Conrad Aiken - Great Circle

— It was David’s idea, he thought it would be nice to go out in a storm — do you think you could stop them. It isn’t safe. It’s crazy.

— When did they go.

— Five minutes ago. If you ran straight down to the Point—

— Can I go, Uncle Tom, I can run fast—

— No, Andy, you stay here.

— I’ll go down and see.

He took his raincoat from the cupboard under the stairs and went out. I wondered if he would be struck by lightning. And whether the Osprey would be struck, because of the little mast at the front. What a silly thing to do, it was just like Uncle David, he was probably drunk. I went upstairs to Susan’s room, where Susan and Porper were building a fortress in the middle of the floor with blocks and books and tin soldiers and the rockinghorse and the elephant, and the wastebasket for a tower, and helped them with it, now and then going to the front window to watch the storm, which got worse and worse. Every time the lightning came Porper shut his eyes, but he didn’t cry. The whole bay was dancing with lightning, and now and then we could see all of it, every single detail, even the white houses on Clark’s Island, in a green flash, but we couldn’t see any boats, only the water, which seemed to be nothing but whitecaps. Uncle Tom must be down at the Point now, but what could he do. How could they see him or hear him, even if they were still there. But where would they go.

It was after supper, Susan was putting Porper to bed, when he came back, soaked to the skin, and tired, and said he hadn’t been able to find them. They had gone off in the Osprey , and taken the tender with them, he could make out the mooring, but that was all. He had walked out on the long bridge as far as the draw without seeing anything, there were no lights in either direction. If they had gone out into the bay, and got caught, they might be safe enough by this time if they had got into the lagoon, by the village. Or they might have gone up through the bridge into the cove, and perhaps anchored there in the lee of the bluffs, or perhaps even beached the Osprey . In any case, he didn’t think anything more could be done. They were probably all right. What could you do, in this rain that came in sheets, and this wind like a hurricane. Though he thought the thunderstorm itself was about over, was moving out to sea.

— Do you think we ought to telephone the police.

— What could the police do. And probably they’ve cut off the telephone service.

— If they aren’t back by ten I think we ought to tell them.

— You mean send out a search party. But what could a search party do. Nobody would go out in a boat, not if he could help it. You can’t see as far as your hand.

It was after I had been sent up to bed that I heard the telephone ringing. The thunder had stopped, and the wind had gone down, but it was still raining hard. And a little later I heard voices downstairs, and the doors opening and shutting, and when I got out of bed and went to the window I saw Uncle Tom and two other men going off towards the Point with lanterns, the three lanterns noddling up and down over the drenched grass, and showing the bright yellow edges of sou’-westers. I got back into bed and listened to the hard rain on the roof, but I couldn’t go to sleep. It seemed to me that I was awake all night.

— and in the playhouse that afternoon, alone, it was hot and steamy there, and quiet, and Uncle Tom came in, and looked at me, tapping on the Gonko table with his fingers, and I could see that he was wondering if I had been crying. But I hadn’t been crying. And then he said that Sergeant Homer was at the house and wanted to ask me a few questions. Just a few questions. About how I had found them. About how I had found the Osprey in the marsh channel that morning.

— Don’t be worried, Andy. It’s just official. Just tell him what he wants to know, it won’t be long. It’s all right.

The Sergeant was sitting at the dining-room table, with his hat upside down on the floor beside him. Aunt Norah was standing by the window, she had just said something when we came in, and the Sergeant was writing it down with a pencil. She was blowing her nose.

— And your name, young man, is Andrew Cather, isn’t it?

— Yes, sir.

— You went out in your dory this morning at about five o’clock, that’s right isn’t it, and rowed up the marsh channel toward Brant Rock?

— Yes, sir.

— And you saw the tender of your uncle’s boat there, in the channel, and that led to your discovery that the Osprey had been sunk there. How much under water was the Osprey when you saw it, would you say.

— I should think about two feet.

— So that you could see everything quite clearly?

— Yes, sir.

— Was she on her side?

— A little on her port side.

— You could see quite clearly into the cockpit, you could even have got into it — but you didn’t get into it, did you, Andrew, or interfere with it in any way?

— No, sir.

— Was the door to the cabin open or shut.

— It was shut.

— You are sure of that. Did you notice whether the boat had been anchored?

— Yes, sir, the anchor had been dropped.

— Could you see anything through the portholes?

— I could see some brown cloth quite close to one of the portholes, and I knew it was my mother’s dress, the one she had on yesterday.

— You didn’t touch the doors of the cabin, did you?

— No, sir.

— Thank you, Andrew — that will be all.

I went out by myself to the tennis court, and met Juniper there, and he swished his tail against my bare leg and made the sound that Porper always called puttenyarruk , which meant that he wanted grasshoppers. I caught him a flying one, and he ate it. The tennis court was almost dry again, but the rain had made deltas in it, it would need rolling, and the lines were completely gone. It was August the 11th. I wished they hadn’t put Mother and Uncle David in the same room. And would Father come down to Duxbury now—)

— Perhaps, after all, I’d better go. I’m afraid you were busy, old man. And I think it’s stopped snowing.

— No — I don’t think it has. What about a drink.

— Well — well—

— It’ll do you good. Release the inhibitions, et cetera. Remove your consciousness from one plane to another, you know.

— Oh, yes?

— Yes.… Here.… Say when.…

— When. Thanks.… Thanks.…

— And come to think of it, why don’t you spend the night. You might talk it all out, between drinks. Plenty of whisky here — some Rhine wine, if you prefer — quiet as the tomb — you can sleep on the couch if you get sleepy — What do you say.

— Well, maybe — if you don’t mind — after all — good God, I feel like crying.

— Why not sit down.

— No, thanks, I’d rather stand — walk — touch things and hold on to things — do you mind if I put my hand flat on that picture of Michelangelo and feel the glass—

— Why should I?

— He, too. I wonder if he ever went as deep. Did he ever talk to a psychoanalyst and weep? Did he ever pace about a room, at midnight, with a glass in his hand, a glass that might have been his heart, and drink his own bitter blood? Christ, what am I chattering about.

— Don’t we all do it, sooner or later?

— Before I came here, half an hour ago, do you know what I was doing? I was walking in the snow, hardly knowing what I was doing. Oh, yes, I did know, too, for God’s sake let’s be honest. I was crying as I walked, and I enjoyed crying — I felt the tears at the corners of my mouth, tears mixed with melting snow, and I deliberately opened my coat and shirt, so that I could feel the snowflakes on my chest and throat. My feet were getting wet, and I didn’t care, I stepped into the puddles and slush, thinking what a good thing it would be if I got pneumonia. Isn’t it amazing how even at such a moment, when one is absolutely broken, dissolved, a mere whirlwind of unhappiness, when one walks without knowing or caring where one is going, nevertheless one still has to dramatize oneself, one sees oneself as a pitiful figure under an arc light in the snow, one lifts a deliberately tormented face to the storm, and despite the profound actuality of one’s grief, there is also something false in it too. Suddenly the snow is paper snow, one almost expects to hear an accompaniment of sob music on nicely ordered violins, or the whole world breaking into applause! Good God. Let’s laugh.