John Irving - Last Night In Twisted River

Carmella continued to refer to Dominic by his nickname, Gamba-just as she called Danny Secondo, as if Danny were (in her heart) still her surrogate son; it appeared she’d long ago forgiven him for spying on her in the bathtub. He could not imagine doing so now, but he didn’t say so; instead, Danny rather formally apologized to Carmella for his behavior all those years ago.

“Nonsense, Secondo-I suppose I was flattered,” Carmella told him in the car, with a dismissive wave of her plump hand. “I only worried that the sight of me would have a damaging effect on you-that you might be permanently attracted to fat, older women.”

Danny sensed that this might have been an invitation for him to proclaim that he was not (and had never been) attracted to such women, though in truth-after Katie, who was preternaturally small-many of the women in his life had been large. By the stick-figure standards of contemporary women’s fashion, Danny thought that even Charlotte -indisputably, the love of his life-might have been considered overweight.

Like his dad, Danny was small, and while the writer didn’t respond to Carmella’s comment, he found himself wondering if perhaps he was more at ease with women who were bigger than he was. (Not that spying on Carmella in a bathtub, or killing Injun Jane with a skillet, had anything to do with it!)

“I wonder if you’re seeing someone now-someone special, that is,” Carmella said, after a pause of a mile or more.

“No one special,” Danny replied.

“If I can still count, you’re almost sixty,” Carmella told him. (Danny was fifty-nine.) “Your dad always wanted you to be with someone who was right for you.”

“I was, but she moved on,” Danny told her.

Carmella sighed. She had brought her melancholy with her in the car; what was melancholic about Carmella, together with her undefined disapproval of Danny, had traveled with them all the way from Boston. Danny had detected the latter’s presence as strongly as Carmella’s engaging scent-either a mild, nonspecific perfume or a smell as naturally appealing as freshly baked bread.

“Besides,” Danny went on, “my dad wasn’t with anyone special-not after he was my age.” After a pause, while Carmella waited, Danny added: “And Pop was never with anyone as right for him as you.”

Carmella sighed again, as if to note (ambiguously) both her pleasure and displeasure-she was displeased by her failure to steer the conversation where she’d wanted it to go. The subject of what was wrong with Danny evidently weighed on her. Now Danny waited for what she would say next; it was only a matter of time, he knew, before Carmella would raise the more delicate matter of what was wrong with his writing .

ALL THE WAY FROM BOSTON, he’d found Carmella’s conversation dull-the self-righteousness of her old age was depressing. She would lose her way in what she was saying, and then blame Danny for her bewilderment; she implied that he wasn’t paying sufficient attention to her, or that he was deliberately confusing her. His dad, Danny realized, had remained sharp by comparison. While Ketchum grew deafer by the minute, and his ranting was more explosive-and though the old logger was close to Carmella’s age-Danny instinctively forgave him. After all, Ketchum had always been crazy. Hadn’t the veteran riverman been cranky and illogical when he was young? Danny was thinking to himself.

Just then, in the high-contrast, late-afternoon light, they drove past the small sign for ANDROSCOGGIN TAXIDERMY. “My goodness-’Moose Antlers for Sale,’” Carmella said aloud, attempting to read more minutiae from the sign. (She’d said, “My goodness,” every minute of the drive north, Danny reflected with irritation.)

“Want to stop and buy a stuffed dead animal?” he asked her.

“Just so long as it’s before dark!” Carmella answered, laughing; she patted his knee affectionately, and Danny felt ashamed for resenting her company. He’d loved her as a child and as a young man, and he had no doubt that she loved him-she’d positively adored his dad. Yet Danny found her tiresome now, and he hadn’t wanted her along on this trip. It was Ketchum’s idea to show her where Angel had died; Danny realized that he’d wanted Ketchum for himself. Seeing his dad’s ashes sunk in Twisted River, which was what the cook had wanted, mattered more to Danny than Ketchum making good on his promise to escort Carmella to the basin above the river bend, where her Angelù was lost. It made Danny feel ungenerous that he thought of Carmella as both a burden and a distraction; it made him feel unkind, but he believed, for the first time, that Paul Polcari and Tony Molinari hadn’t been kidding. Carmella truly must be happy-with her new fella and her life. (Nothing but happiness could explain why she was so boring!)

But hadn’t Carmella lost three loved ones, counting the cook-her one and only child among them? How could Danny, who had lost an only child himself, not see Carmella as a sympathetic soul? He did see her as “sympathetic,” of course! Danny just didn’t want to be with Carmella-not at this moment, when the dual missions of sinking his father’s ashes and being with Ketchum were entirely enough.

“Where are they?” Carmella asked, as they drove into Errol.

“Where are what?” Danny said. (They’d just been talking about taxidermy! Did she mean, Where are the dead stuffed animals?)

“Where are Gamba’s remains-his ashes?” Carmella asked.

“In a nonbreakable container, a jar-it’s a kind of plastic, not glass,” Danny answered, somewhat evasively.

“In your luggage, in the trunk of the car?” Carmella asked him.

“Yes.” Danny didn’t want to tell her more about the container itself-what the contents of the jar used to be, and so forth. Besides, they were coming into the town-such as it was-and while it was still light, Danny wanted to get his bearings and have a look around. That way, it would be easier to find Ketchum in the morning.

“I’ll see you bright and early Tuesday,” the old logger had said.

“What’s ‘bright and early’?” Danny asked.

“Before seven, at the latest,” Ketchum said.

“Before eight, if we’re lucky,” Danny told him. Danny had his concerns about how bright and early Carmella could get up and be fully functioning-not to mention that they were spending the night a few miles out of town. There was no proper place for them to stay in Errol, Ketchum had assured Danny. The logger had recommended a resort hotel in Dixville Notch.

From what Danny and Carmella could see of Errol, Ketchum had been right. They took the road toward Umbagog, past a general store, which was a liquor store, too; there was a bridge over the Androscoggin at the east end of town, and a fire station just west of the bridge, where Danny turned the car around. Driving back through town, they passed the Errol elementary school-they’d not noticed it the first time. There was also a restaurant called Northern Exposure, but the most prosperous-looking place in Errol was a sporting-goods store called L. L. Cote.

“Let’s have a look inside,” Danny suggested to Carmella.

“Just so long as it’s before dark!” she said again. Carmella had been one of the earliest erotic stimulations of his life. How could she have become such a repetitious old woman? Danny was thinking.

They both regarded the sign on the door of the sporting-goods store with trepidation.

PLEASE NO LOADED FIREARMS INSIDE

“My goodness,” Carmella said; they hesitated, albeit briefly, at the door.

L. L. Cote sold snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles; inside there were dead stuffed animals, the regional species, enough to suggest that the local taxidermist was kept busy. (Bear, deer, lynx, fox, fisher cat, moose, porcupine, skunk-a host of “critters,” Ketchum would have said-in addition to all the ducks and the birds of prey.) There were more guns than any other single item; Carmella recoiled from such a display of lethal weaponry. A large selection of Browning knives caused Danny to reflect that probably Ketchum’s big Browning knife had been purchased here. There was also quite a collection of scent-elimination clothing, which Danny tried to explain to Carmella.