Tuesday’s weather was one of those travelogue-featured
Florida days, relatively low humidity, light winds out of the east, temperature
reaching the mid-80’s, just a perfect day for boating, especially as the
weekdays features light “boat traffic.”
It’s gotten to the point where I will not even go out on a weekend when
the “crazies” seize the waterways, their uneducated or inconsiderate boat
handling making for dangerous, uncomfortable going at times. Being responsible for one’s wake is unheeded
by many.
But I’ve digressed.
So Tuesday dawned a beautiful day, a day to be on the water, to escape
the constant political drumbeat, and to enjoy what led us to Florida in the
first place. Ann was busy, so that meant
going out on my own. In this area, there
are a few choices for a solitary journey.
First, go up or down the Intracoastal or go out into the ocean and do
the same. In other words, take a ride,
but that doesn’t appeal to me anymore unless I’m taking someone who would like
to see the sights. Another option is to
drop a hook at an anchorage, probably in northern Lake Worth, sit in the shade
of the tee top, and read. I can go
swimming off the boat, but prefer someone with me to do that although I
normally have no difficulty getting off or on the boat. The third, more preferable option is to go to
a beach, only reachable by boat, in that case either Munyon Island or Peanut
Island. The latter is further and the
boat needed a run anyhow, so off to Peanut I went.
It was the right decision as the island was mostly deserted……just
what I sought, some peace and quiet. Brought
a sandwich and some Perrier, tied the boat up at the floating docks in the
Peanut Island Boat basin, and then walked the quarter mile or so to “my” beach,
with a beach chair and reading material. This consisted first of the Wall Street Journal which to me nowadays
is “light” reading except for a few articles and the second collection of short
stories by William Trevor who I haven’t returned to ever since the election and
getting sucked into the abyss of political news. Time to turn to an old friend to accompany me
on my island and forget about everything else.
His second short story anthology Selected Stories consists of ones he wrote later in life, many when
he was my age, so I particularly relate to them. As an “Anglo-Irish” writer his
shift seems to be more towards where he grew up, Ireland, and not where he
lived most of his adult life, England. He is indeed an Irish story teller.
After a swim (or more like floating) in the clear
Bahamian-like waters of Peanut Island, passing by the “Waterway Grille” at a
mooring (want pizza at the beach? - just tie your boat up to this houseboat), I
had my lunch and dispensed with the WSJ and
then settled down with my companion, William Trevor.
I read and pretty much reread his story Widows, classic Trevor, a story about a
slice of life of persons of no particular interest, attribute, or fame,
everyman in his naked self. The story starts off with such a memorable line,
immediately bringing you into the story: Waking
on a warm, bright morning in early October, Catherine found herself a widow.”
Her husband, Mathew, died in his sleep right next to her. Then in one sentence you get a good idea of
both of them: Quiet, gently spoken, given to thought before offering an opinion, her
husband had been regarded by Catherine as cleverer and wiser than she was
herself, and more charitable in his view of other people.
He was well thought of, organized and professional as a
seller of agricultural equipment. He
even anticipated the inevitable day when they would be separated by death: Matthew had said more than once, attempting
to anticipate the melancholy of their separation: they had known that it was
soon to be. He would have held the
memories to him if he’d been the one remaining. ‘Whichever is left,’ he
reminded Catherine as they grew old, ‘it’s only for the time being.’…Matthew
had never minded talking about their separation, and had taught her not to mind
either.
It is not until the funeral that we are introduced to
another key character, the other widow (after all the title of the short story
is Widows) and that person is
Catherine’s sister, Alicia. She had been
living in the house with Catherine and Matthew since her own philandering
husband had died nine years earlier. So there
is now the contrast of a happy marriage and Alicia’s unhappy on. The sisters are now alone in the house. Alicia is the older, and their relationship
seems to be reverting into one before their marriages, the older helping,
guiding the younger.
Until the other major character emerges, a painter, Mr.
Leary, who brought no special skill
to his work and was often accused of poor
workmanship, which in turn led to disputes about payment. Weeks after the funeral he comes by the house
to discuss an outstanding bill, an embarrassment because of the death. He explains that work he had done for Matthew
on the house, for cash, £226 to be exact, had not been paid. Catherine clearly remembers withdrawing the
money in that exact amount for Matthew to give to him, and even has the bank
records to that effect, but Mr. Leary asks whether she had a receipt. Mrs. Leary always issued a receipt and there
was none in her receipt book. Are you
sure the money was delivered to Mrs. Leary?
The reader is left with the insinuation that perhaps Matthew used the
money for something tawdry or at least careless. Catherine and her sister think that this is
just a clever scheme by the Leary’s to be double paid. She ignores it for awhile but still ponders
the possible reasons and then a statement is delivered by mail that the amount
is past due. And that’s part of the
genius and wonderment of the story: we never really know whether it was paid or
not and if not why (although one is left with the feeling it was).
Catherine is tortured by this knowing a statement will
come month after month and finally declares to her sister her intention to pay
the bill (probably again). Catherine was paying money in case, somehow,
the memory of her husband should be accidentally tarnished. And knowing her sister well, Alicia knew that
this resolve would become more stubborn as more time passed. It would mark and influence her sister; it
would breed new eccentricities in her.
If Leary had not come that day there would have been something else.
So, in a sharp turn in the story, the spotlight now
shines on the relationship between the sisters. This is another Trevor
technique of shifting the story suddenly to the real one: an old power struggle
to a degree, Alicia being the older and when they were younger considered the
more beautiful. Why shouldn’t things
return to the way they were? The disagreement between the sisters, to pay or
not, reaches a climax one night. They did not speak again, not even to say
goodnight. Alicia closed her bedroom
door, telling herself crossly that her expectation had not been a greedy
one. She had been unhappy in her foolish
marriage, and after it she had been beholden in this house. Although it ran against her nature to do so,
she had borne her lot without complaint; why should she not fairly have hoped
that in widowhood they would again be sisters first of all?....By chance,
dishonesty had made death a potency for her sister, as it had not been when she
was widowed herself. Alicia had cheated
it of its due; it took from her now, as it had not then.” Talk about great
writing. That last sentence is a
gem. And that is what Trevor’s writing
is all about, the commonplace, but those profound moments in each “everyman’s”
life.
So, my day at Peanut passed with natural beauty and my
renewed “friendship” with William Trevor, to be revisited as time permits. I packed up, walked back to the boat, the
late afternoon sun now beating heavily, boarded the boat and went north on Lake
Worth back to my dock to clean up the boat and get ready for dinner with
friends. It was a day away from Twitter
and current news so it was not until I got into the car with our friends that I
learned that FBI Director James Comey was abruptly fired by Trump, the details
of which as we get deeper and deeper into it are as bizarre as any fiction I’ve
read.
It seems to me that the next few days are decisive as to
whether we will (as we have up to now) accept this as the "new
normal" or some courageous Republican Senators draw the line at this and
insist on a special prosecutor. If you switch back and forth between Fox and
MSNBC you would think we are living on two different planets. The assistant White House press secretary was
waxing eloquently that the decision was oh so, so, swift and decisive. Just her kind of man!
The disingenuous letter from Trump cited the “recommendations”
of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod J.
Rosenstein. The latter said Comey should
be fired because of the way he handled Hillary Clinton emails! But the most bewildering part of Trump’s
firing letter is the following sentence:
“While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate
occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the
judgement of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively
lead the Bureau.” In other words, I’m
firing you because of how you helped me get elected, not because you are
leading the investigation into my ties to Russia, and I need to get a partisan
FBI director who will do my bidding.
Here's hoping our Republic survives instead of stealthily
slipping into an obedient dictatorship.
