The Hotel New Hampshire (10 page)

“Listen,” Father said. “We’re going to make money.”

This was news to us; Franny and I kept very still.

Frank must have been nervous at the prospect. “May I be excused?” he asked.

“Of course, dear,” Mother said. “
How
are we going to make money?” Mother asked Father.

“For God’s sake, tell
me
,” Coach Bob said. “
I’m
the one who wants to retire.”

“Listen,” Father said. We listened. “This school may be worthless, but it’s going to grow; it’s going to take on
girls
, remember? And even if it
doesn’t
grow, it’s not going to fold. It’s been here too long to fold; its instincts are only to survive, and it will. It won’t
ever
be a good school; it will go through so many phases that at times we won’t recognize the place, but it’s going to keep going—you can count on that.”

“So what?” said Iowa Bob.

“So there’s going to be a school here,” Father said. “A private school is going to go on being here, in this crummy town,” he said, “and the Thompson Female Seminary
isn’t
going to go on being here, because now the girls in town will go to Dairy.”

“Everybody knows that,” said Mother.

“May I be excused?” Lilly asked.

“Yes, yes,” Father said. “Listen,” he said to Mother and Bob, “don’t you see?” Franny and I didn’t see anything—only Frank, sneaking by in the upstairs hall. “What’s going to become of that old building, the Thompson Female Seminary?” Father asked. And that’s when Mother suggested burning it. Coach Bob suggested it become the county jail.

“It’s big enough,” he said. Someone else had suggested this at Town Meeting.

“Nobody wants a jail here,” Father said. “Not in the middle of town.”

“It already looks like a jail,” Mother said.

“Just needs more bars,” said Iowa Bob.

“Listen,” Father said, impatiently. Franny and I froze together; Frank was lurking outside my door—Lilly was whistling, somewhere close by. “Listen, listen,” Father said. “What this town needs is a
hotel
.”

There was silence from the dining room table. A “hotel,” Franny and I knew, lying in my bed, was what did away with old Earl. A hotel was a vast ruined space, smelling of fish, guarded by a gun.

“Why a hotel?” Mother finally said. “You’re always saying it’s a crummy town—who’d want to come here?”

“Maybe not
want
to,” Father said, “but
have
to. Those parents of those kids at the Dairy School,” he said. “They visit their kids, don’t they? And you know what? The parents are going to get richer and richer, because the tuition is going to keep going up and up, and there won’t be any more scholarship students—there will
only
be rich kids coming here. And if you visit your kid at this school now, you can’t stay in town. You have to go to the beach, where all the motels are, or you have to drive even farther, up toward the mountains—but there’s nothing, absolutely nothing to stay in
right here
.”

That was his plan. Somehow, although the Dairy School could barely afford enough janitors, Father thought it would provide the clientele for one hotel in the town of Dairy—that the town was so motley, and no one else had dreamed of putting up a place to stay in it, didn’t worry my father. In New Hampshire the summer tourists went to the beaches—they were half an hour away. The mountains were an hour away, where the skiers went, and where there were summer lakes. But Dairy was valley land, inland but not upland: Dairy was close enough to the sea to feel the sea’s dampness but far enough away from the sea to benefit not in the slightest from the sea’s freshness. The brisk air from the ocean and from the mountains did not penetrate the dull haze that hung over the valley of the Squamscott River, and Dairy was a Squamscott Valley town—a penetrating damp cold in winter, a steamy humidity all summer. Not a picture-pretty New England village but a mill town on a polluted river—the mill now as abandoned and as ugly as the Thompson Female Seminary. It was a town with its sole hopes hung on the Dairy School, a place no one wanted to go.

“If there was a hotel here, however,” Father said, “people would stay in it.”

“But the Thompson Female Seminary would make a dreadful hotel,” Mother said. “It could
only
be what it is: an old school.”

“Do you realize how cheaply one could buy it?” Father said.

“Do
you
realize how much it would cost to fix it up?” Mother said.

“What a depressing idea!” said Coach Bob.

Franny started to pin my arms down; it was her usual method of attack—she’d get my arms all tied up, then tickle me by grinding her chin into my ribs or my armpit, or else she’d bite me on the neck (just hard enough to make me lie still). Our legs were thrashing under the covers, throwing the blankets off—whoever could scissor the other’s legs had the initial advantage—when Lilly came into my room in her weird way, on all fours with a sheet over her.

“Creep,” Franny said to her.

“I’m sorry you got in trouble,” Lilly said under the sheet. Lilly always apologized for ratting on us by completely covering her body and crawling into our rooms on all fours. “I brought you something,” Lilly said.

“Food?” Franny asked. I pulled Lilly’s sheet off and Franny took a paper bag that Lilly had carried to us, clutched in her teeth. There were two bananas and two of the warm rolls from supper in it. “Nothing to drink?” Franny asked. Lilly shook her head.

“Come on, get in,” I said to her, and Lilly crawled into bed with Franny and me.

“We’re going to move to a hotel,” Lilly said.

“Not quite,” said Franny.

But they seemed to be talking about something else downstairs at the dining table. Coach Bob was angry with my father, again—for the same old thing, it seemed: for never being satisfied, as Bob put it, for living in the future. For always making plans for the
next
year instead of just
living
, moment by moment.

“But he can’t help it,” my mother was saying; she always defended my father from Coach Bob.

“You’ve got a wonderful wife, and a wonderful family,” Iowa Bob was telling my father. “You’ve got this big old house—an inheritance! You didn’t even have to pay for it! You’ve got a job. So what if the pay’s not great—what do you need money for? You’re a lucky man.”

“I don’t want to be a teacher,” Father said quietly, which meant he was angry again. “I don’t want to be a coach. I don’t want my kids to go to a school this bad. It’s a hick town, and a floundering school full of rich kids with problems; their parents send them here in a desperate effort to arrest their already considerable sophistication—
run-amok
sophistication on the part of the kids, run-amok
hick
ness on the part of the school and the town. It’s the worst of both worlds.”

“But if you just spent more time with the kids
now
,” Mother said, quietly, “and worried a little less about where they’re all going to be in a few
years
.”

“The
future
again!” said Iowa Bob. “He
lives
in the future! First it was all the traveling—all so he could go to Harvard. So he went to Harvard, then, as fast as he could—so he could be
through
with it. For what? For this job, which he’s done nothing but complain about. Why doesn’t he
enjoy
it?”

“Enjoy
this
?” Father said. “
You
don’t enjoy it, do you?”

We could imagine our grandfather, Coach Bob, fuming; fuming was how he ended most arguments with my father, who was quicker than Iowa Bob; when Bob felt outwitted, but still right, he fumed. Franny and Lilly and I could imagine his knotty, bald head smoldering. It was true that he had no higher regard for the Dairy School than my father had, but Iowa Bob had at least committed himself to something, he felt, and he wished to see my father
involved
with what he was doing instead of involved—as Bob would say—with the
future
. After all, Coach Bob had once bitten a running back; he had not seen my father ever so engaged.

He was probably distressed that my father never became passionate about any sport, although Father was athletic and liked exercise. And Iowa Bob loved my mother very much; he had known her all the years my father was away at the war, away at Harvard, and away with Earl. Coach Bob probably thought that my father neglected his family; in the last years, I know, Bob thought Father had neglected Earl.

“Excuse me,” we heard Frank say; Franny locked her hands around my waist at the base of my spine; I tried to force her chin up, off my shoulder, but Lilly was sitting on my head.

“What is it, dear?” Mother said.

“What’s up, Frank?” Father said, and we could tell by the sharp creak of a chair that Father had grabbed for Frank; he was always trying to loosen Frank up a little by wrestling with him, or trying to get him to play, but Frank wouldn’t go for it. Franny and I loved it when Father would roughhouse with us, but Frank didn’t like it at all.

“Excuse me,” Frank repeated.

“You’re excused, you’re excused,” Father said.

“Franny is out of her room, she’s in bed with John,” Frank said. “And Lilly’s with them. She brought them something to eat.”

I felt Franny slide away from me; she was out of my bed and out of my room, her flannel nightie ballooning like a sail in the draft from the upstairs hall by the stairwell; Lilly grabbed her sheet and crawled into my closet. The old Bates family house was huge; there were so many places to hide, but my mother knew them all. I thought Franny was dashing back to her room, but I heard her going
downstairs
, instead, and then I heard her screaming.

“You weirdo fink, Frank!” she screamed. “You fart! You turd in a birdbath!”

“Franny!” Mother said.

I ran to the stairwell and hugged the banister; the stairs were carpeted, deep and soft, the same carpet that covered the house. I could see Franny go straight for the headlock on Frank in the dining room. She took him down fast—Frank was slow-moving and not very physical; he was badly coordinated, although bigger than Franny, and much bigger than me. I rarely fought with him, even in fun; Frank did little in the way of fighting for fun, and even in fun he could hurt you. He was too large, and despite his distaste for the physical life, he was strong. He had a way, too, of finding your ear with his elbow, or your nose with his knee; he was the kind of fighter whose fingers and thumbs always found an eye, whose head bobbed up and split your lip against your own teeth. There are people who are so physically uncomfortable with themselves that they seem to jar against any
other
body. Frank was like that, and I left him alone; it was not just because he was two years older.

Franny occasionally couldn’t stand not testing him, but they almost always hurt each other. I watched her locked in a death grip with Frank under the dining room table.

“Stop them, Win!” my mother said, but Father hit his head on the table trying to drag them out where he could separate them; Coach Bob went under the table from the other side.

“Shit!” Father said.

I felt something warm against my hip at the banister; it was Lilly, peering out from under her sheet.

“You rat’s asshole, Frank!” Franny was screaming.

Then Frank got Franny’s hair and yanked her head against the dining table leg; although I did not have breasts of my own, I could feel it in my chest when Frank dug his knuckles into Franny’s breast. She had to let go of her headlock and he rapped her head against the table leg twice more, snarling her hair around his fist, before Coach Bob got three of their four legs in his huge hands and hauled them out from under the table. Franny lashed out with her free foot and caught Bob with a good blow to the nose, but the old Iowa lineman hung on. Franny was crying now, but she managed to strain against her hair hard enough to bite Frank on the cheek. Frank grabbed one of her breasts in his hand; he must have squeezed her hard because Franny’s mouth opened against Frank’s cheek and a losing sob broke from her. It was so terrible and defeated a sound that it sent Lilly running back to my room with her sheet. Father knocked Frank’s hand from Franny’s breast and Coach Bob got a headlock on Franny, so that she couldn’t bite Frank again. But Franny had a hand free and she went for Frank’s private parts; whether you were in a cup, in or out of a jock, or wearing nothing at all, Franny could get to your private parts when the chips were down. Frank was suddenly all arms and legs jerking, and a moan so blue escaped him that I shivered. Father slapped Franny in the face, but she wouldn’t let go; he had to claw her fingers open. Coach Bob dragged Frank free of her, but Franny took a last kick with her long leg and Father was forced to slap her, hard, across the mouth. That ended it.

Father sat on the dining room carpet, holding Franny’s head against his chest and rocking her in his arms while she cried. “Franny, Franny,” he said to her softly. “Why does everyone have to hurt you to stop you?”

“Easy, son, just breathe easy,” Coach Bob told Frank, who lay on his side with his knees up to his chest, his face as gray as one of the Dairy School colors; old Iowa Bob knew how to console somebody who’d been felled by a blow to the balls. “Feel kind of sick, don’t you?” Coach Bob inquired, gently. “Just breathe easy, lie still. It goes away.”

Mother cleared the table, picked up the fallen chairs; her determined disapproval of her family’s inner violence registered on her face as enforced silence, bitter and hurt and full of dread.

“Try a deeper breath, now,” Coach Bob advised Frank; Frank tried and coughed. “Okay, okay,” said Iowa Bob. “Stick with the little breaths awhile longer.” Frank moaned.

Father examined Franny’s lower lip while her tears streamed down her face and she made those gagging kinds of sobs, half strangled in her chest. “I think you need some stitches, darling,” he said, but Franny shook her head furiously. Father held her head tightly between his hands and kissed her just above her eyes, twice. “I’m sorry, Franny,” he said, “but what can I
do
with you, what can I
do
?”