Contrary Pleasure (36 page)

So is that it? Because I’m a pirate at heart? Or a gambler?

Or deeper than that. Deeper than looking for reasons. You work because
you work. You do your job because you do your job. Without sword or mission or
grail. And the clan rides your shoulders. Full of a ridiculous, trusting
confidence in you. Knowing that their world cannot change.

[The insurance will be paid because it has been in effect long enough to
cancel out the suicide clause, and that means fatter working capital, some new
equipment and that overdue roof-repair job. See how I trade on everything, even
on the blood of a brother, twisting it to my conniving purposes?]

So there is no point in even telling them. So adios to the sunburned man
in the billed cap, that man with the fiberglass casting rod. He is sorry but he
has other appointments. With a younger brother whose nose must be pressed
firmly against the whirring grindstone. With a daughter who must not be
permitted to run away from the scene of a broken love.

Miss Meyer is back and tomorrow we will place the call to Griffin, and
his voice will be calm so that I will be unable to guess how he feels about it.

He looked across at his wife and saw that she was watching him over the
rim of her tilted cup, her eyes cloudy with concern. He realized with a certain
wryness that she always knew. She would not know the specific problem, merely
that there was one and that it was bothering him. She would not ask, but he
would sense her watchfulness. The way she would wait to be told.

And he grinned at her, telling her in that way that whatever it was, it
was now over. Relax, Willy. I’m fine now. I wasn’t, for a while, but I’m fine
now. I’m heartsick over my brother, and I feel much guilt about him, but in all
other departments I am back solidly on the rails.

He looked around at the others. They were talking with each other. He
knew what they wanted. The assurance that nothing bad would happen. The warm
knowledge that nothing dark would reach out from a strange place and grab them.
They wanted to be told that there is no danger in life and no uncertainty. So
they had gathered here to warm themselves.

It was an impossible request to make. They were all bound together,
walking blindfolded through a place where there was disaster and terror on
every side. Death and pain and fright and loss.

But he knew he would go on telling them in all the indirect ways that
they were safe from harm. It was all that you could do, both for them and for
yourself.

So that made it, perhaps, an act of love.

The day had turned darker. Wind was stronger, and it began to make the
television aerial whine, the sound coming down the chimney and out of the
fireplace.

There was a silence in the conversation. Clink of a cup. Wind whine. And
it seemed they had all moved in that moment a bit closer to each other. Close
ranks, for one is gone.

Bess suddenly began to cry again, quite softly, and Wilma took her to the
bedroom to lie down. Brock and Robbie got out the scrabble board. Ellen and
Susan talked about schools. George and Ben talked about George’s new plans.
Alice went to the kitchen with Wilma to make sandwiches.

The wind died and a steady rain began to fall. By dusk it was so cool
that Brock built a fire in the fireplace. And they all mentioned the changeable
weather you had to expect in June.