Dreamthorp

by Williamson, Chet

  At the intermission he went outside, where the concessions were operating from tents. He bought an instant coffee, stepped away from the lights toward the trees, and saw Laura Stark standing alone, drinking a lemonade. He smiled at her. "Enjoying the show?" he said.

  "What I can see of it," she told him and smiled back. She had a good smile, he thought. Nice, even teeth, very white. "I'm pretty far back. And since there's no incline, there are a lot of heads between me and the stage."

  "Why don't you sit with me?" It was out of his mouth before he realized he had said it, but he was not sorry. "I'm up in the second row."

  "Is there an empty seat?"

  "Yeah. One I bought and paid for, so nobody's going to cruise in for the second act."

  "Well . . . sure. Thank you."

  Tom was careful not to read anything into her acceptance. After all, there was no reason not to accept.

  They watched the rest of the play, and Tom observed Laura, impressed again with how graceful she was for her size. As they sat together he realized that they were really about the same height, but when they had stood talking he had had the impression that he was the taller. She had a wonderful laugh, which he heard many times during the remainder of the play, and occasionally she would turn as she laughed and look at him, as if sharing the joke.

  After the bows, they walked out together, and he asked her if she was hungry. She said that she was, a little, and he suggested they go to the Ice Cream Shoppe.

  The Ice Cream Shoppe was another institution of Dreamthorp. It served sundaes, sandwiches, and an assortment of beverages, the specialty being lime rickies. At the counter, Laura ordered a small dish of vanilla and a Diet Coke, and Tom asked for a small hot fudge sundae. "My primary vice," he told her, "next to too much beer in the summer."

  When the girl handed their orders over the counter, Tom held up a hand when he saw Laura reaching into her purse. "My treat," he said.

  But she shook her head. "No, really. I'll pay for mine." He shrugged and let her. "Thanks," she said when they were sitting down out on the deck. It was a warm night, with just a hint of a breeze to blow the pine branches above them. "Most men give you a hassle when you want to buy your own."

  Tom was surprised that she would even mention it. "It's not because you're a woman," he said. "I would've offered if you were a guy."

  She smiled. "I'm sorry. I guess you would have at that." She delicately took a small bite of ice cream. "It's funny. Men and women."

  "Funny?" he said, hoisting a spoonful of assorted goo. "The mind games. The possessiveness. It's the same if you work together or whatever. The man always feels he's got to look out for the woman."

  Tom nodded. "You're right. It's in the genes, I guess. Generations and generations of . . . what? Possessiveness? Like you said?"

  "I think so."

  "Well, I promise not to be possessive. After all, I've got no reason to." He chuckled. "Why don't we change the subject?"

  "I'm making you uncomfortable."

  "No, not at all. It's just that . . . things have been very strange for me the past few months. Relationships."

  She eyed him cautiously, as if she were afraid to open wounds. Still, his manner told her that he wanted to talk about it, so she asked. "Marital problems?"

  He sighed and set his spoon into his dish. "My wife was killed last winter. An auto accident."

  She was sorry she had asked now, but it was too late. "Oh God. That's . . . I'm very sorry. It must be . . . very difficult."

  He nodded. "It is, yes."

  "I know how you feel," she said, and his expression told her that he must have heard that a hundred times.

  "You do?" he said, with a touch of hardness in his tone. "Have you lost someone too?"

  She had. Damn it, she had. "Yes. A close friend last year."

  "A friend," he replied, as if there were little basis for comparison.

  "A very good friend," she said emphatically. "It hurt. A lot."

  He gave her a small smile but a sincere one. "I'm sorry. I'm sure it did." Then he looked down at her dish and his. "Our ice cream's melting."

  She smiled too. "A little less talk and a little more action?"

  "Exactly. No more words until my sundae is safely wrapped around my middle, all right?"

  She held up three fingers in a scout salute, nodded, and turned her attention to the ice cream. When it was gone she felt full, satisfied, less on her guard.

  "So how do you like living in Dreamthorp?" Tom asked her, putting down his spoon for the last time and patting his mouth with his napkin.

  "I like it very much," she said. "Even with what's happened the past few weeks."

  "A tragedy, an accident, and a murder. Pretty appalling for our little town."

  Laura looked around her. People were sitting at the tables in the cool evening air, walking hand in hand down the paths that led through the old chautaqua grounds, talking, smiling, laughing in the night. "But you'd never think anything happened," Laura said. "Look at everyone. I've never been to any place more . . . sylvan, bucolic. It's like Brigadoon."

  Tom laughed gently. "No, it's like Dreamthorp. The thorp . . . the village of your dreams." He sighed. "It really is a lovely place, isn't it? Unique. I don't think there's any other place like it on Earth."

  "You do love it, don't you?"

  He looked at her oddly. "Yes. Yes, I do. I can't imagine living anywhere but here now. You stay here long enough, you'll feel the same way."

  "I suspect that I already do. One thing surprises me, though. This place would be an ideal artists' colony, yet you're the only artist I've met who lives here. It seems most everyone else is in business—"

  "Or retired," Tom interrupted. "The ideal place to live out your remaining years. At least while you're still mobile. I don't know, maybe artists thrive best under pressure. And there sure isn't much of that here in Dreamthorp."

  "The lack of it doesn't seem to bother you."

  "I have my own internal pressure. Besides," he went on dryly, "my art has not been at its peak lately. I seem to be in a creative rut."

  "What do you carve?"

  "Birds, beasts, shysters, and quacks, mostly. And I've been getting a lot of commissions for shysters and quacks. Sometimes I think I'd like to shoot one of each and stuff them—use them for models, you know?"

  "Let me see your work."

  "What?" The request seemed to surprise him.

  "I'd like to see your carvings. Not especially your shysters and quacks, but the things you like doing."

  "Well, that would be nothing lately," Tom said. "But I do still have a few things that I'm not too ashamed of." He cocked his head at her. "You mean now? Tonight?"

  "Not if it's inconvenient," she said. She thought she might have been too blunt and hoped that he wouldn't take the request the wrong way. In fact, now that she had made the suggestion, she almost hoped he wouldn't take her up on it.

  "It's not inconvenient," he said. "My parents are staying at my place now, so"—he glanced at his watch—"you'll be forced to meet them. It's only eleven, and Dad always watches the news. My son will probably be in bed. But most of my work is in the cellar anyway. I have a workshop down there. Shall we?"

  He stood up, and Laura followed him across the wooden deck, out onto the path, and up Pine Road to Emerson, telling herself not to worry, that nothing could be safer, that going with Tom Brewer to see his carvings was nothing more than an act of friendly interest. It was prefatory to nothing.

  As Tom had predicted, his father was watching the news when they arrived. His mother was upstairs in bed. Tom quickly but politely introduced Laura to Ed, and then they went downstairs to his workshop. "The sanctum sanctorum," Tom said, showing her around. "Pretty Spartan, but it's home."

  A long workbench crossed the front of the room with a jigsaw and a band saw at one end. A lathe, a drill press, and a circular saw made small islands in the center of the room. On the side away from the stairs was the furnace, and a draf
ting board and carving bench completed the furnishings.

  But it was not the thick platforms supporting the power tools that attracted Laura's attention. It was rather the dozens of carvings that littered the large room, most of them unpainted. She crossed to the workbench where a figure sat, or rather squatted. It was a foot high and carved from white pine, and she ran her fingers gently over the curves of it. It was human, with oversized hands and feet and crude, brutal features. There was no decoration or elaboration on it.

  "Interesting," she heard Tom say behind her, "that you should go to that one when there are all these cute little birds around."

  She turned toward him, her hand still on the rough carving. "I've seen carvings of birds before," she said, "though yours are very good. What I haven't seen is anything like this."

  He stepped next to her and touched the figure himself, with affection, she thought. "It's modeled after some Yugoslavian carvings I've seen. You try to follow the outlines of the piece of wood, rather than change the wood to suit your design. The piece is out of proportion, but it's . . ." He thought for a moment.

  "Truer," she said.

  "Yes. Truer. More fluid. Faithful to its source."

  Laura looked around but saw no other carvings like the figure. "Do you do much of this sort of work?"

  "Unfortunately, no. I did that one last fall, just before Susan—my wife—died. I wanted to do some more, but I . . . I couldn't somehow."

  Laura walked to the carving bench and looked at a chunk of white oak. It looked vandalized. The corners had been roughly cleaved off, and the marks of the chisel looked more like savage gouges. "Is this something you're working on?" she asked.

  "Free form," Tom said. "Just an experiment. Want to see my latest shyster?"

  He showed her some of the comic figurines he was doing, along with some birds and a large eagle he was carving for over the mantel of Harris Valley College's president. "I hate to do eagles," he told her, laughing. "Everybody does eagles."

  When they went upstairs he showed her a carving of a redheaded woodpecker that sat on the bookcase in the entry. "I don't usually like them painted, but this is one of the first ones I did when I moved to Dreamthorp, so he's got some nostalgic value. I didn't paint it—Bill Singer, another art prof at Harris Valley did it, does all my birds."

  "It's very lovely."

  "Well, thanks. When it comes to birds, it's okay."

  "There's nothing wrong with carving birds, you know," Laura said. "Even shysters. People enjoy them."

  Tom nodded. "Yeah, I guess so. It's just that I'd like to carve something that would make people's hair stand on end instead of making them go, 'Ooo, how cute.'"

  "Someday you will."

  "I hope so. You want a drink or anything?"

  "No thanks. It's late."

  "Walk you home?"

  "Just two houses away. Thanks, but I can make it."

  "Are you sure? I mean, after what happened last week . . ."

  "It's close. Anything happens, I'll scream."

  "Well, I'll stay on the porch for a while anyway."

  "All right. Fine."

  "Well," Tom said, "I've enjoyed talking with you."

  "Me too."

  "Do you have any plans for the July Fourth picnic?"

  "No, not really. I was planning to go, though."

  "Would you like to go together? I'm afraid I have to include my family in the deal, just for as long as we eat."

  "Oh, I don't know . . ."

  "My mother makes one helluva chicken salad, I will say that for her. And I do a pretty good pasta salad myself. No mixes either. What do you say? You bring the dessert?"

  She laughed in spite of herself. He seemed as fresh and ingenuous as a teenager, and it made her feel younger too. "Oh, all right, I suppose so."

  "Great. I'll give you a call about the time and everything."

  They said good night and she walked down the steps while he stood at the top and watched her go. In the safety of the darkness, she looked back at him standing there in the yellow glow of his porch light and thought how fine he looked, how confident and strong.

  But there was something else in him. Sorrow over his wife's death, of course, but anger as well, she thought, not toward her but something else. His family? His work? Life in general? It was so easy to be angry, so hard to be appeased. She had felt that anger herself—first toward her husband, then toward the other man—say rather the monster—who had turned her life into a nightmare from which she was only now waking.

  She was almost at the door of her cottage when she heard the footsteps around the side of the house. They were not the steady, firm, menacing footsteps of horror movies, but clumsy scuffling, and Laura wondered if it might be an animal.

  But then she remembered what had happened to Mrs. Sipling two houses away, and quickly slipped the key into her lock, went inside, and locked the door behind her. The noise had shaken her, and she immediately took and loaded the gun that she had replaced in the bottom drawer of her gun cabinet when she had learned Gilbert Rodman was dead, and went through both floors, opening closets, looking under beds. She felt foolish as she did it, but also felt relieved when she found nothing. After checking the windows and doors, she began to unload the weapon, but stopped after she had removed the second cartridge. She thought for a moment, then reloaded the gun, and stuck it down behind the cushions of her couch. She went upstairs to bed, and fell asleep thinking of Tom Brewer.

  And Tom Brewer was thinking about Laura Stark. As he turned off his porch light and went back inside the cottage, he realized that he had enjoyed being with her in a way that had been impossible with Karen. He had felt no need to impress Laura and in particular to be something—like an age—that he was not. Although her first comments at the Ice Cream Shoppe had led him to suspect that she might be a militant feminist looking for an argument, he changed his mind quickly. She had, he thought, no axe to grind. She was realistic, that was all, a human being who wanted to be treated and respected like one.

  But what he had liked most about her was what she had done in his workshop, passing the tools and the birds and the inconsequentialities, and going directly to the stark, primitive figure, the piece that meant more to him than any he had ever done.

  Goddamit, but the lady had taste.

  He hadn't planned on asking her to go with him to the picnic. It had just come out, and he was glad of it. If he had thought about it too long, he probably would not have had the nerve to ask her. Karen had been different—Karen had come after him. But he already knew Laura Stark well enough to know that she would not be the aggressor. If he wanted a relationship with her, it would have to be his doing, not hers. Yes, he thought, she was a lady.

  Tom looked in the living room and saw his father asleep in the chair, while the news droned on. He turned down the volume, then went upstairs.

  At the top of the steps, Josh's bedroom door was closed before him. He put his ear to it and listened, but heard nothing. Then he knocked softly enough that the boy would hear it if he was awake. There was no answer. Tom turned the knob quietly, pushed the door open a few inches, and saw the familiar mound under the sheet. How much older would the boy have to be, he wondered, before he stopped pulling the sheet over his head, leaving a hole at his mouth to breathe. Tom smiled, remembering that he had done the same thing, but not, he thought, for as long as Josh had stuck to it.

  He listened for his son's breathing, but the noises of the night blanketed such small sounds, so Tom turned, closed the door, and went into the bathroom to take a shower, hoping that he could make his son love him again.

  The bathroom was humid and warm, and smelled of Jean Nate, the fragrance his mother had worn all her life. He was glad that at least she had been upstairs when he had brought Laura home, though Ed was sure to say something to Frances, and she would grill Tom in the morning about "this new girl."

  He showered and climbed into his double bed, which always seemed far too large for someone sle
eping alone, and thought about "this new girl," about Karen, and most of all about Susan, his wife, who had given him a son, friendship, love, joy, and endless sorrow.

  An hour and a half after Tom went to sleep, and an hour after Ed woke up, turned off the television, climbed the stairs, and crawled in next to his gently snoring wife, Josh Brewer crept into his own bedroom from the porch roof, took something heavy from his belt, and placed it in his bottom drawer. Then he tiptoed to the bathroom, washed himself, and got into bed, thinking about what he had seen, and what he had done.

  He cried himself gently to sleep.

  . . . Then the woods reddened, the beech hedges became russet, and every puff of

  wind made rustle the withered leaves. . . .

  —Alexander Smith, Dreamthorp

  Sunday was bright and fair in Dreamthorp, too bright and fair for most of the residents. It had been a dry spring, and was turning out to be a drier summer. The layers of pine needles that covered the forest floor no longer had the familiar spongy feel underfoot. Instead there was a crispness, as though one were walking on the dried, brittle corpses of insects, hearing the thin carapaces crack by the dozen with every step. No one had heard the rush of water in the rain gutters for weeks, and, although the leaves of the trees were still green, a slight yellow tint had stolen over them. The water level of the lake was down, and layers of silt and clay-colored mud that had not been seen for many years were uncovered. Ends of long submerged branches finally broke the water, a pale, unhealthy brown, like the arms of drowned slaves.

  The dryness made the air electric, heavy with static both real and imagined. The recent deaths had set the town on a fine edge, and the weather did nothing to dull it. The sun baked and dried soil, leaves, and flesh, and people worried and sweated. Martha Sipling was pieced together and put under the ground in Grubb Church Cemetery, five miles away from Dreamthorp, and her cottage was locked up by the police, who had learned nothing from their investigations. Even under the trees, the temperature inside the closed-up house rose to one hundred and ten degrees, sealing the smell of blood inside, making it seep into the rugs, the drawn curtains, the very wood of the house itself.