The Black House (15 page)

Chuck stood up, folded his blanket, and fortified himself with a swallow of coffee. Then he rapped on the cabin hatch.

Sam lingered, not trying to look into the cabin, but listening for the girl's voice. She said, “Good morning, Chuck. Where are we now?” Sam walked on toward the galley.

A few minutes later, a Coast Guard launch slid near enough to hail them. “
Emma C
!—What's the matter with your
radio
?”

“Conked out!” Johnny replied before anyone else could.

“You got the Anderson girl?”

This time Bif replied. “Yep . . . Didn't know her name when we radioed you.”

The man with the bullhorn said: “Heading for Wellfleet?”

“Yep!” Bif replied. “All's well.”

The
Emma C
plowed on. Towards ten o'clock they were rounding the sandy spit that protected Wellfleet Harbor, and the wharves came into view. The girl was on deck in Chuck's dungarees, socks and shirt, and some five men on the dock stared and smiled and commented.

“. . . swimming and we picked her up!” Bif replied curtly to a question.

“That the Anderson girl? . . . Why didn't you radio?”

Bif didn't reply. He was going to ignore or stave off the queries. The girl was safe, wasn't she? Unhurt.

Sam had a secondhand car on shore. So had Chuck, who did not live in Wellfleet. Sam was about to ask Natalie if he could drive her anywhere, even to Cambridge, when he heard the wharf fellows saying, “. . . police . . . Coast Guard . . .” and someone ran off to the wharf telephone booth, no doubt to notify these groups.

“Didn't you have your radio on, Bif, you—”

Bif didn't answer. But on the wharf he spoke with a police officer who had driven up in a patrol car. Bif was talking about their casualty, Louie Galganes, whose body they had on board. He had died as a result of a fall on deck, a head concussion. The officer said he would have to see Louie's work papers.

“From the looks of your crew, you had a rough trip, Bif,” a wharf man said.

Another twenty-four hours on the
Emma C
, Bif was thinking, and he might not have had any crew at all.

Chuck held Natalie's hand as she stepped from the rocking boat onto the wharf. Two other men on the wharf were ready to assist. Natalie staggered a little and recovered, smiling. Three fellows stared at her, then a policeman spoke to her and began writing in a notebook. Chuck stood near, attentive.

“Your family's been really worried, miss. We'll phone them again to say that you're really here.” Seeing that his fellow officer was busy with the tarpaulin bundle on the
Emma C
's port deck, the officer went to the patrol car and spoke over the radio telephone.

“Chuck, you've been very nice to me. Thank you.” The girl looked shy, a little awkward. She pulled a sock up higher. “Captain Bif—” She waited until he had removed his unlighted cigar and thrown it down. “I want to say thanks to all of you for saving me . . . And you for finding me, Sam, and for the poem.”

Sam was biting the tip of his tongue, staring at her as if sheer concentration could create a miracle, that she'd stay, that he'd have the courage to—to do what? If he asked her for a date next Saturday night, would she say yes? “A p-pleasure,” he said finally.

The police officers were ready to take her in their car. “Nothing else with you, miss?”

Natalie lifted her hand, in which she carried her rolled up blue swimsuit. “No.” She turned to Chuck. “I can return your clothes, if I know where to reach you—if I see you again. You can find my address in the phone book under Anderson—Herbert.”

Chuck squirmed as if in pain. “Oh, I don't mind. I mean, you can keep the clothes. I just want to keep you—for my dream.”

“For your what?”

“For my dream. Like a dream.
My
dream.”

Sam heard this, with the taste of blood in his mouth, and realized that the girl must have left his orange jacket in the cabin. He could have given her
that
. Now he'd never wear that jacket again, just keep it. And damn fool Chuck, not to see her again! And yet, maybe that was what they all wanted, just this fantastic experience, this dream. Sam looked intently at Natalie as she waved to the crew, then got into the police car. All the crew, Filip, Johnny, and Chuck and Bif were staring at the girl in the same way. Then Sam blinked, and took his eyes away from the departing black car.

A police car was an ugly object.

Old Folks
at Home

“W
ell,” Lois said finally, “let's do it.” Her expression as she looked at her husband was serious, a little worried, but she spoke with conviction.

“Okay,” said Herbert, tensely.

They were going to adopt an elderly couple to live with them. More than elderly, old probably. It was not a hasty decision on the part of the McIntyres. They had been thinking about it for several weeks. They had no children themselves, and didn't want any. Herbert was a strategy analyst at a government-sponsored institution called Bayswater, some four miles from where they lived, and Lois was an historian, specializing in European history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Thirty-three years old now, she had three books and a score of articles to her credit. She and Herbert could afford a pleasant two-story house in Connecticut with a glass-enclosed sunroom that was Herbert's workroom and also their main library, handsome grounds and a part-time gardener all year round to look after their lawn and trees, bushes and flowers. They knew people in the neighborhood, friends and acquaintances, who had children—young children and teenagers—and the McIntyres felt a little guilty about not fulfilling their duty in this department; and besides that, they had seen an old people's nursing home at first hand a few months ago, when Eustace Vickers, a retired inventor attached to Bayswater, had passed away. The McIntyres, along with a few of Herbert's colleagues, had paid a visit every few days to Eustace, who had been popular and active until his stroke.

One of the nurses at the home had told Lois and Herbert that lots of families in the region took in old people for a week at a time, especially in winter or at the Christmas season, to give them a change, “a taste of family life for a few days,” and they came back much cheered and improved. “Some people are kind enough to adopt an old person—even a couple—to live with them in their homes,” the nurse had said.

Lois remembered her shudder at the thought, then, with a twinge of guilt. Old people didn't live forever. She and Herbert might be in the same boat one day, objects of semi-charity, really, dependent on the whim of nurses for basic physical needs. And old people loved to be helpful around the house, if they possibly could be, the nurse had said.

“We'll have to go—and look,” Herbert said to Lois, then broke out in a grin suddenly. “Something like shopping for an orphan child, eh?”

Lois laughed too. To laugh was a relief after the earnest conversation of the past minutes. “Are you joking? Orphanages give people the children the
orphanages
choose to give. What kind of a child do you think we'd rate, Herb? White? High I.Q.? Good health? I doubt it.”

“I doubt it too. We don't go to church.”

“And we don't vote, because we don't know which party to vote for.”

“That's because you're an historian. And I'm a policy analyzer. Oh yes, and I don't sleep at regular hours and sometimes switch on foreign news at four in the morning. But—you really mean this, Lois?”

“I said I did.”

So Lois rang up the Hilltop Home and asked to speak to the superintendent. She was not sure of his or her title. A man's voice came on, and Lois explained her and her husband's intentions in prepared words. “I was told such arrangements were made sometimes—for six months, for instance.” These last words had come out of nowhere, as if by themselves.

The man on the telephone gave the shortest of laughs. “Well—yes, it would be possible—and a great help usually for all concerned. Would you and your husband like to come and see us, Mrs. McIntyre?”

Lois and Herbert drove to the Hilltop Home just before seven that evening. They were received by a young nurse in blue and white uniform, who sat with them in a waiting room for a few minutes and told them that the ambulant guests were having their dinner in the refectory, and that she had spoken to three or four couples about the McIntyres' offer, and two of the couples had been interested, and two hadn't.

“These senior citizens don't always know what's good for them,” the nurse said, smiling. “How long did you and your husband plan on, Mrs. McIntyre?”

“Well—doesn't it depend on whether
they're
happy?” Lois asked.

The nurse pondered with a slight frown, and Lois felt that she wasn't thinking about her question, but was turning over a formularized response. “I asked because we usually consider these arrangements permanent, unless of course the single guest or the couple wishes to return to the Hilltop.”

Lois felt a cold shock, and supposed that Herbert did too, and she did not look at him. “Has that happened? They want to come back?”

“Not often!” The nurse's laugh sounded merry and practiced.

They were introduced to Boris and Edith Basinsky by the nurse in blue and white. This was in the “TV room,” which was a big long room with two television sets offering different programs. Boris Basinsky had Parkinson's disease, the nurse volunteered within Mr. Basinsky's hearing. His face was rather gray, but he smiled, and extended a shaking hand to Herbert, who shook it firmly. His wife, Edith, appeared older than he and rather thin, though her blue eyes looked at the McIntyres brightly. The TV noise conflicted with the words the McIntyres were trying to exchange with the Basinskys, such as, “We live nearby . . . we're thinking . . .” and the Basinskys' “Yes, Nurse Phyllis told us about you today. . . .”

Then the Forsters, Mamie and Albert. Mamie had broken her hip a year ago, but could walk now with a cane. Her husband was a tall and lanky type, rather deaf and wearing a hearing aid whose cord disappeared down the open collar of his shirt. His health was quite good, said Nurse Phyllis, except for a recent stroke which made it difficult for him to walk, but he did walk, with a cane also.

“The Forsters have one son, but he lives in California and—isn't in a good position to take them on. Same with the two or three grandchildren,” said Nurse Phyllis. “Mamie loves to knit. And you know a lot about
gardening
, don't you, Mamie?”

Mamie's eyes drank in the McIntyres as she nodded.

Lois felt suddenly overwhelmed, somehow drowned by gray heads all around her, wrinkled faces tipped back in laughter at the events on the TV screen. She clutched Herbert's tweed jacket sleeve.

That night around midnight, they decided on the Forsters. Later, they were to ask themselves, had they decided on the Forsters because their name sounded more ordinary, more “Anglo-Saxon”? Mightn't the Basinskys have been an easier pair, even if the man had Parkinson's, which required the occasional enema, Nurse Phyllis had warned?

A few days later, on a Sunday, Mamie and Albert Forster were installed in the McIntyre house. In the preceding week, a middle-aged woman from the Hilltop Home had come to inspect the house and the room the Forsters would have, and seemed genuinely pleased with the standard of comfort the McIntyres could offer. The Forsters took the room the McIntyres called their guest room, the prettier of the two extra rooms upstairs, with its two windows giving on the front lawn. It had a double bed, which the McIntyres thought the Forsters wouldn't object to, though they didn't consult the Forsters about it. Lois had cleared the guest room closet completely, and also the chest of drawers. She had brought an armchair from the other twin-bed spare room, which meant two comfortable armchairs for the Forsters. The bathroom was just across the hall, the main bathroom with a tub in it, though downstairs there was also a shower with basin and toilet. This move took place around 5
P.M
. Lois's and Herbert's neighbors the Mitchells, who lived about a mile away, had asked them for drinks, which usually meant dinner, but Herbert had declined on Saturday on the telephone, and had explained why. Then Pete Mitchell had said, “I understand—but how about our dropping in on you tomorrow around seven? For half an hour?”

“Sure.” Herbert had smiled, realizing that the Mitchells were simply curious about the elderly pair. Pete Mitchell was a history professor at a local college. The Mitchells and the McIntyres often got together to compare notes for their work.

And here they were, Pete and Ruth Mitchell, Pete standing in the living room with his scotch on the rocks, and Ruth with a Dubonnet and soda in an armchair, both smiling.

“Seriously,” Pete said, “how long is this going to last? Did you have to sign anything?” Pete spoke softly, as if the Forsters, way upstairs and in a remote corner, might hear them.

“Well—paper of agreement—responsibility, yes. I read it over, no mention of—time limit for either of us, perpetuity or anything like that.”

Ruth Mitchell laughed. “Perpetuity!”

“Where's Lois?” Pete asked.

“Oh, she's—” At that moment, Herbert saw her entering the living room, brushing her hair to one side with a hand, and it struck him that she looked tired. “Everything okay, darling?”

“Hel-lo, Ruth and Pete!” Lois said. “Yes, everything's all right. I was just helping them unpack, hanging things and putting stuff in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I'd forgotten to clear a shelf there.”

“Lots of pills, I suppose,” said Pete, his eyes still bright with curiosity. “But you said they were both ambulant at least.”

“Oh sure,” said Lois. “In fact I asked them to come down and join us. They might like—Oh, there's some white wine in the fridge, isn't there, Herb? Tonic too.”

“Can they get down the stairs all right?” asked Herbert, suddenly recalling their rather slow progress up the stairs. Herbert went off toward the stairway.

Lois followed him.

At that moment, Mamie Forster was descending the stairs one at a time, with a hand touching the wall, and her husband, also with his cane, was just behind her. As Herbert dashed up to lend an arm to Mamie, Albert caught his heel, lurched forward and bumped his wife who went tumbling toward Herbert. Albert regained his balance with his cane, Herbert seized Mamie's right arm, but this did not prevent her from swinging forward and striking Lois who had started up the stairs at a fast pace. It was Lois who fell backward, landing on the floor and bumping her head against the wall. Mamie cried out with pain.

“My arm!” she said.

But Herbert had her, she hadn't fallen, and he released her arm and looked to his wife. Lois was getting to her feet, rubbing her head, putting on a smile.

“I'm quite okay, Herb. Don't worry.”

“Good idea—” Albert Forster was saying as he shuffled toward the living room.

“What?” Herbert hovered near Mamie, who was walking all right, but rubbing her arm.

“Good idea to put a
handrail
on those stairs!” Albert had a habit of shouting, perhaps because he did not move his lips much when he spoke, and therefore what he said was not clear.

Lois introduced Mamie and Albert Forster to Pete and Ruth, who got up from her armchair to offer it to one or the other of them. There were pleasant murmurs from the Mitchells, who hoped the Forsters would enjoy their new surroundings. The Mitchells' eyes surveyed both the Forsters, Mamie's round gray head with its quite thin hair all fluffed up and curled evidently by a professional hairdresser to make it seem more abundant, the pale pink apron that she wore over her cotton dress, her tan house slippers with limp red pompoms. Albert wore plaid house slippers, creaseless brown corduroy trousers, an old coat sweater over a flannel shirt. His expression was slightly frowning and aggressively inquisitive, as if consciously or unconsciously he had decided to hang on to an attitude of a more vigorous prime.

They wanted the television on. There was a program at 7:30 that they always watched at the Hilltop.

“You don't like television?” asked Mamie of Lois, who had just turned the set on. Mamie was seated now, still rubbing her right elbow.

“Oh, of course!” said Lois. “Why not?” she added gaily.

“We were—we were just wondering—since it's there, why isn't it
on
?” said Albert out of his slightly parted but hardly moving lips. If he had chewed tobacco, one would have thought that he was trying to hold some juice inside his lower lip.

As Lois thought this, Albert drooled a little saliva and caught it on the back of his hand. His pale blue eyes, now wide, had fixed on the television screen. Herbert came in with a tray that held a glass of white wine for Albert, tomato juice for Mamie, and a bowl of cashew nuts.

“Could you turn up the
sound
, Mis'r McIntyre?” asked Albert.

“This all right?” asked Herbert, having turned it up.

Albert first laughed at something on the screen—it was a sitcom and someone had slipped and fallen on a kitchen floor—and glanced at his wife to see if she was also amused. Smiling emptily, rubbing her elbow as if she had forgotten to stop, eyes on the screen, Mamie did not look at Albert. “More—
louder
, please, if y'don't mind,” said Albert.

With a quick smile at Pete Mitchell, who was also smiling, Herbert put it up even louder, which precluded conversation. Herbert caught his wife's eye and jerked his head toward the sunroom. The four adjourned, bringing their drinks, grinning.

“Whew!” said Ruth.

Pete laughed loudly, as Herbert closed the door to the living room. “Another TV set next, Herb. For them up in their room.”

Lois knew Pete was right. The Forsters could take the living room set, Lois was thinking. Herbert had a TV set here in his workroom. She was about to say something to this effect, when she heard, barely, a call from Mamie. The TV drama was over and its theme music boomed. Through the glass door, she saw Mamie looking at her, calling again. When Lois went into the living room, Mamie said:

“We're used to eating at seven. Even earlier. What time do you people eat supper?”

Lois nodded—it was a bore to try to shout over the blaring TV—raised a forefinger to indicate that she would be right on the job, and went off to the kitchen. She was going to broil lamb chops for dinner, but the Forsters were in too much of a hurry for that.