Charming Billy (16 page)
Authors: Alice McDermott
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Literary, #United States, #Contemporary Fiction
“Dennis didn’t,” Kate said.
Mac examined the last three walnuts in the dish. The lamplight showed the pale scalp beneath his thinning, graying hair. “Holtzman didn’t marry Billy’s mother,” he said.
From the kitchen came the sound of the back door opening. Shortchange scurrying inside, my father’s voice speaking to her, saying, “Hold on there, girl” and “Good dog.” The ring of the leash. Water running in the sink and the dog bowl being placed on the linoleum.
“How did we ever get onto poor Mr. Holtzman?” Kate asked, and Dan Lynch said, “I was talking about Uncle Daniel—if ever there were two men more opposite.”
We heard the clink of the cookie jar where the dog biscuits were kept and my father calling, “Here, girl.”
“Well, they both married Aunt Sheila,” Rosemary said, but Dan Lynch waved his hand: a meaningless connection.
“And they’re all in heaven together,” Kate said with a laugh. “There’s that.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Dan Lynch murmured, winking at me. “You know what Our Lord said about a rich man getting into heaven.” I saw him throw a glance at Kate, who deflected it nicely by leaning to reach for a shelled walnut and placing it elegantly on her tongue.
Rosemary turned to the Legion of Mary pair beside her to say, “I’ve often wondered how it works in heaven when there’s a second marriage. I know it sounds silly, but you have to wonder—you know, who comes first.”
“The first marriage is the binding one,” the tall lady said with an easy expertise. Mac said, “Ha!” to his wife. “See that, you’re stuck,” just as Shortchange, in a post-walk ecstasy, came wriggling through the dining room and into the living room, all cool wet fur and wagging tail and snorting black nose. My father came in behind her, half a dog biscuit still in his hand, just as Maeve appeared in the other doorway, the one that
opened onto the dim hall and the stairs. She wore a pale housecoat and was in stocking feet. She had her hand to her throat.
opened onto the dim hall and the stairs. She wore a pale housecoat and was in stocking feet. She had her hand to her throat.
“Oh, Dennis,” she said, squinting toward him as the dog made a quick circuit of the room, greeting everyone. She put her fingertips to the back of Dan Lynch’s chair. “It’s you.”
With the excitement the dog brought in with her—the neighbor lady grabbed the arms of her chair and lifted her feet as Shortchange sniffed her ankles (Nice dog, nice dog), and Mac held out a walnut and Kate leaned down to say with puckered lips, “Hello, sweetheart”—it seemed to take a minute for us all to hear what Maeve had said.
She said, “I thought it was Billy, coming in from a walk.”
Dan Lynch struggled to his feet, awkwardly balancing his teacup, finally placing it on the coffee table, on top of the pile of walnuts, and all the while saying, “Have a seat, Maeve. Please, have a seat.”
Shortchange wiggled toward her as she sat down, and Maeve lightly touched the dog’s wet fur. “I thought it was Billy,” Maeve said to my father. “You sounded so much like him.”
A kind of pain swept my father’s face. He was standing just outside the living-room doorway, still flushed from the walk, his shoulders still vaguely patterned with raindrops, his coat still holding a whiff of the green spring. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Maeve shook her head, her hand now on her heart. “I thought it was Billy,” she said a third time. Even the bit of lipstick she’d worn earlier in the day was gone and her simple housecoat was colorless, white and beige. She seemed as plain as a blank page.
She looked around the room, her eyes weak. “I was just getting up,” she said. “I hadn’t put the light on yet.” Now she put her fingertips to her forehead and lowered her eyes. “I thought Billy was down here with the dog.”
Beside me, the next-door-neighbor lady clucked her tongue
and said, “Awww,” with the sound of exaggerated sympathy you might offer a child. The Legion of Mary ladies both put their hands to their mouths. And then Maeve began to weep.
and said, “Awww,” with the sound of exaggerated sympathy you might offer a child. The Legion of Mary ladies both put their hands to their mouths. And then Maeve began to weep.
Clearly, this was the moment our presence here was meant to deflect. The moment we’d been waiting for, hoping against, staying around to have a drink and eat up all the food. But we were momentarily stunned by its arrival, unsure of what to do.
Maeve lowered her face into her own raised hand, the fingers splayed now from forehead to chin (the plain pearl ring), and let out a long, tremulous sigh that was meant perhaps to give her her composure but instead caught in her throat and formed another kind of sigh, terrible and unbidden. “I thought he was here,” she said through it. “I thought he was right downstairs.”
We stared for a few seconds and then suddenly—as if we had all been caught in that stilled interval between the first thunderclap and the first pelting drops of rain—we began to scurry, moving as though there were windows to close, laundry to be pulled in from the line.
Kate and Rosemary were immediately beside Maeve’s chair, Kate with a hand on her shoulder, Rosemary patting her knee. The two Legion ladies hurried back to the kitchen, one to boil water, one to fetch a box of tissues. My father grabbed Shortchange by the collar and dragged her out of the room. The lady from next door stood, which seemed a cue for the rest of the men to scatter, as they did, heading for the kitchen just as my father came back through the dining room, where he paused by the sideboard to pour a glass of sherry from the Waterford decanter.
He stepped forward, holding the crystal sherry glass in two hands, but Rosemary waved it away. “She’s already had quite a bit,” she whispered. Kate reached out and took the glass from him anyway.
“I thought he was down here with the dog,” Maeve was saying. “I thought it hadn’t happened, after all. It was a dream. He was down here, just coming in.” Her voice twisted a little, nearly vanished. “I thought I’d go down and put the kettle on.”
Rosemary said, “There now,” kindly enough, but meaning, too, enough of that. “There now.”
Her sister leaned forward with the glass of sherry. “Take a little sip, Maeve,” she said.
But Maeve raised her eyes to the two sisters, looking from one to the other, maybe looking for some trace of their brother’s face, maybe only hoping for understanding. And then she looked beyond them to my father. “He’s gone,” she said to him alone. “Our Billy.”
My father nodded. His eyes were dark and he held his lips together so tightly he might have been breaking the news all over again. “He is” was all he said, because even as he said it Maeve put her fingers to her lips and whispered, “I’m going to be sick.”
Swiftly the neighbor lady grabbed the blue porcelain bowl, turned out the remaining walnuts, and handed it to Rosemary, who held it under Maeve’s downy chin. “It’s all right,” she told her, shooting a deadly glance at her sister: there was the smell of sherry. “It’s all right, dear.”
“Poor girl,” the neighbor lady said. The taller Legion lady had returned with the tissue box and was now pulling out tissues, one after the other, as if she were doling out an endless line of rope. She handed them one after the other to Kate, who was holding them beneath the bowl, piling them into Maeve’s lap.
My father modestly stepped away.
An aluminum pot was produced from the kitchen, but Maeve, as Rosemary said, had nothing but the sherry in her stomach—hadn’t eaten a bite since Tuesday—and so the sickness
quickly passed. When it was over, Maeve sat back against the chair, her hands full of tissues, her face and throat blotched with red but deathly white underneath. “I’m so sorry,” she said with her eyes closed. “I’m so ashamed.”
quickly passed. When it was over, Maeve sat back against the chair, her hands full of tissues, her face and throat blotched with red but deathly white underneath. “I’m so sorry,” she said with her eyes closed. “I’m so ashamed.”
Amid the women’s cooing, the two sisters convinced her to stand and go upstairs to rinse her face and change her clothes, to make herself feel better. Maeve nodded, apologizing, coming back to herself, it seemed. Kate took her by the hand.
When the two of them were gone, we moved around the living room, sweeping up walnut shells and collecting teacups, straightening doilies and cushions. We could hear the men talking softly in the kitchen.
“The colored people have an expression,” the shorter Legion lady began to say. “‘No one’s called home who isn’t ready.’”
“She should have eaten something,” the other said.
“It’s good for her to cry,” the neighbor lady told us. “Not to hold it all back. And what a shock for her, to think she heard him coming in like that.”
The shorter one paused. She was stout, high-breasted like a wren. Wrenlike, she wore a beige sweater with a maroon-and-brown harlequin pattern across the front and brown stretch pants and tiny beige shoes. “I saw my husband three times after he died,” she said softly. She held an empty teacup and saucer before her, in both hands. It made her look like a woman singing an aria. “In dreams, I mean. The first time he told me about that expression the colored people have. I’d never heard it before. The second time he was sitting right next to me, in church. There were lots of flowers and we were talking about how pretty they were. There was a huge snowstorm the day before his funeral”—turning to me to explain—“this was back in ’78. And we hadn’t had too many flowers there. It had bothered me a lot. That he hadn’t had more
flowers. But the dream put my mind at ease.” She paused. There was a threat of tears in her voice. “The third time he just squeezed my hand and walked away.” She took a deep breath, bending to pick up a crumpled napkin. “And that was it,” she said. “I never have been able to dream his face again. I dream about him, but he’s always in the next room, or he’s got his back to me, or he’s just gone out or is just about to come in. I never see him. There were those three times in the beginning and then no more.”
flowers. But the dream put my mind at ease.” She paused. There was a threat of tears in her voice. “The third time he just squeezed my hand and walked away.” She took a deep breath, bending to pick up a crumpled napkin. “And that was it,” she said. “I never have been able to dream his face again. I dream about him, but he’s always in the next room, or he’s got his back to me, or he’s just gone out or is just about to come in. I never see him. There were those three times in the beginning and then no more.”
Solemnly, authoritatively, sweeping a tissue over the surface of the coffee table, the taller Legion lady nodded and said, “I believe it’s always three.”
Rosemary agreed. “That’s what they say.”
There was a knock at the front door—three short raps that might have come from beneath a conjurer’s table—and when my father opened it, we heard his soft voice saying, “Monsignor.” A single look went around the women in the room. You could feel the subject changing. Rosemary leaned over and turned on another light.
The priest came into the living room just as the other three men came through the dining room to meet him. He shook hands all around. He was a heavy, scrubbed-looking man whose throat seemed to strain against his white collar just as his shoulders and broad chest seemed to strain against his black jacket and shirtfront. Even his shiny scalp looked taut against his skull. And yet, for all this, there was an air of tremendous ease about him as he shook hands all around like a politician (although he never ran for anything), making eye contact, Glad to see you, his palm warm and dry and encompassing. The taller Legion lady went to brew him his cup of tea and I was dispatched by my father to go upstairs and let Maeve know.
The stairs were carpeted, the same pale gray pile as in the
living room. There was a wrought-iron rail, open to the hallway halfway up and then closed off by a wall. On the landing there was a round table draped with a pale blue cloth and covered with Hummel children, some of whom had black veins running across their legs and shoulders and through their necks, clearly places where they had been broken and then carefully repaired. Above this table was an oil portrait of the Christ Child that to the uninitiated would seem to be a portrait of a beautiful and dark-skinned prepubescent girl. A framed, cross-stitched copy of the Irish blessing and another of the prayer of St. Francis on the wall between the two bedrooms. The bathroom door at the head of the stairs was closed and I could hear water running behind it.
living room. There was a wrought-iron rail, open to the hallway halfway up and then closed off by a wall. On the landing there was a round table draped with a pale blue cloth and covered with Hummel children, some of whom had black veins running across their legs and shoulders and through their necks, clearly places where they had been broken and then carefully repaired. Above this table was an oil portrait of the Christ Child that to the uninitiated would seem to be a portrait of a beautiful and dark-skinned prepubescent girl. A framed, cross-stitched copy of the Irish blessing and another of the prayer of St. Francis on the wall between the two bedrooms. The bathroom door at the head of the stairs was closed and I could hear water running behind it.
I glanced into Maeve’s bedroom. Kate was sitting on the edge of the bed, on a lovely ice-blue satin quilt that still bore the mark of where Maeve must have been napping when she heard Billy coming in. She held a life-sized baby doll in her lap, cradling it.
“Monsignor’s here,” I said, and Kate looked up. “Good,” she said. She lifted the doll. It was dressed in a white crocheted sweater and cap and a long, yellowing christening gown. A tiny blue medal on a scrap of pale blue ribbon was pinned to its collar. “This was Maeve’s,” she said. “This gown. She was christened in it.”
She turned to place the doll where it belonged, in the center of the bed, between their two pillows. “Get this,” Kate said, rearranging the doll’s gown. “Maeve was just telling me that at the luncheon today Ted Lynch went on about an order of nuns that takes widows. He said he’d give her the name of the Mother House if she was interested.” Kate rolled her eyes, blue eyes like Billy’s. They seemed remarkably quick under the weight of her expensive eyeshadow. Her mouth had Billy’s
wry thinness. “Can you imagine?” she said. “An hour after a woman buries her husband, he’s talking about her entering a convent? Can you imagine the gall?”
wry thinness. “Can you imagine?” she said. “An hour after a woman buries her husband, he’s talking about her entering a convent? Can you imagine the gall?”
I shook my head. I had no trouble imagining it. “What did Maeve think?” I asked.
Kate waved her hand. Some of the makeup had settled into the creases around her eyes, the lines that framed her mouth. “Oh, you know Maeve, she told him she’d think about it.” She reached out to smooth the christening dress over the doll’s tiny booties. “It’s the idea of being alone now, of course, that’s getting to her, but I said, ‘Come on, when did Ted Lynch become this rabid Catholic?’” She glanced toward the door, lowered her voice. “It’s one of the problems with these ex-alcoholics,” she said. “They still have to be rabid about something.”
She picked up the doll again. She seemed incapable of leaving it alone. “They should have had children,” she said suddenly. “Billy and Maeve. They were both so fond of children.”
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