“Mike Harrington wrote a book,” Mr. Richards objected. “A very good book, too.”
“Oh, Arthur, that was an instruction manual…on stresses and strains and the uses of a new metal!”
“It was a very good instruction manual.” Mr. Richards poured more wine for Madame Brown and himself.
“Can I have some?” Bobby said.
“No,” Mr. Richards said.
“How long have you been writing poetry?” Madame Brown was waiting with a forkful of well-sauced eggplant, June with one of carrots; Mrs. Richards had a very small fluff of potato on the tine tips of her fork—when it struck him that he didn’t know. Which seemed absurd, so he frowned. “Not very…” long, he’d started to say. He had a clear memory of writing the first poem in the notebook, seated against the lamppost on Brisbain Avenue. But had he ever written any poems before? Or was it something he’d wanted to do but never gotten around to? He could see not remembering doing something. But how could you not remember not doing something? “…for very long,” he said finally. “Just a few days, I guess,” and frowned again, because that sounded silly. But he had no more surety of its truth or falsity than he had of his name. “No, not very long at all.” He decided that was what he would say from now on to anyone who asked; but the decision simply confirmed how uncertain he was of its truth.
“Well, I’m sure—” there was only one more fluff of mashed potatoes on Mrs. Richard’s plate—“they must be very good.” She ate it. “Did Mr. Newboy like them?”
“I didn’t show them to him.” Somehow silverware, glasses, side-plates, and candles didn’t seem right for talking about scorpions, orchid fights, the invisible Calkins and the belligerent Fenster—
“Oh, you should,” Mrs. Richards said. “The younger men in Arthur’s office are always bringing him their new ideas. And he says they’ve been coming up with some looloos lately—didn’t you, Arthur? Arthur’s always happy to talk to the younger men about their new ideas. I’m sure Mr. Newboy would be happy to talk to you, don’t you think, Arthur?”
“Well,” Mr. Richards reiterated, “I don’t know too much about poetry.”
“I’d certainly like to see some of what you’ve written,” Madame Brown said and moved Mrs. Richards’ wine glass away from her straying hand. “Maybe some day you’ll show us. Tell me, Arthur—” Madame Brown looked over joined fingers—“what is going on at Maitland, now? With everything in the state it’s in, I’m amazed when I hear of anything getting done.”
She’s changing the subject! Kidd thought with relief. And decided he liked her.
“Engineering.” Mr. Richards shook his head, looked at Mrs. Richards—“Poetry…” changing it, rather bluntly, back. “They don’t have too much to do with one another.”
Kidd decided to give it a try himself. “I met an engineer here, Mr. Richards. His name was Loufer. He was working on…yeah, converting a plant. It used to make peanut butter. Now it makes vitamins.”
“Most people who like poetry and art and stuff,” Mr. Richards adhered, “aren’t very interested in engineering—” Then he frowned. “The vitamin plant? That must be the one down at Helmsford.”
Kidd sat back and saw that Madame Brown did too.
Mrs. Richards’ hands still spasmed on the table.
Mr. Richards asked: “What did you say his name was?”
“Loufer.”
“Don’t think I know him.” Mr. Richards screwed up his face and dropped his chin over the smooth gold-and-mustard knot of his tie. “Of course I’m in Systems. He’s probably in Industrial. Two completely different fields. Two completely different professions, really. It’s hard enough to keep up with what’s going on in your own field, what your own people are doing. Some of the ideas our men do come up with—they’re looloos all right. Like Mary says. Sometimes I don’t even understand them—I mean, even when you understand how they work, you don’t really know what they’re for. Right now I’m just back and forth between the office and the warehouse—lord only knows what I’m supposed to be doing.”
“Just keeping up,” Madame Brown said, and leaned one elbow on the table. As she moved, the candle flame drifted back and forth across her left eye. “At the hospital, it was all I could do to read two or three psychology bulletins a week, what with the behaviorists and the gestaltists—”
“Peaches?” said Mrs. Richards, leaning forward, knuckles like two tiny mountain ranges on the table edge. “Would anyone like some peaches? For dessert?”
Maybe, Kidd thought, she really did want to talk about poetry—which would be fine, he decided, if he could think of anything to say. His own plate was empty of everything except the sauce-and-mashed-potato swamp.
“Sure.”
He watched the word hang over the table, silence on both sides.
“I don’t want any!” Bobby’s chair scraped.
Both candlesticks veered.
“Bobby—!” Mrs. Richards exclaimed, while June caught one and Mr. Richards caught the other.
Bobby was off into the living room. Muriel barked and ran after him.
“I’ll have some, dear.” Mr. Richards sat back down. “Let him go, Mary. He’s all right.”
“Muriel? Muriel!” Madame Brown turned back to the table and sighed. “Peaches sound lovely. Yes, I’ll have some.”
“Yes, please, Mother,” June said. Her shoulders were rather hunched and she was still looking at her lap, as though considering something intensely.
Mrs. Richards, blinking after her son, rose and went in the kitchen.
“If I went to school,” June blurted, looking up suddenly, “I’d go into psychology—like you!”
Madame Brown, slightly flattered, slightly mocking, turned to June with raised brows. Mocking? Or, Kidd wondered, was it simply surprise.
“I’d like to work with…mentally disturbed children—like you.” June’s fingertips were over the table edge too, but tightly together, and even, so that you’d have to count to find where right fingertips ended and left began.
“In my job, dear, at the hospital—” Madame Brown lifted her glass to sip; as she bent forward, loops of optic chain swung out like a glittering bib, and back—“I have more to do with the disturbed parents.”
June, now embarrassed by her outburst, was collecting plates. “I’d like to…to help people; like a nurse or a doctor. Or like you do—” Kidd passed his over; it was the last—“with problems in their mind.”
He dragged his hands back across the cloth (spotted with sauce, soup, pieces of carrot, the purple wine blot) and let them fall into his lap.
Mrs. Richards’ place was nearly as messy as his own.
“I know it’s a cliché—” Madame Brown shook her head—“but it really is true. The parents need the help far more than the children. Really: they bring their totally demolished child to us. And you know what they want in the first interview? It’s always the same: they want us to say, ‘What you should do is beat him.’ They come in with some poor nine-year-old they’ve reduced to a state of numb, inarticulate terror; the child can’t dress itself, can’t talk above a whisper, and then only in some invented language; it soils its clothing, and the only coherent actions it can make are occasional attempts at murder or, more frequently, suicide. If I said to them, ‘Beat her! Hit him!’ they would glow—glow with delight. When they discover we want to take the children away from them, they’re indignant! Under all the frustration and apparent concern, what they actually come hoping is that we will say, ‘Yes, you’re handling it all marvelously well. Just be a little firmer!’ The reason I’m successful at my job at all—” Madame Brown touched June’s shoulder and leaned confidently—“as all I really do is pry the children loose from their parents—is because what I’m saying, underneath all my pleasant talk about how much better it would be for the rest of the family if they let little Jimmy or Alice come to us, is: Wouldn’t it be ever so much more fun to work on one of your other children for a while? Wouldn’t it be ever so much more interesting to fight someone with a little more strength left than this poor half-corpse you’ve just brought in. Why not clear the field and start in on little sister Sue or big brother Bill? Or maybe each other. Try to get an only child away from its parents once they’ve driven it practically autistic!” Madame Brown shook her head. “It’s very depressing. I really think, sometimes, I’d like to change my field—do individual therapy. That’s what I’ve always been interested in, anyway. And since there’s nobody at the hospital now anyway—”