Douglas Kennedy - Five Days

‘Just useless bits of information, like that one.’

‘Anyway, I did that thing kids do when they’re furious with their parents: I got a bag out of the closet, counted up all the allowance money I’d saved over the past months, thought about which bus I’d take to New York, and would I have enough cash to buy myself a ticket to wherever it was these days that the French Foreign Legion hang out.’

‘Probably Djibouti,’ he said.

‘Where’s Djibouti?’

‘Somewhere in the Sahara.’

‘And how do you know the Foreign Legion are there these days?’

‘Read an article in National Geographic. Had a subscription since I was a kid. My dreams of travel started there, with that magazine. All those interesting color features about the Himalayas and the Brazilian rainforests and the Outer Hebrides and—’

‘Favorite desert hangouts of the French Foreign Legion?’

He smiled again.

‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘And that’s why I know where Djibouti is.’

‘Do you think Laurel and Hardy shot their movie there?’ I asked.

‘You’re quick, did you know that?’

‘Actually, I’ve never thought myself that.’

‘You mean, nobody ever told you that you were clever?’

‘Oh, a teacher, a professor, from time to time. Otherwise. ’

‘Well, you are clever.’

‘Now you’re trying to flatter me.’

‘You don’t like being flattered?’ he asked.

‘Of course I like being flattered. It’s just. I don’t think I merit it.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Aren’t we getting a little personal here?’

His shoulders suddenly hunched, and he was back again, looking away, looking guilty. Much to my surprise I no longer found this disconcerting. Rather I felt a certain compassion for him — a compassion rooted in the fact that I so understood what it was like to be self-conscious and just a little ill at ease with my place in the larger scheme of things.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ he said. ‘There I go again, talking before thinking.’

‘And there you go again, being self-deprecating. ’

‘Even though my self-deprecation was due to your self-deprecation?’

‘Touchй.’

‘I wasn’t trying to score a point.’

‘I know that. I also know that what we sometimes criticize in others is something that we find wanting in ourselves.’

‘I didn’t think you were criticizing me.’

‘Well, I thought that.’

‘Are you always so self-critical. speaking as someone who shares the same habit?’

‘So I noticed. And now I’m dodging the question, right?’

Richard smiled at me. I smiled back — and simultaneously found myself disarmed by the fact that it was surprisingly easy to talk to this man, that we seemed to riff off each other. The waiter arrived. We both ordered a glass of red wine — and I liked the fact that when asked whether he preferred a merlot or a cabernet sauvignon or a pinot noir, Richard told the waiter that he knew very little about wine, and said that he’d follow his advice.

‘A light or robust red?’ the waiter then asked.

‘Something in between maybe,’ Richard said.

‘Pinot noir will do the job then. Same for the lady?’

‘Why not,’ I said.

The waiter disappeared.

‘So you’re not afraid to admit you don’t know something,’ I said.

‘I don’t know many things.’

‘Nor do I. But most people would never dream of revealing that little fact.’

‘My dad always told me that the three most important words in life were: “I don’t know”.’

‘He has a point.’

‘Had a point. He’s no longer with us.’

‘Sorry.’

‘No need to be,’ he said. ‘A rather complex man, my dad. Someone who always gave advice he couldn’t himself follow. Like ever admitting that he didn’t know things.’

‘What did he do?’

‘Fifteen years in the Marine Corps. Worked his way up to the post of colonel. Then got married and returned to Maine — he was a Bath boy — and started a family. He also opened a little insurance company.’

He said this last line quietly, his gaze averted from mine, his need to state this and get it out of the way underscored by his discomfort in admitting this.

‘I see,’ I said.

‘Yep. Followed Dad right into the family firm.’

‘Is it a big firm?’ I asked.

‘Just me and my receptionist/bookkeeper. who also happens to be my wife.’

‘So it’s a real family firm.’

‘Two people are hardly a firm,’ he said, and again looked away — clearly not wanting to talk about this anymore. So I asked if he had children.

‘A son. Billy.’

‘How old?’

‘He turns twenty-six next month.’

Which must make Richard around fifty-five or so.

‘And where’s he now?’

‘For the moment he’s living at home. Billy’s kind of between things right now.’

The way he stated this I could tell he wanted to get off this subject as well.

‘I too have a child living at home.’

I could see him exhale as he got me talking about my kids and my husband. He told me he knew all about that downsizing period at L.L.Bean. Three friends of his also got the axe around the same time as Dan. But wasn’t it a great thing that my husband had been re-hired by the company, especially given how tough times are right now. How long had I been married? Twenty-one years? Well, he beat me on that score — ‘twenty-nine years and counting’ — and wasn’t it rare and wonderful to be the last couple standing, so to speak, given how so many marriages fall apart these days?

He said this all with an air of bonhomie which I found curious. A look of skepticism must have crossed my face, as he suddenly asked:

‘Am I laying it on a little thick?’

‘Not at all. Many people do have happy marriages. Then again, many people say they have happy marriages because they can’t say that theirs is difficult. But I’m glad yours is happy.’

‘Sorry, sorry. ’

‘For what? You don’t have to keep apologizing.’

‘For coming across like a salesman. All slick patter, all “Everyone’s happy, right!”’

‘Was your father like that?’

‘I was always the salesman, Dad the numbers cruncher.’

‘But he must have been something of a salesman to have started the firm.’

‘He initially had a business partner — Jack Jones. A fellow Marine. Unlike my father Jack actually liked people. Don’t know what he was doing in business with my father, as Jack was a genuinely happy-go-lucky guy and Dad was kind of dyspeptic about life.’

‘I like that word, dyspeptic.’

‘“Bilious” would be a good descriptive word as well. “Liverish” might also fit the bill.’

‘How about “disputative”?’

‘A little too legal, I think. Dad was a misanthrope, but never litigious.’

I looked at him with new interest.

‘You like words,’ I said.

‘You’re looking at the Kennebec County Spelling Bee Champion of 1974, which is kind of the Middle Ages now, right? But once you get hooked on words you don’t really ever lose the habit.’

‘But that’s a most aspirational habit.’

We shared another smile. I saw him looking at me with new-found ease, as we were now on interesting common ground.

‘“Aspirational”,’ he said. ‘Upward mobility, Horatio Alger and all that. Very American.’

‘I think aspirational is not simply an American construct.’

‘“Construct”,’ he said, repeating the word to himself, taking evident pleasure in its sound. ‘Even though it has two syllables it has a certain musicality, doesn’t it?’

‘If used constructively.’

‘Or affirmatively?’

‘That’s too Boy Scout.’