The Winter of Our Discontent

  "I like you."

  "Now that's the kind of worrying I approve of. See that stretch? Look how the gorse and heather hold and the sand cuts out from under like solid little waves. The rain hits the earth and jumps right up in a thin mist. I've always thought it is like Dartmoor or Exmoor, and I've never seen them except through the eyes of print. You know the first Devon men must have felt at home here. Do you think it's haunted?"

  "If it isn't, you'll haunt it."

  "You must not make compliments unless you mean them."

  "It's not for now. Watch for the side road. It will say 'Moorcroft. ' "

  It did, too, and the nice thing about that lean spindle end of Long Island is that the rain sinks in and there is no mud.

  We had a doll's house to ourselves, fresh and ginghamy, and nationally advertised twin beds, fat as muffins.

  "I don't approve of those."

  "Silly--you can reach across."

  "I can do one whole hell of a lot better than that, you harlot."

  We dined in greasy dignity on broiled Maine lobsters sloshed down with white wine--lots of white wine to make my Mary's eyes to shine, and I plied her with cognac seductively until my own head was buzzing. She remembered the number of our doll house and she could find the keyhole. I wasn't too buzzed to have my way with her, but I think she could have escaped if she had wanted to.

  Then, aching with comfort, she drowsed her head on my right arm and smiled and made small yawny sounds.

  "Are you worried about something?"

  "What a thought. You're dreaming before you're asleep."

  "You're working so hard to make me happy. I can't get past into you. Are you worried?"

  A strange and seeing time, the front steps of sleep.

  "Yes, I'm worried. Does that reassure you? I wouldn't want you to repeat it, but the sky is falling and a piece of it fell on my tail."

  She had drifted sweetly off with her Panic smile. I slipped my arm free and stood between the beds. The rain was over except for roof drip, and the quarter-moon glistened its image in a billion droplets. "Beaux reves, my dearling dear. Don't let the sky fall on us!"

  My bed was cool and oversoft but I could see the sharp moon driving through the sea-fleeing clouds. And I heard the ghost-cry of a bittern. I crossed the fingers of both hands--King's X for a little while. Double King's X. It was only a pea that fell on my tail.

  If the dawn came up with any thunder, I didn't hear it. All golden green it was when I came to it, dark of heather and pale with fern and yellowy red with wet dune sand, and not far away the Atlantic glittering like hammered silver. A twisted gaffer oak beside our house had put out near its root a lichen big as a pillow, a ridge-waved thing of gray pearly white. A curving graveled path led among the small township of doll houses to the shingled bungalow that had spawned them all. Here were office, postcards, gifts, stamps, and also dining room with blue-checkered tablecloths where we dolls could dine.

  The manager was in his counting house, checking some kind of list. I had noticed him when we registered, a man of wisped hair and little need to shave. He was a furtive and a furthy man at once, and he had so hoped from our gaiety our outing was clandestine that I nearly signed his book "John Smith and wife" to give him pleasure. He sniffed for sin. Indeed he seemed to see with his long tender nose as a mole does.

  "Good morning," I said.

  He leveled his nose at me. "Slept well?"

  "Perfectly. I wonder if I can carry a tray of breakfast to my wife."

  "We only serve in the dining room, seven-thirty to nine-thirty."

  "But if I carry it myself--"

  "It's against the rules."

  "Couldn't we break them this once? You know how it is." I threw that in because that's how he hoped it was.

  His pleasure was reward enough. His eyes grew moist and his nose trembled. "Feeling a little shy, is she?"

  "Well, you know how it is."

  "I don't know what the cook will say."

  "Ask him and tell him a dollar stands tiptoe on the misty mountaintop."

  The cook was a Greek who found a dollar attractive. In time I toted a giant napkin-covered tray along the graveled path and set it on a rustic bench while I picked a bouquet of microscopic field flowers to grace the royal breakfast of my dear.

  Perhaps she was awake, but she opened her eyes anyway and said, "I smell coffee. Oh! Oh! What a nice husband--and--and flowers"--all the little sounds that never lose their fragrance.

  We breakfasted and coffeed and coffeed again, my Mary propped up in bed, looking younger and more innocent than her daughter. And each of us spoke respectfully of how well we had slept.

  My time had come. "Get comfortable. I have news both sad and glad."

  "Good! Did you buy the ocean?"

  "Marullo is in trouble."

  "What?"

  "A long time ago he came to America without asking leave."

  "Well--what?"

  "Now they are asking him to leave."

  "Deported?"

  "Yes."

  "But that's awful."

  "It's not nice."

  "What will we do? What will you do?"

  "Playtime is over. He sold me the store--or rather he sold you the store. It's your money. He has to convert his property and he likes me; he practically gave it to me--three thousand dollars."

  "But that's awful. You mean--you mean you own the store?"

  "Yes."

  "You're not a clerk! Not a clerk!"

  She rolled face down in the pillows and wept, big, full-bosomed sobs, the way a slave might when the collar is struck off.

  I went out on the doll's front stoop and sat in the sun until she was ready, and when she had finished and washed her face and combed her hair and put on her dressing gown, she opened the door and called to me. And she was different, would always be different. She didn't have to say it. The set of her neck said it. She could hold up her head. We were gentlefolks again.

  "Can't we do anything to help Mr. Marullo?"

  "I'm afraid not."

  "How did it happen? Who found out?"

  "I don't know."

  "He's a good man. They shouldn't do it to him. How is he taking it?"

  "With dignity. With honor."

  We walked on the beach as we had thought we might, sat in the sand, picked up small bright shells and showed them to each other, as we must do, spoke with conventional wonder about natural things, the sea, the air, the light, the wind-cooled sun, as though the Creator were listening in for compliments.

  Mary's attention was split. I think she wanted to be back home in her new status, to see the different look in the eyes of women, the changed tone of greetings in the High Street. I think she was no more "poor Mary Hawley, she works so hard." She had become Mrs. Ethan Allen Hawley and would ever be. And I had to keep her that. She went through the day because it was planned and paid for, but the real shells she turned over and inspected were the shining days to come.

  We had our lunch in the blue-checked dining room, where Mary's manner, her certainty of position and place, disappointed Mr. Mole. His tender nose was out of joint that had so joyously quivered at the scent of sin. His disillusion was complete when he had to come to our table and report a telephone call for Mrs. Hawley.

  "Who knows we're here?"

  "Why, Margie, of course. I had to tell her because of the children. Oh! I do hope-- He doesn't look where he's going, you know."

  She came back trembling like a star. "You'll never guess. You couldn't."

  "I can guess it's good."

  "She said, 'Have you heard the news? Have you heard the radio? ' I could tell by her voice it wasn't bad news."

  "Could you tell it and then flash back to how she said it?"

  "I can't believe it."

  "Could you let me try to believe it?"

  "Allen has won honorable mention."

  "What? Allen? Tell me!"

  "In the essay contest--in the whole country--honorable mention.
"

  "No!"

  "He has. Only five honorable mentions--and a watch, and he's going on television. Can you believe it? A celebrity in the family."

  "I can't believe it. You mean all that slob stuff was a sham? What an actor! His lonely lovin' heart wasn't throwed on the floor at all."

  "Don't make fun. Just think, our son is one of five boys in the whole United States to get honorable mention--and television."

  "And a watch! Wonder if he can tell time."

  "Ethan, if you make fun, people will think you're jealous of your own son."

  "I'm just astonished. I thought his prose style was about the level of General Eisenhower's. Allen doesn't have a ghost-writer."

  "I know you, Eth. You make a game of running them down. But it's you who spoil them. It's just your secret way. I want to know--did you help him with his essay?"

  "Help him! He didn't even let me see it."

  "Well--that's all right then. I didn't want you looking smug because you wrote it for him."

  "I can't get over it. It goes to show we don't know much about our own children. How's Ellen taking it?"

  "Why, proud as a peacock. Margie was so excited she could hardly talk. The newspapers want to interview him--and television, he's going to be on television. Do you realize we don't even have a set to see him on? Margie says we can watch on hers. A celebrity in the family! Ethan, we ought to have a television."

  "We'll get one. I'll get one first thing tomorrow morning, or why don't you order one?"

  "Can we--Ethan, I forgot you own the store, I clean forgot. Can you take it in? A celebrity."

  "I hope we can live with him."

  "You let him have his day. We should start home. They're coming in on the seven-eighteen. We should be there, you know, to kind of receive him."

  "And bake a cake."

  "I will."

  "And string crepe paper."

  "You aren't being jealous mean, are you?"

  "No. I'm overcome. I think crepe paper is a fine thing, all over the house."

  "But not outside. That would look--ostentatious. Margie said why don't we pretend we don't know and let him tell us?"

  "I disagree. He might turn shy. It would be as though we didn't care. No, he should come home to cheers and cries of triumph and a cake. If there was anything open, I'd get sparklers."

  "The roadside stands--"

  "Of course. On the way home--if they have any left."

  Mary put down her head a moment as though she were saying grace. "You own the store and Allen's a celebrity. Who would have thought all that could happen all at once? Ethan, we should get started home. We ought to be there when they come. Why are you looking that way?"

  "It just swept over me like a wave--how little we know about anyone. It gives me a shiver of mullygrubs. I remember at Christmas when I should be gay I used to get the Welsh rats."

  "What's that?"

  "It's the way I heard it when Great-Aunt Deborah pronounced Weltschmerz."

  "What's that?"

  "A goose walking over your grave."

  "Oh! That! Well, don't get it. I guess this is the best day of our whole lives. It would be--ungrateful if we didn't know it. Now you smile and chase off those Welsh rats. That's funny, Ethan, 'Welsh rats.' You pay the bill. I'll put our things together."

  I paid our bill with money that had been folded in a tight little square. And I asked Mr. Mole, "Do you have any sparklers left at the gift counter?"

  "I think so. I'll see. . . . Here they are. How many do you want?"

  "All you have," I said. "Our son has become a celebrity."

  "Really? What kind?"

  "There's only one kind."

  "You mean like Dick Clark or like that?"

  "Or Chessman or Dillinger."

  "You're joking."

  "He'll be on television."

  "What station? What time?"

  "I don't know--yet."

  "I'll watch for it. What's his name?"

  "The same as mine. Ethan Allen Hawley--called Allen."

  "Well it's been an honor to have you and Mrs. Allen with us."

  "Mrs. Hawley."

  "Of course. I hope you'll come again. Lots of celebrities have stayed here. They come for--the quiet."

  Mary sat straight and proud on the golden road toward home in the slow and glittering snake of the traffic.

  "I got a whole box of sparklers. Over a hundred."

  "Now that's more like you, dear. I wonder if the Bakers are back yet."

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  My son conducted himself well. He was relaxed and kind to us. He took no revenge, ordered no executions. His honors and our compliments he accepted as his due, without vanity and also without overdone humility. He advanced to his chair in the living room and switched on his radio before the hundred sparklers had fizzed out to black sticks. It was obvious that he forgave us our trespasses. I never saw a boy accept greatness with more grace.

  It was truly a night of wonders. If Allen's easy ascent into heaven was surprising, how much more so was Ellen's reaction. Some years of close and enforced observation told me Miss Ellen would be tattered and storm-blown with envy, would in fact look out for some means of minimizing his greatness. She fooled me. She became her brother's celebrator. It was Ellen who told how they were sitting in an elegant apartment on Sixty-seventh Street, after an evening of magic, casually watching the C.B.S. late news on television, when the word of Allen's triumph was announced. It was Ellen who recounted what they said and how they looked and how you could have knocked them over with a feather. Allen sat remote and calm during Ellen's telling of how he would appear with the four other honorables, how he would read his essay while millions looked and listened, and Mary clucked happily in the pauses. I glanced at Margie Young-Hunt. She was indrawn as she was during card-reading. And a dark quiet crept into the room.

  "No escaping it," I said. "This calls for ice-cold root beer all around."

  "Ellen will get it. Where is Ellen? She drifts in and out like smoke."

  Margie Young-Hunt stood up nervously. "This is a family party. I've got to go."

  "But Margie, you're part of it. Where did Ellen go?"

  "Mary, don't make me admit I'm a trifle on the pooped side."

  "You have had it, dear. I keep forgetting. We had such a rest, you'll never know--and thanks to you."

  "I loved it. I wouldn't have missed it."

  She wanted to be away, and quickly. She took our thanks and Allen's thanks and fled.

  Mary said quietly, "We didn't tell about the store."

  "Let it ride. It would be robbing His Pink Eminence. It's his right. Where did Ellen go?"

  "She went to bed," said Mary. "That's thoughtful, darling, and you're right. Allen, it's been a big day. Time you went to bed."

  "I think I'll sit here a while," Allen said kindly.

  "But you need rest."

  "I'm resting."

  Mary looked to me for help.

  "These are the times that try men's souls. I can dust him, or we can let him have his victory even over us."

  "He's just a little boy, really. He needs his rest."

  "He needs several things, but rest isn't one of them."

  "Everyone knows children need their rest."

  "The things everyone knows are most likely to be wrong. Did you ever know a child to die of overwork? No--only adults. Children are too smart for that. They rest when they need rest."

  "But it's after midnight."

  "So it is, darling, and he will sleep until noon tomorrow. You and I will be up at six."

  "You mean you'll go to bed and leave him sitting there?"

  "He needs his revenge on us for having borne him."

  "I don't know what you're talking about. What revenge?"

  "I want to make a treaty with you because you're growing angry."

  "So I am. You're being stupid."

  "If within half an hour after we go to bed he does not creep to his nest, I will pay
you forty-seven million, eight hundred and twenty-six dollars and eighty cents."

  Well, I lost, and I must pay her. It was thirty-five minutes after we said good night that the stair creaked under our celebrity.

  "I hate you when you're right," my Mary said. She had prepared herself to spend the night listening.

  "I wasn't right, dear. I lost by five minutes. It's just that I remember."

  She went to sleep then. She didn't hear Ellen creep down the stairs, but I did. I was watching my red dots moving in the dark. And I did not follow, for I heard the faint click of the brass key in the lock of the cabinet and I knew my daughter was charging her battery.

  My red spots were active. They dashed about and ran away when I centered on them. Old Cap'n was avoiding me. He hadn't come clear since--well, since Easter. It's not like Aunt Harriet-- "up in heben she be"--but I do know that when I am not friends with myself old Cap'n doesn't come clear. That's a kind of test of my personal relations with myself.

  This night I forced him. I lay straight and rigid, far over on my side of the bed. I tightened every muscle of my body, particularly my neck and jaw, and doubled my fists on my belly and I forced him, bleak little eyes, white spiky mustache, and the forward-curving shoulders that proved he had once been a powerful man of his body and had used it. I even made him put on the blue cap with the short shiny visor and the gold H contrived of two anchors, the cap he hardly ever wore. The old boy was reluctant, but I made him come and I set him on the crumbling sea wall of Old Harbor near the Place. I sat him firmly on a heap of ballast stone and fixed his cupped hands on the head of the narwhal cane. That cane could have knocked over an elephant.

  "I need something to hate. Being sorry and understanding-- that's pap. I'm looking for a real hate to take the heat off."

  Memory's a spawner. Start with one clear detailed print, and it springs into action and it can go forward or back like a film, once it starts.

  Old Cap'n moved. He pointed with his cane. "Line the third rock beyond the breakwater with the tip of Porty Point at high water, then out that line half a cable-length she lies, what's left of her."

  "How far is half a cable-length, sir?"

  "How far? Why, half a hundred fathom, of course. She was anchored to swing and the tide flowing. Two bad-luck years. Half the oil casks empty. I was ashore when she caught fire, about midnight. When the oil fired she lit the town like midday and flames running on the oil slick as far as Osprey Point. Couldn't beach her for fear of burning the docks. She burned to the water in an hour. Her keel and false keel are down there now--and sound. Shelter Island virgin oak they were, and her knees too."