Crawlspace (9 page)

“I came back. I was cold.”

“Why didn’t you come and ask me for a heavy coat? I have an extra one upstairs.”

“Why’d you come down? What do you want here?” The tone of his voice was nasty. He seemed to be snarling at me. “Are you spying on me?”

“Spying?” I nearly choked on the word. “Spying?”

“What’s that thing for?” he demanded.

“What thing?”

“That machine.”

I looked at the dehumidifier, which was purring away.

“It’s a dehumidifier,” I blustered. “Mrs. Graves and I—”

“What’s it for?”

I felt myself quaking, but I was determined to say what was on my mind. “Well, frankly, Richard, there’s this awful smell. I’ve smelled it down here in the crawl before, and now it’s spread up to the kitchen. Mrs. Graves and I—”

There was a full pause while I groped for more words. It was horribly embarrassing. But then he spoke—this time, less defiantly.

“I haven’t been able to get out as much as I’d like. The weather—”

“I fully understand, but still there are simple rules of sanitation. What you’re doing is extremely dangerous. Not only to you, but to us as well. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t use the facilities upstairs.”

“I don’t like to bother anyone.”

“I assure you it’s no bother. The kind of thing we’ve had up there this morning is much more of a bother. If you feel awkward about coming up while we’re around, why don’t you wait till we go off to sleep?”

I waited, watching the square hopefully. There was no answer, and so I spoke again. “That would make Mrs. Graves and me most happy. In the meantime, I’m just going to set this dehumidifier right over here at the entrance to the crawl. I’m sure it will go a long way to improve the situation.”

I put the machine directly in front of the square and turned it on to its full power without any further protest from Richard. Then, when I had done that, I was left with nothing else to do. I cast around desperately for something else to say. “Are you feeling all right?”

“Fine.”

“Is it any warmer in there now that the chink is caulked?”

“It’s fine.”

Suddenly a picture of Washburn flashed across my mind, and before I could stop myself I asked, “Had any luck finding a job?” I regretted it the moment it was out.

“I haven’t been out much lately. It’s been cold.”

“Yes, it has.” I heard myself agreeing with him eagerly. Then I was tempted to ask him if he’d been over to see Washburn. I was curious to see what he’d say. But I refrained from that ugly instinct. Instead, I barged off on a tack that even surprised me.

“Richard,” I said most gently, “Christmas Eve is tomorrow night. I was just thinking how nice it would be if you’d come up and join us for Christmas supper.”

I stared at the square, hopefully.

“Richard?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“It’ll be very casual,” I went on sensing an advantage. “Just the three of us. And I know if you’ll come, Mrs. Graves will make something very special.”

Still I waited. “We’ve a pretty tree,” I went on. “And some presents. Come. It’s really high time you left this hole, if only for a short while.” I laughed nervously. “After all, you’ve been living down here for several weeks now, and we haven’t set eyes on you since the last time you came to check our furnace.” I laughed again. “Will you come?”

More silence.

“It would make Mrs. Graves and me very happy—” I waited. “Will you, Richard?”

“I can’t.”

“Why?” I asked, my heart sinking.

“I got nothin’ to wear.”

His reply was so simply and honestly answered, and as a problem so solvable, that I laughed with relief.

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of that.” I clapped my hands together. “Well, then, it’s all settled. You’re coming.”

There was silence, which I took as a silence of affirmation. “Well, then—” I went on. “I’ll be here for you tomorrow night. Say about seven-thirty.”

I turned and started for the stairs. Then I turned and marched back to the square. “Richard,” I stood there addressing the void. “You don’t know how happy this is going to make Mrs. Graves. Thank you, Richard. Thank you.”

I hadn’t meant to be so grateful. I had no intention, when I went down there, of asking him to dinner. I had meant to simply go down and take care of the delicate business of the smell. And this I did, stating our position and a solution to the problem, all rather tactfully, I thought. But I hadn’t meant to leave there like an Oriental—backing out rearwards, with much bowing and wringing of the hands. But I was truly grateful, because all the while I’d been so certain he’d decline.

There was too, now, the business about the job. It was clear that he had not been using the days as I thought, to actively seek employment. Instead, he’d resorted to the subterfuge of slamming the cellar door early in the morning to make it sound as if he’d gone out. Then he’d slip noiselessly back into the crawl and remain there all day hidden from the world.

Had I thought some more about it, I would’ve been terribly bothered—more than bothered—alarmed. But as it was, I’d already forgotten about it in the midst of all the excitement about his coming for dinner.

By the time I got upstairs where Alice was waiting, I was almost bursting with a new magnanimity for Richard.

Alice and I went to the haberdashers in town that afternoon. We were like doting parents buying a graduation suit for our son. I suppose to the poor clerk—a Mr. Winslow—we must have appeared to be lunatics. First of all, we arrived without the person for whom the suit was being purchased, and then, with wildly different notions of what Richard ought to be dressed in for the occasion.

But Mr. Winslow was a plucky little spirit, not easily daunted. “May I ask,” said Mr. Winslow, “on what sort of occasion the suit will be worn?”

“Does that matter?” I asked.

Mr. Winslow smiled patiently. “It would certainly give me a better idea of what we’re looking for.”

“It’s for a small dinner party,” said Alice somewhat ambiguously.

“Ah,” said Mr. Winslow, lighting up like a billboard. “That’s a big help already.”

He pulled out racks of suits during the course of the afternoon while Alice and I squabbled back and forth over patterns and sizes. We could give him no tangible guidance as to size. Each time he brought us a new selection, he’d say, “Now, I think this might be just the thing,” and then smile cheerily. After we’d veto it for one reason or another, he’d scurry back to the racks just as bravely as ever.

After about an hour of this sort of punishment, beads of sweat began to glisten above his upper lip. “This would be so much easier,” he said pulling a little, “if you could just send the boy in to see me.” His voice was a little plaintive.

“That’s out of the question,” said Alice.

Mr. Winslow smothered a look of mild exasperation with his brave little smile. “May I ask for whom you’re buying the suit?”

“For our son,” said Alice.

“For a friend,” I said, at precisely the same moment, our voices colliding.

Mr. Winslow looked at us a little warily.

After about an hour and a half or so of this banter, we made our selection. It was a simple, dark navy suit. To that we added new shirt, tie, several sets of underwear, socks and shoes.

Mr. Winslow stuck bravely with us right to the end. I’m certain by the time we walked out of there he’d come to think of us as harmless lunatics who simply wanted humoring. He promised, however, to have the alterations done on the suit by the following morning.

“You see,” he said smiling just a trifle oddly at us, “it’s a little difficult altering for somebody who’s not around.”

“I’m sure you’ll do very well, Mr. Winslow,” said Alice as we walked out the door. “We have great faith in you.”

Once out in the street, Alice wanted to go to the butcher shop.

“I thought you’d already bought a turkey,” I said.

“I did. But turkey’s so dreary. I want to do something more festive.”

“What about goose? Nothing’s more Christmasy than goose. Right out of Dickens.”

She weighed the idea for a moment. “That’s closer to it. But still—” She paused for effect. “What about a roast pig?”

I thought uneasily, for a moment, about the cost of Richard’s wardrobe. Add to that the cost of a fair-sized roasting pig with all the fixings and a good bottle of port to boot. But by that time we were in front of the butcher shop, and suddenly I had a vision of the thing stuffed with chestnuts and basil dressing, the skin browned to a succulent crisp, a wreath of roast baby new potatoes all around it, and the apple stuck in its mouth—the whole gorgeous spectacle emerging from the kitchen on a sizzling platter.

“That’s perfect, Alice.” I was beaming as we marched in.

The butcher looked at us queerly when we’d placed our orders. “I ain’t had an order for one of them things in fifteen years,” he said. “What about a nice turkey?”

“We don’t want turkey,” I said. “We want a pig.”

“Sorry, I can’t help you, pal.”

“Do you know where we might get one?” Alice asked, crestfallen.

“Swertfergers,” the butcher suggested.

“Swertfergers?” I replied.

“It’s a pork farm. ’Bout twenty miles from here.”

He gave us directions and we were off the next moment.

It was nine o’clock and dismal and cold when we drove up to our house with the corpse of a dressed pig jammed into the trunk of the car, its snout oozing blood into the newspapers in which it had been bundled.

We were so exhausted from driving forty miles over narrow, icy roads that we could barely eat any supper that night. Still we couldn’t rest. The pig needed to be seasoned, the dressing had to be made, several pounds of chestnuts awaited hulling, potatoes wanted peeling, and Alice had to boil several pumpkins for the pie.

It was well past midnight when we climbed wearily up the steps and went to bed.

The following morning I was back on the road early, shortly before nine. The night had been dismal and drizzling, and so I had the same awful business with slick roads I’d had the day before.

Mr. Winslow met me at the door. He appeared to be ecstatic. “I think you’re going to be very pleased,” he said over and over again, a little breathless as he bustled into the back and vanished behind an arras drawn across an archway.

When he emerged again, he was carrying the suit in both arms as if a body were already in it. He tripped across the floor toward me still saying, “I think you’re going to be very pleased.” When he finally presented the suit, it was with a flourish.

I wasn’t very pleased, but I made every effort to appear so. Such was my gratitude to the man for the enormous efforts he made in our behalf. The mere fact that he completed the alterations a day before Christmas was little short of a miracle.

But if I wasn’t very pleased, I was at least moderately satisfied, and Richard had finally a respectable suit of clothes with which he could present himself to prospective employers, as well as come to Christmas supper that night. You see—my motives went a little further than mere philanthropy.

When I left Mr. Winslow’s, I had under my arm a large rectangular box swaddled in cheerful red and green paper, with holly sprays splashed all over it. Winslow held the door open as I went out into the blustery noon. He was smiling and looking very satisfied. “Merry Christmas, Mr. Graves. I do hope your son enjoys the suit.”

At first I didn’t understand him. Then I did. I smiled and said, “I’m sure he will. Merry Christmas, Mr. Winslow.”

I walked down the street, whistling, with the box under my arm and nodding to perfect strangers. Before I left town I purchased the best bottle of port I could find.

I had left Alice at home in her kitchen. When I returned there I found her in a fever of activity, charging back and forth between her oven and her knitting. The good George III silver was out and scattered over a table where she’s been polishing it. She wore a bandanna around her neck, and there were beads of sweat on her forehead.

I kicked the slush off my boots onto the outside mat and stepped into the cozy warmth of the kitchen. There was something already festive about it—the spicy smells, the half-opened packages, the bright gay wrappings of things, the platters all waiting to enter the oven, the look of hectic, purposeful activity.

The moment I entered, Alice looked up. Her eye traveled immediately downwards to the box I carried. Then she gave me an anxious glance.

“Is it all right?”

“I think it’s fine. Not Savile Row, but very serviceable.”

“Oh?”

The sound of that “Oh?” was enough to cast us both into despair.

“It’ll be all right,” I said.

She looked at me skeptically. “Go look at the sweater. I fixed the antlers.”

“Where is it?”

“Out in the living room.” She looked at the gift box again. “What pretty wrapping paper that is.”

“Do you want to see the suit?”

“Do you think I ought to?”

I knew wild horses couldn’t keep her from it now. “You helped pick it out.”

“It was really your choice, dear.”

“I couldn’t have made it without you.”

We looked at each other fatuously. Then a look of alarm crossed her face. “Did he give you the same suit?”

“Of course he did.”

“Sometimes they get them mixed up. Particularly this time of the year with the last-minute rush on.”

“Well, he gave me the right suit.”

“Then I don’t have to see it. Anyway, I don’t want the wrappings ruined.”

I stared around the kitchen. It appeared a whirlwind had been through it. I stood there sniffing the air. “Something smells delicious.”

“Pumpkin pie and plum pudding.”

“Have you put the pig in yet?”

“It’s too early. About two o’clock.” She opened a closet door, then came back and flipped a towel at me. “Can you help with the silver?”

She flew past before I could answer, and I was left there watching her with the towel drooping in my hand. She was traveling in the direction of the freezer.

“Alice,” I said very softly. She didn’t hear me. So I said it again, this time more forcefully, “Alice.”