Read Online The Short History of a Prince by Jane Hamilton - Free Book Online
Authors: Jane Hamilton
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their towels, plastic shovels, buckets, trucks and wet suits, compressing what was strewn over the lawn into one beach bag. Mothers, he thought, had the ability to rake up possessions and compact them, make the whole impossible load portable. Their proficiency was probably encoded in their genes, the packing skill having been selected for first in nomadic days, carried forward into the covered-wagon era and on into the age of mass-produced toys. Despite her agitation and her comment about mothering he could tell she was a good parent. Her boys were high-spirited, but they weren’t cocky, they weren’t cruel. She’d wanted a normal life with children and that had been one of the reasons she’d left the City Ballet, given it up. He stood aside, watching, telling her about how the ten Klopers on Maplewood Avenue used to go on vacation, and because seat belts had not yet been invented, Mother Kloper used to cram five into the middle seat, four in the back, the baby up front.They each had a paper lunch bag with the one plaything they were allowed to take along.
“One toy”—Susan snorted. “Ah, those halcyon days.”
“They were halcyon all right,” Walter said. She was getting into the car, leaning over the front seat to give Toby the evil eye. “Do you remember Aunt Jeannie’s anniversary party?” he asked. “Do you remember how my mother made the wall of pictures topple over, and the frames shattered?”
“No!” Susan held her seat belt halfway across her chest. “Not your mother! She didn’t make that happen.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. I sometimes think she might have given it a nudge. She was the only one who wasn’t shocked by the noise or the mess. Sometimes I think of it, and I wonder.” Walter bent down and kissed his friend through the open window. She hardly noticed, immobilized by the idea of Joyce McCloud willfully committing a destructive act.
“I don’t believe it,” she said, shaking her head. “Why? Why would she have done such a thing?” She let the belt go and pulled it again, this time all the way across herself. “We never gave your mother a literary personality, did we? It’s so interesting, to think about who she was in those days. We are her age now, Walter, do you realize that?”
He put his hands to his forehead to make a visor. He studied the sky, trying to look as if he was making an effort to remember. Joyce was outside literature, he thought, not someone they could easily peg. Through high school he and Susan, and Mitch too, had had the habit of assigning one another parts from their current favorite novel. The practice gave ordinary life the weight it would never have, and also lent substance to their own personalities. It was only lately that Walter had seen the obvious: Mitch as Charlotte Stant, and himself as Maggie Verver. But in the old days Susan was always the moral or immoral beautiful and intelligent heroine: Elizabeth Bennet, Margaret Schlegel, Anna Karenina, Dorothea Brooke. Mitch in that era was naturally the romantic lead and Walter the character part. Susan was the only dancer Walter had ever known or heard of who read serious novels.
“It was ingenious of you, to marry a bookseller,” he said.
“All the uncorrected proofs I can read,” she said, smirking at him. “A brilliant career move. Oh, Walter, you’ve got me thinking about that anniversary party. Daniel was supposed to come, wasn’t he? He had been going to bring the girl on the tennis team—Eleanor O’Reilly was her name. But he got sick that morning. The very day. And the old bag, the neighbor lady of yours, Mrs. Gamble, was so angry at your parents when you got home. She took your mother by the shoulders, said she had no business leaving a kid with a tumor on his neck at home by himself.”
“There hadn’t been a diagnosis yet,” he said, “but she seemed to know already that it would kill him.”
“God, she scared me. I thought she was going to attack your mother. Or
“One toy”—Susan snorted. “Ah, those halcyon days.”
“They were halcyon all right,” Walter said. She was getting into the car, leaning over the front seat to give Toby the evil eye. “Do you remember Aunt Jeannie’s anniversary party?” he asked. “Do you remember how my mother made the wall of pictures topple over, and the frames shattered?”
“No!” Susan held her seat belt halfway across her chest. “Not your mother! She didn’t make that happen.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. I sometimes think she might have given it a nudge. She was the only one who wasn’t shocked by the noise or the mess. Sometimes I think of it, and I wonder.” Walter bent down and kissed his friend through the open window. She hardly noticed, immobilized by the idea of Joyce McCloud willfully committing a destructive act.
“I don’t believe it,” she said, shaking her head. “Why? Why would she have done such a thing?” She let the belt go and pulled it again, this time all the way across herself. “We never gave your mother a literary personality, did we? It’s so interesting, to think about who she was in those days. We are her age now, Walter, do you realize that?”
He put his hands to his forehead to make a visor. He studied the sky, trying to look as if he was making an effort to remember. Joyce was outside literature, he thought, not someone they could easily peg. Through high school he and Susan, and Mitch too, had had the habit of assigning one another parts from their current favorite novel. The practice gave ordinary life the weight it would never have, and also lent substance to their own personalities. It was only lately that Walter had seen the obvious: Mitch as Charlotte Stant, and himself as Maggie Verver. But in the old days Susan was always the moral or immoral beautiful and intelligent heroine: Elizabeth Bennet, Margaret Schlegel, Anna Karenina, Dorothea Brooke. Mitch in that era was naturally the romantic lead and Walter the character part. Susan was the only dancer Walter had ever known or heard of who read serious novels.
“It was ingenious of you, to marry a bookseller,” he said.
“All the uncorrected proofs I can read,” she said, smirking at him. “A brilliant career move. Oh, Walter, you’ve got me thinking about that anniversary party. Daniel was supposed to come, wasn’t he? He had been going to bring the girl on the tennis team—Eleanor O’Reilly was her name. But he got sick that morning. The very day. And the old bag, the neighbor lady of yours, Mrs. Gamble, was so angry at your parents when you got home. She took your mother by the shoulders, said she had no business leaving a kid with a tumor on his neck at home by himself.”
“There hadn’t been a diagnosis yet,” he said, “but she seemed to know already that it would kill him.”
“God, she scared me. I thought she was going to attack your mother. Or
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