Once, she caught Asthma rolling her eyes. “Don’t you dare do that!” she had shrieked, “You nobody’s fat bottom!” The recollection of scenes such as this torments her. But I didn’t slap her, she thinks, tapping the bandaged tip of her nose. It’s not like I’m Goldie. I know what I’m doing. I struggle. It’s existential.
Looking across the Circle she sees that Billy is entertaining. His young guest is reading on the front porch. It’s pleasant to see that porch in use again. It makes the Circle feel. . companionable. It makes her feel less alone. As does the rye and the thought that her dilemma is somehow. . heroic. She will do better. She will think of diversions. She will take Asthma places. Across the river to Kahontsi. Its museums. The theater. Buy Asthma a pinafore. Barrettes. She’ll pack a picnic lunch. She’ll get it right. Nobody’s fat bottom! Where the hell did that come from? Poor little worm, she thinks, her heart sinking. Poor little plucked hen.
Billy has served his guest coffee and they sit together in conversation. The children are merry, running hither and yon; the evening is balmy, the stars turning on one by one, and the frogs! Their voices trilling from the nearby pond. The world is a civilized place, Blackie reminds herself. If only I could remember.
Early Friday evening. His duffel, so large he thinks he could have lived in it all along, is now emptied and stored on a shelf in the closet. He has hung his three shirts on sturdy wood hangers, folded his one good sweater with care and placed it in the middle dresser drawer, rolled up his three pairs of socks, his few pieces of underwear, and placed these in an upper drawer. His few toiletries are in the cabinet above the sink.
He has time for a nap before dinner but his heart is pounding. He is famished and the air smells of fricassee (Billy’s word). . the mattress, chosen by Margaret, is impossibly luxurious, however, the bedspread the color of moonlight (starched!), the sheets nacreous. He thinks he will sleep like a chosen child, suspended in a pearly haze. He is soothed by the thought that he is destined for far more than he ever supposed. He is about to become a legitimate entity with an entire suite at his disposal, right smack in the heart of Faculty Circle (but he must be cautious, discreet, patient). He gets not only to see her, devour her, drink her in — but (and why not?) to talk to her. Because he is a scholar of promise and charm come all the way from New South Wales to study one of theirs, the elusive genius Verner Vanderloon. When Billy calls up to him for supper, he is awakened from a surprisingly profound slumber. Hastily Charter pulls himself together and descends to find a table regally set (candles!); he is served farmed chicken, Billy’s own rhubarb wine, biscuits. The carrots (how is this possible!) have been caramelized.
From the dining room window he can see that the brats are out in full number and a new game has begun. . but Billy is speaking, and for how long?
“. . always at cross-purposes. But then, isn’t that the nature of things, one moment undoing the next, the web spun only to be ripped to bits. Time compresses, time expands, and sometimes — as when one is in bed with the right person. .,” he closes his eyes and nods in the direction of a distant memory, “ceases altogether. How many times have I stumbled? How many times have I gathered myself together and set off again? How many times triumphant — yes, I have had my triumphs! — only to fall on my face?” Billy’s eyes fog with tears. “To tell the truth—”
The windows are open to the early summer evening. The brats’ voices, the voices of frogs and crickets, locusts — surge and recede.
“Forgive me,” Billy says. “I ramble on, I have become something of a fool. But I trust this, too, shall pass. .”
“No fool, sir! Billy—”
“It will pass. My mood I mean. Not my foolishness!” The brats are playing hide-and-seek. Charter sees them scatter. They will hide behind the familiar houses, in window wells, down the backyard basement stairs, in the limbs of trees.
“All that honey spilled,” Billy continues. (Or is it money spilled?) “All those fires stoked that might have been better left cold in their dead ashes; all the ice broken between the teeth; all the false starts, dreary roads taken — as meanwhile the stars pulsed blindly above!”
“You are a poet—”
“No, no, no. .” Billy shakes his head, yet for an instant a wistful smile enlivens his face and Charter sees the boy he once was, the youth. “What’s worse,” Billy sighs, growing darker, “is that the signs were there. I mean: one should have attended to those pulsing stars and all the rest. Recalled the beauties one had ceased to see. The myriad beauties, Charter. Of the world, the mind, the flesh. The spirit, my boy.” He clenches his teeth and sucks in the air. “The red flags. One must heed them!”
“Red flags?”
“Fog horns! Sirens! Rings around the moon! Oh! Fatality! Nevermore!” Billy ravens. “NEVERMORE!”
“Sir?”
“My marriage, for instance. To a woman who wielded a scythe.”
“That deadly!”
“Too often,” Billy ignores him, “I have not paid attention. Spilled the milk. Soiled the linens. And yet. . and yet. .”
Suddenly Asthma dashes past as wild as a fox and unimaginably rich in life. And then she is gone, and Charter is irresistibly drawn to find her.
“. . and yet, Charter! How eagerly I longed for life. And still. . longing. . the longing! Even now!”
“You,” Charter must force himself to speak, “have years ahead, years!”
“Bah!” Billy rises and goes to the kitchen where, astonishingly, he sticks his head under the cold-water faucet and gives himself a proper dousing before shaking his head vigorously from left to right like a wet dog. Charter rises to the occasion and hands him a clean dish towel.
“Good,” Billy says and pats him on the shoulder. “Well done. Time to retire!” he decides. “Don’t worry about the dishes. . in the morning. . I’ll. .” He wanders off.
Charter takes up the dishes and fills the sink with suds. His agitation has quieted. He can hear Blackie calling for Asthma, the other mothers calling (and one blows a whistle). Soon she will be in her room, tucked away for the night, a breath away from him. Lovingly he washes everything, gazing again and again at the Circle, the rich grass wet with color, the trim houses, their slate roofs and stone chimneys, the polished window glass. It all gleams. It is all wonderful.
Once everything has been dried and returned to its place, he steps out into the evening to smoke a Camel — a new habit he can currently “afford,” having, on a visit to the train station down by the river, a pleasant hour’s walk away, purloined the wallet of a well-heeled and permed crone on her way to the city for a hit of high culture. She had fallen into a deep nap beside the alligator purse, its mouth as open as its owner’s. Charter thinks how over time such acts repeat themselves, each alike, each distinct: the local hunter, dashing in sideburns and well-oiled boots, his back pocket unbuttoned; a young coed devoid of common sense, her little silk purse abandoned on the ticket counter as she, tucked into the phone booth, catches up on gossip ($150 in bills!).
How good it is to smoke a cigarette, one’s back against a solid wall, the breeze playing in the leaves, the Circle silenced, each window the promise of a shadow-puppet play. Pathos and terror, black comedy, tenderness and loss, fire and ice, pleasure and punishment — all this surging and ebbing in those ruthless, wondrous, persistent rooms. Such sweetness! Such menace! He looks on as lives grow stale, are renewed. As kittens grow into cats; as betrayal rustles the sheets, rolls under the crib, and comes to rest there; as Death catches a glimpse of a maiden and cannot turn away.