'You were gone a long time, Bogus,' Couth said.
'But I'm back now, Couth,' Bogus said, which sounded pretty stupid. 'Couth? I'm sorry, but I am back, Couth ...'
Some bare feet were slap-slapping down the stairs and a voice said, 'Please keep the noise down or you'll wake up Colm.'
The feet came toward the kitchen. Crammed in the corner by the spice rack, Dante Calicchio was attempting the impossible by trying to make himself small and inconspicuous.
'Bogus, I'm sorry,' Couth said gently, and touched his arm.
Then Biggie walked in, gave Dante a look as if he were a storm trooper who had arrived by U-boat and turned a remarkably unflinching and unsurprised stare on Bogus.
'It's Bogus,' Couth whispered to her, as if she might not have recognized him with a beard. 'It's Bogus,' he repeated a little louder. 'Home from the war ...'
'I wouldn't say home,' Biggie said. 'I wouldn't say that at all.'
And I listened hard for the humor in your tone, Big; I was really straining to hear it. But I missed it, Big. It was absent. And the only thing I could think to say - because of the way both you and Couth seemed so nervous about the hulking wop in uniform crouched under the spices - the only thing I could do, Big, was introduce you both to my driver. There was nothing else I could begin with.
'Uh,' Trumper said, as if backing away from a punch. 'This is Dante. He's my driver.'
Neither Biggie nor Couth could look at Dante; they kept right on staring alternately at Bogus and at the floor. And Bogus could only notice Biggie's robe, a new one - in orange, her favorite color; in velour, her favorite material. Her hair had grown out some, and she wore earrings, which she'd never done before; she looked sort of tousled and blowzy, a look he remembered her carrying well. You just wanted to rumple yourself up with her when she looked like that.
Then Dante Calicchio, under the strain of being introduced, tried to shoulder himself out of the corner where he'd crammed himself and hit the spice rack with his shoulder, propelling it with him into the center of the kitchen where he made a hopeless grab at it; Biggie and Couth and Bogus all rushed toward him and made things worse. Little spice jars shattered all over the kitchen, and Dante's last lurch for the empty rack splintered it against the unyielding refrigerator.
'Oh, God, I'm sorry,' Dante said.
Biggie prodded a little spice jar with her foot and looked straight at Bogus. 'A lot of people are sorry,' she said.
Trumper heard Colm call out upstairs.
'Excuse me,' Biggie said, and walked out of the kitchen.
Trumper followed her up the stairs. 'Colm,' he said. 'That's Colm, isn't it?' He was right behind her when she stopped, turned and gave him a look he'd never had from her before - as if she were a strange woman he'd just goosed in some vile, surprising way.
'I'll be back in a minute,' she said coolly, and he let her go on upstairs alone. He lingered on his way back to the kitchen, hearing her soft voice reassuring Colm about the crash of the spice rack; from the kitchen, he could hear Couth's equally reassuring tone to Dante Calicchio. Not all the spice jars had been broken, Couth was saying, and he could build a new rack in no time.
Dante Calicchio made some remark in Italian; to Trumper, it sounded like a prayer.
Then there was the business with the pool table. Couth got to feeling badly for Dante, who felt so miserably awkward hanging around in the house, afraid of the fierce outdoors, wondering if he should call his wife, and whether he should tell the limousine service about the delay or just drive back to New York quick.
'Sir?' he asked Trumper, who was waiting for Biggie to come downstairs. 'Should I go?'
But Trumper didn't know what was what. 'I don't know, Dante,' he said. 'Should you?'
Then Biggie came back down and gave a kind of brave smile to Couth and a hard nod to Trumper, who followed her outside and out on to the night-black dock.
Then Couth asked Dante if he shot pool. This brought Dante out of trauma for a while; he shot a lot of pool, in fact. He took eight straight games from Couth and then, after secretly devising a handicap system, won three of the next four. But they weren't playing for money. The way everyone in that house acted, Dante couldn't even think about money. Actually, though, whenever he bent over to address the cue ball, he felt the hundred-dollar bill in his underwear.
'That Mr Pillsbury,' he said to Couth, still thinking that Bogus was named Pillsbury. 'What's he do for all his money?'
'He opens his mail once a month,' Couth said, thinking that Dante meant the Mr Pillsbury. Dante whistled, swore softly and sank the fiveball in the sidepocket, the cue ball gliding back to where he wanted it. Couth, who was wondering how Bogus could afford a chauffeur, said, 'That Mr Trumper, Dante - what's he do for all his money?'
'Twelveball down in the right corner,' Dante said. He never heard anything when he was planning a shot.
Couth was confused; he thought that perhaps Dante was being evasive. Looking out the picture window, he saw Biggie on the end of the dock, facing the ocean; by her moving hands he knew that she was talking. Ten feet away, leaning against the dock's mooring post, Bogus sat as still and silent as a barnacle - growing there, taking root.
Dante sent the cue ball whistling down the length of the table and socked the twelveball into the corner pocket, but Couth never turned from the window. Dante watched the cue ball nudge the ten away from the eight, then roll up cosily behind the fourteen, leaving him a perfect shot for the opposite corner. He was about to call it when Couth said something to the window.
'Tell him no,' Couth said. It was almost a whisper.
Dante watched Couth standing there. Jesus, he thought, he opens his fucking mail once a month and they're all crazy here, the two of them nutty for that big broad. I'm not shutting my eyes tonight, baby, and I'm not letting the fuck go of this pool cue, either ... But all Dante said was, 'It's your shot.'
'What?'
'It's your shot,' Dante said. 'I missed.'
Lying was the handicap system which Dante Calicchio had devised for himself.
I threw a snail off the dock. It went ploink! in the water, and I thought of how long it would take that snail to get back to dry land.
And you went on and on, Biggie.
Among all the other things, you said, 'Of course I can't stop caring for you. I care about you, Bogus. But Couth really cares about me.'
I threw three snails rapid-fire: Ploink! Ploink! Ploink!
You went on, Big. You said, 'You were gone such a long time! But after a while it wasn't the time you were gone that got to me, Bogus; it was the time when you were with me, as I remembered it, that I didn't like ...'
I found a cluster of barnacles with the heel of my hand and ground my palm down on them, grating it against them as if it were a cheese.
I said, 'I'll give you time, Big. All the time you want. If you want to stay here a while ...'
'I'm here for good,' you said, Big.
I ploinked! another snail. Then a fish slapped, a tern cried, an owl spoke, and, carried on that resonant air, across the bay a dog barked.
'You say,' I said, 'that Couth cares for you, and for Colm too. But what do you feel for Couth, Big?'
'It's hard to say,' you said, and you turned away and faced the bay. I thought you meant it was hard because you didn't have much feeling for him, but then you said, 'I care for him a lot.'
'Sex?' I said
'A lot,' you said. 'It's OK there, too.'
Ploink! Ploink!
'Don't make me tell you how much I love him, Bogus,' you said. 'I don't feel like hurting you. It's been a long time, and I don't feel so angry now.'
'Merrill's dead, Big,' I said - I don't know why. And you came over and hugged me from behind, squeezing me so hard that I couldn't turn around and squeeze you back. In fact, when I wriggled free enough to reach you, you pushed me off.
'I wanted to hold you for Merrill, Bogus,' you said. 'Don't you try to hold me, please.'
So I let you h
old me your way. If you wanted to think you were hugging Merrill, I wasn't going to stop you. I said, 'What about Colm, Big?'
'Couth loves him,' you said. 'And he loves Couth.'
'Everybody loves Couth,' I said, and ploink! ploink! ploink!
'Couth is very fond of you, Bogus,' you said. 'And you can see Colm whenever you want to. Of course you're welcome to come here ...'
'Thank you, Big.'
Then you ploinked a snail of your own off the dock. 'Bogus?' you asked. 'What are you going to do?'
And I thought, Ploink! Then I spoke a handful: Ploink! Ploink! Ploink! Ploink-ploink-ploink! I watched you turn away from me and looked up at the two figures silhouetted at the picture window in the pool room; they stood side by side, pool cues on their shoulders like rifles during a parade. But they weren't marching; they were looking down at the dock, and neither of them moved until you started up the path to the house. Then the taller, thinner figure left the window, dissolving into the house to meet you; the shorter figure flexed his cue stick like a fencing foil, and then he too turned away.
Ploink! was what I thought as I heard the screen door slam.
From deep inland, beyond the salt-marsh where Couth and I once swamped a boat in the salt-stunted pines, a loon said what was on his mind.
*
Dante took three straight games from Biggie before he began to miss shots on purpose just so he could see her arch her body over the table with all her bends and boulder-shapes hard under her soft, slinky robe. She held her lower lip in her teeth when she stroked the ball.
Down on the dock, her two lovers, he guessed, sat close together, their legs hanging off the end, striking a bargain with a handful of snails.
Jesus, Dante thought. Who's who here, is what I'd like to know.
You have always been kind, Couth, and that suits the way you look. As fair as I am dark, you're white with freckles, whereas I am linseed oil rubbed into coarsegrained wood. Your height conceals the fact that your hips are broader than your shoulders, but you don't look broad; those long, skinny legs and your pianist's fingers and your noble, unbroken nose make you look slender. You're the only strawberry blond I've ever liked. I know that you grew your beard to hide your freckles, but I never told anyone.
We're as different in the body as a seal and a giraffe. You must be a whole head taller than me, Couth, and I can't help remembering what Biggie used to think of people bigger than herself. Come to think of it, though, she must outweigh you.
I mean, your chest could fit in her cleavage, Couth.
Biggie used to like the idea that she couldn't get her arms all the way around my chest and keep her hands locked if I chose to fill my lungs. Well, she could collapse your lungs. And when she wraps her legs around your waist, beware of your back! In fact, it's a wonder she hasn't killed you. Yet clearly you've survived.
But all I said was, 'You look well, Couth.'
'Thank you, Bogus.'
I said, 'Well, you know, she wants to stay with you.'
'I know.'
I threw a snail as far as I could, and you threw one too. Yours went nowhere near as far as mine, though - not with that funny, twitchy way you have of throwing. You've got a lousy arm, Couth, and for all the time you've spent on boats, you row like a bird with a broken wing. And fancy you teaching Colm how to swim.
But all I said was, 'You'll have to watch Colm around the water this summer. He's approaching a dangerous age.'
'Don't worry about Colm, Bogus,' you said. 'He'll be fine, and I hope you'll come and see him, whenever you want to. And us, too - come see us, you know.'
'I know. Biggie told me.'
Ploink!
But you threw your snail so badly that it didn't even reach the water; it went fip! in the mudflats.
'I'd appreciate lots of photographs, Couth,' I said. 'When you make some of ... of Colm, you know, just make a print for me.'
'I have some I can give you now,' you said.
Ploink!
'Shit, I'm sorry, Bogus,' you said. 'Who could have known it would work out this way?'
'Me. I could have known, Couth ...'
'She'd already left you when she came here, Bogus. She'd already made up her mind, you know ...'
Ploink!
Fip!
'What about the Pillsburys?' I asked. 'What are they going to think of you living here with this woman and a child?'
'That's why we got married,' you said, and I thought that I must have become a snail - that I must have thrown myself in and swallowed too much water to be hearing you right, Couth.
'You mean you want to get married, Couth?' I said.
'No, I mean we did ... sort of.'
I brooded over this for about four ploinks. How was it possible? It didn't seem that it could be, so I asked, 'How could that be, Couth? I thought I was married to her.'
'Well, you were, of course, and this ... thing, hasn't legally gone through yet,' you said, 'but since you ... deserted her, it was possible to get a kind of thing proceeding. I don't understand it myself, but one of the Pillsburys' lawyers has some things already drawn up ...'
I thought, Well, you haven't just been sitting on your hands, have you, Couth?
'We had no way of knowing when or if you'd be back, Bogus,' you said. Then you went on and on about how it was almost legally necessary to go through with this, because of the tax structure and the way dependents were regarded by law. Thank you, I thought, when you got to the part about there being no alimony this way.
'How much do I owe you?' I said.
'I don't care about that, Bogus,' you said, but I already had the envelope out and was pressing nine hundred dollars out into your fine, thin hand.
'Jesus, Bogus. Where did you get this?'
'I've struck it rich, Couth,' I told you, and tried to put the envelope back in my pocket as if it were a casual gesture - as if there were other envelopes stashed all over my body and I wasn't exactly sure which pocket this one belonged in. Then, because I thought you were going to refuse it, I started to babble, beginning no place special.
'If I can't live with them, Couth, then I'm very glad it's you. You'll take better care of them than I have, I'm sure, and I won't ever worry about them with you. It's also a wonderful part of the country to grow up in, and you can teach Colm photography.'
'Biggie is going to help this summer,' you said. 'You know, when the Pillsburys are here - shopping and doing some cooking and taking care of the house. It will give me more time to take pictures and work in the darkroom ...' you trailed off. 'I've got a part-time job at Bowdoin in the fall. It's only forty-five minutes away. You know, just one section of students - a sort of workshop in photography. They gave me a show this spring and the students even bought a few prints.'
The weight of this small talk was crushing us.
'That's great, Couth.'
'Bogus, what in hell are you going to do now?' you asked me after a long silence.
'Oh, I have to get back to New York,' I lied. 'But I'll be up again ... when I get settled, you know.'
'It's almost morning,' you said. We watched an early orange sun rise out of the sea, its faint glow striking the shore. 'Colm gets up early. He can show you his animals. I built a kind of zoo in the boathouse of things I caught for him.'
But I didn't want to be around to see what he looked like and if he even liked me any more. Let the grave mound grow a little grass, I always say; then it's safe to look.
But all I said was, 'I've got to talk to my driver now, Couth.'
When I tried to get up, you caught me by the belt and said, 'Your driver doesn't even know who you are, Bogus. What's going on with you?'
'I'm OK, Couth. I'll be all right.'
You stood up with me, you frail angel bastard, and you took hold of my beard and shook my head gently, saying, 'Oh shit, oh shit, if we could only both live with her, Bogus, I wouldn't mind - you know that, don't you? I even asked her that once, Bogus?'
'You did?' I said. I was
holding your beard tight; I half felt like kissing you, but also like snatching you bald. 'What did she say to that?'
You said, 'She said no, of course. But I wouldn't have minded it, Bogus - I think.'
'I wouldn't have minded it, either, Couth,' I said. Which was probably not true.
Like a buoy out on the water, all of the sun was showing itself now, bobbing on the surface of the sea, and suddenly there was too much light to see you by, Couth, so I said, 'Get me those photographs, will you? I have to go now ...'
We went up to the house together, taking the flagstone steps up the boathouse path two at a time. I felt you slip the money I'd given you into my back pocket. And I remembered your bare ass one moonlight on these flagstones, where you lay singing on your belly, Couth, too drunk to stand. That girl with you - one of the two we picked up at the trailer park in West Bath - was putting on her bathing suit, fed up with trying to get you up to the house and the master bedroom. I was cosy with my half of those girls up in the boathouse loft.
I watched you strike out on the lawn, Couth, and I remember thinking to myself as I lay there smugly, not too drunk to screw, Poor Couth is never going to get a girl.
Well, Couth, I've been wrong before.
When they came into the kitchen, Biggie had just made a sandwich for Dante Calicchio. It was a large sandwich which Dante was gnawing off a serving platter shaped like a trough, and Biggie had poured him a beer which he was drinking out of a stein the size of a flower vase.
Dante was wondering who was going to go off with whom next. If this is the part where I take the big blond broad down to the dock, I won't mind, he thought.
'Will you have something to eat, Bogus?' Biggie asked.
But Couth said, 'He wants to go before Colm gets up.'
Who? thought Dante Calicchio. Who in hell could be sleeping through a night like this?
'Well,' Bogus said, 'I'd like to see him, actually, but I don't want him to see me ... if that's not too much to ask.'
'He feeds his animals in the boathouse, the first thing when he gets up,' Couth said.
'And he eats his breakfast on the dock,' Biggie said.