Aside from it being far too large for a family of three, the house had been hideously fitted out by an interior decorator more anxious for her huge fee than for any cohesiveness in the design. The woman had taken Ivory’s measure and run wild, knowing full well that Ivory would accept the word of a so-called expert and not question the style or the acquisitions required to accomplish what Tally came to think of as Gothic Noir.
The foyer was so crowded with Victorian pieces that the area looked half its actual size. There was a mirrored oak coat rack with pegs and a lift-up seat, an oriental rug completely at odds with the furniture, several murky pastoral oils on the walls and, to compound the horror, flocked wallpaper and swagged velvet draperies over the double doorway to the living room. All the downstairs rooms were similarly dark and crowded. But the library, created especially for her father, was the pièce de résistance, complete with hunting scenes in heavy frames, creaky leather armchairs, a vast Persian carpet, potted aspidistras, and more velvet draperies.
Ivory had adored it. Tally had pitied her, wishing there were some way she could tell her mother how truly awful it all was. But Tally couldn’t tell her mother a thing; her opinions were of no consequence. ‘What would you know?’ was Ivory’s inevitable scathing response to any comment Tally might make, about anything.
The house, like Ivory herself, was beautiful outside. And, inside, it was dark and chaotic, crowded with too many things all at odds with each other: bedlam.
So, Tally thought now, no matter how unfriendly the people might be here in the east, this was what she wanted to see every day: towering old trees and clapboard houses that had long-since finished settling and weren’t entirely square but had innate charm. Perhaps, quite by accident, she was on the right road after all.
The traffic thinned and she drove on, with no idea where she was headed. She’d buy a local map when she next stopped to gas up the car.
A river appeared on the left-hand side of the road, dappled gold with the waning sun, and deep green fields were on her right. The scenery was enchanting, so lavishly beautiful that she was quite overwhelmed, with a feeling akin to happiness – something she hadn’t felt in many, many years. The wealth of the landscape filled her senses, gave her an odd sense of privilege. It reminded her of the final scenes in Soylent Green, a film she’d watched back in the mid-seventies in the prison common area. Everyone had been stricken by the film. There’d been none of the usual asinine comments or inchoate shouting at the screen. In fact, there’d been no talking at all, not even when it was over and the screen went white. Everyone dispersed in rare, thoughtful silence. It wasn’t a particularly good film, but Edward G. Robinson had given great depth to his final screen performance. And each woman watching understood his character’s longing to see the verdant world of the past. Even if the inmates had lived their entire lives within the state of Nevada, that view of the wider world struck a powerful chord and set every one of them longing for an earthly beauty beyond their reach.
The farther north she got, the more splendid the scenery became. She passed through Gaylordsville, then little communities that were scarcely more than clusters of houses, yet the past seemed to come to life in the details glimpsed in passing: a weathered barn atilt in a field, lace curtains on a narrow window, hanging plants suspended from the beams of a porch, a low white-painted picket fence defining the perimeter of a house front. Tally stopped at last at a gas station at a place near Bull’s Bridge, where she fueled the car and bought a regional map. Standing outside in the cooling end of the day breeze, she studied the map, trying to fix her position. She was in Litchfield County. The river that appeared intermittently was the Housatonic. And ahead on Route 7, according to the map’s legend, there was a covered bridge. Beyond that was the town of Kent. And provided there was accommodation to be had, that’s where she’d stop for the night. Finding it highly significant, she noted in the map’s legend that the state motto was ‘He who transplanted still sustains.’ This did seem to be a nourishing area, where things grew with abandon.
Back inside the station, she asked the pleasant middle-aged attendant, ‘Are there motels in Kent?’
‘Nope. There’s a couple over west t’wards Salisbury or north up to Canaan, if you want to go that far. But Mae Duffy’s just opened some rooms she’s renting, in that big old house of hers. Made it kind of like an inn. You might try there. Just stay on seven here and it’s on your right as you’re heading outta Kent, about eight miles ahead. You want, I could give ’er a call, see if she’s got a room.’
‘Yes, please. That would be wonderful.’
‘Sure thing. Lemme just check the number.’ The fellow reached for a slim telephone book while Tally revised her opinion of easterners.
‘You’re in luck,’ he told her a couple of minutes later. ‘One room left. What’s your name?’ She told him. He spoke into the telephone again, then hung up. ‘She’ll hold it for you. Check in at her restaurant in town. Chez Mae, it’s called. Can’t miss it, on the right side as you’re headin’ north, smack in the middle of town. They’ll get you squared away. Food’s real good, too. Kind of on the pricey side, but worth the money. Don’t know what they’re askin’ for the rooms but one thing for sure, it’ll be nice. Mae’s a stylish gal. New Yorker originally.’
‘Thank you so much,’ Tally said, offering the man a twenty-dollar bill.
‘Oh, no!’ Color rose into his face as he smiled sheepishly and held up his hands palms outward. ‘Happy to help.’
‘Please take it,’ she said quietly. ‘You didn’t have to go to so much trouble.’ Leaving the bill on the counter, she again said, ‘Thank you,’ and made her way back to the car. As she pulled away from the pump, she realized the attendant was in the doorway, watching her go. She waved. He waved back. Then she accelerated back onto Route 7.
She was foolishly disappointed to find that the covered bridge was not, as indicated by the map, actually on Route 7. It was very near to where she’d stopped and she slowed the car, trying to see the structure as she passed the sign for the turnoff, but it wasn’t possible. Then, too soon, she was past it. She promised herself she’d return to have a look at the bridge up close. There was something immensely appealing about the very idea of a covered bridge; it typified what she expected of this part of the world.
Kent was a charming little town with a church at the crossroads and a scattering of shops on either side of the street. And, as the fellow at the gas station had told her, in the middle of the shops on the right was Chez Mae. She pulled into the first available parking spot, then got out and looked around. To the north, Route 7 continued on into the countryside, heading up to Massachusetts and then Vermont.
The restaurant was busy and she had to wait a few minutes before the hostess could get to her. Tally didn’t mind. There was low classical piano music emanating discreetly from hidden speakers and the volume of conversation among the diners was also low.
‘How long will you be staying?’ the hostess asked, as Tally signed the guest register.
‘I’m not sure. Maybe a few weeks.’
‘Mae’ll have to let you know if that’s do-able. I don’t have time now to check the reservations. But it should be okay. The rooms’ve just opened so we don’t have all that many advance bookings. Will you be having dinner?’
‘Yes, please.’
The hostess looked around the room, then turned back. ‘I’ll have a table clear in about half an hour. We’re short-staffed tonight, so if you don’t mind I’ll run your credit card when you come back. Okay?’
‘Sure. Thank you.’
The woman handed her a ring with two keys and told her how to gain access to the house up the road. ‘You’ll want to park at the far end of the driveway, because you get to the rooms through the back door. It’s the top-floor room on the right. By the time you get your bags in and come back, I’ll have a table ready for you,’ she told Tally, before hurrying off.
She found the house without difficulty and l
et herself in. The room was spacious and charming with a steeply vaulted, timbered ceiling from which a fan was suspended. The walls were covered in blue-and-white-patterned wallpaper. And there was actual furniture, constructed of actual wood – not a veneer in sight. A dozen or so books stood in a small bookcase to the left of the windows on the near wall; a TV set sat atop an old, well cared-for chest of drawers with a wall-hung mirror above it. By the windows on the wall facing the door a small wing chair was partnered with a side table upon which stood a ginger jar lamp. A canopied four-poster double bed with pretty linens was centered against the right-hand wall with night tables on either side, each bearing lamps with pleated shades. There was also, she noted with pleasure, a coffee maker, tea bags, packets of biscuits, and a bottle of sparkling water. The bathroom was big. It had an old-fashioned claw foot tub to which a shower extension had been added. There was a stack of fluffy towels on a stand next to the tub, and flowered curtains hung over the window.
It was the first place she’d stayed in that didn’t feel like hastily constructed, inferior accommodation for transients who didn’t care about their surroundings as long as there was a TV set and a bed. She opened a window, taking a deep breath of the grass-scented air, then went down to the car to bring in her bags. After a quick wash, she added the now-finished Vonnegut novel to the collection in the bookcase. She grabbed White Mischief to read over dinner, pocketed the room keys, and made her way back to the restaurant where red-headed Mae dropped by Tally’s table to say hello. She was high-fashion model: tall and slim, an arresting woman who looked to be in her mid- to late forties, with a pale, flawless complexion, startling green eyes that glowed with intelligence and good humor, and a lovely smile. ‘We’ll get acquainted tomorrow at breakfast,’ she promised. ‘But be warned. My conversation consists mainly of little grunts and head-nods. I am not one of those sunny, morning people. Now, if you’re not dieting and you’re up for a fabulous meal, order the Lobster Newberg. The town council’s talking about making it illegal.’ And with a big laugh, she moved on.
A woman prone to frequent gusting laughter and stops at each table to chat for a moment with the guests as she traveled through her restaurant, Tally liked her at once and knew she’d landed in a good place.
That night she dreamed of Annalise. Her sleeping self knew it was a dream but it had such authenticity, contained such a wealth of emotion and such remarkable clarity of detail that she was desperate to know how it played out.
In the dream it was full night, and Tally and her grandmother sat side by side on the long bench on the veranda. Annalise was smoking one of the Gauloise cigarettes she had every evening after dinner. The pungent smell of the foreign tobacco hovered in the cooling night air, mingling with the fragrance of Blue Grass. The sky in the distance was dark as an inkwell, massed clouds moving in to block the starlight.
Tally gazed at her grandmother’s face, fascinated as always by her features: the blue eyes clear in her darkly tanned face. She wanted, for a few moments, to be her grandmother: grown-up, competent and completely her own person.
‘You’re staring,’ Annalise said, without turning her gaze from the horizon.
‘Sorry. I was just thinking.’
Her grandmother turned and smiled. ‘And what were you “just thinking?”’
A bit embarrassed, Tally confessed, ‘That I want to be like you when I grow up.’
‘I hope you’ll be smarter than me and make wiser choices.’ Annalise drew on her cigarette, then turned aside slightly to exhale the smoke away from Tally.
‘Wiser how?
‘In how you choose to give your heart. Don’t mistake attraction for love.’
‘Sex, you mean?
Her grandmother smiled. ‘Wanting to make love to someone doesn’t necessarily mean you love that person. Love is what remains after the heat dies down. If you still want to hear what he has to say, if you still like him in spite of his annoying habits, if he makes you laugh and is willing to listen to what you have to say, then what you’ve got might actually be love.’ She paused to draw again on the cigarette before crushing it out in a small ceramic ashtray. ‘Take the time to get to know the one who seems to be the man of your dreams. Don’t give your heart away too quickly.’
‘What if I never meet that person?’ Tally asked.
‘Then enjoy your own company. Make friends and work hard to keep them. Friends are sometimes more valuable than husbands.’ She looked off again into the distance. ‘We’re in for quite a storm,’ she observed. ‘We’ll have to stable the horses and put the truck in the barn. Time to take shelter, Tally.’ She turned and looked meaningfully at her granddaughter. ‘It’s time.’
Tally chose to interpret the dream as a message. This was the place. The next morning, after a wonderful breakfast that included locally made jam, fresh-baked bread, eggs from cage-free chickens, and rich flavorful coffee, she decided she would stay here. She walked down the road toward the shops in the fresh and fragrant morning air, savoring the beauty of the trees and shrubs that were thick and richly green – at their peak. The town was a manageable size and had several restaurants aside from Chez Mae, a supermarket, a drugstore, sundry shops and, best of all, a book store. The houses on either side of the road were well-tended and charming. And she would stay here and find one that would suit her.
ELEVEN
The snow started falling just after eleven in the morning. Dense flakes filled the air, whipped around by the wind. Tally stood at the window watching for quite some time, awed by the sight of what was going to be, according to the radio, a major storm. The visibility decreased rapidly so that within less than an hour all she could see from the window was a shifting curtain of white. Gone altogether was her hilltop view of the countryside spread below.
After a spectacular autumn with the lush foliage aflame with colors that seemed to glow from within even when it rained, there was a new fullness in her chest that displaced a small measure of her long-time sorrow. And she began to anticipate the onset of winter.
A couple of weeks earlier there’d been two days with some snowfall that had failed to accumulate, and she’d been disappointed. This, now, was the real thing: her first snowstorm. As she worked at stripping the layers of wallpaper from the dining-room walls, the radio playing low, she paused every so often to listen to the sound of the wind buffeting her house. She’d had the chimneys cleaned and pointed, so the fire in the living room burned well, an occasional puff-back caused by the wind.
She’d taken possession of the decrepit, long-vacant Victorian in early September and, in accordance with the building inspector’s recommendations, she’d had all the major jobs done immediately, relying on Mae’s excellent recommendations for various contractors. So, while one team was at work outside redoing the roof and another was dealing with the badly neglected septic system, a third team was removing and replacing rotted sections of clapboard.
Inside, a trio of electricians were rewiring the entire place from cellar to attic, alongside the plumber and his two helpers who opened walls and floors to remove what seemed like miles of lead piping before installing new copper pipe. After the wiring and plumbing had been brought up to code, the tile man and his assistant got to work redoing the two bathrooms. Then in the solid and fortunately dry stone-walled basement came the installation of the new furnace and hot water heater, followed by new fittings for the two and a half bathrooms and the kitchen. While this was going on, two more men pulled out the kitchen floor and laid down a new subfloor, over which went wide-board oak flooring to match the rest of the downstairs floors. Then a team of kitchen specialists tore out the old cabinets and counters, stripping the room back to the walls before installing new glass-fronted cabinets and butcher block countertops. When that was completed there came the delivery of the new kitchen appliances as well as the washer and dryer which went into what had formerly been the pantry. A glazier and his crew replaced the glass in most of the windows while in his wake came yet another c
rew fitting new storm windows and screens. Painters followed the carpenters and glaziers, sanding and scraping away the old flaking exterior paint, priming the window frames and new wood before applying a coat of white paint to the entire house and a coat of black to the repaired and rehung shutters. The painters would return in a week’s time to begin the interior painting.
From early morning until six or seven in the evening for two and a half months, a dozen or more workmen had been all over the house. Every morning after a night at Mae’s bed-and-breakfast, Tally stopped to pick up coffee and rolls in town and then set off in the new Jeep Grand Cherokee (which she’d acquired from the delighted, overawed dealer in Danbury in an even swap for the Mercedes which he intended to keep for his own use) to meet with the workmen at the house. Over the coffee and rolls they discussed their schedule before she set off to shop for more of the items on her very long list: kitchenware, and small appliances, bedding, a new mattress for Annalise’s four-poster which, along with the rest of the furniture was due to arrive in a week’s time; towels and shower curtains, a stereo system, a TV and VCR, groceries, and staples to stock the kitchen.
Along with these things, Tally acquired more books and music; she also ordered a Mont Blanc pen from a specialty shop in Manhattan along with some heavy-bond monogrammed note paper with matching envelopes. She bought more clothes, and a complete wardrobe of winter wear.
When, after seven weeks’ work, the house was relatively habitable, she’d moved finally from the bed-and-breakfast. On her first night in the house (where she planned to spent her nights in an L.L. Bean sleeping bag on the floor of the master bedroom), she wrote to Warden Hughes and to Warren, letting them both know where she’d chosen to settle and providing her new address and telephone number. That done, she’d walked through the house, pausing to study each room’s potential and planning where she would put Annalise’s things.
Where is the Baby? Page 11
