The door was unlocked but jammed shut, and I had a hard time opening it. I’m sure the door was seldom used. The stairs bowed in the centers and in some places were splintered beyond wear—the work of insects. I heard the scurrying of rats in the wainscoting. The dust was thick, which made my footsteps quiet. I was blanketed in darkness, ascending unsteadily. The steps must have been built for people whose feet were six inches long. The banister rattled in my hand. Finally, the stairs ended and I found myself on level ground. I took one slow step after the other, until I felt something brush against my face. After a moment of panic, I realized that I had reached a string and when I pulled it a dusty bulb came on, glowing softly.
I was in an attic where, piled against the yellowed walls, were several generations’ worth of junk. The toys of a dozen childhoods had been kept, as though the adults thought they might one day return, one day find themselves again entertained by roller skates or wanting to read The Secret Garden. There was a pair of wooden skis leaning in the corner, a box of paperback books—thrillers from the seventies—the recent aged and somehow the more tragic for it. A weeviled Persian rug covered some space of floor, exquisite in parts, but now food for moths. A veil of dust lay over all the objects and tinted every surface a shade of blue. I felt sad for these things and for people, who die one object at a time.
In the north corner was a tiny cane-backed wheelchair. It gave me the shivers. Why did people keep such things? Surely they weren’t so pessimistic as to think that another family member might need it. Why were the steel crutches and thick-soled shoes for housing leg braces still here, along with the hospital bed and child-height commode? I thought of physical torment, twisted limbs, and an early, painful death. But how could one let go of any of it? I walked over to the wheelchair and pushed it. The wheels moved noiselessly, leaving a six-inch trail on the dusty floor.
Maybe the parents couldn’t face a time when their little one would no longer need to be wheeled into the sun or lowered onto the toilet. Perhaps there would never be an appropriate time to junk that bed, which had been the site of so many sleepless nights and some of peace, where the mother rested her hand on the child’s brow wondering how she would not always be afforded this luxury. The thick-soled shoes implied steps shuffling along the uneven cobbles outside. How could anyone ever admit that the time for these shoes had passed?
I thought of my mother, who had regarded me throughout my childhood as a daily miracle, our time always too special. But it was she who was sick. It was her pain that made every second count. And in the end, it was she who left, faded away, like a photograph slowly becoming overexposed, until she existed only in the tubes and pumps of her hospital machinery.
Across the room, another staircase, small and spiraling, rose to a trap door and through this hole I climbed into the cupola. It was a black, boiling night full of menace. The air was thick and salty, the moon hidden behind a cape of dark cloud. Bats flew around squeaking to each other. A sweeping arm of light lit the harbor briefly and then withdrew. On the sidewalk below a couple, arm in arm, stumbled from a bar. She was laughing a fat laugh and he returned it with a grumble full of lust. She threw her arms around him and they groped and sweated on the path below. I thought of clinking glasses, of thick embracing smoke, of the creased brows and grinning faces one found in bars. Boris was dead to the world and I had at least an hour till last call.
I dressed quickly and left the bed-and-breakfast through the living room. I had a key to the front door, one to our room, and another, smaller key, but its purpose had not been explained to me. Fore Street, where the bars were lined up for easy comparison, was only a couple of blocks from where we were staying. I could soon hear laughter and the slurred haranguing that goes with heavy drinking.
Lines snaked out of bars and people smoked on the sidewalk. I could hear them laughing as they waited for the first pint or tumbler to float them out of Friday and into the weekend. The line moved quickly and I was soon at the door. The door swung open, releasing gusts of laughter and cigarette smoke into the street. People exited and entered, body for body. I could feel men’s eyes pass over me, then move on. The bar was full of smoke and hillbilly rock. I felt instantly better. A red-haired man peered over his Scotch at me with glazed eyes. A woman with a shelf of crimped bangs swayed him back to her by his elbow. Her mouth narrowed and she looked at me disapprovingly, but I really wasn’t interested. I nodded to the bartender.
“I’ll have a Guinness,” I said.
“This is a brew pub.”
“Whatever stout you’re serving.”
There was nowhere to sit, just rows of sweaty backs. I wrestled my way to the bar and took a stool recently vacated by a man who had left in such a hurry that I knew he was throwing up. I had hardly wiped the first froth from my upper lip when someone tapped my shoulder. There was a young guy standing behind me. He smiled pleasantly.
“Can I get that for you?” he asked.
“Thanks, but I’ve already paid for it.”
His face fell.
“You can get my next one.”
He was wearing a big sweater and had shoulder-length, dirtyblond hair. He raised his drink and I returned the gesture. I found him good-looking, in an angular, Scandinavian way. I was sure he had an athletic hobby like mountain biking or extreme skiing. If he smoked, he only smoked pot. He had a big, easy smile and perfect teeth. I looked down at his shoes, brown leather hiking boots.
“Were you planning any climbing tonight?”
“What?” He was shouting, we both were, because the bar was so loud.
“The boots. Those are for climbing, aren’t they?”
“No. These are trekking boots. I use shoes for climbing.”
“Shoes?”
“Yeah. They kind of look like bowling shoes, except with thin rubber soles? You don’t wear socks with them?”
I didn’t know. “Do you work around here?”
“Freeport,” he said. “L.L. Bean?”
“Ah,” I said. “Duck boots.”
“Duck boots.”
I raised my glass and in four long gulps downed the remaining beer. “You can get me that pint now,” I said.
He smiled and threw himself onto the bar. He had mastered the art of beer purchase. He seemed to know the bartender, who shot him a knowing look, implying that I was dangerous. He, in turn, smiled, implying that he could handle me.
He handed me my beer and I thanked him.
“Do you live in Portland?”
“No,” I said. “I’m on vacation. I live in New York.”
“Cool,” he said.
I smiled and looked patiently around the bar. Aside from the girls who clung to their boyfriends, the bar seemed overrun with men. “Where are all the girls?” I asked.
The guy shook his head. “It’s Bad Billy. They won’t come out.”
“Ah yes. William Selwyn. Have that many people died?”
“No. But it’s still a problem.” He lowered his eyebrows. He was concerned.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Malley.”
“Malley?” It sounded like a dog’s name. “How original,” I said. “My name is Katherine.” I extended my right hand. Malley wiped his hand on pants and shook it. Clearly he seldom shook hands, or maybe not with women.
“I like the name Katherine,” he said.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve always found it unbearably boring.”
“Are you named after someone?”
“No. You ask a lot of questions, Malley.”