Read Online Taking Care of Mrs. Carroll by Paul Monette - Free Book Online
Authors: Paul Monette
Tags: Fiction, General, Gay, Swindlers and Swindling, Inheritance and succession, Los Angeles (Calif.), Gay Men, Motion Picture Actors and Actresses, Older women
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I know it involves us too now."
I stood up and walked over to the railing and leaned out and looked at the Atlantic.
"David, you have the moral intelligence of a shellfish. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about about you and me." I was so afraid at that moment that I had lost both Madeleine and David. This was why I don't bother with people much. The more time you spend with them, the more you can't follow anything they do. "It doesn't surprise me, of course. All I want you to do now is tell me what this 'it' is that you and I are now involved in. Then I can go about getting myself uninvolved. I'm going to go into the library and read A Tale of Two Cities until I fall asleep. And you can wake me up when it's time to go."
He came up behind me and put his arms around my shoulders. He put his face on my neck, letting his lips rest against me. He didn't kiss me. If he had, I would have wrestled him to the ground and slapped him and shouted at him. Instead, because he just stood there holding me, I started to cry. I didn't have anything else to say, and I felt like a stand-up comic who has finished his routine but the time isn't up. I finished with the sobbing part in a couple of minutes. Then I let David lead me away while I went on to silent weeping and wiping my eyes with my sleeve. We walked down the porch steps, across the lawn and through the bushes into the wild scrub above the dunes. We stopped there as if we had come to look at the view. After a while I was dry-eyed again, but I still couldn't talk. And it seemed as reasonable as anything else to keep on walking, down through the dunes on a trail of wooden planks laid end to end, until we came to the last rise before the flat sand and the water. I sat down and drew my knees up. David lay down on his side. He didn't touch me.
He told me some of the story of Mrs. Carroll's death and the reaches of Phidias's plan. Though he told it badly, in all the wrong order, it was some time before I could ask questions calmly and put it in order. What they had done scared me, and what they wanted to do now stupefied me. But I see that I really didn't raise any objection. I assumed Madeleine would tell Phidias no, and we would be right on schedule at American Airlines for flight 41. Meanwhile, the pain I was in had to do with David, because I knew how much I missed him now, and I remained at some remove from both the drama David had been through and the one he and Phidias were proposing. In a way, the plan had a curious charm. It also meant that I would not have to leave David right away. Just by hearing him out, I let myself be brought in on the secret. And for me, a secret is such a seductive place.
On Tuesday morning, Phidias had gone back up to the dairy just after dawn. He hitched a donkey to a donkey cart and made a slow and ancient progress back to the house. He called up to David in the tower. Together, they carried a plain pine coffin out of the wine cellar where it was stored and brought it up through the house to Mrs. Carroll's bedroom. Phidias had dressed her. It only took a moment to move her from the bed into the coffin, but David was feeling green and shaky in the knees. He was told to sit down. Phidias put the cover on, not even glancing at Mrs. Carroll, and as he drove in the nails all around it, he told David how happy she was to foil her ceremonious children. She had saved her death for herself, he said.
It was noon before they were on their way into the woods, walking on opposite sides of the cart, swatting the donkey. By now David had stopped thinking about death, or at least it didn't upset him when he thought about this death. Phidias had completed during the night the first flood of his own grief and then had committed the shape of it to memory and had put it aside whole, to take up again when the work was done. "The coffin in the cellar made her feel safe," Phidias said, and it came to seem that day like a good-luck charm to David, part of a
I stood up and walked over to the railing and leaned out and looked at the Atlantic.
"David, you have the moral intelligence of a shellfish. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about about you and me." I was so afraid at that moment that I had lost both Madeleine and David. This was why I don't bother with people much. The more time you spend with them, the more you can't follow anything they do. "It doesn't surprise me, of course. All I want you to do now is tell me what this 'it' is that you and I are now involved in. Then I can go about getting myself uninvolved. I'm going to go into the library and read A Tale of Two Cities until I fall asleep. And you can wake me up when it's time to go."
He came up behind me and put his arms around my shoulders. He put his face on my neck, letting his lips rest against me. He didn't kiss me. If he had, I would have wrestled him to the ground and slapped him and shouted at him. Instead, because he just stood there holding me, I started to cry. I didn't have anything else to say, and I felt like a stand-up comic who has finished his routine but the time isn't up. I finished with the sobbing part in a couple of minutes. Then I let David lead me away while I went on to silent weeping and wiping my eyes with my sleeve. We walked down the porch steps, across the lawn and through the bushes into the wild scrub above the dunes. We stopped there as if we had come to look at the view. After a while I was dry-eyed again, but I still couldn't talk. And it seemed as reasonable as anything else to keep on walking, down through the dunes on a trail of wooden planks laid end to end, until we came to the last rise before the flat sand and the water. I sat down and drew my knees up. David lay down on his side. He didn't touch me.
He told me some of the story of Mrs. Carroll's death and the reaches of Phidias's plan. Though he told it badly, in all the wrong order, it was some time before I could ask questions calmly and put it in order. What they had done scared me, and what they wanted to do now stupefied me. But I see that I really didn't raise any objection. I assumed Madeleine would tell Phidias no, and we would be right on schedule at American Airlines for flight 41. Meanwhile, the pain I was in had to do with David, because I knew how much I missed him now, and I remained at some remove from both the drama David had been through and the one he and Phidias were proposing. In a way, the plan had a curious charm. It also meant that I would not have to leave David right away. Just by hearing him out, I let myself be brought in on the secret. And for me, a secret is such a seductive place.
On Tuesday morning, Phidias had gone back up to the dairy just after dawn. He hitched a donkey to a donkey cart and made a slow and ancient progress back to the house. He called up to David in the tower. Together, they carried a plain pine coffin out of the wine cellar where it was stored and brought it up through the house to Mrs. Carroll's bedroom. Phidias had dressed her. It only took a moment to move her from the bed into the coffin, but David was feeling green and shaky in the knees. He was told to sit down. Phidias put the cover on, not even glancing at Mrs. Carroll, and as he drove in the nails all around it, he told David how happy she was to foil her ceremonious children. She had saved her death for herself, he said.
It was noon before they were on their way into the woods, walking on opposite sides of the cart, swatting the donkey. By now David had stopped thinking about death, or at least it didn't upset him when he thought about this death. Phidias had completed during the night the first flood of his own grief and then had committed the shape of it to memory and had put it aside whole, to take up again when the work was done. "The coffin in the cellar made her feel safe," Phidias said, and it came to seem that day like a good-luck charm to David, part of a
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