The Clock Winder (16 page)

By the time they returned from the cemetery it was nearly one o’clock. Three limousines left them at the door. People alighted in straggling lines, and unbuttoned their gloves and removed their hats and commented and argued and agreed all the way up the walk. “He never liked that hymn, he would have poked fun at us for singing it,” Melissa said. Mrs. Emerson’s two cousins climbed into their car, murmuring soft sounds that might not even have been words. It looked as if
only the immediate family and Aunt Dorothy were staying to dinner. “You’ll stay, Uncle Henry,” Mary told Mr. Emerson’s strange brother, but Uncle Henry (who was strange because he never talked, not ever, but merely bobbed his Adam’s apple when confronted with direct questions) waved one red, bony hand and went off stiff-legged to his pickup truck. “We’d better tell Alvareen,” Mary said. “Eight for dinner, if she hasn’t yet fed Billy.”

“But how about Elizabeth?” Mrs. Emerson said.

“Elizabeth, oh. Does she eat with us?”

“I’ll get something later,” Elizabeth said. She was zigzagging across the front lawn, gathering the debris left by last night’s rainstorm. In church, in her beige linen dress, she had looked like anyone else, but there was nothing ordinary about her now when her arms were full of branches and rivulets of barky water were running down the wrinkles in her skirt.

“Is that girl all
right?”
Mary said. “You’d think she’d change clothes first.”

Billy was waiting on the top porch step, guiding his mother back with his intense, unswerving stare. Alvareen stood behind him in a shiny black party dress. “Dinner’s set,” she called. “Come on in, you poor souls, I got everything you’d wish for right on the table.” When Mrs. Emerson came near enough Alvareen patted her arm. “Now, now, it’s finished now,” she said. Mrs. Emerson said, “I’m quite all right, Emmeline.”

“Shows you’re not,” said Alvareen. “I’m Alvareen, not Emmeline, but don’t you mind. Come on in, folks.”

Then she led the way into the house, shaking her head and moving her lips, no doubt preparing what she would say to her family when she got home: “Poor thing was so tore up she didn’t know me. Didn’t know who I was. Called me Emmeline. Didn’t know me.” Behind her, Melissa stumbled
against a step and laid one hand on Matthew’s arm, but so lightly that the stumbling seemed artificial. Margaret followed, swinging a weed that she had yanked from the roadside. Mary bent to scoop up Billy, and at the end of the line came Aunt Dorothy, talking steadily to Peter although he didn’t appear to be listening. “Now what I want to know is, who made the arrangements? Don’t you people believe in the old-fashioned way of doing things? First no wake, no one at the funeral home, just the remains waiting all alone. Then that scrappy little service with hymns I surely never heard of, and the casket closed so that I couldn’t pay my—why was the casket closed?”

“I asked it to be,” Matthew said. “I thought it would be easier.”

“Easier!” She paused in the doorway, her mouth open, a wrinkled, scrawny caricature of Mrs. Emerson. “Easier, you say! My dear Matthew, death is never going to be easy. We accept, we endure. We
used
to put them in the parlor. Now you’re telling me—or was he, um, I hope the bullet didn’t—”

Nobody rescued her. She closed her mouth and entered the house, leaving Peter horror-struck behind her. “Did it?” he whispered, and Matthew said, “No, of course not. Go on in.” (And pictured, clearer than Peter there before him, Timothy’s dead, toneless face, so solemn that it had to be a mockery—much worse than blood or signs of pain, although he never could have explained that to Peter.)

Alvareen stood scolding in the dining room. Nobody was coming straight to the table. They were milling in the hallway, or heading for bathrooms, or going off to put away hats and gloves. “You’re breaking my heart,” Alvareen said. “Here, little Billy,
you’ll
pay me mind.” She hoisted him into a chair with a dictionary on it and tied a napkin around his neck. He ducked his round yellow head to examine the tablecloth
fringe. There was always something he was checking up on—as if he considered himself the advance scout for the grandchildren yet to be born. He peered at people suspiciously, drew back to study Mrs. Emerson when she kissed him, cautiously surveyed all offerings from his aunts and uncles. Sometimes he repeated whole conversations between his relatives, word for word, out of context, as exact as a spy’s tape recording. “ ‘Where you going, Melissa?’ ‘Out for a walk, can’t stand it here.’ ‘When’ll you be back?’ ‘ ’Spect me when you see me.’ ”

“ ‘Why don’t I ever hear from you, Peter?’ ” he said now, and then frowned at his silverware, as if turning the question over for all possible implications.

When they were finally seated, their elbows touched. No one would have guessed how many people were missing. Alvareen had chosen her own menu: ham and roast beef, three kinds of vegetables, mashed potatoes and baked potatoes and sweet potatoes. “Oh, my,” Mrs. Emerson said, and she sighed and refolded her napkin and sat back without taking a bite. Only Margaret had any appetite. She ate silently and steadily—a lanky-haired, pudgy, flat-faced girl. Beside her, Billy whacked his fork rhythmically against the table edge. “In a bottom drawer, under the tea-towels,” he chanted. “In a bottom—” “Cut that out, mister,” Mary said. She buttered a roll and laid it on his plate. “Eat up and hush.”

“In a bottom—”

“It was nice of Father Lewis to do the services,” Mrs. Emerson said.

“Nice?” said Mary.

“Well, he could have refused. He had the right, in a case of … case like this.”

“I’d like to see him try,” Mary said. She had changed since the days when she lived at home. She looked calmer, softer around the edges, especially now when she was expecting
another baby. Her face, with its lipsticked mouth and pale eyes, was settling along the jawline, and she wore her dark hair medium-length, average-styled, marked with crimp-lines from metal curlers. Yet while her looks had softened, her opinions had hardened. She passed judgment on everything, in her mother’s sharp, definite voice. She was forever ready to turn belligerent. Motherhood had affected her in the way it did she-bears, but not only in matters relating to her child. “You know what I’d have said if he refused,” she said. “I’d have marched straight up to him. Oh, he’d be sorry he ever mentioned it. Quit that, Billy. Give it to Mother. ‘Father Lewis,’ I’d say, I’d say straight to his face—”

“But he didn’t,” Margaret said.

“What?”

“What’s the point?”

“Oh, Margaret, where are you, off in a daze some place? We were talking about—”

“I know what you were talking about. What’s the point? He didn’t refuse, he never said a word about it. He went right ahead and performed the services.”

“Well, I was only—”

“Funerals are for the living,” said Mrs. Emerson. “That’s what all the morticians’ ads say.”

“Of course, Mother,” Mary said. “No one denies it.”

“Well, Father Lewis was very kind to me. Very thoughtful, very considerate. I don’t want to disappoint you children in any way, but the fact is that I have never felt all that religious. I just didn’t have the knack, I suppose. Now, Father Lewis knows that well but did it stop him? No. He came and spent time, he offered his sympathy, he never even mentioned the manner of Timothy’s going. He was no help at all, of course, but you can’t say he didn’t try.”

“No, of course not,” Mary said.

“The trouble with ministers,” said Mrs. Emerson, “is that they’re not women. There he was talking about young life carried off in its prime. What do I care about the prime? I’m thinking about the morning sickness, labor pains, colic, mumps—all for nothing. All come to nothing. You have no idea what a trouble twins are to raise.”

“Can’t we get off this subject?” Melissa said.

“Well, it is on my mind, Melissa.”

“I don’t care, you’re making me nervous. All this talk about Timothy, who has just played a terrible trick on us and left us holding the bag. Hymns. Sermons. Religion. Why do we bother?”

“Melissa
!”

“What. There’s nothing
wrong
with what he did, it was his own life to take. But we don’t have to sit around discussing it forever, do we?”

“That’s quite enough,” said Mrs. Emerson, and then she set her glass down and turned to Alvareen, who was just coming in with more rolls. “Everything is delicious, Alvareen.”

“How can you tell? You ain’t eat a bite.”

“Well, it
looks
delicious.”

“It is,” said Mary, taking over. “You must give me the recipe for the gravy, Alvareen. Is it onion? Is this something you get from your people?”

“All I done was—”

“Matthew,” Mrs. Emerson said, “I have to know. Was death instantaneous?”

Everyone froze. Instantaneous death, which sounded like something that happened only around police lieutenants and ambulance drivers, seemed undesirable; and before Matthew had thought her question out he said, “No, of course not.” Then when their eyes widened he realized his mistake. “Oh,” he said. “No, it
was
instantaneous. I didn’t—”

“Which is it? Are you keeping something from me?”

“Oh no, I just, you see—”

“Elizabeth? Where’s Elizabeth?”

“Here we go again,” Mary said.

“Here we go
where
again?”

“You’d think you could get along five minutes without Elizabeth.”

“Mary, for heaven’s sake,” Margaret said.

“She
was
on the
scene
,” said Mrs. Emerson.

“Ha,” Mary said.

“Just what does that mean?”

There was a silence. Alvareen, who was propped against the wall with her arms folded as if she never planned to leave, suddenly spoke up. “All I done with the gravy,” she said, “was throw in a pack of onion soup mix. Lady I used to work for taught me that. You might like to write it down.”

“Oh, is that what it was,” said Mary. “Thank you very much.”

The silence continued. Forks clinked on plates. Billy’s head slid slowly sideways and his eyes rolled, half-shuttered, fighting sleep.

“I do a lot of extries,” said Alvareen. “Sometimes I cater for parties, I mention that in case you’re interested. I spread cream cheese over Ritz crackers, I dye it however they want. Green, like, to match the carpet. Pink or blue, to go in with the decor. Little things is what makes them happy.”

She went out through the swinging door, hands under her apron, probably telling herself she had done all that could be expected to liven this funeral party. Mary said, “I believe Alvareen is even stranger than Emmeline.”

“There was nothing wrong with Emmeline,” said Mrs. Emerson.

“What’d you fire her for, then?”

“What I mind about Elizabeth—” said Melissa.

Margaret said, “Oh, can’t we get off Elizabeth?”

“She’s creepy,” Melissa said. “Never says anything. I distrust people who don’t take care of their appearance.”

“Wake up, Billy,” said Mary. “Eat your beans. Well, I’ll say this about her and then we’ll drop it: I hate to see people taking advantage. It seems to me, Mother, that girl knows a good thing when she stumbles on it—settled down to live off a rich old lady forever, she thinks, and you should make it plain to her that you have children of your
own
to rely on. Plenty of your own without—”

“Well, I like her,” Margaret said.

“What do you know about it?”

“I’ve had to share a room with her, haven’t I? She talks to me.”

Melissa said, “I don’t hear Matthew speaking up.”

“What about?” said Matthew, pretending not to know.

“Aren’t you always hanging around Elizabeth?”

She smiled at him from across the table—a cat face, sharp and bony, with that thin, painful-looking skin that some blondes have. Who could have foretold that modeling agencies would consider her a beauty? Matthew decided suddenly that he disliked her, and the thought made him blink and duck his head. “Anyway, she’s going,” he said.

“Aren’t you going to mope around, or follow after her or something?”

“Stop it,” Mrs. Emerson said.

They looked up at her, all with the same stunned, pale eyes.

“Oh, what makes you act like this?” she said. “They say it’s the parents to blame, but what did
we
do? I’m asking you, I really want to know. What did we do?”

No one answered. Billy slumped against Margaret, his
lids glued shut, exhausted from having so much to watch out for. Peter speared beans with all his concentration, and Aunt Dorothy began examining her charm bracelet.

“Just loved you and raised you, the best we knew how,” Mrs. Emerson said. “Made mistakes, but none of them on purpose. What else did you want? I go over and over it all, in my mind. Was it something I did? Something I didn’t do? Nights when you were in bed, clean from your baths, I felt such—oh, remorse. Regret. I thought back over every cross word. Now it’s all like one long night, regret for anything I might have done but no fresh faces to start in new upon in the morning. Here I am alone, just aching for you, and still I don’t know what it was I did. Was it me, really? Was it?”

“Mother, of course not,” Mary said.

“Then sometimes I think you were all in a turmoil from birth, nothing I did could have helped. Can you deny it?”

“Mother—”

“What about Andrew? What about Timothy? I was such a
gentle
person. Where did they get that from?”

Her face was blurring, crumpling, dissolving. And all the movements made toward her were bluffs. Some cleared their throats and some leaned suddenly in her direction, but nobody did anything. In the end, it was Matthew who stood up and said, “I guess you’d like to rest now, Mother.”

“Rest!”
she said, with her mouth pressed to a napkin. But she allowed herself to be led away. The others scraped their chairs back and stood up. Alvareen, bearing a hot apple pie, stopped short in the doorway. “We won’t be needing dessert,” Mary told her. “Now, aren’t you an optimist. Have you ever known this family to make it through to the end of a meal?”

“Your mama and Elizabeth always did,” Alvareen said.

The others were filing out of the dining room. Mary bore
a sagging, boneless Billy toward a rocking chair by the fireplace. Mrs. Emerson, composed again, mounted the stairs with Matthew close behind. “I’ll just turn down the spread for you,” he told her. “You’ll feel better when you’re not so tired.”