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The birds were singing in the cemetery trees, pleased with the onset of summer. At the grave, as the coffin was being lowered, to the sobs of the bridge ladies, Rudolph and Thomas and Gretchen stood side by side, Gretchen holding Billy by the hand.
Boylan caught up with them as they walked away from the grave toward the line of waiting black limousines. “I don’t want to intrude,” he said, as they halted, “Gretchen, Rudolph—I just wanted to say how sorry I was. Such a young woman.”
For a moment, Rudolph was confused. His mother had looked ancient to him, was ancient. She had been old at thirty, had started dying before that. For the first time her real age made a conscious impression on him. Fifty-six. Just about Boylan’s age. No wonder Boylan said, “Such a young woman.”
“Thank you, Teddy,” Rudolph said. He shook hands with Boylan. Boylan didn’t look ready for the grave. His hair was the same color as always, his face was ta
“How’ve you been, Gretchen?” Boylan asked. The mourners had stopped behind the group, not wishing to push past them on the narrow graveled walk between the gravestones. As usual, Boylan accepted without thinking about it the fact that others waited on his pleasure.
“Very well, thank you, Teddy,” Gretchen answered.
“I take it this is your son.” Boylan smiled at Billy, who stared at him soberly.
“Billy, this is Mr. Boylan,” Gretchen said. “He’s an old friend.”
“How do you do, Billy.” Boylan shook the boy’s hand. “I hope we meet again on a happier occasion.”
Billy said nothing. Thomas was regarding Boylan through narrowed eyes, hiding, Rudolph thought, what could only have been a desire to laugh under the lowered lids. Was Thomas remembering the night he had seen Boylan parading naked around the house on the hill, preparing a drink to take to Gretchen, in bed upstairs? Graveyard thoughts.
“My brother, Thomas,” Rudolph said.
“Oh, yes,” Boylan said. He didn’t offer to shake hands. He spoke to Rudolph. “If you have the time, Rudy,” he said, “with all your multifarious activities, perhaps you could give me a ring and we could get together for di
“I’m leaving for California,” Gretchen said.
“What a pity. Well, I won’t keep you any longer.” He made a little bow and stepped back, a slender, expensively maintained figure, brilliantly out of place, even in his dark suit, in the drab march of small-town mourners.
As they walked toward the first limousine, from which Rudolph had steadfastly barred Father McDo
She thought about Boylan on the trip back to Rudolph’s house. She supposed she ought to think about her mother, whose grave was being filled with earth at that moment in the su
When they got to the house they all decided they needed a drink. Billy, who looked pale and drawn, complained that he had a headache and went upstairs and lay down. Martha, despite her unceasing flow of tears, went into the kitchen to prepare a cold lunch.
Rudolph made martinis for Gretchen and himself and gave some bourbon over ice to Thomas, who had taken off his coat, which was uncomfortably tight across his massive shoulders. He had unbuttoned his collar, too, and was sitting hunched forward on a straight-backed wooden chair, his elbows resting on his thighs, his hands hanging between his legs. He makes every place he sits look like a stool in the corner of a ring, Rudolph thought, as he gave him the drink.
They raised their glasses, although they did not mention their mother.
They had decided to leave for New York all together after lunch, because they didn’t want to be in the house for the calls of condolence. Great heaps of flowers had been delivered, but Rudolph had instructed Martha to send all but one bunch to the hospital where his mother had died. The flowers he had kept, daffodils, made a little yellow explosion on the coffee table in front of the couch. The windows were open and the sun streamed in, a smell of warm grass came in from the lawn. The low-beamed eighteenth-century room was handsome, subdued and orderly, not quaint or cluttered, not aggressively modern, Rudolph’s taste.
“What are you going to do with the house?” Gretchen asked. “Now?”
Rudolph shrugged. “Keep it, I suppose. I still have to be up here a good part of the time. Although, it’s a lot too big for me now. Would you like to come and live here?”
Gretchen shook her head. The debates with the lawyers went on and on. “I’m committed to California.”
“What about you?” Rudolph asked Thomas.
“Me?” Thomas said, surprised. “What the hell would I do here?”
“You’d find something.” Rudolph was careful not to say, “I’ll find you something.” He sipped at the martini, grateful for it. “You must admit it’s an improvement on where you stay in New York.”
“I don’t plan to stay there long. Anyway, this is no place for me. The people here look at me as though I’m an animal in the zoo.”
“You’re exaggerating,” Rudolph said.
“Your friend Boylan wouldn’t shake my hand at the cemetery. If you don’t shake a man’s hand in a cemetery, where the hell would you shake his hand?”
“He’s a special case.”
“He sure is.” Thomas began to laugh. The laughter wasn’t loud, but it was somehow alarming in the atmosphere.
“What’re you laughing about?” Rudolph asked as Gretchen looked at Thomas puzzledly.
“The next time you see him,” Thomas said, “tell him he was right not to shake my hand.”
“What’re you talking about, Tom?”
“Ask him if he remembers the night of VE Day. The night they burned a cross on his property and there was the fire.”
“What’re you saying?” Rudolph asked sharply. “That you did it?”
“Me and a friend.” Thomas stood up and went over to the sideboard and refilled his glass.
“Why did you do it?” Gretchen asked.
“Boyish high spirits,” Thomas said, as he put in some more ice. “We just won the war.”
“But why did you pick on him?” Gretchen asked.
Thomas fiddled with his drink, pushing the ice down, his back to Gretchen. “He happened to be involved with a lady I knew at the time,” he said. “I didn’t approve of the involvement. Should I mention the lady’s name?”
“There’s no need,” Gretchen said quietly.
“Who was the friend?” Rudolph asked.
“What difference does it make?”
“It was that Claude, Claude What’s-his-name that you used to hang around with, wasn’t it?”
Thomas smiled, but didn’t answer. He drank standing up, leaning against the sideboard.
“He disappeared right after that,” Rudolph said. “I remember now.”
“He sure did,” said Thomas. “And I disappeared right after him, if you remember that.”
“Somebody knew you boys had done it,” Rudolph said.
“Somebody.” Thomas nodded ironically.
“You’re lucky you didn’t go to jail,” Gretchen said.
“That’s what Pa was intimating,” said Thomas. “When he kicked me out of town. Well, there’s nothing like a funeral to get people to remembering the good old days, is there?”