But how would such a boy find him?
And how could such a child afford the ticket?
Tennyson, former poet laureate of the British Empire, called the products of such unions “a dusty race,” and deemed them superior to either parent considered separately.
The Captain takes serious issue with Lord Alfred in that regard, however. Twilight souls is what the Captain calls them. And that name, Junior, brings back everything he had been trying to forget about that embarrassing scene at the shower. That was the kid’s name, of course.
Could he possibly have been the Plaidman?
Though that was years ago, and no one knows better than he that people change.
The fact is that Madeline has been feeling a little down lately. Well, very down. The Burrow was good enough when she first arrived, a welcome respite from all the ex-boyfriends and bill collectors of her former life, a life that seems so distant now she can hardly remember it, and she does appreciate the Burrow’s privacy and quiet, even though most nights recently, with the sounds of machinery grinding somewhere outside the Burrow’s walls, the “quiet” part of that equation is gone. Back when she first moved in, she was also happy to have a whole set of new faces (now old ones) to look at, and also the chance to do some cooking, maybe develop a repertoire, as they say in the business, so she could move on one day. But here she still is, and how much serious cooking can anyone do in this dump of a kitchen anyway, with an oven door that barely shuts, the temperature knob missing so that she has to use the cheap tin thermometer hanging from the baking rack, and even that keeps falling off every time she slides in a sheet of biscuits? Not to mention that she has to use the food provided, which at the start was fun, like a game, or being on one of those cooking shows where they hand you a piece of celery, a donut, and a clove of garlic, and you’re supposed to create some fabulous new dish. But now it’s just annoying, plus, one of the top burners in front of the stove’s grease-spattered mirror (whose idea was that?) is totally dead, and if people think it’s easy to cook for five people using only three burners, they have another thing coming. What thing, she’s not sure.
Raymond used to have a thing about food being sadness, which, she noticed, never stopped him from packing the stuff away. Now, however, and for the first time, she wonders if he could possibly be right: Cook food. Pour food into oral cavity. Grind up with teeth. Down hatch. Wait for stomach to turn it into a brownish slush. Wait for good parts of slush to be sucked into blood. And finally, everything not good, leftovers, she calls them, exits the body in not the most pleasant way possible. If only there were fireworks every time we shit, or music came out, she thinks — something to make it more enjoyable — but mostly there isn’t; the only person she’s ever known who seems to thoroughly get into every part of the digestive process is Viktor. And then, there’s the smell. Then, after all of that, what’s left but to get ready for the next meal, and so on and so forth, until one day the whole process stops, and whatever that last meal was will just sit there, a little potluck to bring to the party of eternity.
She even finds herself missing Louis, whom she dated for a while, before he disappeared to wherever he went. One night he’s there and then, for no apparent reason, the next night Louis is gone.
What is happening to me? Madeline asks. Maybe it’s just that she’s tired, and nothing else. Certainly that noise at night isn’t helping her sleep, and though she knows she can stay in bed as long as she wants to in the morning because, well, there’s nothing forcing her to get up, she’s always been one to wake with the dawn.
Even though she can’t see the dawn because she’s in a burrow, which, practically by definition, means lacking windows.
Would a skylight help her feel better? Possibly. Madeline wonders if it would be such a big deal for her to just find someone to stick a not-so-fancy piece of glass in between her ceiling and the sunlight. If I can get the landlord to agree, Madeline thinks, I might even pay for it myself.
How expensive could it be?
And when was the last time she actually saw the landlord?
Episode One, The Burrow, Scene Three
VIKTOR and MADELINE are alone in the kitchen.
Madeline:
Fancy meeting you here.
Viktor:
It’s not fancy at all. I just happen to be feeling hungry.
Madeline:
When aren’t you?
Viktor:
Never.
Madeline:
I can never figure out how you can burn up so much energy when you spend all your time just sitting in front of a computer screen watching stock prices go up and down, with only an occasional break for a little love.
Viktor:
Hey, don’t underestimate yourself. You’re
a lot
of love.
Madeline:
Which actually brings me to something: Why don’t you ever take me anywhere?
Viktor:
Where exactly would you like to go?
Madeline:
I don’t know. Anywhere. I can’t remember the last time I was even out of here. Don’t you ever get tired of making money? Don’t answer that.
Viktor:
Well, I know one thing I don’t get tired of.
Madeline:
[flattered, despite herself] Really.
Viktor:
Your tandoori chicken. I don’t know how you do it, but it’s delicious, particularly when you serve it with that aromatic rice of yours and the cucumber and yogurt thing. Maybe in your next life you should be an Indian. Didn’t I see some fresh chicken in the refrigerator?
Madeline:
You did, but the chicken’s the easy part. You can’t make tandoori chicken without a jar of tandoori sauce, and I’m thinking that may be a little hard to come by. I don’t even know how we happened to have the last one. It must have been left behind by somebody. Maybe it was Louis’s.
MADELINE opens one cabinet after another without finding any sauce.
Madeline:
You can’t say I didn’t try.
Viktor:
Are you sure you looked everywhere?
As she opens the last door, what does she see but a jar of tandoori sauce!
Madeline:
Wow, a whole jar! We
do
have it.
Viktor:
I guess it’s my lucky day.
Mornings are always the best for the Captain. There are the silences, the coffee, the fresh pastry (just one a day — he has to watch his waistline, grown a little since those calorie-burning days of pitching and yawing at sea). Also, there’s the special quality of eastern light, so like the light far out in the ocean where the salt spray tempers and refracts the fleshy tones of, well, flesh, but with none of the troubling grays of twilight. At twilight this evening, he’s scheduled for a talk in which he’ll use the mutiny story once again, always a hit — at least so far. But the last time he used it, he spotted a young couple making out in the back of the room, paying no attention at all to his words. Could that have been the beginning of the end, the hairline crack in the hull that will wind up sinking the whole vessel of his lecture career? And suppose that ridiculous guy shows up, the Plaidman who brought up the Mellow Valley thing. If the Captain spots him early on, he can have him ejected, maybe have him roughed up a little, but if he shows up again at the end, during the Q & A, and starts repeating the same things, sooner or later people are going to start asking questions.