The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 2

by Donald Harington

  She was starting to feel uneasy about the arrival of the gift, and she went into the storeroom to get a bottle of Jack Daniels. An entire case was empty, and she wondered if she had been consuming more of the stuff than she had realized. She opened a bottle, and drank straight from it, which she didn’t usually like to do. “Care for a swig, honey?” she asked, but Adam was still sulking and silent and maybe even absent. Maybe he had gone out to the cooper’s shed to escape from her entirely, and possibly he was curled up inside her barrel. He had told her that he was so proud of the barrel that she’d made with his advice and instructions that it had become his favorite place, not to sleep, since he never slept, but just to curl up and hide from the world. “Why would you want to hide from the world?” she had asked him. “Especially since you’re invisible anyhow?” And for once he had tried to answer her.

  Sometimes it’s just too much with me, he’d said, and she had thought about that for a long time.

  The man coming was of the world, and she feared that he might be too much with her. She didn’t care if he was young or old, so long as he was older than Adam and ideally younger than Sugrue. She hoped he would be good-looking, and perhaps tall, and she hoped he would be intelligent enough to carry on a decent conversation with, and she certainly hoped, above all else, that he would be marvelous at sex. But what if he was too much with her? What if he couldn’t accept her as she was? And love, or learn to love, her as she was?

  And what am I? she asks herself. Do I know? The question haunts her almost as much as she is troubled by the sudden realization that her entire past, her whole story of eleven long years endured in this lonely aerie, is all now past, behind her, and she is living in and for the present, the very real but still fantastic present.

  She removes the dress. She thinks aloud, “If he will have me, he will have me as I truly am, unadorned.”

  She takes another lusty swallow from her bottle, and steps outside the door. Many of her family are there, those who have not gone off on the quest for a man—Hreapha, Ged, Latha, Bess, Hroberta, Sigh and Sue, and Sheba, resting atop Sparkle—Robin lifts Sheba, gives her a kiss, and wraps her around her neck. Robin breaks spontaneously into song, or rather an inspired vocalization of abstract sounds born deep inside her lungs and transformed through all her vocal chords and tongue and the chamber of her mouth and even her nose. Such music delights most of her family, except Adam, who has complained that her melodious chants are jist a lot of hootin and a-hollerin. Another reason she wants a man, and with any luck a man who appreciates her singing.

  She dances out to the cooper’s shed and peers into her barrel. She is prouder of that barrel than anything else she’s ever done. It is tight and solid and although she has not yet attempted to fill it, it will probably hold any liquid without leaking. Is Adam in there right now? She takes Sheba temporarily off her neck and puts her down. Then she whispers into the barrel, “Adam, dear sweet wonderful Adam, could you at least kiss me for one last time before he gets here?”

  She begins to fear that Adam is permanently silent, perhaps even permanently gone. Maybe he has left his haunt and established another haunt somewhere else. But how could he do that? The afternoon is getting on, and perhaps those members of the family who have gone to find a man have not had any luck. She has not even tried to imagine how they might possibly have obtained a man. She has not wanted to risk trying to imagine. And possibly her birthday wish is not going to come true, after all. She decides to go inside and light the cake’s eighteen candles that she has made out of beeswax.

  Then she hears, far off, the faint sound of the motor of a vehicle laboring uphill. It is a sound she has not heard since Sugrue’s truck made its final trip with her in it. She suspects that it is the man, coming up the mountain, and when she sings again, she truly sings with passion and joy. But the trills and tremolos in her soprano voice are not controlled and deliberate; they reflect her increasing anxiety. What if the man is simply not nice? What if he isn’t interested in making love but only in raping her? What if he’s cruel?

  During her long wait, she practices her taekwondo. She discovers that she can sing and kick and chop at the same time. An hour passes, and her legs and arms grow tired. She has to save some of her energy for the actual employment of the taekwondo, if need be. As one more precaution, priding herself on the resourcefulness of the idea, she loads both barrels of the shotgun and all six chambers of Sugrue’s service revolver.

  She sets the weapons down on the porch, and resumes her singing, a distinct tone of elation now in her music, because she is ready. Ready for anything. Ready for the man, the world, for life. If the melody of her music consists of a hiding and a finding, then it is now mostly discovery, and the thrill therein.

  Now she sees him, across the meadow. Her eyesight being so poor, she can only discern his fuzzy silhouette. Behind him stands the majestic silhouette of Dewey, his branchy antlers a calligraphy on the sky. She continues singing, interrupted only by her beloved dog, who says “Hreapha,” that is, Happy Best of All Possible Birthdays.

  Then Hreapha’s son comes bounding across the meadow, barking HROLF! HROLF! HROLF! at the top of his voice. He arrives quickly and seems to be trying to tell his mother something. Behind him come Ralgrub and her thieving sons, Rebbor, Tidnab, and Feiht. And then Pogo and Robert, the latter running as if he’s being pursued. But the man is not pursuing him. The man is walking slowly across the meadow. In fact he is limping, and for a brief terrible moment Robin thinks that this is Sugrue’s ghost, because the limp resembles that of Sugrue’s final affliction, and even the man himself, what little she can see of him, seems to have Sugrue’s shape. And worst of all, there is smoke rising from him, smoke coming out of his mouth, smoke from a cigarette in his fingers. And in his other hand he holds a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels! Yes, it could be Sugrue, but her credulity, which can accept and even love an immaterial in-habit, cannot accept the idea of a daytime ghost.

  Robin stops singing. As if to continue her music, Sigh and Sue on a nearby limb are cooing, or at least Sigh is, since Sue doesn’t sing; and Bess is mooing, and Robert is wooing, and the dogs are barking, and there is even Ged on percussion, grunting.

  She has not even given any thought to what she will say. Maybe the man, who has now almost reached her, will speak the first words, and all she’ll have to do is think of something clever to say in response. Maybe he’s just some guy who has lost his way and will ask her for directions…as if she’d know.

  Will they do something as piddling as shake hands? Or will they rush into each other’s arms? Or will they just keep their distance and make idle chitchat?

  Suddenly her nakedness bothers her, and she wishes she had not chosen it. Her nervous hands try to arrange her long hair so that it covers her breasts and her poody. Then she can only stand and stare as he nears her.

  He is only a few feet away when he stops. She can see him fairly well now. He is tall and extremely good-looking, but he is not young. He is perhaps as old as Sugrue was. She is relieved that he certainly is not Sugrue, nor his ghost. And he has thrown away his cigarette.

  Finally it is he who speaks first. “Howdy,” he says with a big smile.

  “Howdy yourself,” she says. She even imitates his accent, which is like Sugrue’s, like Latha’s, like Grandpa’s. She realizes she hasn’t thought of Grandpa Spurlock in a very long time, and she surprises herself that she is standing here wondering what Grandpa Spurlock would think if he could see her like this.

  The man has an enormous smile on his face, as if she has said something funny. Or maybe he is just loopy from drinking. “You sure sing pretty,” he says. “I’m sorry I interrupted ye.”

  Well, at least he doesn’t share Adam’s low opinion of her singing. “Thank you,” she says. “I’m very glad you like it.”

  At her feet, her dog is asking, “Hreapha?” that is, Well, do you like him?

  And she can only say, “Thank you, Hreapha. I guess he’ll do.” She
won’t tell Hreapha that the man is not exactly her ideal, and he certainly isn’t perfect: in addition to his limp, he has an index finger missing from his right hand. Missing finger? She is beginning to have an uneasy thought. The thought is superceded or supplemented—she isn’t sure which—by something she remembers Latha had said. Although she doesn’t have any lemonade to offer the man, she can repeat Latha’s words, “But here I’m being chatty and rude and haven’t even told you my name. I’m Robin Kerr.”

  “Yes,” he says, and holds out that missing-finger hand for a shake, and she takes it and accepts his handshake.

  She waits, and then she says, “But you are being ruder if you don’t tell me your name.”

  That enormous smile again, and there isn’t a bit of humor in what she has just said. “I think you know who I am,” he says. He waits for her to recognize him, but how can she? Then he says, “Why don’t you take off that there snake and run in and put on your pretty dress?” And when her mouth drops open in awe or whatever, he adds, “Because, come to think on it, I reckon I’d want ye more in that there dress than I’d want ye as you generally are, a-running around all over creation a-wearing nothing but a smile.” She cannot say a blessed thing. So he observes, “And you’re not even wearing a smile, now.”

  Racking her brain, she comes up, at last, with a single word. “Adam?”

  His smile is about to cleave his jaw. “Madewell,” he says.

  “I cannot believe this,” she says. “I simply cannot even begin to believe this.”

  “If you’re having trouble believing it,” he says, “just imagine how I started out the day without any inkling of what I’d find up here at the old home place, and as soon as I step over the line into my haunt, here it all is! And here am I! And here are you! Boy, I’m plumb jiggered and struck all of a heap!”

  “But where is Adam?” she wants to know. “I mean, if you’re Adam, then where’s the boy who in-habits this place?”

  He touches his heart.

  She thinks about that, and the thought disturbs her. “Do you mean I’ll never see him again?”

  “You never saw him to begin with.”

  “But I can’t ever be with him again.”

  “You’ll always be with him.”

  In time, she believes him, and believes in him, and her only disappointment is that she cannot show him the place because she doesn’t need to. You’d expect, if a man came back to his boyhood home after thirty years, that he’d want to take a long, leisurely tour of the premises and see all the little changes, but Adam doesn’t need to do that, since he’s never left. She wants to show him the barrel she’s made, and he dutifully inspects it, and honestly tells her that it wouldn’t pass muster at Madewell Cooperage but it is certainly a remarkable piece of workmanship and he is proud of both of them, her and Adam, that is, himself, for having done it. She realizes that she doesn’t need to explain the presence of a skeleton in the outhouse to him, because he knows all about it. “How do you feel about indoor toilets?” he asks, and she, remembering Latha’s house, grants that they are a lot more convenient and comfortable than outhouses.

  At least he can participate wholly in her birthday party, unlike the in-habit, who has never been able to sample the birthday cake except in make-believe. He can even light the candles for her, there in the midst of the whole menagerie, all her family and friends, and he can applaud, which the others cannot do, when she blows out all the candles. She will not tell him her wish, nor will she tell it to us, but only those of us with the most impoverished imaginations could fail to guess what it is. She wants to inform him that he is her birthday present, but she assumes he already knows that. He has retained, or has never quite lost, the in-habit’s ability to communicate with all the animals, and he tells her the fascinating story of how they had originally planned to acquire a man named George Dinsmore for her birthday, luring him with the bottles of Jack Daniels, but, owing to some of those quirks of fate which never cease to delight us, Adam himself came along and took George’s place. So, in a sense, the animals have not presented him to Robin for her birthday. He has presented himself.

  Nevertheless, he is still her present, and of course she is free to do with him whatever she has hoped. The adult Adam is experienced, far beyond the boy’s wildest fancyings. As but one example, his adventures in France, where lovemaking is nearly as important as cooking, have left him with the ability to show her something called maraichinage, which is not just a kiss but an escapade, and the very first time she tries it with him she reaches so explosively that she can hardly stand it. Adam is so much better than Adam, and so much less inhibited or clumsy or inept or simply unknowledgeable.

  They sleep late, and she is charmed that Adam can do something which Adam could never do—sleep. When he finally wakes, she shows him a present she has for him: hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash. He tells her that he is very touched to be offered such a large sum of money, but, if truth be told, he doesn’t need it, and he would much prefer that she keep it and spend it on herself. “I’ll give you many a chance to spend it,” he promises. After breakfast she goes with him, holding hands, to the place where he has left his car, and she helps him in the slow, tedious carrying of all his worldly goods from the car to the house. For lunch he opens for her a bottle of what he says is the rarest, finest Cabernet Sauvignon of all time. She has never tasted wine before. She isn’t sure, at first, that she likes it, but he tells her she will, as she will acquire a taste for all manner of things she has never known. He tells her that he would like to convert part of the meadow into a vineyard, if it’s all right with her.

  September is growing a bit chilly, and he does something else that Adam couldn’t do: he chops up and splits a lot of wood for their stoves. She is so glad to be spared the chore; she can devote more time to preparing their meals. But there too he wants to use his hands and help her, and he knows things about cooking that the Cyclopædia couldn’t have dreamt.

  No, she decides, she hasn’t lost her childhood playmate who became her phantom lover: he has just acquired all the talents and strength and wisdom of a man.

  Chapter forty-eight

  She does not like the present tense. So she bites it. She has tolerated it only for its ability to furnish a setting for the presenting of the birthday present: a man for Robin, but now that that present has been presented, the present tense is an annoyance and a hindrance, slowing everybody down, and she snaps “Hreapha!” at it and chomps her canines into its leg, and it will yelp and flee in panic, and in its running away it will be transformed into the future tense. Which will suit her just fine. Because the future tense will be everlasting, even eternal. She will realize that she is getting old and she will not be able to live forever (although she will have been happy to learn from Adam that Yowrfrowr will still have been going strong down in the valley), but as long as she will have this enduring future tense to live in, she will be able to hang around and watch all the wonderful things that will be happening.

  Although the first time that she and some of the others will trot or creep or amble down the mountain to watch the strange men in their huge machines moving the earth and even building a bridge, one of the men will take his gun and fire at Robert. He will miss, but she will be indignant, even though she will continue to feel that her son-in-law is a rascal and a reprobate. She will run to Adam and will say to him, Master, those men are shooting at us.

  Adam will go to the men, yell at them, talk to them, and he will collect all of their weapons, keeping them until such time as the men will have finished their job. He will pat her and say “Good dog,” reminding her of the first words he will ever have spoken to her. She will be able to remember so many things about him when he was still invisible and unsmellable: how he had helped her find the scissors and the turkey caller, how he had told her how to find her way to Stay More, how he had assisted at the births of her children. She will have always felt that she was his dog as much as she will have been Robin’s
, and she will be especially thrilled that now she will have been able to actually feel his pats upon her head and his occasional hug. He will be purely and simply a nice man. A kind man. The nicest and kindest she will ever have known, so vastly different from her first master that it will be difficult to think of them as having belonged to the same species.

  She will also appreciate the many ways that he will make Robin happy too. Not a day will go by that he will not tell Robin how beautiful she is, never in the same words twice, always with some convincing and well-spoken variation on the same essential theme: that she is, and always will be, the most attractive and desirable female on earth. And whenever Robin will raise her voice in song, the opaque tones that will drift out across the meadow will seem to express her joyful thankfulness for not just his kind words but his ability never to use the same words twice.

  Hreapha will be sorry that sometimes their words to each other will not be entirely pleasant, and Hreapha will attempt to lower her ears and cover them on those occasions when the Master and Mistress will be having an argument. She will be especially sad when they will have discussed the coming of the strange men with their huge machines, even before one of them will have taken a shot at Robert. The building of the road and the bridge will have been the Master’s idea; the Mistress will not have been certain that she wants it or appreciates it. When the men will have surrendered their weapons and gone on with their work, they will begin using what the Master will tell Hreapha is called “dynamite.” The Master (he will have asked Hreapha not to call him that, but she will think it is at least preferable to “in-habit,” which he will never be again) will organize on an October day what will be called a “picnic,” far off in a glade on the western side of the mountain, where all of them, even Sparkle, will go to escape the horrible sounds, which they will only be able to hear in the far distance, the frightening sounds, worse than thunder, of great explosives blasting away the bluff where the bridge will be. The picnic will be so much fun, despite the distant explosions, that they will decide to have a picnic each week, which they will do regularly as long as the future tense will survive and weather will permit.