A COUPLE OF WEEKS later he gathered his books together and left for home. ‘Almost as good as new,’ the bearded intern told him on the way out.
Glancing up at the shaggy, innocent face, Max jerked his head back with a brief laugh. ‘Listen to the expert! I’m probably your first case. Don’t forget, O’Reilly, you owe me forty thousand dollars from gin rummy.’
The young man grinned and pumped Max’s hand. ‘You were here at the right time, Max. Next week I go off the night shift.’
His arm linked through Lettie’s, he hit the warm late-April air. The scent of new-mown grass and honeysuckle rising around him was lushly intoxicating, and for an instant his head swam. He leaned harder on Lettie.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine. The shock of fresh air.’
From the window of the taxi he watched the town go by. The low, box-like houses plunked on their tidy lawns were the same, interspersed with shopping centers also the same, the brashly lettered signs still an assault on the eye; yet lit with spring sun, all had an ingenuous glow, and stirred in him a singular compassion. A kinship. It was, after all, where he lived. As they rounded the corner near Pleasure Knolls he braced himself for Vicky Cameron.
‘Max!’ She rose as if propelled, and rushed to meet him, grasping his hands. He leaned to kiss her on the cheek, acknowledging the honor of the greeting—Vicky used first names only for the happy few. ‘It’s so good to have you back! You’re looking fine. How do you feel?’
‘Not bad, Vicky. Quieter, is all. You’ve been carrying on as usual, I trust?’
‘Oh, yes, things are about the same. Max, we can send up meals if you like. All you’ve got to do is call me. Don’t hesitate—’
‘New hairdo?’
She blushed and ruffled her fair hair, freshly cut in short layers and frosted with silvery tips.
He moved towards the elevator, where Lettie waited with his suitcase. ‘I’ll be talking to you, Vicky.’
From back at her desk, her head bent and her hands fussing among papers, she called in a half whisper, ‘Max, take care of yourself. Really. I missed you.’
He waved and followed Lettie into the elevator.
‘Another conquest,’ she said. ‘You have women of every generation hanging on you.’
‘But think of the irony of life. Now, when it’s too late.’
‘And after the way you’ve treated her.’
‘That’s not important. She knows I’m fond of her.’
‘Fond of her! It’s news to me. Are you sure you’re all right, Max? You don’t sound like yourself.’
‘I don’t feel like myself either. They drained out all the piss and vinegar. I don’t even think I could work up a good fury.’
‘Oh, give it time. Something’ll come along to set you off.’ They got out and walked down the hall.
‘No, I think I’m changed. Would you still like me if I were rehabilitated? I mean, the externals would remain the same, but inside, a simple sweet old man? Reconciled to the world? A metamorphosis? You think you could go for that?’
She put her hand in his pants pocket and took out the keys. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re talking above my head.’
‘Uh-uh. I know you too well for that line, sweetie. You’re not sure, that’s it. You are having your doubts.’
Impassive, she stepped inside and he followed. The apartment looked the same, only neater than the morning he had left. Someone—Lettie, of course—had wiped up the spilled coffee, emptied the ashtray, and washed the breakfast dishes, pancake skillet. Put away the bottle of Scotch, hung up the bathrobe. Also changed the hot sheets. His few plants were thriving—he visited them one by one, fingering the shiny leaves. Only three were from Susie’s original brood, a pink-edged flourishing coleus, a philodendron that wound from a high shelf around a lamp to the floor, and an indestructible small cactus she used to swear at when it pricked her. The rest he had left for patrons of the bike shop. Later, to give those three company he had added others, which thrived—he couldn’t tell why, since he watered them erratically. A stranger was sitting on his window sill, blooming a brilliant, mournful purple: the African violet the kids from the gym class had sent. Lettie had brought it home from the hospital.
‘You took good care of the plants.’ She was off in the bedroom, opening windows, and didn’t answer. He sat down and put his feet up on the ottoman. Lettie returned to study him.
‘You look tired. Go to bed.’
‘A one-track mind.’
‘Look who’s talking. Remember to take it easy.’
‘I must thank you for everything,’ he said.
‘Please. I can’t stand it.’
‘Okay, okay. I was only trying to be polite.’
‘It doesn’t sound natural.’
A siren started to wail, just outside his window. ‘See, they’re welcoming me home.’
He settled in to quiet days. He walked, morning and evening, alert to bird sounds and flowering dogwoods, mauve sunsets of the lengthening days, the milder pleasures, innocuous. He cooked and ate too much, Lettie along with him. In the movies they held hands and absently he stroked her leg; they stopped off for ice cream in Highet’s on the way home. He felt mellow, like softening, overripe fruit. Those nights he was alone in his bed he read, with a cool relish, mysteries by Dorothy Sayers. They gave him sound sleep and no dreams. Curious, those blank, uneventful sleeps. After a while he ventured farther on his excursions, visiting the local museum, where he found a display on the history of the region that sheltered him. Once it had been dairy farms bounded by thick woods. Way before that, Indians. Now a clutter of commerce. He clicked his tongue in righteous dismay, as though he had a personal stake in the land of the valley.
Then there were the visitors, who in their number and warmth astonished him. People he barely knew, had nodded to in the corridor, came by to inquire about his health. Invited in, they had coffee and expatiated. It was touching; Lettie, at least, was touched. ‘Charisma,’ she remarked. ‘You could have been a politician.’ But Max said it was mere morbid curiosity: everyone swarms around those who have brushed with death, welcomes the wounded hero home from battle. Human nature; he accepted with forbearance and turned on the charm.
George Rakofsky of the birthday party rode up in his wheelchair one evening. ‘It’s good to see you up and about again,’ he told Max. ‘You’re too young to die.’
‘From your angle, maybe. But I decided to stick around for your next birthday party.’
They talked about business. George had started out in sports equipment, but after the war, he said, with the waves of young families moving to the suburbs, he found he could do even better in toys. ‘It used to be simple stuff. Lincoln Logs. Erector sets. Dolls that could pee were a big item. But now they’ve got these little models of McDonald’s. Holiday Inns. You wouldn’t believe! We were happy if we got a bat and ball.’
‘A broomstick.’
‘And a crate on wheels. Remember those, Max? That still beats a skateboard, for my money. I really enjoyed that store, though. I could talk to people as much as I liked—that was for me. I’ve always been interested in people. The women used to come in, they were bored, pushing the strollers. In my place they got some lively conversation, I’ll tell you. It didn’t hurt business either. I liked them, and I liked the kids too. That’s what I miss here—having kids around. I have five grandchildren, but they’re busy with their own things; that’s how it goes. And three great-grandchildren. One a new baby I haven’t seen yet.’
George had a broad resonant voice, younger than his body. A voice vibrant and ringed with calm. Max could understand the young mothers hanging around the toy store.
‘Did you ever try living with your sons?’
‘You don’t have sons or you wouldn’t ask. With sons come daughters-in-law. Not that they’re not nice girls, both of them. I have no complaints. But what would I do in their houses? Their kids are grown up and gone, and they’re out working. All the women, these days. More power to them, if you ask me. But I’m better off where I am. I don’t want to be an old pain in the ass living in the spare room.’
‘When did you move in here?’
‘Twelve years ago. After my wife died.’
Max got up and walked to the window. How long for him, in this new, bland calm? George at least had a memory, while his own seemed to have evaporated.
‘I don’t mind it, really. I visit, I listen to music. There are things to do. The only thing I worry about is another stroke—if I lose my speech. When that happens I’ll be finished. My wife used to say I could never have any secrets from her. Were you married, Max?’
He turned back to face George. ‘Yes.’
‘It’s peculiar, isn’t it? You know how they say if you lose a leg you can still get a pain in it? Twelve years, and still once in a while I wake up at night and reach out a hand...Do you know what I mean?’
‘Let me fill these up again.’ Max took the empty glasses to the kitchen. In deference to George’s diabetes he was serving plain iced tea. He poured a snot of bourbon into his own and returned.
George rambled on. One grandson was an orthopedist, another an insurance agent. His youngest granddaughter wanted to be a stockbroker—what did Max think of that? Max gazed with affection at the face webbed with wrinkles and lit by azure eyes. A comforting face, after the females who had moved into his life as if it were an empty house. Men were easier friends—mere guests, not tenants, they asked little of you. Thinking of Lettie and all she gave in return, he felt disloyal. But it was the truth.
‘I’m very glad you came,’ he said at the door. ‘Come back anytime. It does me good.’
George trapped him in a long, shrewd stare from which he couldn’t avert his eyes. Thoroughly withered, but how that face lived! And understood. ‘Pull yourself together, Max,’ he said brusquely. ‘Don’t waste your time.’
The next afternoon was Alison’s turn: he had granted permission at last. Lettie was with her, an arm protectively circling the child’s shoulders.
‘Hi, Max.’ Pale, hanging back, she extended a hesitant hand. ‘How are you?’
‘Oh, come over here,’ he said impatiently. He pulled her inside, held her close and kissed her cheek. So smooth and dewy, it surprised him. When she began sniffling on his chest he moved her away. ‘Sit down. Lettie, do we have a cookie or something to keep her alive? You’re even thinner than before. Don’t they feed you?’
‘Sure, meat and potatoes.’ She put down the knapsack and took her sweatshirt off. ‘You’re not still mad at me? I mean, you want to talk to me?’
‘Of course I want to talk to you. Where else can I find such stimulating conversation?’
‘Are you kidding me, Max?’
‘Certainly not. Tell me what’s happening in the gym.’
‘Well, Fats is trying to continue the gymnastics but he really doesn’t know how. It’s very tedious. He has us all walking around on our hands—absolute chaos. Elliot strained his neck from it two weeks ago, a mild whiplash, so his father came in to complain, right in the middle of class. You would have enjoyed that scene. His father is sort of a cross between Dracula and Captain Kangaroo.’
‘Elliot was always too stiff. I wouldn’t have stood him on his hands yet.’
Lettie brought in a tray with chocolate cupcakes and milk. ‘Here, Alison. Eat something. I’ll eat with you. How is your mother coming along?’
‘Gross. Extremely gross. Just a few more weeks till the blessed event. Max? When are you coming back to school? I mean, it’s such drudgery without you.’
‘Look here, Alison, you want to be treated like a grownup, don’t you? So grow up—use your head. My days are numbered. I can’t do that stuff any more.’
‘Oh, no,’ she said promptly. ‘If they sent you home you must be better. I bet you could do it if you really tried. You look just the same as always.’ She bit the icing off the top of a cupcake. ‘Anyway, Max, do you think you could show me those pictures again, of the people in the circus?’
He had a surge of weariness. So besides the magic powers, she had decided he was immortal. Well, she would find out soon enough. Become the image, he used to tell the kids. But he couldn’t play the image she worshipped—it was beyond human powers.
‘Pictures?’ asked Lettie. ‘How come I haven’t seen them?’
‘Oh, they’re nothing special at all. What do you care about old pictures?’ Always wanting. He went to stand apart at the window, childishly longing for George, who knew enough to see him as he was, a heap of fragments.
‘Better some other time, dear,’ he heard Lettie whisper. Alison made a small, muted sound of disappointment.
He turned round. ‘No, that’s all right, Lettie. This time is as good as any. Those two albums in the bedroom closet—Alison, you can stand up on a chair to get them. I’m going to sit here and read. I’m a little tired.’
He couldn’t help but listen, though. What an intriguing child, despite everything. She had total recall.
‘That one is Henry. He stood on the bottom of the pyramid because of his legs and shoulders...They’re having a New Year’s party. See the balloons and streamers?...Oh, and look, Lettie, that’s Max. Isn’t that amazing?’
‘Hold it. Let me get a good look. Aha! Yes, that’s him all right.’
‘That one with the monkey is a clown...The monkey’s name is Joanna. Isn’t she cute? He let her eat breakfast with the people sometimes...That’s Max’s trailer.’
‘Ah,’ said Lettie.
‘And that’s Max’s wife.’
Lettie said nothing. With eyes closed, he heard the pages turn. He heard their breathing. The black turtleneck sweater, the knees pulled to her chin. The teasing look.
‘Wait,’ said Alison. ‘I haven’t seen this bunch before. There’s one of them together, with the clown. This is fantastic—they must be holding her up from behind, but it looks like she’s floating on air. You know, she was the one who taught him all the tricks. She coached him.’
‘Mm-hm.’ Not another word from Lettie, till after many pages the book was shut, and she said, ‘I think he must have fallen asleep. Maybe that’s enough for today, Alison.’
He opened one eye a fraction to glimpse her gathering up the knapsack and the sweatshirt, and taking a cupcake for the road.
‘Don’t forget the circus, Lettie. It’s two weeks from Saturday,’ she whispered.
‘I won’t forget, sweetheart. Good-bye now.’
‘I’ll see you before then anyway. Close Encounters of the Third Kind is coming next week. Oh, shit, I forgot—I can’t cut any more.’
‘Never mind; we’ll go for the four o’clock show.’
The door closed.
‘You can open your eyes now, Max, it’s safe.’
He did. Lettie was at the window, facing him. He watched her, a firm silhouette against the falling late-afternoon light. She stood extremely still, not a muscle of her face moving, and she looked not at him but into him.
‘She was very pretty,’ Lettie said. ‘Very beautiful. I see now.’
He had thought he knew her, but what she might be feeling at this moment was a mystery. There was more within than he knew. That was the lure of women: more inside than you ever imagined, a dark trail weaving through. As he watched, a burden clotted in his chest. Was she going to trouble him now too?
He had only a brief time to wait. Her eyes relaxed; her face slipped into a sly grin. ‘You weren’t so bad yourself, either. I feel like a stiff drink. How about you, Max?’
The burden lifted and he smiled at her, an intimate smile that already could call forth memories. He reached out his hand. ‘Come here just a minute, will you?’ he asked. ‘Before you make your stiff drink.’
He began dropping in to see George while Lettie was out shopping or at movies with her friends. From outside the door, the first time, he could hear strains of music.
‘Come on in. I was hoping you’d be around,’ George greeted him.
It shouldn’t have surprised him, yet it did, to find George’s apartment identical to his own. Rooms laid out the same, furniture in the same places but a trifle more worn. Instead of browns and oranges George had greens and golds. He brought out thick green cigars and they settled into a greenish haze of smoke, to talk, that first afternoon, till dinnertime. The cups they drank coffee from were the same, as well as the chrome equipment in the bathroom, which, Max thought with a pang, George must use. There were not many books but there were records. A music-lover, he played harpsichord music for Max. He had once built his own harpsichord, he said, which a grandchild had now; it had taken two years and infinite labor, evenings and weekends, but he was a patient man. Max, abashed at his own ignorance, listened to Bach and Scarlatti, awed at the splendor of form, the balance and precision. This was music that climbed and descended without cease, winding obsessively through lattices like bees humming in a hive. Austere and comforting, it was music with neither fury nor self-pity, transcending the cheaper emotions. He had never known such sounds. And as he listened, going down to George’s day after day, he looked out the window and saw things in slightly different perspective from this floor just below his own. The elms’ leafy tops were at eye level—you could almost reach out and pluck a twig—and the grass was nearer.
Some afternoons he wheeled George around outside, and they sat in the garden in back. It was mid May; there were daffodils, columns of tulips, a rosebush. The air was sweet and George a safe haven. In his homely long view, life was a steady passage in which everything eventually came to rest in proportion and harmonious balance. Balance, thought Max, was all one could finally wish for.
George wanted to know about the circus. Not the glamor—he had a pragmatic turn of mind and asked for no pictures—but the equipment, the rigging, the nuts and bolts of how it worked. Max felt his memory stir beneath the layer of the present; he scrabbled in the ruins and found shards. He told him how they dug in poles and strung up guys for the tent they would have to dismantle a few days later. Recounting that strenuous pulling on the ropes, a dozen men or more, the tense vigil as the big top caved in and crumpled, he could feel the slack muscles in his arms contract. Sense memory. He told him about getting the wires so taut and securing the nets, about hooking in the bars of the trapeze and erecting the platforms—four men used to the work could do that in no time at all. But then the trailers breaking down, the dreary waiting for new parts in dry one-horse towns. And with a revived, exhilarated weariness in his bones, he recalled how far and how long they used to travel, a straggling procession inching across the map, Florida to Oregon, May through November, then winter quarters down South, for a bit of rest.
‘That’s just like nomads! No roots,’ said George. ‘How could you stand it?’
‘We took the roots with us. I liked it that way.’
Like any old man, he thought, he was starting to generalize, to idealize what was gone.
‘But with all that expensive equipment, plus the traveling, and so many mouths to feed—did it really pay?’ George asked. ‘I mean, in terms of net profits.’
‘Some seasons we just about broke even, or worse, but other times it wasn’t bad. It depended on so many unpredictable things, like weather or sickness, for example. People having accidents. Animals—a pain in the ass, if you ask me. After the war we did better, with the men back and money circulating a little more freely. But it’s not the sort of thing you do for money, really.’
They smoked for a while in silence. ‘I had some very good friends there, must be dead now.’ Max got up. ‘Well, I’ve given you an earful. You ready to go back inside?’
The cigar in his mouth, George waved as he wheeled out of the elevator, and Max, left alone, wondered at himself. What had they done to his heart in that hospital? He was getting soft and nostalgic. He was glad Lettie would be out playing bridge tonight; he wanted the solitude. In his armchair, he read till the light faded, and hours later woke there in the dark with a heavy, peaceful feeling. It was new, maybe a different route to death; maybe Susie had known this feeling too. No, he didn’t want to think about her; he wanted this peace. He turned on a small lamp and made himself a sandwich, which he ate slowly in the dim living room. He wasn’t weak or sick, yet seemed to be moving in a dreamy haze, bewildered, a stranger to himself. Was this what vague old people drifted in, when they didn’t answer right away but stared as if some image hung before them in the air, then brought up odd bits of the past out of the blue? He was seized by an urge to order his affairs, correct what was distorted and incomplete. He picked up the phone.
‘It’s me, sweetheart. Your Friday-night admirer.’
‘What? Who is this?’
‘Oh, Vicky, you’re slipping.’
‘Max! You really scared me.’
‘So I gather. I called to tell you something.’ But he fell silent, like a diffident child.
‘Well? What is it?’
‘This: When I have taken my ultimate leave of these pleasurable knolls, as well as of everywhere else, when I have—uh—crossed the bar, as the poet said—’
‘I don’t like hearing you talk like this.’
‘Come off it and listen. Let your hair down, what you have left of it. What did you do that for, anyway?’
‘I’m not hanging on to be insulted. What do you want, Max?’
‘I want you not to remember how nasty I was to you.’
‘You are incredible! I can see why little girls chase after you.’
‘Don’t patronize a senior citizen. Will you do as I say?’
‘I’ll try, but I can’t promise. With you it’s all part and parcel.’
The next afternoon Lettie stopped in.
‘You’re all decked out,’ Max said. ‘Going somewhere?’
‘Yes, a bunch of us are going out to lunch, and then I’ve got a dozen errands. I must get some shoes. There’s a sale in Bamberger’s. Did I leave my earrings here?’
‘Take a look.’
She bustled into his bedroom and back. ‘I found them. Max, it’s supposed to rain, so please don’t walk for miles. And we’ve got the circus tomorrow too—save your strength.’
‘I wanted a woman and I got a mother.’ And dutifully, barely touching, he kissed her on the cheek.
‘An, don’t make me faint with passion, please. I haven’t got the time.’
As she walked out the door he missed her. He would have liked some company today, though he would never ask. He had seen all the movies in town and read everything in the apartment, and the view out the window was a bleak gray.
Now might be a good time: he had been fumbling with the idea for days. He poured a drink for courage. And then another. He couldn’t tell how long he sat there, trying to rouse will against pride. Surely he could say it to George, who was so old, so beyond strife, that he could listen with serene disinterest, and carry secrets intact to the grave. Susie troubled his peace. She had become a tight, painful knot beneath his ribs. He would wrench out that knot and attempt to unravel it on George’s coffee table: how he had had her and lost her, but kept her alive by stealth with his broodings, and then, against his will, lost her again—not like the first time with stark grief, but murkily, absently, through distractions. What could be done? he yearned to ask. What could be done about the unendurable fact that everything a man possessed, even his ghosts, could be taken from him? Words such as those were not impossible, though he had rarely in his life humbled himself to speak so plain. Was it foolish to think that George, his mind content, his body stilled, might rearrange the strands of his knot into some bearable pattern?
At last he went out into the hall. The sirens wailed; he had grown used to them, as Vicky had predicted last fall that he would. Twice the elevator passed him by, so he walked down to the second floor. Two white-coated men were rushing a stretcher out of the elevator; he saw Vicky chase them all the way to the next-to-last door on the right, George’s. One by one, other doors along the corridor opened and faces poked out to watch, tense and alert like understudies observing a dress rehearsal. For a brief moment Max stood paralyzed. Then he wheeled around and went back out to the landing, to sit on the steps. But naturally, he thought. But naturally. It was only his shock that was unnatural. He bent over and covered his face with his hands.
As if by fierce suction, the softness of the last weeks was drawn out of his pores; the walls of his body contracted and hardened, like cement settling. Good, this was familiar. This way he could live. The other was sentimental nonsense—how could he have lapsed so far? He rose with difficulty, clutching the banister, and went carefully down to the lobby. He ought to start using the cane indoors as well as out; he was moving very laboriously these days. With her grotesque frosted hair all mussed—ah, that nervous, absurd ruffling—Vicky stood at the door, watching the stretcher being eased into the ambulance parked out front. She was shielding her eyes against the declining afternoon sun, which belatedly and uselessly graced this dismal day.
As the ambulance screeched away Vicky returned to her seat. A few people whispered in small, scattered groups. Max hovered over her, scrutinizing and savage. The doctors were wrong—anger was good for the heart. He simmered with a desire urgent as sex, but its goal was the contrary. He made himself wait.
‘What is it, Max? Can I do something for you?’
‘Ever ready. He won’t be back, you know. You might as well tear up his file.’
‘He’s got a lot of fight left in him. The doctors can do wonders these days.’
‘Isn’t that reassuring. The eternal optimist. Do you want to start planning his homecoming party, maybe?’
She drew herself together and hugged her arms. Her voice faltered, as it used to in his early days. ‘That’s quite unfair.’
‘Oh, yes, fair play. I keep forgetting. But life is unfair, Vicky. Even our President said so. I suppose you’ve watched this kind of scene hundreds of times. All in the line of duty, right? Another empty apartment to fill. New faces to greet.’
‘I have a lot of work to do, Max.’ She shuffled through her papers.
‘I know your time is valuable. So much paperwork. But I’m your work too. I’m still animate. Now’s your chance to use a little psychology. Let’s see if you can improve my attitude.’
She looked up from the form she was filling out, her face wan, as though he had drained from her any possible response. Finally she whispered, ‘I know you liked him, Max. I’m sorry about it. That’s all I can say.’
‘Speak up, my senses aren’t as sharp as they used to be. Oh, and there’s something else I’ve been meaning to ask you, Victoria. You know that Mrs Jordan who had leukemia? I haven’t seen her since I’ve been back from the hospital. Where’s her file?’
She lowered her head. ‘Mrs Jordan succumbed to the disease.’ Her lips barely moved.
‘Succumbed!’ He banged a fist loudly on her desk. The others clustered around the lobby turned to look. ‘Succumbed, my ass!’
‘You’re disturbing people,’ she said in her official voice.
‘Am I?’ He parodied the tone. ‘I wasn’t aware.’ He turned, and with elaborate courtesy, said, ‘I beg your pardon.’ Then he leaned over to whisper in her ear. ‘It’s you and your sort, baby, that make it worse.’
‘Max, please. There’s no sort. Everyone lives and dies the same.’
‘No, dear. Some of us die. Other succumb. My wife died. George will die. Lettie will die. You will probably succumb.’
He saw tears come to her eyes. She laid her hands flat on the desk. ‘I don’t understand. Just last night you called me to...’
He almost weakened, but the image of the stretcher and George on it, helpless and unexpectedly tall, was too vivid. ‘Last night? You must have been dreaming.’
Upstairs, he had another drink and fell asleep in his chair. When he woke, dislocated in time, Lettie was standing over him.
‘I heard. Vicky told me about it.’
‘Oh. I was just on my way to see him...Did you find the shoes you wanted?’
‘They’re on my feet.’
He peered down. They were dark-brown leather clogs on cork heels, unadorned except for one braided horizontal strip. ‘Uh-huh. Simple but elegant,’ he said.
‘They’re very comfortable. You don’t feel the ground under you.’
He gave a short laugh. Time passed.
‘Max, are you going to sit in that same position forever?’
‘Maybe.’
‘I’ll fix you something to eat. It’s nearly seven.’
‘You do that. I wouldn’t want to die of malnutrition, with so many more interesting choices available.’
Lettie turned on him, eyes blazing. ‘Don’t you pull that stuff on me! I’m not Vicky Cameron and I won’t take it from you! You knew how old he was. Jesus, you’d think it happened just to spite you.’
He hardly touched the dinner she cooked. She didn’t try to speak to him, for which he was thankful. When they finished clearing the table she said, ‘I’m going now. We ought to leave about eleven-thirty tomorrow. We can take a taxi to the station...What’s the matter? Don’t you remember? The circus.’
‘Oh, shit. I forgot all about it. I can’t go.’
‘No? Don’t you feel okay?’
‘I feel fine. I’m in no mood for a circus, that’s all.’
‘Neither am I, but still, she has the tickets and she’s had it planned for weeks.’
‘So?’
‘For heaven’s sake, Max, you’re an adult and she’s a child.’
‘That is certainly a fact, but I fail to see its bearing on the case.’
‘Oh, all right. I’m not arguing with you in this mood. Will you call her, at least, and tell her? Tell her you’re tired or something.’
‘You tell her, when you see her tomorrow. You can still go.’
‘Not without you. You’re the one she really wanted. I don’t know anything about circuses. It...wouldn’t work out.’
‘Don’t be absurd. Are we Siamese twins?’
‘I don’t want to watch her be disappointed! Lay off of me. I have feelings too.’
‘Well, if you’re not going either, then you can call her.’
‘You’re so damned stingy sometimes. It would mean a lot more to her if you called and explained. Such a little thing.’
‘I don’t owe her any explanations! I can’t help what anything means to her—I didn’t ask for it. She has parents, doesn’t she? Why must I care?’
‘Here we go again,’ she sighed, noisily straightening the two chairs at the empty table. ‘Congratulations, Max, you’re your old self. Fully recovered. What will she do with the tickets?’
He didn’t bother to answer that. Lettie called. As she repeated the excuses she sank on to the couch with the phone in her lap, closing her eyes.
After a silence she said, ‘Alison, sweetheart, calm down and listen to me. The truth is, a good friend of his had a stroke today and he saw him go off in an ambulance. He’s very depressed. He’s old and sick and he has things on his mind. It hurts to lose people. There are times when a person doesn’t feel up to going to a circus. You can understand that, can’t you?...We’re very sorry. Yes, of course. Anytime. Oh, and we’ll pay you back for the tickets.’
When she hung up she stood and faced Max with her hands on her hips, an aging Amazon. ‘So? Accurate enough?’
‘Perfect. You’re perfect, I’ve told you before.’
She grunted at him in disgust.
‘I mean it, baby. I’m not even being sarcastic.’
‘Good night.’ She left him, unkissed, untouched, and with the dirty dishes still in the sink. A cloud settled over him, dense and grim like fog. It cast its weighty shadow whichever way he turned. From his chair he watched out the window as the sun finally went down, and more shadow crept across the horizon to dim the green landscape. He was moving into the valley of the shadow of death, bereft.