Authors: Alice McDermott
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Literary, #United States, #Contemporary Fiction
Charming Billy (15 page)
There was no question, when she finished school, of having to find a job—which made her the envy of most of her girl friends, who were struggling with stenography and switchboards, and getting to the subway by eight. There was no question, either, that she would join the nuns for good. She did the shopping and cleaned the house and cooked his meals. Lipstick
was for weekends, a movie with the girls, a Saturday afternoon at the stores along Jamaica Avenue. Her father drank most evenings, but it was a man’s right and, with a wife in her grave, his only solace. And when things got out of hand—when, in his cups, he growled at her or cursed her or waved his arms about as if her love and attention were cobwebs she’d draped around him—there were the nuns to go to, who would listen quietly and advise prayer, but also make sure that the pastor crooked his finger at the old man next time he and Maeve were at Mass. So she had the attention of men, too; her father when he was feeling fond of her and the priests when he was giving her trouble, and the butcher and the fellow at the newsstand, and even on occasion some boys she had known from school, not the best-looking ones, of course, the homely mostly, the bad-skinned and wet-palmed, the untalkative (which meant a long night of short questions and short answers for them both) who saw in her plainness, her lack of prospects, their own advantage. Billy she first laid eyes on as he leaned to place a pair of new shoes in Holtzman’s window on Jamaica Avenue, his hand held over his heart to hold back his tie. He looked up and smiled, but she knew even then that he would have smiled at anyone.
was for weekends, a movie with the girls, a Saturday afternoon at the stores along Jamaica Avenue. Her father drank most evenings, but it was a man’s right and, with a wife in her grave, his only solace. And when things got out of hand—when, in his cups, he growled at her or cursed her or waved his arms about as if her love and attention were cobwebs she’d draped around him—there were the nuns to go to, who would listen quietly and advise prayer, but also make sure that the pastor crooked his finger at the old man next time he and Maeve were at Mass. So she had the attention of men, too; her father when he was feeling fond of her and the priests when he was giving her trouble, and the butcher and the fellow at the newsstand, and even on occasion some boys she had known from school, not the best-looking ones, of course, the homely mostly, the bad-skinned and wet-palmed, the untalkative (which meant a long night of short questions and short answers for them both) who saw in her plainness, her lack of prospects, their own advantage. Billy she first laid eyes on as he leaned to place a pair of new shoes in Holtzman’s window on Jamaica Avenue, his hand held over his heart to hold back his tie. He looked up and smiled, but she knew even then that he would have smiled at anyone.
Bringing her father to the store was her way of showing Billy her life in one sweeping glance. Bringing her girl friend was a flirtation with despair—if he fell in love with her talkative friend, Maeve would, at least, in her lifetime, know him. Walking in alone was a dream, but as it turned out, it was another girl’s dream. She was the plain one with the father, the one who without him would have become a nun. She was the one who, having chosen this part, must stand steadily by as his future was formed for her.
NO ONE GATHERED in Maeve’s living room that evening could have recalled it either, not accurately anyway: how young they had been then. How much these things had mattered.
Mac, Rosemary’s husband, who had once been as young himself (in the cramped apartment, in the childhood bed of his young bride), sat on the brocade-under-plastic-slipcovers couch, his shirtsleeves rolled up, his pant legs neatly tucked above the knee. He had assigned himself the task of cracking the walnuts that had been set out in a porcelain bowl on the coffee table and spreading the pieces of meat out on a paper napkin. He leaned over his work like a watchmaker. He had already walked down to the corner deli once for more rolls, and again for a bottle of ginger ale. He had stood on a chair to change a lightbulb in the kitchen and swept the wet walk with a broom from Billy’s garage, and now he cracked walnuts as if to keep up with a relentless demand, although the pile he had accumulated had already begun to overflow the paper napkin.
Billy’s sister Rosemary was moving back and forth from the kitchen to the living room, pausing at intervals to glance out the front windows, hoping to intercept any visitor—as she had intercepted us—who might ring the doorbell or knock on the door and disturb Maeve. There was another couple in the
living room with Mac, next-door neighbors, and Kate was there, although still without her wealthy husband. Two women friends of Maeve’s from the Legion of Mary had installed themselves in the kitchen.
living room with Mac, next-door neighbors, and Kate was there, although still without her wealthy husband. Two women friends of Maeve’s from the Legion of Mary had installed themselves in the kitchen.
An Indian couple from across the street stopped by with a covered dish, but couldn’t be convinced to stay. Two men from Edison and their wives were just leaving as we walked in. Dan Lynch arrived by bus with a box of bakery cookies. He was changed out of his suit but looked that much more polished in a pressed sport shirt and tattersall pants. He took a seat in the living room as well and placed his teacup and saucer on his knee.
The narrow house was a gallery of Billy’s life that evening—how could anyone help but think it? From the curb where we parked to the three brick steps to the cool hallway, dim as a church, that led past the living room and the staircase to the kitchen and the back yard where Shortchange, Billy’s motley mutt, had begun to whine as soon as she heard my father’s voice.
How could my father keep from thinking of it: the sight of Billy’s car pulled up over the curb and the berm or left fishtailed out into the street, of the brick-edged gash above Billy’s eye, the pale soles of his shoes as he sprawled in the dim hallway, of Maeve standing over her husband in her pink chenille robe: “If you can just get him under the arms, Dennis.”
How could he help but think of her maddening calm on those nights when she went into the kitchen to put the kettle on after they’d managed to drag Billy into bed—the drunk hauled up the stairs and pulled out of his clothes, wounds dabbed at with a cotton ball soaked in peroxide, shoes wiped clean with a wet cloth and set out on the front steps to dry, just another housewifely task completed.
“Would you like a little sliver of cake with that, Dennis?”
(How could he help but think of my mother on those nights, at home, still healthy, sound asleep in their bed while he sat with Maeve and discussed a solution, a cure. Or of all the nights in the past decade when he came back to our house after Maeve had summoned him, and found himself there all alone.)
It had always been my father’s contention that Maeve was as satisfied with the appearance of sobriety as she would have been with the sobriety itself, more so, actually, since real and permanent sobriety would have meant the end of these mad nights, these long days of nursing him and waiting for him, and then what would occupy her time?
From the phone that hung on the wall in the tiny kitchen, she would tell my father when he called, “Oh, Billy went up to bed already, Dennis. I’m sure he’s asleep by now …” or “He just left to take Shortchange for a walk,” letting an hour or two, or even the rest of the night, go by before she called him back to ask if he would please come over and get Billy out of the street or off the floor or, once, away from the door of her bedroom, where she had barricaded herself against him.
Or he might hang up, convinced she was lying (turning to my mother to say so), and suddenly the phone would ring while the receiver was still under his hand and there would be Billy’s voice, a little breathless but still sober: “Just got in,” the rattle of the leash behind him and the click of the dog’s paws against the linoleum. “Let me just get her her biscuit.”
Billy’s voice over the telephone, this telephone: how could he help but think of it?
We’d been in the house only a few minutes, had walked only from curb to front hall and into the kitchen, when my father reached for the leash that hung from a hook by the back door and said he’d take the poor animal for a walk.
Upstairs, Maeve was resting. Rosemary and the two women
from the Legion of Mary made it clear that she had insisted no one leave on her account—that everyone should stay, have a drink, eat up all the food. She had insisted that it was a comfort to her to have people in the house, but she needed half an hour or so to put her feet up, to rest her eyes in a darkened room. To take the measure, perhaps, of how she felt now that the ordeal was at long last over.
from the Legion of Mary made it clear that she had insisted no one leave on her account—that everyone should stay, have a drink, eat up all the food. She had insisted that it was a comfort to her to have people in the house, but she needed half an hour or so to put her feet up, to rest her eyes in a darkened room. To take the measure, perhaps, of how she felt now that the ordeal was at long last over.
On the wall above the tiny kitchen table that was covered now with casserole dishes and foil-covered cake pans and bakery boxes, there were three red apples made of pressed wood, one with a smiling pressed-wood worm poking through it: remnants of a back-to-school promotion from Holtzman’s shoe store.
In the living room, Dan Lynch was describing another funeral: the church full, the aisles full, the vestibule full, even the steps leading out into the street. It had rained that day, too, but the crowd at the cemetery was so thick that their umbrellas had made a solid canopy. And even if you weren’t standing under it, you were so well flanked by other people that only the top of your head and your shoulders could get wet. And out of the crowd, in one silent moment as the coffin was lowered into the grave, Billy Sheehy’s dad, all unrehearsed, began to sing. “Danny Boy,” of course. A lovely tenor that almost sounded like a record being played, what with the raindrops on all the umbrellas. It nearly killed everybody, it was such a moment. And Dan Lynch had said to Dennis when it was over, both of them teenagers then, “Your father would have loved this.” But Dennis pointed across the road to another, smaller group of mourners who were just leaving another grave. “My father would be wondering why we hadn’t invited them over,” he said.
Out in the street, a passerby had asked Dan Lynch’s own mother if it was a politician they had buried—there were so
many people. “My mother told him yes, but the best kind of politician, because he never ran for anything. He’d go out of his way to shake your hand, to see how you were doing. He would give you the shirt off his back if that’s what you said you needed, but he wasn’t running for anything and never had, so he was the best kind of politician.” He nodded to put a fine point on it. “That’s what she said. I’ll never forget it. I thought that was very good.”
many people. “My mother told him yes, but the best kind of politician, because he never ran for anything. He’d go out of his way to shake your hand, to see how you were doing. He would give you the shirt off his back if that’s what you said you needed, but he wasn’t running for anything and never had, so he was the best kind of politician.” He nodded to put a fine point on it. “That’s what she said. I’ll never forget it. I thought that was very good.”
“He was actually a streetcar conductor,” Kate said to the couple from next door. “Over in Brooklyn.” She was wealthy enough to be proud of the fact—to use it as a marker of how far she had brought her own branch of the family—while the couple themselves (two more Irish Americans, the man florid, the woman plump) seemed to indicate by their quick nods of approval and their generous “aahhs” that they themselves might have lied about it, said he was a supervisor with the Transit Authority, at least—add a promotion to his history even if he hadn’t had one in life, what harm?
“He met Sheila on that trolley,” Kate said, and to the neighbor couple: “Dennis’s mother, our Aunt Sheila. There was a story that all the passengers on the trolley applauded when she first spoke to him.”
“I remember,” Dan Lynch said.
“She must have been all of seventeen or eighteen when she married him,” Kate said.
“And he was well past forty,” Rosemary added.
The two Legion of Mary ladies had come to stand beside her in the dining-room doorway. “It often happened that way in those days,” the taller one said. It seemed to amount to a dispensation. “You know, the girls so young and the men middle-aged.” She was gray-faced and confident. Even as she leaned casually against the wide doorframe she seemed ready to take over.
Mac was tapping another broken walnut shell into his thick palm. “So there’s still hope for you, Danny boy,” he said. “You may turn up with some sweet young thing on your arm even yet.”
But Dan Lynch held up a hand. “I’m long past that possibility,” he said, and laughed and blushed, and then quickly retrieved the teacup and saucer that were about to leave his knee.
Rosemary was turning away from us, into the darkened dining room behind her. “I think my Michael wants to follow in your footsteps, Danny,” she said, calling as she went to the sideboard where the Waterford decanter and surrounding glasses were nearly obscured behind a dozen framed photographs. “I told him just the other day that his father and I are off to Florida in two more years.” She came back into the living-room light, a picture in her hand. “So if he wants to wait until he’s fifty to have children, he’s going to miss out on two first-class babysitters.”
Mac selected another walnut from the blue porcelain bowl. “He shouldn’t be in any hurry,” he said, looking over the tops of his glasses. “There’s still time for all that.”
“He’s thirty-two years old!” Rosemary cried: it was the echo of an ongoing argument. “That’s hardly too soon.”
Her husband, putting pressure on the silver nutcracker, would not meet her eye.
She turned to the Legion ladies, handing them the framed photograph. “This is Uncle Dan and Aunt Sheila,” she said pleasantly. “On their wedding day.”
The ladies looked and nodded and handed it to Dan Lynch to pass on to the neighbor couple. He paused to look at it, too, although among my father’s relatives, the photo was as familiar as a crucifix or the portrait of the Sacred Heart, and as consistently displayed.
“He was a lovely man,” Dan Lynch said as he passed the picture on.
There followed a pause that threatened to get awkward, all of us smiling slightly and looking at the floor. “And where did she meet her second husband?” the neighbor woman said softly into it.
Mac winked at her own husband. “These dames can’t get enough of this stuff, can they?” he said.
And the man smiled and nodded. “Romance,” he said, rolling his eyes.
Mac broke another walnut shell.
“Well, it’s interesting,” the neighbor lady objected, slapping her husband’s knee, smiling.
“You have to talk about
something
,” Rosemary said, not.
something
,” Rosemary said, not.
“In the shoe store.” Kate spoke like an adult among bickering adolescents. “In Jamaica, the one where Billy used to work.”
“Ah,” the woman said, nodding. “Jamaica Avenue. It’s Baker’s now. Not that you’d want to go there now.”
“Not if you’re white,” her husband said, and got Mac to agree with him.
“She met him during the war,” Kate went on, keeping her nose above any onrush of working-class bigotry, “when she went in there looking for shoes.”
“Same place Maeve met Billy,” Rosemary added.
“There was a shrewd one,” Dan Lynch said to the men. “That Holtzman.” He counted off on his fingers, “A German,” as if compiling a list of grievances, “owned his own shop, a big brick house in Jamaica, another out on Long Island, a third place down in Fort Lauderdale. He bought the Long Island house during the Depression, from some poor fool who thought Three Mile Harbor out there was going to be the next Coney Island. Holtzman paid practically nothing
for it. Paid for it right out of his billfold, Billy said. Standing in the driveway of the place. Signed the deed on the hood of his car. Shrewd.”
for it. Paid for it right out of his billfold, Billy said. Standing in the driveway of the place. Signed the deed on the hood of his car. Shrewd.”
“Dennis has it now,” Rosemary explained. “It’s a nice little place.”
“Dennis and Billy were the ones who fixed it up,” Kate reminded them. “Right after the war.”
In Maeve’s own living room, on her brocade chairs and sofa, under the warm light of her lamps, no one who thought it would dare say, “Eva.” Although Kate could not resist mentioning that Billy had never gone back out there, over the years. Except for that once, when he returned from Ireland. Back in 1975. She’d had a postcard from him.
“Maeve did, too,” Rosemary said. She said Maeve had a postcard upstairs, stuck in the corner of her mirror, from that trip as well. A picture of Home Sweet Home in East Hampton. She turned to the neighbor couple. “The house from the old song,” she said. Billy had written something very sweet on the back. Beautiful wife or lovely girl. She couldn’t remember the exact words now—it might have been something from one of his poems—but Maeve had kept the postcard and had shown it to her the other day, Tuesday, after they’d gotten word from Dennis that Billy was gone.
“Holtzman was another old bachelor,” Kate said, cutting in. “He must have been near sixty when Sheila married him. And he hadn’t been married before.”
“That we know of.” Dan Lynch smiled wickedly. “Billy said once that he wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Holtzman had a flock of wives buried in the basement.”
“No,” Rosemary said, fighting the tears that the mention of Tuesday had brought. “Billy liked Mr. Holtzman. He always got along with him.”
Other books
Thief by Gibbon, Maureen
Captured by the Count: An Abduction and Breeding Fantasy by Carolyn Faulkner
Benny: A Tale of a Christmas Toy by K. C. Scott
The Death of Lucy Kyte by Nicola Upson
Water Music by Margie Orford
Lush Curves by Fawkes, Delilah
Callahan's Place 10 - Off The Wall At Callahan's (v5.0) by Spider Robinson
Controlling Krysta by Sinclair, Lyla
Nasty Bastard (Grim Bastards MC Book 4) by Emily Minton, Shelley Springfield
Saved by a Werewolf Billionaire by Leal, Samantha