The Wintering

by Joan Williams

  Inga had known she was expecting Latham to call, Amelia thought. That was the reason for that look on her face, putting on that old hat, just as jealous as she could be. She held open the door onto the grey porch, while Inga felt her way along the hall. She stumbled slightly over the doorsill. Amelia was exasperated more when they were driving. Then Inga said the car’s motion made her sick.

  “I’m driving just as careful as I can,” Amelia said.

  Forcing her voice to be even, she called attention to things she thought of interest: the stationmaster’s geraniums were the prettiest in years, Chester’s was getting a new awning, Brother Milroy’s wife was under the dryer at Billie Jean’s and usually her day was Friday. Why would she be getting her hair done on Thursday? Brother Milroy’s arthritis must be better. He was able to wave, in return. Amelia had waved at him in his yard as they went by. “He’s waiting for Latham to go over Sunday’s music,” she said, a little note of proprietorship in her voice.

  Inga gazed with weak eyes back toward town, trying to see the importance of all these little things, as Amelia and all who had lived here always saw them. Through blurred vision, she saw only little stores huddled about a tattered station and thought how the people here came out to see a train pass. But Amelia had managed to take away that little flash of self-assertion she had felt in the hall. Inga searched for it again, vainly.

  When Amelia turned down a rutted driveway, Inga saw a figure holding open the house’s door and knew it must be Dea. As they came closer, she saw the navy dress, the red shoes, Dea wore so often. Was it in kindness, as it seemed, that Dea took her arm and helped her past the doorsill?

  “I haven’t been out much lately,” Inga said. “I can’t adjust to the daylight.”

  “Hard to get used to our summers, I imagine,” Dea said.

  “Inga’s been here a very long time,” Amelia said testily.

  She had heard these remarks so continously, so many years, that Inga merely sat down in resignation. Dea thought how pale she was, but Amelia was blooming like a girl. Proud as a peacock about Latham Peabody taking her to dinner regularly, she imagined, when everybody knew he kept a nip in his pocket and took it first, when his family were, supposedly, the cream of the Baptists. He had only one kidney and was probably just looking for somebody to care for him in his sick old age. Had Amelia ever thought of that?

  Feeling a little stiff with one another, they spoke at first about inconsequential things, like ferns. “Yours are so pretty,” Amelia said to Dea.

  “They don’t get too much sun, and I water them the minute they get dry,” Dea said. They had gone to the window to look out admiringly. They discussed, then, gardening. Inga, asked questions, never had her mind on the subject. Natural, the others thought, exchanging a glance which made that plain. The afternoon lagged like the conversation, until Dea brought out iced tea and cakes. Amelia, bending to the tray, said she must try one of each kind. Though she was “sort of” on a diet, and she laughed at herself.

  “I hate myself being tempted,” Dea said. “I need to lose, too. But I so seldom get a chance to entertain, I thought it would be fun to have you over, instead of trying to discuss everything on the phone.” Nibbling cake, the others could only nod in agreement. Dea glanced around at how soft the color in the room had grown, the sun lower. Her house looked so much prettier. She was glad to have waited to get to the point of the visit. “He’s phoned Amy,” Dea said. “And her mother wanted me to find out if you couldn’t get him to stop. Amy is about over her hero worship, she believes, and her notion about being a writer. She could never have published anything. Anyway, she has a lovely job now and a boyfriend from her college is coming to visit her.”

  “Is she to be engaged?” Inga sat forward.

  “In a way, we hope not. He’s not a Southerner. But her parents are giving her a big party and she’s very much back in circulation. Her mother and I’ve been telling her if she doesn’t marry soon, she’ll end up with dregs.” Or as an old maid, she had almost said, forgetting about Amelia. Though with her skin blooming was Amelia possibly thinking of marrying at this late date? And wondering about it, Dea knew she was envious of beginnings.

  “Jeff has been working so hard, I don’t think he’s been thinking about that girl,” Inga said.

  Vurking, Dea could not help repeating to herself, staring at Inga curiously.

  Amelia set down her glass. “I feel tied. If we mention it, he’ll know we’ve been talking. He speaks of going away for a while. Maybe that’s the answer.”

  “Couldn’t you say her mother had asked me to speak to you about his phoning? Surely, he doesn’t want to seem an older man bothering some young girl,” Dea said.

  “She’s not complaining,” Amelia said quickly. “It’s her parents. She must encourage him.”

  “I can’t think for what reason,” Dea said.

  “Her reason is what we’d like to know, too,” Amelia said. “What does she want? It’s gone on so long, someone’s getting something out of it.” She turned on Dea a frozen smile.

  Dea carried the plate of cakes across the room. She would certainly save the rest for her own family. Coming back to sit down, she said, “I don’t get the impression, at all, that they’ve seen one another lately. Do you?” The others were forced to shake their heads. “I don’t see, then, how what you suggest holds water. Maybe you don’t realize, Amy could have made her debut.”

  “I’m sure she’s a very nice girl,” Amelia said. “But what does she want?”

  Always, she had relied on the strength of others, Inga realized. But these two were going to go around and around the subject, and she was decisive. “There’s got to be a reason they want to keep in contact, hardly seeing one another. Why? What is so strong between them? I’m going to find out.”

  (Vy. Vhat, Dea repeated to herself.)

  “I’d like to know how,” Amelia said, standing to indicate they must go.

  Inga, plopping the pink hat on lopsidedly, said, “Let’s put on our thinking caps.” There was, however, only one way: to face the girl, at last. Dea, reaching for Inga’s elbow again, helped her across the doorsill. The Almoners, she thought, were the type to sue.

  On the porch, Amelia touched a finger to a fern pot. “Your ferns are dry now,” she said.

  This, on top of her remark about Amy, was inexcusable, Dea thought. “Maybe you don’t have luck because you water yours too much,” she said. After slamming the car door, Amelia would have driven off without another word, except that the highway was blocked by a slow-moving line of cars. She stuck her head from the car window to stare. “They go by like that every Thursday afternoon and on Sunday,” Dea said. “Don’t they think they’re dressed up, though.”

  A slow thought penetrated as Amelia realized that all the Negroes wore white. Coincidence? Surely, Jessie was too old and had too much sense to demonstrate. And she had said herself Negroes were too uppity for her these days. Jessie wouldn’t just mouth what white people wanted to hear, would she? Suspiciousness, Amelia thought, had become quickly a habit. All these years she had been able to count on so little changing; now nothing seemed certain. She was not, however, going to put any stock in the Negroes’ carrying on, or believe that Jessie was among them. But nothing on earth would make her pull out to the highway now, though once she would have gone, blaring her horn, expecting them to halt and let her through.

  “Don’t back out yet,” Dea said.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Amelia said. Their fingertips had met on the windowsill. In the silence, summer throbbed, intense as a drumbeat all around them.

  “You can’t get a lick of work out of any of them on these days either,” Dea said. “Everybody says it. They’ll take your money and give you the sorriest job they can.” When the line of cars had gone, their fingertips parted. Amelia started the motor. “Well,” she said, “I’ll have to go without supper because of the cake, but it was worth it.”

  As they drove back toward town, Inga
was still sunk into silence. Amelia was considering the threat this girl presented to her way of life, as the Negroes carrying on threatened it. She had never felt before the need to marry. But if Jeff went off with that girl, she would end up with Inga, who did not seem to realize that in the long run you had yourself to depend on. She was surprised then. Inga said, “I’m going to see her on Saturday, if she’ll see me. She probably doesn’t work then.”

  “Well, she’d certainly better see you!” Amelia said with hollow bravado. Entering the house, she began to hum some faintly remembered tune about unanswerable things.

  Inga momentarily hid in the closet’s darkness, hanging up the old pink hat. With all she had on her mind, her life possibly coming to an end, Amelia had no thought, except to sing.

  Amy stared into her dim closet realizing that, as usual, she had nothing right to wear. As Amy looked blank, Edith stood behind her. “You never have the right thing like the other girls,” she said. “Now that you’re working, you ought to buy some clothes.” This was not her mother’s real reason for complaining, her face grimacing, her tone almost groaning, Amy thought. Shaken, Edith said, “Who else gets themselves into situations like this. Oh, why couldn’t you have been like …”

  “Because I don’t want to be like the other girls.” Amy spoke out at last, flatly and finally, before going out of earshot, her heart not beating too fearfully.

  On Saturdays, most downtown shops and offices were closed. The nearly unpeopled streets had a funereal hush. They were like war-struck streets, deserted and dreading, after an air alarm had sounded. To dispell the quiet, Amy thought of blowing her horn, even without reason. When she started down the street, palsied heat waves danced ahead. Tanned from his honeymoon, but nervous and thinner, Quill was leaving his bank at its Saturday closing hour. Electric chimes saluted noon, whirring and ringing and playing the Londonderry Air, which sent a flurry of starlings over the drained streets, as if exulting to the music. Wanting to confide in Quill that she was meeting Mrs. Almoner, Amy thought that she could not. Though it did seem like fate to see him when they had begun everything together so innocently. Life seemed made up of circles and this the completion of one. Amy and Quill, acknowledging one another formally beneath the hotel’s awning, inquired about one another’s health and answered, in turn, that they were fine, thank you. Longing to say more, Amy’s eyes sought Quill’s, to find in them some signal that said go ahead. She met only a yellowish cast, as a pond holds scum, hiding what is beneath. Quill mustered a moment something of his old teasing manner. As Amy started indoors, he said, “Spending your Saturday afternoons in hotel rooms now, young lady?” Then he went on, having settled his hat at an even more correct angle.

  What, Amy wondered, could be made out of two people sharing an experience and the life of only one being changed by it? In the lobby her attention turned to avoiding wet places on a marble floor, which a Negro was mopping. At the hour planned, arriving at the flower shop, she was surprised by the frail lady who rose, evidently recognizing her, and spoke.

  “Mrs. Almoner?”

  On the vulnerable-looking lady, neat coils of gold braid atop her head wavered as she nodded. The real depths of her eyes were obscured by dark glasses. She apologized for not removing them but daylight hurt her eyes. Amy, feeling overgrown, bent to hear the faint voice, having the wavery quality of a fine dangling silk thread. She was as glad not to have taken her mother’s advice to wear high heels as she was glad not to be able to meet, clearly, Mrs. Almoner’s eyes.

  “May I take your arm?” Inga said. They reached the top of stairs leading down into the dining room, and she felt uncertain.

  Amy, saying, “Of course,” received through her crooked elbow weight like a feather’s. “Be careful,” she warned, “the steps are damp, too.”

  When they stood in the doorway, holding arms, Inga shivered in cold air from the air conditioning. The hostess approached and Amy asked for a table sheltered from the draft. She guided Inga across the room and around tables and chairs. Curtains drawn against the bright day left only white tablecloths and summer zinnias, as centerpieces, to relieve the room’s dimness. They settled, their order was given, and Inga shivered slightly again. “Too hot outdoors, too cold in,” she said.

  Amy agreed. Their heads shook in mutual distaste over the stores already displaying fall clothes. “I’m still looking for white shoes,” Amy confided.

  Inga had seen some on sale in a shop down the street. On a scrap of paper from her purse, Amy wrote down the store’s name. A discussion of clothes continued until the waitress brought their order.

  “It’s nice,” Inga said, “that you’re so tall and can wear those low-heeled shoes. I’ve always felt I had to wear such high heels. And lately, they make me feel off balance and dizzy.”

  “That’s too bad,” Amy said. “Could you need to have your glasses changed?”

  “Yes, that does need to be done, too,” Inga said. “I’m always putting things off. For instance, I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time. Jeff thinks so highly of the possibilities of your work. I’m sure you have other things in common, too. Of course, what I want to know is, do you want to marry him?”

  Amy sat back from the table in astonishment. Her lunch went untouched and the congealed salad began sadly to melt all over her plate. “No.” Not only had the abruptness of the question surprised her but that anyone had thought of the possibility of her marrying Almoner.

  Puzzled, Inga pushed her glasses toward the bridge of her nose. “Then why do you want to keep seeing him?”

  “His books mean so much to me. And I want to be a writer, too.” Amy looked embarrassed.

  “It’s my opinion that men have a change of life, too. At about fifty. I think that’s happening to Jeff. But I don’t understand why you want to see him if you don’t want to marry him.”

  “I told you,” Amy said. “Because I think he is a great writer. And I want to be one. If you wanted to be a painter, wouldn’t you want to meet Picasso, or somebody like that?”

  “No. I would see no purpose,” Inga said.

  “I don’t know how to explain then,” Amy said, surprised.

  “I don’t think a man and a woman can just be friends,” Inga said.

  “Not when you’re young maybe. When you’re older,” Amy said confidently, “I think things must be different. Feelings I know change.” She was thinking how long her mother and father had slept in separate bedrooms.

  “I do not consider myself at fifty too old to fall in love,” Inga said.

  “Oh no! That’s not what I meant,” Amy said, having meant that exactly. She had not meant to blurt it out meanly, having no desire at all to hurt frail Mrs. Almoner. It was sad, though that she had expectations of someone falling in love with her at fifty.

  “Do you have a young man?” If Amy gave the correct answer, all her others would seem more trustworthy, Inga felt.

  “Sort of,” Amy said. “A boy I knew at college is coming to visit me soon.”

  Inga had not touched her own lunch but sat back, a hand grabbing her throat, as if relieved to have avoided choking. “Oh. I’m so glad to hear that,” she said. For the moment, they were silent. Inga stared at flowerlets of cauliflower on her plate, which were turning brown. Amy nibbled at a soggy potato chip and looked about at other diners, who seemed to be enjoying their food. Her table for some reason had no bowl of flowers. The lack created an expanse of white tablecloth between her and Inga. A little girl, leaving with her mother, ran along between tables. Having plucked flowers from her own, the child waved them once gaily toward Amy’s face, like a flaunt.

  “There’s to be,” Inga said, her eyes wandering from the little girl, “a Fish-o-rama at the springs. Fly-tying contests, the kinds of things Jeff likes. Would you and your young friend come as our guests?”

  “That sounds nice. He admires Mr. Almoner’s work, too.”

  The waitress looked apologetically at the untouched food, removed their plates and pre
sented the bill. Amy and Inga bent over it, arguing slightly before agreeing to go Dutch treat. When they stood, Inga immediately took Amy’s arm. Guiding Inga carefully back across the room, around tables and chairs, Amy felt in care of something as light and defenseless as a bird. To Mrs. Almoner there was a sweet air she could not help but find appealing, in some ways missed in her mother. Certain of mistakes she would never make, Amy wondered why the Almoners had not been able to get along.

  She was positive it was Amelia waiting at the flower shop, though there was no introduction. The commanding woman, with a tortoise-shell comb stuck in the back of her hair, accepted Inga’s weight by extending her own arm. On her face was a look of dismissal, which caused Amy to flee. Barely did she nod at Mrs. Almoner in goodbye.

  Surely the two women watched her. Amy, trying not to run, feared her slip was showing. Sticking a hand into the collar of her dress, she pulled at a strap. A barbed remark from Amelia would not have surprised her. In fantasy, Amy replied with an innuendo about the choir director. Wouldn’t, she thought, Miss Almoner be mad to know she knew about him!

  She felt trapped an instant by the revolving door, before being flung freely to the street. There, the bells were striking untriumphantly and meagerly the half-hour. With a feeling of being letdown, Amy stood on the street. To the astonishment then of passengers on a bus going by, all of whom turned to the windows to stare, she bolted coltlike down Main Street, long blond hair bobbing on her shoulders. The sudden sense of freedom brought delight so that not even the heat mattered. Stores went by in a blur, like a solid front. Having wanted to do something the older people could not do, Amy ran block after block, until she was exhausted. She walked slowly back to her car, feeling overwhelmed at Mrs. Almoner’s dependency on her. Never, Amy swore to herself, would she get old.