16

But, let me not forget to mention the worthy deeds of the fair sex of this loom.… Ladies, you have done virtuously, and have excelled.

Dr. Ezra Ripley
First Parish, Concord, 1792

Next Sunday the morning service was to be followed by a nooning, the annual church picnic.

“Do I have to come?” groaned Homer Kelly, who sometimes wearied of his studious, preoccupation with Old West Church, his Sunday mornings of sermons and hymn singing, his sleepy afternoons deciphering the handwriting of pious country parsons.

Mary was frying chicken, turning it expertly with a pair of tongs. “Of course you have to come. Listen, Homer, it will be like those old noonings in the nineteenth century, those picnics between the two Sunday sermons when everybody visited with everybody else while they ate from their picnic baskets. It will give you a better understanding of the old days in the church. And anyway this is what it’s all about.”

“What do you mean, what it’s all about?”

“Getting together, being all in one place at the same time. Oh, of course they were all together inside the church, listening to the sermons, but then they had to be quiet and not talk to each other. At the nooning they could gossip and find out how people were, and learn about each other’s needs and minister to each other.”

“Oh, right, right—well, all right,” said Homer grudgingly.

So once more the pickup ground its way up the bluff beside the river, out onto Route 2, through the center of Concord and along Lowell Road to Nashoba, to the parish house of Old West Church, the clumsy building of green-painted shingles that had once housed the Unitarians.

The nooning had taken over the huge gymnasium-like room in the front of the parish house. The pews had long since been removed, but the organ was still there, enclosed in paneling, and the homely stained glass still glowed green and yellow high in the wall. The acoustics were bad. In the clapboarded building to the west, it. was sunlight that rebounded from walls and ceiling, but here it was noise, recoiling, reverberating, colliding, smearing together the voices of the picnickers as they scraped their folding chairs across the floor and hurried back and forth to the kitchen and talked across the tables. Children’s high staccato voices echoed and re-echoed.

Battered by discord, Homer stood in the doorway, wondering if the building could have been constructed at a more terrible moment in the architectural history of the nation. In the year 1882, only the mightiest intellects had manipulated the ponderous style with an understanding for the requirements of its massive proportions. The parish house was large without grandeur, its ornamentation graceless and sparse. Homer couldn’t help comparing it with the church down the street where they all met on Sunday mornings, the little edifice the dissenting Congregationalists had built for themselves in 1836. They had merely thrown it together like a barn. The result was perfection.

Homer’s wife, Mary, pulled out a chair and sat down at a table where there were two empty places between Carl Bucky and Joe Bold. Homer took the seat beside her, accepted a heaped-up paper plate, and lifted a chicken leg to his mouth.

But Mary was jogging his arm, whispering, “Wait, Homer.”

“What for?” said Homer loudly.

“Shut up, you ninny. They’re saying grace.”

“Oh, sorry.” Homer lowered his chicken leg, and the noise in the hall died away, except for the clatter in the kitchen, where Betsy Bucky and Mollie Pine were still shouting gaily at each other. Then they, too, abruptly stopped, and Joe said grace; there was a little pause, and then the noise rose again to full volume, and hands that had paused in mid-gesture went on unpacking baskets of food and handing out bowls of potato salad and plates of sandwiches.

Betsy Bucky flew out of the kitchen to unveil her own contribution. For Betsy, the nooning was an opportunity for showing off. It was a platform for the display of her culinary genius. This morning she had loaded Carl down with two heavy baskets. Now she opened them and brought out her pinnacle achievement, a platter of her famous sausage fritters, fried in deep fat. There were cries of “Oooh, Betsy,” and groans of wonder as the fritters were passed around and tasted. Betsy’s sausage fritters were her specialty, something she had invented herself. They were flaky and delicate, seeming to have no relation to the slaughterhouse in Fall River where the original hogs had been knocked on the head, boiled, flayed, and ground into sausage. Out of Betsy’s baskets came more fritters, then half a dozen butterscotch pies.

Lorraine Bell had prepared a simpler meal, bean salad and thin slices of roast beef. “I brought extra,” she said to Joe Bold, piling some of it on his empty plate.

“Have some of our cherry tomatoes?” said Mary Kelly, filling in the gaps. “A piece of chicken?”

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” said Joe in confusion as Maud Starr piled a mountain of marinated mushrooms on top of everything else. Then Maud squeezed her chair in close and leaned sideways, engaging joe in a huddle of serious talk. Mary watched, thinking about Joe’s wife, Glaire, remembering Claire as she had been at school. Compared to Claire Bold as she had once been, Maud Starr was nothing. She wasn’t in the game at all. But that was before the rules had radically changed, before Claire’s cards had fallen to the floor. Now any fool could play against her, any bitch who was alive and well, whose breasts and bones were whole, whose body was not riddled with disease. Mary cringed as she thought of yesterday, when Maud had come running into the hospital to visit Claire. Maud had chuckled a greeting at the pallid face on the pillow. “Oh,” she had squealed, “what a darling bed jacket,” and then she had dashed away with a flick of her scrawny skirt. Now the damned woman was deep in sympathetic conversation with Claire’s husband about his wife’s condition. It gave Mary a pain.

She was glad when all conversation was interrupted by Ed Bell. Strolling out on the platform that stretched across one end of the room, he called for quiet. Ed was inaugurating the annual church canvass. As usual, he was the chairman of the money-raising committee, because nobody else could bring in pledges the way Ed could. Ed had a way of teasing people into emptying their pockets. He cajoled them, he inspired them, he pestered them into it; he didn’t let them go. And nobody minded, because Ed Bell, after all, was Ed Bell.

This time he had made up a song, “A tisket, a tasket, put your money in the basket. ” It was a terrible song, but it brought down the house, as Ed pretended to tap-dance, shuffling his feet and flourishing a cane and waving a straw hat. He kept tipping the hat and putting it on and taking it off and waggling it comically in his hand while everybody shrieked with rapture. Then Ed called for his canvass captains, Charlie Fenster and Julie Smith and Hilary Tarkington. He made them line up in a row and do the same kind of buck-and-wing, right there in front of everybody, without any practice. Charlie and Julie and Hilary were good sports, and did their best, and they were even funnier than Ed.

The entertainment was over. It was time for dessert. “Weren’t they a scream?” said Betsy Bucky, cutting a huge slab of her own butterscotch pie for her husband, Carl.

Carl couldn’t reply. He was choking. A crumb of sausage fritter was stuck in his throat. Struggling to his feet, trying to breathe, he tipped the table up on two legs. Homer Kelly’s plate slid into his lap. Dr. Spinney raced across the room, took hold of Carl from the rear, and jerked until the crumb came up. Carl sagged, coughing, breathing again. The table joggled back into place. Mopping his chin, his face blazing red, Carl sat down, rescued his plate, then pushed it away.

In the kitchen, Dr. Spinney took Betsy aside and lectured her about her husband. Homer Kelly was collecting dirty dishes, carrying them to the kitchen, and he heard every word. “See here, Betsy, don’t you think Carl should be watching his weight a little more carefully? What about feeding him less starch and fat and sugar and more in the way of vegetables and low-fat protein? You know the sort of thing, fish and chicken, rice and beans, fresh fruit? And go easy on desserts?”

Betsy laughed merrily. “Who, my Carl go on a diet? You think I haven’t tried?”

“Well, see what you can do,” warned Dr. Spinney. “I mean it, Betsy. A man in his condition needs to put less strain on his heart.”

Betsy chuckled and nodded as if she understood, but a moment later Dr. Spinney was horrified to see her plop a huge piece of butterscotch pie in front of her husband and spoon over it a mound of whipped cream. Fascinated, he watched from across the room as she hovered over Carl, unscrewing a thermos, pouring him a cup of dark brown liquid. Well, that was better. At least she was making sure he got decafFeinated coffee instead of the strong brewed stuff from the church kitchen.

Carl drank his coffee, then offered the thermos around the table as Homer sat down again to eat a piece of Betsy’s pie. “Anybody want some of my decaf?” said Carl. “Here, try some. It’s really good.”

“Why, thank you,” said Homer, holding out his cup. “Don’t mind if I do.”

Carl poured it out, and Homer lifted the cup to his lips, then gasped. The black stuff in his cup was the strongest, bitterest brew he had ever tasted.

“Good, right?” said Carl.

“Oh, right,” said Homer, putting down the cup.

Betsy was back, pinching Carl’s arm. “Come on, honeybun, time to go.”

“Oh, okay, ooof,” said Carl, struggling up from his chair.

“But first you’ve got to take the tables down cellar.”

“Oh, no, Betsy, my God. I can’t do it. I ate too much.”

“Carl Bucky,” said Betsy, shocked and sorrowful, “whose fault, may I ask, is that?”

The nooning was over. Homer and Mary Kelly went home. Mary had things to do. She got out her oil paints and began painting a map of the river on the wall of the front room. But Homer was restless. He couldn’t settle down to anything. He couldn’t get Carl Bucky out of his mind.

“That poor man, Carl Bucky,” he said. “His wife is a scheming woman. She’s destroying him. She’s feeding him to death.”

Mary dipped her brush in black paint and began painting a row of turtles on a log. She laughed. “Well, Betsy’s not alone. I imagine a lot of wives are doing the same thing. Me, too. I mean, we can’t help it. We were brought up to cook like that. Our own mothers taught us to make all those rich delicious things. Cooking delicious things was the way to win your family’s affection. Then when the health-food people came along and told us not to do it, it was too late. It was ingrained in our whole pattern of married life. Betsy’s not the only one.”

“Maybe not, but she’s worse. Homicidally worse. There was something really menacing about the way she shoved the stuff at Carl, the way she stood over him while he lugged all those heavy tables and wouldn’t let me lend a hand. Did you see her come after me when I tried to help him? We had quite a little tussle there in the middle of the floor. I thought she was going to put my eye out. And the coffee—did I tell you about the coffee?” Homer turned and put his hand decisively on the knob of the front door. “Listen, remember those sausage thingummies of hers? You want the recipe, right?”

“The recipe?” Mary made a smudge with her brush, and looked at Homer in surprise. “I want the recipe?”

“I’m going over there right now and get the recipe. I want to see that poor guy at home. I want to tell him. I want to warn him. I want to save his life.”

“Oh, I see. The recipe is just an excuse. Well, listen, Homer, here’s what I really want from Betsy Bucky.” Mary looked at her husband slyly. “I want to know how she gets her layer cake to come out horizontal like that. I mean, mine always slopes downhill. And her pie dough, does she chill it first? I mean, us murdering wives, we need to share our little secrets. See here, dear, what do you want for supper?”

Homer clutched his stomach. “Oh, Lord, as a matter of fact, I don’t think I’m going to be especially hungry for supper.”

“Well, I may not be here anyway when you get back. I promised Joe I’d spend some time with Claire.”

When Homer pulled into the Buckys’ driveway, he saw at once that Carl was still in mortal trouble. He was mowing the sloping lawn, lunging after the huge lawnmower, heaving it around at the end of each swath, panting after it. The machine made an enormous racket.

As Homer strode long-legged up the hill, Carl paused, turned down the throttle, and leaned against the shuddering control bar. He wiped his forehead on his sleeve. He was beet-red. The lawnmower trembled and backfired.

“Listen, Carl,” said Homer, “why don’t you wait till the sun moves to the west a little? An hour from now this whole hillside will be in shadow.”

Carl shook his head. “Betsy’s in a hurry. She’s got these girls coming over, wants everything spruced up.”

“Well, let’s sit down a while anyway,” said Homer, setting a good example, lowering himself to the grass.

“Sure, why not?” sighed Carl. Turning off the lawnmower, he sank down and lay back with his arms over his face, panting, his big stomach rising and falling.

But it was no use. Betsy heard the silence. She shrieked from the doorway, “Carl? They’ll be here any minute. Can’t you finish the front lawn? Homer Kelly, is that you? Come on up here and have a glass of iced tea.”

Homer and Carl stood up slowly. Carl put his foot on the lawnmower and grasped the starter rope.

“Don’t do it, Carl,” said Homer. “You shouldn’t be pushing that big machine. Honest to God, you look terrible.”

“Carl?” cried Betsy. “How about it, honeybun?”

Carl shrugged at Homer and jerked on the rope. It didn’t catch. Walking reluctantly up to the house, Homer heard the gasoline engine sputter and die, sputter and die, sputter and die. He looked over his shoulder as it caught at last, and watched Carl guide the thundering machine across the slope. It kept tugging at him, trying to run downhill. Carl had to keep hauling at it, pushing down on the handle to aim it uphill again.

“Say, Betsy,” said Homer, “do you really think Carl ought to be out there working so hard in the hot sun?”

“Who, Carl?” Betsy tittered. “Oh, Carl’s all right. He’s just fine. He just loves working outdoors. And it’s good for him to get a little exercise.” With a bright wink, Betsy patted her skinny midriff. “Good for that big belly of his.” And then Betsy laughed merrily as if Homer’s cautionary remark were the funniest thing she had ever heard.