A New England Affair

by Steven Carroll

  The drive into town, an hour or so later, is slow. The dope is beginning to wear off, and already she’s beginning to wonder just what she’s said and what she might have set in motion. At the same time she’s telling herself it’s just like one of those bright ideas you get at three in the morning and forget about by breakfast. She says nothing more about it, Ted says nothing more. He’ll forget. They’ll forget. They were both pretty dreamy. Just like Alice.

  8.

  A small boy runs across the lawn of a country estate, arms outstretched like the wings of an aeroplane coming in to land. In one hand he clutches a single sheet of paper. He has flown in from the darkness at the edge of the gardens and lands in the glare of a spotlight. He folds his wings and raises his arm, brandishing the sheet of paper.

  ‘Out of this nettle Danger …’ he proclaims confidently, then trails into uncertainty. ‘We …’ There is a pause and mumbling from the bushes behind him. ‘We pluck this flower Safety.’

  The audience gathered on the lawns breaks into loud applause; a woman calls out to her neighbour, ‘That’s Mr Chamberlain.’ His job done, the prologue complete, the boy withdraws and a warrior king enters, standing at the centre of the garden stage, sword in hand.

  All through the twilight and into the early evening, the town’s population has been assembling on the estate lawns for the annual summer pantomime, only this year they’re calling it a pageant. There is a line of motor cars in the driveway — Rolls-Royces, Bentleys and nippy little sports cars — the chauffeurs leaning against their vehicles and smoking in the moonlight; the sound of applause now and then coming to them on a light summer breeze.

  Emily and Tom are sitting on fold-out garden chairs, Emily’s aunt and uncle beside her. She is watching Tom as much as the performance, her mood dependent on his responses. From the start his expression is a mixture of pained resignation and amusement, through a succession of warrior kings, dreamy kings, young women driven mad by love and sickly youths driven mad by ghosts. An actor asks the audience at one point what it all means and what are we all doing here, only to hear the audience respond in robust voice that they thought the actor might tell them. It is an exchange that brings a smile to Tom’s face. But it is only when the town smith appears, wearing a daisy-chain crown, Lear in exile, accompanied by the lad the town calls simple, Eric playing the Fool — and all will agree later, after the show, playing the part to perfection — that Tom lets out a long, booming laugh: the sort of booming laugh that turns heads, as it does right now, and which speaks of the warm heart that she knows is there beneath the cold reserve he presents to the world. The booming laugh that speaks of the impish humour and the prankster’s sense of fun that she well remembers from their early days before he left for this old world, at once old and dangerous, and from which she would dearly love to pluck him, like the flower from the nettle. They’ll never let you in, Tom. You will never be one of them. Come home. The booming laugh dies down, the smile stays. And as the show progresses, she becomes more and more involved in the constantly changing cardboard sets, as an astonishing range of potted plays passes from one side of the lawns, each to enjoy its few minutes in the spotlight, to the other side, and back into darkness.

  And then a young woman appears onstage alone, Juliet leaning on an invisible balcony, appealing to her Romeo. She is just a lone young woman on a bare, open lawn, but she creates the whole of Verona around her, and Emily can’t understand how she’s doing it. Furthermore, she’s familiar, this young woman. But how? From when? And where? And then she realises that this is the young woman, Catherine, whose name she’s never forgotten, who cleaned their cottages that first summer and autumn that Emily came to the town. The same young woman who was forever in the company of a young man from the town. She is older now, but it’s her. And it is only after Emily has remembered all of this that she realises that the lawns, the gardens and the entire gathered audience have fallen into silence. The buffoonery has gone out of the night. This young woman stands on a bare, open lawn and creates Verona from nothing, the audience hanging on her every gesture and word as she addresses her Romeo. And once again, Emily asks herself how she does this. Emily Hale, the born actor who has played this role in school productions but was never allowed to set foot on a professional stage. She comes to the obvious and only conclusion — that this young woman does it by acting. She has silenced the mob. She has stilled them. She has the gift. And as she concludes this she turns to Tom who is as silent as everyone else. And what she discerns is the rapt look she noticed all those years before in the parlour of his cousin’s house when she sang of dreaming waves and lone delight. She wonders if he too is thinking of this. And then, with a final invocation of sweet tomorrows, the young woman passes in liquid steps from the spotlighted lawn to the darkness of the gardens. For a moment, the ground that she occupied is empty in a way that it hasn’t been all night. The silence lingers, then breaks, as the audience, transformed by the spectacle of a lone young woman whose magic tricks gave them all a private Verona in which to dwell for a few minutes, bursts into prolonged, explosive applause that turns the heads and raises the eyebrows of the chauffeurs gathered at their Rolls-Royces and Bentleys in the driveway outside.

  And with the applause Emily becomes aware of Tom’s hand enfolding hers, and she can’t be sure how long it’s been there. Did they, indeed, think the same thoughts without need of speaking? Amid the buffoonery and laughter of the performance, did they actually rediscover one of those moments that survives, and which, together with all other such moments, forms a golden thread back through the years to where it all began in that Boston parlour?

  A tumbling row of touchingly inept acrobats passes across the lawns, and then a drenched figure, seemingly crawling from a shipwreck, asks, ‘What place is this?’ — and the audience responds, calling out the name of the town. So the night goes: burlesque succeeded by pantomime, succeeded by vaudeville — until the show is over and the boy who performed the prologue comes weaving in across the lawns to land, and standing before the audience bids them all goodnight, holding a single flower aloft.

  Then the entire cast spills onto the lawn: barbers, butchers, the odd young aristocrat and the odd young lady, farmers, labourers, milkmen, barmaids, teachers, estate agents — all one for the night, before filing back into town and reassuming their assigned ranks and roles. And somewhere among them, the young woman who gave them all a private Verona to dwell in for a few minutes. Although with so many up there on the lawn, under a spotlight borrowed from someone who knew someone in the movies, it is, Emily decides, impossible to pick her.

  Emily’s aunt and uncle have gone, and Emily and Tom stroll back into the town across an open field with the rest of the audience. There is enough moonlight to see that there is contentment on his face.

  ‘I’ve packed a hamper.’

  ‘Cheese?’ he asks.

  She nods, he smiles.

  ‘What was your favourite bit?’

  He whispers in her ear. ‘The Fool.’

  She laughs. ‘Played his part to perfection.’

  And it is here that he lets out that booming laugh again, and as he does, heads turn all around them, looking for the source of such unbound laughter, smiling as they turn.

  And so, one of the crowd, but not one of the crowd, side by side, presenting to the world the image of a late middle-aged couple, they stroll back into town amid a gathering chorus of popular singalongs: of blackbirds, and red, red robins and blue skies.

  ‘You drive real fine, ma’am. Yes, that’s for sure. You’re a real fine driver.’

  The air hits their faces, fanning Tom’s hair back, blasting away the carefully combed part that, over the years, has shifted from the middle to the side of his head. They are travelling in a borrowed open car. Emily is at the wheel; Tom, it is generally thought, an uncertain driver. They are rushing along a deep country lane towards a town not so far away, but far enough to feel as though they have created a space of their own: to fe
el like they are getting away. A pretty town, on a canal.

  ‘And you, Mr Eliot, you’re from St Louis? St Louis? And there I was thinking you were an Englishman. In that tweed coat and tweed pants and that tweed cap of yours, you look so English.’

  The sun, directly above them, is bright — but there are troubling dark clouds just above the rolling hills in front of them. She eyes them, and presses a little harder on the accelerator. They have been talking to each other in this way for most of the drive. Not so much talking as calling out over the rush of the air and the sound of the engine. This is the Tom she remembers. The playful Tom. The Boston Tom, who loved accents — especially the sound of his lost midwestern accent — the Tom who went away and never really came back. Except for moments like this, when he could be the old Tom in his cousin’s garden. The young Tom. Her Tom. But of course, he’s not. There will only ever now be flashes of that Tom.

  The deep laneway rushes up to meet them with alarming speed as he calls out to Emily.

  ‘You know, ma’am, you sure drive real good. But has anybody ever told you, Miss Hale, you’ve got one helluva lead foot?’

  ‘You mean to tell me, Mr Eliot, that a Missouri man is frightened of a little speed?’

  ‘Not frightened, Miss Hale — only cows frighten me; don’t have many cows in my part of Missouri. No, Miss Hale, not frightened. Just puzzled. You’re a very careful lady. Why, you’re careful about what you say and how you say it, careful about being on time and only smoking in the evenings — and no more than two cocktails. And so refined in what you read. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a Missouri man, I love my books — give me a good western any day — but put you behind the wheel of a car and something happens.’

  She smiles at him as he shifts his gaze from her to the laneway, betraying a hint of alarm. But only a hint. For in all the summers she’s been coming here, she’s never seen him so relaxed. So young. Perhaps it’s Time the healer doing that. Perhaps it’s because she’s going back, and will not, they both realise, be coming here again for some time. Possibly years. And isn’t that always the way? You never really care for someone or love them as much as when they’re leaving you and you’re leaving them. The way the lighthouse bids farewell to the boat, and the way the sailor eyes the lighthouse and the harbour with sad longing, before turning to the open sea.

  ‘And you’re wondering, Mr Eliot, what other surprises I’ve got in me?’ She winks.

  He laughs, a resounding laugh that is quickly lost in the wind. ‘I sure am, Miss Hale. I sure am.’

  ‘You ever met a Boston lady before, Mr Eliot?’

  ‘Why, no, ma’am. Boston ladies are as scarce as cows in Missouri.’

  ‘No cows in Missouri?’

  ‘Not in my part, ma’am.’

  ‘You’re sure you’re from Missouri? You look so English.’

  ‘Sure as I can be about anything.’

  ‘And you’ve never met a Boston lady before? Well, let me teach you a few things about Boston ladies.’

  ‘You already have, ma’am. You already have.’

  The clouds above the rolling hills are gathering. Dark clouds. She doesn’t like the look of them and wishes them away. But she knows they’re not going anywhere. And they are driving right towards them. The game pauses, and she concentrates on the laneway in front of them, with (clouds aside) a light heart and a heavy foot. He, still betraying a hint of alarm at the speed with which the lane meets them, raises his head to the diminishing blue sky above the shaded lane.

  They continue, the wind notwithstanding, in relative silence. The lane opening out into villages, then closing in again; Tom and Emily occasionally stopping at this village and that, tempted by country markets and tea houses, before continuing on their way.

  By mid-afternoon they arrive at a large village, and pull up at an inn beside the mill. With the wind no longer fanning their faces and the engine off, a dreamy silence falls on them. There is a stream, and it really is silver in the sunlight. And ducks, and reeds. A young boy fishes from the bank, and a flock of sheep crosses the small stone bridge that fords the stream.

  She looks at him, a theatrical arching of the eyebrow. ‘I hope you appreciate the view, Mr Eliot; it took quite a bit of organising.’

  ‘I do, Miss Hale. You Boston ladies sure know how to organise a man.’

  ‘Man, nature and beasts, Mr Eliot,’ she adds, then frowns as she scans the view. ‘I ordered a hay-wain.’

  She sits back in the driver’s seat, removing her shiny leather gloves. He lights a cigarette, one of his French things, and she notes straight away that the air is filled with the smell of a crowded French café.

  ‘Well,’ he says in his normal voice and drawing on the cigarette, ‘there are fields out there. Shall we stroll across them or stride?’

  ‘Let’s amble.’

  ‘Amble?’ he asks, looking at the rolling dark clouds closing in over the rolling green hills. ‘What about the clouds?’

  ‘What clouds? Don’t tell me a Missouri man is afraid of a little water.’

  And so, already dressed in walking clothes, they gather the hamper and a rug from the back of the car, and with no destination in mind cross the small stone bridge, recently vacated by the sheep. But before they even reach the other side, a spear of lightning flashes across the sky, followed by a crack of thunder that almost rocks the bridge beneath them.

  The crump of thunder, like distant bombing, turns her head. Henry is unmoved. Or so it seems. As they pass between Thacher Island and the holiday beaches of the coastline, they come into view: the Dry Salvages. Henry turns from the wheel and nods in their direction. It is the first time she has ever looked at them from the sea, in a boat. And the view transforms them. Although some distance away — possibly two or three miles, it’s hard to judge — they possess a sense of immanence and danger they don’t have when viewed from the land. And a sense of possession, for they also now assume a manner that says, you’re in my world. Salvages. Les Trois Sauvages. Savages. If that’s right, if that’s the derivation — and nobody really knows — but if that’s right she can understand why the early sailors and fishermen would have called them that. For they possess an unmoveable, unshakeable sense of always having been here. A sound like a roar or a deep moan, the very sound of the rocks themselves, carries over the water towards them. We came before you, they say, and we will be here after you. Yes, they have this air of having seen it all. You come, you go, these rocks say, but we remain. You’re in my watery world now. And I am neither god nor lord nor chief. I simply am. Before you, and after you.

  A creeping sense of apprehension, which she hadn’t anticipated, possesses her. And with it, a foreboding. As if some great event were about to happen and she were merely meeting her destiny. Like those nights that give every impression of already having happened, and will again. As though the twain, long in converging, were about to close in on itself, and the two of them, the rocks and Emily, had always been sailing towards this moment. Except she’s only just realised. Impulsively, she slips her shoes off and stands barefoot on the deck, drawn to the rocks with a secret longing. Mesmerised. She steps forward and grips the railing. You rocks! You granite shores! You have waited all this time. Such patience. I am here, I have come. And I am no stranger to you, for you know me as surely as I know you.

  And they are exactly as Tom described them. Teeth. Giant granite teeth. Looking, in calm seas, harmless enough. But not today. Waves wash over them, momentarily concealing the threat, then withdraw, the sea once again baring its teeth. The primeval groan calling to her over the water. Back and forth, back and forth. Now hidden, now revealed.

  Even from this distance she is in their thrall. There is another crack of thunder as the storm clouds that have threatened to break all day roll round in the sky; the summer sun, like the rocks, now hidden, now bright and high above her. She calls out to Henry, concentrating on the way ahead.

  ‘How close can we get?’

  He turns to her. P
uzzled, concerned. Possibly alarmed. Yes, definitely alarmed. She sees all of this in his expression. A man asking himself what has he got himself into? She stands with her bag over her shoulder that no one is allowed to touch, just as she herself can barely endure being touched. And she’s jumpy, has been all morning. Difficult. Yes, that’s what he sees. A difficult, jumpy woman. And becoming more difficult by the minute. He wouldn’t be the first to call her difficult. The whole town, she imagines, does. There goes Emily Hale. Spent all her life waiting for Mr Eliot. And he promised her this, he promised her that … when the time was right. When the time … But the time was never right. And then he up and married again. Not telling anyone. Up and married his secretary, thirty-eight years younger. And Miss Hale went mad. Miss Hale went to hospital. Miss Hale never really recovered. And then Mr Eliot died. And she not only had nothing left to wait for, but nothing at all. Just days that she didn’t know what to do with. Too many of them. There goes Miss Hale. That’s what the town sees. That’s what Henry sees. A difficult woman. Broken Miss Hale, asking how close they can get to the rocks. Not just asking, demanding to know. And her shoes, where have her shoes gone? For she’s standing barefoot on the deck and she wasn’t a moment before. It’s all in his expression — that and the question of just what has he got himself into and why didn’t he see it coming?

  He looks back to Thacher Island, turns to the sky and the rolling clouds, shakes his head and calls out, ‘We’ve seen enough.’

  ‘No!’

  It is shrill. The shrill cry of a desperate woman who, having lived a life of denial, will not now be denied. ‘Take me to them. Take me …’