The Big Why (11 page)

Later, Gerald introduced us. She was his cousin. Abbott Thayer’s niece.

Kathleen said, I like to think of people afterwards.

What do you mean.

You can admire them as youre with them. That’s one thing. But then you can reflect on them. How people do things. Their consideration.

Me: I like realizing good deeds.

Kathleen: But also funny things. For instance, I heard this woman just now saying that this lecture was like the play the other night. And what she meant was that they were sitting in the back then too.

I didnt get it.

It wasnt the content, it was the environment.

We had a feed of bread and molasses, or loaf and lassey, as Tom Dobie called it. We sat on the front step under the figurehead and ploughed into it.

Captain Bob’s clock, Tom Dobie said. You seen that?

The one with grouse nesting on top.

Tom: I saw it come in aboard the
Morrissey
. I was tying her up. Didnt know what it was, I was only four or five. Did a cleat hitch with the painter while the men carried it off. The clock come in a shipping crate, and when it hit the gangplank I thought a coffin. I tried to think who was missing, who could fit such a box. Then the crew tilted the coffin on end and a bell chimed and I realized its true nature. Even so, something of the coffin is still in the clock.

Me: There’s something dead in the telling of time.

We dug out what Tom called the dung sink by the kitchen door. I was frightened to think that my children would have to live in this cold. Cool air had brought in the pack ice. You couldnt see the ice, but you felt it on your breath in the mornings. I wrote Kathleen, You’d better wait. Wait another month.

I woke up at dawn and punished the fireplaces and made coffee. I slopped the pot liquor from the night before into the dung sink and walked along the hill above the cottage with my portable easel, my box of paints, and a square of canvas. I looked at Brigus from the hill. The boys had pushed slub ice under the bridge and that allowed the surface to catch over smooth. Then they let her wait to mature like they were waiting for a crop to grow.

I painted a picture for the joy of painting.

The pans of ice in the harbour knit together. Now they could skate under the bridge and out into the bay. It was healthy ice. One boy skated with a chair. Pushing the chair along.

They skated past the spars of the sunken Bartlett collier. The spars stood out of the ice and one boy climbed up into the rigging. The boat was still carrying four hundred tons of coal on the bottom of the harbour. The spars sticking up out of the ice as though two different dimensions were merging into one, some kind of collage gone wrong.

Farther out the boys unlaced their skates and copied on the loose pans. When I say copy I mean they leapt from ice pan to ice pan in a game called steppy cock. Until they were in the strain of the Head, near the edge of what Tom called the blue drop, or open water. The ice cakes were big enough to hold one boy. They ran and hopped, sinking and tilting the pans until their feet were soaked. There were no seals here, the seals were thirty miles out, on fields of ice, and while most steamers were congregating in St John’s, Tom Dobie was promised a berth on the
Southern Cross
, which would take on crew in St John’s and then dip into Brigus before returning to the Gulf strait. Tom wanted the berth, but Rachel Dobie said she disapproved and I was urging him now to stay with me. They could sell the berth, she said. And Tom could work for that fine young American. Me.

The boys would lean their wet rubbers up behind the stove, the toes of the boots filled with hot dried green peas. And in the morning they’d be dry.

I delivered my worn boots to Marten Edwards. He thought they could be salvaged. And I want, I said, you to make a pair of seaboots for Tom Dobie.

It’d be easier, he said, to order a set from Bud Chafe.

I agreed to that. And also picked out a sealskin coat. For myself.

The last night I had with my wife. I did not want to make love and Kathleen said, I love you. She asked, Do you love me?

You shouldnt ask that, I said. You should just let me say it.

You can’t even say you love me.

Those were my last words to her that night. And in the morning she rinsed the coffee cups with that firm mouth and this was before the children rose and I was thinning out my father’s suitcase. I had an urge to tell her then. Just to melt the firmness. I wanted to take her shoulder and turn her to me, to lead her to the bed. I felt the urge in my chest, but I was late with packing and could not make the urge compelling enough.

When we met at that lecture of Abbott Thayer’s she was seventeen. I moved to Monhegan and wrote to her. I met Jenny Starling and started having an affair. Through the fall I wrote Kathleen. I wrote fifty-three persuasive letters and she wrote thirty-five encouraging ones back. At Christmas I convinced her to visit Gerald and Alma in Monhegan. But even then we were polite and shy and formal until the drinking began. Jenny was there — it was her birthday. There were several Monhegan artists there. I put my hand on Jenny’s waist. Kathleen saw the hand and walked out of the kitchen. Jenny has an outrageous waist. Gerald was loaded and upset because the dog was gone. Tiff’s gone, he said. He was reeling about the rooms in slow motion.

After blowing out her candles Jenny said, Thanks guys, for everything.

Speech, Gerald said. Say something.

Jenny, deadpan: Thanks, guys. For everything.

That repetition, said two different ways. She was saying, I’ve enjoyed fucking all of you.

We went out to the back porch to look for Tiff. Kathleen was not there. Jenny said to Gerald and Alma, I miss the sex. That’s the main thing about not being in a relationship.

Gerald: Not that one-night stands arent an option.

Jenny: No, but you dont want to live on only that.

Gerald leaned against me with his forearms.

Me: Youve got New York hands.

So what are we gonna do, Alma said, about the aching void in Kent?

Me: Why can’t anyone call me Rockwell?

Gerald: Because Rockwell sounds like a made-up name.

Rockwell is my secret name. It’s my father’s name. I will name my son Rockwell.

I wonder, Jenny said, if we should all be having illicit affairs.

She was talking about us. The thing we had was private and I could not promise her anything.

Gerald’s finger in the air: Let’s settle the question of Kent.

Me: I guess youre medics of the soul. Youre just gonna put your heads together.

Gerald laid his head on my chest. To me: She’s the prettiest thing to piss through a lock of hair.

Who.

That Jenny.

Jenny and Alma both heard this. It made Jenny put on her coat.

Jenny: Can someone walk up the hill with me?

We were all standing in the kitchen. Wondering now what to do.

Gerald: Just stick your tongue in my mouth and everything’ll be fine.

How long, Alma said, ignoring her husband, can Rockwell Kent go around idly having fun?

Gerald, slumped against my chest: Forever. I’ve seen guys —

But what’s the best. Arent you becoming interested in some woman?

I shook my head. I looked at Jenny. Kathleen was in the living room.

There’s no need, Gerald said, to be hasty.

He’s twenty-five, Gerald. Do you think anything he does now will be hasty?

Me: Thank you, Alma.

Gerald: Oh where’s my dog.

Tiff’s around, his wife said.

No. He’s run off. And now he’s gone.

Have you checked upstairs.

Mournfully: No.

Me: I’ll look.

Gerald had me pinned to the rail. Alma pried him off, but she couldnt hold him. A slump to the floor.

Get up, Gerald.

I’m comfortable. He said, I do not want to be medicalized.

He was gesturing to the ceiling like a Greek philosopher with a moral point. Only the tip of his finger sober.

Okay I’m leaving, I said. And as I walked down the hall Gerald tackled me. He lunged at my knees. I see the pinrails in the staircase fly past me. The floor smack me in the ear.

Okay, I said. Maybe I’ll stay for one more.

I decided to go upstairs to check on Tiff. Kathleen in the front room. She was listening to a student of Abbott Thayer’s. We have to find Tiff, I said.

Of course.

I held her hand and we took the stairs. Her hand was cold but confidently in my hand. The doors were all closed. She led me into a dark room. She hauled me into herself and shut the door with her foot. I can smell her now, the heat of her face. She said to me, Why is it that when you talk, people look over their shoulders.

Kathleen Whiting pulled the shoulders of her dress down. She tugged at my belt. I love my name, she says. My name is an old name. I like Levi as a name. Isnt that a sexy name, Mr Kent? I’m half tempted to steal. You have to get someone pregnant, Mr Kent.

Who.

Some youngster, I dont care.

This shocked me into action. I lifted Kathleen Whiting’s dress and pushed her to the wall. I pressed my hand between her legs and her head leaned back. I had my hand on her. I sunk to my knees and buried my face in her. She opened her legs. Her hand on the back of my head. She pressed herself into me, using her head against the wall as purchase.

Where the hell is my dog.

Gerald had swung open the door. He slumped against the moulding. We saw, from the light in the hall, that there was a baby in the room. We were in the baby’s room. Gerald was careful getting to a chair. He was judging the air with his bent knees. He lit a cigarette.

Tiff sauntered in. Tiff old boy.

Then Gerald saw us for the first time. I stood up.

Kathleen was showing me to the bathroom.

Yeah.

We can’t leave you here.

Gerald: I’m okay.

You might fall on the baby.

Jesus I’m okay.

You should go lie down, Gerald.

Naw. Gonna do something here with old Tiff.

Kathleen: Youre falling into everything.

You make it sound like I’m incompetent.

Gerald now come on.

And she convinced him to leave. He was convinced.

Kathleen: Isnt he great?

This was after Gerald left.

Me: A little bit too much Gerald. You know, here’s Gerald coming at ya.

Youre not jealous are you?

When drunks arent drinking, I said fondly, theyre good company.

I slept on the Thayer couch. I was up early and put in a fire and heated water. I washed the floors. I did the dishes. The Thayers ginger on the stairs with their hangovers. Coffee, put some coffee on.

Gerald: I thank you for doing the floors. And for doing the dishes.

Alma: And what about for doing your cousin?

Me: I think she did me.

Oh, Kent. Kent you are so full of yourself. And a bad man. She’s seventeen.

Gerald had sat on someone’s guitar. It was Jenny Starling’s guitar, I said. Gerald is pissed off about breaking it. I’m sorry all right?

I had seen Kathleen straitlaced. Then twelve hours later I had seen her shit-faced. She was the last up. She took me aside.

Kathleen: So. If we both enjoyed ourselves, I’m wondering. I mean, we were very drunk. And perhaps.

What.

We should see.

Okay, so what do you suggest.

When youre back in New York. You invite me to dinner.

All right, I said.

Five hundred wet starlings landed on the roof. I could hear them clattering along the eavestrough as I worked. The rooms were light. The percentage of wall devoted to window was good. Across the water I heard poor sounds. Sounds of hollow tin and hungry animals.

It rained and washed the snow away. Rain thrummed on the roof. It was a thick sound, like the pouring of berries from a drum. The rain on the snow was like torn sheets of paper.

Tom Dobie: The more rain, the more rest.

He watched me paint and he asked about it. Why I painted. It is almost, I said, a religious activity.

You believe in God?

In the religion of Christ. A person’s own beliefs. I believe in the will of the vision of one, with laws to protect the rights of many. I dont respect the authority of the book or the church, I said. I support the work of a man. I believe in the work.

Who doesnt.

My wife believes in the man. That the man wasnt himself, but an agent for God.

Well, Tom said, I just believe there’s got to be something after.

March was mild and I had hopes. Even when all of them were saying the worst wasnt over, I had hopes. I didnt stop erecting fences to keep the Pomeroy cows out. I cleared a garden and burned a heap of old wallpaper. I built, with Tom, the extension to the house where I put my easel, a maple desk, a chair, and above it a small bedroom. Tom pounded a coin into the sill.