CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
UNCLE TOM, I THINK I CAN FIGURE OUT HOW TO SET A BROKEN wing on a pigeon.”
“Pride goeth before a fall,” Uncle Tom said. “Remember, no man’s a hero to his uncle.”
We were on the veranda, early morning sun glimmering on the water, Uncle Tom holding on to Bingo, who was cooing mildly and pecking, and I was checking to see that the broken part of his wing felt warm.
“Circulation seems okay,” I said. “I think there’s a good chance his wing will heal.”
“What would you know about it? When’s the last time you treated a bird?”
“It’s applied knowledge, Uncle Tom,” I said.
“Say, you’re patronizing,” he said. “I liked you better when you were a deep disappointment.”
Uncle Tom continued chatting away to Bingo as I lined up each fragile bone and then taped the wing so it folded in a natural resting position next to his body.
I went to see the Falcon that Sunday. Our Sunday suppers were becoming a routine occurrence. The Falcon had finally set some limits on his practice of flying the globe to terrorize his employees. He rarely entertained anymore, and although he kept up social contacts via the phone, I was his only regular visitor.
He was older. I was older. The strains that characterized our relationship, while still present, were more reassuring than infuriating. Learning to cope with Pop, Uncle Tom, and the Falcon was my greatest struggle and achievement—I finally realized that the Man Plan was more about adapting to their various manifestations of manhood than carving out my own dilute impersonation.
The Falcon and I were sitting in our usual spots at the end of the long dining room table, the grandfather clock keeping noisy time in the background, the canaries tittering in response to each loud tick-tock.
“So what do you intend to do with your life?” the Falcon persisted. It was the same question he asked me every time he saw me. He had probably asked me that question a thousand times, and a thousand times I avoided answering him.
“I don’t know.” I reached for a glass of water and took a sip.
“Will you go back to medicine?”
“Honestly, I don’t know.”
“Well, don’t you think you should be thinking about it?”
“Have some faith in me,” I said. I laughed. “Do I have your faith, Granddad? What about you, Cromwell?” He looked back expectantly. “Do I have your faith?”
“Collie, what are you talking about?” The Falcon put down his fork and knife and stared at me. For once he didn’t seem thoroughly annoyed—just annoyed. He seemed honestly perplexed.
I laughed. “Oh, never mind. It’s nothing. It’s a joke. Just something I once overheard.”
“Well, it helps in one’s life to make some sense, and last time I checked, jokes were supposed to be humorous. Good Lord, you’re not becoming whimsical, are you? You must get a hold of yourself. I mean, do you intend to marry? It seems to me you’ve been engaged half a dozen times, most of them suitable girls. And yet nothing sticks. You’re threatening to become some sort of perverse version of Porfirio Rubirosa. Do you want to have a family? Devote yourself to something worthwhile? Or do you plan to simply knock around the beach picking up beer bottles with the Flanagan brothers?” He took a sip of water as if he needed to cleanse his palate after invoking the specter of Pop and Tom.
“First of all, I’ve been engaged twice. Things don’t always work out according to plans. They were great girls, but I want to feel as if—”
“You can’t live without her,” the Falcon finished my thought. He stared up at the ceiling. “Lord, grant me the serenity.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll figure out something. I just don’t know what it will be yet. Life doesn’t always run on schedule. Anyway, what do you care? I obviously annoy the hell out of you. Why are you so interested in my life?” I really didn’t mind his inquiries—I just couldn’t understand their origin. I thought by asking, finally I might find out.
“Because you’re my grandson,” he said, straightening out the napkin on his lap. I stared down at my plate. Cromwell’s heavy panting was the only sound.
I reached for another helping of salad. “How’s your leg?” I asked.
“Bloody arthritis,” he said, rubbing the top of his thigh. “They want me to have knee surgery, but I’m resisting their best efforts. It looks as though I may need a cane.”
“We’ll be twins,” I said cheerfully.
“Don’t get carried away, Collie,” he said. “Is it ever painful?” He pointed to my leg.
I glanced down. “I hardly notice anymore. It’s amazing what you can get used to.”
He considered for a moment. “I suppose that’s true. Do you ever think about it? What happened in El Salvador?”
I smoothed the tablecloth with the palm of my hand. “Yeah, I think about it now and again.”
“We’d like some coffee,” he said to Ruby, a longtime member of his household staff. She was serving dinner.
“Thanks,” I said as she poured me a cup. I reached for the cream and sugar.
“Young men have pursued glory and heroism, testing themselves and their characters, since the beginning of time,” the Falcon said, watching me. He took a sip of his coffee. “If they’re lucky, they live through it. Did I ever tell you that I was in Africa during the recolonization period in the fifties?”
I looked over at him, surprised not that he was there, but that he assumed he’d told me about it. I was even more surprised that he was telling me about it now.
“No,” I said. “But then there is a lot I don’t know about you.”
“I wasn’t always an old man, Collie,” he said wryly. “You and I aren’t as different as you might imagine.”
I tried not to look startled, which isn’t easy when you’ve just swallowed your tongue.
“I once saw a man try to intervene to prevent a group of terrified girls from being taken away from his village by rebels. They were being loaded into the back of a truck. The girls were screaming and pleading for help. It was a terrible scene. Everyone stood and watched. All of us knew what was going to happen to them even if we couldn’t admit it at the time.” He paused and cleared his throat. He reached for a glass of water and drank before resuming his story.
“They were going to be raped and then murdered. And no one could stop it.” He shook his head and shrugged. I nodded in acknowledgment.
“This madman suddenly appeared from the back of the crowd. In terms of his looks and manner, he was a most unremarkable fellow. He may have been in his early forties. He must have known he didn’t have a prayer, but he came out of the crowd and attacked one of the militia who was helping to load another girl onto the truck, and bang! They shot him. He fell forward, and still he didn’t give up. He dug his nails into the mud and dragged himself to the back of the truck where the girls were. His fingers made deep furrows in the mud.” The Falcon gestured with his hands, extending his fingers and dragging them along the top of the table.
“He pulled himself along that way for a few feet, and then someone—one of the rebels—stepped forward and shot him in the back of the head. The truck drove away with the girls, and their parents were crying, a terrible wailing went up as the crowd slowly dispersed. When the sun came out later in the day, it baked the mud and preserved the grooves he’d made in the ground. The dried mud was like cement, and for a long time afterward you could see those claw marks on the ground, a memorial to him and a rebuke to the rest of us who did nothing.”
He snapped his fingers softly. Cromwell looked up from his place on the floor near the door and wagged his tail.
“What happened to the girls?”
“I haven’t a clue,” he said, reaching down to pet Cromwell, who rose from the floor to meet his hand.
Just then Ingrid walked in. “Smile,” she said, grinning as she snapped a photo of the Falcon and Cromwell.
“See what your grandfather got me for my birthday,” she said, showing me her new camera.
“I’ve regretted it ever since,” he said, shaking his head. “Wait a minute—” He gestured in my direction. “Collie, come stand beside me. Ingrid, take a picture of the two of us together, and make sure to focus.”
He was sitting in his chair at the head of the table. I took up a spot behind him and waited while Ingrid fidgeted around.
The Falcon started to stand up and signaled the place next to him.
“Stand beside me,” he said.
“Okay,” I said, moving into place. He reached down and slipped his hand in mine as Ingrid ordered us to smile and the camera clicked.
“Have Ruby bring us some more coffee,” the Falcon said to Ingrid as he withdrew his hand and motioned for me to join him in the living room.
The conversation shifted to other things, to Mr. Guppy, to the state of the London office, to the pigeon race, to the unfortunate length of my hair, to the way my mother looked on her bicycle as she rode around the circular drive at Cassowary in her teens, beloved pet dogs chasing after her. As we talked, the Westminster chime resonated, marking time in the same old way that it had since I was a little boy.
I can still feel the warmth of my grandfather’s hand in mine.
“Tom tells me Bingo’s thriving,” Pop said over lunch a few days later.
“I hope so,” I said.
“I said no such thing,” Uncle Tom objected from the bistro. “I said that he didn’t appear to be getting worse, which is a far cry from thriving.”
“Is there any more chicken, Uncle Tom?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.
“No, there isn’t.”
“Here, take mine,” Pop said, offering his plate. “Nothing’s too good for the man of the hour.”
“No, Pop, no thanks. I’m fine.”
He just kept on insisting and I kept on refusing, but you know, you couldn’t fight Pop and win, so I finally gave in.
“I’ve been meaning to speak to you,” Uncle Tom spoke up. “Swayze’s got a sore throat and an earache. . . .”
“That’s too bad,” I said. “He should have it looked at.”
“Good of you to offer,” he said sarcastically.
I stopped eating. “You want me to treat Swayze?”
“Well, I don’t know. Are you equal to it? I don’t want to give him a bum steer.”
“I’m not a GP, but I think I can handle an uncomplicated sore ear and throat.”
“I have my doubts. Seems to me by declaring it uncomplicated you’ve already made a diagnosis. . . .”
“It’s not a diagnosis, Uncle Tom. I was putting forth a feeble defense.”
“Maybe instead of getting defensive and hoarding your alleged skills, you should apply your energies to thinking about others for a change.”
Pop, looking thoughtful, sat back in his chair. “I’ve got to agree with Tom on this one, Collie. What’s the point of training to become an astronaut if you never plan to travel farther than Decatur?”
My hands gripping the edge of the table, I focused my attention on a spot on the wall directly across from me. “I’ll be happy to have a look at Swayze.”
“Gratis?” Uncle Tom asked.
“Of course. Cripes, Uncle Tom, you think I’d ask Swayze for money?”
“How should I know? I wouldn’t put anything past you.”
It turned out Swayze had a simple infection. I prescribed an antibiotic—actually, I wound up driving him and Uncle Tom to a drugstore in Edgartown, where I bought the medication and then chauffeured them around for the day.
“Swayze says to tell you he’s all better,” Uncle Tom said after a week or so.
“Good.”
“I don’t know. I’m thinking about letting you treat me, but then again I’m not sure you’re up to the task.”
I shrugged.
He narrowed his eyes and gave me the once-over. “How do you spell ‘malpractice suit’?”
Three weeks later, Pop and Uncle Tom and I were together at the East Chop Lighthouse. The late afternoon sun disappeared behind a cloud. I was holding on to Bingo, clutching him close to my chest.
“Time to release, Collie, let’s see how he fares,” Pop said, rubbing his hands in anticipation.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Uncle Tom asked, nudging the tip of my cane with his foot.
“Okay, here goes,” I said, tossing Bingo skyward, all three of us holding our collective breath, watching as he flapped his wings, the air lifting him higher and higher as he headed for home.
“Say, you should be a doctor,” Uncle Tom said.
“Good man!” Pop said.
Back at the house I looked out over the open water, the sun shimmering at the surface, all around me so silent that I could hear the earth humming.
I once read that some geologists think that the earth hums loudest late in the afternoon, vibrating in response to ocean waves or distant windstorms. Frequencies are low enough so that when the earth hums it sounds like a garbage bin lid banging on the road.
As I turned and walked up the path leading to the back door of the house, the wind and the waves picked up, a loose edge of the stable’s metal roof clanged methodically against the old barn beams, the world and all the living banging bin-lids so loudly, it was enough to wake the dead.
Later that night, I was lying in bed listening to the familiar music of my childhood, Pop’s records playing gently below, Pop singing along, but quietly, the back-and-forth rhythm of water lapping on the rocks and the sand, offshore breeze whistling softly, insistent tapping on my window.
“Bingo!” I opened the window wide and stroked his silky feathers, watching as he pecked away at insects and grit all along the wooden sill. Seeming to ignore me—pigeons have a careless way of giving their full attention—he hopped into the room and onto the arm of an aging wicker chair and made himself at home.
Bing used to swim way out into the ocean. One time I was on a sail with friends and we came across him floating on his back in the middle of the choppy Atlantic. One of my buddies from Andover got all excited thinking we’d discovered someone lost at sea and in dire need of rescue. “Collie!” he shouted, pointing. “Look! Over there!”
I was standing on the deck, and I was shaking my head seeing that unceremonious glint of chestnut hair bobbing up and down. Pulling up alongside him, I extended my hand.
“If you try to pull me in . . . ,” I warned him.
“I promise,” he said, lifting his eyebrows and grinning up at me.
“Come on,” I said to him. “Don’t be an a*shole. Climb in.” But he dove deep beneath the water’s surface and disappeared.
“Oh, my God, where is he?” My friends were in a panic, pulling off their shoes, getting ready to jump in after him.
“Forget it,” I said to them. “He’s fine.”
“How do you know?” someone asked me.
“He’s my brother. He was born with gills—and shit for brains.” I couldn’t resist.
“What’s he doing out here? Aren’t you worried? He’s been underwater all this time. . . .”
Three minutes, then four, five minutes passed, and up he popped. Waving, he slid onto his side, blowing bubbles, and then he glided away from the boat, heading with smooth, rhythmic strokes toward home.
“Holy mackerel,” said my friend.
“I guess,” I said.
I shut my eyes, and all these pictures appeared: the Falcon alone among his newspapers, feeding shortbread to Cromwell, talking to him about the state of the world as the edge of daylight recedes. Back at home, Bingo is running from the porch, pale and shining under the summer moonlight, stripping away his clothes as he runs, kicking off his shoes and hollering, the dogs following after him as he hits the water with a splash, and Pop’s singing along with his favorite songs, and Bingo’s back from his midnight swim, hair slicked away from his forehead, Uncle Tom’s making scrambled eggs, and Ma and Bingo are dancing to Pop’s music, drifting apart from us in ever widening circles, laughing in the kitchen, the dogs sweetly spinning.
Through the window, I caught sight of shifting shapes going from dark to light and light to dark and moving in slow motion and formal as they made their way to the beach. Down on my knees, the window open to the ocean, I leaned forward on my elbows for a better look, squinting gently, trying to focus on what was quietly out there among the gray shadows.
Gazing into the night, by the pure white light of a crescent moon, tiny blackbirds darting and moths and fireflies, I could see Uncle Tom, bareheaded and undistinguished at the heart of a solemn procession.
Gilda was in front and Nuala fanned out to the side, the stately Irish wolfhounds, long muzzles like tapers, Brendan and Kerry followed along like acolytes, the odor of early summer rolling in on violet waves. It was getting darker, the blackness lit by the moon and the stars, Uncle Tom’s old red cardigan glowing like a ruby and fringed with starlight, his gray hair like silver now, the dogs in golden shadow and silent.
I can hear the wind blowing in the mountains a thousand miles away.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elizabeth Kelly was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. She is an award-winning magazine journalist and editor and lives in a little village in eastern Ontario with her husband, four dogs, and three cats.