The Tidewater Tales

by John Barth

  That it was, Franklin Key Talbott quietly acknowledges. He’s looking at her scarf, which she’s drawing idly between her fingers. Leah Talbott declares We’re still wiped out. We’ve spent nearly a year sailing around in the Caribbean, trying to put things behind us. But we seem to have sailed right back into them.

  K murmurs she’s so sorry.

  More to his wife than to her, Frank Talbott says Maybe Chesapeake Bay is spoiled for us.

  Maybe.

  From our one evening together, Katherine remembers Lee Talbott as having been a live wire. These days her brown eyes are not vivacious; under her Caribbean tan, her face is drained; she seems now older in her trials than Katherine, though in fact she’s four years younger.

  K hopes aloud that the Bay is not spoiled for them; Jesus, she and Peter love it.

  The man says kindly We’ve loved it, too, and his wife brightens up to ask how in the world we happened to meet Carla B Silver and company in Annapolis yesterday.

  Frank Talbott opens cold cans of National Premium beer in Styrofoam sleeves. Kath declares It’s just too weird, and understands as she does that this really is a sticky situation she has paddled herself into, where nearly anything she says is bound to add to her hosts’ unhappiness. Have they even heard the news about Marian Silver and May Jump? For all she knows, she has barged in on a couple in extremis from accumulated misfortune; her great cheery pregnant presence could be their last straw. But there she is, and now she must hope that sheer goodwill will carry her through.

  So she burbles on (You don’t burble, Peter will tell her later tonight, when she retells all this. Insists K I burble): There we were in Annapolis, that being where the wind listed et cetera, and a lay day on account of its listing thither at twenty-five-plus knots, so why not call up her best friend in the world besides her husband, May Jump, and May said Come meet my new family, and then it turned out that we and Carla B Silver had even more to say to each other than Kath and May Jump did. Directly to Franklin Key Talbott, she says Peter was involved once with Doug Townshend and your brother, but he should tell you about that. We really admired your KUBARK book, by the way.

  Frank Talbott winces his brown brow, but nods to the compliment.

  I’m going to let him tell you, Kath repeats. Unless I do first. Isn’t it too weird, though, all these connections?

  The Talbotts agree that it is indeed, and Kath declares that that’s just the beginning. May Jump’s name seems to have broken some ice. The Talbotts turn out to have heard, by radiotelephone from Carla B Silver, of the blow-up at Carla’s Cavern after they sailed away from there last Sunday: Lascar Lupescu’s crazy pass at distraught Marian (a goddamn assault, really, Leah Talbott understands, who had truly liked the fellow; thought him good company for her mourning mother); and Marian’s moving into a lesbian connection with May Jump. They had been going to return at once to Fells Point, to help beleaguered C. B Silver sort things out; but Carla had insisted they let things sort themselves out a bit first, in Fells Point and Annapolis and aboard Reprise as well.

  Kath notes that Lee pronounces it Repreeze and that she perhaps said more than she meant to, there at the end. Her husband smoothly takes over: If we have met his mother-in-law and oldest friend, Carla B Silver, we understand that one takes her advice seriously. All the same, the Talbotts are mighty concerned about the Silver ménage. Leah Talbott says they have in fact met our friend May Jump once or twice. Lee’s literary interests led her, two winters ago, to check out that ASPS outfit in Washington (she teaches in Annapolis nowadays, half an hour away); she was even ready to join it, and maybe HOSCA too, with which Marian was involved. But then Rick Talbott’s disappearance, on top of young Jonathan’s in Chile, preempted the family’s energies; she took sabbatical leave from St. John’s College and, with her husband (who was between careers, retired from the Agency since before KUBARK and doing occasional lectures and freelance political journalism), went a-cruising to restore their weary spirits. She and Frank did not know quite what to make of May Jump; she seemed okay. . . .

  Kath does an enthusiastic character reference, relieved that Peter is not there to hmp. May Jump will do a world of good for the boy Simon, and no doubt for shaky Mim Silver as well. May Jump is the very Rock of Gibraltar, et cetera. Lee Talbott confesses that she has a tad of trouble with the lesbian thing. Frank Talbott wishes Simon Silver had a man to relate to. All the same, they are gratified by Katherine’s high regard for Ms. Jump, and profess to feel easier in their minds now about Marian’s move to Annapolis.

  K is about to mention that as a matter of fact she herself is a cofounder of the ASPS and HOSCA. But in mid-testimonial to her friend, she has absently set down the paisley scarf, and Lee Talbott has absently picked it up. Katherine gets to grinning about the ovum “May’s” self-sacrificial striptease in Act Two, Scene Two, of SEX EDUCATION: Play. Talk about unlikely coincidences!

  To change the heavy subject, she chitters into the story (Says Peter You don’t chitter; says Kath I chitter) of our finding not one but two floating orange Alert-and-Locate distress-signal canisters five days apart, one near Knapps Narrows on Tilghman Island last Monday and one right over yonder near Kent Island Narrows just this afternoon, the first with an old black beret in it, of all things, plus a manuscript of the first act of a really oddball TV play, of all things; the second, unbelievably, with this faded scarf here in it plus the second act of the same play. And wait till the Talbotts hear about that play: a comedy about sperms and ova which she thinks is funny enough and even somewhat touching in its way, but which professional Peter is having trouble with (he’s over there finishing Act Two right now: Look over here and wave, Peter Sagamore). She very briefly outlines the plot thus far, with apparent success; the Talbotts shake their heads and smile. But it is impossible to judge the thing on its merits, Katherine declares, because she is so spooked by the coincidences: not just our finding of both canisters, against which the odds must be about a zillion to one, but the unsettling resemblances of both the “May” ovum to good May Jump (she’s even called Lefty, and May Jump is left-handed!), and of the straight ovum, June, the “Right-O”—so Peter has declared—to herself: her gung ho preppiehood, her love of white-water canoeing, and some other stuff. Not to mention the general sperm-and-egg conceit—two eggs, one of which, the gay May one, just got herself massively fertilized in Act Two—when here Katherine sits, so full of babies she’s about to pop!

  Ah, she says shortly, reproving herself: I’m sorry, people.

  Lee Allan Talbott languidly asks What for? K’s cheeks twinge. She doesn’t want to be a baby bore, she says; God knows it makes at least as much sense not to have any, particularly at her age and at this hour of the world. But she finds herself irrationally happy, however worried, and she burbles on more than she should.

  Lee Talbott declares evenly, fingering an end of her hair, Ma told you I just aborted ours, right? Frank Talbott turns to her. Kath blushes, sees how transparent she’s been being, and does not attempt denial, but says I hope you can understand that it was right for your mother to speak of it, in the particular circumstances. May I explain?

  But Franklin Key Talbott says, in his quiet terrific voice, Carla B Silver is not a yenta, Katherine. If she told you about our decision, she did it for your sake, one way or another.

  She really did, grateful Kate affirms. Peter and I have had a couple of problems to deal with too, though thank God no desaparecidos.

  Firmly but not disagreeably, Lee Talbott changes the subject. So what’s Katherine’s famous husband working on these days? Or shouldn’t she ask?

  Why shouldn’t she ask?

  Lee shrugs. Some critic she’s read says Peter Sagamore has painted himself into a corner with the Less Is More thing. Katherine’s husband should surprise the shmuck with an eight-hundred-page picaresque novel.

  K wonders: Tit for tat? But the woman’s tone is friendly, despite some voltage still in the air from mention of the abortion
. Touchy as the subject is, in our house, of Peter Sagamore’s late difficulty and its several causes (Kath names them to herself: Vug, Crump, Fougasse, Dingle, Coomb, Cubby, Coign), instead of sorting out the protocol of confidence and counterconfidence, taunt and countertaunt, she follows a sure and luminous intuition and tells the Talbotts our situation in a nutshell: that P’s aesthetic turn to Less Is More, many years ago, was subsequently aggravated by the coinciding of his CIA obsession (inspired and fueled by Douglas Townshend and enflamed by the John Arthur Paisley case), with our efforts to get pregnant, our miscarriage, and the rest. The man has in fact been all but blocked; we are scared shitless of possible connections between that block, our pregnancy, and this crazy Doomsday Factor factor, which K doesn’t even want to go into.

  She is babbling all this, mind, because she liked them at first sight, the Talbotts, and trusted them at second sight, and feels creepy about knowing of Lee’s abortion before they knew she knew. Doug Townshend’s sudden death was a kind of last straw for us, she blabs on (You don’t blab, will say Peter Sagamore, and Kate I blab): We’re out here bopping around in a little boat with no motor instead of safely home with car and telephone standing by for the big event, because et cetera. Finding this scarf and that funny-spooky playscript with the paisley flotation-envelope business in it was a touch alarming; it feeds our paranoia, which however steadfastly resists swallowing: Hence we go around wearing the scarf and beret, for example, and we are enjoying the Sex Ed play more than not, especially the idea of it. Coincidence can be crazy; no one appreciated that fact more than did Doug Townshend. We are determined to stare these matters down, see them through, even Operation BONAPARTE, which K hasn’t mentioned yet—for all she knows, the Talbotts may know all about it—just as we have been addressing as best we can, calmly but unevasively, Peter’s difficulties with the muse and with our imminent parenthood. There. Uh, we will pay but, um, not count the cost, you know? Fingers crossed, et cetera. There.

  All through this speech, Lee and Frank Talbott have been exchanging wife-and-husband looks, obviously ready to say many a thing. Now Frank says Let’s fetch your famous husband over here. You-all and we-all have some more things to say to each other.

  What Leah says is that she’d like to read that Sex Ed play. Could they borrow it? How long are we guys staying in Queenstown Creek?

  Says Kate No plans. Probably just tonight. You?

  Says Lee No plans. After Baltimore, we sort of ran out of destinations.

  Katherine suggests they three move over to Story (which name, she remarks by the way, was not laid on our boat by us) instead of Reprising Peter. It’s time she got some clothes on, and we’re well stocked with ice and drinks.

  Franklin Talbott says so are they: Is she sure they can’t bring something along? She’s sure. He goes over the transom into Reprise’s dinghy first, to assist her. In the dusky near-dark, K carefully climbs down, wrapped in the white terry robe, and reaches back to Leah for the scarf and ski belt. Handsome Mrs. Talbott hands down the flotation belt and swings easily down into the dinghy; but she has rolled the paisley scarf into a headband, which makes her look like the Land O Lakes butter Indian maiden. Careworn or not, thinks Katherine Sherritt, this is one sexy-looking professor of American Lit.

  Peter Sagamore has finished reading Act Two long since and considered rowing over to join the party aboard Reprise, but instead wound up sipping Dos Equis and logging notes on the curious play, its more curious echoes of May Jump and our pregnancy, and—most curious of all—our discovery, in order, of the two canisters and their contents. It is a splendid balmy first night of summer: no bugs at all in the still, mild air, now that the light is gone. His body feels to him first-rate; he is supremely comfortable in the cockpit in light jeans and short-sleeve sweatshirt, his bare feet in carpet slippers against the dew just forming on decks and cushions. Were the world to end tomorrow, he reflects, few of its inhabitants will have had a pleasanter final evening.

  By penlight he makes a note not about apocalypse but about Very Extraordinary Coincidence: that in the patient plenitude of time and of astronomically large numbers, the most improbable will inexorably come to pass. What better illustration than the existence of even one grown fish in the sea or fertilized ovum in the uterus of Katherine Sherritt Sagamore?

  The inscription of her name prompts him to check how fares that fine, beloved female animal. He cons Reprise with our 7 x 50s, lying near to hand: Their big objective lenses, wondrous gatherers of dim light, show him, through all the intervening dusky yardage, that K’s new friends—the burly bearded one, anyhow—are about to ferry her home. Obliging of him. Ah, the woman’s coming too, she of the perky breasts both port and starboard. Well, it is a night for rowing about Queenstown Creek; for anything but shutting the body up indoors.

  That reflection prompts him to wonder what his old mother’s doing: staring at a ceiling in Hoopersville, he imagines; racked with arthritis from stem to stern and too far gone in the memory, for better or worse, to recall delicious summer evenings from her own prime, of which even hard-bitten Fritz and rawboned Nora must have had their share. In the shallow yonder of Salthouse Cove, a great blue heron lets go a reverberating squawk. Some sort of owl replies; P’s not sure which sort. To locate for the approaching rowers’ benefit our own dinghy and boarding ladder, he fetches a more serious flashlight; he will invite the Reprisers aboard for a nightcap while Kath dresses and returns her borrowed robe.

  She is in their inflatable dinghy’s stern, he sees now, giving rowing directions to the fellow facing her amidships. The trim woman in the bow—is that a headband she’s wearing?—looks over her shoulder and calls quietly

  HELLO THERE, STORY.

  We’ve brought your family back.

  Says Peter Much obliged, and cleats their proffered painter. He has seen that face before: dark and seasoned, Mediterranean, attractive. Over the chunkle of shipped oars, Katherine sings out It’s Frank and Lee Talbott, hon.

  Smiling P replies Of course it is, and to himself makes the connection: Carla B Silver’s other daughter, the unwrecked one, who knew his stories. And the Prince of Darkness’s brother, who did too.

  Come aboard.

  He gives Lee Talbott a hand. She gives him a bright, serious smile and pulls herself up. Striking woman, our man’s senses register; striking despite the clear toll, even in that light, of her and her husband’s and family’s late ordeals. Even more striking coincidence to remeet this pair so upon the heels of our Annapolis lay-day encounters, et cetera; no doubt Kate has run all that by them by now. The sight of Frederick Mansfield Talbott’s brother stings him; but swart, sturdy, bald Franklin Key Talbott, standing in Reprise’s dinghy to steady K’s boarding, says Good to see you again, Peter Sagamore, and grips our man’s hand with a quiet goodwill that blows any misdirected grudges quite away.

  Katherine kisses her friend hello and informs him cheerily We’ve been talking a blue streak, mainly about impossible coincidence: We decided it was time to let you join the conversation. What does everybody want to drink?

  Everybody wants another Beck’s or Dos Equis, including Katherine, who can’t have either. I’m afraid we don’t have any light, she warns; Peter drinks only the heavy. No matter, Frank Talbott says: Lee and I have a lucky metabolism that can put away brew without putting on pounds.

  Boyoboy, Kate cordially complains; you should see me. We then drop what it occurs to us may be a touchy subject. P distributes fresh refreshment, and through half a Beck’sworth of mortal time K reports from cabin to cockpit, while changing clothes in the dark, that she has blabbed everything to our neighbor/guests, okay? P’s connection with Doug and his meeting with Frank’s brother and our subsequent miscarriage—

  Was that mint-tea business a trick? Peter interrupts to ask at once of Franklin Talbott, who strokes his beard and says With Rick you never knew for sure. He went in for literary demonstrations, and his literary models weren’t always the best.


  —how much we both admired KUBARK: the writing as much as the inside dope—

  Very kind of you to say so, Frank Talbott murmurs. I’m afraid I’ll never be a real writer. His wife admonishes him quietly Don’t say that.

  —and what we’re doing out here in my condition, K chirps up the companionway, and meeting Carla B Silver in Annapolis yesterday and hearing about Lee’s abortion. When I blab, I blab.

  Says Peter Mm hm. Kath hands up a lighted patio candle, in the glow of which he sees the Talbotts looking bemused but holding hands on their side of the cockpit. Mrs. T’s headband, he now notes, is our paisley scarf. Where’s our Sex Education hat? Katherine wants to know; she wants to show it to the Talbotts and also lend them that wacko play, which she has also already told them about.

  On the shelf in my quarterberth, Peter tells her, and asks the Talbotts did they ever hear of such far-out coincidence? Of the estate of writers in general he observes that we are all Scheherazades, finally: only as good as our next piece. Lee Talbott says she’ll drink to that, and does. Kath comes up wearing the beret trouvé and her light cotton-flannel pregnant nightgown; declares it’s silly to put clothes back on at twenty-two hundred hours, no? and returns Lee Talbott’s white terry robe. I guess that means you want your scarf back, the woman says wistfully, drawing it off her forehead and regarding it in the candlelight. Don’t we wish we knew the story behind this scarf?

  So that’s the famous hat, remarks Franklin Key Talbott. Katherine offers it for inspection; he handles it like a sacred relic. Amazing. Lee Allan Talbott stretches her fine brown legs athwart the cockpit, slugs her beer, bets there’s a story behind that, too. Of both men she inquires with amiable irony how any storyteller can possibly be hung-up, with so many stories floating all around. P understands how his wife and Frank Talbott’s hit it off so easily; he is himself already enjoying that peculiar intimacy of people who, with unimpaired goodwill, have found out very personal things about one another; the necessarily trusting candor, a touch heady, of their being (excuse him) in the same boat.