Telling Time

by Austin Wright

  He steps out to the sidewalk. Quiet of the island night. Clarity of air and sky, clusters of stars never seen in New York. A faint music and enclosed male voice, TV from the centers of civilization leaking out a window and dispersing. He walks back toward the village. Past firehouse with open door, a dim red light inside, Inn with lights on the front porch, museum dark. Shops are closed, though some shop windows remain lit. The street goes straight to the harbor.

  Straight to the public landing, which is a square dock sticking into the harbor with a summer house in the middle. The harbor is black. He goes out and stands at the farthest edge from the village which twinkles hesitantly in trees. He looks up, examines for a while the full sky, constellations learned as a child, known and named by Greeks and forgotten by him. Nearby, the ferry dock, where looms the dark hulk of the steamer that brought him. Beyond that, the harbor mouth, a black gap between the red and green marker lights far out. On the other side of the dock there’s a long pier lit all the way, with a large fishing boat and voices. He goes back to shore and out the other dock to see.

  Illuminated by a floodlight, men in a hurry shovel what look like marshmallows but must be shelled scallops from a bin on the boat into bags, weighing these on a scale, then swinging them over to the dock, where they are packed in ice (all in haste to arrest the decay) and stowed in a truck.

  Whence they’ll be taken (William explains) to the airport under contract, to be shipped to Boston and transferred by pre-arrangement to planes for Cincinnati and Minneapolis and Atlanta in time for the early morning markets where they’ll be tossed on trucks going to the deluxe restaurants which will serve them tomorrow night sautéed or poached or covered in sauce to people with napkins and silverware, buying by credit card like you and me.

  That’s Commerce for you, go the words in his head, as if to prove to another voice that the Island has business other than Tourist business. William recognizes that the destinationless words in his head have been organizing into an argument, with one voice representing himself and another the Island, or, more likely, some advocate like the old dying Thomas, that’s who. That was the voice speaking when he first stepped out of the house and looked at the sky and when he looked at it again on the public landing, rebuking him for the skyless and starless life he had chosen in New York, not too different from that of a mole or ants in an anthill. His father-in-law’s voice (not knowing he has become an ex-father-in-law before turning into an ex-person), chastising him for being out of touch with earth and the conditions of our being, represented by the clear island air and the sea where life began.

  The other voice, William’s own, replies with vigor, chastising the father for his escape from the civilization he was born into, the issue being not what human was before it was human but what, being human, it is. This voice attacks Thomas’s island for being an island, taking advantage of the sea to keep out the world, poverty and injustice and crime. This voice (which cites William’s service as a Civil Liberties lawyer to protect him from guilt) compares the vanity of Thomas’s withdrawal to that of an old king crawling unburdened toward death.

  The argument takes shape as William watches the commerce of the scallop fishermen trying to meet their deadline, thereby proving that the Island is no mere playground but actually produces things. No credit to Thomas for that, however; which for him as for William is merely part of the background, neither Thomas nor William having credentials as scallop fishermen.

  Such are the mood and words of William Key as he strolls ashore again, turning left to loop the long way back to the house past the hospital. A new-looking brick structure of two stories, larger than any other building here though small as hospitals go and architecturally out of keeping with the aggressive New Englandism of the rest of the town. Lights in the front and the first floor windows, the upstairs dark, it turns William’s attention to the man (as opposed to voice) who’s dying in there.

  This makes him sad. The judicial voice in William proposes that Thomas be forgiven for old age and illness, that he be allowed such pleasures as remain to him. This judicial voice tasks William with the reminder that ugly old Thomas was the Westerly William liked best, including the daughter he married—a turn of argument which brings him back to the other problem, the question of What Do They Know?

  What do and don’t they know? The question depends on another, namely, what has Patricia told? Which recognizes the awkward fact that they never did decide what to tell her family—neither while the negotiations were going on nor (an oversight, a foolish carelessness) when they came for this visit. Why not? No doubt, things being officially amicable, he relied on her to deal with her family and felt a compunction against quizzing her.

  In a diagram of information flow, the source point would be Patty: if she has not given the Westerlys the news, they won’t have it, for it’s unlikely her friends or children would tell them. Patty then, did she or didn’t she? The evidence is that she did not, for no one has alluded to it in any recognizable way. Never underestimate the power of embarrassment however nor ignore the possibility that she might have told one person or another under some meaningless pledge of secrecy, which would be confusing now to the person so pledged in view of the complicated fact that although divorce proceedings have been completed they still share their valuable New York apartment mainly because they have not yet found suitable accommodations in the city for both of them. There’s also the question, which is nobody’s business but theirs yet short of which no knowledge is complete, of what she will say the reasons are.

  It would be unfair to him if she told them his reasons without giving hers. But even if she told all, there’s worry in not knowing how they’d take it—which is why he’s been on the watch tonight for looks sneaked at him, glances, signs of reassessment, relabeling. But how safe is that? Though they’ve been family for seventeen years, he’s never known enough to know how fiercely this family of individuals might turn into an expulsive force if they identified him as a foreign body.

  The drift of his words narrows like a stream between rocks moving toward Patty as destination with the question he must ask after all, what he should have asked before they came, with his decision to come contingent upon the answer.

  Something in the dark far ahead attracts his attention, and he sees he thinks a young woman step onto the sidewalk from the shadow wearing, it is hard to tell, a patch of white, something dark, a flash of unspecifiable nakedness. Coming toward him, making him surge before she disappears, leaving nothing, a trick of his mind or a cat in the street slipping into the bushes. She leaves a dreamy yearning, longing, which produces then in his mind a montage of women floating and circling and swimming around him in filmy and transparent dresses and robes falling back, and skirts opening around luminous thighs, and shorts and bras and halters, with eyes shadowed and gentle smiles and fingers stretching out and touching lightly, and voices soft and sweet, and bellies clothed in silk swaying silently toward him. Familiar friends in William Key’s mind. They come vaguely and abstractly to give him the stiffened courage he needs to keep calm and do his work in the world.

  Past the hospital his attention is arrested by flickering light on the branches, which explains itself when he turns the corner as the flashing blue and white lights of a police car down the street. The car is parked by itself, just sitting there as if someone had forgotten to turn the flashers off.

  He looks a long time, trying to decide whether to investigate. How strange it is, in the safety of this remote place on a dark insulated night, to see this signal of emergency and violent correction flashing away where no one can see it while everyone sleeps. But it’s far down the road, and since it’s late William ignores it and returns to the house. If it’s important enough for him to know, he’ll learn about it in time.

  ANN REALM: Diary

  Saturday, May 17. NEWS. TW talk +/- weak. Sigh ah God.

  ENTER HW + MC. HW 0, MC bigeyes fuss flap. Cause HW depress:? MC chirp. Hosp jerk Jeffcoat/Truro siege + w
hocares?

  PW snoop TW files. Reject AR help.

  ENTER late PK + WK. Q P/W on/off?

  DESC HW bad, overweight, sallow, bulge buttons belly, pants hang belt tight below summit paunch, danger drop off, limp worse, cane. Note MC erosion.

  PART FOUR

  SUNDAY

  LUCY WESTERLY: Composed in bed

  Sunday morning, Lucy Westerly writes to ask her dead mother the time. Six-thirty, her mother replies, plenty of sleepy time yet.

  Lucy reminds her mother of all the people in the house, filling it with energy. If any come early, she must be ahead of them in the kitchen, for guests need breakfast before they can do anything. She’ll be busy this morning, one after another, places to set in kitchen and dining room. How many will it be? She counts members of her family and their attachments, two and two and one and one, or one and two and two and one—adding up to what, eight or seven, her brood, her litter? Happily she feels the sun and breeze helping her count and recount the fertility of her life until she remembers why they came. But even that’s not so bad if Thomas’s stroke heals quickly and the remission holds, making it a joyful reunion.

  ISLAND NEWS: Correction

  In a news item Thursday about the Sam Truro hostage case, it was incorrectly reported that Truro wounded a man who had approached his house. The correct version is that the man who was wounded has not been identified.

  WESTERLY FAMILY: Collective narrative

  I’m going to church.

  That’s Patricia, coming into the breakfast room in a flowery dress, where the others have been talking idly without leadership. The narrative is that of a collective precipitate from the observers in the room, the common denominator in each as they wait for an indefinite Other, projected by most minds present as the One who knows what they will do next, but has not told anyone yet. Patty’s announcement annoys the collective, but since there was no advocate of another plan, it meets little resistance.

  God I totally forgot, Lucy says. We must go to church.

  Yow, Melanie says. I’ve got to get dressed.

  You don’t have to go, Lucy says.

  I always go, Melanie says.

  That’s Melanie. To the group as a whole Lucy says, No one has to go. It’s only the Unitarian church.

  Patricia says, I’m going to the Catholic church. The Unitarian isn’t Christian.

  Since when did you become religious? Philip says.

  They won’t know you, Lucy says. I don’t know any Catholics here. Unless they haven’t told me.

  Anyone is welcome in the church of her choice, Patricia says. You go yours, I’ll go mine.

  Ann the good daughter says, I’ll go with you, Mother.

  Are you going with Patty, William?

  I think I’ll stay behind.

  Henry decides. I’ll go too, he says.

  A miracle, Ann says. He goes upstairs to change into a suit. In the bedroom his wife Melanie says, What are you doing?

  I’m going too, Henry says.

  You don’t believe in God.

  What do you know what I believe or don’t believe?

  When they’re ready in the living room, Ann says, You’ve got so much company, I think I’ll stay behind after all. Do you mind, Mother?

  Lucy doesn’t mind. I don’t believe in it, she says apologetically. Thomas and I never went before we came here. The music is so restful. The sociability.

  William says, I’ve changed my mind. I’ll go too.

  With us or with Patty?

  With you.

  How nice, William.

  Their going splits the collective: Lucy with Melanie, Henry, and William; with Patricia also, who will turn off when they come to the Catholic Church; leaving Philip and Ann behind.

  Watching them go down the sidewalk, Ann remarks: What’s with Patty and the Catholic church?

  She’s always looking for radical things to do, Philip says.

  THOMAS WESTERLY: As read by Philip

  Sunday morning in Thomas’s study while the rest of the family except Ann was at church.

  MY BIOGRAPHY

  How happy and fortunate I was. My happy childhood, good parents, those long years of indolent pleasure, the sunny beach, calm green water rich blue beyond, the summer haze with big philosophical thoughts about time and history in the stillness of the hot morning sand. The holiday river; Hudson with brown Palisade cliffs peeking through the woods like teeth, tar shimmering along the railroad tracks in summer heat, the Day Line excursion steamer skimming upriver, yellow stacks, flags, crowded decks.

  On the other hand, involuntary memory like belly cramps in the opera house listening to the greatest singers in the world with gas. The world as seen by Thomas Westerly, Thomas Westerly as seen by the world. The beach against Thomas Westerly’s concocted self. Praised for your reliability, your refusal to panic, your steadiness, you had always been wary from the moment you walked into the drugstore holding the hand of your skyscraper father and walked out beside a skyscraper man you thought was your father until you looked up and saw with shock a man with a hat like your father’s whom you had never seen before, who knew you no more than you knew him.

  My father rejected introspection because of the sour taste in his mouth.

  Is it possible not to feel superior to what you were?

  Start over.

  PHILIP WESTERLY: What to tell Beatrice

  In the hospital anteroom after lunch, while waiting his turn to visit. Patricia writes a letter, Henry fidgets by the Coke machine.

  Weather report: Thursday rain. Friday overcast. Yesterday sun. Today fog. Fog in the village and over the docks while the others were in church and he was in the study reading his father’s papers. Make verse.

  Went walking through the village to the docks

  in fog while they enjoyed the clarity

  of church. The fog affirmed the fogginess

  of things, post office, house, the fogginess

  of faded colors, shallowed depths, ambiguous

  boundaries.

  Never mind that he had been not walking but reading in his father’s study. Later he went with them to the hospital, chilly despite his woodsman’s jacket, her birthday present. Tell how the fog

  from the sea made me see the sea it came

  from like the end of time: how the ground swell

  older than life stumbled and died upon

  the dangerous shelter reefs with bloody plumes.

  And how the green wash from aquarium depths

  subdued the timid gardens in the mist:

  the frightened crocuses, the daffodils,

  fruit trees, spare, white and pink and blue denied.

  A dead lobster lay on the garden path.

  How it got there was a mystery.

  Give her this scene when it’s his turn to visit. The older man staring where the walls meet the ceiling moves his foggy eyes occasionally toward his son.

  How are you feeling today?

  Not so hot.

  Pause.

  How’s Freud?

  Freud’s fine.

  Dreamy silence. A sudden question. Does anybody call me that?

  Call you what?

  Ole Doc Westerly.

  What?

  Ole Doc Westerly.

  Did somebody call you that?

  That’s what I’m asking you.

  Not that I know of.

  A man came in with a chef’s cap and Groucho mask. Mop and pail. Said “Ole Doc Westerly’s agonna die.” Three times.

  (Philip outraged.) He said that to you?

  It stands to reason. I’m ole. Ph.D. Westerly. I must be Ole Doc Westerly.

  That’s ridiculous, Dad.

  Imagine being Ole Doc Westerly.

  After a moment he said, It was Sam Truro. He was the one.

  He’s shut up in his house.

  I need to see him. I figured out what’s bothering him. I need to explain to him. I need to make amends.

  Sam Truro? Amends? Sam Truro�
��s a madman, and you don’t owe amends to anyone. Rest easy, Dad, relax, relax.

  Eyes move slowly from the corner of the ceiling to the door to the toilet to table with flowers to television set up on the shelf. The television is off.

  What?

  Did you find my papers?

  Yes.

  Did you?

  I looked at a few.

  Did you?

  I’m not sure what you want me to do with them.

  Do it. Good boy.

  HENRY WESTERLY: Narrative

  His version of the story Abel Jeffcoat told on Sunday afternoon to Thomas, who may or may not have been listening.

  This girl, seven or eight or nine, wearing a dim green dress, her hair scraggly, her legs thin, her knees dirty. The door to the house opened, the people watching across the street saw it and called to each other to get attention. Look, the door. The little girl stepped out, scared, on the upper step not knowing what to do. The door shut behind her and she looked back surprised, then at the sidewalk, at the people across the street, as if between two sides in a war.

  They heard his hysterical voice from the window: Go on, Dinah. They’ll take care of you.

  They said she looked like sucking her thumb, though actually her hands were at her sides.

  Tell them you’re sick.

  People asked each other questions. Should we get her? Will he pop us? Call her. Comfort her. Tell her we’re friends.

  One of the women called out: What’s the matter honey dear? Come on over, we’ll take care of you.

  A man yelled, Hey Truro! You want us to get her, don’t shoot. The girl cried. She said, I’m going to throw up. She heaved. They heard the man from the window: Not on the step, dummy! The bushes! They saw her bend over the bushes beside the steps and heave again.

  A woman ran forward. Another cried, Liz, he’ll shoot you! Liz, who was large, said, I’m going to help that child. She had a voice like a chain saw.