“Someday we will name them all again,” Uncle Peter adds, “and I will make little leather collars for them, each with his own name around his neck on a leather collar.”
The white cats will all be sitting on the front porch when I come, washing one another and playing with the sunlight. Uncle Oliver will stop and touch one or two of them on the head; “Pretty little things,” he will say. “Nice kitty.” I do not believe that the white cats understand Uncle Oliver the way Sandra Williamson understands Uncle Peter; wherever Uncle Peter goes, Sandra Williamson will follow him, sometimes so far forgetting her dignity as to touch at a dangling shoelace. And when I come, she will be standing next to Uncle Peter in the little living room, waiting to receive me.
“Peter,” Uncle Oliver will say joyously, including Sandra Williamson in his expansive loving gesture, “here is such a nice child, such a nice child, and I walked up the hill with her, and she has brought you presents.”
And then Uncle Peter, who always remembers my name and will take Uncle Oliver aside later and tell him what to call me, will come forward and kiss me on the forehead while Sandra Williamson rubs against my ankles, and Uncle Oliver will pull at my sleeve and point to the packages, winking and giggling, and, with Peter on one side and Oliver on the other, and Sandra Williamson perched on the windowsill above the sofa, I will open the packages.
“Oranges,” Uncle Peter will say with pleasure, and he will take one and offer it solemnly to Sandra Williamson, who will touch it with her gray paw.
“Look, Peter, what Sandra Williamson may have for her own, instead of an orange which we will eat ourselves, look at what this dear pretty child has brought Sandra Williamson,” Uncle Oliver will say, with the chocolate bone. Peter must offer the bone to Sandra himself, and she will sit cheerfully with it under her paw until Uncle Peter moves to another room and requires her to bring it along.
Finally, when all of us have watched Uncle Oliver’s mechanical toy move about the room, crashing into the furniture and even moving out to the front porch to startle the white cats, Uncle Oliver will gather together all the presents except Sandra Williamson’s bone and an orange apiece for his and Uncle Peter’s dinner, and hide them away in the back of a kitchen cabinet, to be taken out at a less exciting time. Then Uncle Oliver will remove himself to the stove, and dinner, and Uncle Peter will show me his garden, Sandra Williamson following and the white cats moving about under the trees in the dusk.
I do not think that there is any possibility that Uncle Peter and Uncle Oliver and the cats and the cottage will change or go away with time. Every year, when spring has irrevocably asserted itself, I begin to wonder about Uncle Oliver and Uncle Peter, and every year I gather together the fruitcake and the oranges, the toys and the candied cherries, and take the ferry to Sausalito. They are as apt not to be there as San Rafael is apt to have moved to Florida.
Always, during the two or three days I spend with Uncle Peter and Uncle Oliver, some minor domestic crisis arrives, brought on principally by the strain of having company. One year Sandra Williamson was ill from too much company food, one year the strain of baking a chicken pie brought Uncle Oliver into a hysterical temper, and one year Uncle Peter and Uncle Oliver quarreled. That is the visit I remember most clearly; the quarrel first made itself evident at the dinner table the evening of my arrival, and over the tomatoes, or rather the lack of them.
“Don’t we always have tomatoes?” Uncle Oliver asked me angrily, indicating the table with the creamed beef on toast and the plain lettuce salad. “Don’t we usually have tomatoes when you come?”
“I seem to remember that you do,” I said placatingly, “but everything is so delicious…”
“We have always had tomatoes up until this year,” Uncle Oliver persisted, “and we have always grown them in our own vegetable garden, too. My particular care,” he added bitterly in Uncle Peter’s direction.
“Possibly something got into the vines this year,” I said. “They very often die off just when you expect them to be the best.”
“We would have had tomatoes this year,” Uncle Oliver said.
“I always thought the tomatoes were the least important,” Uncle Peter said suddenly. “I prefer the radishes myself, and the squash.”
“I notice nothing happened to the apples,” Uncle Oliver said pointedly. There was a long moment of silence, and then Uncle Peter excused himself and left the table. Sandra Williamson followed him, and they went out into the garden.
“I think you hurt Uncle Peter’s feelings,” I said to Oliver.
“I intended to,” he answered, staring at his plate. “He has been very wicked, and the tomatoes were mine by rights.”
“What could he do to the tomatoes?” I was bewildered. “Surely he isn’t directly responsible if the tomato vine doesn’t bear tomatoes.”
“Ah,” said Uncle Oliver. “That is just it. Heaven only knows what the tomato vine will bear now. He has been consorting with the devil.”
“Surely, Uncle Oliver,” I began, “surely you cannot say that just because there are no tomatoes—”
“Ah,” said Uncle Oliver, “but in the garden at night, in only his nightshirt, and dancing. And with Sandra Williamson dancing along behind him, the garden at night, and both of them going among the trees and over the vegetable garden. Is it any wonder,” he cried out despairingly, “that the tomato vine refuses to bear tomatoes!”
“I should, in its place,” I agreed, suppressing the picture of Uncle Peter dancing in his nightshirt.
“The devil has no place in San Rafael, and no business with Peter or with Sandra Williamson, and certainly no traffic with my tomatoes! Perhaps you can put a stop to it?” he asked me.
“What makes you think it’s the devil?”
Uncle Oliver waved his hands. “Peter brought him to lunch one day. He smiled at me, his pointed little nose right at me, and said, ‘You cook admirably, Oliver Duff,’ and I said, ‘I’ll have no thanks from you, evil sir,’ and he smiled at me still.”
“Couldn’t it be a neighbor?”
“It could not,” Uncle Oliver said absolutely, “and I’ll thank you not to suggest it.”
“I’ll speak to Uncle Peter,” I said.
“Speak, better, to my tomato vine,” Uncle Oliver said sullenly. Uncle Peter was coming in the door, followed by Sandra Williamson. He came over to Oliver and said, “It’s been so long since we quarreled. What do we say to each other now?” They both looked at me.
“Uncle Oliver,” I instructed, “you will say that you regret being ugly about the tomato vine, and Uncle Peter, you will say that you will make every effort to console Uncle Oliver for its loss.”
“Regret ugly,” Uncle Oliver muttered to Uncle Peter.
“Make every effort,” Uncle Peter said. They smiled at each other.
“Now,” I said, “I will go out into the garden with Uncle Peter.”
Uncle Peter held the back door open for me, and we went out into the dark garden. The fruit trees were silent in the night, and the vegetable garden lay in heavy masses against the fence. Sandra Williamson preceded us down between the trees to the foot of the garden, where the grass was tall against the fence.
“Is this where he comes?” I asked Uncle Peter.
“To the other side of the fence,” Uncle Peter said. “He seldom comes over. He lives in the woods on the hill.”
“Are you sure it isn’t a neighbor?” I said.
“Quite sure,” Uncle Peter answered in surprise. “I have been consorting with the devil.”
“Tell me about him.”
“He comes down from the hill and stands on the other side of the fence. He came first some weeks ago, and Sandra Williamson saw him and came over to talk to him and I came over, too, and we talked to him.”
“What about the tomatoes?”
Uncle Peter shrugged. “He asked me what in the garden I would give him for tribute; he said he would protect the fruit trees and the rest if I gave him something and I s
aid he could have the tomato vine, because Oliver likes tomatoes least. He said that would do splendidly; I didn’t know that Oliver would mind.”
“Possibly if you talked to him,” I said, “and asked him what else he would accept…”
“I had thought of giving him the apple tree,” Peter said. “He will come later tonight, and I had thought of asking him then.”
“Wait,” I said. I ran back through the garden and into the house. Uncle Oliver was standing miserably by the sink, washing dishes.
“If you could have the tomatoes back,” I said, “would you mind losing the apple tree?”
“The pretty little apples?” Uncle Oliver gasped. “Your uncle Peter likes them boiled with a little cinnamon and just a fragment of a sugar lump.”
I thought. “If I were to promise to send you another fruitcake when I got back to town…”I suggested. Uncle Oliver sighed, but he dried his hands and opened the cupboard. Carefully he took out the bag with the oranges, the two boxes of candied cherries, the mechanical rabbit, and, finally, the fruitcake.
He looked up at me. “Do you suppose one orange… or perhaps two?”
“I think the fruitcake,” I said.
He sighed again, and handed me the fruitcake. While he was storing the rest back in the cupboard I hurried out with the fruitcake and down through the garden to Uncle Peter. “Here,” I said. “Try this.” Uncle Peter brightened.
“Do you suppose it will work?” he asked. “I was thinking about the apple tree. You see, Oliver likes apples, and the white cats eat them.”
“Try the fruitcake first,” I said.
Uncle Oliver and I sat in the living room until very late, watching the white cats settle to sleep, and Uncle Peter stayed in the garden. When I finally went to bed I glanced out of my window and thought I saw, far down among the trees, a white shape moving and Sandra Williamson capering along behind.
The next morning I woke very early and went into the garden before Peter and Oliver were awake. There was no sign of the fruitcake near the fence, but the white cats were walking about, stretching in the morning and unafraid. When I came in to breakfast there were tomatoes on the table, ripe and red and sitting on a green plate, with Uncle Oliver crowing over them.
“See, how pretty,” he said. “Pretty tomatoes. A little boy brought them.”
Peter came into the doorway, smiling. “He was so pleased with the fruitcake,” he said. “Perhaps next time you come you will bring two?”
All during breakfast Peter and Oliver were smiling at each other, making quick little gestures of friendship. Oliver insisted on my having a tomato with my coffee, and asked if it were not the prettiest I had ever tasted, while Peter sat back and watched admiringly.
Finally, when the dishes had been cleared off, Uncle Oliver sat down beside Peter and they smiled again at each other. “Perhaps soon we will go to the city for a visit,” Peter said to me. Neither of them had ever come into the city since they left it to live in San Rafael, and neither of them ever expected to come; it was enough to know that they could if they wanted to. Next to the death of Mrs. Duff, it was their favorite mutual whimsy, and mention of it meant that everything was friendly again between them.
And Oliver took up the conversation from there:
“I remember so clearly the morning she died,” he said to me. “Mrs. Duff, in the house here, and so pleasant a morning. And all the white cats one after another going over the fence and away.”
“It was over a week before they came back at all,” Uncle Peter added, “and then, just over the fence one after another, with never an explanation.”
“She had pretty little names for them all,” Uncle Oliver said.
“They should all have little leather collars with their names on. You could name them, Oliver, and I would make each one a little leather collar with its name on.” Uncle Peter stroked Sandra Williamson’s head. “All with little leather collars,” he said.
When I left they walked down to the bottom of the hill with me, standing to wave goodbye, with Sandra Williamson sitting behind them, while I went along down the dirt road, carrying my suitcase.
But ever since then, when I go back each spring, I take oranges, the fruitcakes, and three toys, and three boxes of candied cherries, and Oliver puts them all away, some to be given out to himself and Peter in less exciting times, and some to be doled out carefully and exactly over the back fence at the foot of the garden.
PART TWO
ON THE HOUSE
The New Yorker, October 30, 1943
ARTIE WATSON SAT ON a folding chair behind the counter of the liquor store and read his paper. Business was slow these rainy nights, and Steve, his partner, had run down to the all-night delicatessen to get some sandwiches and milk. Artie sighed and reached under the counter for his pencil to do the crossword puzzle. Might as well close up, he thought. If no one comes in by the time Steve comes back I’ll tell him we ought to close up early and go home.
A customer came in before Steve came back, a man who came slowly in through the door, not quickly from the rain, but slowly. It took Artie a minute to realize that he was blind and another minute to see the woman following him.
“Evening,” Artie said.
“Good evening,” the blind man said, and the woman echoed, “Good evening.” She walked over to the rows of bottles against the wall and walked along, reading the labels. “How about brandy?” she asked. “That’s supposed to be good, isn’t it?”
“I want to get bourbon,” the blind man said. He turned in Artie’s direction. “Do you have any bourbon?” he asked.
Artie nodded, and then said, “Some. Not as much as we used to have, of course. Pretty hard to get good liquor these days.”
“Really?” the blind man said. “Can you pick me out a nice kind of bourbon, not too expensive?”
The woman came over to the counter. “I think we ought to get brandy,” she said, “but he says bourbon.”
“If it’s for a party or something,” Artie said, “you’d do better with bourbon.”
The woman giggled. “We just got married,” she said. “That’s what it’s for.”
“Congratulations,” Artie said warmly. “Going to have a celebration, then?”
“Man doesn’t get married every day,” the blind man said. He laughed and reached out for the woman’s hand, which she immediately put into his. “I guess I did pretty well, too,” he said.
Artie looked at the woman. She was small and dark and wearing a corsage of gardenias. She looked about ten years older than the blind man. “You sure did all right,” Artie said. “Looks like she’s a good cook, too.”
“She’s a fine cook,” the blind man said. “Aren’t you, Rosalie?”
“I’m a pretty good cook,” the woman said, “but what about this brandy?” When she spoke to the blind man, her voice was low and lovely, but Artie, looking at her again, figured that she could raise her voice if she wanted. And plenty high, too, he thought.
“You’d do better with the bourbon,” Artie said again.
“How do they compare in price?” the blind man asked.
“The brandy’s a little more,” Artie said. “I can give you a pretty good bourbon for four sixty-two. And the brandy”—he squinted at the bottles across the store—“I guess the cheapest brandy I can give you is four ninety-seven.”
“Four sixty-two?” the blind man said.
“Tell you, folks,” Artie said. “You’re just married and all, I’ll let you have either one for, say, four. Sort of a wedding present.”
“That’s very nice of you,” the woman said.
“We may as well get the brandy, then,” the blind man said. “Being as this gentleman is giving it to us for the same price.”
“Sure,” Artie said. He was sorry already that he had offered to lower the price, that he would have to tell Steve when Steve came back, that the blind man had taken the brandy because it was more of a bargain.
“Then we’ll take the bra
ndy,” the blind man said, “and thanks.”
“All right,” Artie said. “Many happy returns.”
He took the bottle of brandy the woman brought over to him and began to roll it in brown paper. “You’ll like this brandy,” he said.
“You said four dollars?” the blind man asked. He had taken his wallet out of his pocket and was thumbing over his money. “Four dollars,” he said, and held out four bills.
Artie looked down at the bills, and then at the woman, who had gone back across the store and was looking at the bottles on the shelf. “Missus,” Artie said.
“What’s the matter?” the blind man said. “Here’s the money.”
The woman came back over and stood next to the blind man and looked at Artie, shaking her head no. Artie looked down at the five-dollar bill and the three one-dollar bills the man was holding out and said, “But, mister, look, you’ve—”
“What’s the matter?” the woman said. “You think he can’t tell a one-dollar bill? He knows one bill from another.” She shook her head again at Artie.
The blind man laughed. “Don’t try any jokes with me,” he said. “It doesn’t work anymore. I know what money I’ve got here.”
“Right,” Artie said. He took the five and the three ones and went to the cash register and rang up four dollars. He put in the five and took out one dollar and brought it back with the three ones. Before he could say anything, the woman held out her hand insistently. The blind man had found the wrapped bottle on the counter and was turning toward the door. Artie put the money in the woman’s hand, nodded reassuringly, and said, “Well, folks, hope you’ll be very happy. And have a nice celebration.”
“Thanks,” the blind man said as the woman took his arm and led him to the door. “Good night.”
“Good night,” Artie said. He was still sore about giving them the brandy at that price.
“Blind man like that has no business drinking liquor,” Steve said when Artie told him. “First thing you know he has one too many and loses control of himself and gets in real trouble.”
Just an Ordinary Day: Stories Page 25
