chinese, was entertaining thoughts of a new career in arts administration. In New Zealand, possibly. This was her way, Boyce supposed, to manipulate and disapprove of him by example. They’d never gotten on well. Even for Mae she’d been a task. A pretty, clear-skinned, long-limbed “Irish” girl of fifteen, who adored school and had friends (Mae had named her Niambh, for bright and radiant), she’d matured unhappily. Put on weight. Become caustic in her views. She had a cruel mouth—a Dublin shopgirl’s mouth, Mae said—and an outlook in keeping. “There’s just so much you can do,” Mae said. Polly had changed her name after college “. . . to something civilized. Niambh. What’s Niambh?”
On the phone in March, Boyce had contacted Fenderson—this time, about the “little house,” the older farm place at the end of Cove Road. The Birney house, it was called. He hadn’t thought he would, and then he simply did think it. It seemed necessary. Fenderson’s wife was the town clerk. She could arrange the fixing up, give the house a scrubbing, take the sooty curtains down, fashion a patch for the ceiling, see the sinks worked, find lamps, a reading lamp for the bed—was there a bed (there was). There’d always been decent window light and the same, fond breezes off the water. No mosquitoes. No Parkers. The distant owners agreed. Boyce could bring up extra things in the car, buy what else he needed. He had no better plans.
