A Special Providence

by Richard Yates

  “But Scarsdale’s so far away,” she said, “and I don’t think I could bear being that far away from you.”

  And instead of betraying even the faintest sign of distaste at this confession, he took her in his arms and kissed her as though it had been the very thing he’d hoped she would say. “Actually,” he said against her ear, “that brings up something else I thought I might suggest. Point is, there’s really no reason why we’d have to be apart.”

  Then he released her, letting her sink back into the pillows, while he began to explain his plan. His lease here on Gramercy Park was soon to expire, and he’d realized for some time that he’d be unwise to renew it – the place was really too expensive, and he would be still less able to afford it after his costly trip to England; in other words it was only sensible for him to find a new place to live, and he wondered – “It’s only a suggestion, mind you; just something I thought we might discuss” – he wondered if she might consent to their moving out to Scarsdale together. Mightn’t it turn out to be a good thing for both of them? For all three of them? And there would, of course, be a distinct economic advantage – sharing the expenses, and so on. Oh, it was only a suggestion, but how did it strike her?

  “Sterling,” she said. “Oh, how do you think it strikes me? Don’t you know it’s the most wonderful, beautiful idea I’ve ever heard? Whatever made you think I’d – how could you possibly have thought I’d say no?”

  He looked pleased but also deeply serious. “Well,” he said, “it’s not as if I could offer you a formal proposal of marriage. Point is, I can’t do that; at least—” and here he squeezed her hand “at least not yet. Not until this England business is cleared up. All I can offer you now is – well, myself, and my love.”

  And she spent the rest of the night assuring him that she would never ask for anything more.

  Within a few weeks the house had been found and rented, and the Neptune Moving and Storage Company had been contracted to move the contents of their two apartments out to Scarsdale. Alice and Bobby rode out on the train in the early afternoon of the moving day, to be there in plenty of time before the van arrived. And as she stood on the front porch, watching the great truck approach through the trees along the Post Road, she was almost ill because she could scarcely contain her happiness.

  First came a barrel of china and kitchenware, and the men tracked bits of excelsior across the floor as she guided them through to the rear of the house. Then they began unloading her furniture – the ugly, once expensive sofa and upholstered chairs, the unwieldy parts of the big dining room table and the mahogany dresser with the drawer that didn’t work – plain, middle-class things that she and George had bought for New Rochelle, things now grown shabby with the lonely years in Bethel and New York, things that looked somehow all the more forlorn for being heavily bumped and hauled through the Scarsdale sunshine. The men were mincingly gentle with the Majestic radio, but they didn’t quite know how to deal with her sculpture, which she steered into the garage that was to serve as her studio. Then came several trunks and any number of sloppy cardboard boxes filled with odds and ends and Bobby’s toys; that was all there was of their own belongings, and the great padded cavern of the moving van was still far from empty: the rest of the load was Sterling Nelson’s treasure.

  “Oh, please be careful!” she cried when one of the men allowed the delicate leg of a rosewood table to scrape against the doorjamb, and she scurried around in nervous supervision as they brought in one priceless object after another.

  “Where d’ya want this, lady?” they would ask, swaying and grunting under their loads, and “Where d’ya want this?” And she did her best to make decisions about the placing of the most important pieces. But how could the perfection of Sterling Nelson’s apartment be sorted out from this jumble and restored to any kind of coherence in these big, strange rooms? And her distress was compounded when Bobby came in from outside to claim her attention. He was acting as helpless and silly as if he were four instead of eight, and it wasn’t until she happened to look out a front window that she understood why. Some other boys of about his age were clustered and idling near the van in the driveway. They had appeared from neighboring streets to watch the unloading, and to watch Bobby, and his shyness had driven him indoors.

  “I want to help the movers,” he said.

  “The movers don’t need any help. Please, dear; can’t you see I’m busy?”

  “Where d’ya want this, lady?”

  “Over there – no, wait; over here, in this room, next to the big cabinet. Bobby, please stay outside.”

  “I don’t feel like it.”

  “Is it because of those boys? Is that it?”

  “No.”

  She sighed and raked back a wet strand of hair from her heated face. “Dear, they only want to be friendly. Why don’t you go out and make friends with them?”

  “I don’t feel like it. My stomach hurts.”

  “Oh, Bobby, please. Can’t you see how important it is to make everything nice for when Mr. Nelson comes?”

  Because that was the whole point. Sterling’s commuter train would arrive before dusk, and she wanted to make it a homecoming. It wasn’t only a matter of putting the house in order; she wanted to be bathed and fresh and wearing clean clothes when his taxi drove up, and when he came striding up the porch steps. She wanted to have a real dinner ready, with candles and wine.

  But she was still frantically unrolling carpets and struggling with boxes long after the movers and their van had left, and the house was still a shambles. No sooner would she get a table or a chest established in what seemed its proper place than it would turn out to be all wrong. Then at last, with the time running out, she found an alcove that made a perfect setting for the two little Elizabethan chairs. In the same swift burst of inspiration she laid the Burmese dar on the mantelpiece, and the rest of the living room was suddenly easy. Or at least it seemed that it could be easy: everything would fall into place if only she could get the whole splendid length of the purdah hung on the wall opposite the fireplace. She found it rolled up in one of the cardboard boxes, but it turned out to be much heavier than she’d thought. Then, in the depths of another box, she found some brackets that looked strong enough to hold it, if she used enough of them, and she found a hammer and a kitchen chair to stand on for the job. But she would need help.

  “Bobby, will you bring another chair and help me, please? We’ve got to get this up before Mr. Nelson comes, and I can’t do it alone. You stand on that side and hold that end of it, and I’ll start putting in the brackets. All right?”

  “All right. What is it, anyway?”

  “It’s a tapestry, dear. It’s Burmese. It belongs to Mr. Nelson and it’s very, very valuable. That’s why we’ll have to be careful.” And they stood on their chairs at opposite ends of the purdah, Bobby doing his best to keep the weight of the thing held high while Alice carefully hammered in one bracket after another in what she could only hope was a straight line, hooking each bracket into the burlap backing of the tapestry and inching her chair along toward Bobby’s as she made progress.

  “That’s wonderful, dear; you’re really being a great help. Just keep holding up your end, and we’ll be done in no time.”

  “What’re they doing, anyway?”

  “Who, dear?”

  “The people in the tapestry.”

  “Well, you see they’re Burmese people, and they believe in a god called Buddha, and they’re performing a religious ceremony. Can you hold it up a little higher? There, that’s fine.”

  “How do you mean, a religious ceremony? I mean what’re they doing?”

  “Well, actually, it’s very interesting. They’re transplanting Buddha’s fingerbones.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Transplanting – oh, that’s not the right word. They’re taking the fingerbones of Buddha from one grave, you see, and putting them into another.”

  “Oh. How come you don’t get to see them?” />
  “Get to see what, dear?”

  “The fingerbones.”

  “Well, because it’s all symbolic. I mean they’re not really – It’s just a ceremony, you see. Mr. Nelson can explain it to you.”

  The hammering in of each bracket caused a little crumbling hole in the plaster and the brackets wobbled as she hooked them into the burlap, but she felt that with luck they would have enough collective grip to hold. When she was finished, when she’d moved her chair up next to Bobby’s and put in the final bracket, she felt a sense of triumph. It was up.

  But when they got down and walked away to look at the purdah, the first thing she saw was that it wasn’t quite straight. Then there was a slight, loose sputtering sound as one after another of the brackets gave way, and down it fell, the whole purdah lumped in a hideous heap on the floor, spraying brackets as it came and leaving a row of ugly little sockets in the naked wall.

  She began to weep, and at that very moment there was thumping on the boards of the front porch and a cry of “Hello! Hello!”

  “Oh, Sterling! Sterling, I’m so sorry. I wanted to have everything ready for you and we did try, but look at everything. Just look at it!”

  He did his best to comfort her, but he was as damp and unsteady as she herself: his shirt and suit were rumpled from the train and there was an anxious, bewildered look about his eyes.

  “I thought at least I’d get the purdah hung before you came, and we tried and tried but we couldn’t make it stay up. Look at it.”

  “It wants a rod,” he said.

  “A what?”

  “A rod. Quite a heavy curtain-rod sort of thing, with heavy screws; must be packed somewhere. Those little hooks won’t take the weight, you see.”

  “And now look at those awful little holes in the wall. Oh, Sterling, I’m so sorry.”

  “We can fix the holes later; putty them up. We’ve plenty of time. Look what I’ve brought.”

  Only then did she notice that he’d come in laden with packages. He had brought a bottle of Scotch and a bottle of champagne, and he’d brought what struck Bobby as the perfect gift: a fielder’s glove from Spaulding’s and a regulation baseball.

  And so they made the best of it. Alice and Sterling strolled talking with their drinks through all the rooms, pausing sometimes to sit down on chairs or to stand at a window looking out at Bobby’s antics in the yard. He would throw the ball up in an inexpert, underhand way and then run desperately under its flight and try to catch it. He always missed, and when he’d retrieved the ball he would pound it firmly into the glove, standing with his legs apart in a manly, athletic pose; then he’d make another throw and race to miss the ball again.

  “Doesn’t seem to have the knack of it,” Sterling said.

  “Oh, he’ll be all right. He’ll learn.”

  “Afraid I won’t be of much use to him there; whole subject of baseball’s rather a blank to me.”

  “The other boys will teach him. He’ll be fine. Why don’t you take your drink out to the porch, and I’ll get dinner started.”

  If nothing else, she was determined that their first dinner would be a success. The kitchen had an unpleasant smell from the previous tenant’s garbage and the refrigerator made an alarming drone, but she worked with the kind of efficiency that had eluded her all day. From the kitchen door she called out to Bobby, “Come in and wash, dear; hurry, now.” Then, taking her time, she walked proudly through the dining room and living room and out onto the porch, where she pressed a kiss into the back of Sterling’s neck and whispered: “Dinner is served.”

  “Marvelous,” he said.

  He helped her into her chair and stood expertly unwinding the wires of the champagne cork and working it loose with his thumbs. It went “Flup!” in exactly the way champagne corks were supposed to go, and they all three laughed in a way that brought the house to life.

  “Here’s to Scarsdale,” Alice said, raising her glass. “Here’s to the future. Here’s to everything.”

  “Right,” Sterling said, sitting down. “I must say you’ve done all this beautifully, Alice – the table, the food – everything looks delicious.”

  Less than a second later he was on his feet and dabbing urgently at his trousers with his napkin: Bobby had knocked over his glass of milk, and the quick white flood of it had spilled into Sterling’s lap.

  “Oh, Bobby,” she cried, and she was ready to slap him. “Can’t you be more careful? Now look what you’ve done.”

  “It’s all right,” Sterling was saying. “Suit wants a cleaning anyway.”

  But the rest of the meal was almost devoid of conversation.

  Later, though, in the calm after they’d gotten the dishes washed and Bobby put to bed, there was a peaceful time while they sat on the porch in the darkness, watching the fireflies and the lights of cars going by on the Post Road.

  “Doesn’t the air smell wonderful?” she said.

  “Mm.”

  “I just can’t believe it. Here we are, and everything’s going to be so – did I tell you Bobby’s starting school on Monday?”

  “No.”

  “Well, he is. The third grade. Three-B.”

  There was a long silence while the cars droned past, going toward and away from White Plains, and Alice willed herself not to talk. If Sterling wanted to sit here quietly, that was what they would do.

  Then at last he started talking. The husky British resonance of his voice was enough to bathe her in reassurance; it didn’t even matter that he was discussing the trip he would soon have to make to England. While he talked she curled up in her wicker chair and felt protected.

  “Would you like a drink, Sterling?”

  “Yes, that might be nice. A little Scotch.”

  When she went inside to fix it, moving through the unfamiliar rooms and working at the ice trays of the strange refrigerator, she felt a chill of foreboding about how it would be when she and Bobby were alone here. How long had he said he’d have to be in England? Six weeks? But that could be endured, and anyway he wouldn’t have to go for a little while. She carried the tinkling highballs out to the porch.

  “I don’t expect it’ll be a very lively community, Alice,” he said. “Rather a change for you after living in town.”

  “Oh, but I don’t care. Do you?”

  “I expect you’ll miss your friends.”

  “I didn’t really have any friends; not real ones. Anyway, we’ll make new friends.”

  “May not be easy. I imagine they’ll be rather dull business people for the most part. Homeowners and all that; Roosevelt haters. Rich and dull and probably a bit – inquisitive about our arrangement.”

  “ ‘Our arrangement.’ You make it sound like a play.”

  Sterling was silent for a moment in a way that caused her to bite her lip, and she wished she could see his face in the darkness. Then he said, “Won’t you find it a bit awkward being called ‘Mrs. Nelson’ and so on?”

  “Not if you don’t.”

  He gave a little chuckle and reached out across the arms of their chairs to squeeze her hand. “I suppose we’ll be all right.”

  And she supposed so too.

  The question of whether or not she would find it awkward being called “Mrs. Nelson” remained unresolved; nobody in Scarsdale called her anything at all.

  Electric trains drew the men away to the city each morning and the children were swallowed up by school. The women, alone in their big, impeccable houses, let their days slip away in endless rounds of triviality – or at least, that was the way Alice saw them in her mind’s eye. She pictured them idling through easy household chores or giving instructions to their maids, and painting their fingernails and fixing their hair and compounding their lassitude by spending hours on the telephone with one another, talking of bridge clubs and luncheons and functions of the P.T.A. If their lives included anything more interesting than that she didn’t learn of it, for none of them ever called her up or dropped in for a neighborly visit – no
r, apparently, did any of their husbands ever strike up an acquaintance with Sterling on the train. Scarsdale behaved as though Alice and Sterling didn’t exist.

  She didn’t care. She had her mornings and part of her afternoons free for sculpture in the garage, and she was doing new, exciting work: she had abandoned garden sculpture and was making sculpture for its own sake – sinuous torsos and semi-abstract animals – things that would make excellent exhibition pieces as soon as she had enough of them to warrant a one-man show.

  A little after three o’clock each day she would go out across the Post Road and wait for Bobby’s coming home. The school was within easy walking distance, but it was on the other side of the road, and she didn’t want him crossing that wide, hectic highway by himself: she took him across each morning and went across to wait for him each afternoon. He didn’t seem to mind when he came home alone, which was most of the time – for the first week or so, in fact, he would break into an eager run for the last few yards and let her hug him, to prove how much he’d missed her all day – but later, when he began walking home in a cluster of other boys, it seemed to embarrass him.

  “I can cross the street by myself,” he said.

  “No you can’t.”

  When Sterling found out about it, one morning after he’d missed his regular train to the city, he was almost angry with her. “You mean to say you do that every day?” he asked, looking up from the breakfast table when she’d come back to the house. “Take him across the street by the hand?”

  “But it’s not just a street, it’s a highway. And the cars come so terribly fast I’m almost afraid to cross it myself.”

  “Oh, nonsense, Alice. The boy’s eight years old. How’s he ever going to learn to look after himself if you keep babying him?”

  “I don’t baby him, Sterling.”

  “Yes you do. I’m sorry, Alice, but it’s a thing I’ve meant to speak with you about before.” He looked grimly at his coffee cup. “Well,” he said, “I expect it’s none of my business.”