lightweight navy-blue sports coat. He would look, oh,
full
in these clothes. A large man leaning back in his chair at the end of a long restaurant lunch with Nora and Max, the three of them comfortable and familiar, stimulated and cheerful. She sees that restaurant scene as clearly as if it had been their real yesterday.
There is something to be said for touching his things. Perhaps that’s what Sophie really intended, suggesting they sort through his possessions: that this is as close as anyone cancome any more. But throw out the contents of his closet and drawers, give them away, find them new homes and new bodies? Sophie goes too far there. With her arms around Philip’s empty tan pants and blue shirt, the clothes that will burn with him, Nora lets herself sag onto the bed. Jumps straight back up. This bed, no!
Philip’s boxers are piled and jumbled in the top bureau drawer. She picks a pale blue pair with a frivolous pattern of sailboats. “Climb aboard, matey,” Philip cried the first time he wore them, his thighs emerging like a couple of tree trunks, his hands on his hips as he stood at the foot of the bed, his head rolling back as he laughed; that joyous, absent roar.
Navy socks to match the sports jacket, she supposes, not black. And no shoes. Poor Philip, with nowhere to go; a tenderfoot, in only his socks. Tiptoeing through hell, his infinite punishment for sneaking off in the night.
She tastes something acidic as, embracing Philip’s last outfit, she leaves the bedroom, closing the door sharply behind her. At the bottom of the stairs Sophie waits, now in beige pants and pale yellow blouse, evidently not in mourning today, hair blazing red and arms outstretched: ready as ever to receive and accept Nora’s burdens.
Eight
A nyone, even a taxi, even Beth for heaven’s sake, could deliver Phil’s clothes to Hendrik Anderson, but it’s Sophie who marches off with the little blue gym bag and a letter signed by Nora, witnessed by Beth, authorizing Sophie to handle arrangements.
Or, as she imagines, do battle.
Sophie pictures Hendrik Anderson as a man roughly her own age, neither tentative nor settled yet into deep immovable years. In her mind he has short hair and wears a dark pinstriped suit and discreet, well-shined shoes; his shape is narrow, elongated, slightly stooped. This impression comes partly from stereotype, but also from his voice on the phone, which sounds as if it’s been strained and stretched for a long, thin, sombre distance.
It sounds priggish, too, and disapproving. Not that Sophie herself likes Nora’s plans for Phil’s swift disposal, but who is an undertaker, basically, but a service person, no different from the plumber who periodically cleans tree roots out of the drains, paid for his skills and equipment, not for nagging commentary on the damage large trees can do. Sophie gotNora and Phil to switch plumbers last year for that very reason.
One does not so lightly switch undertakers. One can go forth, though, with clear and unbending intentions. Sophie plans to rely on his decorum, their equivalency of age and authority, her careful outfitting in clothes that do not signal deep mourning and her own bright magnitude.
Or if necessary her absolute intention not to be thwarted.
Is her plan a good or a bad one? One good thing about it is that she does not actually care—that’s how far she has managed to travel in four years, just by staying still and quiet.
The small, black-lettered sign outside says simply, A NDERSON AND S ONS , and scarcely needs to say more. Lawns with two precise and dignified front beds of geraniums and impatiens, the high dark-rimmed windows, the size and sprawl of the red-bricked building itself with its hovering side portico for sheltering people and very large cars, combine to announce that this is what it is.
Somewhere inside this terrible building is Phil.
Also he keeps pace overhead, keeping watch, urging her on.
The ornate, wide, wooden front
full
in these clothes. A large man leaning back in his chair at the end of a long restaurant lunch with Nora and Max, the three of them comfortable and familiar, stimulated and cheerful. She sees that restaurant scene as clearly as if it had been their real yesterday.
There is something to be said for touching his things. Perhaps that’s what Sophie really intended, suggesting they sort through his possessions: that this is as close as anyone cancome any more. But throw out the contents of his closet and drawers, give them away, find them new homes and new bodies? Sophie goes too far there. With her arms around Philip’s empty tan pants and blue shirt, the clothes that will burn with him, Nora lets herself sag onto the bed. Jumps straight back up. This bed, no!
Philip’s boxers are piled and jumbled in the top bureau drawer. She picks a pale blue pair with a frivolous pattern of sailboats. “Climb aboard, matey,” Philip cried the first time he wore them, his thighs emerging like a couple of tree trunks, his hands on his hips as he stood at the foot of the bed, his head rolling back as he laughed; that joyous, absent roar.
Navy socks to match the sports jacket, she supposes, not black. And no shoes. Poor Philip, with nowhere to go; a tenderfoot, in only his socks. Tiptoeing through hell, his infinite punishment for sneaking off in the night.
She tastes something acidic as, embracing Philip’s last outfit, she leaves the bedroom, closing the door sharply behind her. At the bottom of the stairs Sophie waits, now in beige pants and pale yellow blouse, evidently not in mourning today, hair blazing red and arms outstretched: ready as ever to receive and accept Nora’s burdens.
Eight
A nyone, even a taxi, even Beth for heaven’s sake, could deliver Phil’s clothes to Hendrik Anderson, but it’s Sophie who marches off with the little blue gym bag and a letter signed by Nora, witnessed by Beth, authorizing Sophie to handle arrangements.
Or, as she imagines, do battle.
Sophie pictures Hendrik Anderson as a man roughly her own age, neither tentative nor settled yet into deep immovable years. In her mind he has short hair and wears a dark pinstriped suit and discreet, well-shined shoes; his shape is narrow, elongated, slightly stooped. This impression comes partly from stereotype, but also from his voice on the phone, which sounds as if it’s been strained and stretched for a long, thin, sombre distance.
It sounds priggish, too, and disapproving. Not that Sophie herself likes Nora’s plans for Phil’s swift disposal, but who is an undertaker, basically, but a service person, no different from the plumber who periodically cleans tree roots out of the drains, paid for his skills and equipment, not for nagging commentary on the damage large trees can do. Sophie gotNora and Phil to switch plumbers last year for that very reason.
One does not so lightly switch undertakers. One can go forth, though, with clear and unbending intentions. Sophie plans to rely on his decorum, their equivalency of age and authority, her careful outfitting in clothes that do not signal deep mourning and her own bright magnitude.
Or if necessary her absolute intention not to be thwarted.
Is her plan a good or a bad one? One good thing about it is that she does not actually care—that’s how far she has managed to travel in four years, just by staying still and quiet.
The small, black-lettered sign outside says simply, A NDERSON AND S ONS , and scarcely needs to say more. Lawns with two precise and dignified front beds of geraniums and impatiens, the high dark-rimmed windows, the size and sprawl of the red-bricked building itself with its hovering side portico for sheltering people and very large cars, combine to announce that this is what it is.
Somewhere inside this terrible building is Phil.
Also he keeps pace overhead, keeping watch, urging her on.
The ornate, wide, wooden front
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