Solos (12 page)

He looks over at Emily—curly hair, new tweed sweater she ordered off the Web, yellow notebook, special kind of marker (Pentel, black, fine), peep of funny blue zipper under her sweater sleeve. He wants to talk to her about Trollope versus Kafka, so that he'll know if his image is apt and interesting or a load of crap. “That's so true, Marcus,” she will say, and her blue eyes will beam at him like Trollope's lamp. “What a wonderful way to express it.” Or she'll wrinkle her nose and bunch up her lips and ask him why he's so weird lately. As he watches her, she looks up from her notebook and says, “I think it's time to talk about the dog,” and there is a little chorus of agreement, in which Marcus joins.

Near the beginning of the novel, Dr. Wortle's wife and daughter take a walk by the river with Neptune, the family dog, and a couple of small boys from the school. Imagine “a pretty little woman,” as Trollope describes her, and her even prettier teenage daughter, Mary, both in pastel dresses, carrying parasols to keep off the sun; the boys in knee britches and loose shirts; and the big shaggy Newfoundland who loves to “romp”—Trollope's word.

One of the boys is a young baronet, heir to a fabulous fortune. As the children (clearly a little out of control; Mrs. Wortle is always telling them to slow down) run up the hill that overlooks the river, the dog leaps playfully on the baronet and pushes him over the cliff and straight into the river—a sort of reverse Lassie. Mrs. Wortle promptly faints, but fortunately Mr. Peacocke—the same man who will soon be faced with the apparent bigamy of his wife—happens to be walking near the river, jumps in, and pulls the young heir out of the water with no harm done.

Luther says, “Well, it seems to me that the first question is, why did that blasted woman faint? And the second is, what was Mary Wortle doing?”

“Luther, the answers are obvious,” Gene Rae says crisply. “In those days, women didn't
do anything
in emergencies. They expected some man to fix things, while they either screamed or fainted.”

“I wonder if that's really true or if it's just true in the novels of the period,” says Luther.

“Haven't we decided that Trollope is a pretty realistic writer?” Pat interjects. “I mean, in terms of depicting the times?”

“Sure, but he still had his own hang-ups. He was into the whole chivalry thing, which basically means he liked women to keep their place.” Gene Rae can always be expected to raise the question of Trollope's depiction of women. “You know how he went on and on in
The Small House at Allington
about how women have to be the weaker sex.”

“Yeah, but look at the women around him,” says Luther. “His wife was a hot ticket who wouldn't take any shit from Anthony or anybody else. And his mother was—well, we all know about Fanny! Plus, he was pals with George Eliot, for Christ's sake. Now
there
was a formidable woman.”

“But even the great George Eliot could be meek and super-respectful,” Oliver says. “Always kind of deferring to men even though she was such a giant intellectually.”

“Well, Mrs. Wortle is no George Eliot,” Luther insists. “She's a good-hearted lady but basically out of it. When the going gets tough and the kid falls into the river, she faints, like a good Victorian wife. And then they put the kid to bed for two days! He falls into the water, he gets pulled out, they feed him—what?” Lamont finds it and reads: “Sherry negus and sweet jelly.” He looks up. “What the hell's that? Wine and Jell-o?”

“Negus is a sort of sweet punch,” Pat says. Pat is fascinated with the domestic minutiae in the novels. When they read
Orley Farm
, she invited everyone over to her tiny Greenpoint apartment for a reproduction of Mrs. Mason's Christmas feast, which included turkey with the trimmings, plum pudding, and mince pie, even though in Mrs. Mason's opinion (overridden by her husband) it's vulgar to serve plum pudding and mince pie together. “And sweet jelly is probably just jelly,” she said. “Like on bread. It was considered a nutritious food for children.”

“Okay, they give him the goodies and then make the little fucker stay in bed two days? What's
with
these dudes?”

“Ma Wortle probably took to her bed for
three
days.”

Emily sighs. “Look, we're getting way off the track. Who cares what Mrs. Wortle did? The important thing in the scene is
the dog
.”

They all agree, somewhat raucously. Glasses are raised to Neptune the Newfoundland.

“Isn't it great,” Marcus says, “that they didn't
blame
the dog? I mean, nobody seems to have whacked him or anything for almost killing a baronet. In another kind of novel, that dog could have been shot.”

“Trollope loved dogs,” Kurt says. “You should read that essay, what's it called, ‘A Walk in the Woods,' where he says he always walks with his dog, and if he wants to think he doesn't bring the dog because it's too distracting. Can't you just imagine Anthony out there throwing sticks for his big old Newfie?”

“How do you know it was a Newfie?”

“All the dogs in his books are Newfies.”

“Except the hunting dogs.”

“
Hounds
, please. They're not dogs, they're hounds! Remember when the American senator looked like such a bozo when he called them
dogs?
”

“And don't forget the poodle in
Framley Parsonage
. What's-her-name's dog?”

“What was her name?”

They all try to think of the name of the poodle's owner. Emily, who is the group's unofficial secretary, flips back through her notebook. “Oh, what is it, what is it, this is so maddening, it's right on the tip of my—hah! Dunstable! Miss Dunstable!”

They toast Miss Dunstable, who had a poodle and who, they remind Gene Rae, is one of Trollope's smartest and feistiest female characters.

“But let's get back to Neptune.”

“Fanny Trollope's dog was named Neptune, by the way.”

“A Newfoundland?”

“Dunno.” Emily makes a note. “I'll find out.”

They discuss the Wortles' dog: his function in the scene as a way to demonstrate Peacocke's excellence, his three other appearances in the novel. Then they discuss his probable age and size, and his importance to the happiness of the boys boarding at Dr. Wortle's school, with whom, Trollope says, Neptune was on friendly terms.

“Those poor little boys were torn away from their families at
much
too young an age,” Gene Rae comments. “Such a barbaric practice.” Protectively, she lays a hand on the mound of her stomach that houses Roland, the six-month-old fetus. “And most of them probably had dogs at home—not just parents and siblings. Can you imagine being separated from your beloved dog at, like, seven? Eight? I'll bet they worshiped that Neptune. He was probably spoiled rotten.”

“I still wonder about cats,” Kurt says, not irrelevantly. They have searched in vain for a cat in all the novels they've read so far. “I thought one might turn up in a school novel.”

“But no.”

“Not a one.”

“Could it be Anthony was not a cat-lover?”

It is a question they have raised before, but they have been able to find no evidence one way or another. They prefer to believe that cats were such a taken-for-granted part of life
chez
Trollope that he felt no need to mention them in his books.

The group always ends with a reading from the novel, so that they can savor the famous “Trollopian cadences” spoken aloud. This month it's Marcus's turn, and he reads a page or two from the last chapter, when the Peacocke crisis has been resolved and young Mary Wortle seems to have found the right man in Lord Carstairs:

I cannot pretend that the reader shall know, as he ought to be made to know, the future fate and fortunes of our personages. They must be left still struggling. But then is not such always in truth the case, even when the happy marriage has been celebrated? Even when, in the course of two rapid years, two normal children make their appearance to gladden the hearts of their parents?

When he is done, Lamont yells out, “Say it, brother,” as if it's a prayer meeting, and everyone intones, “Amen.”

For next time, they decide to read
Miss Mackenzie
. “Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend,” Lamont says.

“And inside of a dog, it's too dark to read,” Luther replies.

The old Groucho joke is their ritual break-up, and they drain their glasses and gather their books and pens and notebooks. As always, they argue with Lamont, who insists the drinks are on the house. He won't budge, so they leave Fiona the waitress an extra-large tip—as always.

Emily and Marcus go out through the bar together. Elliot C. is still sitting there, still alone, still not looking in their direction. Carey the bartender is energetically mixing up a pitcher of margaritas for a raucous party at the other end of the bar. Marcus says, “Hi there, Elliot.”

Elliot turns with an elaborate look of surprise, and Marcus realizes that he has already seen them but pretended not to. “Oh, hey there, Mark. Marcus?”

“Yeah. And this is Emily.”

“Right. From the party.”

“And the park.”

“How's your dog?” Emily asks.

“He's fine.” Elliot takes a drag on his cigarette, tough-guy style, holding it between thumb and forefinger. “Why wouldn't he be?” The margarita-drinkers let out sudden loud whoops of laughter and start slapping each other on the back. Elliot C. glares at them, exhaling smoke from the corners of his mean little mouth.

“Just asking.”

“My dog is fine.”

“Does he have a name?”

Elliot C. shrugs. “Of course he has a name. What kind of question is that?” Showing his sharp teeth, he laughs like a man providing canned laughter for a sitcom sound track. Elliot's laugh makes Marcus remember his damp handshake.

When they get out into the cold, Emily says, “I love the Trollope group so much,” and Marcus knows she doesn't want to speak of Elliot C. “Don't you?”

“They're a great bunch.” Marcus has a hard time saying he “loves” things. “I thought we had a good discussion about Neptune.”

“Neptune the wonder dog.” Emily takes his arm. “Didn't you ever have a dog, Marcus? Not even when you were a kid?”

Marcus hesitates. When Gene Rae said, “Imagine being separated from your beloved dog when you were seven or eight,” he amended, “Or ten,” and thought of Phoebe. The memory of Phoebe is still vivid—her beautiful ivory teeth, her complicated arrangement of black and white fur, her big puppyish paws—and still hurts him. He is horrified to find that tears are stinging the corners of his eyes. He has a sudden image of himself back in Honesdale, walking through the woods where Phoebe is buried and where his mother died. He remembers the smell of the woods, the feel of the spongy earth under his feet, the absolute dark when he curled himself up to sleep at night.
Long
live the weeds and the wilderness yet
. He blinks, and the tears, which for one bad moment had threatened to fall, are held back. “Yeah, I had a dog for a while when I was ten. She got run over.”

“Oh, shit, Marcus, I'm sorry. What was her name?”

He takes a breath. “Phoebe was her name.” He hasn't said it aloud in years. “Phoebe.”

“Damn it. What a terrible thing. You must have been devastated.”

“Yeah. My—uh—my father was home when it happened. I wasn't even there. I didn't even get to—you know—”

“Say good-bye to her.”

“Yeah. She was just—by the time I got home—just gone.”

Emily stops under a street lamp and looks at him. “What do you mean,
gone
, Marcus?”

“Oh well, you know, he—she was buried. He buried her right away. Because—you know.” He broke off. “Anyway, that's the only dog I ever had.”

Emily is silent, frowning at the sidewalk, before she takes his arm again and they resume walking down Bedford. Across the street, the figure of Susan Skolnick emerges from the deli carrying a plastic bag of groceries, and passes out of sight like a wraith. They pass Dolan's Bar & Grill, the bookstore and café, the record shop, the weird windowless club that used to be a pigeon-feed store before Williamsburg became chic. When they get to the
WHAT COMES AROUND GOES AROUND
sign, Marcus remembers something he read once: that a human being naturally walks in a slow curve, so that eventually he will return to where he was.

By at the gallop he goes, and then

By he comes back at the gallop again
…

“Well,” Emily says finally. “One of these days you'll get another dog.”

“Or a cat.”

“Or a bird.”

Emily squeezes his arm.

9

Desserts i stressed

When Emily goes to her landlady's door on Wednesday evening, she hears the Lou Reed album Anstice plays when she has one of her migraines, so she knocks extra loudly. Anstice likes company when she has a migraine: “Anything to distract me from the pain.” Loud music, she says, creates a wall of sound that the pain can't get through; a visit from a friend creates something else, “an aura of goodness that's the opposite of the headache,” is the best she can explain. Anstice believes her headaches are evil, and that she must resist them the way her New England ancestors resisted Satan. She is the descendant of a famous witch-burner, Judge Jedediah Mullen, of Salem, Massachusetts, where most of her family still lives, inhabiting historically significant houses and indulging in lifestyles that Judge Mullen would surely have considered the work of Beelzebub.

But it is the Mullen money that enabled Anstice to buy the old spice factory, divide it into rentals, and furnish her loft on the sixth floor.

Everything Anstice has is perfect. This is a fact that strikes Emily whenever she knocks on the door, because the perfection begins there: The door is aubergine, and it is painted perfectly; the surface is like deep purply-brown glass. There is a brass plaque with
Anstice Mullen
engraved on it, and in front of the door is a woven mat of bright pink straw that Anstice found in Spain and a black-and-white striped ceramic umbrella stand she had made to order at a place in the Village. Even the little box into which she punches the code that deactivates her state-of-the-art alarm system is beautifully designed.