John Irving - The Cider House Rules

It was heartbreaking for him to see that she had made up one of the beds. The clean linen and the blankets had already been put in the cider house in anticipation of the picking crew's arrival, the mattresses rolled and waiting at the opposite ends of the beds. Candy had made up the bed the farthest from the kitchen doorway. She'd brought a candle from the house, and had lit it-it gave the harsh barracks a softer light, although candles were against the rules. Recently, Homer had found it necessary to emphasize candles on the list; one of the pickers had started a small fire with one some years ago.

PLEASE DON'T SMOKE IN BED-AND NO CANDLES, PLEASE!

was the way he'd written that rule.

The candlelight was faint; it couldn't be seen from the fancy house.{622}

Candy had not undressed herself, but she was sitting on the bed-and she had brushed her hair out. Her hairbrush was on the apple crate that served as a night table, and this commonplace article of such familiarity and domesticity gave Homer Wells (with the black doctor's bag in his hand) a shiver of such magnitude that he envisioned himself as a helpless physician paying.a house call to someone with not long to live.

'I'm sorry,' he said softly to her. 'We've tried it-we've certainly tried-but it just doesn't work. Only the truth will work.' His voice was croaking at his own pomposity.

Candy sat with her knees together and her hands in her lap; she was shivering. 'Do you really think Angel's old enough to know all this?' she whispered, as if the flickering room were full of sleeping apple pickers.

'He's old enough to beat off, he's old enough to know what drive-ins are for-I think he's old enough,' said Homer Wells.

'Don't be coarse,' Candy said.

'I'm sorry,' he said again.

'There's always so much to do during harvest,' Candy said; she picked at her white, summery dress as if there were lint on it (but it was spotlessly clean), and Homer Wells remembered that Senior Worthington had this habit-that in Senior's case it was a symptom of his Alzheimer's disease and that Dr. Larch had even known the name for the symptom. What did the neurologists call it? Homer tried to remember.

'We'll wait and tell them after the harvest, then,' Homer said. 'We've waited fifteen years. I guess we can wait another six weeks.'

She stretched out on her back on the thin bed, as if she were a little girl waiting to be tucked in and kissed good night in a foreign country. He went to the bed and sat uncomfortably on the edge of it, at her waist, and she put her hand on his knee. He covered her hand with his hand.

'Oh, Homer,' she said, but he wouldn't turn to look at {623} her. She took his hand and pulled it under her dress and made him touch her; she wasn't wearing anything under the dress. He didn't pull his hand away, but he wouldn't allow his hand to be more than a deadweight presence against her. 'What do you imagine will happen?' she asked him coolly-after she realized that his hand was dead.

'I can't imagine anything,' he said.

'Wally will throw me out,' Candy said, blandly and without self-pity.

'He won't,' Homer said. 'And if he did, I wouldn't- then you'd be with me. That's why he won't.'

'What will Angel do?' Candy asked.

'What he wants,' Homer said. 'I imagine he'll be with you when he wants, and with me when he wants.' This part was hard to say-and harder to imagine.

'He'll hate me,' Candy said.

'He won't,' said Homer Wells.

She pushed his hand away from her and he returned the dead thing to his own lap; in another moment, her hand found his knee again, and he held her hand lightly there-at the wrist, almost as if he were taking her pulse. At his feet, the shabby doctor's bag, heavy with apples, crouched like a cat drawn in upon itself and waiting; in the flickering room, the doctor's bag looked like the only natural object-that bag would look at home wherever anyone took it; it was a bag that belonged wherever it was.

'Where will you go?' Candy asked him after a while.

'Will I have to go anywhere?' he asked her.

'I imagine so,' Candy said.

Homer Wells was trying to imagine it all when he heard the car. Candy must have heard it in the same instant because she sat up and blew out the candle. They sat holding each other on the bed, listening to the car approach them.

It was an old car, or else it was not very well, cared for; the valves were tapping and something like the tailpipe {624} was loose and rattled. The car was heavy and low; they heard it scrape on the high crown of the dirt road through the orchard, and the driver had to be familiar with the way through the orchard because the headlights were off-that's how the car had gotten so close without their knowing it was coming.

Candy hurried to unmake the bed; in the darkness, she probably wasn't refolding the blankets and the linen very neatly, and Homer had to help her roll up the mattress.

'It's Wally!' Candy whispered, and indeed the car sounded like the Cadillac, which (since Raymond Kendall's death) had lost its pinpoint timing. In fact, Homer remembered, the Cadillac's muffler was loose, and it had a rebuilt engine, which already needed a valve job. And it was too heavy and low-built a car for proper use on the ragged dirt roads that wound through the orchards.

But how could Wally have managed it? wondered Homer Wells. Wally would have had to crawl to the Cadillac (Homer himself had parked it behind one of the storage barns, where the road was much too rocky and broken up for the wheelchair).

'Maybe it's some local kid,' Homer whispered to Candy; the cider house was not unknown to a few locals; the orchard roads had been lovers' lanes for more than one couple.

The heavy car pulled right up to the cider house wall.

Candy and Homer felt the front bumper nudge against the building.

'It's Wally!' Candy whispered; why would some local kid bother to park so close? The motor knocked for a while after the key was turned off. And then there was that ping of engine heat from the heavy car as it settled into place.

Homer let go of Candy; he tripped on the doctor's bag as he started for the door, and Candy caught hold of him, pulling him back against her.

'I'm not going to make him crawl in here,' Homer said {625} to her, but Candy could not make herself move out of the darkest corner of the cider house.

Homer picked up the doctor's bag and felt his way into the dark kitchen; his hand groped for the light switch, his hand brushing over his new list of rules. He had not heard the car door open, but he suddenly heard low voices; he paused, with his hand on the light switch. Oh Wally, this isn't fair! he thought; if there were voices Homer knew that Wally had brought Angel with him. That would have made it easier for Wally to get to the Cadillac-Angel could have brought the car around for him. But regardless of the torment that burdened Wally, Homer was angry at his friend for involving Angel. But wasn't Angel involved in it, anyway? Homer wondered. (Now they turned the headlights on-to light their way to the door?)

It was not the way Homer had imagined telling them both, but what did the way matter? Homer Wells turned on the light, which momentarily blinded him. He thought that he must be as lit up as a Christmas tree in the cider house door. And, he thought, wasn't it fitting that it had been the Cadillac that had rescued him from St. Cloud's, and now here was the Cadillac-in a way, come to rescue him again? For here he was, with the well-worn doctor's bag in hand, at last prepared to tell the truth-ready, at last, to take his medicine.

In the bright light, he nervously picked the imaginary lint off his clothes. He remembered what the neurologists call it: carphologia.

He tightened his grip on Dr. Larch's bag and peered into the darkness. Suddenly, it was clear to him- where he was going. He was only what he always: was: an orphan who'd never been adopted. He had managed to steal some time away from the orphanage, but St. Cloud's had the only legitimate claim to him. In his forties, a man should know where he belongs.