— But Julia I don’t think Edward…
— Let’s not drag it all up again, I think we’d be wise just to keep our own counsel until we hear what James has to say.
— Well I’m not at all sure that Stella doesn’t know more than she tells. The way she questioned us about Nellie’s death…
— I’m afraid for one I’ve never doubted it, those stories about Nellie and James that woman spread right after the fair that summer up in Tannersville, the one with the tip of one finger missing there was only one way she could have learned them. I certainly don’t want to see it dragged up again even if it costs us what’s rightfully ours, though I must say I can’t picture selling to strangers. It would be like selling the telephone stock, if these Crawley and Bro people find someone to buy them.
— Yes I think there was something in the mail from them Julia, I’ll get it now when I look at the beans. There’s enough of that nice pork butt left for dinner.
— It would be nice to get back what we paid, but heaven knows how likely that is the way the telephone behaves. Do you recall that half-witted boy who always drove the honey wagon? that rather alarming laugh he had? I hadn’t thought of him all these years until I answered it this morning, someone sounding exactly like him who asked me to sing a Campbell’s Soup jingle…
— Yes here it is Julia. I don’t see a check, they’ve just sent us some sort of statement.
— It was just over four thousand dollars I think, I seem to recall that figure because…
— This just seems to say you sold, you bought spelled bot. You sold, one thousand sixty-eight A T and…
— That can’t mean shares Anne that’s absurd. We sat right here with Edward and counted them out, I think there were a hundred and seventy some.
— At forty-four, it says it right here Julia and not a word about that mining stock. And then over here where it says you bot, five hundred Quaker Oats at twenty-nine, two hundred Ampex at twenty-two and an eighth, five hundred Diamond Cable at eighteen and a quarter, five hundred Detroit Edison at seventeen and three, Julia? Where are you going…
— It all just sounds like nonsense Anne I don’t know where Edward finds these people, bought spelled bot indeed. I’m just going up to the landing while it’s still light, I want to make certain our trees are still out there. I’m sure I heard something…
— No I heard it too, it’s just the branch outside my window. When the wind blows and whenever it rains…
— I think it’s starting to rain right now… and streak mounted streak down clapboard and glass from gutters filled and sodden with leaves thrashed down in the dark from what apple limbs remained.
— Anne? was that you at the side door just now?
— At the back door Julia, the side doesn’t open. I thought we might pick up some of those nice apples the wind brought down in the storm last night. Did I hear you on the phone just now?
— A lady called yes, asking for Edward. I can’t imagine who it might have been.
— Not the one who calls herself Ann?
— Heavens no, this was a lovely contralto. I was certain I’d heard it somewhere before but the voice I was thinking of was Homer, Louise Homer when she did Gluck’s Orfeo, she said she’d just called to thank him for something.
— She must be getting along in years, I wasn’t even aware he knew her. I thought he might be out this weekend and ordered two nice chickens, they’re here on the drainboard.
— I thought the mail might have come.
— Yes I’m bringing it in. This is all that came, perhaps you can make sense of it…
— Well, I never! It’s a tax assessment for new sidewalk, three hundred feet of concrete sidewalk…
— I don’t think we asked for a sidewalk, Julia.
— We most certainly did not but you know who did, to march to their Wednesday night bingo games, to parade right past our front door Sundays the women like housemaids in cheap new clothes and the little boys they dress like midgets with elastic neckties and fedoras, did you leave something on the stove Anne?
The curtain stirred. — I’ve never seen such heavy mist, I think the sun is breaking through but I never will get used to it, this feeling of everything out in the open, of everything out there coming in, over where frost killed those acres of flowers now it all just looks blacker than ever…
— I do smell something, I’m going to look.
— I think it’s coming from outside, Julia. It’s odd how even the faintest smell can suddenly bring the past to life, but we’d just been talking about James hadn’t we, that summer up near Tannersville? when they tarred the roads…?
— These two chickens out here you ordered, they’ve got one heart and three gizzards between them. It makes one wonder when even a chicken can’t, Anne? did I hear you say Edward was coming?
— Julia…? the sound of a siren rose closer, — Julia? I didn’t hear you…
— I said is Edward coming?
— No… the curtain quivered, — all I see is the sun that makes a haze, and the grass looking wet… and the curtain fell still on the soaking lawns where apples laced in the grass hard as stones snared in seaweed imperiled passage toward the road stretching slick as a breakwater before the burst of the siren toward the highway, swept up the rutted shoulders flowing with rivulets into the flattened weeds forming a pool round the extinct washing machine gone to earth in the sanctuary of Primitive Baptist Church where woodbine renewed its attack on the locusts in the next lot, penetrating to the mangled saplings and torn trunks at the forward edge of the battleline fronting a hill of mud naked but for the protruding legs of a chair and the fluke of a toilet seat pointing on toward Burgoyne Street where the sky opened wide for the siren’s shriek that would have flung birds broadcast in the air when there were limbs to fling them from, now merely added a note of cheer to White Christmas already spilling from the bank, of adventure to the elderly venturing from curbs and indoor hostages to Alaska Our Wilderness Friend alike, even of fugitive relief from hopeless combat.
— Pardon…? No I didn’t hear what you… yes I couldn’t hear you a police siren just went by and ahm… oh you did? Yes well of course they probably have more than one ahm… and yes doing a very fine job that is to… I see yes no I’m not calling about your hedge no, no I called once before to… sound like who…? Yes well that must have been someone else I… no I’m no, no I don’t want you to sing the Campbell’s sou… pardon? No well yes of course I didn’t mean to dist… I see yes but I’m calling Mist… no no Mister Bast yes is he… Bast yes, b a… no I’m sorry yes I’m sure you can spell it I didn’t mean… Mister Bast yes, is… oh he has? I see yes when do you expect him to… yes well of course he… yes well I’m sure he deserves it of course he… yes no this is a check yes I called to tell him we’re putting through a new one for the correct amount, I’m afraid he’s been inconvenienced twice now by our… No because yes we wouldn’t want the Foundation to ahm, we wouldn’t want him to give the Foundation the impression we were withholding funds provided by them for our… yes it’s no no not another award no this is in connection with his ahm, his services as composer in… on Mozart’s ahm, a very fine job that is to say yes his Mozart presentation created quite ahm, drew quite a response that is to say from ahm, from other senior citizens that is to say regarding his ahm, regarding him yes as our ahm, our Peter Pan of… Pan yes, Peter he… pardon? Maude yes no I’m afraid I don’t know a Maude Adams of course our present enrollment is… that’s very interesting yes, I… Yes I see but… it is yes but I’m afraid I have someone at the door I… very fine job I’m sure yes well goodbye, thank… Goodbye yes I’m sure they do excuse me, come in…? Yes well no I assure you I have a good many other things to do here I’m…