Compass Rose

by John Casey

  The male bluebird showed up. The two bluebirds perched on a branch. After a while they flew off together. Had the female somehow told him? Given a warning? Given a twitch of courtship that reset the nest-building and mating cycle?

  Although it was not official Natural Resources policy, a number of officers took to breaking the eggs of mute swans. The mute swans, unlike the whistling swans, were introduced and had thrived, taking over feeding and nesting territory from the native swans and from Canada geese. Smashing the eggs didn’t work. The mute swans laid another clutch. The officers then sprayed the mute-swan eggs with silicone. The mute-swan mother kept sitting on them—in vain, since no oxygen got to the embryos. If the blacksnake had eaten eggs, would it be as easy for the bluebirds to produce another clutch as for the mute swans? All that swooping, all that mother frenzy, erased? But if there were nestlings?

  The bluebirds were gone. A minute or two of fluffing and bobbing and off they went.

  Elsie let that part go. She jogged back to her house, found a hammer and a flashlight. She filled both pockets with ten penny nails. Back to the locust. She gathered some thick sticks, nailed one onto the tree, stood on it, and nailed another. She climbed up and down until she had the last rung nailed just below the hole. She banged a single nail in, above and to one side of the hole. She dropped the hammer, held on to the nail with her left hand, and worked the flashlight out of her back pocket.

  She held still for a moment before she moved her face in front of the hole. All that banging and clambering might have pissed the snake off. She turned the flashlight on, used its flat face to block most of the hole. She peered in. Hard to see at first—the snake’s coils were piled on top of one another, its head turned toward the back of the hole. It didn’t move at first, then raised its head. She saw two tiny claws sticking out of its mouth. The snake rippled, and the claws moved an inch farther into the gape.

  She saw a bulge in the snake—was it two or three baby birds? At the back of the hole was another motion. One featherless nestling still alive.

  The snake swung its head, and Elsie dropped the flashlight. It clattered down, hitting the rungs of her makeshift ladder. She lost her grip on the nail but grabbed the topmost stick. It tilted and she slid, hugging the tree with her arms, hitting one rung after another with her feet. She bumped her way down, burning her hands on the bark. She scratched her cheek on something. Her feet hit the ground, and she tipped over backward, a jounce on her ass and a slow roll onto her back. She lay still for a bit, knocked silly. When she stood up a nail slid down her leg. She reached into her pocket and sent another nail through the hole in it.

  She closed her eyes. She made a high humming noise that popped her eyes back open. Silly-ass woman. She picked up the two pieces of her flashlight. She screwed the head back on. Didn’t work. Must have busted the bulb. She swished through the grass with her feet until she uncovered the hammer. She stuck it in her belt, shoved the flashlight in her good pocket. She felt her cheek. A fair amount of blood on her fingertips. Some had dripped onto her shirt. She pulled her shirttails loose to wipe her cheek. All the buttons but one were torn off. One knee was scraped and was beginning to stiffen. It loosened up as she started home. She turned around at the edge of the meadow. She spied the hole by following the nailed-on sticks, the top two of them dangling askew. A lot of clumsy fussing to see what she could see. She wondered how the snake would get down. Its stomach was ruffled like the fish-scale bottom of her cross-country skis—slid forward smoothly, gave a little traction to keep from sliding back. Maybe the snake would come down in loops, curving and recurving so that parts of its length pointed up to get a grip. That would be something else to see, but there was no telling when it would come down. A vulnerable time, that zigzag descent—a hawk by day, an owl by night.

  She felt a pang at what she wouldn’t see. But what she had seen—the slow swallowing of flesh and bones, the peristalsis she’d only read about and imagined in pale abstraction—now it was hers.

  She tucked her shirt back in and went into the woods. Long shadows for the first bit, then diffuse light, dim but not dark.

  She’d seen what others would call horrible or even frightening, and yes, she’d felt horror and she’d had a moment of fright, but these were pushed aside by the sight, the intense sight, that made the alien intimate.

  By the time she got to her house it was almost dark. When she opened the door Rose called from her room, “Mom! Where have you been?” Rose came through the door saying, “May’s been trying to find you. Everyone’s …” She stopped and said, “What happened? Oh my God, are you all right? What did you do?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re all bloody; there’s blood all over—”

  “I scratched my cheek. It looks worse than it is.” Elsie went to the bathroom mirror. She cleaned her cheek. It was a little worse than she’d thought—an L-shaped cut, a dangling triangle of skin the size of her thumbnail. She washed it and taped a gauze pad over it. She took off her shirt and cleaned her face and chest with a washcloth. Wiped off her knee. Rose was standing behind her. Rose said, “How did you do all that?”

  “I was climbing down from a tree and I slipped. Nothing much.”

  “Climbing a tree? What for? Never mind—Mary and Dick and May and some other people are at May’s house. I said you’d be back by suppertime. That’s what you said. Can you go now? It’s like a meeting, and I said we’d come. And can you do me a favor? Don’t tell them you’ve been wandering around climbing trees. Just put on some clothes and make something up. And put on long pants; your knee is gross. They’ve all been busy about May’s house. They’re waiting to hear what you’ve been doing.”

  chapter seventy-seven

  Phoebe had arranged it all, but now she was looking as if May was supposed to say something. They were all sitting at the kitchen table—her family, Mary Scanlon, and Eddie and Phoebe. And Mr. Salviatti. Phoebe had come early, and then Mr. Salviatti, who arrived in a big black car with a chauffeur. She’d only seen such a thing in movies. The driver just sat in the car. May had said to Mr. Salviatti, “There’s plenty to eat and drink if your driver would like to come in.”

  He said, “Ah, how kind you are, but he likes to smoke and listen to the radio.” Phoebe had laughed in a nervous way, and May worried she’d said something out of place. Mr. Salviatti had asked to see her garden. She thought he might be doing it to get her over her mistake, but he’d asked a lot of questions and even picked up a handful of soil and smelled it.

  Phoebe had called them in, bustled around to get everyone to sit down, cleared her throat, and said, “Whatever’s on the stove smells scrumptious, but let’s just start in with a few words about what’s going on.” And that was when she stopped right there and looked at May.

  May felt a little updraft of nervousness through her arms and chest. She took a breath and froze. She’d been all of one piece just the other day, right here in her kitchen. She looked at Dick. He was frowning and staring at the table. She looked at Mr. Salviatti, who lifted his chin and tilted his head, which reminded her of the way he’d said, “Ah, how kind you are.” She said, “Kind. You’re kind to come.” And then what? Now the problem was she didn’t feel right crying her troubles out loud. She closed her eyes and smoothed her apron. She was startled that she still had it on, ought to have taken it off before they came. That distracted her enough so that she said, “What is going on is pretty much a mystery to me. Phoebe explained some of it, the law about taking land, but I can’t say that I can recite chapter and verse. And it’s a mystery to me how all of a sudden Mr. Aldrich’s changed. He was perfectly polite and friendly the one time he came by. So I just don’t know.”

  Phoebe patted her arm. What was Phoebe thinking she needed to be patted for? She’d made a fool of herself there at the beginning, that car and chauffeur set her on edge was all, she didn’t need patting in front of everyone—that just made it worse.

  Phoebe said, “Well, that’s the qu
estion in a general way, but before we get to the more technical side—I have a little outline I went over with my lawyer—I’d like to color in the human side. Even my lawyerlike lawyer—” She gave a little trill of laughter. “Even my lawyer got emotional. So where we start is that May and Dick have lived here on Pierce Creek for years—the name tells you something right there. And Dick and Eddie built this house, May raised her two sons, and Dick and Eddie rebuilt the house after the hurricane. I mean, talk about sweat equity. And May has cultivated the—”

  May stood up when she heard a car pull in the driveway. Thank goodness for something to put a stop to Phoebe making them into a charity case.

  Rose and Elsie.

  Rose said, “I’m sorry, May. Mom had a little accident. We’ll just sit down over there.”

  May saw the gauze pad on Elsie’s cheek, a blotch of red showing through. She said, “Looks like it’s still bleeding. Come over to the sink.” She got the first-aid kit. When she peeled the gauze pad off she said, “Oh, my. Dick, you ought to take a look.”

  Dick rolled up his sleeves, washed his hands, and held them up. He nodded to May to pull a fresh paper towel. Elsie laughed and said, “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.”

  “He’s handy at this,” May said. “He’s always patching up his crew.”

  Elsie said to Dick, “I’m glad your hand is better. No nerve damage?”

  “Nope. Hold still.” He held Elsie’s chin. “Might need a couple of stitches; you don’t want a scar. I’m going to put a butterfly on, just to hold that flap. What was it did that? Looks like it tore more than sliced.”

  “A stick.”

  “You wash it out with anything?”

  “Soap and water.”

  “Wood’s dirtier than a knife. Not as bad as a fish spine, but still … I’m going to pour something in. Might sting.” He turned his head and said, “You go on with your talk. We can hear.”

  May sat back down. She said to Phoebe, “Maybe you could get to the lawyer part.”

  Phoebe clapped her hands and said, “I know, I know. But this is the crux of the matter, and it takes some concentration. I’ve made copies. The law part is page one; page two is some ideas about what I call ‘political pressure points.’ Take two sheets and pass them on.”

  The fuss of passing the papers around got everyone to turn their attention back to the table. May folded her hands in her lap and looked at each face in turn. They all knew the story. She’d asked Dick to tend to Elsie. They all heard that. They could all see that she let things be.

  Phoebe was lecturing briskly, not interrupting herself. May was glad to see Charlie and Tom paying attention.

  May stole a glance at Dick. He was touching Elsie’s cheek, the tip of his thumb under the cut, his fingers above it. He put the butterfly bandage across it, fastened a gauze pad over the cut. May touched her own cheek. Dick gave Elsie his seat at the table. He got a small bench from the back porch, and he and Rose sat side by side, as if May had arranged that, too. Let them all see Rose was at home here. Phoebe told everyone to turn to page two. May looked at them all turning their pages and thought of them all at once, all of them cross-stitched to one another. May was grateful, after all, for Phoebe and her notes … And wasn’t it just like Elsie to come tumbling in like that? Time to get back to the business of the house. May was content that people showed up to help. She’d been shy about speaking up but quick enough about getting Dick to bandage Elsie’s face. If May’s feelings had been completely pleasurable she would have mistrusted them.

  chapter seventy-eight

  When Phoebe was done, she turned to May and said, “Let’s have that lovely chowder and then we’ll see where we are.”

  Dick said to Elsie, “You better not chew till you get that sewed up.”

  Tom offered to drive her to the hospital. Mr. Salviatti said, “Tom, you should stay. My driver’s here.” He held Elsie’s elbow and led her out. He held the car door open but didn’t close it. He said to the driver, “This lady is going to the hospital. Wait and bring her back, please.” He said to Elsie, “Everyone will still be talking. I’ll listen to everyone, but you and I know Jack. When he wants something he won’t stop. If he’s blocked one way, he’ll find another and another and another. Even if all the people in there get a hundred names, two hundred names, on a petition, he can find more. He lines up piece after piece. He’s holding a fund-raiser at Sawtooth for Mr. Bienvenue. He can fire Mary Scanlon. He can find someone other than Eddie to work on Sawtooth. Even you—your contract with the school is for only one year. When the bank learned that Dick lost his boat, they were worried that he couldn’t make his payments on his mortgage. Since the bank was worried in that way that banks worry, Jack was there. He has a company that bought the mortgage for eighty cents on the dollar. So that is Jack the octopus. But he has from time to time another side—a desire to be the prince, to be seen as just and generous. So after he has shown that he can squeeze everyone, perhaps he will let go for a moment. Do you remember when he bought Mary Scanlon’s restaurant? He felt no pain at paying a little too much. But he also offered her a job. I doubt that she would have sold unless she could keep doing what she loves and does well.”

  “How do you know all this? About Dick’s mortgage?”

  “Because Jack has a notion that I am a clever man, he wanted me to see how clever he is. If this were a game of chess, one would say that he controls the board.”

  “So what are you saying? We should give up?”

  “No.” Mr. Salviatti gestured toward the house. “All this resistance will make him angry at first but then perhaps stimulate his imagination. A basic principle of negotiation is to imagine things that the other side wants that are not so dear to oneself. His offer of a little house in Snug Harbor is an overture of that kind. Phoebe has told me about Mrs. Pierce’s garden, and I have just seen it. The Sawtooth corporation owns some pieces of land not so far away. There may be a possibility there for something that will make Mrs. Pierce happier. Believe me, if I were an equal partner I would put a stop to this. As it is, I can only suggest ways to discourage the octopus and encourage the king’s largesse. Jack has very little regard for the people in there. But he esteems me.” Mr. Salviatti cocked his head and lifted a hand as if to say, “Who knows why, but there it is. And, of course, you. It is possible that in front of you and me, and perhaps Mr. Bienvenue, Jack will not wish to … There is an Italian phrase, fare una brutta figura, to make an ugly face—but it means much more.” Mr. Salviatti abruptly leaned back and put his palm on his chest. “But I am keeping you from caring for your wound.”

  And with that Elsie was whisked away. When the chauffeur leapt to open the car door and then the door to the hospital lobby, she felt ushered out rather than ushered in.

  What did she expect? All those citizens were members in good standing. She’d been nothing but a disruption in May’s house. She’d thought herself the maverick spirit of woods and streams, but her merit badges were out-of-date. She was no longer a forest ranger; she was no longer being as good as a daughter to Miss Perry. She’d come to the meeting with nothing. May told Dick to tend to her, showing the gathering that she was no more than a scar on an oak branch where a vine had been pulled off.

  Courtly old Mr. Salviatti had seen her out.

  Her knee hurt. Her cheek hurt. The hospital smell was making her sick to her stomach. She went up to the desk and said, “I think I need someone to sew me up.”

  chapter seventy-nine

  There she was in Jack’s office again, Jack beaming again and saying, “Mary, Mary, Mary!” When he got through beaming and squeezing both her hands, he sat at his desk. “So Rose is going to sing,” he said, “and I’m very grateful for your help. I think it’s a good thing for everybody …” He sat down, spun his chair to look out over the yacht basin, spun back to face her. “I love this view, the boats, the pond and the sea. Do you ever miss the view you had from your old restaurant? The creek and the salt marsh and th
e dunes. And if you stand on tiptoe you can even see a bit of Block Island, can’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know, there’s a technical name for that line of light where the sky and the sea meet.”

  “The horizon.”

  “Ah. In fact, it’s what makes the horizon hard to determine. That indeterminate zone is called the glimmer. A lovely word, and nice to know it has a sliver of specialized meaning. You could see the glimmer then. From your old restaurant.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s going to be vacant again. My people there are giving up the food business. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the building. It has two big rooms and a kitchen—all one floor. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “An acre or so.”

  “Yes.”

  “On a quiet side road. I suppose it would be a nice place to live. Make the old barroom into a bedroom, the dining room into … what? A dining room. So that would be easy.”

  “I imagine so. But you’ll want an architect’s opinion. I’m the cook.”

  “Oh, Mary, there’s much more to you than that. It’s not many people can steal a march on me. There I was about to buy Tory Hazard’s house and barn, and what do I find? A corporation is the new owner. But it wasn’t more than a day’s work to—as we lawyers say—pierce that corporate veil. A nice Irish lawyer in Boston, who has a nice Irish brother who wrote the libretto for … You see where we end up. So my hat’s off to you. Oh, I was irritated for a moment, but now I’m … interested. So there you are, one of the holdouts in the way of Sawtooth. So I’m interested in finding out if you’d like your old restaurant back—not qua restaurant, of course. You wouldn’t want to be competing against yourself.”