Canarino

She paused. She had begun to whine and she knew it. She collected herself and taunted David with a domestic point, as if she were, after all, considering his idea. ‘Anyway, we have no place to stay now on Nantucket.’

To her surprise, he took her up on it, calling her bluff. ‘I’m sure you could rent something if you offered enough money.’

‘And who’s going to organize that?’ She had to struggle to get out of it.

‘You’ve hired a secretary, haven’t you?’

‘She’s new, David. I’d have to tell her what I wanted. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.’ She laughed in triumph, and David laughed, too, at the absurdity of this truth—Elizabeth’s exhaustion. At a certain point, giving one more instruction was impossible for Elizabeth.

Then suddenly he asked, ‘Why’d you make me sell that house, Elizabeth?’ His voice went throaty with an odd, pleading fear. He wouldn’t have brought it up again if he hadn’t been drunk—drunk and, even after six months, awash in a tide of regret and confusion. He couldn’t believe that they had sold the house—no matter what Elizabeth’s feelings. ‘Now that we’ll be back in the States,’ he added defensively, as if to justify his question, ‘we’d use it so much more often.’

Elizabeth didn’t answer. There were things she wanted to say, or at least had once wanted to say. But it was, indeed, too late to say them now. The house had been David’s family’s house; she and David had first gone there in the role of children. And even though David had bought the house from his sisters after his mother died, it was still full of childhood, of his past that was not her own past, of primordial energies Elizabeth could never control or even make terms with. Nantucket, she was thinking, was the last place she herself had felt like a child. Vulnerable, hopeful, in the extreme. As she would never be again. She and David had opened a wound between them there, and she had believed—what?

The wound had never healed, anyway. It had only hardened. Like so many grains of sand, clammed up inside her, layered over and over with hardness—shiny, luminescent, made beautiful simply by the hardness and tenacity of her will to make things beautiful. Childhood was not a safe place. Not for children, not for anyone. She and David had needed to put childhood behind them. She could remember lying on David’s boyhood bed last summer, waiting, hoping for someone—David?—to do something, to save her, and she had thought, Stop this. She had decided there and then to take responsibility for her side of their bargain. Childhood, Nantucket, the whole toy town had to go.

There had never been a chance to explain this to David. It was almost as if they had never been alone together since then. And time had raced on uncontrollably, childhood, middle age, disillusionment, on toward the grave. What did it matter? None of it was relevant anymore. She told him none of it now.

Finally, he broke the silence. ‘You know one of my sisters tried to rent the house for a couple of weeks. New owner wasn’t interested. Couldn’t have cared less.’

Elizabeth said, ‘That’s not my problem, David. And it’s not yours either. The house didn’t suit us.’

Very little did suit Elizabeth and David as it turned out. Later, when she reflected on it, Elizabeth considered that the Nantucket house had been only the beginning. By the time it was actually sold, in January, she had begun to see just how far she might go. A whole new vision of her life.

‘Why don’t I just come over, Elizabeth? Tomorrow. Surprise the children. We can work things out together, about Norma.’

Elizabeth was embarrassed. ‘Oh, God, no! I’ll manage,’ she said lightly. ‘Concentrate on work. That’s what we agreed. I enjoy being with them, watching over them.’ She felt a little afraid when she said this. As if she had volunteered to drive a long distance alone at night in severe weather. But she knew it was the right thing to say, and she was determined to do it—to watch over them. To enjoy them.

‘We’ve had a long day,’ Elizabeth said, ‘that’s all. We’ll be fine here once they—get settled.’

But David didn’t let the game drop. ‘Don’t you think the kids’ll miss the beach? The ocean? It must be fucking hot where you are.’

Elizabeth was silent. She found David’s language surprising sometimes.

‘I could come over for a weekend or two, if you were in Nantucket, Elizabeth. At least I’d try. It’s summer. Summer means—the ocean.’

She disagreed. ‘The children have acres to roam right here, David, and nobody to bother them. There are woods and fields. They don’t have to compete with anyone else; they can just be free, be children. Have their own thoughts, play their own little games.’

David’s mind was wandering. He was thinking about his sailboat. Had it been sold along with the house? Or was it still at the boatyard? He’d like to get it put out on the mooring—just in case. Maybe Elizabeth would be willing to send the children up by themselves for a weekend. They could stay in a hotel. Rent an old jeep. He thought about the water and the sky, the cold, tangled seaweed that slapped on the wooden hull when you pulled up the moorings. The azure, dimpled waves.

‘David?’

He started. ‘I guess I fell asleep.’

‘Go to sleep, then. We’ll talk tomorrow.’

She was murmuring, ever so soothingly, he thought. It felt to David like she was next to him, in the bed. Like she was kindly. Telling him to do as he liked, to rest. That she would deal with everything.

‘Yeah.’ He opened his eyes for a second, on the glaring, empty bedroom. Elizabeth had hung up.

What a crazy, unbelievable night, David was thinking, drunk, drifting again. He was lying on his back on the bed with the telephone on his stomach. It’s as if the moving men have packed up everything inside my head, as if they’ve taken every stick of mental furniture. Rugs out from under me. Ooof. He pictured himself falling, heavily, forever, like a sack of rocks, tumbling. Nothing to stop him, nothing even to slow him down. Where was he in his life? How had it all come about?

He felt himself as a little boy again, yearning toward the future, straining to keep up with his older sisters, buffeted by their energy, their closeness, a throng of Amazonian arms and legs growing up over his head. Then breasts he could remember and other fascinating parts he had caught glimpses of through keyholes, half-shut doors, coming out of the surf at the beach, slick and brown. They had been playful with him, generous, natural. He loved their beautiful bodies openly, admired at supper their elbows, long hair, brainy talk.

And he had listened to their constant, ongoing discussions of what so-and-so was like; what so-and-so said at the end of the party; whether this or that teacher was good-looking or whether he really cared. It was like living in a cloud of feminine intuition.

His parents had been too old to interest him much, they were grizzled, sexless, devoted to golf. What involved him—obsessed him—emotionally, were his sisters. He had learned each of them by heart, all four of them, through continual worship, through fear, through pleasure. So his sisters were what he knew about women to start with. It was a lot. How women talked, what made them cry. Their smells, subliminal, intoxicating, which changed from minute to minute.