But more often than not it was a complication with many symptoms, some of them incurable.
Ramona Dingley believed that property should be inventoried. She readjusted her will annually and advised her relative Sammy Smalter to consider his estate—whatever it might consist of. But Smalter had given little subsequent thought to his first and only will, in which whatever he had was to go to Ramona if she were alive, and to Beanie Abernathy otherwise. Yet, the pharmacist had much more than anyone in Dingley Falls imagined. He had more money than his aunt, more than Mrs. Troyes or Mrs. Canopy, though not, of course, as much as Ernest Ransom. Or Carl Marco. But he had more than he knew what to do with. Given that it could purchase neither ten more inches nor ten more years, there was little money had to offer him. It could buy love, or an excellent facsimile, since it is as easy to love someone for his money as for other such talents. It could buy the world, or at least rent it. But it could not give him Luke Packer's youth or size, and it could not change the past.
In the beginning, Sammy Smalter had not believed that. As checks had come in, first small ones, than larger, and finally ridiculously large, they had come like passports permitting him to leave his life behind, to take the vacation of vacating his past, the recreation of re-creating Samuel Smalter. On the stilts of that money he had planned to step over the slights and jokes and self-contempt that had crippled his earlier years. He had planned to climb so high he could not even see the looks on faces below him. During those years, when Dingleyans assumed he had gone to try his luck elsewhere, Smalter had been more places in the world than Cecil Hedgerow had ever longed for. He had seen more heaps of marble ruins and chunks of gilded rocks, more scaffolding left behind by the human race than Tracy Canopy had ever heard of. He had bought longer random nights, paid more for them, wasted more, lost more, even hurled more futilely into the winds at the Cliffs of Dover, than Luke Packer had yet to earn. But he had bought experiences and pleasures without undoing a life's protective habit of keeping himself safely withdrawn, enclosed in what Ramona called his prissiness.
Withdrawn, he had bought a box seat at the human comedy, had sat through the opera of foibles, intrigues, and dramatic pastimes. He had spied, from an excellent place in the house, on life and lives. He had observed interesting people do their interesting things. In the end, Smalter had only this regard for money—that it was better to have enough than not to. Like so much else in life (success, sleep, height), it gained its value in its absence. In the end he found he preferred work as a vehicle of vacation. He took pride not in the work he did, but in the fact that he did it diligently. He preferred the old New England values. And he preferred to live at home, where no one looked at him because they had seen him so long.
But, since his return to Dingley Falls when Dingleyans assumed his luck had run out, the money had kept on earning money, and the earnings had earned money, and money overflowed like the buckets of the sorcerer's apprentice. In New York, the corporation that was Sammy Smalter had lawyers and managers to find something to do with it. He made money because he gave money away; in the name of the corporation, his lawyers had charitably saved children, whales, clinics, theaters, alcoholics, paraplegics, nuns, lungs, and the birthplace of a Victorian poet. Ironically, he even made money because the pharmacy in Dingley Falls lost money. And that the pharmacy did lose money was the one fact of Mr. Smalter's finances that his fellow Dingleyans knew for certain.
"Poor little fellow," Father Highwick had said to his curate. "He hasn't a head for business at all. Really, it wouldn't be usurious to ask people to pay some little part of their bills, would it? A lady, I don't think you've had a chance to meet her yet, Jonathan, told me in confessional she owed Mr. Smalter three hundred and fifty dollars for insulin and allergy pills (poor thing) and hadn't paid a penny on her account in five years. I don't know how we got onto that subject because the point was she felt she was somehow losing her faith entirely (which was true, I was sorry to hear), but all the same it proves what I mean about Sammy. Fire sales up to 90 percent, and unprovoked by fires. It's all very well and good to be big-hearted, and Sammy always was because I remember he left two silver dollars in the plate on his confirmation day, dressed so nicely, too, though I do think now, at his age, yellow in the winter is a little flamboyant, but de gustibus non disregardum, as Quince Ivoryton always used to say to the cook at the dining hall in divinity school, and it was wretched fare. But Sammy's Three-for-a-Penny Days always struck me, and Ernest Ransom agreed, rather like a Baptist tag sale, though of course wonderful, and I'm sure the Baptists have the best intentions in the world. All to the glory of the Lord, whatever we do, Jonathan. But if it wasn't for Ramona though, I don't see how the little fellow could make ends meet."
Through the glass of his secretary's office, Ernest Ransom watched his daughter Kate stride with a slouch toward him.
Unconsciously, the banker straightened even further and filled his chest with air. "Well, you look nice and cheerful." He smiled, relieved to see her without a scowl.
"Hi, Irene. Daddy, stop it." Kate tossed her curls away from her father's hand.
"How can you see?" He frowned.
"Listen, Daddy, we're going to use the pool tomorrow night for a party, okay?"
"Who's we?"
"Well, you know, just whoever. Me and Sid and Lance and just some people, summer people. Anybody that wants to, that's all."
Ransom raised his eyebrows, a reaction of his wife's that he had acquired. "Sounds a little vague. Well, I think it would be polite to check with your mother."
"Oh, she doesn't care. I'll need to get something to drink, and I want to know if we could barbecue steaks."
"Tell Wanda what you want to eat, and here." He took from his wallet a thick group of twenty-dollar bills. "Is that enough?"
"Thanks. I'll pay you back when I inherit all my money."
"Unfortunately I'll be dead, but I appreciate the thought. Now be sure to include your sister."
"Crap. I don't horn in on her junk."
"Kate, there's no need to feel that way. Emerald and Arthur will probably not even want to horn in on your junk, but you shouldn't give them the impression that they aren't wanted."
"Okay. I'll lie, if it'll make you happy. See you. 'Bye, Irene."
"She just gets prettier and prettier, doesn't she, Mr. Ransom?"
"Thank you, Irene. It's very kind of you to say so."
Polly Hedgerow, cutting across the cemetery from Ransom Circle, came out onto Dingley Circle and saw Luke Packer on the other side of the green. He and Mr. Smalter stood in front of the pharmacy; then the proprietor went back inside while Luke, pushing off on his bicycle, sped out into the street. Polly felt the same strange rush of feeling that had made her wave with such affection at the fat child on her father's steps. "Hi, Luke!" she yelled, flagging her arms.
He pedaled over to her with a grin.
"Whatcha up to? Going to the library? Joy in there?"
At that moment, Kate Ransom came out the doors of the bank and started down the stone steps. Hurrying along the sidewalk so quickly that Luke had to trot beside his bike to keep up with her, Polly answered, "I don't know where Joy is. Good-bye."
"Hold up. Come on, wait a minute." They walked a few minutes in silence. "I'm taking a prescription over to Elizabeth Circle. Wanta come?"
"No, thanks. I'm going to see somebody."
"Okay. No reason to be so nasty about it. How much do I owe you for the sandwich?"
"Nothing. Forget it."
"I don't want to forget it. Where's that new bike of yours?"
"Broken."
"Hop on then. I'll give you a ride."
"That's okay. I guess I'll walk."
"Come on, don't be a dope. You won't fall."
"I know that, I've ridden double a lot."
"Okay then, hang on to me."
"You hang on to me."
"Jeez, women's lib!"
This sarcasm made Polly smile. She'd always felt liberated,
but couldn't recall anyone's ever having called her a woman before.
Orchid O'Neal had crossed Elizabeth Circle to clean up Mrs. Troyes's house, so Ramona Dingley answered Polly's ring herself.
"Hello. Step in. Turning a bit warmer. May rain. Good of you to come. Must wonder what I'm up to." Then the wide black figure disappeared as her wheelchair took an abrupt left turn. Seconds later it shot backwards into the hall again. "In here." The chair vanished.
With some trepidation Polly followed it into a room that far surpassed what Father Fields had described as "very interesting." She quickly decided that it would be less offensive to stare at the stuffed animals than at the religious statuary, and so she did.
"Creepy, ain't it?" her hostess asked with, Polly was glad to see, a warm smile on her face. "Gives me the spooks sometimes, if I'm especially fatigable. Even after all these years. Don't it you?"
Polly nodded ambiguously.
"Well, dear, take a seat. Oh, it doesn't matter. Take the one there that looks like a throne." High-backed, ornately carved, with a red velvet seat, it did make Polly think of Ivanhoe. "Be pleasant, now," Miss Dingley added, "to have your own smart throne, wouldn't it? I know I always lusted for one. A real one, I mean. Like one yourself?"
"No. Yes, I guess so." Polly had indeed made numberless proclamations of a regal nature from a hollow tree trunk rooted by the bank of the Rampage in the woods behind Glover's Lane. One of her worst humiliations had been being overheard, at age eleven, in one of these ringing speeches by Tac and Charlie Hayes, who had sneaked up on her and mercilessly laughed.
"Why don't you take that chair home with you?"
"Excuse me?"
"The chair. Put it in your room. See anything else you want?
Place is claustrophobic. Time to get rid of it all. Take whatever you like. Be a big help."
Too nonplussed to answer, much less chalk up her choices, Polly looked politely around the room, hoping she gave the impression that she longed for everything she saw.
"Well, now," said Miss Dingley, wheeling a table in front of her chair as she drove up to the girl. "I didn't ask you here to unload my white elephants on you. Or owls. What'll you have?" Bottle after bottle was held up as if being auctioned. "Coke. Root beer. Ginger ale.
Seven-Up. Apple cider. Don't suppose you drink ale. Milk."
"Oh, anything's fine."
The fat woman jutted out her strange hawk's face. "Never don't ask for what you want. If you're lucky enough to know what it is.
Take charge!"
"Root beer, please."
"That's better." Miss Dingley had silver ice tongs, which Polly had never seen before. She had silver bowls of pretzels, chocolate bars, and nuts—red pistachio nuts, which Polly had never before seen in such quantities. "Like them," explained her hostess. "Takes so infernal long to get at them. Too much trouble to overeat. I've put on weight. In the last forty years. Reprehensible. But still. Used to be as skinny as you."
Polly blushed.
"Better thin than fat. Stylish. Don't fret. Time will be your revenge. Now. Want to know why I asked you over?"
Her mouth to her glass, Polly nodded.
"I've had my eye on you. You've got gumption, I should wager.
Always accelerate on the curves, don't you? Took particular note of that."
As she pried open pistachios, Polly watched in wary fascination as Miss Dingley poured herself a goblet full of dark liquid from a crystal decanter. "Port." The invalid nodded and drank it down.
"Assuasive. I find it supplies the want of other means of spiritualizing. Ha! So now, first let's get acquainted. Then I'll come to business.
What have you heard about me?"
"Oh, nothing, really."
"Nothing? That's certainly a disappointment. Not that I'm lively?
Rich? Tennis champion, nineteen twenty-seven? Mad? At death's door? Smell bad? Nothing? Your dad never told you I was a senile old reactionary and had no business on the selectman's board with my hands on the purse strings and my behind squatting on this poor little town? Never told you that? Told me that once right to my face."
"I heard you hadn't been feeling well."
"True. Not since nineteen sixty." She poured out some more root beer and port.
"I'm sorry."
"So am I, dear. But such is the exorbitancy of that odious grudge, Life. He charges us too much for his cheap merchandise." Miss Dingley slapped her knees. "Useless, the human body. Shoddy parts, bad labor, worse design." She slapped her wheelchair. "This machine is better-made."
Out of a desk drawer Miss Dingley took an old almanac and a framed photograph. "Me. Hard to believe, ain't it?" A hearty, handsome girl stood laughing into the sun, a tennis racquet in her hand.
The almanac fell open to a page upon which a star had been drawn in the margin beside the name Ramona Dingley, Singles Finalist. "My quarter of an inch of fame. Nineteen twenty-seven."
"Gee, you're right there in the almanac."
"Right along with the worst drought. Always played singles.
Never married either. Probably should have. Save a little time out to get married, dear. Don't forget. But I live here with my nephew Sammy now. You know him? Runs his grandpa's pharmacy?"
"Oh, yes. He gives me old magazines."
"Not surprising. Sammy's one of God's little lapses of concentration; did so much better on the plants and animals—got to humans late in the week and was too tired to keep His mind on what He was doing. That's my theory. No, Sammy's a marvel. Might have turned him sour. Just turned him a tad stuffy. What about you?"
"Me?"
"Took me awhile to realize who you were when I saw you on that bike. Pauline Moffat's girl."
"Yes. Did you know her?"
"She was a flower, your mother." Miss Dingley reached over to tap Polly's arm with a suddenly shy kindness. "Otto Scaper doted on her, did you know that? Never had any kids of his own. She was his favorite out of all he delivered. Yes, a rare flower. And your father!"
She briskly thrust the chocolates at her guest. "Cecil used to bring me firewood. What a rascal. Practical joker. Sold me candles once you couldn't blow out. Made a fool of myself at the dinner table trying."
Her father, a "rascal," a "practical joker"? Polly tingled with information.
"Yes, dear. I can promise you this town was a tad surprised when Pauline chose young Hedgerow over Ernie Ransom. Her folks had a fit. But your dad, he flared up with love for her. She flew right at him like a moth. Anyone could see it. No, he wasn't much to set the world on fire before her, tell you the truth. And when he lost her, he just quit. Always used to talk about going to sea. Wanted to be a violinist, too. Never did either. People mostly don't. Don't have as much stomach as appetite, I mean. But he had her, and that's more than a lot get. Loving her was his success."
"Could you tell, what was he like when he was young?"
"He was shiny and couldn't stand still. Used to dance when he walked, danced up those steps with the logs. Pauline was the world to him, much less China. And when you finally made an appearance—and my opinion is you wouldn't come down until you were good and ready—Pauline was happy as a skylark. They both were.
Bragged 'til even Otto got bored with what a marvel you were, how you could read at six weeks and fly around the room at ten."
How wonderful this was. To see the love story of her parents as if in a movie. To hear her own life from one who had seen her before she herself knew who she was. A pleasure better than the best book.
Polly felt her mouth stretching into a grin. It was wonderful to know that her mother (of whom she had such a few, such a faded, fixed treasury of memories) was known in other, new ways, and that she could happen on these discoveries like Easter eggs. That Kate Ransom's father should have loved her mother! That her mother should have surprised the town and driven her parents to fits!
"Yes." Miss Dingley smiled. "She was a flower. Now, you. You remind me more of your grandmother Miriam Hedgerow. She di
d my sewing, you know. Too ham-handed to do it myself—I could do marvels with a racquet, but a needle! I wanted nothing to do with anything female. As a result of which, of course, I'm totally incompetent to take care of myself."
"I'm named for my grandmother and my mom. Miriam Pauline.
But everybody calls me Polly. But when I go out in the world, like to college, that's what I'm going to tell people to call me. Miriam."
"Yes, you've got her eyes. Snappy bright little black eyes. She never missed a thing, not a stitch, not a word, not a truth of life.
Ought to have let her run that factory where your grandfather worked until my uncle made such a mess of the business they had to lay everybody off."
"My dad says his mother worked very hard."
"Didn't have an easy life, I shouldn't imagine, but she fought back. Every match point. One time she said to me, 'Suffering, we pick and choose. Could be this, could be that in our lives we let break our hearts. A thousand kinds of misery, and only one word for happy. Happiness you don't choose. It chooses you, like luck. You look down, there's a quarter or a rose. You listen, somebody's singing.'
Oh, something had upset me, can't remember what now, and she was trying to perk me up. She always had her radio on."
Polly's grin had contracted to a sad and tender smile for her grandmother's life, for the woman seated in a frayed armchair by a standing lamp, the radio next to her, for the woman repairing other women's clothes. In Polly's hand the warm chocolate was sticky.
Then suddenly Miss Dingley raced her chair to the other side of the room, where she flipped a light switch that jolted the girl back into the baroque clutter around her.
"Idiot, I don't know when to shut up. Well, Polly, or Miriam, I should say, the old have nothing to give the young but the past, and the young don't want it."
"Oh, no, Miss Dingley, I love to hear it."
"Well, good, you'll learn something. Next time you tell me about the future and I'll learn something. But now to the point. I have a theory, and I want to borrow your legs to test it out. You know that stretch of marsh and forest up near Bredforet Pond, up north of the highway where people used to hunt?"
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