Last Resort (31 page)

It would be interesting to see how Barbie Mumpson and her new friends got on with their campaign. He might give them the names of some of the well-to-do local fans who had crowded round him just now, pressing business cards and telephone numbers on him. He was also seriously turning over in his mind a possible article for the
Atlantic
about the manatee—perhaps eventually even a book.

If he decided not to leave week after next, if he stayed through March, or perhaps even longer, Jenny could start the research now. And after all, why shouldn’t they stay on? The house was available, and according to reports the weather back in Convers was still cold, gray, and icy. And since he’d got out of the hospital he was sleeping well at night, even heavily: nine or ten hours sometimes.

Jenny would like it if they stayed on, she’d said so only the other day. She hated cold weather, and she had made friends here, though not always wisely. And with modern technology—fax and E-mail and an Internet connection—she could do most of the necessary editing and checking for
The Copper Beech
right here in Key West. Besides, it would make up to her for that stupid misunderstanding over Barbie Mumpson.

Possibly they could return to Key West every winter from now on, Wilkie decided. Jenny would like that too. With enough advance notice, she could probably find a house she’d prefer to this one. Or they might buy a place, as many of their acquaintances had. It was a good investment, everyone said so. They might even become Florida residents the way Howard and Molly Hopkins, and the Fosters, had done, staying at least six months and a day every year in a state with no income tax. Why not, after all? His editor was almost exhaustingly enthusiastic about
The Copper Beech,
and the balance of his advance would cover a substantial down payment on a substantial vacation house. If the first serial rights deal his agent was now negotiating went through, they probably wouldn’t even need a mortgage.

The ending of the book was better now, Wilkie thought. Instead of actually describing the melodramatic death of the Copper Beech in a great storm, he had cast the last chapter in the future conditional, and posited several possible futures. As a result, he had been able to include all the good passages of writing he would have otherwise regretfully had to discard.

Beeches are long-lived, he had written: some existing specimens are known to be well over three hundred years old. Yet one day the Copper Beech, like all trees and all men, will die. It might perish prematurely: struck by disease, demolished by human stupidity, or toppled in a great storm. But if we cared for it, and were vigilant, the Copper Beech might adorn and enrich the world and us for many more years—and so might all the other endangered flora and fauna on the earth. It was probably too optimistic an ending; but if you weren’t optimistic, in his experience, there was no chance of getting people to do anything at all.

Though only a few weeks had passed, it was hard now for Wilkie fully to recall the depressed, desperate, almost demented state he had been in before his gallstone attack—a state in which it had seemed clear that the only way out was one that would have destroyed not only his own life, but Jenny’s and possibly those of his children.

Three times Wilkie had done his best to accomplish this destruction, and each time Fate had thwarted him. He pictured her still as he had in his deranged state of mind: as a dumpy, elderly version of Justice. But now, instead of sneering spitefully at his failure to do away with himself, Fate was smiling, even perhaps rather smugly.

Later that same hot day L.D. Zimmern, the New York professor and literary critic, settled into a creaking wicker chair on the front porch of Artemis Lodge and extended his long thin legs. As usual, he was wearing an old denim work shirt and a skeptical, penetrating expression.

“Well, Cousin Lelia,” he said. “It’s fun to see you again. What has it been, five years?”

“I guess so,” Lee agreed.

“You look like a real native Key Wester. One of those, what is it they call them? Some kind of clam.”

Lee did not reply. Years ago, as a teenager, she had resolved that Lennie Zimmern would never again get a rise out of her. She pulled down her crimson embroidered mumu, wishing as she did so that she had followed her earlier impulse to change into jeans and a T-shirt before he arrived.

“A Conch, that’s it. Yeah.” He reached for the bottle of imported beer he had brought with him. “Quite a change from Dr. Weiss, Ph.D., with her briefcase and box of Kleenex for weepy clients.”

Again, Lee said nothing, though she thought that Lennie, on the other hand, was unchanged: still thin, dark, clever, and sour. His thick hair and close-cropped beard were grayer, his face more sardonically creased; that was all.

“So the place suits you?”

“I like it,” she admitted, gathering her forces. “I never expected to see you here, though.”

“Why not? I had two perfectly good motives: curiosity and cash. Besides, it was a chance to visit my favorite little cousin Merilee in her new natural habitat.”

In spite of her resolution, Lee winced visibly at the first utterance in many years of her silly adolescent nickname.

“Sorry. I should have said Lelia Weissfrau.” Lennie grinned as he made this old joke, which dated from the time when Lee, on becoming a feminist, had altered her original surname from Weissmann to Weiss. With difficulty, she did not react.

“Seriously,” he added. “When you get to be my age, you start thinking about your family. Like that Gauguin painting. Where do we come from, Who are we, Where are we going? I even have occasional embarrassing impulses to show people photographs of my grandchildren.”

“Oh yeah? Do you have them with you?” Lee asked.

“I must admit I do. All three.”

“Okay. Hand them over.”

For the next ten minutes Lennie and Lee exchanged photographs and family news. It was in a more relaxed manner that, as he put the snapshots away, she remarked “You know, I’m surprised you should come to a conference on The Writer and Nature. I thought you didn’t care for nature.”

“You’re right, I’ve never been a great fan. Seems to me it’s what civilization was invented to get away from. But there’s not too much of the stuff around here.”

“Come on.” Lee nodded at her trumpet vine, still thick with red and gold blossoms, and the leafy street beyond. “What do you call that?”

“Aw, that’s just pretty scenery. I have nothing against scenery, as long as it stays in its place.” Lennie raised his glass to the trumpet vine, and drank.

“And what really surprises me is that they invited you.”

“That’s easy. I’m here as the bad guy.” He set down the glass, pulled his still thick, coarse gray-black hair into two horns, and gave his cousin a devilish grin. “They need someone like me to rile them, make them rush to the defense of their favorite useless plant or animal, get the energy level up. Otherwise it’s all too nicey-nice. That’s why they’ve called my panel ‘Nature and Anti-Nature.’ I’m Anti-Nature. When I go on tomorrow, it’ll liven things up, you’ll see.”

“So what will you say?”

Lennie shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet. Maybe I’ll start in on one of their heroes, say for instance Thoreau. You know he was a mama’s boy, like so many naturalists? Used to send his laundry home from Walden like some kid at summer camp.”

“Really?”

“God’s truth. Or should I say, Goddess’s truth?” Lee did not reply. “You still into all that?”

The answer was, Yes, in some ways, but Lee did not supply it. “But it’ll be three to one,” she said instead.

“So what?” He shrugged. “It’ll be easy going up against those famous softheads. Kind of fun, really. There won’t be any surprises; I know most of them already.” Lennie smiled. Altogether, there were fifteen speakers at the conference, and it was safe to say that in the past he had insulted or annoyed every one of them in some way, either in person or in print—though in many cases Lennie (unlike his victims) had forgotten this.

“Really.”

“Listen, I’ve known Gerry Grass since we were both at an arts colony thirty years ago. He’s not a bad guy, but he’s still stuck back there in the sixties, trying to get in touch with Nature. Wandering about the world looking for her like Bo-Peep’s poor lost sheep.”

“I thought he was a famous American poet.”

“Sure, why not? You don’t have to be intellectually brilliant to be a famous American poet. It’s a handicap, sometimes. Innocent egotism, good looks, romantic sensibility, a thrilling speaking voice, and a nice little lyric gift, that’s what makes it with the reviewers and the public. You met him yet?”

“Just yesterday, at the opening reception.”

“I hear he’s split with his girlfriend, what’s her name, Huff or Tiff or Spat, something like that. Poor dope. He should have been warned the moment they were introduced; he’s supposed to be sensitive to language.”

Lee laughed. “So who else is on the panel with you?”

“Well, there’s Wilkie Walker, the Friend of the Salt Marsh Mouse, and all our other little furry friends.” (Lee opened her mouth to make some equally negative comment, then closed it.) “And Dolly Acker, of course, author of
Whale Music,
the most famous nature writer of her generation, according to the brochure.”

“It sounds as if you don’t care for her,” Lee said.

“Not all that much, no. I don’t like beautiful women who prefer fish to me. If I get lucky, I can make her cry. I’m looking forward to that.”

Lee laughed again. “If you make Dolly Acker cry, that audience will lynch you.”

“You think so?” Lennie raised his heavy eyebrows. “But you’ll protect me, won’t you, Lelia? You’ll charge onto the stage and fight the assailants off with your umbrella, like you used to when you and Cousin Roger were playing Robin Hood and the Dragons, or whatever it was.”

Below the porch a car pulled into Lee’s driveway. Jenny Walker got out, slammed the door ineffectively, and ran up the steps. Her long pale hair was loose over a gray cotton dress printed with paler gray bamboo leaves, and she looked flushed, anxious, and very pretty.

“Oh, Lee!” she cried in a tremulous rush. “I’m so glad you’re here. I just can’t make it tonight, Wilkie’s changed his mind, he says we have to go to the art opening, and the dinner tomorrow too. I can’t possibly see you until Sunday. I know that’s awful. But I’ve got good news too: we’re going to stay through April, and we’re probably coming back in October. So you’ll forgive me, won’t you?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Lee said awkwardly. “Jenny, this is my cousin Lennie Zimmern, that I’ve told you about. Jenny Walker.”

“What?” Jenny gasped. “Oh, hello, I didn’t see you.” She took a breath and shifted with evident strain into a social manner. “I mean of course I knew you were coming, I saw your name in the program. But you weren’t at the lunch today at the Rusty Anchor.”

“No,” Lennie agreed. “I make a point of never eating at restaurants with cute names.”

“And are you enjoying Key West?”

“I can’t say yet.”

“Oh, you’ll like it, I’m sure. Everyone does. Well, I must dash.” With a brief helpless glance at Lee, she ran down the steps.

“Well,” Lennie said, as Jenny’s car pulled out of the driveway. “What was all that about? No, on second thought, don’t tell me, let me guess. You’re in love.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Lee said rather tensely. “Jenny’s just a little frantic and overextended now, because of the conference. She gets like that sometimes.”

“Come on, Lelia. I’ve seen Jenny Walker for years at Academy dinners, and I’ve never seen her like that. She’s always been the perfect lady. Calm and cool and collected.”

“That doesn’t prove—” Lee, who detested lies, lied with difficulty. “It’s not what you think.”

Lennie looked at her, frowning a little, then smiled. “Come on, Lelia,” he repeated. “You ought to realize by now that I won’t tell on you. Shit, it’s been nearly fifty years, and I’m still the only person that knows who broke the bathroom window in your aunt’s house in Queens.

“I should congratulate you,” he added, when Lee said nothing. “She’s a very attractive woman. Beautiful, even. Maybe a little flavorless for my taste.”

“Jenny is not flavorless,” Lee heard herself protest against her better judgment, in a voice that, she realized too late, gave everything away.

“No? Well, you know best.” Lennie allowed himself an aggravating smile. “I’ve never tasted her myself.”

“She’s too good, that’s all,” Lee said, ignoring this smile and trying to speak casually. “The trouble is, she wants to make everyone happy, including her husband, who’s a complete egotist and MCP.”

“Really.”

“He thinks he loves her, but he has no consideration for her. Treats her as if she were his secretary, even though he couldn’t write his books without her. But she won’t leave him.”

“No, I can understand that. After all, who would she be if she weren’t Mrs. Wilkie Walker?”

Lee sighed, but managed to say nothing, though she couldn’t help remembering what Jenny had whispered to her only yesterday: Yes, of course I love you. But Wilkie’s work is my life. Anyhow, it’s what I can do for the world, you know?

“She seems to be a popular item,” Lennie remarked. “I have the impression that Gerry Grass has a crush on her too. When he was reading this rather obvious poem about lost white birds and lost white-skinned women at the symposium this morning he kept gawking at her.”

“He hasn’t got a chance,” Lee said.

“Glad to hear it.” Lennie smiled. “But you know, Wilkie Walker might not be around forever. Gerry told me last night that he was in the hospital here a couple of weeks ago.”

“Yeah. But it wasn’t anything. He had some sort of intestinal attack. Nerves I think it was.”

“Could be. I have to say that he still puts up a good show in public, though. Father Nature, all wise and kind. You should go and hear him sometime this weekend, see what you’re up against.”

“No thanks,” Lee said. Last night, at the opening reception of the conference, she had met Wilkie Walker for the first, and she hoped the last, time. As she’d expected, he had been both polite and patronizing, recognizing her as Jenny’s friend, but showing no wish to know her better himself.