Middle Age (58 page)

Abigail accompanies Donegal Croom to his hotel room, in a state of nervous exhilaration. She has been chosen by the famous poet to “be with”

him and who knows what this intimacy might lead to?
He seems truly to be
attracted to me
.
An almost mystical rapport
. Maybe Croom remembers Abigail from Bennington, in 8; maybe she made an impression upon him, indelible through the years. Not very likely, but this is something to cling to! Abigail knows that Croom has had love affairs with several prominent women poets; he has lived with an acclaimed artist; he’s been married three times, but has never had any children. (“By my own choice. One insatiable infantile ego in a family is quite enough.” So Donegal Croom stated in an interview in the
New York Times,
posted on the Web.) Abigail knows this man is no one to be trusted, yes he’ll break her heart, yet here she is helping him into his room, allowing him to lean heavily on her as he sidles toward the bed. He says, sighing, “Oh, God. Where are we. Salthill? Hill-of-
Salt?
Suburban-American paradise. The warm bath that leaves you waterlogged and dopey and uncertain—uncaring!—if alive, or dead.” Even as he exaggerates his tiredness, Croom seems to be genuinely tired. His breath is short, labored. Possibly he’s drunk: during the signing he’d somehow managed to get hold of several more glasses of chardonnay.

So romantic! We’d first met years ago, I was just a girl, an undergraduate at
Bennington, then we met again in Salthill, and the old rapport was there,
again it was instantaneous, who can explain such things? One must succumb to
the demon within, and have faith!



J C O

Croom uses the bathroom noisily, leaving the door partly open, there’s a long interlude of faucets and coughing-hacking and at last the poet reappears, hair dampened and slicked back, careening in Abigail’s direction as she stands, innocently it seems, reading in a copy of Croom’s most recent book of poems
The Flayed Heart
. He takes her hand, smiles at her enigmatically, and falls back onto the four-postered bed with a sound as of bones creaking. For a moment his flushed cobweb-face, male beauty in ruins, is contorted in pain. Though Croom seems to have freshened up in the bathroom, yet there’s a residue of something sour and unwashed; Abigail’s fastidious nostils pinch against it. “Alone! You’ve saved my life.” Abigail feels both a touch of pride and a touch of apprehension. Yet she obeys when Croom instructs her to untie and remove his shoes, and to loosen his belt, and to turn up the air-conditioning in the room. She obeys when he commands her to sit close beside him on the bed. “My Helen!

You’re the only one of those bitches who has an
ear
. They invited me to read to them purposely to insult me.” Abigail quickly protests that no one has insulted him, on the contrary the audience adored him, the poem

“The Bullfight” in particular, such a powerful controversial poem, yes and the audience was deeply engaged by the dark muse—“Of course, the sestina form isn’t very familiar to them, Donegal. But they understood subliminally. Your poetry is deep-rooted in the sublime. It appeals to, it profoundly touches, even those unfamiliar with poetic ‘form.’ ” This breathless proclamation, an inspired amalgam of reviewers’ quotes, causes the poet, propped up on pillows, to open his broken-egg eyes and peer intently at Abigail. “Really? You think so? Those women understood?”

“In their way, yes.” Croom smiles slyly. “Poetry is fucking, dear. Subliminally. Did you know?” Abigail is startled by this revelation, but willing to concede Croom’s point, for he’s the poet after all. He says, “What the poet does, what I attempted, is fucking the audience, collectively; making them feel something, making them come, even against their will. All poets are male, all audiences female. Poetry is the triumph of the superior will, and I don’t mean that I, Donegal Croom, am ‘superior,’ except in the service of poetry, the higher transcendental divination we call poetry, which is both mystical and erotic, Eros as the highest mystery.” Croom speaks passionately, yet with an air of vexation. “Do you think this came through to the audience, today? The damned air-conditioning didn’t interfere?” Abigail says, “Donegal, yes! Your reading was powerful, and profound, and erotic, and we will all remember it in Salthill for a long, long time.”

Middle Age: A Romance



Croom says, almost humbly, “I don’t suppose many poets come to Salthill to read?”

“Not poets of your caliber, Mr. Croom.”

Croom fumbles for Abigail’s hand, and brings it to his lips. A soft fleshy kiss like a slug’s caress. “My dear. My Helen. You
are
my muse. My lovely Hill-of-Salt muse in her ridiculous straw hat. We are strangers yet soul mates. In this hellish place. ‘What hours, O what black hours we have spent!’ You won’t leave me, will you, dear? Until—” Abigail understands that Croom means
until I send you away
but she acquiesces with a smile, removing her ridiculous straw hat and setting it on the bedside table.

Croom murmurs endearments, and kisses the soft inside of Abigail’s wrist; with her free, slightly shaking hand she strokes his flushed face warm and soft as bread dough. She has become used to the sour-mashy odor of his clothing and feels a stab of tenderness, the poor man is so
tired
. A major poet, his work honored in all the anthologies of twentieth-century poetry, and so
tired
. And only fifty-four! Abigail says suddenly, shyly, fearing a rebuff from Croom, “I—I had a friend, the closest friend of my life, and he’s gone from me now, and there’s an emptiness in my heart that will never be filled, and—this friend so admired your poetry, Mr. Croom! He taught an art class here in Salthill and he read your poetry to us, to inspire us. Almost as beautifully as you yourself read your poetry, Adam read it.” (Is Abigail lying? It’s the poetry of Walt Whitman and Gerard Manley Hopkins of which she’s thinking, not Donegal Croom’s, yet Croom has clearly been influenced by both poets, so there’s an unmistakable kinship.)

“Really?
My
poetry? Which poems?” Croom grips Abigail’s hand more tightly, speaking with boyish eagerness.

Abigail says, “ ‘SeaChange,’ and ‘The Feathered Serpent,’ and ‘The Bullfight’ of course, and—‘The Flayed Heart.’ And many others.” Abigail speaks softly, seductively, with widened sincere eyes. Like most women she discovers, in such impromptu, intimate moments, her true talent, and what ease in the talent:
tumescing
the male ego. As Abigail spins her tale, frothy and effortless as a spider spinning her web, Donegal Croom listens ardently, and inspires her, as if their situations are reversed, and Croom is Abigail’s muse. “Who was this friend of yours?” Croom asks, and Abigail says, “A sculptor. I miss him.” With surprising sympathy Croom studies Abigail, as if seeing her for the first time. “Someone you loved? Who meant a lot to you?” Abigail nods, yes. Her radiant-jonquil look. Almost, she can see herself. Croom asks, “He died, did he? How?” Abigail speaks



J C O

carefully, not wanting to become emotional. “He drowned. In the Hudson River. Trying to save a child.” Croom says, “Drowned! Like Shelley. But it was a hero’s death, eh? Good for him, he had the guts. How old was he?”

Abigail hesitates, assessing her options: to say that Adam was Donegal’s age at the time of his death might arouse anxiety in the poet, and defeat the erotic urgency of this exchange; to say that Adam was older would be to suggest that Abigail herself is older; yet to pretend that Adam was younger than his age is somehow repellent. “Adam was—no age I knew.

Ageless. We were lovers who touched each other rarely, yet so deeply, I don’t think we ever knew, or cared in the slightest, about mere facts. The outsides of things.” Croom is in agreement. He’s been stroking Abigail’s arm, her shoulder, her gleaming hair. He says, “It’s strange, isn’t it, profound and banal simultaneously, how we can ‘love’ only a few individuals of the thousands we meet in a lifetime. We try, sometimes—but it comes too late.”

Defiantly Abigail says, “No. It can never come too late. Love can be—

reborn.”

Croom laughs sadly. He’s been tugging at the crotch of his rumpled jeans. He says, in a lowered voice, “My dear Helen! In ‘The Dying Jaguar’

I touch upon a personal, private matter, I’ve told virtually no one, I suppose, yes, I am ashamed, I am deeply mortified, my male vanity has been wounded, but I must tell you: I’ve had prostate cancer, and my prostate has been ‘removed,’ as they so delicately say. The cancer was stopped in time, evidently. But I haven’t much control over my bladder. I wear a diaper, dear. Continuously. I’ve grown accustomed to it, as I suppose women grow accustomed to menstruating, wearing sanitary pads, tampons, soaking up blood, and worrying that others might detect the odor. My predicament is worse, of course: my body is pissing all the time, like a leaking faucet.”

Abigail stares at Donegal Croom, too astonished to react.

“Oh, yes: I’m impotent, too. That goes without saying, eh?”

Croom chuckles. Still he’s stroking Abigail’s hair, with an expression of tenderness. His breathing has steadied, he seems less distressed. Though very tired. His eyelids are beginning to droop. It would seem a very late hour, and not mid-afternoon of a sunny May day. It would seem a remote, secret place, a kind of cave, and not a handsome if rather overfurnished room in the “historic” Salthill Inn. Croom is rapidly sinking into sleep, and Abigail remains close beside him, reluctant to leave just yet; not certain if she has been dismissed. “I could love you anyway, Donegal. I love
Middle Age: A Romance



your poetry!” Abigail whispers. But Croom’s bluish eyelids have shut as decisively as if invisible thumbs have shut them. His mouth droops slackly, his lips are moist, flaccid. Croom begins to snore wetly, and in his sleep he twitches, like a large dog trying without success to shake himself. And then he stumbles, as if tripping over a curb. Abigail strokes the man’s face, his coarse hair, feeling a strange sort of contentment.
Is this it? It is!
She senses Adam Berendt watching. Adam has, Adam will, watch over her.

She has no reason to live except Adam would wish her to live. And this encounter with Donegal Croom, she’ll remember as poignant, spiritual.

Shimmering lines of poetry come to her, soft and fleeting as petals, or butterflies’ wings. A dancing flame, so lovely. Abigail’s eyes flood with tears of gratitude. She reaches out to touch the flame—and it has vanished.

W A  s, exhausted, to the mausoleum-house on Wheatsheaf Drive, one of her phone messages is a faltering, stammering voice she vaguely recognizes, with a stab of guilt. And annoyance. “Abigail Des Pres? H-Hello! This is Gerhardt? Ault? You remember me, I hope—

we met at—” Abigail Des Pres,
la belle dame sans merci,
fast-forwards the tape, “—was wondering if, one of these evenings, if you were free, and if ”—(why are some phone messages so
long,
virtually
sagas,
by their conclusions you’ve forgotten their beginnings but aren’t likely to replay them)—“and w-w-would you consider, I know this is abrupt, and unconventional, and it may offend you, Abigail, but w-would you consider, I mean
purely as an abstract proposition,
m-marrying?
Me?
”

Abigail is too exhausted to be shocked. Even incredulous. Nor is she certain she has heard this message correctly. She punches “” to erase, without replaying.

A    for romance!

Abigail would think no more of her shy stammering architect-suitor Gerhardt Ault (though she continues to hear encouraging things about him in Salthill: he’s a “good” “kind” “decent” “very successful” widower) except, the following Monday, there she is driving into Salthill on another of her trivial but lifesaving suburban missions, and by chance she sees Gerhardt Ault and the petite Chinese girl in the red beret, hand in hand, crossing a wedge of lawn near the arts council. The two appear to be



J C O

companionable, if not talking at the moment. Gerhardt is carrying the girl’s cello case.

Abigail stares, astonished. “
His
daughter!”

Managing to drive past without being seen. Her heart beating in helpless, fainting love.

DEARDEADDAD



A  ,on Roger Cavanagh’s computer screen,the message from his daughter, Robin, glimmered like a small gem of a poem.

DEARDEADDAD

i doubt you are my

true father

there is NOTHING of you

in me

& I prefer it that way

please NEVER contact

me again

to tell me the lie

you “love” me

(r)



“ Y , ’   to all our lives. But Robin is adamant, and maybe it’s for the best.”





J C O

. . . long fascinated minutes. Staring at the swiftly changing numerals of the digital clock, set in crystal, on his office desk. As a woman’s voice penetrated his brain. As he pressed the telephone receiver against his numbed ear. How hypnotic, the flashing seconds! Heartbeats. The digital clock on Roger’s desk was absurdly expensive, you could “tell” time as accurately with a drugstore clock, but such cheap practical merchandise wasn’t for Roger Cavanagh of Abercrombie, Cavanagh, Kruller & Hook of 8 Shaker Square, Salthill-on-Hudson. (“Who the fuck am I?—

‘Cavanagh.’ ”) There he sat at his desk, in his glossily furnished office, listening to a woman said to be his ex-wife speaking into his ear with maddening equanimity.

Once, he’d loved Lee Ann. He knew. As he knew random facts about his old, lost life, at a distance, with faint disbelief.

In this office, the previous July, he’d fallen in love with—who was it?—

the red-haired woman, the difficult woman, the woman-who-owned-the-bookstore, the woman-who’d-left-him. Marina Troy. He’d fallen in love with Marina Troy when she signed her name as
witness
to Adam Berendt’s forged signature. When he’d succeeded in inveigling her into committing an illegal act, compromising her integrity for Adam. And for
him
.