The moon went behind a wisp of cloud, but the two golf balls still shone like two white stones. Light spilled out of the cup and beaded on the short blades of grayish grass. "How do I know whose ball that is?" June said. "I didn't see anything, I wasn't here until now – I mean – "
Rose Read cut her off. "It doesn't really matter whose ball it is, little thief, just whose ball you say it is."
"But I don't know!" June protested.
"You people are always so greedy," Rose Read said. "Very welclass="underline" say it belongs to Minnie, she can pull a few strings, get you into the university of your choice; Di, well, you saw how much she likes you. Tell me what you want, June."
June took a deep breath. Suddenly she was afraid that she would wake up before she had a chance to answer. "I want Humphrey," she said.
"My game, ladies," Rose Read said, and the moon came out again.
June woke up. The moon was bright and small in the dormer window above her, and she could hear the pigeons' feet chiming against the leaded glass.
14. The view from the window.
Before Humphrey came to see June, the woman in Room Five had paid for her third week in advance, and June found the perfume she had given her mother in the rubbish bin. She took it up to her room, put a dab on her wrist.
He was sitting on the front steps when she swept the dust out of the door. "I lost your address," he said.
"Oh?" she said coolly, folding her arms the way Lily did.
"I did," he said. "But I found it again yesterday."
His eyebrows didn't repulse her as much as she had hoped they would. His sweater was blue like his eyes. "You're lying," she said.
"Yes," he said. "I didn't come to see you because I thought maybe Aunt Rose tricked you into liking me. I thought maybe you wouldn't like me anymore. Do you?"
She looked at him. "Maybe," she said. "How was your flying lesson?"
"I've been up in the plane twice. It's a Piper Cub, just one engine and you can feel the whole sky rushing around you when you're up there. The last time we went up, Tiny – he's the instructor – let me take the controls. It was like nothing I've ever done before – that is," he said warily, "it was quite nice. You look lovely, June. Have you missed me too?"
"I suppose," she said.
"Aunt Di gave me the night off. Will you come for a walk with me?" he said.
They went for a walk. They went to the movies. He bought her popcorn. They came home again when the sky above the streetlights was plush and yellow as the fur of a tiger. "Would you like to come in?" she asked him.
"Yes, please." But they didn't go inside yet. They stood on the steps, smiling at each other. June heard a sound, a fluttering and cooing. She looked up and saw a flock of pigeons, crowding on the window ledge two stories above them. Two hands, white and pressed flat with the weight of many rings, lay nestled like doves among the pigeons. Humphrey cried out, crouching and raising his own hands to cover his head.
June pulled him into the cover of the door. She fumbled the key into the lock, and they stumbled inside. "It was just the woman in Room Five," she said. "She's a little strange about birds. She puts crumbs on the sill for them. She says they're her babies." She rubbed Humphrey's back. The sweater felt good beneath her hands, furry and warm like a live animal.
"I'm okay now," he said. "I think the lessons are helping." He laughed, shuddering in a great breath. "I think you're helping."
They kissed and then she took him up the stairs to her room. As they passed the door of Room Five, they could hear the woman crooning and the pigeons answering back.
15. Rose Read on motherhood.
I never had a mother. I remember being born, the salt of that old god's dying upon my lips, the water bearing me up as I took my first steps. Minnie never had a mother either. Lacking example, we did the best we could with Humphrey. I like to think he grew up a credit to us both.
Prune runs Bonne Hause half the year, and we used to send Humphrey to her in the autumn. It wasn't the best place for a lively boy. He tried to be good, but he always ended up shattering the nerves of Prune's wispy convalescents, driving her alcoholics back to the drink, stealing the sweets her spa patients hoard. Raising the dead, in fact, and driving poor, anemic Prune into pale hysterics.
Di's never had much use for men, but she's fond of him in her own way.
We read to him a lot. Di's bakery came out of his favorite book, the one he read to pieces when he was little. All about the boy in the night kitchen, and the airplane… it was to be expected that he'd want to learn to fly. They always do. We moved around to keep him safe and far away from Vera, but you can't keep him away from the sky. If he comes to a bad end, then we kept his feet safely planted on the ground as long as we could.
We tried to teach him to take precautions. Minnie knitted him a beautiful blue sweater and he needn't be afraid of birds nor goddesses while he keeps that on. We did the best we could.
16. The Skater.
In the morning, it was raining. Humphrey helped June with her chores. Lily said nothing when she met him, only nodded and gave him a mop.
Walter said, "So you're the boy she's been pining after," and laughed when June made a face. They tidied the first four rooms on the second floor, and when June came out of the washroom with the wastebasket, she saw Humphrey standing in front of Room Five, his hand on the doorknob. Watery light from the window at the end of the hall fell sharply on his neck, his head bent towards the door.
"Stop," June hissed. He turned to her, his face white and strained. "She doesn't like us to come into her room, she does everything herself."
"I thought I could hear someone in there," Humphrey said. "They were saying something."
June shook her head violently. "She's gone. She goes to Charlotte Square every day, and sits and feeds the pigeons."
"But it's raining," Humphrey said.
She grabbed his hand. "Come on, let's go somewhere."
They went to the National Gallery on the Royal Mile. Inside everything was red and gold and marble, kings and queens on the walls frowning down from ornate frames at Humphrey and June, like people peering through windows. Their varied expressions were so lively, so ferocious and joyful and serene by turn, that June felt all the more wet and bedraggled. She felt like a thief sneaking into an abandoned house, only to discover the owners at home, awake, drinking and talking and dancing and laughing.
Humphrey tugged at her hand. They sat down on a bench in front of Raeburn's The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddiston Loch. "This is my favorite painting," he said.
June looked at the Reverend Walker, all in black like a crow, floating above the gray ice, his cheeks rosy with the cold. "I know why you like it," she said. "He looks like he's flying."
"He looks like he's happy," Humphrey said. "Do you remember your father?"
"No," June said. "I suppose when I look in the mirror. I never knew him. But my mother says – how about you?"
Humphrey said, "I used to make up stories about him. Because of my name – I thought he was American, maybe even a gangster. I used to pretend that he was part of the Mafia, like Capone. Aunt Minnie says I'm not too far off."
"I know," June said. "Let's pick out fathers here. Can I have the Reverend Robert Walker? He looks like Walter. Who do you want?"
They walked through the gallery, June making suggestions, Humphrey vetoing prospective parents. "Definitely not. I do not want Sir Walter Scott," he said as June paused in front of a portrait. "An aunt who writes historical romances is enough. Besides, we look nothing alike."