The Stories of J.F. Powers (New York Review Books Classics)

by J.F. Powers

  “A woman—all right, then you can take ’em back!”

  She was scared. Something like that was enough to make Ralph regret marrying her—and to remind her again that she couldn’t have made him. If there had been a showdown between them, he would’ve learned about her first pregnancy. It would’ve been easy for a lawyer to find out about that. She’d listened to an old doctor who’d told her to go ahead and have it, that she’d love her little baby, who hadn’t lived, but there would be a record anyway. She wasn’t sorry about going to a regular hospital to have it, though it made it harder for her now, having that record. She’d done what she could for the baby. She hated to think of the whole thing, but when she did, as she did that evening, she knew she’d done her best.

  It might have been a bad evening for her, with Ralph brooding on her faults, if a boy hadn’t come to the door selling chances on a raffle. Ralph bought all the boy had, over five dollars’ worth, and asked where he lived in the neighborhood. “I live in Minneapolis.”

  “Huh? Whatcha doin’ way out here then?” The boy said it was easier to sell chances out there. Ethel, who had been doing the dishes, returned to the sink before Ralph could see her. He went back to his Reader’s Digest, and she slipped off to bed, early, hoping his mind would be occupied with the boy if she kept out of sight.

  He came to bed after the ten o’clock news. “You awake?” Ethel, awake, but afraid he wanted to talk neighbors, moaned remotely. “If anybody comes to the door sellin’ anything, make sure it’s somebody local.”

  In the morning, Ralph checked over the silver and china laid out in the dining room and worried over the pastry. “Fresh?” Fresh! She’d put it in the deep freeze right away and it hadn’t even thawed out yet. “Is that all?” That was all, and it was more than enough. She certainly didn’t need a whole quart of whipping cream. “Want me to call up for something to go with this?” No. “Turkey or a ham? I maybe got time to go myself if I go right now.” He carried on like that until ten o’clock, when she got rid of him, saying, “You wouldn’t want to be the only man, Ralph.”

  Then she was on her own, wishing Mrs Hancock would come early and see her through the first minutes.

  But Mrs Wagner was the first to arrive. After that, the neighbors seemed to ring the bell at regular intervals. Ethel met them at the door, hung their coats in the hall closet, returning each time to Mrs Wagner in the kitchen. They were all very nice, but Mrs Wagner was the nicest.

  “Now let’s just let everything be,” she said after they’d arranged the food in the dining room. “Let’s go in and meet your friends.”

  They found the neighbors standing before the two pictures. Ethel snapped on the spotlights. She heard little cries of pleasure all around.

  “Heirlooms!”

  “Is Mr Davitchy a collector?”

  “Just likes good things, huh?”

  “I just love this lamp.”

  “I just stare at it when I go by.”

  “So do I.”

  Ethel, looking at her driftwood lamp, her plants, and beyond, stood in a haze of pleasure. Earlier, when she was giving her attention to Mrs Nilgren (who was telling about the trouble “Carl” had with his trees), Ethel had seen Ralph’s car cruise by, she thought, and now again, but this time there was no doubt of it. She recognized the rather old one parked in front as Mrs Hancock’s, but where was Mrs Hancock?

  “Hello, everybody!”

  Mrs Hancock had let herself in, and was hanging up her coat.

  Ethel disappeared into the kitchen. She carried the coffeepot, which had been on low, into the dining room, where they were supposed to come and help themselves. She stood by the pot, nervous, ready to pour, hoping that someone would look in and see that she was ready, but no one did.

  She went to see what they were doing. They were still sitting down, listening to Mrs Hancock. She’d had trouble with her car. That was why she was late. She saw Ethel. “I can see you want to get started,” she said, rising. “So do I.”

  Ethel returned to the dining room and stood by the coffeepot.

  Mrs Hancock came first. “Starved,” she said. She carried off her coffee, roll, and two of the little Swedish cookies, and Ethel heard her in the living room rallying the others.

  They came then, quietly, and Ethel poured. When all had been served, she started another pot of coffee, and took her cup and a cookie—she wasn’t hungry—into the living room.

  Mrs Hancock, sitting on the hassock, had a bottle in her hand. On the rug around her were some brushes and one copper pan. “Ladies,” she was saying, “now here’s something new.” Noticing Ethel, Mrs Hancock picked up the pan. “How’d you like to have this for your kitchen? Here.”

  Ethel crossed the room. She carried the pan back to where she’d been standing.

  “This is no ordinary polish,” continued Mrs Hancock, shaking the bottle vigorously. “This is what is known as liquefied ointment. It possesses rare medicinal properties. It renews wood. It gives you a base for polishing—something to shine that simply wasn’t there before. There’s nothing like it on the market—not in the polish field. It’s a Shipshape product, and you all know what that means.” Mrs Hancock opened the bottle and dabbed at the air. “Note the handy applicator.” Snatching a cloth from her lap, she rubbed the leg of the coffee table—“remove all foreign matter first”—and dabbed at the leg with the applicator. “This does for wood what liniment does for horses. It relaxes the grain, injects new life, soothes the wood. Well, how do you like it?” she called over to Ethel.

  Ethel glanced down at the pan, forgotten in her hand.

  “Pass it around,” said Mrs Hancock.

  Ethel offered the pan to Mrs Nilgren, who was nearest.

  “I’ve seen it, thanks.”

  Ethel moved to the next neighbor.

  “I’ve seen it.”

  Ethel moved on. “Mrs Wagner, have you?”

  “Many times”—with a smile.

  Ethel looked back where she’d been standing before she started out with the pan—and went the other way, finally stepping into the hallway. There she saw a canvas duffel bag on the side of which was embossed a pennant flying the word SHIPSHAPE. And hearing Mrs Hancock—“And this is new, girls. Can you all see from where you’re sitting?”—Ethel began to move again. She kept right on going.

  Upstairs, in the bedroom, lying down, she noticed the pan in her hand. She shook it off. It hit the headboard of the bed, denting the traditional mahogany, and came to rest in the satin furrow between Ralph’s pillow and hers. Oh, God! In a minute, she’d have to get up and go down to them and do something—but then she heard the coat hangers banging back empty in the closet downstairs, and the front door opening and, finally, closing. There was a moment of perfect silence in the house before her sudden sob, then another moment before she heard someone coming, climbing the carpeted stairs.

  Ethel foolishly thought it would be Mrs Wagner, but of course it was Mrs Hancock, after her pan.

  She tiptoed into the room, adjusted the venetian blind, and seated herself lightly on the edge of the bed. “Don’t think I don’t know how you feel,” she said. “Not that it shows yet. I wasn’t sure, dear.” She looked into Ethel’s eyes, frightening her.

  As though only changing positions, Ethel moved the hand that Mrs Hancock was after.

  “My ointment would fix that, restore the surface,” said Mrs Hancock, her finger searching the little wound in the headboard. She began to explain, gently—like someone with a terrible temper warming up: “When we first started having these little Shipshape parties, they didn’t tell each other. They do now, oh, yes, or they would if I’d let them. I’m on to them. They’re just in it for the mops now. You get one, you know, for having the party in your home. It’s collapsible, ideal for the small home or travel. But the truth is you let me down! Why, when you left the room the way you did, you didn’t give them any choice. Why, I don’t think there’s one of that crowd—with the exception of May Wagner—that
isn’t using one of my free mops! Why, they just walked out on me!”

  Ethel, closing her eyes, saw Mrs Hancock alone, on the hassock, with her products all around her.

  “It’s a lot of pan for the money,” Mrs Hancock was saying now. She reached over Ethel’s body for it. “You’ll love your little pan,” she said, fondling it.

  Ethel’s eyes were resisting Mrs Hancock, but her right hand betrayed her.

  “Here?” Mrs Hancock opened a drawer, took out a purse, and handed it over, saying, “Only $12.95.”

  Ethel found a five and a ten.

  “You do want the ointment, don’t you? The pan and the large bottle come to a little more than this, but it’s not enough to worry about.”

  Mrs Hancock got up, apparently to leave.

  Ethel thought of something. “You do live in Blue Island, don’t you?” Ralph would be sure to ask about that—if she had to tell him. And she would!

  “Not anymore, thank God.”

  Ethel nodded. She wasn’t surprised.

  Mrs Hancock, at the door, peeked out—reminding Ethel of a bored visitor looking for a nurse who would tell her it was time to leave the patient. “You’ll find your ointment and mop downstairs,” she said. “I just know everything’s going to be all right.” Then she smiled and left.

  When, toward noon, Ethel heard Ralph come into the driveway, she got out of bed, straightened the spread, and concealed the pan in the closet. She went to the window and gazed down upon the crown of his pearl-gray hat. He was carrying a big club of roses.

  THE PRESENCE OF GRACE

  ON A FINE Sunday morning in June, Father Fabre opened the announcement book to familiarize himself with the names of the deceased in the parish for whom Masses would be offered in the coming week, and came upon a letter from the chancery office. The letter, dated December, dealt with the Legion of Decency pledge which should have been administered to the people at that time. Evidently Father Fabre was supposed to read it at the nine-thirty and eleven o’clock Masses that morning. He went to look for the pastor.

  Father Fabre, ordained not quite a year, had his hands full at Trinity. It wasn’t a well-run parish. The pastor was a hard man to interest in a problem. They saw each other at meals. Father Fabre had been inside the pastor’s bedroom, the seat of all his inactivity, only once; Miss Burke, the housekeeper, never. The press of things was very great in the pastor’s room, statues, candlesticks, cases of sacramental wine, bales of pious literature and outdated collection envelopes, two stray pews and a prie-dieu, the implements and furniture of his calling. There was a large table-model radio in his bed, and he obviously slept and made the bed around it. That was about it.

  Father Fabre found the pastor in the dining room. “Little late for this, isn’t it?” he said. He held out the letter which had wintered in the pastor’s room.

  “Don’t watch me eat,” said the pastor, a graying dormouse. He had had the six-thirty and eight o’clocks, and was breaking his fast—not very well, Father Fabre thought, still trying to see what was in the bowl. Shredded wheat and oatmeal? Something he’d made himself? Not necessarily. Miss Burke could make dishes like that.

  The pastor shifted into a sidesaddle position, bending one of his narrow shoulders over the bowl, obstructing the curate’s view.

  Father Fabre considered the letter in his hand . . . immoral motion pictures/demoralizing television/indecent plays/vulgar radio programs/pernicious books/vicious papers and periodicals/degrading dance halls/and unwholesome taverns . . . Was this the mind, the tongue of the Church? “Little late for this, isn’t it?”

  “No.”

  “I thought we were supposed to give it a long time ago.” On the Sunday within the Octave of the Immaculate Conception, in fact. On that day, Trinity, pledgeless, had been unique among the churches of the diocese—so he’d bragged to friends, curates who were unhappy about the pledge, as he was, and he hadn’t really blamed them for what they’d said out of envy, that it had been his duty to repair the omission at his Masses.

  “Weren’t we?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  The dormouse shook his head a half inch. The spoon in his right hand was a precision instrument, scraping up the last of whatever had filled the bowl. Grain.

  “I don’t feel right about this,” Father Fabre said, going away with the letter. He went to the sacristy to vest for the nine-thirty, talking to himself. It was a little late for the pledge. No. The Sunday within the Octave had been the day for it. No.

  The white fiddleback chasuble he was putting on had been spoiled on Christmas. He’d been vesting, as now, when the pastor, writing out a Mass card for a parishioner, had flicked his pen at the floor to get the ink flowing. Father Fabre had called his attention to the ink spots on the chasuble. “’S not ink,” he’d said. Asked what it was, he’d said, “’S not ink,” and that was all he’d say. For a time, after that, Father Fabre wondered if the pastor’s pen could contain some new kind of writing fluid—not ink—and thought perhaps the spots would disappear. The spots, the ’s not ink spots, were still there. But a recent incident seemed to explain the pastor’s odd denials. “Not a ball point, is it?” he’d said to Father Fabre, who was about to fill his fountain pen from the big bottle in the office. “No, Father,” said Father Fabre, presenting his pen for inspection. “Takes ink,” said the pastor. “Yes, Father.” The pastor pointed to the big bottle from which Father Fabre customarily filled his pen, and said, “Why don’t you try that?” “Say, that’s an idea,” said Father Fabre, going the pastor one better. “Better go and flush your pen with water first,” said the pastor. And the funny part was that Father Fabre had gone and flushed his pen before filling it from the big bottle that time. “I think you’ll like that,” said the pastor. That was Quink. The dormouse had the casuist’s gift, and more.

  He escaped much of man’s fate. Instead of arguing his way out of a jam, or confessing himself in error, the pastor simply denied everything. It was simple—as simple as when he, as priest, changed the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. But he had no power from his priesthood to deny the undeniable, for instance that he’d spoiled a good chasuble. When he said “’S not ink,” nothing was changed. He could really slow you up, though, if you were inclined to disagree with him and to be rational about it.

  When the pastor entered the sacristy before the nine-thirty, Father Fabre was ready for him. “Father,” he said, “I can’t give this pledge in conscience—not as it’s given in some parishes. I can’t ask the people to rise as a body and raise their right hands, to repeat after me words which many of them either don’t understand the full meaning of, or don’t mean to abide by. I don’t see anything wrong with giving it to those who mean to keep it.” He’d wrangled against the pledge in the seminary. If it was “not an oath,” as some maintained, wasn’t it administered by a priest in church, and didn’t it cheapen the clergy to participate in such a ceremony, and one which many merely paid lip service to? Didn’t the chancery use the word “invite” and wasn’t “demand” the word for the way the thing was rammed through in some parishes? Couldn’t outsiders, with some justice, call the whole procedure totalitarian? What did Rome think of it? Wasn’t it a concession to the rather different tone in America, a pacifier?

  But the pastor had gone, saying, “Just so you give it.”

  Father Fabre got behind his servers and started them moving toward the altar. He saw the pastor in front of a battery of vigil lights, picking up the burned matches. Parishioners who had used them would be surprised to know that the pastor blew out all the lights after the last Mass. “Fire hazard,” he’d said, caught in the act.

  Before the eleven o’clock, after resting a few minutes between Masses in his room, he went to the bathroom and called down the laundry chute to Miss Burke in the kitchen. “Don’t set a place for me. I’m invited out for dinner.” He stood ready at the chute to cut her off but heard only a sigh and something about the pastor having
said the same thing. He hadn’t expected to get away with it so easily. They were having another critical period, and it was necessary, as before, to stand up to her. “I hope I let you know soon enough,” he said. She should be happy, with them both gone. She wouldn’t have to cook at all. And he was doing her the honor of pretending that she planned their meals ahead.

  “Father!”

  “Yes, Miss Burke.”

  “Is it Mrs Mathers’ you’re going to?”

  He delayed his reply in the hope that she’d see the impertinence of the question, and when this should have been accomplished, he said, “I hope I let you know in time.”

  He heard the little door slam at the other end of the chute. Then, as always in time of stress, she was speaking intimately to friendly spirits who, of course, weren’t there, and then wailing like the wind. “Sure she was puttin’ it around she’d have him over! But we none of us”—by which Father Fabre assumed she meant the Altar and Rosary Society—“thought he’d go there! Oh, Lord!”

  He’d lost the first fall to the pastor, but he’d thrown Miss Burke.

  Going downstairs, he heard the coin machines start up in the pastor’s room, the tambourines of the separator, the castanets of the counter. The pastor was getting an early start on the day’s collections. He wore a green visor in his room and worked under fluorescent tubes. Sometimes he worked a night shift. It was like a war plant, his room, except that no help was wanted. The pastor lived to himself, in a half-light.

  In the hallway downstairs, John, the janitor, sitting in the umbrella chair, was having coffee. The chair had a looking-glass back, and when John turned his head he appeared to have two faces.

  “Thought you had the day off,” said Father Fabre.

  “Always plenty to do around here, Father.”