“No, Gwen,” George laughed. “You can’t take all the poor trees inside by the fire to warm them up.”
Sam and Mandy were chasing each other, discovering the fun of snow. Mandy’s blackness was a vivid contrast to the white. Sam, gray going on white, blended in now and then and seemed to disappear. Mandy, the larger, threw herself on Sam and tumbled him. Sam rose, shook, examined nearby trees with a calculating eye, lifted one leg and let fly at a sapling pine.
“Old Sam’s warming up one of them,” George said.
“They shudder when a dog comes near,” Gwen said.
“My wife, the nut.”
“I talk to trees,” she said, keeping her face straight.
“You didn’t do too well with those African violets,” George said. Hands in pockets, they were walking back toward the house.
“I didn’t know about talking to them then.”
“Aaaarg,” he groaned. “That’s the trouble with teaching women to read.”
“It’s not just a crazy idea,” she said. “They feel. Plants feel. They appreciate it when they’re watered. They faint when they’re threatened with violence.”
“I know a few trees that are going to have severe and fatal fainting spells,” George said. “I’m going to buy a chain saw and cut some wood for the fireplace.” A large deposit of snow, loosened by the heat of the sun, fell. It splattered down from a high limb, going down his neck.
“See,” Gwen said, giggling. “They heard you.”
She helped gather wood when the snow was gone and the warmer weather had returned. There was a wealth of fallen trees and dead limbs for starting fires in the big fireplace, and plenty of the resin-filled longleaf pine, called fat-wood, to kindle. George bought his chain saw and felled oak. It sizzled greenly on the fire, burned for a long time, and sent out waves of heat.
With the fire, hot chocolate and cheese toast in the early evenings, and music on the four big speakers in the main room, the cozy winter passed. It was spring before it occurred to Gwen that not once had they had anyone in the house. Telephone men, meter readers, and a stray insurance salesman had knocked on the door, but not once had there been a guest in the house. George knew almost everyone in the area and kept Gwen up-to-date on gossip. She had met many of the local people while hanging around George’s shop or doing the groceries in the local markets, but neither of them had expressed a desire to invite people to the house.
“Who needs people?” George asked, when Gwen talked about the situation in early March.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I’m just a worry-wart. I keep thinking that we’re too happy, too smug, too content with ourselves. Perhaps we should share it.”
4
“Soft living and good food,” Gwen said. George was nude, standing in front of the mirror in the bedroom and examining his waistline with a critical eye. He had saddlebags.
“You’re too good to me,” he said.
“We could start playing tennis,” she suggested.
“Push-ups is the thing,” he grinned. “With a living mat underneath me.”
“My husband the sex fiend,” she said.
“Rape, rape,” he said, advancing on her. She squealed in mock fear and struggled, but only briefly.
“Turn off the light,” she said.
“No.”
She closed her eyes. It was still there, deep inside her, that old shame. But then it was buried underneath their matched passions. He laughed, however, when she threw on a robe before walking to the bathroom.
“My wife the prude,” he said.
But it was better. She liked it that way. Theirs was a good, sensuous relationship. She felt so very, very close to him during the sex act, after her initial reluctance was gone. No covers these days; and after the first few moments of unease, she could bear the light. George liked to see.
She was improving with age. At twenty-seven, her thighs had gained enough muscle and weight almost to close the gap between them. Her hips had spread into a womanly beauty. Her skin was smooth, soft, and taut. Her face had thinned and her features seemed to be coming together. Her nose, once seemingly too long, was now merely a nose of great character, with delicate lines. Her mouth was her good point, along with her arched eyebrows and her brown eyes. She’d taken to wearing her hair in a sophisticated pull-back.
“For an old broad, you’re pretty sharp,” George would say. Then, when he gained weight during that long, cozy, happy winter, he said, “I’m going to start exercising. I’m not going to go to pot when you’re getting better looking.”
He came home with a big-wheeled lawn mower. Gwen smote her forehead and said, “My husband the nut. A lawnmower and no grass.”
“This is no lawnmower,” he said, “but a miniature brush hog.”
So George mowed his trees. In the cleared area around the house, squirrels worked endlessly, teasing the dogs and the cat, digging holes, planting acorns, and forgetting them. The natural fall of acorns helped, so that with early spring the small, green oak shoots were prolific. In addition, a fern seemed to have the ability to grow overnight. While Sam and Mandy ran and barked excitedly at the spitting, buzzing lawnmower, Gwen sat on the deck and watched George mow trees. The lawnmower was a powerful one. George, once he had mowed the cleared areas, could move into the nearby brush and take down young trees up to three feet tall and almost half an inch thick. However, the mower complained at this and stray pieces of dead wood made clanking noises and nicked the blades. George attacked the brush in another fashion, with a new ax, cutting the brush below ground level so as not to have stubs sticking up. Gwen helped with the operation, stacking cut brush to burn. They had a cold beer over the fire at the end of the afternoon. The new brush, heavy with sap, burned with a crackling hiss. The fire was fed by deadwood piled at the bottom. A thorny vine, which grew with profusion, dangling and climbing into the tallest trees, burned with cracks and snaps almost as loud as small firecrackers.
In pulling down the vines, George stuck thorns into his hands. “Burn, you mothers,” he said, with mock anger. “Serves you right. I hope it does hurt.” He grinned at Gwen. “See that big thorny bastard over there? I’m going to cut it and burn it. Faint with fear, you bastard.”
He was teasing her. She smiled.
“What I thought was, we’d gradually clear out all of the underbrush and some of the smaller trees between here and the marsh,” George said.
“Yes,” she agreed. “It’s a shame to waste the view.”
That long Saturday was filled with the snarl of the chain saw, the popping of the lawn mower, and the sharp, solid sound of the ax biting into wood. The fire was kept going, burning until darkness forced them to halt the great pioneering clearing operation. George, exhausted, came out of the shower after Gwen, mixed a tall one, and fell into a soft old chair with new gold velvet upholstery. Gwen felt good. The exercise had stimulated her. She slept well, at first, when they went to bed.
She awoke with the clammy stench of nightmare on her body, cold sweat, a deep, gnawing dread in her. The dream had been vague but powerful. Terrible pain. Legs being severed, cold metal biting in. Eyes wide, she tried to dispel the feeling. Around her, the house seemed to be alive. Still settling, expanding and contracting with the heat of the spring sun followed by a cool night, it cracked and groaned. The wind had come up during the night. The day had been unusually calm for March. Now there was a rushing hiss of gusts and an occasional clatter of screens as the gusts pounded the house. She remembered the fire. They’d left it smouldering. She got up, the cool of the night drying the perspiration from her limbs. In a pajama top, the only night garment which met with George’s approval, she walked out of the bedroom into the hall. Something cracked in front of her and her heart leaped. But it was her house, her friendly house. She pushed on, guiding herself in total darkness to the living room, and felt her way across. The outside was black, for the moon was covered by clouds. She stood in front of the glass doors and peered into the darkness. There was a glow of red at the edge of the clearing where they’d built the fire. As she watched, wind whipped sparks away. A flaming picture hit her, a visual image of the woods burning, great sheets of red leaping up and leaves steaming, cracking with the heat, and burning with sizzling bursts of fire. The vision seemed to hurt, sending sheets of pain through her.