Nine Women (12 page)

Foolishness. That would not do.

She put down the can of beer, took a deep breath, and went about her housekeeping again.

In the front drive, a single paper napkin was crumpled on the gravel. She picked it up, smoothed it to read
Solange and Mike.
I don’t like these, she thought, I wonder why I bought them when I think they’re tacky.

She crushed it in her fist and walked down the drive to the street, looking, noticing. A car must have backed into the ligustrum hedge, a great many branches were snapped off. And someone had walked through the low gardenia bed. The crushed flowers filled the night with their heavy sweet scent.

Behind her the house waited, perched between silent fog-shrouded bayou and fog-misted street, its lights going out one by one. It was folding into itself, slipping into a doze like all the silent houses around it. Soon the street would be completely empty, except for the patrolling police car, until Mrs. Talbot drove by on her way to early mass. After that, in its regular predictable order, the day would begin. After Mrs. Talbot, at 6:30 to the minute, Mr. Lejeundre would jog past. At 7:10 a small van from Camp Green Meadow would pick up the Henderson children. At five minutes to eight, Mr. Horton’s day nurse would drive slowly by, looking carefully all around the neighborhood, hoping to find little bits of gossip to amuse him during the day. (Poor half-blind diabetic, Barbara thought, the only healthy thing about him was his curiosity.) She would find nothing to tattle about in the Eagletons’ front yard, only the tiniest whispers of the night’s celebration.…

Barbara went inside. Her mother was standing in the hall, holding the can of beer and its sodden wrapper. “Yours?”

Barbara shrugged at the white ring on the polished wood table. “I didn’t know it would soak through so quickly. Or maybe I’ve been out longer than I thought.”

“You were out quite a while. Watching the moon or some such thing?”

“No moon,” Barbara said automatically. “Fog.”

“Whatever.” Her mother studied herself in the mirror, fingers automatically touching the invisible lines of plastic surgery.

“Don’t worry about that,” Barbara said. “It looks great. That man took off at least ten years.”

“He was expensive enough to be good. You’re sure it’s ten years, Barbara, not five?”

“Ten.” Barbara took a sip of her beer, shuddered. “I don’t like beer.”

“I wondered why you were drinking it. I thought it was some sort of mother-of-the-bride neurosis. You know, Barbara, I really must lose some weight.”

“Go to a fat farm.”

Her mother turned slowly, ringed fingers clasping her expensive new face. “Do you think?”

“You know, Mother, find a fat farm that takes elderly black ladies.”

Her mother turned back to her reflection. “I have spent quite enough on my appearance,” she told herself firmly. “By the way, while you were moon-watching or fog-gazing or whatever, Henry and his merry men got Justin out of the pool.”

“Oh dear, I’d forgotten about him.”

“Henry said you asked him to do the rescue.… Justin insists that he will not spend the night here—he says that it is not proper for a guest to crash at a wedding reception.”

Barbara blinked. Her mother had a disconcerting habit of slipping teen slang into her usual precise and proper speech.

“His clothes are far too wet for him to go back to his hotel, though that is a funny thought. Just imagine a tall, very drunken Jamaican staggering through the lobby dripping pool water and reeking of chlorine and cologne …”

“Justin won’t.”

“No, he won’t.” Her mother’s short crisp laugh filled the hall. (It was, Barbara thought, completely without amusement.) “Justin insisted he could wear one of Henry’s suits. And he was so frustrated when he found there wasn’t a single one of Henry’s suits in this house.”

Barbara said, “My husband was very efficient in his packing.”

“After a good deal of arguing and shouting, all of them staggered down the stairs again. At this moment Justin is sitting in my car waiting for me. I’ll take him home. Then in the morning, I’ll send for dry clothes and return him to the hotel in proper condition.”

“Why don’t you want to marry him?”

Her mother adjusted the collar of her lavender dress. “This color is dreadful, but it did seem so suitable for the grandmother of the bride.”

“Why not marry him?”

Her mother’s fingers traced the long string of pearls, tapped the large square amethyst that held them together. “And lavender goes very well with this.… My dear, so many reasons. I don’t want to live in the Bahamas.… I am far too old to deal with any man.… If he got sick, I would be expected to take care of him.… And most of all, I prefer living alone.”

“I’m sorry,” Barbara said. “He’s a wonderful man.”

“Perhaps you’d like him? You’ll soon be looking for a husband.”

Barbara caught her breath with a gasp that was near a sob. Tears slowly accumulated in her eyes; she blinked them away.

“Now, don’t get upset,” her mother said. “You know not to pay any attention to me. Oh, never mind, at least I can take Justin away. With the other garbage.”

Barbara watched her walk briskly through the house, heavy body on thin rapid legs. Birdlike.

My mother, Barbara thought wearily, my goddamn mother. Tireless, determined, shrewd, calculating, self-contained—Barbara tried all the words and found that they weren’t accurate at all. Sometimes she hated her and sometimes she shivered with the strength of her love and her admiration. Her mother had fought her way from poverty to affluence, bringing her only child along with her, educating, planning, arranging. She had produced an accomplished woman, the proper wife of a successful man. And Barbara knew (when she was being very honest with herself or when she was as tired as she was tonight) that it was precisely what she too had wanted for herself.

Now that the rapid clatter of her mother’s heels had vanished, now that her own weary housekeeping patrols had ended, Barbara went into the den, the smallest room in the house, dark-paneled, book-lined. She settled herself, smoothing her skirt carefully, into the largest brown leather chair, braced her elbows against the arms, steadied her head in her palms, and waited.

In a few moments Henry Eagleton sat directly across from her. He put his coat across his knees and loosened his tie.

She said, “You know, Henry, you’ve always reminded me of Woodrow Wilson.”

“So you’ve told me.”

“Especially in a tuxedo.”

“Unless Woodrow Wilson got to Georgia, I don’t think I can make any claim to his blood.”

“It’s funny…” There was nothing of Africa in his features, she thought; they were north European. Only the skin stretched across them was brown. “Henry, do you remember the paper bag society?” In college a girl was considered beautiful if her skin was the color of a brown paper bag, nothing darker. “The paper bag society would have loved this wedding, there wasn’t a single person in the bridal party who didn’t qualify.”

“Barbara—”

“That sea of brown, like chocolate candy. With a few white marshmallows here and there.”

“You’ve been drinking. I had no idea, absolutely no idea.”

“Absolutely no idea… no, I didn’t even finish the beer. I left it somewhere.”

“Mama picked it up.”

“So she did. Henry, are you going to go on calling her Mama when we’ve divorced?”

“I hadn’t thought about it,” he said irritably. “You don’t think about your mother-in-law’s name when you think about a divorce.”

“Well,” she said, “I just did.”

“Listen … I’ve locked everything. I’ll leave by the front door so all you have to do is put on the burglar alarm.”

“Why don’t you do it?” she said.

“Because I’m leaving you my keys. Because I can’t keep keys to this house any more.”

“It wouldn’t be proper,” she said dreamily.

“No,” he said, “it wouldn’t.”

“I know, we agreed.”

“Years ago we agreed, Barbara.”

“For the child. So she could have somebody to walk down the aisle and somebody to sit in the front pew.”

“I don’t know why you sound like that, Barbara.”

“Solange had a beautiful big wedding, we got married at city hall, and my mother never got married at all. And you don’t know if your parents were married or not.”

His mouth drew tight. “I have always assumed that they were not married.”

“It does bother you, doesn’t it?”

“You know it does. We have discussed it a dozen times. I will always resent my parents’ having a child they were unwilling to keep.” A sharp rasp in his resonant voice.

“You have an unusual voice, Henry. Very penetrating and commanding. You should have been a soldier.”

“For God’s sake, Barbara.”

“Mama suggested I might want to marry Justin. Would you mind if I did?”

“You have your own life to lead.”

“I don’t know that anyone has asked Justin.… You know, when I was in high school and we didn’t have much money, Mama used to give me her clothes and things. She never offered to give me her husband before. But of course then she got to be so successful I could afford to have my own clothes and my own husband.”

“Barbara, you must have been drinking. I’ll get you some coffee.”

She waved a languid no. Then grabbed the chair arm again; the room seemed to lurch. “I’m sober, Henry. And I do understand. You are going to leave now and go to your new apartment. Into which you have over the past few weeks moved all your clothes.”

“Barbara, look … We discussed all this, we planned this rationally …”

“Are you going to marry Elizabeth?”

“I haven’t seen Elizabeth for a year and a half.”

“Oh,” she said, “that was the only name I knew.”

“I have many friends,” he said stiffly, “but no plans to marry.”

“Men get huffy when they talk about their women. Even you.”

“Now you sound exactly like your mother.”

“I think you’ll marry again. If she’s young enough, you can have more children. I always thought you’d have liked more than one. If they’re girls you can give more weddings.”

“You are not making any sense.”

“Don’t worry about it, Henry. You know, it was a beautiful wedding, truly.”

“That’s what we wanted, Barbara.”

“The flowers were fantastic. Mama outdid herself with them.”

“Your mother is a very clever woman.”

“All white and lovely. I wonder why they weren’t chocolate brown.”

“Barbara, really.”

“When you think about it—Solange has lived with Mike for two years … so they probably shouldn’t even have had this kind of wedding.”

“I’m going now,” Henry said.

“I suppose they thought it was amusing.”

“Did you hear me?”

“You’re leaving, yes … Henry, why this particular day? Why did we decide that you would leave after Solange’s wedding?”

“There has to be a time,” he said. “You have to plan.”

“It could have been our twenty-fifth anniversary. That would have been so neat and precise. I could say I was married for twenty-five years. Now I’ll have to say I was married for twenty-four and eleven-twelfths years.”

“Barbara, there is something wrong with you. I’m going to call your mother and have her come over. You shouldn’t be alone when you’re acting like this.”

“My mother has Justin to worry about. He is going to drip water all over her gorgeous new rug, he is going to collapse on her beautiful Porthault linens, and he is probably going to throw up on them. She can’t be bothered with me. And I don’t need her.”

“I still think I should call her.”

“Henry, don’t be an ass. Henry, go away.”

His face, unusually dark over the white pleated shirt, floated across her vision. “Good-bye, Henry,” she said.

She heard the door close, felt the house, empty and quiet now, settle itself at last for the night. She felt a sigh of relief run along beams and floors. She shifted slightly in her chair, making herself comfortable, and reached for the television control. There were late movies on and she watched the flickering patterns intently. She did not turn on the sound. She was content to watch in silence.

How can it end, This siege of a shore that no misgivings have steeled, No doubts defend?

DONALD DAVIE

F
OR THREE DAYS
the wind had blown from the northeast, dragging black, fast-moving streaks of cloud across a gray smeared sky. In the summer houses along the coast and meadows of Chenier Cove shutters rattled day and night, doors crashed open and closed, chimneys backwinded soot across ceilings, windows leaked in the heavy rainsqualls. Sea gulls massed in the sheltered meadows and waited, rising now and then with a flutter of wings only to settle again, like a sleeper tossing from side to side. In the woods robins and blackbirds huddled under small shelters of branch and leaf; quail and pheasant vanished into the brush; mourning doves sheltered under house eaves, their five-syllable cry floated muted and despairing on the air. The ocean looked grim and battleship gray, stiff and solid.

On Friday of the Labor Day weekend, the last weekend of summer, the wind swung into the west and began dropping rapidly. The rooftop wind indicators slowed their spinning, their dials registered the change in direction and force. By midnight the clouds seemed to turn inside out, and by Saturday morning the sun rose hot and perfect. On the slopes and on the beaches the granite boulders steamed dry.

At Cleo Wagner’s house, long strings of bunting rattled up the flagpole halyards to announce her Sunday evening picnic on the beach. She had given this last-of-summer affair for fifty years, she liked to see the family together, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren.

Her house was one of the smallest and newest on this particular stretch of coast—she had built it for her seventy-fifth birthday, leaving the other house, called the Great House, to be occupied by her son and his family. Her house was also set quite low within a cuplike depression—to protect her greenhouse and garden—but it was situated so cleverly (the architect was married to one of her granddaughters) that its flagpole could be seen clearly by every other house in the area.