Taking Care of Mrs. Carroll by Paul Monette Page B

used to pout." She stood up and leaned on one hand at the edge of the table. One of her shoulders was thus thrown into a deep shrug, and then she tilted her head lazily toward that shoulder. It was a pose she was famous for, and she could go into it as automatically as a dancer taking Position One. In one of the freeze frames that I carry in my head, Madeleine stands just so when Yves Montand walks into the bar in A Dollar a Dance. 1947. She looked straight at David. "Then Rick and I will race to the airport. And we'll tell each other what went on, just like schoolgirls. So watch yourself."
    And with that she turned to Phidias and took his arm. They walked away along the porch, and she began to talk in a low voice, the words blurring from where we sat. For a moment, though, the magic vanished and they looked to me like an old, careful couple taking a cautious walk. From the back, Phidias seemed to have the slightest stoop. And Madeleine's wide shoulders and narrow hips were, at this angle, exaggerated and unbearably frail. The effect of the monument, of the woman sculpted in stone and immune to change, required the mystery of her face. It made you sorry that you could see so much. If you were beginning to get a glimpse too of the winy headache that waited at the end of the afternoon, starting now in a hairline fracture, it made you want to go to your room and cry yourself to sleep. So I turned my back and blocked them out, forgetting as I did it that David now had to be faced. He was looking straight at me and had the double advantage of having me all in focus and of being spared the angle in time that I had just seen.
    "Do you want to go down to the beach?" he asked.
    "Aren't you getting it all wrong, David? You go down to the beach. I go get a horse. The meeting comes later."
    Silence. I am playing this by ear; and I see, as it comes out, that I am taking my cue from Robert Taylor about thirty seconds before he pulls the trigger.
    "I don't know what to say, Rick. No matter what I say, it's going to hurt. You have to help me."
    No perceptible whine. Apparently he wasn't going to duck the difficult part. He was getting older every minute.
    "David dear, it's all I can do to help myself. Just try to remember that this isn't being televised, so I can feel more than one thing at a time. I know I've avoided you and played with Madeleine and eaten my lunch, and you think I'm going to beat you. But it's wonderful to see you too. Just wonderful."
    He looked down and smiled an old dreamy smile of his that has always made him look as milky as a shepherd.
    "Now," I said, "a couple of questions. You knew Madeleine was with me when you called on Saturday, is that right?"
    "Right."
    "Well, you haven't answered the question."
    "You mean, how did I know?"
    "Right."
    "I always knew that. That she stayed with you when she was in Boston."
    "Is that so? You know, if my flesh could still creep, it would make its way to the Chevy and get out of here. Why do you suppose you never told me before?"
    "I figured it was something private between you and her. And I liked it that you had a secret that you kept from me."
    "As long as you knew it."
    "I guess so."
    "But here we are. Centuries have passed. Why bring it all up now? Don't you think it might still be something private?"
    It wasn't, of course. I had never cared who knew Madeleine came to me once a year, but there never seemed any reason to tell anyone. I didn't know anyone that well that I could tell. Madeleine wanted a little privacy, and that seemed fine with me. And then, during the years with David, I kept it secret so as to have a secret from him. He was right about that. But now that he knew, we could have had a press conference, Madeleine and I, as far as I cared. Something private indeed. What the hell was that supposed to mean?
    "I did it for Phidias," he said. "He needed to talk to Madeleine Cosquer, and I knew how to get hold of her. That's all."
    "That's all."
    "Except for you and me.