Valediction

CHAPTER 11

The sky gets light around 4:30 in July in Boston and by 5:15 or so the sun is up. I lasted in bed until six and got up feeling cumbersome and slow, like a stone. Paul was on the couch, so I was quiet making coffee. The air-conditioner in the living room made enough noise to muffle my sounds and I turned on the early morning news while I sipped orange juice and waited for the coffee.

At seven I was lumbering along the Charles, and at 8:15 I was heading north over the bridge to look at the Bullies some more. When I left, Paul was still sleeping.

The commuter traffic was all in the other direction and I was parked by the church compound before nine. So far in two days effort the only thing I'd got out of this was two pieces of decent cherry pie. I had some coffee in a paper cup and I sipped it and watched the life of the Bullies unfold placidly before me. Everything was as before. The small station wagons came and went. The gardens were weeded, people went in and out of the church. A little before noon a smoky-rosecolored Lincoln sedan pulled into the drive and stopped in front of the church. There were two buggy whip antennas on the rear bumpers and a small one on the top of the trunk. I'd been thinking of getting some. Made your car look so official. People came out of the church and from the bungalows. They stood in a silent circle around the car. A tall guy in a dark suit and a white shirt got out of the front and opened the rear door. Stewart Granger got out. King Solomon's Mines, setting out on safari. He had on a crisp khaki safari shirt and matching slacks, and he carried a thick blackthorn walking stick. He moved slowly along the circle of Bullies, speaking to people, touching them on the shoulder. They dipped their heads as he talked to them, not a bow, but a kind of reverential nod. When he had worked the circle, Stewart went up the church steps and into the church. The people stood outside and watched the door he'd entered and appeared to say nothing. Probably wasn't really Stewart Granger. Probably Bullard Winston. He looked like the picture an Qwens's wall.

At noon he went to the dining hall. At 1:10 he came out and got into his car and drove back down Route 114. I copied down his license plate number. Maybe it would be a clue. A little after two o'clock one of the little station wagons pulled out and I followed it. I wasn't learning much sitting. Motion at least gives you the illusion that you're going samewhere.

We went down Route 114 to Route 62 and east to Route 1, and headed north on 1. Twenty miles north of Boston, in the upper reaches of Megalopolis, milk cows grazed in hilly pastures. Northern Essex County looked much as it must have in the eighteenth century. At least long stretches of it still did as the two-lane road meandered north among loose stone walls and white barns and wide tidal marshes with the marsh hay harvested in neat round beehive stacks.

I followed the Ford Escort wagon through Newburyport and over the Merrimack River and into Salisbury. North of Salisbury Center the Escort pulled into the dirt driveway of a frame farmhouse that had been shingled in beige asbestos with a fake wood pattern. The house was surrounded by vegetable garden for maybe 100 yards on each side. Stretching to a roadhouse on the left that advertised "All Country/All Day" and an auto salvage yard on the right, behind the house, were the tidal marshes. Close to the road a small shack with a sign that said FRESH EGGS, FRESH VEGETABLES, ORGANICALLY GROWN. There was a young woman in jeans and a print blouse tending the inventory. It was too early in the year for much except eggs. Hens were not seasonal. They could probably ovulate at will.

One of the khaki deacons got out of the Escort, carrying what looked like a small mail sack. He went into the house, came out in maybe three minutes still carrying the sack, got back into the Escort, and we headed back to the founding church in Middleton.

The courier was easy to tail. He didn't expect to be followed. I was driving a nondescript-looking Subaru hatchback with a four-wheel-drive option for winter crime-stopping, and it looked like most of the cars on the road. I drifted along two or three cars back. Normally tailing was very automatic and gave me time to think. Today I didn't think. I hadn't been able to think much since Susan left; instead, I realized I had been concentrating on balancing the dull ache. If I was careful, I could keep the ache from turning into despair. Across the road on my left a Weimaraner hunted the marsh flat, coursing back and forth, its nose to the ground, its short tail quivering with excitement. Beyond the dog, in the distance, was the rim of shoreline and the quality of open emptiness beyond. I'd never figured that out. It wasn't that you could see the ocean exactly, but you knew it was there. The Escort was getting a little far ahead and I passed a Chevy wagon with kids in the back making a V sign at me. It had no meaning anymore and the kids probably didn't know why they made it. But two fingers were better than one.

We passed Governor Dummer Prep School on the right. White buildings, a soccer field. I had noticed in the last few weeks that there was a kind of rhythm that, if one were careful, could be controlled. It was easy to lose the rhythm, but if one concentrated, one could stay in it and avoid sharp suffering. Keeping the rhythm also provided you with something to do. Gave you a kind of purpose in life, getting by without spilling over. A man needs a goal.