As he left with Mrs. DeWicky, several tried to detain him, just to chat, and he listened and smiled and edged toward the door, seeking to be free of them, and at the same time feeling that, apart from that one comment about Lifers, there had been nothing else about his books, no mention of his novels, no indication that anyone had read his journalism. But that was all right. He was holding his cell phone in his damp hand.
The taxi was waiting for them. At the foot of the stairs, glancing back, Raleigh said, “This is a first for me. Speaking in a church.”
“Unitarian Universalist — it’s a Boston landmark,” Mrs. DeWicky said in a correcting tone. And in the taxi, “You must be thirsty! It won’t take us long. It’s just on Commonwealth Ave., but I’ve had a hip replacement, so I’m quite compromised. It’s quite wonderful of you to have come.”
Raleigh’s phone vibrated again, but instead of looking at it, he tightened his hand over it, and now he could feel the buzz rudely interrogating his fingers.
“My pleasure,” he said, and sat back, waiting for a compliment on his talk. He believed he had done a good job, had been witty, helpful, most of all patient with an audience he had regarded as mostly inert, ignorant of his work. As a cue he said, “Lovely audience.”
“Perfectly marvelous,” Mrs. DeWicky said. “They always ask great questions.” Her smile faded as she turned to him. “What have you done to your neck?”
“Yard sale,” Raleigh said.
“I have no idea what that means. English people are so verbal.”
“I’ll explain inside,” he said, because the taxi was slowing down, the driver maneuvering it toward the curb.
“It’s just a small group,” Mrs. DeWicky said. “But it’s a good group. Book lovers. They’re the sponsors, and very eager to meet you.”
He saw them as soon as he mounted the front stairs of the brownstone. They were gathered in a first-floor room, visible in the bow window.
The room soared, with a ceiling like a vast clamshell, lighted paintings on the walls — a somber landscape, a portrait of a child wearing red mittens — a Chinese long-necked vase, a celadon salver slanted on a stand at the center of a refectory table on which there were hors d’oeuvres and trays of drinks. Behind the guests — about a dozen — there was a wall of fine bindings, a ladder propped before them.
“You’ll never remember all the names,” Mrs. DeWicky said. “Eventually you’ll get to know us well. You’re a Bostonian now.”
“I’m indeed a Bostonian,” Raleigh said with a gummy tongue.
He was introduced to each person, some standing on their own, others in groups. One man shaking Raleigh’s hand held on and said, “Are you all right?”
“Fine.”
“You’re feverish. I’m a doctor. I should take your pulse!”
“No need,” Raleigh said.
But he did feel harassed and hot, and these people were calm, serene, coolly sizing him up.
Another man said, “Sorry I couldn’t make your talk. Tee time.”
“I know Bostonians are punctilious about their tea,” Raleigh said.
“Golf,” the man said irritably, as though he’d been mocked.
None of them, it seemed, had been to his lecture, and because this was so he felt slightly hostile toward their casual manner and felt no compunction to stay for long.
“Mr. Crindle has a story for us,” Mrs. DeWicky said.
“But first I must use your—” He didn’t know what to say next. He settled on “gents.”
“We’re all gents. Take your pick.”
They’d been drinking.
“The restroom is down the hall on the right,” one man said.
There were framed prints inside, and an old map labeled Back Bay. Raleigh locked the door and looked in the mirror. He touched his neck, tracing the welt, and then he turned his head left and right, all the time keeping the redness in view.
He opened his phone again. U r in deep truble. I will find u. I will destroy u.
He wondered if he was paler when he returned to the room. They were waiting for him, looking tipsier, perhaps having guzzled in his brief absence. Some of them were seated, and Mrs. DeWicky looked pleased, taking charge again, making another announcement.
“In the taxi on the way here, I remarked on a redness on Mr. Crindle’s neck. He became very obscure! He said, ‘Yard sale.’ He has kindly agreed to explain this to us.”
The man who’d said he was a doctor took a step toward Raleigh and inclined his head, appraising him, searching his neck.
“Heat rash,” he said. He made a reflective gesture, chewing his lips. “Allergy.”
“Yard sale,” Raleigh said, and brightened as he began to explain. “I thought everyone knew this expression.”
“A kind of rummage sale in front of your house,” a woman said. “Stuff you don’t want.”
“That’s the general meaning.” Raleigh was still smiling. “You’re skiing, shall we say, and you’re on the slopes. You hit a bump or someone thumps you and — whoopsie!”—he flung out his arms—“your poles go left and right, your gloves get yanked off, your skis are stripped from your boots, there go your goggles! Your bobble hat is gone like a shot off a shovel. And you’re on your back with all your kit scattered on the slope. Just picture it — yard sale!”
“Yes, yes,” Mrs. DeWicky said. “Very good.”
The doctor said, “And did that happen to you?”
“That was my point,” Raleigh said, touching his neck. “It’s left rather a mark. I call it my necklace.”
“Abrasion,” the doctor said. “This pressure bruise on your wrist is a little more serious. Could be a hematoma.”
Raleigh slipped his hand into his trouser pocket and held his cell phone to steady himself and said, “I’m sure you know the story ‘The Necklace’ by de Maupassant.” He sensed another slackening of attention, almost boredom, and the paradox was that it manifested itself by the guests leaning closer, as if Raleigh had begun to speak in a foreign language they were pretending to translate.
“Yes, yes,” Mrs. DeWicky said. “We read it at school.”
“Lovely old tale. And there’s a delightful story by Maugham called ‘A String of Beads.’ Variation on a theme. What is it about necklaces? Henry James’s story ‘Paste’ is written in that tradition, and our V. S. Pritchett also wrote a short story called ‘The Necklace.’ Theft was involved.”
The names numbed them. Some of them winced as though finding the names hostile. Raleigh was sensitive to listeners tuning out. They had not read the stories, would probably never read them, but never mind: they had no need of literature — they were too happy, too social, too busy to need books or care about the madness of art, the madness of life. They were whole people with no desperate secrets, and he was broken and exiled. Even now they were smiling at him as if he was a lunatic, and for that reason they would care about him, and he knew he could always depend on them.
“I must take this call,” Raleigh said, and snatched his phone from his pocket and jammed it against his ear.
But there was no voice. As soon as he stepped into the hall, he looked at the text message on the small screen. U cant hide. I no were u r.
“I’m awfully sorry,” Raleigh said, reentering the room. “I am afraid I’m going to be terribly rude and uncouth and make my exit. Something incredibly boring has just raised its tedious head.”
They were smiling as he spoke, liking his stagy apology, and perhaps relieved that he was going, so that they could resume speaking about other matters, things they cared about, and in their own language.
“I could drop you,” Mrs. DeWicky said.