William Gaddis - J R

— I’m sure they don’t even know we have it. It’s right out there in the kitchen drawer, I don’t see how they could possibly sell it so long as it’s in the kitchen drawer, Anne? If you’re going out there you might turn the fire down under those beans. We’ll just let them simmer overnight… from there, and then from room into room their aroma moved slowly, taking on a near tangible presence, finally mounting the stairs with the ease of the night and remaining, long after it had descended and gone.

— Anne? I thought perhaps the mail had come.

— It’s on the shelf over the kitchen sink, I left it there when I tasted the beans. They do seem a trifle overdone but that was the way Father always…

— I thought I saw the newspaper somewhere.

— Yes that’s the only thing I opened, I put it right under the, here it is. Did you see this picture of the old Lemp home? It looks like they’ve torn off the porte cochere to put up a monstrous kind of chute that’s meant to serve as a fire escape now it’s become a nursing home. Here, it says it’s to speed the evacuation of residents who have trouble with stairs.

— Old Mrs Lemp walked with a stick of course, but I can’t see her leaving like a bundle of laundry.

— And I don’t see a word in here about Edward or the strike that woman called about, the one who calls herself Ann and told us to look in this week’s paper.

— She called again yes wanting to speak with him, I suppose those are the chances one takes, going to teach in a place like that. It puts me in mind of James and his asylums, she seemed quite eager to find Edward something right in music as she put it, music therapy to rehabilitate criminals and handicaps, of all things.

— From the way she sounds on the telephone I’m sure she knows a number of both. Is that who called while I was sewing?

— No, no that was Stella, asking for Edward. She said she’d just called to see how he was getting along, and not a word about anything else.

— It’s the things she doesn’t say that disturb me.

— Yes I don’t quite know why it is, I find even the sound of her voice disturbing, that almost languid, uncurious manner…

— I’m sure it’s just that languorous way that makes her seem attractive to men, I recall her as such a high-strung child but after her marriage to this what’s his name, he struck me as quite slow that first time I met him…

— And that scar of hers yes, now you speak of it someone said she’d had that thyroid operation simply in order to subdue, one might better say to match her pace to his…

— That does seem a lot of trouble to go to, why she wanted to marry him in the first place…

— I think it’s perfectly obvious Anne, if there was any doubt it’s quite clear now the reason he married her plain and simple was to gain this foothold in the company. Once he got those twenty-three shares out of Thomas he was in a position to step right in about the time Thomas became less active. Now with Thomas gone and no one to look after things we and James have only twenty-seven among us, and if Stella’s to have all twenty-five or so from the estate they can bring this gang of strangers in and run it all however they please. Why else would she and that husband of hers have come out here turning things upside down, hounding Edward to kingdom come. He’s just afraid that if Edward claims half they’ll end up with something like thirty-five shares, we’d have almost forty with Edward’s half and keep things in the family as Thomas intended.

— But Julia I don’t think Edward…

— Let’s not drag it all up again, I think we’d be wise just to keep our own counsel until we hear what James has to say.

— Well I’m not at all sure that Stella doesn’t know more than she tells. The way she questioned us about Nellie’s death…

— I’m afraid for one I’ve never doubted it, those stories about Nellie and James that woman spread right after the fair that summer up in Tannersville, the one with the tip of one finger missing there was only one way she could have learned them. I certainly don’t want to see it dragged up again even if it costs us what’s rightfully ours, though I must say I can’t picture selling to strangers. It would be like selling the telephone stock, if these Crawley and Bro people find someone to buy them.

— Yes I think there was something in the mail from them Julia, I’ll get it now when I look at the beans. There’s enough of that nice pork butt left for dinner.

— It would be nice to get back what we paid, but heaven knows how likely that is the way the telephone behaves. Do you recall that half-witted boy who always drove the honey wagon? that rather alarming laugh he had? I hadn’t thought of him all these years until I answered it this morning, someone sounding exactly like him who asked me to sing a Campbell’s Soup jingle…

— Yes here it is Julia. I don’t see a check, they’ve just sent us some sort of statement.

— It was just over four thousand dollars I think, I seem to recall that figure because…

— This just seems to say you sold, you bought spelled bot. You sold, one thousand sixty-eight A T and…

— That can’t mean shares Anne that’s absurd. We sat right here with Edward and counted them out, I think there were a hundred and seventy some.

— At forty-four, it says it right here Julia and not a word about that mining stock. And then over here where it says you bot, five hundred Quaker Oats at twenty-nine, two hundred Ampex at twenty-two and an eighth, five hundred Diamond Cable at eighteen and a quarter, five hundred Detroit Edison at seventeen and three, Julia? Where are you going…

— It all just sounds like nonsense Anne I don’t know where Edward finds these people, bought spelled bot indeed. I’m just going up to the landing while it’s still light, I want to make certain our trees are still out there. I’m sure I heard something…

— No I heard it too, it’s just the branch outside my window. When the wind blows and whenever it rains…

— I think it’s starting to rain right now… and streak mounted streak down clapboard and glass from gutters filled and sodden with leaves thrashed down in the dark from what apple limbs remained.

— Anne? was that you at the side door just now?

— At the back door Julia, the side doesn’t open. I thought we might pick up some of those nice apples the wind brought down in the storm last night. Did I hear you on the phone just now?

— A lady called yes, asking for Edward. I can’t imagine who it might have been.

— Not the one who calls herself Ann?

— Heavens no, this was a lovely contralto. I was certain I’d heard it somewhere before but the voice I was thinking of was Homer, Louise Homer when she did Gluck’s Orfeo, she said she’d just called to thank him for something.

— She must be getting along in years, I wasn’t even aware he knew her. I thought he might be out this weekend and ordered two nice chickens, they’re here on the drainboard.

— I thought the mail might have come.

— Yes I’m bringing it in. This is all that came, perhaps you can make sense of it…

— Well, I never! It’s a tax assessment for new sidewalk, three hundred feet of concrete sidewalk…

— I don’t think we asked for a sidewalk, Julia.

— We most certainly did not but you know who did, to march to their Wednesday night bingo games, to parade right past our front door Sundays the women like housemaids in cheap new clothes and the little boys they dress like midgets with elastic neckties and fedoras, did you leave something on the stove Anne?

The curtain stirred. — I’ve never seen such heavy mist, I think the sun is breaking through but I never will get used to it, this feeling of everything out in the open, of everything out there coming in, over where frost killed those acres of flowers now it all just looks blacker than ever…