Julia and I were sitting on Racey O’Leary’s seat late one afternoon, trying to spot whether there were any whales moseying by the island, when our talk turned to Duncan’s funeral.
“I saw you there. I didn’t know it was you, of course, but I noticed you among all those people,” Julia said, her eyes trained on the ocean. “It’s funny, isn’t it? And now we’re friends.”
“Really?” I said. “Well, I’m sorry I didn’t notice you in particular, Julia, but I did notice all the Willowers.”
The truth was, they’d been hard to miss, allotted three pews, the Willow Islanders standing out like mollusks stuck to their seats as all the glittery fish in Duncan’s life—politicians, film stars, journalists, and glamorous ex-wives—swam by.
It had been a solemn service, and while a spirited eulogy was delivered by Duncan’s first radio producer and oldest friend, James Clivedon, the morning was cloaked by an underlying sadness, as worn by the slump of his children’s shoulders.
The wake, however, was just as Duncan would have wanted it, a party that took on bacchanalian proportions by the end of the very long night, which saw Kimmy performing a strangely moving rendition of “Islands in the Stream” to an empty bar stool.
“Did you notice Will there?” Julia was asking, still looking out to sea.
“No, I did not notice Will, Julia.” I smiled at her, neglecting to add that while that may have been the case then, it was the exact opposite now.
“Well, he was there,” she said, adding, “Duncan loved him, you know, used to call him a loin melter.”
“A what? Oh God,” I groaned as we both started laughing.
“He said Will was exactly the sort of bloke he’d go for if he was gay, someone with a bit of marrow in his bones, not some bloke getting by in life by knowing how to pronounce focaccia.”
We laughed again, then, as the sun began to dip behind Crook’s Rock, headed back down the trail, parting ways at my letter box.
“I better get back to Boris,” Julia said, “cook him some dinner—you wouldn’t know it now but, boy, was that man a loin melter in his day.”
I waved her off, and then checked my letter box before going into the house. I didn’t get a lot of mail on Willow, but today there were a couple of catalogs and a letter. I knew the handwriting instantly; it could not have been more familiar to me.
It was from Duncan.
I looked around, peering down Avalon Road, then whipped my head around to the house, half expecting to see him standing in the doorway, saying, “What’s the matter, Lulu? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Instead, I held one in my shaking hands.
How had it come to me? It was so like Duncan to do this, I thought, but who had he talked into posting it? Turning the letter around to examine its front, I realized with a small shiver that there was no postage stamp. It had been hand-delivered.
I ran inside the house into the library, where I sat down on the couch, and opened it.
How are you, my dear? I am fine, although a bit cold.
Well, have you settled in? What do you think of Barney’s new home? Marvelous, isn’t it? So many questions to ask and so irksome not to be able to know the answers—unless of course I’m floating about the corners of the WIASA and lurking behind you like Patrick Swayze at the pottery wheel. You should take up pottery, by the way, it’s just the sort of thing a young woman who moves to an island would do, isn’t it?
Which brings me to the point of this latest missive—what are you going to do?
I’m sure it’s all very pleasant wandering about Willow picking up seashells and the odd shipwrecked sailor—how is Will Barton, by the way?—but you’ve been there for three months now, and the time is probably coming when you’ll need to decide whether to return to the mainland or to stake your claim on Willow and become one of those colorful local identities they’ll write about in those marvelous local history books:
Well worth a look is the Willow Island Aqua Sports Association, once home to the infamous Juniper Bay Wedding Shagger, Tallulah de Longland. Tallulah was a much-loved if eccentric Willower, who spent her days making rosella jam wearing nothing but a wedding veil on her head. She lived until the age of eighty-seven, when it is believed her dog, Barney—once owned by the famously virile Duncan McAllister—ate her.
Anyway, my dear, should you choose to stay, I’m sure you’ll find something useful to do.
In the meantime, enjoy Barney’s new home—I do hope it’s not too big for the two of you, all those empty bedrooms and that enormous kitchen table with all those empty chairs just for you to sit at.
Oh well, I’m sure you’ll think of some way to fill it.
From your old friend to his dearest friend,
Duncan
PS What did you think of the funeral? Did you think Verdi’s “Requiem” was a bit much? Kimmy wanted “Let’s Get It On” but Kerry-Anne wouldn’t let her.
At the top of letter was the embossed imprint From the desk of Duncan McAllister—a vanity that had always amused him.
“Love it,” he’d say, “makes me sound like a ship’s captain. I wonder if I should get a set done for every room I’m in—“From the bathroom of Duncan McAllister,” “From the garage of Duncan McAllister,” “From the unmade bed of Duncan McAllister.”
“What about ‘From the unhinged mind of Duncan McAllister’?” I had suggested one day, and I smiled, remembering the arch of his eyebrows.
My eyes fell back on the page, on Duncan’s neat, precise handwriting so incongruent with the man who had guided its pen with nail-bitten fingers.
A man should have good penmanship, he often said; it meant you cared enough to take the time to form your letters, to leave enough space between words so the reader had an easy passage through them, no matter if the words themselves were harsh—especially if they were harsh, he had said.
I ran my finger underneath the words, tracing him.
“So, from the desk of Duncan McAllister,” I asked the air, “what’s all this about? Who do you want to join me at my table?”
I knew there had to be more—with Duncan there was always more—and the answer came the next day, with another hand-delivered, extra-celestial message from my former employer, this time headed: From the unhinged mind of Duncan McAllister.
Dear Lulu,
My apologies for stealing your line, but I was rather taken with it, and besides, we both know I’ve been stealing other people’s lines for years.
The truth is, my mind has never been sharper, and as I lie here and my own days get shorter, I feel a great sense of urgency to share what I have learned these sixty-eight years I have been allowed to freely wander about this earth without some sort of license.
Don’t worry, this is not to be one of those awful “I wish I had danced more” missives, the truth is, I wish I had danced less, as do, I’m sure, many other people.
I have made many friends in my life, Lulu, and many enemies as well. I have loved the wrong women and the right ones and somehow I have managed, one way or another, to hurt all of them with only one exception—you.
Yours is the one great love of my life I haven’t managed to stuff up—I have not, I hope, ever really let you down, or kept you waiting too long, or told unimaginable lies to you.
We have always been honest with each other, have we not?
Well then.
The truth is, bedding Joshua Keaton on his wedding night was not your finest hour.
I know it was partly an act of defiance against your relentless do-goodery, the manifestation of a long-suppressed wish to be a good girl gone bad.
But it was also rather mean-spirited, and not like you at all. You are not a bad girl, Lulu, and never will be.
And so we come, at last, to the real point of this letter.
What I have learned in the years allotted to me is that we can’t fight who we are, Lulu. We can’t—every time I have tried to, it has ended in tears, furtive taxi rides home, and the occasional night in jail.
I, for example, am a borderline alcoholic with questionable hygiene habits, a know-it-all, a habitual liar, an occasional substance abuser, a secret coveter of other people’s lives, a shameless publicity seeker, a wearer of bad clothing, and a serial adulterer, a man who never, ever should have married and yet, ignoring all the signs did it not once but four times, because the other indisputable truth about me is that I can’t resist a happy ending.
This is who I am, Lulu, I can’t help it any more than you can help being an almost unnaturally decent sort of person, a hand-holder, and a believer in even the worst sort of people.
I know you believe this is a boring sort of person to be, so I hasten to add you are also funny, sharp as a switch knife, and utterly, utterly delightful.
So, having established who you are, the question is, what are we going to do with you, now that I am no longer there for you to fuss over?
Well, I have an idea, a rather good one, I think. Here it is.
Willow Island has many attractions, but nowhere decent to stay so people can enjoy them. Barney’s home is big and beautiful and crying out for people to rattle its rafters. Rose’s cakes and breads and biscuits lie idle in boxes in her kitchen, and her busy hands need somewhere to put them. Harry deserves a regular holiday. You deserve a life you love.
In short, my idea is to turn the Willow Island Aqua Sports Association into a bed-and-breakfast, a B and B, I believe they’re called by people who wear a lot of linen.
You would be the ideal host—brimming with bonhomie, charming, organized, efficient, punctual, not too nosey, not likely to bore your guests with long-winded tales—would that I were alive so that could be my job.
Rose’s cakes would be devoured, Harry could fix things around the place to his heart’s content, Mattie and Sam could come during the holidays, and all the freeloaders who I am sure will beat a path to your door will find the inn is full.
The point is, Lulu, you’ve always looked after people, so you may as well get paid for it.
Anyway, that is my idea for you to do with what you will.
In the meantime, my greatest love to Barney, and, of course, to you. I hope my letter has not upset you—I tried to put the proper spacings between the harshest words, and in case these messages from the other side are having an unsettling effect on you, don’t worry, this is my final letter.
So, this is it, the famous last words bit.
I wish I could think of something devastatingly clever, but all I can think of is something my mother used to tell me. She was a great gardener, Lulu, and her pockets were always full of crushed petals or leaves or seeds or bits of twigs—you could never put your hand in one of her pockets without finding something in there. She’d say, “I know it’s silly, darling, but I like to take a bit of the garden with me wherever I go.”
When she died, I went into her backyard and collected all manner of green things and took them to the undertakers with me. Then I slipped her garden into her pocket.
I’ve never had a green thumb, so I don’t have a garden to take with me, but I do have a hand to hold, and a place to rest my weary head. When I get scared—and I do get scared, Lulu—I think of you, I think of all the wonderful years we had together, and I marvel, I absolutely marvel that I, Duncan Rowan Slattery (don’t ask) McAllister, lived long enough and apparently decently enough to be given such a friend.
I don’t need a photo of you, or a lock of your hair to take with me—when my time comes, and it is coming, Lulu, I feel it one step behind me at each turn—I plan to close my eyes and concentrate on you.
You’re the garden in my pocket.
Thank you,
Duncan McAllister