The Resurrection Man (21 page)

Overwhelmed by all this affability where he was accustomed to wary looks and instinctive shyings-away, Jesse offered Mary the courtesy of his umbrella. She smiled up at the gangling youth as only Mary could, tucked a hand under his elbow, and composed herself to wait for the opening words of the final rites.

The rector spoke. Sarah cried a little, as she’d known she would. Max made her take hold of the umbrella so that he’d have an arm free to put around her. He still needed the other hand for his cane, standing here in the damp couldn’t be doing his leg any good. Sarah hoped for his sake as well as for Anora that the final rites would be over before this storm got much worse.

The wind was picking up, the bouquets were getting a bit of a tumbling, the head undertaker himself slipped over to retrieve a basket of pink and red carnations that was on the verge of tipping over. Somebody’s umbrella blew inside out, somebody else’s got away and had to be chased; Theonia was having a tug-of-war with hers. The sky was growing blacker and blacker, off in the distance lightning bolts flashed. After longish pauses, low growls of thunder could be heard above the rector’s voice. Brooks would be counting the number of seconds between flash and growl, calculating how fast the storm must be traveling. The rector was cutting it short, consigning George’s earthly remains to their last resting place, wishing the real George bon voyage on the long path that he must tread alone, though of course those weren’t the words he used.

Now the rain was really driving. The undertaker’s assistants, all of them suddenly wearing black slickers and waterproof black-plastic hat protectors, were collecting the black umbrellas and hustling mourners into their cars. The poor policemen were getting their uniforms soaked, they hadn’t come prepared for a deluge. Sarah still wished there’d been time to give her old friend a hug and a kiss, that would have to wait till they got to the house.

Dolph was trying to steer Anora along toward the first of the black limousines. The widow wasn’t letting herself be rushed, she was standing alone beside the casket, giving the blanket of red roses over it a final pat, sending her last caress to her beloved. Phyllis and Cook were being hustled into the second limousine, though hustling Cook was no mean feat. The yellow-faced man who looked like a weeping bloodhound was getting in with them, Max Bittersohn was intrigued.

“I’ll be damned. See that, Sarah? Nie must be going back to the house. How come the VIP treatment, I wonder?”

“Maybe they’re just going to let him off somewhere,” said Sarah. “There goes Leila, dragging poor Edgar along like a sack of potatoes. She’ll try to beat every light between here and Chestnut Hill so she can be first at the bar. Charles had better have a pitcher of martinis mixed and waiting or she’ll throw a fit.”

Of course mixing a martini for Leila was no great trick. One simply poured gin into a cocktail glass and waved the cork of the vermouth bottle over it once or twice. No ice, no olive, God forbid a pickled onion, Leila had never been much of an eater.

For a moment Sarah was back on the river side of Beacon Hill, at one of the Lackridges’ awful dinners. She’d have had a meager helping of some unidentifiable mess in front of her on a Minton china plate inherited from one of Leila’s grandmothers. Harry would have been sitting at one end of the table in his grandfather’s velvet smoking jacket, Leila at the other end in a caftan covered with squirming dragons. He’d have been running on at great length about nothing in particular, she’d have been breathing fire over the latest stupidity one or another of the city fathers had or had not done or was or was not about to commit. Alexander would have had on the old dress suit that he’d been forced to buy for some function years before and was determined to get the good out of. He’d have been saying next to nothing. His mother would have been beautiful in lace and pearls and saying a great deal, always to the point, never overflowing with the milk of human kindness.

Sarah herself would have been wearing a long blue dress she’d made herself out of a woolen blanket because the Lackridges’ house was always freezing cold. The rest would have had enough drinks before dinner to warm them up, she’d have nursed her first one until it was nothing but ice water. She’d have been frozen out of the conversation because the Lackridges had resented Alexander’s having inflicted a too-young bride on their cozy long-standing foursome, and because Alexander’s deaf and blind mother had demanded his full attention at the Lackridges’ as well as everywhere else.

It had been at the last of these dreadful evenings that Sarah had first encountered an enigmatic Mr. Bittersohn who was supposed to be writing a book on antique jewelry for Harry to publish. He’d been courteous, reserved, well and soberly dressed. He’d accepted only one drink and eaten as little as possible. Sarah had found him agreeable, later on she’d found him helpful, eventually he’d become one of her boarders at Tulip Street. It had certainly not been love at first sight, or second, or third. Sarah couldn’t have said just when she’d realized she was in love with Max, it had just sneaked up on her gradually until at last she’d realized they were one in all but name and they might as well make it legal.

Was Anora thinking as she was being driven back to her great, cluttered, husbandless house of how she and George had courted and married and carried on their life together? Or was she wondering whether she’d ordered enough ice for the drinks and whether Mariposa had remembered to toss the peeled shrimp in the dill-and-cucumber dressing before she’d stuffed the finger rolls? Men might come and men might go, but the housekeeping had to be coped with regardless. There was that to be said for worrying about the little things, they kept one from having time to grieve over the big ones.

She ought not to be wasting her own time on such private maunderings. “Did anyone notice whether Lydia and Mr. Arbalest were at the grave?” she asked. “I don’t recall seeing them.”

“Neither do I,” said Max, “but Dubrec and his father were. I assume that’s his father. It wouldn’t surprise me if the old man and George had been business associates back when George was still functioning, I can’t think why else they’d have come.”

“Nor can I,” said Brooks. “They must have been close in some way for Anora to have remembered him all these years. Do you suppose she’s invited them back to the house?”

“Surely she must have,” Sarah replied. “She’d never slight anybody who cared about George. But nobody saw Mr. Arbalest at the cemetery? Jesse, how about you? I’m talking about that man who sat behind us and cried.”

“Yes, I know you are, but I didn’t see either him or the woman with the hat. I did see the cops giving the bum’s rush to a man in a red jogging suit, though.”

“Jesse, you didn’t! Where was he?”

“Downhill from the grave. I was beginning to feel sermoned out so I oozed myself to the back of the crowd around the grave and got behind a big tombstone with an angel on it. One of the cops down below noticed me and was starting up the hill to see whether I belonged there, I suppose, but all of a sudden this little guy in a red suit, about my brother James’s size only darker, came chugging up the rise, heading straight for where everybody was standing.”

“Really? But none of us saw him.”

“He never made it to the top, a cop intercepted him. The cop was trying to make the man understand that he wasn’t supposed to go up there but the man didn’t seem to know what he was talking about. It was as if he didn’t speak English, or else he was deaf. Finally the cop just took him by the arm and led him back down the hill. About then it started to thunder so I thought I’d better get back to you in case we had to leave in a hurry. Sorry I couldn’t find out what happened to the guy.”

“You did exactly right in the circumstances,” said Brooks. “Thank you, Jesse.”

B
ROOKS WAS AS EXPERT
at driving a car as he was at most other things. He knew every back road, he got his party to Anora’s in about a fifth of the time it had taken them to travel the lesser distance from the church to the graveyard. Even so, they weren’t the first arrivals. Edgar Merton’s car, with a brand-new dent in its left-front fender, was plugging up the driveway, a middle-aged but impeccably dent-free Rolls-Royce had pulled in behind it. Rather than get boxed in, Brooks parked at the curb, right in front of a police car. The arm of the law was still outstretched, he and his passengers were relieved to see.

“Here we are, ladies and gentlemen, I see Leila’s beaten us. Why in God’s name do you suppose Edgar let her drive his car?”

“One doesn’t let Leila do anything,” Sarah answered, “she just does it. As an educated guess, I’d also say that Alice Merton’s long illness must have eaten up more of her estate than Edgar bargained for, whereas Leila has taken excellent care of that wad her father left her.”

How easy it was to fall back into the old familiar pattern. What did Sarah Bittersohn really care about either one of them? They might as well marry, Leila’d have someone to browbeat and Edgar’d be relieved of anxiety as to who was going to pay his club dues. Oh, to be back at Ireson’s Landing!

But duty before pleasure, there was still Anora to be comforted. Brooks had come around to open the door for the ladies.

“Think you can make it, or shall I nip up to the house and borrow an umbrella?”

“Oh no, we’ll be fine,” said Theonia. “Jesse can come under mine and you others have your raincoats. It seems to be letting up anyway, I just hope the sun doesn’t come blazing out too soon and make everything all hot and steamy.”

“The house will be cool enough,” Sarah promised, “and you four needn’t stick around any longer than you want to. I can ride back later with Mariposa and Charles.”

“Let’s see how it works out,” said Max. “Ah, I see Anora has a new butler.”

One of the policemen from the cruiser was standing at the door; no doubt there was another around at the back, nobody cared to go and find out. They had to go through yet another checkoff before they were let in. Mariposa was right there waiting to take the raincoats and park Theonia’s goosehandled umbrella in a Chinese porcelain stand with mythical creatures all over it. She looked remarkably sedate, for her, in the high-necked, long-sleeved black uniform with its lace-edged white collar and even lacier white apron, her luxuriant black hair drawn into a heavy roll under her ribbonless white cap. A few old-timers might deem the maid’s lipstick a shade too emphatic, her heels an inch too high, the set of her cap a whisker too frisky; the rest would be laying devious plans to lure her away to work for them.

Sarah caught Edgar Merton giving Mariposa a reflective glance. He might be thinking about a spot of luring himself, not that he’d dare try it with Leila around. At the moment Edgar was over by the bar chatting with Lydia Ouspenska. Leila had a martini in her hand, probably not her first, and was laying down the law about something or other to Bartolo Arbalest.

The reason why Lydia and Arbalest hadn’t gone to the cemetery had become clear. They must have gone back to Boston so that Goudge could change out of the chauffeur uniform that had evidently kept him from being let into the church. Now he had on a dark blue blazer and gray flannel slacks, the same outfit Brooks was wearing and that at least four other men would be showing up in any minute now. Protective coloration.

Obviously there hadn’t been any standing around and chatting at the graveside, it wasn’t long before people were arriving in carloads. Anora was back home with her two old faithfuls; Cook had headed for the kitchen without even pausing to take her hat off, Phyllis had caught one glimpse of Mariposa and hustled away to get into her own uniform. As soon as she could break a path through her well-wishers, Anora disappeared too. She was back in about ten minutes without her toque, her suit, or, Sarah suspected, her corset; wearing a lovely blue-silk caftan, an Indian silver-lace stole that any serious collector would have given an eyetooth to own, and a pair of ratty old brown-felt bedroom slippers with holes worn through at the toes. She’d lost that wooden-soldier look she’d maintained all through the long obsequies, she was back in charge.

“Pull up that chair for me, Brooks, before I collapse. Gin and tonic, Charles, with extra lime and lots of ice. Mariposa, bring me something to eat, I don’t care what. Did you remember the dressing for the shrimps?”

“Yes’m, Cook had a list all written out. We did everything just like she said.”

“Good. Marcus, come here, you haven’t kissed me yet. Sarah, I want you to meet George’s godson. Sarah is Walter Kelling’s daughter, Marcus. You remember Walter, you used to go mushrooming with him.”

“Did you really?” Sarah herself had never got to go picking mushrooms with her father. At first she’d been too young, then she’d been too busy running his household, then he’d died from eating poisonous mushrooms and she’d felt no urge to pick up the fallen torch. “Do you still belong to the Mycological Society?”

She didn’t say “Mr. Nie” because Anora hadn’t mentioned his last name. Anyway this wasn’t going to be the start of something beautiful. Nie only vouchsafed her one quick, furtive glance, mumbled something Sarah couldn’t catch over the hubbub, gave Anora a peck on the cheek, and headed for the bar.

Anora seemed satisfied enough. “Poor Marcus, he loathes having to mix with people he doesn’t know. He loved his old godfather, though. They’d spend hours together, the two of them, just sitting. George would wake up every so often and ramble on about nothing in particular, you know how he used to do; Marcus would just smile and nod and agree with whatever George said. Marcus has quite a sweet smile, though I don’t suppose you’ll ever get to see it. I was so pleased to find out that he’s working for Bartolo these days, it’s just what he needs. Aren’t you having anything to drink?”

“Tea, I hope, when Cook gets around to it.”

“Humph. She’s probably sat down to rest her feet and fallen asleep. You’d better go wake her up.”

Sarah was not about to do any such thing. In the kitchen she stepped carefully around the nodding old woman in the well-cushioned wicker chair, filled the kettle herself and set it on the stove. The tray was standing ready on the table, trust Mariposa for that. There were extra platters of sandwiches and little cakes too, Sarah lifted the plastic covering on one of them and took a finger roll.