Joy Williams - The Visiting Privilege - New and Collected Stories

“I’m sure you must be having some interesting reflections, though,” Gwendal said. “And if you’re really dying, I bet you’ll feel like doing everything once.” She was wringing her hands in delight.

Jean walked toward them from the house.

“C’mon,” Gwendal hissed. “Let me go with you. You didn’t come all this way just to stay here, did you?”

“Gloria and I are going to visit Bill,” Jean said. “Let’s all go,” she said to Gwendal.

“I don’t want to,” Gwendal said.

“If I don’t see you again, good-bye,” Gloria said to Gwendal.

The kid stared at her.

—

Jean was driving, turning here and there, passing the houses of those she had once loved.

“That’s Chuckie’s house,” Jean said. “The one with the hair.” They drove slowly by, looking at Chuckie’s house. “Charming on the outside but sleazy inside, just like Chuckie. He broke my heart, literally broke my heart. Well, his foot is going to slide in due time, as they say, and I want to be around for that. That’s why I’ve decided to stay.” She said a moment later, “It’s not really.”

They passed Fred’s house. Everybody had a house.

“Fred has a pond,” Jean said. “We can go for a swim there later. I always use Fred’s pond. He used to own a whole quarry, can you imagine? This was before our time with him, Gwendal’s and mine, but kids were always getting in there and drowning. He put up big signs and barbed wire and everything but they still got in. It got to be too much trouble, so he sold it.”

“Too much trouble!” Gloria said.

Death seemed preposterous. Totally unacceptable. Those silly kids, Gloria thought. She was elated and knew that she would soon feel tired and uneasy, but maybe it wouldn’t happen this time. The day was bright, clean after the rain. Leaves lay on the streets, green and fresh.

“Those were Fred’s words, too much trouble. Can’t I pick them? I can really pick them.” Jean shook her head.

They drove to Bill’s house. Next to it was a pasture with horses in it. “Those aren’t Bill’s horses, but they’re pretty, aren’t they,” Jean said. “You’re going to love Bill. He’s gotten a little strange but he always was a little strange. We are who we are, aren’t we. He carves ducks.”

Bill was obviously not expecting them. He was a big man with long hair wearing boxer shorts and smoking a cigar. He looked at Jean warily.

“This used to be the love of my life,” Jean said. To Bill, she said, “This is Gloria, my dearest friend.”

Gloria felt she should demur, but smiled instead. Her condition didn’t make her any more honest, she had found.

“Beautiful messengers, bad news,” Bill said.

“We just thought we’d stop by,” Jean said.

“Let me put on my pants,” he said.

The two women sat in the living room, surrounded by wooden ducks. The ducks, exquisite and oppressive, nested on every surface. Bufflehead, canvasback, scaup, blue-winged teal. Gloria picked one up. It looked heavy but was light. Shoveler, mallard, merganser. The names kept coming to her.

“I forgot the lunch so we’ll just stay a minute,” Jean whispered. “I was mad about this man. Don’t you ever wonder where it all goes?”

Bill returned, wearing trousers and a checked shirt. He had put his cigar somewhere.

“I love these ducks,” Jean said. “You’re getting so good.”

“You want a duck,” Bill said.

“Oh, yes!” Jean said.

“I wasn’t offering you one. I just figured that you did.” He winked at Gloria.

“Oh, you,” Jean said.

“Take one, take one.” Bill sighed.

Jean picked up the nearest duck and put it in her lap.

“That’s a harlequin,” Bill said.

“It’s bizarre, I love it.” Jean gripped the duck tightly.

“You want a duck?” Bill said to Gloria.

“No,” Gloria said.

“Oh, take one!” Jean said excitedly.

“Decoys have always been particularly abhorrent to me,” Gloria said, “since they are objects designed to lure a living thing to its destruction with the false promise of safety, companionship and rest.”

They both looked at her, startled.

“Wow, Gloria,” Jean said.

“These aren’t decoys,” Bill said mildly. “People don’t use them for decoys anymore, they use them for decoration. There are hardly any ducks left to hunt. Ducks are on their way out. They’re in a free fall.”

“Diminishing habitat,” Jean said.

“There you go,” Bill said.

Black duck, pintail, widgeon. The names kept moving toward Gloria, then past.

“I’m more interested in creating dramas now,” Bill said. “I’m getting away from the static stuff. I want to make dramatic moments. They have to be a little less than life-sized, but otherwise it’s all there…the whole situation.” He stood up. “Just a second,” he said.

Once he was out of the room, Jean turned to her. “Gloria?” she said.

Bill returned carrying a large object covered by a sheet. He set it down on the floor and took off the sheet.

“I like it so far,” Jean said after a moment.

“Interpret away,” Bill said.

“Well,” Jean said, “I don’t think you should make it too busy.”

“I said interpret, not criticize,” Bill said.

“I just think the temptation would be to make something like that too busy. The temptation would be to put stuff in all those little spaces.”

Bill appeared unmoved by this possible judgment, but he replaced the sheet.

—

In the car, Jean said, “Wasn’t that awful . He should stick to ducks.”

According to Bill, the situation the object represented seemed to be the acceptance of inexorable fate, this acceptance containing within it, however, a heroic gesture of defiance.

This was the situation, ideally always the situation, and it had been transformed, more or less abstractly, by Bill, into wood.

“He liked you.”

“Jean, why would he like me?”

“He was flirting with you, I think. Wouldn’t it be something if you two got together and we were all here in this one place?”

“Oh, my god, ” Gloria said, putting her hands over her face. Jean glanced at her absentmindedly. “I should be getting back,” Gloria said. “I’m a little tired.”

“But you just got here, and we have to take a swim at Fred’s. The pond is wonderful, you’ll love the pond. Actually, listen, do you want to go over to my parents’ for lunch? My mother can make us something nice.”

“Your parents live around here too,” Gloria asked.

Jean looked frightened for a moment. “It’s crazy, isn’t it? They’re so sweet. You’d love my parents. Oh, I wish you’d talk,” she exclaimed. “You’re my friend. I wish you’d open up some.”

They drove past Chuckie’s house again. “Whose car is that now?” Jean wondered.

“I remember trying to feed my mother a spoonful of dust once,” Gloria said.

“Why?” Jean said. “Tell!”

“I was little, maybe four. She told me that I had grown in her stomach because she’d eaten some dust.”

“No!” Jean said. “The things they tell you when they know you don’t know.”

“I wanted there to be another baby, someone else, a brother or a sister. So I had my little teaspoon. Eat this, I said. It’s not a bit dirty. Don’t be afraid.”

“How out of control!” Jean cried.

“She looked at it and said she’d been talking about a different kind of dust, the sort of dust there was on flowers.”

“She was just getting in deeper and deeper, wasn’t she?” Jean said. She waited for Gloria to say more but the story seemed to be over.

—

It was dark when she got back to the cabins. There were no lights on anywhere. She remembered being happy off and on that day, and then looking at things and finding it all unkind. It had gotten harder for her to talk, and harder to listen too, but she was alone now and felt a little better. Still, she didn’t feel right. She knew she would never be steady. It would never seem all of a piece for her. It would come and go until it stopped.