When Father reappeared, she mentioned nothing about it to him. Of course she was still busy, getting the last pieces of furniture placed just right and getting dinner fixed at the same time. Part of the problem with country living is the lack of pizza delivery systems.
Dinner was served in the small dining room. The living room was to one side, and a door that led into the big kitchen and pantry was to the other. The room was more long than wide, with cream-colored walls and a couple of windows with a splendid view of the countryside. The table was a long, heavy, elaborately carved black walnut piece Mother had found in a store that specialized in antique furniture. It dated from the mid-nineteenth century. She took great delight in anticipating the first setting of it. It didn’t matter that eight chairs came with the table but there were only five of us.
Or rather, as it turned out, six of us.
Just as she finished setting the table, Claud reappeared. He walked into the kitchen where she and my older sister were, sniffed the air, and asked, “What’re we having?”
“Uh... roast beef with candied yams and sweet peas.”
“That oughta be good. I ain’t had a good female-cooked meal since this place went on the market four months ago. Mrs. Carstairs could sure cook up a fine dinner. Made good waffles for breakfast, too. Do you make waffles for breakfast, Mrs. Hinton?”
“Uh... yes... sometimes.”
“Good. I sure like waffles for breakfast. Of course, anything you fix is fine with me. I ain’t particular. How long before dinner’s ready?”
“Ready? Oh, about another five minutes.”
“Just enough time to wash my hands.” He left, and Mother went looking for Father. Unfortunately Father had found something urgent that needed doing outdoors, and she couldn’t find him. She didn’t have a full five minutes to look because she needed to set another place at the table.
By the time Father finished his odd job we were all seated at the table: Mother, myself, Alicia, Janet, and Claud. Father sort of flinched when he saw Claud there, but he didn’t ask any questions or say a word about it. Claud looked up at him, smiled, and nodded, and Father stalled and nodded back at him and then took his seat at the table. Father looked at Mother and then at Claud and then back at Mother, but he said nothing. While eating, though, he kept sneaking glances at Claud.
Nobody said much during dinner other than to ask people to pass this or pass that. But it wasn’t because of Claud. Mother and Father believed it impolite to talk during meals, and so it wasn’t done. Claud must have been of the same opinion because he didn’t say anything either.
After dinner Mother began clearing away the dishes, and Father went into the living room. He pretended as though he were intent on surveying his new property from the big living room windows, but actually the tight clasping and unclasping of his hands behind his back signaled that he was bursting with questions that his politeness wouldn’t allow him to ask. Claud stopped in the living room after he left the table.
“Do you play cards, Mr. Hinton?” he asked.
“Cards? No. No, I don’t. Why? Do you?”
“Mostly patience. Sometimes, when there’s someone around who’s game, a little poker.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I... I don’t play cards.”
“Too bad. Mr. Carstairs could play a mean hand of draw poker. So could Mr. Tillman.”
“Tillman? I don’t recognize that name.”
“He used to own this place.”
“You mean before Mr. Carstairs?”
“Yes. Not just before him. There were two owners between them... Well, I’ll just head for my room. I’m in the middle of a good western novel. Do you read westerns, Mr. Hinton?”
“No. Nonfiction, a few mysteries, that’s about it.”
“I see. Well, I’ll just head for my room.”
Father watched him go. More than that, my usually polite and circumspect Father shadowed him part of the way. He had reason, though: he wanted to discover which room was Claud’s so he wouldn’t accidentally walk into it uninvited.
Which isn’t to say that my parents immediately accepted this puzzling situation. They did not. On the contrary, I learned much later, they stayed up half the night discussing it. Mostly they tried to recall exactly what the real estate broker had said about Claud Heister and the way he’d said it. They finally went to bed after agreeing that the following morning Father would drive into New York to see the broker and discover exactly who Claud was and what he was doing in their new house. One thing only Father was certain of: there was no mention of Claud Heister in the real estate sales agreement.
The next morning Mother fixed waffles for breakfast. Normally she didn’t. Waffles were always something of a treat. Usually we had Quaker Oats or cream of wheat on cold mornings, and pancakes, bacon, and eggs or cold cereal on other mornings. It was obvious that she’d made them for Claud. It was the polite thing to do, of course.
“My oh my,” he said after he’d tasted one, which he’d saturated with Brer Rabbit molasses. “That is certainly a first-class waffle, Mrs. Hinton.”
“Is it as good as Mrs. Carstairs’ waffles?”
He took another bite, chewed very carefully, his eyes up at the ceiling, as though carefully weighing the question with both his brains and his tastebuds. We all watched him and waited for his verdict.
“You know,” he said at last, “I believe they are as good.”
Everybody breathed in relief. Even Father appeared pleased by the judgment.
That did not prevent him from driving into New York to see the broker. It did not help his disposition that the broker was out of town showing a house and that he had to wait at the man’s office until midafternoon.
I was not present for the meeting, of course, and only learned about it years later. Although polite as ever, Father was adamant in demanding an explanation. The broker said he’d told Father that Claud came with the house, but Father was having none of that. He had taken it as a joke, he said. Anyone would take such a comment as a joke. I don’t know what the broker thought he was doing when he tried to excuse the situation so lamely because obviously the effort would fail. Nobody would believe himself legally informed by such a casual statement.
In the end the broker had to provide a full explanation that made some sort of sense. I say “some sort” because no complete sense was ever made of the situation.
According to the broker, Claud Heister had lived in the house for at least three decades. No one — or more accurately, no one the broker knew of — was exactly sure how long he’d been there. He literally came with the house. He was not mentioned in the contracts, but he was there. Every new owner had been surprised in turn by his presence (apparently it was a practice of both seller and broker not to inform the buyer of everything he was getting) but had eventually accepted it.
“They recognized that Claud is a benefit,” said the broker.
“A benefit? How is it beneficial to have a man we don’t know living in our house?”
“Your country house,” corrected the broker. “You’re usually not there.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Claud’s presence is a deterrent to thieves and vandals. Your house is safer because he’s in it. And when you are there, he’s barely noticeable. He occupies one bedroom.”
“But he’s not a member of my family.”
“Look at it this way. You have a watchman on your property, guarding it day and night twelve months of the year, paid for by the government.”
“The government?” asked Father.
“He lives on his Social Security. You pay him nothing. In return, your house is protected. You suffer no real inconvenience at his hands. All you give up is one bedroom in a five-bedroom house.”