It occurred to him he could simply be honest with Jimmy, but that was a theoretical honesty, not a mode of behaviour open to him. He could tell himself that he did not want to get Jimmy into more trouble with his mother, but in truth he simply could not talk openly about his sex life with his son. He was more comfortable just quietly dodging around Jimmy as he dodged around Dinah’s constant queries about Susan and did she know yet and what was she feeling. Both his women were reasonably satisfied at the moment. The chaos of construction occupied the forefront of their lives and tended to quiet everything else. Afterward he would finally talk to Susan about the situation or she would gradually guess and accept it. Dinah could not possibly have house-guests, including that musician. All things taken into consideration, he was doing okay.
Johnny called at seven-fifteen just as he was about to duck over to Dinah’s. ‘Daddy, exactly when is your opening?’
‘August …’ He consulted the calendar on the kitchen wall. Susan wrote their social engagements on it. ‘August tenth is the opening. The show’s up for two weeks.’
‘I think I can make it for your opening. I have to be in Rochester, New York, that week. And I should make an appointment in Boston with a gallery director I’ve been in touch with. I figure I can come out the day before and leave the day after. I’ll stay with Dinah.’
‘Jimmy’s already doing that.’ He told her the story.
‘Laurie? That stuck-up skinny twit? Is Jimmy as hard up for pussy as that?’
Johnny liked to be foul-mouthed on principle. He ignored it, as he always did. ‘She means well and she’s crazy about him. She’s right on the pond. I can see the advantages, so why the fuss? It just seems natural.’
There was a short silence. Then came her voice imitating, exaggerating the little southern drawl left in his. ‘Jimmy’s got into a relationship with this really nice Irish setter on the pond. I mean, she has good breeding and no fleas at all. It’s actually enormously sensible when you think about it. She has an affectionate disposition and she likes to chase sticks. It’s a really good thing for him.’
Willie forced a chuckle. He was insulted but at the same time amused. She had him to rights. ‘You think I try to make the best of everything.’
‘And Jimmy will make anything. A great combo. I bet Mother’s in seventh heaven. She always wanted Laurie in the family.’
‘Actually she’s upset about it. She doesn’t think it’s a good idea.’
‘Score one for Mother. See you in August, Dad.’
Willie worked on his new piece all day, the windows open and listening over the radio for the sound of the cement truck arriving. Until the foundation was poured – actually both of them – nothing could go forward. Everything was in place and ready for the truck. The helper, Archie the subcontractor’s son, had arrived in the morning and was still waiting for Archie, his partner Steve and the cement truck. In the meantime, the kid had stretched out on the dock sunning himself. In summer, the locals all greeted each other insisting they hadn’t been to the beach at all, and if they had a visible tan, they were always careful to explain it came from roofing or carpentry. A pallor was the appropriate look. Nobody would confess to visiting the beaches between June, when it was okay, and September, when it became acceptable behaviour again. Unless you had kids, when it was okay. In fact, the Captain brought his two kids to the pond that noon – he must have picked them up from Wendy’s apartment in town – to take a dip. Willie saw a little action at the far end of the pond. Tyrone apparently sent his assistant Donald over to where they were swimming to protest. Willie heard loud voices but couldn’t make out the words. Donald went back and the Captain and his children stayed put. Tyrone was always trying to keep the locals from using the pond, but after all, Toby had lived on the pond all his life. Every year, Tyrone was at war with somebody who arrived to swim or launch a canoe.
When Willie came in for his afternoon break – the time he paused and had coffee or a beer, went for a swim, sometimes made love with Susan – he found Candida MacIvor in the kitchen. Both women were drinking wine mixed with sparkling water in tall glasses decorated with mint leaves. They were picking at a leftover chicken Willie had planed to recycle from last night’s supper for a curried chicken salad tonight. Candida was dressed less excitingly than she had been the last times he had seen her, in a blue romper. Susan had put on a misty green sundress, a colour he liked on her, for it brought out the red in her hair. He thought she looked like a piece of ripe fruit, the freckling on her arms and shoulders and back like the seeds in a ripe banana. He longed to take parts of her into his mouth. Candida’s presence was an irritant. Maybe she would go soon. Maybe she would leave some of the chicken when she went.
Willie took a beer and prepared to wait her out. She was talking about a dinner party Tyrone had given that had a strong Japanese flavour. Tyrone had brought a chef out from New York for it. Tyrone had found beautiful prints and porcelain in Japan. He had made the most fascinating side trip to a small island where women dived for pearls. He had given Laurie earrings that were large irregular dark pearls.
At first Willie listened idly. Pearls big as thumbnails! A Japanese chef broiling steak at the table. Seaweed wound around rice. It was all pleasant exotic nonsense like somebody telling the plot of a silly movie. Then he saw Susan dragging it into her as if every word would tear wounds. He shook himself and stared again. Susan was riddled by envy. He could feel it. He wondered that Candida would go on prattling. Nervously he began picking at the roast chicken. He did not realize he had bitten into the drumstick until he tasted it in his mouth. Susan was saying the right things, the little exclamations and soft queries that kept Candida chattering, but he did not comprehend how Candida could miss that raw pain leaking out. How could Susan do this to herself? How could she go crazy because some stupid party had occurred to which she had not been invited? She had probably been happy at the time. What on earth could it matter to her that other people were together? It was madness. He said, ‘Why don’t we all go swimming?’
Both women looked at him blankly. ‘We just had lunch,’ Susan said.
‘It’s two,’ Willie said, leaning over the table hoping to get them both up and moving.
‘Is it?’ Susan asked coldly. ‘How fascinating. Candida, do have some more of the wine spritzer. Now tell me about dessert.’
He gave up and strolled toward his studio. Archie’s kid was down by the water with Bogey, tossing a stick. Dinah was hanging panties on a clothesline. Jimmy was sitting shirtless in the shade with Laurie beside him eating watermelon and spitting the seeds away. They were obviously having a contest in who could spit the seeds farthest, giggling together. Willie drifted slowly toward Dinah. In shorts and a tee, her strong legs looked great and the muscles of her back rippled under the thin cotton as her breasts swung, bending, lifting and pinning, bending, lifting and pinning. She waved as she turned back toward the house. Jimmy and Laurie were lying now on their bellies spitting watermelon seeds across a set of lines traced in the sand. Archie’s kid had lain down with his hat over his face. From the kitchen in the new house, Willie could just hear the rise and fall of Candida’s voice. Dodging Dinah’s intimate things, he followed her into the kitchen. It was hot and the pond was still. Dinah’s bedroom would be hot, but she had a window fan. He would ask her to turn it on.
With Dinah, when she wasn’t thinking about making love, the best approach was not to be talking about it, not to get her in a romantic mood the way he might do with Susan, but to get his hands on her before she thought about it. As soon as she put the empty basket down, he began to kiss her.
Because he did persuade her to turn on the window fan, they had both undressed before he heard the cement truck outside. ‘Damn it!’ he said with a heartfelt moan. He rarely swore, for his family had felt foul language was as vulgar as tracking dog dirt into the house. Years of involvement with Dinah had abraded that reluctance, but when he swore, it was because he felt sorely tried. ‘The truck??
?s arrived.’ He reached for his pants and was buttoning his shirt as he half fell down the short steep flight of straight up steps.
Before bursting out of the house, he paused long enough to check himself, fly zipped, shirt properly buttoned. He hoped Jimmy had not noticed the little detail of the bedroom fan. Keeping up appearances, a family compulsion that was part of his breeding. He couldn’t help it and saw no reason he should. It was a small nicety.
The cement truck was backing across Dinah’s lawn to the construction site. ‘Those bulvons!’ Dinah bellowed from the upstairs window. ‘Why can’t they use the driveway?’
‘Too far from the forms,’ Willie called up. ‘What’s a bull von?’
He rushed to help Archie and Steve, and so did Jimmy. Archie’s son woke and sprang into action. Willie would love it if they would also pour his foundation while they were there with the truck. Otherwise they might not get back for a week. He had expected them to start with his, but Jimmy had been downstairs when the truck arrived, and of course, he had directed them to Dinah’s site. It was a matter of dumping the cement, spreading it roughly and then as the forms were filled in, levelling the top. He leaned on Dinah’s car to wait, wishing he was back upstairs with her. He felt tight and oversensitized, crammed into his jeans.
Archie and Steve decided to try to pour the other foundation and get it out of the way. ‘I hate bringing the truck so far into the woods,’ the driver confided. ‘Always afraid I’m going to get stuck in one of those potholes.’
The truck started to back up the driveway. It was gaily painted red, white and blue from the Fourth of July parade, when Archie’s daughter had stood on the cab waving a sign CEMENT GOODWILL AMONG NATIONS. With all the noise, the women had ended their long luncheon and moved out to chairs by the pond. Susan had brought something she was making for Laurie. Lately Susan had been complaining to him that Laurie had become estranged from her because of the affair with Jimmy. Willie said, What did she expect when she had made her objections so vocal. He had no more time to worry about Susan, because the truck was backing up and he and Jimmy were both yelling directions to keep it from smashing into the quince hedge or knocking down the only remaining rose trellis. Willie hated the maddening beep beep the truck made as it backed, one of the most irritating sounds in the world. Archie and Steve were having a beer and a smoke while they waited for the truck to get into position. It was hot and heavy work hauling and spreading the cement. Archie was an immense guy who had once played end for a local team the year they took a championship; Steve was short, blonde and bearded, a law school dropout. He had learned the business from Archie.
Suddenly the roar of the big cement mixer and the engine changed cadence and between Willie and Jimmy suddenly the ground shifted and the truck poised and then began to sink into the earth. Willie stared. Was it an earthquake? He thought he must be rising mysteriously into the air beside the truck. A sharp smell of shit arose. ‘Stop!’ Willie bellowed. ‘Stop!’ The truck had broken through into the new septic tank. But the driver could not hear them or could not stop. With a great grinding of gears and groaning the truck continued to sink as the top of the septic tank cracked and then parted. First a giant piece of the lid and then the truck itself broke through into the pit below.
The driver was screaming. His cab was tilted half off the ground. The cement mixer stopped turning. Susan was screaming. Jimmy was screaming. Archie, Steve and Archie’s kid were screaming. Bogey was running in tight circles yapping his head off. Dinah was laughing so hard she sat down on her ass and tears trickled down her face.
The driver cut the engine or it stalled out. A terrible silence descended, except for Bogey’s frenetic bark. Everybody stopped yelling and gathered in a circle around the half upended cement truck, now embedded two thirds of the way along the driveway. Willie looked at it and could think of nothing whatsover to say. Dinah blew her nose and kept her mouth shut.
Archie, the older guy, said in a loud disgusted voice, ‘Where’s your phone? We got to get the big tow truck out here fast.’
The driver was up in the air trying to get down. He seemed reluctant to jump. Jimmy brought him an aluminium ladder to climb down. ‘Holy shit!’ the driver said, rubbing his chin and his arm where he had banged himself.
There was indeed a smell of shit in the air and there was the immense truck, sunk about a third of the way along and at an angle that suggested it would never fly again. Willie sat down on the grass beside Dinah. He could not quite believe what he was looking at. Steve rubbed his shaggy blonde beard, shaking his head and walking a few paces as if he could suddenly swing around and everything would be as it was. ‘You know,’ he said suddenly, ‘the cement is going to harden.’
‘No shit,’ the driver said. ‘Guess what? If that happens, that truck is staying there permanently.’
Archie was plodding back. ‘The big towing rig is off getting a UPS man out of a ditch.’
‘Did you tell them we’re in bad trouble?’ Steve asked in a rising whine.
‘I told them.’
They gathered in a loose prayerful ring around the truck, its front wheels held up like the paws of a dinosaur, a Tyrannosaurus rex in its dotage.
‘What would dissolve cement?’ Steve asked. ‘Break it up?’
‘A bomb,’ Archie said. ‘Dropped from a plane. We can rent one from the Air Force.’
‘It’s a little big for a planter,’ Dinah said conversationally close to his ear. ‘Although it’s far more striking than a tyre of petunias. It lacks something as sculpture, or isn’t that your professional opinion?’
He felt like screaming at her, but at the same time it was just too odd to be believed. ‘I could go to work on it. See what I can do.’
He saw Susan glaring at them. He didn’t feel like moving. ‘Come on, Dad,’ Jimmy said. ‘Let’s check over the other foundation with a level before it sets hard. We might as well do that.’
Willie got up and followed his son. When he looked back, all the women were sitting, Dinah on the grass, Susan and Candida in the lawn chairs by the pond. Archie, Steve, Archie’s gangly son and the driver were standing in various positions around the truck, scratching their heads or their asses and staring. Willie wondered if the Board of Health would still accept a Title V septic tank with a red, white and blue cement truck embedded in it.
He glanced at his wrist to see what time it was, if there was hope for the big towing rig, and saw only the band of pale skin on his left wrist. Then he remembered taking off the watch and putting it on Dinah’s bedside table. He also saw the layout of the onlookers: Susan was down at the pond with an uninterrupted view of Dinah’s kitchen door. He sighed. Then he sighed again.
Chapter Thirty-Four
DINAH
Dinah drifted through her days in a despair that was new and bitter to her. She had endured loss and rejection, but never had she been shut out from her own work when the ideas had been fiercely near the boil in her.
Oh, she had an occasional day of work. That was when she went back to what she had composed and worked it over, incorporated notes she made, stacked up the lines and listened. She never knew when she rose in the morning if this would be a clear day of blessed almost solitude and silence, or a day noisy and overpopulated. Not only did the machines assault her, the yelling, the pounding, the banging, but the workmen brought their ghetto blasters and music she had not chosen invaded her ears until she wanted to slash and maim.
The cats were unhappy. When it was Sunday or when she was convinced no construction was occurring that day, she would let them out. However, she did not trust the trucks backing in or the electric saws running. One day when she thought it was safe to let Figaro out, he returned limping, and nobody would say how his paw had been torn. By the time she took him to the vet’s, ran the course of antibiotics and the paw healed, they had adjusted to life inside the heat of summer. Dinah passed the time painting her kitchen and bedroom. Then she finally sat down to deal with Mark’s papers, going throu
gh them and boxing them for deposit at a university where scholars could negotiate with the library for access instead of with her.
She had always thought someday she would act the true literary executor, do something appropriate with all of his letters and manuscripts and notes. Now she read the letters for several afternoons while the frame was going up. She rowed her dinghy onto the pond and read until she could stand it no longer. There were letters from his first wife, letters of wild passionate love and then of married business and then of violent reproach. There were letters from twenty other women following a similar curve, without the middle plateau of marriage. There were letters from his son, gradually trailing off to formality and silence. There was a similar arc with the second wife, truncated since they had married and parted quickly. It all felt futile. An expense of great energy into a void.
When she read his poems, she thought of what an extraordinary man he had been, she remembered loving him. When she read the letters, she felt like one of a multitude of buffeted women, selected by chance and denounced at leisure. Then she felt the only reason he had stayed with her was because he was dying. At the same time she identified with him in a new way. Imagine being involved with Jimmy, who was a couple of years older than she had been when she met Mark; then imagine herself ten years older than she was now. It was absurd. What a mismatch. Yet they had been truly mated, fire to fire. Months after his death when she had been ready for relationships rather than pure sex again, she had sought calm, a familial warmth, regular sex and a great deal of mental space. More space than perhaps Susan had ultimately been willing to grant. Was that the flaw? That she had chosen to think about her music instead of Susan, to reserve her energy for her work? Yet Susan had not engaged her mentally as Mark had; as Itzak did.
Tosca liked to go out in the boat. She would stare at the water, then fold her paws into yoga position and contemplate the shores and her beloved. Dinah sat with tears trickling down her face and read in a gathering cloud of mosquitoes. ‘Tosca, is there any point to this exercise?’ she asked the lean grey cat in the prow. ‘Maybe I should embrace solitude, to minimize the damage people do to the environment and to each other. Is it wrong to think of wanting a child? Would I be as dreadful a parent as Mark was?’