Dear Cary - Dyan Cannon [40]
That they did. They showed me the house where Cary grew up. It was an unremarkable row house in a working-class neighborhood. I imagined Cary as a boy, romping down the steps, bundled up against the cold, on his way to school.
“I hope he finds Elsie well,” Maggie said to Eric.
“Ah, yes. The poor dear.”
“Isn’t she well?” I asked.
“You can never tell with Elsie, can you, love?” Eric said.
“No, never,” Maggie confirmed. “With Elsie, you can never tell.”
I was in the front seat with Eric driving and Maggie in the back. I turned around to look at her.
“Maggie,” I said, “Cary mentioned that he went for a really long time without seeing Elsie. Did something happen between them?”
At this, Maggie and Eric stiffened ever so slightly.
“Has Cary told you much about his parents?” Maggie asked cautiously.
“Nothing very substantial,” I said.
“That’s quite like Cary, isn’t it, love?” Eric said.
“Oh yes,” Maggie replied. “He’s quite private about such things.”
“He always was,” Eric said. “Cary was always special. Even as a wee thing. He had such a tender heart, I think we all wondered how he would make his way through the world. Isn’t that right, Maggie?”
“Oh, yes, but talented . . .”
I didn’t come to understand it until later, but English indirectness is like a verbal form of kung fu. Subjects and situations an American would charge straight into like a buffalo are, in English culture, insinuated, suggested, or hinted at, but rarely stated in the open. I was aware that the pair had spun me around to a different subject, but they’d done it so deftly I gave up and went on to something else: Cary’s exes. I asked if they’d met any of them.
“Oh yes!” Eric said.
“All of them!” Maggie said, then changed the subject. “Dear me, I hope things are going all right with Elsie.”
Back at the hotel, the desk clerk rang Cary in his room and he told us to come up.
“How was your grand tour of Bristol?” he asked with a kind of exaggerated cheerfulness. He set down a small whiskey and water on the dresser. “Did you show Dyan all the local color?”
“I got to see the house you grew up in,” I said.
“Now your life is complete,” he laughed. I could tell he was exhausted, running on fumes, but putting on his best game face. Then I glanced at the bed and noticed the coat he bought for Elsie lay there in its garment bag. Maggie noticed this too and read the signs.
“Was she in a bad way, love?” Maggie asked.
“You know Elsie,” he said. “You never know what branch she’s going to fly off of. Dyan, I’m afraid you won’t be meeting Elsie this trip,” he said.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Let’s just say she’s not at her best.”
“Let’s be off, Maggie,” Eric said. “Cary, Dyan . . . we’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”
“Don’t rush off,” Cary said weakly.
“No rush, love,” Maggie said. “But it’ll be nice for you and Dyan to have some quiet time together. I know Eric and I could do with some, can’t we, Eric?”
“Of course, love.”
When they’d pulled the door shut behind them, I picked up Elsie’s coat and slipped it onto a hanger.
“She said, ‘What would I do with that silly old thing?’ ” Cary said. He walked to the window and looked out on the street for a few moments, then, with his back still turned to me, said, “You know, when I was just a boy, my mother took me shopping one afternoon. Somehow we got separated, and I got lost, and I was really very scared, but I was determined not to cry. I’m sure I wasn’t lost for more than three or four minutes, but I was really terrified, and suddenly I felt someone grab my hand from behind and spin me around. It was my mother, and she was very, very angry. ‘You see how it is, Archie?’ she said. ‘Who looks out for you? Who came to save you? Me, that’s who! I’m the only one in the whole world who cares about you, and you better not forget it!’ ”
He let out a long sigh.
“It’s so beautiful outside,” I said. “Why don’t we take a walk?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Oneness
We’d walked in silence hand in hand for a good half hour