Compass Rose

by John Casey

  And then she was in Captain Teixeira’s three-bench van along with a part of his family—Sylvia and her husband, and Dick’s stern-man, Tony. Captain Teixeira got out and pulled Rose in. He called to Mary Scanlon, but she called back, “I’ve got to go to Sawtooth. See you there!”

  Tony was at the wheel. Captain Teixeira told him to turn his lights on. Then he said, “Wait. We should bring Tory Hazard with us. Sylvia, go get Tory. She’s right there at the top of the steps. Tony, if you turn the lights on, you have to run the motor. Rose, you sing beautifully, as good as Mary. One of these days I’m going to teach you a fado. Maybe Sylvia better teach you, I don’t sing so good. I lost my whistle. Tony, let the priest’s car go ahead. Then let Jack go, that’s the only family car. That’s nice, his armband. Lydia liked traditional things.”

  Sylvia and Tory arrived, and Captain Teixeira made room for Tory beside him on the middle seat. He put his arm around Tory and said, “You okay?” He turned to Elsie. “I’ve known Tory since she was a little girl. And her father—”

  Tory put a hand on his knee and said, “Ruy, please. I’m sorry. It’s just …”

  Captain Teixeira shrank a bit, took a breath, and said, “You know Elsie, right? And her daughter, Rose? Rose sang the soprano part. Mary Scanlon was the alto.”

  “Mezzo,” Rose said. “It’s an octave lower than my part, and it could be an alto but it’s a mezzo-soprano. There’s other places she has to sing higher.”

  “You little smarty pants,” Sylvia said. “I used to change your diapers.”

  “Okay, Tony,” Captain Teixeira said. “Right behind that car.” He looked out the back window. “That’s Eddie Wormsley’s pickup; he could’ve cleaned it up some.”

  Elsie looked. “It’s okay. He’s driving Tom Pierce.”

  “Now you mention it, where’s Dick? He was around yesterday. I know Charlie’s at sea.”

  “Dick’s in Boston. Charlie had an accident, and he’s in the hospital there.”

  Elsie felt Rose lean forward even before she heard Rose’s voice. “Mo-om! Why didn’t you tell me? Jesus, Mom.”

  In between Elsie and Tory, Captain Teixeira turned, squeezing Elsie one way, Tory the other. He said, “Don’t talk to your mother like that.” He said this matter-of-factly. He stayed turned. After a long pause he added, “You’ve got a beautiful voice and you’re a beautiful girl, so be a good girl. Now your mother’s going to tell us about Charlie.”

  As Elsie began to tell what she knew, she felt she was dropping stones in a still pool, sending ripples to every side—to Tony, who was Dick’s right-hand man; to Sylvia, who’d been in love with Charlie; to Rose … Tom was the brother Rose saw more of, joked with, but she’d cried out for Charlie, even if she turned her alarm into blame.

  Captain Teixeira said, “Oh, meu Deus! That’s a terrible thing for Dick and May.”

  “That’s all I know,” Elsie said. “And Rose—Tom thought he’d better wait to tell you till after you sang. So …” Elsie heard herself speaking to a van full of people who knew her place in this story. It had seeped drop by drop into common knowledge, so completely that Tory Hazard was the only one who had to furrow her brow.

  Captain Teixeira said, “Tony, only the hearse goes through the gate. You pull in beside that black car. Okay. We’ll take a minute before we get out so we can each have a good thought for Charlie to get better.”

  When Captain Teixeira raised his head and let out a loud breath, they all began to stir. Captain Teixeira said to Tory, “You got to pull that handle kind of hard. The other way. The door slides back.” After Tory got out, he turned. “You go ahead, Sylvia; I got to take my time.” As Rose slid past he said, “Rose, I know you’re feeling bad about Charlie. I think he’s going to be okay. But there’s another thing. This is your first funeral, right? I got to tell you the priest is going to say something when we throw the first bit of dirt on the coffin. I’m telling you now so you know. He says, ‘The earth and the sea shall give up their dead and the corruptible bodies shall be changed … ’It always gets to me. It makes me see too much. Okay, here we go. Give me a little tug, would you? I stiffened up some.”

  Elsie looked at Rose’s face as she took Captain Teixeira’s hand. Since Captain Teixeira had bossed Rose around, Elsie expected Rose to have put on her mask of sullen compliance. Elsie’s second guess, now that she saw Rose smile, was that Rose had been seduced by his calling her a beautiful girl. Wrong again. Rose was someone strange. Her smile was serene, confident, and womanly. She took Captain Teixeira’s other hand and guided him out of the van. She ran her hand down his back as if straightening him. She turned and said, “Mom? You coming? You two should be together for this.”

  Rose’s sudden grace was as mysterious to Elsie as Rose’s music but more unnerving. More than their quarrels, this unforeseen full green leaf made Elsie foresee Rose’s growing up and away from her.

  chapter forty-two

  The doctor, the neurologist whom May trusted right away, said she was sure that Charlie would make a complete recovery, but she couldn’t say how long it would take. “He’s very healthy; he’s very strong physically and mentally. I think he’d get better on his own—the subdural hematoma has already shrunk by itself—but therapy will help with any lingering symptoms. I think that little speech impediment will clear up a bit faster, and he’ll get his motor skills back faster, too. Some people think physical therapy is good for the brain. In any case, therapy will give him something to do. I can tell he’s not used to just sitting around. That would drive him up the wall. Probably drive you up the wall, too.”

  Deirdre O’Malley, who was standing behind May, Dick, and Tom, said, “I believe in the mind-body link; it did a whole lot for me when I was hurt. But mainly I want to say you were great, really great. The neurosurgeon would’ve started cutting, but you—”

  “Thank you,” the neurologist said. “We actually worked it out together.” She turned to May and Dick. “I’m sorry we couldn’t keep you posted every minute, but we were both pretty involved. I’m glad it’s looking good now.”

  May thought that Deirdre might be feeling rebuked, so she said, “This is the woman who dove in and pulled Charlie out of the water. She’s an EMT.”

  “Yes, so I heard.” She took a breath and added, “Good job.”

  When an orderly rolled Charlie out the front door, Dick was there with his pickup, Phoebe with her Saab, and Tom on a motorcycle. May said to Charlie, “You’ll be more comfortable in Phoebe’s car.” She looked at Dick. Dick had said he was sorry for taking off by himself, but he’d added, “I just had to do something.” May hadn’t said anything.

  Dick said to Tom, “Something wrong with that car of yours?”

  “Still in the shop.”

  Deirdre said, “That’s Walt Wormsley’s motorcycle.” They all looked at her. She said, “He used to do some work for me. But, hey, this’ll work out. Tom, you can ride with your family, and I’ll drive Walt’s motorcycle. That way I can swing by and pick up some things from a friend’s house and it wouldn’t slow anyone down. It’s okay—I’ve driven it before.”

  Tom shook his head. “I can’t do that without Walt’s say-so. Look, I’ll take you, and everyone else can go on ahead.”

  May had been thinking of Deirdre as Charlie’s shipmate and rescuer. She was taken aback when Deirdre bent over Charlie, whispered in his ear, and then kissed him on the mouth.

  Tom cranked the motorcycle, Deirdre got on, and they were gone. Then Dick got in his pickup. He’d come up alone, let him go back alone.

  May and Phoebe settled Charlie in the front seat. As they walked around the front of the car Phoebe said to May, “So it looks as if everything’s going to be fine.” May shook her head. No sense in tempting fate like that. She was also trying not to think of how mad she was at Dick. Maybe mad wasn’t the right word—broken was more like it. Something was broken.

  Phoebe said, “I’m just sorry you and Dick couldn’t go to Miss Perry’s funeral. A
nd of course you’re exhausted. Was that room they got you all right? They should have done that the first night. I mean, they could see we were just curled up on those awful chairs.” May looked through the windshield at Charlie, who’d tipped his seat back and closed his eyes. Phoebe said, “Yes, we should get going.” She got as far as the driver’s door and said, “I’ve got tons to tell you. When I went to my friend’s house, I drove Deirdre to her friend’s house, so we talked, or I should say she talked. But I guess that’ll have to wait. Let’s just say I don’t think we’ve seen the last of her. You’ll be okay in the backseat? I’ll scoot my seat up some.”

  May didn’t want to talk or think; she didn’t want any part of her to come loose. As she and Phoebe each took hold of their door handles, Phoebe said, “It’s funny—she reminds me of someone.”

  May said, “Charlie’s just falling asleep,” but Phoebe had already jarred the idea loose: Deirdre looked a lot like Elsie. Maybe a dozen years younger but the same animal alertness, the compactness, the tomboy edge. The way Deirdre was ready to ride a motorcycle. But fair’s fair, also ready to dive into the sea and pull Charlie out.

  May got in. Charlie’s seat was tipped back so far she could put her hand on his forehead. Charlie said, “I’m f-fine, Ma, I’m going to be fi-fine. Damn!”

  “Don’t worry. The doctor said that’ll clear up.”

  Charlie touched his nose with his right forefinger, then with his left. “There. Could be worse. But what am I going to call you, Ph-Ph-Phoebe?”

  Phoebe laughed the way she did around men. “Oh, we’ll think of something.” Phoebe touched Charlie’s arm. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t laughing because … It was hearing my own name.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “You know, a little bit of a stammer has a certain charm. You’ll have to watch yourself.”

  May willed Phoebe’s hand off Charlie’s arm.

  chapter forty-three

  Executrix. Jack enjoyed saying it as often as possible. “The first thing you should do as executrix is to go identify the assets. Real property, personal property, choses in action—”

  “I know.”

  “Johnny won’t be able to help this time around, since the state may have an interest.”

  “I know.”

  “But he could be helpful in informal ways. You may want more leave from Natural Resources, since your duties as executrix—”

  “Jack, I know what to do.”

  But when Elsie stepped into Miss Perry’s house she was surprisingly undone. Not by grief—she knew her grief—but by the house itself, which she suddenly didn’t know. It was as if the house and everything in it were springing to life. She saw the door, the rack with Miss Perry’s father’s canes, the staircase, the bull’s-eye window in the library—as if she’d once heard of them and was only now seeing them. At first she shrank back as if all these things radiated an energy that was opposed to her. Then she began to touch things: the desk, the mantelpiece, the corner of the glass-front bookcase. She said, “I am the executrix.” It could be her word—to hell with Jack—a magic word. She didn’t say it to diminish the house but to receive it. She’d meant to sit down at the desk, but the air was too charged for that, the light too heavy. She filled a pail of water, added a cup of vinegar, and cleaned the tall windows to the west. She used the bookshelf ladder to reach the bull’s-eye window. She found a jar of leather preservative in a pigeonhole in the desk. The label read “Everett Hazard Book Shop.” She dipped her fingers in it and anointed the leather bindings of all eight volumes of Gibbon’s Roman Empire. And then the whole shelf of leather-bound histories. Parkman, Prescott, Mottley. This was the sort of executrix she would be, letting in light and applying balm. A curator. Or rather curatrix.

  She would have charge of this house until the Perryville School took over. The library was to remain a library, the second and third floors to be a dormitory for the senior girls. And surely a faculty member to supervise them. The headmaster had spoken to her about the possibility.

  She applied the last of the jar to Henry Adams’s complete works. She smelled her hands—where could she find another jar?—and wondered what she could teach, how anyone could teach anything, since everything depended on everything else.

  chapter forty-four

  Rose screeched. She screeched with her mouth closed so it was half screech, half whinny. She took a breath and said, “It’s not enough that I have to go to this … this finishing school. What do you think that’ll be like with you—”

  “It’s not a finishing school. It’s a perfectly good progressive school. I don’t know where you got the idea that—”

  “Whatever. Just when a few people have stopped thinking I’m a total loser, you’re butting in and the whole thing’ll start all over again.”

  “I won’t be teaching you. And I’ll be part-time administration, mostly at Miss Perry’s house.”

  “Why can’t you just go on guarding the Great Swamp?”

  “Because they’ve replaced me with someone.” This was half true. “I can stay on, but it would be at a desk job in Providence.”

  “So?”

  “So I don’t want to.”

  “So get your old boyfriend to fix it.”

  “How I decide to earn money is up to me. Besides—”

  “And that makes my life up to you, too.”

  “Besides, he’s done enough. And besides, you don’t go around fixing things that way.”

  Rose cocked her head. “You’re saying he’s done enough and you don’t go around fixing things that way? I hope you’re not going to teach logic.”

  Elsie stared at her. Rose said, “What’s the use?” and went into her room and closed the door.

  Beside Rose’s door there was a thermostat that controlled the heat in her bedroom. Elsie turned it down to fifty. She put another log in the woodstove. With the door closed Rose would be freezing in twenty minutes. After five minutes Elsie turned it back up. Part of what made her so mad at Rose was her own uncertainty—was she leaping boldly or curling up?

  Elsie rode her Exercycle. Rose called through the door, “Mom! I’m trying to study!”

  Elsie started to carry the Exercycle up the inside stairs to Mary Scanlon’s empty room. It wouldn’t fit. She used the outdoor stairs—the separate entrance that they’d thought discreet but that Mary, as far as Elsie knew, never used.

  Elsie had been puzzled and hurt. She missed Mary and knew she’d go on missing her, but she recognized what Mary was talking about when Mary said she wanted to get out of the Rose-Elsie crossfire.

  As Elsie pedaled it occurred to her that Rose could be a boarder at school. If Elsie worked full-time she’d get a free pass on tuition—maybe room and board were covered, too. What was she thinking? That Mary would come back then? That Rose would miss her and be nice? Or did she want her house to herself? For peace and quiet? That would be nice for a change. And of course she could come and go as she pleased. She hadn’t had a sexual fantasy since she’d gone on leave to care for Miss Perry. Maybe she’d forgotten how. She’d certainly been hollowed, her senses had become simpler, her attention lifted out of herself. Some days she’d felt as young as Li Tran, or as if she were once again Miss Perry’s pet student. Other days she’d felt ageless, gliding up and down the stairs, the swing of her skirt barely stirring the still air. How long had it gone on? A month? Forty days? She’d liked the feeling of her body being hollowed—she hadn’t exercised, she’d eaten little. Now she was re-finding her body, and it was diminished, not up to hard exercise. Not even responding to fantasy. Had something else happened? Could it be that what she’d thought was a time of ascetic selflessness (for which Captain Teixeira had so sweetly praised her) was also when the first tendril of menopause was taking hold? Were her breasts smaller? Was there a bloom of down on her upper lip? Was that why she was snappish with Rose? And now unable even to conjure an imaginary lover?

  She looked at the maple leaves outside the window, half of them
still green, half tipped with red. Miss Perry always loved fall, would stop at the first sight of scarlet, lean on her walking stick, and recite, “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness …” One time Elsie had been in the woods with Dick and, feeling a bubble of rebellion against Miss Perry’s bookishness, she’d said to Dick, “That first bit of red gives me a pang.”

  “What? You don’t like fall? I like fall.”

  “Fall’s okay. It’s just the first bit of red on the green. It reminds me of how I feel when I’m just starting to come and I don’t want to stop fucking just yet.” She’d laughed because she thought his frown was his first reaction and that in a second or two he’d see that she was being high-spirited, that she was flirting, she was joking …

  But as she replayed it now—and she couldn’t keep from hearing herself several times over—it sounded like coarse swaggering. She saw the mixture of puzzlement and distaste in his eyes. And only now it dawned on her that he hadn’t just been shocked that she was mixing up natural beauty with private frenzies, he must also have thought that she was blithely waving a hand at a whole forest of her old gaspings and moanings.

  She formed a sentence—“I meant us”—but it didn’t get into her mouth. She was pedaling faster, as if she could outrace the banshee of embarrassment swooping after her. It caught the back of her neck and threaded down her spine.

  Rose called up the stairs. “Are we going to eat? I mean, anytime in the foreseeable future?”

  chapter forty-five

  May tried to be fair. She reminded herself that Deirdre had pulled Charlie out of the water. That had to count more than everything else. So May was at a loss to say why it bothered her to see Deirdre putting Charlie through their exercise routine. The doctor said the exercises were probably helpful, certainly couldn’t do any harm. So there Charlie and Deirdre were out in front of the house, sort of running in place in slow motion, lifting the right knee and touching it with the left elbow, left knee to right elbow. Deirdre said it activated the right brain–left brain flow.