The Widow Nash. Jamie Harrison
rather we did,” said Victor.
One of Henning’s remaining brothers drove the car to the feeble new botanic gardens. It wasn’t raining for the first time in days, and as they walked, not talking, Dulcy peered at plant labels.
“I’m engaged again, you know,” said Victor, finally.
“I had heard. I’m happy for you.”
“No, you’re not,” said Victor, smiling. “But I can live with that. I can’t imagine being happy for you with another man.”
A covey of older women fluttered by, eyes on Dulcy, who preferred to let that sentiment slide away. During their engagement, Victor had planned gardens for her: a greenhouse on the roof of his Manhattan hotel, walled gardens at the Hudson Valley house. He had never shown an affinity for live items, either flora or fauna, but he’d understood this about her. Now she tried for something like a normal conversation. “Does your fiancée like to garden?”
“I haven’t heard her mention it.”
“What does she like to do?”
He frowned. “Now you’re worrying me. Perhaps I’m better off without her. She isn’t curious, or experienced; she doesn’t understand the world.”
Dulcy turned back to the waiting car. “I believe he’s lost the money,” she said. “There’s no point in keeping us here.”
He kicked a stone off the path. “There’s no point in letting you go, either.”
They returned to find that Henning had met a Mr. Singh, who did in fact carry a package for Walton, but it was a last rebound notebook, rose-pink poetry. Dulcy burst into tears—it was a bad habit, but an honest one—and retreated to a balcony off the sitting room. If she went to her room, she’d hear Walton warbling “Skip to My Lou ” or a stunningly filthy sea chantey, and if she ran to the fire escape, she’d hear Victor beating his own mind to death in the gymnasium. Henning joined her a few minutes later, and they smoked in silence while he studied the women at a party on a balcony below them, guests of the hotel proper. Dulcy watched his face and thought of fishing birds, crows on fences, cats on rodents.
And in the morning, Victor introduced a new plan: since nothing stirred Walton’s memory in the apartment, perhaps they should get him out and about. If he were given the “illusion of freedom,” of fun and play, would he rediscover his mind?
Victor was flushed, and Dulcy didn’t immediately understand. “I suppose he’d love the theater,” she said. “And we could use some games here. A dart board, or billiards.”
“I do not enjoy billiards,” said Victor.
This meant that he wasn’t good at them—if he wasn’t good at something, he couldn’t enjoy it. Dulcy thought she’d enjoy being bad at many things, if she could only try. “You’re good at Ping-Pong. And if you dislike it, you wouldn’t have to play. You’d just have to buy the table.”
“And watch you play, with Henning.”
Henning was pulling on his coat, taking time over his scarf. She almost said yes, and then she took in Victor’s face. The nurse was yammering about rain and inappropriate shoes. “I had a trip to the outside world in mind,” said Victor, “though I fret about the dangers. He’s not well.”
“I’ll keep him alive,” said Henning. “I’ll keep everyone alive.”
He had the nerve to look at her, though she knew it took an effort. “You’re taking him to a woman ?” she asked. “What about the poor woman?”
Victor gave a fake laugh. “I’ll find the right person,” said Henning.
Dulcy had a pen in her hand and thought of throwing it like a dart; her interior monologue was pure mining Cornish. Henning, prowling the misty streets—he might be stuck here with maids six days a week, but there was no question that he fucked himself silly in the off-hours.
“Everyone will be safe,” he said. He looked happy, and young, a little wide-eyed, wild to be out of the building. If she could have painted a human state, she’d have called this Vigor . He was going to make his Grecian marble physique move in a variety of warm, soft directions, after he handed over a giddy Walton to a hag with a dozen gold coins. “But I agree about the games,” he said. “Something pleasant in these dark months.”
“Go away,” said Dulcy.
•••
Happiness, safety: she thought through the range of definitions as the men set out for Chinatown, Walton with his head high in a dove-gray coat. But he responded to his outing by sleeping for twenty-four hours, and when he woke he told Victor he hadn’t been to Africa for ten years, and that something was growing in his stomach. A new doctor was summoned, a cold, calm Presbyterian, an advocate of the Graham school. Decades of hydro—and electrotherapy had left Walton underwhelmed by such approaches, and he was fractious from the beginning. In the absence of female comfort, he believed in opium, alcohol, and mercury. Dr. Dagglesby believed in bran and cold surfaces and—weirdly—large quantities of shellfish. He asked Walton to take some steps (“note the tabetic gait ”), looked at his hands and feet, ears and eyes, and asked him to stand naked and perform certain exercises. Walton said that he would attempt these after a quick trip to the toilet, but once inside he locked the door.
“Mr. Remfrey does not have long,” said Dr. Dagglesby.
“Please keep your voice down. Please think of something to help,” said Victor. “We would like him to be as relaxed as possible. Peace of mind may help his memory.”
“Where would he store that memory, might I ask?” said Dagglesby. “His brain has shrunk to the weight of a web.”
They all knew Walton had been able to hear this through the door. Later, when she heard him pace on the other side of her wall, she left him to it and turned out her light, and later still, when she woke to the sound of a woman laughing, she rolled over, trying not to think of Henning. Another resonant croak brought her into the next bedroom, where she found a heavy woman, a bouncing billow of flesh, seesawing on top of Walton’s frail body.
They gaped at Dulcy. “The floral flouncing floozy flummoxed me,” said Walton.
Dulcy slammed the adjoining door, slammed her own door, and ran out in the hall and slammed Victor’s library door so hard that the pretty bronze knob came loose and bounced away, which brought enough relief to allow her to head to her room to pack a valise. She took the servants’ stairs and was just short of the hotel mezzanine when she faced Henning, who’d taken the elevator all the way down and run up. “No,” he said. “You can’t leave him.”
Which it, she wondered. Run away with me, then. But she let Henning take the valise, and she walked back up the stairs, knowing he was just inches behind. They opened the door to a wail: Victor, bellowing for help, because Walton was having a seizure.
Victor stayed pressed into a far corner while Dulcy held Walton’s foaming head on her lap and Henning tried to buffer his jerking body. But by the time Dagglesby reached them, Walton was peaceful and smiling. “I’d appreciate it,” he said, “if you could manage to make these episodes stop. They’re quite embarrassing.”
“They’ll stop,” said Dagglesby. “You’re on your way. You’ve put this off a good long time, but there’s no getting around it.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” said Walton.
Dagglesby had a dark, cropped beard, and his face had gone brick red. “Well, you’re dying. The thing’s winnowing through your cerebellum. Have you heard me at all? What did you think would happen, twenty years in? Tell your children you love them. Write letters.”
“Devil,” said Walton. He gestured Henning to help him up, and he propped himself on the teak changing bench and said, “I am reminded of the words the great painter Turner directed to his physician: please go downstairs, have a