Telling Time

by Austin Wright

  How do you like that, Thomas, he says. Ain’t that a crock?

  If I had breath to speak words as free of effort as he, wasting all that precious life force in imbecility? No one is even curious why Thomas went to see the madman when he was on the verge of his stroke. I could tell this story if I had the breath. Love,

  Henry

  THOMAS WESTERLY: Papers as read by Philip Westerly

  Late in the afternoon, when the women were in the kitchen and Henry napping, Philip went into his father’s room, leaving the door open so as not to arouse suspicion. In the archaic study, the old wounded desk, globe dark over the bookcase, gooseneck lamp spraying light over the file cabinet, swivel chair, rule and paper cutter, scissors, the rest of the room in twilight, books in shadow.

  Also two large file cabinets with four well-oiled drawers, full of hanging files. These contained folders with papers stapled and loose, mimeographed documents, reports with glossy covers, crammed. The dividers between the files had headings:

  AFFIRM ACT. ATHLETIC. BOARD. BUDGET. COLLECTIVE BARG. FACULTY. MAKROV. PRAISE AND GLORY. RECOMMENDATIONS. STUDENTS. HOUSE. ESSAYS. THOUGHTS. UNIVERSITY FINANCES.

  Somewhere here the papers his father wanted him to destroy. He flipped through the tops of the files. An absent dialogue: What do you want me to do? Am I supposed to read it all? My patients will be waiting for me.

  In the file cabinet on the right was a divider labeled FAMILY. There was a tab in front, HENRY, then PATTY, then PHILIP. Take a peek, someone says, find what your father really thought of you. He lifted the PHILIP file two inches. Tops of letters, old carbons, later xeroxes, fatherly typing: After we go back to the Island, maybe we Don’t waste time, he said. He looked in the back, the thick file labeled UNIVERSITY FINANCES. The thickest files were full of business, ignore them. The job was still impossible.

  He pushed the drawer shut, then reopened it because he had seen a thin folder in front with a yellow flag: LOOK HERE IN CASE OF DEATH.

  To Whom It May concern, in the event of my death:

  Please heed this request. Before anyone looks at my papers, I wish my son Philip to go through them and select what in his good judgment should not be retained. If Philip is not available my daughter Ann may act in his place or my other children in descending order of age.

  MELANIE CAIRO: Dialogue

  Dinner table, Saturday night. Seated at the table: Lucy, Philip, Ann, Henry (Westerlys) and Melanie (Henry’s wife, a Cairo).

  Lucy: He still might die.

  Philip: Probably.

  Lucy: Even if he pulls through, there’s the underlying—

  Henry: That’s why we’re here.

  Lucy: What will I do if he dies?

  No one wants to answer.

  Ann: Didn’t you make any plans when you came to the Island?

  Lucy: Of course we did. We have everything worked out with Mr. Haseltine at the bank.

  Henry: Well then?

  Lucy: I didn’t expect it so soon.

  Philip: Yes, it’s too soon. He’s only seventy-two.

  Lucy: So disappointing.

  Henry: Three score and ten or whatever.

  Lucy: We had six years here.

  Ann: Six good years.

  Lucy: Six good years. I can’t complain. I was hoping we could live until eighty. My father lived to eighty. My mother lived to ninety-one. My grandmother lived to ninety-seven.

  Henry: I don’t want to live past fifty.

  Lucy: I’ll be sadly disappointed if I outlive you my dear boy.

  Ann: Listen Mother. What plans do you have for what to do next?

  Lucy: I don’t remember. Yes, I do. I’ll stay in the house. I have friends. My garden. I won’t impose on you children.

  Ann (after a silence): If Frank and I weren’t moving to London.

  Lucy: Don’t think of it.

  Ann: Maybe some kind of alternating arrangement.

  More silence.

  Lucy: We put my mother into Sunset Leaves.

  Philip: No need to worry about that for a good long time.

  Lucy: Let’s cheer up. We’re talking as if he were already dead. He won’t die.

  Ann: Well actually Mother—

  Lucy: The stroke is mending and there’s always remission. He’s had lots of remission, he’s very good at it.

  Henry: If he doesn’t die now, you’ll have to go through the whole thing again.

  Ann: Henry.

  Lucy: What will I do if he dies?

  Henry: You just said.

  Lucy: No, I mean what will I do? It’s been so long, I can’t imagine it. I always thought he would outlive me. It’s so disappointing.

  Henry: Looks like you will outlive him.

  Lucy: There was Doctor Eastcastle’s question. That was shockingly premature, don’t you think?

  Philip: You mean the extraordinary measures question?

  Ann: There’s only one possible answer to that.

  Philip: Does he have a Living Will?

  Lucy: What’s that?

  Henry: That’s the euthanasia thing.

  Lucy: Not euthanasia. That’s going too far. I didn’t authorize that, did I?

  Ann: Not euthanasia Mother. It’s just a way of making your wishes known, not to drag it out when it’s hopeless.

  Lucy: It’s never hopeless, I won’t have anyone calling it that. Does the doctor think it is?

  Ann: The doctor has never said what he thinks.

  Lucy: I hope I told him the right thing. Maybe I should tell him I’ve changed my mind. Should I do that?

  Ann: You did the right thing.

  Lucy: If he dies, I don’t want it on my conscience.

  Ann: It won’t be on your conscience, Mother.

  Lucy: It’s so terrible.

  Henry: What’s terrible?

  Lucy: It.

  Henry: Life, you mean?

  Lucy: No I don’t mean that.

  THOMAS WESTERLY: As skimmed by Philip Westerly

  In his study Saturday evening.

  To whom it may concern: Elaine Sine has been a loyal worker in the University President’s office for the last eight years because of your great distinction and accomplishments in molecular biology great pleasure to invite you as our LeClair Distinguished Faculty Lecturer, a specially invited annual by a famous scholar for which we can offer a fee

  unbelievable, no way I can rearrange my understanding of the case to give credence. It doesn’t add up. Doesn’t compute, in the language of the day. What is disbelief, I ask, a mal-correspondence between what you’re accustomed to expect in the normal course of events and something outside, won’t fit, like metric and English call attention of the Board to this practice. I have sent a directive to the Provost asking measures initiated to stop it soon as possible, but the Board must realize entrenched habits

  all my life a memoir. Perhaps two memoirs, maybe more, the difficulty finding a form, where to go next what to include postpone, it is hard to write anything

  a fine novel just finished. Ordinarily no time for novels but this time fortunately, roughly epistolary, though not sure what principle of inclusion exclusion, series of call them epistoles in which everything seems to be a form of writing, recognizable as such, if not letter a journal entry or other standard forms like dialogue narrative or lecture or suppose to emphasize constraint on experience by writing don’t know

  To whom it may concern: Ronald Guernick has been a loyal student of mine in graduate courses for three years, unusually bright imaginative I have to recognize this a job for which I am by personality and temperament not fitted. Requires outgoing skills, salesmanship (calling on people for money, nothing more repugnant), whereas always sensitive easily hurt. My weaknesses, which maybe will be my advantage, if I don’t accept the offer the question will always remain as source of possible regret, how would I have done as President of River City University?

  seldom so angry, or only do I tend to forget emotion after passed? Amply justified though well aware how an e
motion like anger when it once gets a foothold is a living creature embryo or weed in the garden it wants to live grow develop an instinct for selfpreservation, it resists any attempt to pacify or resolve it creates imagines even worse offenses on which to thrive even worse outrages to fury, which is how I feel at this moment with enough sense to warn me be careful think it over wait a day but how flat and dull and humiliating to contain myself and wait to cool off

  as if nothing really happened until it was written down. This seems like madness, tourist with a camera, and if I am mad the insane one victim of language, obsession with writing. Consider the peculiar nature of it, a blocking out of thought, tying it up like a box score after a ball game, the whole game reduced to an ordered collection of symbols, as if all my thought were to reduce experience to a box score, and yet impossible to think without

  too vulnerable, easily depressed when things not well, I suppose this is another case not a suitable personality for the President of a University. Oh the advantages of a leather hide sit down and figure out the rationale of my quiver and tremulating echo when things go off a little, why such an inside shake. Analyze each case, but that’s probably not the right way, it’s what I do whereas the really thick-skinned ignore, disregard, apparently don’t have any such inside waves with great regret I must tender to you In this I have to say, I must say, I’m obliged to say, it must be said, you have to grant, you’ll grant me this one mitigating mitigation excuse alibi circumstance factor not beyond anyone’s control not to make any excuses alibis, a political situation out of control forces of radical forces forces out of control factions and divisiveness I must now I am obliged now herewith with the greatest of regret my resignation beyond my control my political base

  with all due respect believing this bill should not be paid until your workmen have rectified the situation, in simple language: The job has not been done. have always loved that part of the beaches of my childhood but never could some day afford to live on the Island, but when we retired just so happened this nostalgia trip in the offseason available on the market by the luckiest of breaks within the price range would never been able to afford were not my three otherwise mostly unhappy years as President said to each other unbelieving in our good luck and paid the downpayment then and there and Eugene Makrov is the most brilliant man male or female whom I have ever known

  To whom it may concern: Robin Walleye when I hear cynical talk about the wickedness of man how vicious we intrinsic awfulness are drops of scum marring the serene face of nature, then I often think of my father innate gentle truly good man

  loss of the sheen or aura of excitement that floats through the memory of past quality the present lacks always an anxiety in the opera or great mountain view or the thrilling dinner honored guest the future yet to unfold your belly digesting your last meal no matter how exciting the event the eventual threatening fart or cramp or shit and when my next chance to go to the bathroom

  Don’t forget Mother too sweet loving tenderness her songs, naive though she

  whether he exists or not, a linguistic question loaded since the phrasing implies a pre-existent answer, so the question becomes the following meaningless one: does this thing whose existence I have postulated by giving it a name exist, which tells you nothing since the postulation is only a linguistic formulation anyway, so we need to consider over again (reconsider) what real need the question is trying to answer, and whether that real need itself is not ultimately just a linguistic formulation

  fatigue, I have no explanation

  PHILIP WESTERLY: Dialogue

  Thomas Westerly’s study, Philip skimming through Thomas’s files. Enter Ann.

  Ann: Hey, what are you doing?

  Philip: Looking through his papers.

  Ann: How come?

  Philip: He asked me to.

  Ann: What are you looking for?

  Philip: I don’t know.

  Ann: What do you mean?

  Philip: He asked me to get rid of anything unsuitable.

  Ann: Censor them?

  Philip: Yes.

  Ann: You’re kidding. Why you?

  Philip: Because I’m the oldest.

  Ann: That doesn’t make you the wisest. So what are you supposed to find?

  Philip: Damned if I know.

  Ann: He didn’t say?

  Philip: Use my judgment. That’s all I know.

  Ann: Would you like help?

  Philip: He asked me to do it.

  Ann: Oh.

  Philip: You can help if you want to.

  Ann: Does this mean Dad has secrets he’s ashamed of?

  Philip: Maybe just things that would embarrass others.

  Ann: Does it scare you?

  Philip: A little.

  Ann: What have you found so far?

  Philip: Nothing. I’m overwhelmed by the amount. I wish I knew better what he has in mind.

  Ann: Maybe you can ask him tomorrow.

  Philip: He wouldn’t tell me when I asked him today.

  Ann: Maybe tomorrow he will. Go to bed, it’s late. Don’t worry about it.

  Notes.

  If he has something to hide, why should I care? Everybody has things to hide. That’s why we have skulls, to keep things from getting out.

  Not everyone writes them down, though. Is that the problem, if he saved his mental garbage in a trail of writing?

  What would a man like Thomas Westerly choose to hide?

  Love Affair. Which I’d rather not know. Why shouldn’t I know, if it came out all right? A rival to Lucy. Would it trouble me to learn that my secure and happy childhood, when the only problems were my brothers and sisters, was not secure and happy after all? Dangerous things that I didn’t know, with a residue of painful letters.

  University politics. Conspiracies, intrigues. If the secrets are other people’s stored for safe-keeping in his files, then this creepy worry is pointless. Go to bed, Philip. There’s nothing for your notebook here.

  The question of how I might feel about what I might find suggests this odd question to me: what if my father is no different from me? This question filled me with alarm, giving rise to another, namely, why should it fill me with alarm? Why should it frighten me to think my father was no different from myself?

  WILLIAM KEY: Narrative

  Two more on the late Saturday ferry: Patricia, third of the Westerly children, and her amicably divorced husband William Key the lawyer, coming from New York. They carried their heavy bags up through the village, turning by the museum, down Peach Street to the Westerly house with all windows lit, where they went in without knocking. Henry and Melanie in the living room watching television. Well look at you, exclamation points greeting them, mostly from Melanie, who called the others, bringing Philip from the study, Ann and Lucy from the guest rooms they had been fixing, with more exclamation points. The narrative is by William Key, formulated but not written.

  Immediate discussion where they should stay, indicating to William that they did not yet know about the divorce. The three upstairs bedrooms were occupied. William said they should go to the Inn, but Lucy suggested the sunporch with the cots if there’s enough bedding, which there was, and Ann wanted to go to the linen closet right away, but Lucy said, Wait a while, they just got off the boat.

  The point of view is William Key’s. His official connection to the family having been severed, although they do not know this, his perceptions are sharpened as he sits among them in the living room feeling regret. He feels obliged to prove all over again that he is a decent and honorable person, and he makes a point of participating in the talk, which is otherwise carried mostly by Patricia, Lucy, and Henry’s strange little Melanie, while the other men, Henry and the usually talkative Philip, seem rather reserved.

  The point of observation is the piano bench at one end, where William sits, gouged under the ribs by the piano cover, closed after his soft middle on the keys had spilled musical discord into the room. Curtained windows on the left, opposite the tawny deep
sofa which contains Lucy and Ann leaning back and Patty leaning forward. Coffee table by their knees. Melanie on the wooden straight chair in the dress with large solid-color flower prints. A remembering look on her face, which embarrasses him. Philip with his neat speckled beard in the father chair, Henry in the wooden rocking chair by the magazine table. Potted flowers. Shelves with pitchers, figurines, china animals, ceramic pots. Painting over the fireplace, sand dunes, surf vaguely delineated, brought from the university president’s office, somebody’s gift. The yellow cat, whose name he remembers with some scorn is Freud, goes from one shoe to another, sniffing around the room before settling on the window sill.

  The words in William Key’s mind have no particular destination. Their object is to gather such things as will soon be deleted from William’s life. Words and pictures. Not quite voluntary, a moment of unusual detachment he did not seek, which makes these people of the family he’s casting off look like strangers. For the first time he notices a Westerly look shared by everyone in the room but Lucy and Melanie. Ann, Patricia, Philip, and Henry: pointedness of face, convergence of lines and planes to the tip of the nose, enhanced by smallness of chin, projection of lips as to kiss, recession of brow, all of which might be represented in caricature by a cone, which to create the proper effect must be decorated by eyebrows. The cone is diverted differently in each, by puffy fat in Henry, by a dignified half-gray pointy beard in Philip, by intelligent dark iron eyes with a light like swords or picks in Ann, by Patty’s moist and fleshy lips which in other days, but never mind. Together they recall by indirection the old geologist in the hospital, his ravaged but humorous old eyes replaced in the young by earnestness and strife. Lucy is different. Her eyes are bruised, mouth squashed from the sides while the expressive lips don’t know if they are crying or laughing. Is there anyone else? Yes, the outlander Melanie Cairo whose eyes bulge.

  How does William look in such a crowd? He prefers his own looks, normally handsome with a small mustache, to those of any Westerly.

  Talk of ferry schedules, rooms and bedding, with nothing for him, William wants to escape. There’s a snack break to the kitchen. He must go for a walk. He goes out the sunporch door, which Patricia will leave open if he comes back late. He feels Melanie looking at his back as he goes.