She imagined the beaver pups inside their lodge lying on shelves just out of reach of the wavelets lapping their feet.
Then they were out in an even bigger lake with the hills somewhat farther away and a broad stretch of sky higher over everything. It turned out the old man owned this lake too. She wondered if he trained the crazy bird who came down from the sky for a cigarette.
—
Later, in the boathouse, Buster was so relieved at having survived travel on water that he told everyone about the bird.
That was a loon, the old man said, a kind of grebe. They all respectfully considered this intelligence.
You knew that didn’t you Buster, Tommy said.
They put their ponchos back on the wall pegs and reclaimed their fedoras. There were other speedboats in the boathouse, each in its own berth. There were racks with wooden canoes. It was a brown log boathouse with casement windows in the same style as the big house up the hill.
There was a man there to take care of everything.
Bennett led the way. She noted how easily he moved up the path, his back straight, beautiful white hair. These people knew as no one else how to take care of themselves. He was dressed for the outdoors, with boots and a red plaid flannel shirt.
She held Tommy’s arm and enjoyed the warmth of the land on her back. It looked as if the sun might burn through the clouds. She felt good. She felt like dancing. She watched her own feet walking in their strap shoes. They were grown-up-looking feet. She was arm in arm with Tommy, pulling him in close, trying to match strides up the hill. She watched his small black wing-tipped shoes pacing along, their shine ruined, and the cuffs of his pin-stripe flapping dust from the ground.
Up ahead the party was met by a fat guy. He saw her and stood as if struck by lightning. He had been coming down to the lake but turned now with another glance at her over his shoulder and ran along behind the old man.
She held Tommy’s arm, held him back and let them all go out of sight up the hill.
You’ve got to be joking, Tommy said.
She rubbed against him. She kissed him and ran her tongue over his lips and leaned back from him holding her groin against him and looking into his eyes right there in the mountains of the Adirondacks.
Well the kid’s impressed, Tommy said.
She nodded while looking into his eyes. The tip of her tongue appeared in the corner of her mouth. He disengaged her arms and stood back from her.
That’s how much you know, he said.
It’s who she is, thinks Warren, definitely, now dressed in flimsies and struggling with the torments of her class but it’s her, the same girl, returned to my life, changed in time, true, changed in place, changed let us be honest in character, but how can I doubt my feelings they are all I have I have spent my life studying them and of them all this is the indisputable constant, the feeling of recognition I have for her when she appears, the ease with which she comes to me regardless of the circumstances, for I have no particular appeal to women, only to this woman, and so the recognition must be mutual and it pushes us toward each other despite our differences, and our inability to understand each other’s language, and here it has happened again though I am indisputably older fatter and more ridiculous as a figure of love than I have been before. Always I am older. Always we do not understand each other. Always I lose her. Oh God who made this girl give her to me this time to hold let me sink into the complacencies of fulfilled love, let us lose our memories together, and let me die from the ordinary insubstantial results of having lived.
What he intuits from the coolness of her conversation or the moods that come over her is that she did not expect to find herself in her present situation. She is not devious and did not plan this. She seems to take each day as it comes and is clearly forged in her being by the race of men she’s had to deal with. In short, they are equals. The realization sends him to the bottle with a shaking hand.
Naturally she would think he was part of the old man’s retinue. It was a natural assumption. At drinks that evening they’re alone. Can I tell you a story? he says. Outside, the rain is heavy, the kind of rain that tamps down the wind. Smoke from the big fireplace drifts into the room like a wisp of cloud come in from the mountains.
I’ve lived here for six years. I’m a poet and the Bennetts are my patrons. But I found this place on my own and when I came here it was to kill him.
The old man?
Yes.
She has to this point only half listened but now he is rewarded by her direct gaze. She sips her Manhattan. She is wearing pleated linen slacks and a thin blouse half buttoned. She likes to show herself.
I swear to the lordourgod I will make her see who I am.
People I loved died because of the policies of one of his companies. He owns lots of companies.
You know what he’s worth?
Worth? What can it matter. I haven’t got a dime myself, he says conscientiously, as if he’d made it his life’s achievement. Millions, billions, the power over people. So I was going to kill him. I got through the dogs with just a tear or two and introduced myself out on that terrace there through the dining room one morning with my knife in my pocket.
She turns and looks through the big bay windows. She turns back.
But you didn’t, she says.
One night when the dogs are in the neighborhood he takes two wineglasses and a bottle of his table red and closes his door and half walks half runs over to her cottage.
I thought you might need some company, he says.
He follows her inside. She wears a robe. She is barefoot. He realizes she answered the door without breaking stride. She is pacing the room. Her arms are folded across her breasts.
The doors to her terrace are closed and locked. The curtain is pulled shut. The room smells of cigarettes. He pours the wine.
Later they are sitting on the floor beside the bed. He has been telling her about his life. He has recited some of his work. She has listened and smoked and held out her glass for wine.
Listen, he says holding his hand up, forefinger pointed. The dogs are gone. She smiles and accepts this as something he’s done. Sitting Indian style, she leans forward and touches his face. Her robe has fallen open over her thighs like a curtain rising. He kisses her hand as it is withdrawn. I’ve loved three times in my life, he says. Always the same person.
I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, she says. But I see I’ve got a live one here.
Then she is lying on the floor in his arms reading his face with judicious solemnity, her eyes gathering up the dim light of the room so widely open that he feels himself pouring into them. Because her spirit is strong he is surprised by the frailty of her. She is a small person. Her breasts are full and her thighs rather short. He can feel her ribs. Her buttocks are hard with a thin layer of sweet softness over them, like a child’s ass. Her mons hair feels lightly oiled. He touches her cunt. She closes her eyes. A queer bitter smell comes off her body. He kisses her soft open mouth and it’s just as he knew, she is here and he’s found her again.
Like many large overweight men he has surprising agility. She is obviously entranced. But the lack of practice is too much for him.
She says with characteristic directness: Is that the whole show?