Something in the Water

by Peter Scott

  “So many people, so much going on. It makes me feel small,” said Claire. “Look at how many of them are women. Everything’s changing so fast.”

  “You should see Rockland, if you think this is something,” said Richard. He folded his arms on his chest. “I’ll bet the next time I go there, the harbor will be twice as big, and I won’t recognize a single boat.”

  “Oh, but you promised,” said Lucille looking over at her son and then to Claire, whose hand she took in hers. “Richard was set on going back to find those two fellows and teach them a lesson, but I made him promise he wouldn’t. He’s so proud.”

  In the quiet car on the way back to Blue Hill, Claire said that Stonington was crowded and busy enough for her. “I’ll bet you miss Barter Island sometimes,” she said.

  “Oh, I do, a little bit,” said Lucille while she watched the houses go by. “I miss some of the people and the quiet sometimes. But I don’t miss cleaning summer people’s houses and doing their laundry; I don’t miss not having a telephone, not going to picture shows, or not taking Sunday outings.”

  “I doubt you miss Deacon Barter—Lord Cecil,” said Richard. He mocked Cecil’s somber voice: “‘Good morning. I’m Cecil Barter, and you’re not. Welcome to my island.’ ”

  “His father was a nice man,” said Lucille. “He was some generous when times were bad. And Leah, poor dear, I do miss her. So unlike her mother.”

  “Thank God,” said Richard.

  • • •

  At exactly three by the town hall clock, Richard dropped the ladies in front of the drugstore in Blue Hill for their ice-cream sodas. He offered to go in with them to help them get a table by the window, but Lucille said they would be fine on their own. They would look for him in an hour, as usual.

  When the Desoto ground to a stop in the gravel before Carl Topp’s big gray barn, Carl appeared in the side door and waved Richard inside. On Sunday afternoons, when he worked on his car, Carl dressed like an engineer: a blue-and-white striped hat and soft gloves with cuffs that stretched to his elbows. He was a spare, upright man in his early sixties, with kind eyes and an appraising, sidelong glance. He had been restoring the 1905 Buick two-cylinder touring car for eighteen years, telling Bel that all the money they put into it would be recovered ten fold when he sold it for their retirement. But now that he was nearly finished, Carl was loath to let the car go. He had promised Bel that they would ride in it in the Fourth of July parade this year with the idea of attracting an offer from one of the many summer people who liked to drive antique cars while they were rusticating in Maine.

  Carl shed his gloves to pour a drink while Richard circled the bright car and peered under the open hood at the engine, his hands behind his back.

  “Not a spot of dirt or grease anywhere,” he said. “When Cyrus Hawkes sees this, he’ll reach for his wallet. With any luck, the senator will reach for his at the same time, outbid Cyrus, and you and the missus will be off to the city in a new Cadillac.”

  Carl handed Richard a cup. “But her idle is still pretty ragged. That parade is slow—all that stopping and going; I’d hate to have her conk out in front of everybody. I’d hate that.”

  “You’d have to keep her for another year,” Richard laughed. “What’d you use to make the seat leather shine so? Do you care if I sit in her?”

  “Sure go ahead.”

  Richard climbed up onto the grand seat and held the mahogany steering wheel with both hands. He wiggled a little to settle himself in the soft leather.

  “You look good up there,” said Carl. “Maybe you should buy it. You could store it here.”

  “Sure,” said Richard.

  “I’ve got something for you, by the way. Did you bring the cigars?”

  “Yes I did. And I’ve got something for you, too.”

  Lucille and Claire saw him coming from the window of the soda shop and met him at the curb. Richard held the doors for the ladies, then reached through the window into the front seat for a white box, which he set in his mother’s lap.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  Richard got in and leaned back over the seat. “Open it,” he said.

  “Open it, for pity’s sake,” urged Claire.

  Ever so carefully, Lucille opened the box to find a pair of porcelain salt and pepper shakers swaddled in tissue. The figures were meticulously painted. Salt was Jack, and pepper was Jill. Jack, dressed in blue, was seated; the salt came from his broken crown. Jill, her little red mouth open in surprise, held a bucket in each hand. It was the expensive imported set from the knickknack shop that Lucille had so long coveted as a crown for her shaker collection.

  “Oh Richard,” she held Jack in her palm. “I don’t know what to say.” Claire looked away to avoid seeing Lucille’s tears. She felt like crying herself, for herself.

  “No need to say anything.” He started the car.

  “But how could you afford them? These were ... I’m not even going to say how much they cost.”

  “Lobstering’s good,” he said.

  On the straightaway through the rocky blueberry fields, Richard saw a car approaching fast behind him. It was a new convertible with three girls sitting up in the back, laughing in the wind, and three boys in the front. Summer people. Richard was going thirty miles an hour, which he thought fast enough for anyone, but the shouting kids in the car behind, now within twenty feet, disagreed. Lucille and Claire looked around. Two long honks from the convertible’s horn turned the ladies’ heads back to the front. Richard waved the car around, his right tires rumbling on the shoulder of the road as he made room.

  When they sailed by laughing and waving, the nearest boy said, “Get a mule, gramps!”

  “Goddamn summer people,” said Richard.

  “These teenagers today,” said Claire. “You should report them, Richard. Did you see their license number?”

  Richard did not answer.

  “He’ll stew all the way home,” Lucille whispered. “Look at her pretty little eyes; they’re the same color blue as the water in her buckets. Isn’t that some clever?”

  Leah shook the bread out of the pan and thumped the loaf. She could hear Cecil dressing in their bedroom overhead. He had said that he was disappointed that she couldn’t come to the Owings’s dinner party with him, but she knew he was glad. She was on the food committee for the dance that night and had to help get things ready. It was a perfect excuse: Cecil could tell Mrs. Owings that she, Leah, was really sorry to miss the party but that civic duty called. The Owingses would be impressed, Cecil would not have to be embarrassed by her shyness and nervous chewing of her nails, and she would not have to spend the afternoon listening to stuffy summer people talk about their yachts and perfect children.

  Maggie and Amos were coming for supper. As Maggie had said, it would be like the Sunday afternoons in Head Harbor when Leah was a girl. Amos came for dinner then and often stayed for supper, too. After dinner he would do one of the heavy chores Maggie had saved for him—turn over the garden, shovel snow—then he’d come inside to read magazines in the parlor while Leah did her homework. The next morning, on the way to school with Maggie, Leah would feel sorry for herself that she did not have a real family all the time. She would wonder, but never ask, why Maggie and Amos never married after her mother died. When she heard Cecil come down the front steps and go out the door, she put the water on to boil and covered the bread with a dish towel.

  She would not do what Cecil had asked her to do, she thought. She would not “have that talk” with her father when he came for dinner. She would not have it any time, ever, no matter what Cecil threatened or did. No matter what he called her. It was so like him not to understand them, or even try to. She shook Cecil out of her mind and began to set the table.

  Maggie let herself in the back door, put a rhubarb pie on the counter, and drew four bottles of beer from a paper bag.

  “What a nice table, Leah,” she said, opening the icebox door.

  “And who are tho
se for?” asked Leah.

  “Two for Amos.” She held up a pair. “And one for each of us.”

  “Oh, not for me,” said Leah. “Do you think he’ll come? I’ll bet he finds some excuse at the last minute, though he did promise.”

  “I’ll bet he comes,” Maggie said. “But I’ll be surprised if he goes to the dance, too. I’ll bet you a bottle of beer that he comes for supper; if he does, you’ll drink one; if he doesn’t, I’ll drink both of them, and I’ll breathe on Iris Weed at the dance.”

  Maggie knew that Amos had refused when Leah first invited him to supper; she also knew that Gus had told Amos that Cecil would not be there. That is what had changed his mind, not Leah’s pleading or the boy’s teasing. Hers was a safe bet, soon to be won.

  In the garden, cutting flowers for the table, Maggie watched Amos and Gus arrive in the pickup, and Leah meet her father on the back stoop with a kiss on the cheek. She pushed him back a step to admire his new striped shirt, his best trousers and shoes. She said something that made him laugh and took him by the arm to lead him inside. Maggie thought that the weight he had lost—his trousers were gathered by his belt—made him look healthier, as did his tanned face below the white hat line. Leah, decided Maggie, looked as fresh and bright as the zinnia she bent to cut.

  Amos sat in Cecil’s chair, with Gus on his right, while Maggie poured three glasses of beer, and a glass of milk for the boy. She set a stack of four plates by Amos’s folded hands.

  “Now sit down, Maggie,” said Leah. “And shut your eyes, all of you.”

  “What for? I don’t trust you,” Amos said.

  “You’re not getting any supper until you close your eyes,” she said.

  When they did, she brought a platter from the oven and set it before Amos.

  “Okay, open them.”

  Amos looked at the platter, at Leah, then back at the platter, where six pink, uniformly shaped slabs of something lay arranged on a bed of noodles and cheese. Rectangles with rounded edges, they were sprinkled with scallions. Amos pierced the nearest slab with his fork.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Prem,” she said.

  “Prem,” he repeated. “Laugh, damn you,” he said to Gus. “I’ll laugh when I watch you eat it, if that’s what it’s for.”

  “It’s Swift’s Premium Ham. It’s been processed. It comes in a can with recipes on the back. It’s new. There are other brands, all with funny names. Cecil bought a case of it from Merrill and Hinckley. Let’s try it.”

  Amos filled and passed their plates. Maggie cut a small corner of her portion and chewed it cautiously.

  “It isn’t pot roast,” she said wistfully. “I suppose we’ll be eating processed food for a long time. We ought to be thankful for it. Mothers in Europe are feeding their children scraps from German garbage cans.”

  Gus, his fork poised, asked Amos if he was going to say grace.

  “Maggie just did,” he said, and filled his mouth. “I like this. It would make a good sandwich. You could put mustard on it.”

  “Let’s drink a toast.” Leah raised her glass of beer and winked at Maggie. “What to? To our boys. To the Fourth of July.”

  “To the merchantmen,” Amos added.

  “To Prem,” said Maggie.

  Amos drained his glass and filled it again.

  “Dickie was in Stonington yesterday,” Leah said. “He saw your boat tied up at the quarry. He wondered what you were doing over there.” The women looked at Amos to show that they did too. He finished chewing and took a swallow of beer.

  “I went to see Hutch, to ask him if he could turn my drive-shaft on the lathe in their machine shop. Not that it’s any of Dickie’s damn business.”

  Gus smiled knowingly at Amos.

  “What are you smirking about?” Leah asked him.

  “Nothing!” Gus said defensively.

  “Why did he give you that look, father?”

  “What look?” Amos passed the bread.

  Maggie washed the dishes and Gus dried, while Leah finished clearing the table and Amos finished his beer.

  “I’m sorry we have to rush,” Leah said. “But we have to change and go help get the food tables ready. You and Gus stay here and relax; there’s another bottle of beer. I told Gus he could listen to The Green Hornet tonight, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind. I like that program.”

  “You are coming to the dance, aren’t you?”

  “I promised you I would, so I will, though I don’t much feel like it.”

  He had promised Walter that he would go, too, and that he would have a little drink for him. Walter loved a good time— music, the laughter of young women, and a well-called contra dance. He had reminded Amos that Jake and Morales would be there, and Dickie too. What kind of a guy, Walter had wanted to know, would sit at home on the Fourth of July?

  “Confucius say ...” Gus mimicked the Green Hornet’s Filipino valet’s Asian accent. “Confucius say, ‘Man who lead two lives must sleep with one eye open.’ ”

  “Very good, Cato,” said Amos.

  “You asked him?” Rosalyn Owings stood with Agnes Chadwick on the lawn beside the town hall, watching people enter through the wide doors under a red, white, and blue banner that said “July 4. United We Stand.”

  “Certainly I did,” Agnes said, still warm from the dinner wine. “Her name was Susan, and they were married three years. She died of fever during a nor’easter at the Boon Island lighthouse. He hasn’t looked at another woman since.”

  Rosalyn made a sorrowful noise. She could see Jake in the hall entryway, in uniform, with Morales at his side. The lighthouse keeper was shaking hands with Dwight Chafin.

  “I wanted to ask him about the gold medal he wears,” said Rosalyn. “But I demurred.” She fanned her face with a fluttering hand.

  “It’s the Lifesaving Medal, given by the Lighthouse Service,” Agnes said. “He says that she deserves it more than he does. A fishing boat of some kind ran aground near Boon Island in a storm. He rescued the crew—all seven of them—four in the first try, three in the second. They were frozen, two almost dead, and Susan nursed them all back to health. He wears the medal for her.”

  “But not a wedding band,” said Rosalyn.

  “No, And that won’t go unnoticed tonight, will it?” Agnes nodded toward a noisy huddle of young women on the wide steps.

  Inside the hall were nearly a hundred people, some sitting in folding chairs that lined the walls, most milling in chatty groups in the center of the floor and by the refreshment table under the window opposite the stage. The windows and doors of the hall were thrown open, admitting a stiff southwesterly breeze that ruffled the bunting on the walls.

  Reverend Hotchkiss, visibly expanded from the generous table at the Owings’ dinner party, climbed the stage, spoke to Jack Bishop at the piano and Archie on the fiddle, then called for the crowd’s attention.

  “We’ll begin with The Lady of the Lake,’ ” he boomed. “Ladies line up on my right, please, and gentlemen on my left. Mr. and Mrs. Barter will take the lead.” He bowed in the direction of Cecil and Leah, who stood in the entryway. The older couples and widows took seats along the wall; the few fishermen who had ventured inside and gathered near the door slipped out in quiet file behind Amos and Dickie Hanson.

  Cecil and Leah stood ten feet apart, facing the stage in the middle of the floor. Leah smiled over her shoulder at the women who lined up behind her, most of them laughing young ones. Cecil, as straight and sharp as a pencil, kept his eyes on the reverend. Leah caught Maggie’s eye and waved to her with a look that said “I’m out here; you come too.” When Jake, second in line behind Cecil, noticed the exchange, and saw Maggie shake her head “No,” he left his place in line and escorted her, in spite of Maggie’s many whispered protests, out to stand behind Leah. Then he resumed his place behind Cecil.

  Lily Scales elbowed Iris Weed, sitting in the chair next to her, and sniffed twice in the direction of Jake an
d Maggie.

  “My, my,” said Iris. “Aren’t we the privileged one.”

  As they lined up, Betty Chambers counted down the line of men to Morales, and finding that she was one off, asked Mabel Eaton to trade places with her; when Mabel hesitated, Betty took her by the shoulders and moved her. The music started loud and disjointed, stopped, then started again. When the reverend called them to bow to their partners, Betty curtsied to Morales and sent him a fond smile. In return, Morales bowed to the waist—the way a matador, she thought, would bow to his senorita when offering her a red rose.

  Jake bowed slightly and offered Maggie his arm for the promenade. “I was hoping you would be at the dinner party,” he said.

  “Was it very fancy?” she asked, eyes ahead.

  “It was. And very proper. Silver spoons and crystal and violin music on the phonograph. Damn dreary,” he said.

  “And Morales was there too?”

  He escorted her to the side, still holding her arm. “He glared at me the whole time. I got him to go by promising him you’d be there. When he saw you tonight, all dressed up, he squeezed my arm like a monkey.”

  “Oh, pooh,” she said. “I’m much older than he is.” Maggie withdrew her arm from Jake’s.

  “Look over your left shoulder,” he said. “It seems you’ve got more than one admirer.”

  Standing on tiptoe, with their noses and fingers on the sill, were Amos and Dickie, straining to see. When she turned, Amos’s face disappeared, then Dickie’s after it.

  “We ought to make Amos come in and dance,” said Jake.

  Maggie laughed. “He might join later, but he won’t dance. I made him dance The March and Circle’ with me once. He swung the wrong way and knocked Doris Chafin flat on her bottom. It didn’t hurt her—she has ample padding—but everyone laughed at them. She blamed Amos, and he blamed me.”