Sea Glass_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [92]
“Where is Alphonse today?”
“Mironson has him distributing leaflets at social clubs in Portsmouth.”
“Will he come at all this weekend?”
“I think you can count on it,” McDermott says. “Even if he has to crawl. You said you would make him peach ice cream. He’s been talking about it all week.”
She laughs. “I’ve got all the ingredients.”
“And he wants another swimming lesson.”
“He’s doing well,” she says, spreading a dozen slices of bread with mayonnaise.
“When you get done with him, will you teach me?” McDermott asks, and immediately he regrets the question. It sounds like a line every sleazy guy he has ever known would give.
But Honora seems to treat the request as plausible. “Sure,” she says. “If you really want to learn.”
“I do,” he says, though truthfully if it weren’t for Honora he would never go near the water.
“You’ll need a suit.”
“I’ll get one.”
“Next week, then.”
“Good.”
He watches her layer the sandwiches — a slice of bologna, a slice of cheese, a leaf of lettuce, another smear of mayonnaise. He wishes he were hungry.
“Louis says the mood of the strikers is low,” she says.
“It is,” he says, relieved to be on more familiar ground. “Carnival’s over. Bill Ayers, who owns the Emporium Theater, said he had to run the projector day and night for the first week.”
She smiles. “And now?”
“And now everyone’s beat. They’re hungry and they’re tired. Some of the men have left their families to look for work elsewhere. You know about the evictions and the tent city. And the truth is, men don’t picket well. Women are much better at it.”
“Why?”
“More patience.” More than once McDermott has been thankful that he is on the strike committee. He isn’t sure he could stand the boredom of the picket line.
“You know,” she says. “I went in there to have a look for myself.”
“You did?” he asks, surprised.
“About ten days ago. On a Thursday. I wanted to see.”
“And what did you see?”
“I felt like I had had a blindfold on. I felt cut off from the action. So I took the trolley into Ely Falls. As soon as I saw a crowd, I got off. About two hundred picketers stood outside a mill. One man carried a sign that said ‘The Truth Is on Our Side.’ And there was a child with a sign that said ‘The Ten Percent Pay Cut Took Our Milk Away.’ “
McDermott nods.
“I saw the militia with their fixed bayonets. I didn’t understand why they felt they needed to do that. The women were in summer dresses and the men were in shirtsleeves and ties. The children were sitting on the curb. They had cloth shoes with holes where their big toes went. Someone had given the children eye-shades, which looked kind of funny.”
McDermott smiles.
“I saw another line of picketers and then discovered they weren’t picketers at all. They were all relatives waiting to get their kinfolk out of jail. One woman told me it cost two bucks to get your husband out, and another said that every day the police arrested so many picketers they had to hire trucks from other towns.”
“That’s right.”
“I didn’t actually see the tent city, but I could smell it. It smelled like raw sewerage. I walked for another hour or so, sort of thinking I might run into you and Sexton and Alphonse, but I didn’t see you. I stopped in at a lunch counter and had a milk shake and went home. What do you think will happen?” she asks.
He leans against the counter and crosses his arms. “I think the strike leadership will do just what it set out to do — break the backs of the mills in New England. But where I part ways with Mironson is that I think the mills will then go out of business or move south, and no one will have jobs.”
“I hope you’re wrong,” she says.
“Me too.”
“What would you do if the mills went south?” she asks. “Would you go with them?”
“Never,” he says. “A good Irish Catholic like me? Be a fish out of water.” He wishes he hadn’t smoked his last cigarette. “What about your husband?” McDermott