Chapter 15
September 24
My Grandfather’s Cave
Where shall I go, to what cave among the rocks,
To be free of tidings of this gloomy world?Anonymous, Kokinshu 952
(translated by Edward G. Seidensticker)
DREDGING did not begin until seven. Albertine had managed to get the Department of Public Works to make Dexter hold off until then. In fact, she learned that there was a town ordinance against beginning work “of a loud or disturbing nature” before seven. On the first day, Dexter had started early on his own initiative. What a hardworking guy.
The inmates of Small’s Hotel were up well before seven. We wanted to get ourselves mentally prepared to endure Dexter’s work of a loud and disturbing nature before it began. By the time we heard the whine of the outboard on Dexter’s skiff, we were lined up on the porch, sitting in rockers, wrapped in blankets, enjoying our coffee and joking about the noise to come. I looked along the line, at everyone sitting there, making light of life, and I thought, This is the way it should be — minus the noise, of course, and with every rocker full — but this is the way Small’s ought to be. Then the dredge woke up and began complaining. Within a few minutes we’d all been driven inside.
Elaine asked me to take her into town so that she could drop a package off at the office of Rush Service, the package-delivery company. I was a little surprised by this request, since she and Lou had been using the service regularly, calling them for pickups every couple of days. The speedy Rush Service boat would whip up to our dock, the energetic agent would dash to the hotel, pick up the package, dash back to the boat, and roar off, leaving a lot of wake. He was in a rush, and he wanted it to show. It probably made him feel grown-up.
When Elaine and I were in the middle of the bay, sufficiently far from Dexter’s dredge to talk to each other, I asked her, “What does Lou do, exactly?”
“Oh, he’s got his fingers in a lot of pies,” she said.
“Like Mr. Yummy?” I asked, and regretted it as soon as I’d said it. I think I blushed. She probably thought I was just reddening in the wind, as the captains of launches will do when they’re standing at the wheel.
“Mr. Yummy?”
“Sorry,” I said. “You weren’t here for the first episode — ”
“Oh, Mr. Yummy. Dad told me. He’s the father of one of your friends.”
“In my memoirs he is. In life, he was a quiet man who delivered baked goods, one of the people I knew nothing about. It’s amazing what I discover about those people when I start thinking about them. In Mr. Yummy’s case, he turns out to be the lonely housewife’s friend.”
“Oh,” she said, laughing, “I see. Well, that’s not Dad. He might like to be, and in a way — ” She stopped and just stared across the bay.
“In a way?” I said.
She turned an impish smile toward me and said, “In a way that he would not want me to say anything about, he was ‘the lonely housewife’s friend,’ but I will have absolutely nothing more to say about that.”
[to be continued]
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here; Leaving Small’s Hotel begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here; Leaving Small’s Hotel begins here.
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