A Common Life (16 page)

“Why’s that?” He couldn’t remember ever leaving food on a porch. Why would anyone leave food on a porch?

“Bear.”

He craned his neck to peer at his wife, standing with Mrs. Oldman by a flower bed. Thank heaven she hadn’t overheard the last pronouncement.

“Well!” said the rector, putting an end to the veritable Niagara of bad news. “We’ll see you when we bring the car back.”

“You’ll see me tomorrow,” said Henry. “Bishop called today, asked me to come check th’ water, see if it’s runnin’ muddy. Bishop’s daddy, he tried to dig a new well before he passed, but . . .” Henry raised both hands as if he had no responsibility for the failure of this mission, it was some bitter destiny over which he’d lacked any control. “Bishop said bring you some speckled trout, you know how to clean trout?”

“Ahhh,” he said, wordless. He’d never cleaned trout in his life.

Henry raised an eyebrow. “I’ll have Miz Oldman do it for you.”

He could hardly wait to get in the car, if only to sit down.

These were the days of heaven. . . .

He walked out to the porch, loving the feel of old wood, silken with wear, under his bare feet.

The view took his breath away. Early morning mist hovered above the platinum lake, and just there, near its center, a small island with a cabin on its narrow shore....

Nothing stirred except waterfowl: He saw a merganser and a string of young ply the water with great determination. Next to the lodge, cedar waxwings dived and swooped in the seed-dowered garden.

It would definitely take some getting used to, but he was liking this place better with every passing moment.

He expanded his chest and sucked in his stomach and circled his arms like propellers, awash in happiness, in contentment—in a kind of energized sloth, if there could be such a thing.

Though they’d slept at his house the first night and at hers on the second, last night had somehow marked the true beginning.

At the rectory, his antediluvian mattress had rolled them into the middle of the bed like hotdogs in a bun. At her house, circumstances were considerably improved, though the alarm clock had, oddly, gone off at three a.m. Odder still, the clock wasn’t in its usual place on her bedside table. Failing to turn on a lamp, they leapt up to locate the blasted thing and, navigating by moonlight alone, had crashed into each other at the bookcase.

But last night had been everything, everything and more.

He cupped his hands and drew them to his face and smelled her warm scent, now and forever mingled with his own. In truth, he had entered into a realm that had little to do with familiar reason and everything to do with a power and mystery he’d never believed possible. Perhaps for the first time in his life, there was nothing he craved to possess, nothing he felt lacking; he was only waiting for his coffee to perk.

He had schlepped the coffee in his suitcase, for which effort his underwear smelled of decaf Antigua and his socks of full-bore French Roast. Eager to begin their honeymoon on a note of thoughtfulness, if not downright servitude, he had gone to the kitchen to concoct the coffee, to be followed by a breakfast of . . . he opened the cabinets and checked the inventory . . . a breakfast of raisin bran in blue tin bowls.

He’d never messed with gas stoves. While chefs were commonly known to prefer cooking with gas, he’d always feared it might blow his head off. Dangerous stuff, gas, he could smell it in here more strongly than in the rest of the house. If he lit a match, they could be spending their honeymoon in Quebec. . . .

But come on, for Pete’s sake, wasn’t he up for a little excitement on this incredibly beautiful, endlessly promising day? Wasn’t all of this an adventure, a new beginning?

He withdrew a kitchen match from the box and studied it soberly, then walked to the gas-powered refrigerator and retrieved the coffee. Now. Where might the coffee pot be lurking?

Aha. That must be it on the shelf above the stove. Then again, surely not. He took it down and inspected it. Campfires. Many campfires. He lifted the lid. Oh, yes, just like his mother once used, there was the basket on its stick....

Thinking he should try and clean the pot, he removed the basket and peered inside. Hopeless! He rinsed it out under a trickle of cold water. That would have to do; this was not, after all, a military kitchen.

He filled the basket with some satisfaction, thankful he’d brought preground, otherwise they’d be chewing beans....

His wife appeared, looking touseled and teenaged in her nightgown. She slipped her arms around his waist and kissed him. “I love campfire coffee!”

Using the flat of his hand, he hammered down on the lid, which, once round, had somehow become oval with age. “What don’t you love, Kavanagh?”

“Ducks that cry all night, beds with creaking springs, and feather pillows with little gnawing things inside.”

“My sentiments exactly.” He smiled at his bride, set the pot on the stove, and struck the match.

“Stand back!”
he warned.

“Those weren’t ducks calling last night.”

They were rocking on the porch, side by side. He had never felt so far from a vestry in his life. “They’re loons.”

“
Loons!
” she said, marveling.

The ensuing silence was punctuated with birdsong.

“Related to the auks.”

“Who, dearest? The Cullens?”

“The loons.”

“Of course.”

“They mate for life.”

“Lovely! Just like us.”

They watched the navigation of yet another duck family, thought they spotted a bald eagle, counted three kingfishers, sipped a second cup of coffee.

He relished their easy quietude this morning; it held a richness to be savored. Surely he was blessed beyond all reckoning to have a highly verbal wife who could also be quiet. He had always valued that in a woman, in a man, in a friend. Though his mother had possessed a sparkling way with people and was bright and eager in conversation on many subjects, she also had a gentle quietude that made her companionship ever agreeable.

“God is mercifully allowing me to forget the dreadful experience of getting here,” Cynthia said of yesterday’s journey.

“You mean the four-hour mechanical delay, the two-hour layover, and the forty-five minutes on the runway with no air stirring in the cabin?”

“The same!” she said.

“The usual,” he said.

He wondered what his dog might be doing at the moment. And how about his boy—how was he faring? He’d call home tonight. On second thought, he could forget calling anybody. His bishop had conveniently forgotten to say there was no phone at Cullen camp.

“I love this place, Timothy. It’s so wonderfully simple.”

“What would you like to do today?”

“Nothing!”

He was thrilled to hear it.

“Of course,” she said, “we might pop down to the village and peek in the shops.”

He hated to be the bearer of bad news. “Umm . . .”

“There are no shops!” she said, reading his mind.

“Right. Only a service station, a small grocery store with a post office, and an unused church.”

“So we can poke through the graveyard. I love graveyards!”

He grinned. “Of course you love graveyards. But I don’t think there’s a graveyard at this particular church. Stuart mentioned that the flock was buried elsewhere.”

She leaned back in the rocker and turned her head and looked into his eyes, smiling. “Well, then,” she murmured.

He took her hand and lightly kissed the tips of her fingers. “Well, then,” he said.

Henry had come on Wednesday with fresh trout and a blackberry pie baked by Mrs. Oldman, and on Thursday with a free-range chicken, a quart of green beans, a sack of beets and potatoes, and a providential lump of home-churned butter.

In truth, they were savoring unforgettable meals at an oilcloth-covered table on the porch, lighted in the evening by a kerosene lantern. One evening had been crisp and cold enough for a fire; they’d hauled the table indoors and dined by the hearth on a hearty vegetable stew, sopping their bowls with bread toasted over the fire and slathered with Oldman butter. Each dish they prepared was such a stunning success that he now dreaded going home to four pathetic electric eyes, albeit on a range of more recent vintage.

In the four days since arriving, they’d clung to the porch like moss to a log, celebrating the sunrise, cheering the dazzling sunsets. Their off-porch expeditions had been few—a walk around the lake, twice, and a canoe excursion to the island. Not being water lovers, they made the island foray with considerable temerity. Finding the cabin empty, they picnicked under a fir tree on a threadbare Indian blanket and, setting off for home, found the trip across had so bolstered their confidence that they paddled north for a couple of miles, only to be drenched by a downpour.

Yesterday, they’d climbed through the window of another cabin in the Cullen camp. Sitting on the floor of a room built in 1917, according to the date carved on a rafter, they drank Earl Grey tea from a thermos and told all the jokes they could remember from childhood.

Finding themselves on a roll, she suggested they draw broomstraws to see who’d entertain the other with a retelling of Uncle Billy’s wedding joke.

The rector was not pleased to draw the short straw. After all, who but Uncle Billy could tell an Uncle Billy joke? He returned the straw. “Sorry,” he said, “but this joke can’t be done without a cane.”

She got up and went to the fireplace, whipped the broom off the hearth, and handed it over.

“Is there no balm . . . ?” he sighed.

“None!” she said.

Using the hearth for a stage and the broom for a cane, he hunkered down and clasped his right lower back, where he thought he might actually feel an arthritic twinge.

“Wellsir, two fellers was workin’ together, don’t you know. First’n, he was bright ’n cheerful, th’ other’n, he didn’t have nothin’ to say, seem like he was mad as whiz. First’n said, ‘Did you wake up grouchy this mornin’?’ Other’n said, ‘Nossir, I let ’er wake ’er own self up.’ ”

Hoots, cheers, general merriment.

“That’s just m’ warm-up, don’t you know, hit ain’t m’ main joke.”

The audience settled down and gazed at him raptly.

“Wellsir, Ol’ Adam, he was mopin’ ’round th’ Garden of Eden feelin’ lonesome, don’t you know. So, the Lord asked ’im, said, ‘Adam, what’s ailin’ you?’ Adam said he didn’t have nobody t’ talk to. Wellsir, th’ Lord tol’ ’im He’d make somebody t’ keep ’im comp’ny, said hit’d be a woman, said, ‘This woman’ll rustle up y’r grub an’ cook it f’r you, an’ when you go t’ wearin’ clothes, she’ll wash ’em f’r you, an’ when you make a decision on somethin’, she’ll agree to it.’ Said, ‘She’ll not nag n’r torment you a single time, an’ when you have a fuss, she’ll give you a big hug an’ say you was right all along.’

“Ol’ Adam, he was jist a-marvelin’ at this.