Frederick Busch - The Stories of Frederick Busch

“She’s quite a girl.”

“You noticed.”

Ian pushed a large rock with the Land Rover and it fell onto the fence he’d made for his road. He pushed the pebbles back with the edges of his hands, then started again to move the stone. A waitress came out with red terrycloth table mats to hang on the washline nearby, and Ian’s parents smiled to her. Ian kept working. He heard his father say, “I noticed you. You and the kids. That’s what I came over here for.”

At the tables behind the public room the grandfather sneezed. He choked one, and then two fast shouts came after, like shots. Ian stood up to look past the clothesline and over low hedges. The grandfather was talking to Brenda, rubbing the sleeve of his brown tweed coat.

AFTER BRENDA HAD shoveled and swept, had stacked the push broom and shovel and rake, and had put the wheelbarrow away, Ian went into the stone stable and closed the double doors behind him. The walls were whitewashed halfway around, and the opposite doors, leading into the field with its small stream, were open, so that cool winds and the white clean stones of the walls made everything smell good. The gelding, the oldest and largest of the horses, dark brown and dull in the shadows of his wooden stall, ate and blew out; the noise of his feeding was a river sound. Ian smelled the ammonia and the hay of the horses, and he breathed deeply. He heard the horses in the field, and he heard his mother.

She said, “Ian?”

Ian said, “Hello.”

“Hello.”

Ian said, “Are we going home to America?”

“Where’s that?”

BRENDA LIT IAN’S father’s cigarette and threw the wooden match onto the cobbles in front of the cottage. Ian sat inside on the wooden windowseat and watched, and his mother, on the sofa between him and the room, facing in, sat with a heavy book that Ian’s grandfather had given her. She read while Stuart played with coal from the scuttle. The rain was heavy, and Brenda wore her duffel coat with the hood up, but Ian’s father wore only his sweater with the reindeer on it as they shoveled and swept inside the stables, then loaded the muck and wheeled it out to the lower stable where they sometimes kept foals.

Stuart spat out a small piece of coal, and Ian’s mother lit a cigarette, holding it in her mouth with one hand, working the match back and forth with the other. Beyond her was Ian, who looked at her and then out at the rain beating into the cobbles, and his father helping Brenda with her work, and then the fence and five slow horses wheeling silently from pile of hay to pile, in their dance.

Ian watched everything. He saw his grandfather go down the walk from the house, come around past where the cars were parked, then walk on the cobbles in his leather shoes that clicked, the collar of his brown tweed jacket up against the rain, his gray hair soaking onto his head, showing only pink there by the time he’d knocked on their door and walked in.

The grandfather said, “That child is eating coal.” He shut the door, turned his collar down, opened his buttons, rebuttoned them, shook his arms in place at his sides, walked into the middle of the small room to stop where he looked at Ian’s mother and, behind her, at Ian, who turned around and pulled his knees up and held them in place with his hands. “Is it good for him? Large pieces like that?” Stuart held the coal up to the grandfather, who was looking at Ian’s mother.

She said, “No, Daddy. Pick him up, then.”

Ian’s grandfather picked Stuart up, and Stuart tried to rub the coal into his grandfather’s smooth face. But he stopped when his grandfather snarled and shook him in his arms. The grandfather said, “I’ve been thinking about you and your family, Anna. I’ve decided what I think is best. God knows you haven’t been asking but I want to tell you something. I’ve wanted to give you some sort of advice for weeks. Before your Harry came to retrieve you.”

The mother said, “It sounds like I’m a stick. Or a dead duck.”

His grandfather said, “And he’s a game dog? Ah. No. No. But for some time. Thinking about this.” He put Stuart down, and Stuart rubbed his coal into his grandfather’s green twill pants. The grandfather slowly kicked at him as he spoke. “I didn’t know you smoked anymore, Anna.”

Ian’s mother said, “We’re all taking it up these days.”

His grandfather said, “Ah. There we’re in tune. What we say now rhymes, in a manner of speaking. I mean to say that while I’d prefer not to say it, because I hate to sound as much of a fool as I often am, I nevertheless know what you mean. Which is why I’ve been thinking so much about — it.”

Ian’s mother patted the end of her cigarette into a small brass ashtray on the sofa. She said, “You’re a sexy old pig, aren’t you?”

The grandfather nodded. He rubbed his nose. He said, “It’s best for all of us in the family that your family be whole. And home. In the States. Don’t you agree?”

Ian’s mother said, “I’ve thought that. Couldn’t you tell, really? No, you couldn’t tell. You were busy counting your hormones. Old pig. But I’ve thought about it. It’s impossible to tell someone. Like this. In a situation like this. To have the courage or blandness to say: Let’s take this awkward and embarrassing and slightly hopeless situation and — whatever you do say.” His mother shook her head.

The grandfather put his hands in his sportcoat pockets, then took his right hand out to rub the tip of his nose back and forth. He slowly pushed the toe of his pebbly bright brown shoe into Stuart’s stomach as Stuart rubbed a piece of coal along his trouser bottoms. He said, “Right. I suppose it’s time to lay claim. Try to.” He pushed the back of his hand into his nose, and Ian’s mother stood up and leaned her fingers on the front of his dark brown shirt. The grandfather said, “Do I represent the family honor handsomely?” Ian’s mother nodded. Her mouth was down and tight, as if she held a cigarette between her lips. Ian’s grandfather asked, “Do you think the family is in senile decay?” He rubbed his nose. Then he went to the door and outside.

THE DAY’S RAIN had made the stables cold, and Brenda had left the lights off while she and Ian’s father did the mucking out. Ian’s mother said, “Why don’t you wait in the house, love?” But Ian backed against a stall post and stood there, watching his father hold a cigarette in his mouth. Brenda lighted her own and threw the wooden match onto the cobbled floor. The grandfather moved to step on it, and Ian’s mother moved back and so did Brenda. Ian’s father stepped around toward him, stopped on the other side of the stall, and then they all waited.

The grandfather said, “Put out that silly cigarette.”

Ian’s father and Brenda said, “Me?”

Ian’s mother laughed. Stuart moved against her and she shifted him to her other side. She said, “Brenda, I’m going to write to you. All right?”

Brenda, in the corner where the tools stood, stared at Ian’s mother, then said, “Don’t expect me to write back. I can hardly spell me name. And I can’t testify that you’ll have the address right by then.”

The grandfather crossed his arms on his chest, shivered, ducked his head down, closed his eyes, and belched the sneezes out. Ian saw his mother close her eyes and shake her head. Then the grandfather sneezed onto his arm and pressed his arm against his nose. The gelding backed out, then moved again toward the front of his stall. Ian’s grandfather sneezed again, and the gelding came out fast, a hoof stabbing, then banging onto the cobblestones, stabbing back. Ian stayed where he was, leaning against the post. Brenda said, “Get out,” very softly as she walked so smoothly she seemed to be skating on ice instead of lifting floppy boots. She said, “Everybody move slowly. Get out.”