The Winter of Our Discontent Read online

  "You seem to have got over your mullygrubs."

  "I had 'em bad yesterday. Don't know where they come from."

  "Don't I know! Sometimes with me not for the usual reason."

  "You did quite a job with that fortune."

  "Sore about it?"

  "No. I'd just like to know how you did it."

  "You don't believe in that stuff."

  "It's not belief. You hit some things right on the nose. Things I'd been thinking and things I've been doing."

  "Like what?"

  "Like it's time for a change."

  "You think I rigged the cards, don't you?"

  "Doesn't matter. If you did--what made you? Have you thought of that?"

  She looked me full in the eyes, suspicious, probing, questioning. "Yeah!" she said softly. "I mean no, I never thought of that. If I rigged them, what made me? That would be like un-rigging the rig."

  Mr. Baker looked in the door. "Morning, Margie," he said. "Ethan, have you given any thought to my suggestion?"

  "I sure have. And I'd like to talk to you."

  "Any time at all, Ethan."

  "Well, I can't get out during the week. You know, Marullo's hardly ever here. Going to be home tomorrow?"

  "After church, sure. That's an idea. You bring Mary about four. While the ladies jaw about Easter hats, we'll slip off and--"

  "I've got a hundred things I want to ask. Guess I better write them down."

  "Anything I know, you're welcome to. See you then. Morning, Margie."

  When he went out, Margie said, "You're beginning fast."

  "Maybe just limbering up. Say--know what would be interesting? How about if you turned the cards blindfolded or something and see how close they come to yesterday."

  "No!" she said. "That wouldn't work. You kidding me, or do you really go for it?"

  "Way I look at it, it doesn't matter about believing. I don't believe in extrasensory perception, or lightning or the hydrogen bomb, or even violets or schools of fish--but I know they exist. I don't believe in ghosts but I've seen them."

  "Now you're kidding."

  "I'm not."

  "You don't seem like the same man."

  "I'm not. Maybe nobody is, for long."

  "What caused it, Eth?"

  "I don't know. Maybe I'm sick of being a grocery clerk."

  "It's about time."

  "Do you really like Mary?"

  "Sure I do. Why would you ask that?"

  "You just don't seem to be the same kind of--well, you're so different from her."

  "I see what you mean. But I do like her. I love her."

  "So do I."

  "Lucky."

  "I know I am."

  "I meant her. Well, I'll go make my lousy coffee. I'll think about that card deal."

  "Sooner the better, before it cools."

  She tapped out, her neat buttocks jumping like live rubber. I had never seen her before. I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen. It's scary to think about. Point of reference again. When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you've got two new people. Maybe that means-- hell, it's complicated. I agreed with myself to think about such things at night when I couldn't sleep. Forgetting to open on time scared me. That's like dropping your handkerchief at the scene of the murder, or your glasses like those what-you-callems in Chicago. What does that mean? What crime? What murder?

  At noon I made four sandwiches, cheese and ham, with lettuce and mayonnaise. Ham and cheese, ham and cheese--when a man marries, he lives in the trees. I took two of the sandwiches and a bottle of Coke to the back door of the bank and handed them in to Joey-boy. "Find the mistake?"

  "Not yet. You know, I'm so close to it, I'm blind."

  "Why not lay off till Monday?"

  "Can't. Banks are a screwy lot."

  "Sometimes if you don't think about something, it comes to you."

  "I know. Thanks for the sandwiches." He looked inside to make sure there was lettuce and mayonnaise.

  Saturday afternoon before Easter in the grocery business is what my august and illiterate son would call "for the birds." But two things did happen that proved to me at least that some deep-down underwater change was going on in me. I mean that yesterday, or any yesterday before that, I wouldn't have done what I did. It's like looking at wallpaper samples. I guess I had unrolled a new pattern.

  The first thing was Marullo coming in. His arthritis was hurting him pretty bad. He kept flexing his arms like a weight-lifter.

  "How it goes?"

  "Slow, Alfio." I had never called him by his first name before.

  "Nobody in town--"

  "I like it better when you call me 'kid.' "

  "I thought you don't like it."

  "I find I do, Alfio."

  "Everybody gone away." His shoulders must have been burning as though there were hot sand in the joints.

  "How long ago did you come from Sicily?"

  "Forty-seven years. Long time."

  "Ever been back?"

  "No."

  "Why don't you go on a visit?"

  "What for? Everything changed."

  "Don't you get curious about it?"

  "Not much."

  "Any relatives alive?"

  "Sure, my brother and his kids and they got kids."

  "I'd think you'd want to see them."

  He looked at me, I guess, as I'd looked at Margie, saw me for the first time.

  "What you got on your mind, kid?"

  "Hurts me to see your arthritis. I thought how it's warm in Sicily. Might knock the pain out."

  He looked at me suspiciously. "What's with you?"

  "How do you mean?"

  "You look different."

  "Oh! I got a little bit of good news."

  "Not going to quit?"

  "Not right away. If you wanted to make a trip to Italy, I could promise I'd be here."

  "What's good news?"

  "Can't tell you yet. It's like this. . . ." I balanced my palm back and forth.

  "Money?"

  "Could be. Look, you're rich enough. Why don't you go back to Sicily and show 'em what a rich American looks like? Soak up some sun. I can take care of the store. You know that."

  "You ain't quitting?"

  "Hell, no. You know me well enough to know I wouldn't run out on you."

  "You changed, kid. Why?"

  "I told you. Go bounce the bambinos."

  "I don't belong there," he said, but I knew I'd planted something--really something. And I knew he'd come in late that night and go over the books. He's a suspicious bastard.

  He'd hardly left when--well, it was like yesterday--the B. B. D. and D. drummer came in.

  "Not on business," he said. "I'm staying the weekend out at Montauk. Thought I'd drop in."

  "I'm glad you did," I said. "I want to give you this." I held out the billfold with the twenty sticking out.

  "Hell, that's good will. I told you I'm not on business."

  "Take it!"

  "What you getting at?"

  "It constitutes a contract where I come from."

  "What's the matter, you sore?"

  "Certainly not."

  "Then why?"

  "Take it! The bids aren't all in."

  "Jesus--did Waylands make a better offer?"

  "No."

  "Who, then--them damn discount houses?"

  I pushed the twenty-dollar bill into his breast pocket behind his peaked handkerchief. "I'll keep the billfold," I said. "It's nice."

  "Look I can't make an offer without I talk to the head office. Don't close till maybe Tuesday. I'll telephone you. If I say it's Hugh, you'll know who it is."

  "It's your money in the pay phone."

  "Well, hold it open, will you?"

  "It's open," I said. "Doing any fishing?"

  "Only for dames. I tried to take that dish Margie out there. She wouldn't go. Damn near snapped my head off. I don't get dames."

  "They're curiou
ser and curiouser."

  "You can say that again," he said, and I haven't heard that expression in fifteen years. He looked worried. "Don't do anything till you hear from me," he said. "Jesus, I thought I was conning a country boy."

  "I will not sell my master short."

  "Nuts. You just raised the ante."

  "I just refused a bribe if you feel the urge to talk about it."

  I guess that proves I was different. The guy began to look at me with respect and I liked it. I loved it. The bugger thought I was like him, only better at it.

  Just before I was ready to close up Mary telephoned. "Ethan," she said, "now don't get mad--"

  "At what, flower feet?"

  "Well, she's so lonely and I thought--well, I asked Margie to dinner."

  "Why not?"

  "You're not mad?"

  "Hell, no."

  "Don't swear. Tomorrow's Easter."

  "That reminds me, press your prettiest. We're going to Baker's at four o'clock."

  "At their house?"

  "Yes, for tea."

  "I'll have to wear my Easter church outfit."

  "Good stuff, fern tip."

  "You're not mad about Margie?"

  "I love you," I said. And I do. I really do. And I remember thinking what a hell of a man a man could become.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  When I walked up Elm Street and turned in at the walk of buried ballast stones, I stopped and looked at the old place. It felt different. It felt mine. Not Mary's, not Father's, not old Cap'n's, but mine. I could sell it or burn it or keep it.

  I'd taken only two of the back steps when the screen door whapped open and Allen boiled out yelling, "Where's the Peeks? Didn't you bring me the Peeks?"

  "No," I said. And, wonder layered with wonders, he didn't scream his pain and loss. He didn't appeal to his mother to agree that I had promised.

  He said, "Oh!" and went quietly away.

  "Good evening," I said to his retreating back and he stopped and said, "Good evening," as though it were a foreign word he'd just learned.

  Mary came into the kitchen. "You've had a haircut," she said. She identifies any strangeness in me as a fever or a haircut.

  "No, pin curl, I have not."

  "Well, I've been going like spit to get the house ready."

  "Ready?"

  "I told you, Margie's coming for dinner."

  "I know, but why all the festive hurly-burly?"

  "We haven't had a dinner guest in ages."

  "That's true. That's really true."

  "Are you going to put on your dark suit?"

  "No, Old Dobbin, my decent gray."

  "Why not the dark?"

  "Don't want to spoil the press for church tomorrow."

  "I can press it tomorrow morning."

  "I'll wear Old Dobbin, as sweet a suit as you'll find in the county."

  "Children," she called, "don't you touch anything! I've put out the nut dishes. You don't want to wear the dark?"

  "No."

  "Margie will be dressed to the nines."

  "Margie likes Old Dobbin."

  "How do you know?"

  "She told me."

  "She did not."

  "Wrote a letter to the paper about it."

  "Be serious. You are going to be nice to her?"

  "I'm going to make love to her."

  "I'd think you'd like to wear the dark--with her coming."

  "Look, flower girl, when I came in, I didn't give a damn what I wore or nothing. In two short moments you have made it impossible for me to wear anything but Old Dobbin."

  "Just to be mean?"

  "Sure."

  "Oh!" she said in the same tone Allen had used.

  "What's for dinner? I want to wear a tie to match the meat."

  "Roast chicken. Can't you smell it?"

  "Guess I can. Mary--I--" But I didn't go on. Why do it? You can't buck a national instinct. She'd been to the Chicken Bargain Day at the Safe Rite Store. Cheaper than Marullo's. Of course I got them wholesale and I have explained to Mary the come-on bargains at the chain stores. The bargain draws you in and you pick up a dozen other things that aren't bargains just because they're under your hand. Everyone knows it and everyone does it.

  My lecture to Mary Manyflowers died afoaling. The New Ethan Allen Hawley goes along with the national follies and uses them when he can.

  Mary said, "I hope you don't think I was disloyal."

  "My darling, what can be virtuous or sinful about a chicken?"

  "It was awful cheap."

  "I think you did the wise--the wifely thing."

  "You're making fun."

  Allen was in my bedroom waiting for me. "Can I look at your Knight Templar sword?"

  "Sure. It's in the corner of the closet."

  He knew perfectly well where it was. While I skinned off my clothes, he got it out of the leather case and unsheathed it and held the shiny plated blade up in the light and looked at his noble posture in the mirror.

  "How's the essay going?"

  "Huh?"

  "Don't you mean, 'I beg your pardon, sir'?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "I said, how's the essay?"

  "Oh! Fine."

  "You going to do it?"

  "Sure."

  "Sure?"

  "Sure, sir."

  "You can look at the hat, too. In that big leather case on the shelf. Feather's kind of yellowy."

  I got in the big old wide-bottomed tub with the lion's feet. They made them big enough to luxuriate in in those days. I scrubbed Marullo and the whole day off my skin with a brush and I shaved in the tub without looking, feeling for the whiskers with my fingertips. Everyone would agree that's pretty Roman and decadent. While I combed my hair, I looked in the mirror. I hadn't seen my face in a long time. It's quite possible to shave every day and never really to see your face, particularly if you don't care much for it. Beauty is only skin deep, and also beauty must come from inside. It better be the second if I was to get anywhere. It isn't that I have an ugly face. To me, it just isn't interesting. I made a few expressions and gave it up. They weren't noble or menacing or proud or funny. It was just the same damn face making faces.

  When I came back to the bedroom, Allen had the plumed Knight Templar hat on, and if it makes me look that silly I must resign. The leather hatbox was open on the floor. It has a supportmade of velvet-covered cardboard like an upside-down porridge bowl.

  "I wonder if they can bleach that ostrich plume or do I have to get a new one?"

  "If you get a new one, can I have this?"

  "Why not? Where's Ellen? I haven't heard her young screechy voice."

  "She's writing on her I Love America essay."

  "And you?"

  "I'm thinking about it. Will you bring some Peeks home?"

  "I'll probably forget it. Why don't you drop in at the store and pick it up someday?"

  "Okay. Mind if I ask something--sir?"

  "I'd be flattered."

  "Did we use to own all High Street for two blocks?"

  "We did."

  "And did we have whaling ships?"

  "Yep."

  "Well, why don't we now?"

  "We lost them."

  "How come?"

  "Just up and lost them."

  "That's a joke."

  "It's a pretty darned serious joke, if you dissect it."

  "We're dissecting a frog at school."

  "Good for you. Not so good for the frog. Which of these beauty-ties shall I wear?"

  "The blue one," he said without interest. "Say, when you get dressed can you--have you got time to come up in the attic?"

  "I'll make time if it's important."

  "Will you come?"

  "I will."

  "All right. I'll go up now and turn on the light."

  "Be with you in a couple of tie-tying moments."

  His footsteps sounded hollowly on the uncarpeted attic stairs.

  If I think about it while I tie a bow, the tie h
as a rotating tendency, but if I let my fingers take their own way, they do it perfectly. I commissioned my fingers and thought about the attic of the old Hawley house, my house, my attic. It is not a dark and spidery prison for the broken and the abandoned. It has windows with small panes so old that the light comes through lavender and the outside is wavery--like a world seen through water. The books stored there are not waiting to be thrown out or given to the Seamen's Institute. They sit comfortably on their shelves waiting to be rediscovered. And the chairs, some unfashionable for a time, some rump-sprung, are large and soft. It is not a dusty place either. Housecleaning is attic-cleaning also, and since it is mostly closed away, dust does not enter. I remember as a child scrambling among the brilliants of books or, battered with agonies, or in the spectral half-life that requires loneliness, retiring to the attic, to lie curled in a great body-molded chair in the violet-lavender light from the window. There I could study the big adze-squared beams that support the roof--see how they are mortised one into another and pinned in place with oaken dowels. When it rains from rustling drip to roar on the roof, it is a fine secure place. Then the books, tinted with light, the picture books of children grown, seeded, and gone; Chatterboxes and the Rollo series; a thousand acts of God--Fire, Flood, Tidal Waves, Earthquakes--all fully illustrated; the Gustave Dore Hell, with Dante's squared cantos like bricks between; and the heartbreaking stories of Hans Christian Andersen, the blood-chilling violence and cruelty of the Grimm Brothers, the Morte d'Arthur of majesty with drawings by Aubrey Beardsley, a sickly, warped creature, a strange choice to illustrate great, manly Malory.

  I remember thinking how wise a man was H. C. Andersen. The king told his secrets down a well, and his secrets were safe. A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers. Everyone takes what he wants or can from it and thus changes it to his measure. Some pick out parts and reject the rest, some strain the story through their mesh of prejudice, some paint it with their own delight. A story must have some points of contact with the reader to make him feel at home in it. Only then can he accept wonders. The tale I may tell to Allen must be differentlybuilt from the same tale told to my Mary, and that in turn shaped to fit Marullo if Marullo is to join it. But perhaps the Well of Hosay Andersen is best. It only receives, and the echo it gives back is quiet and soon over.

  I guess we're all, or most of us, the wards of that nineteenth-century science which denied existence to anything it could not measure or explain. The things we couldn't explain went right on but surely not with our blessing. We did not see what we couldn't explain, and meanwhile a great part of the world was abandoned to children, insane people, fools, and mystics, who were more interested in what is than in why it is. So many old and lovely things are stored in the world's attic, because we don't want them around us and we don't dare throw them out.