The Green Man (12 page)

Now her curiosity was up. She quietly closed her notebook and put it on the table. Then she heard something that sounded remarkably like a cough. That was definitely no dog down there, but a larger creature of the two-legged variety. She eased herself from her chair and crept toward the edge of the deck.

With each step, her feet crunched down in the loose gravel. She paused to see if she had alerted the intruder to her presence. But the quiet rattling continued.

As she neared the edge of the deck, she went down on her hands and knees and crawled the last couple of feet, until she came to the low brick wall that enclosed the deck. Taking a deep breath, she leaned just far enough over the edge to see down below.

The noise was definitely coming from behind the bakery. Someone was down there, rooting among the half a dozen large aluminum garbage cans ranged along the
wall. The scavenger was working the lid off the last of them now. His back was to her, and she could make out nothing but the top of his head.

He got the lid off and set it quietly on the ground. The can was full of buns and bread. He stuffed as much as he could into his sack. The bakery was famous in the neighborhood, not only for its fancy French pastries, but for its bread and buns. At the end of the day, all the unsold baking was bagged as day-olds. But on Saturdays, whatever was left had to be thrown out. It went directly from the gleaming glass display windows out front to the battered containers out back.

The scavenger seemed to know the schedule. It was Saturday night, and here he was. There was something familiar about him, but the thought had only half-formed in O’s mind when it was suddenly shattered by a noise behind her. She turned her head and saw Emily standing framed in the window of the attic room.

“What on earth are you doing out there?” said her aunt.

Her voice was loud enough to startle the scavenger at his work. He swung his head up in the direction of the deck. O jerked back quickly from the edge, hoping she hadn’t been seen. A clatter resounded below, followed by hurried footsteps.

She looked down in time to see a dark figure with a backpack slung over one shoulder disappear down the lane.

S
unday the shop was closed. They slept in late, ate a hurried lunch, then headed for the car. It wouldn’t start. Emily got out and kicked it. It still didn’t start, but it seemed to make her feel better.

“What do we do now?” asked O.

“Walk, I guess. It’s not that far.”

In a bid to economize, O had suggested they bring coffees from home. The idea was that they would drink them comfortably in the car and leave the cups there. Now they sipped while they walked, sloshing coffee all over the street and looking like a couple of total losers.

Emily’s sense of distance left something to be desired. They walked for what felt like an hour. The neighborhoods grew increasingly upscale – wide, deep lots; large old houses set far back from the street; immaculate lawns; cars that would always start on the first try, parked two abreast in the driveways.

O was almost glad Emily’s car hadn’t started. It would have looked painfully out of place alongside the Porches
and BMWs that hung out here. It was easier to tuck a coffee cup out of sight than a car. She dumped the dregs onto the road and walked with her cup down at her side.

The streets looped and twisted like Psycho’s knotted ball of wool. Emily had a puzzled look on her face, as if she wasn’t quite sure where they were.

As they walked along, a man in a silk dressing gown opened his front door and plucked his paper from where it was wedged in the porch railing. He gave them a look that said
you definitely are not from around here
, and then retreated back into his house.

“Could you please finish that coffee?” said O. “It must be stone-cold by now, and we look like a pair of freaks carrying these old cups.”

“You worry too much about what people think. If you really want to be a poet, the first requirement is a tough skin.”

O realized this was as close to an apology for last night as she was likely to get. They walked along quietly for a while.

“I’ve been thinking about the Tuesdays,” said Emily. O’s ears perked up. “Do you know why we decided on Tuesday as the day?”

O shook her head.

“It was all because of Mallarmé.”

Mallarmé was the ghost who sat midway on the stairs
between the shop and the flat, the one they both sidestepped now on their way up and down.

“Mallarmé was a French poet who lived at the end of the nineteenth century,” continued Emily. “He believed that the power of poetry lay in its suggestiveness, that the aim of poetry was to evoke the mystery at the heart of things. In his work, he aimed to depict not the object, but the effect it produced.

“He worked slowly and published little. People found his work difficult, and he was attacked by the critics for his obscurity. He supported his family by working as an English teacher. He wasn’t much of a teacher, but he was a great poet.

“Gradually, he attracted a following among the younger poets of the day. A group of them began meeting at Mallarmé’s house on Tuesday evenings to read and discuss poetry. In French, Tuesday is
mardi
. These meetings became known as the
Mardis
, and those who attended them, the
Mardistes
. So when we decided to start up a poetry-reading group, I thought about Mallarmé. I suggested we meet one Tuesday a month and call it Tuesdays at the Green Man.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said. You were right; the meetings were a good thing. I’ve been distracted lately, and I’ve let things slide. If you’re willing to lend a hand, I’d like to get the Tuesdays up and running again.”

“Great!”

“But promise me you won’t expect too much of them. These are not Mallarmé’s
Mardis
.”

“I promise.” The street they were walking along now looked disturbingly familiar. “I think we’re going in circles,” she said.

Emily looked back uncertainly over her shoulder.

“You have no idea where we are, do you?” said O.

“Nonsense,” said Emily. She had worn a tweed skirt and matching jacket for the occasion, but had long since shed the jacket in the heat. She walked with it hooked it over her arm.

O had worn her Sunday best as well, including a new pair of leather flats, little suspecting they would have to hike for over an hour to get to the house. The shoes pinched her toes and had rubbed her heel raw.

None of it did the least bit of good, anyway. They still looked like a pair of interlopers from the lower world. Finally, as they rounded yet another corner, O glanced up and saw the name of the street they’d been searching for. It was a short dead-end street. At the far end, a large old house sat peering over the top of a high hedge at them.

“There it is,” said Emily exultantly. “I told you I wasn’t lost.”

—

There were only two other houses on the street, one on either side of the narrow road leading up to the Linton house. Both appeared deserted – their lawns gone wild, their windows boarded over. As they started down the street, O saw a large wrecking machine nestled in the shade at the side of one of the houses. It had fed on the side wall of the house, exposing the interior. She caught a glimpse of flowered wallpaper, a ceiling fixture dangling from a wire. She felt as if she’d come upon some fantastic beast in the midst of consuming its prey.

So far the Linton house had been spared the fate of its neighbors, but it hunched down behind the hedge and gave them a wary look through its windows as they turned up the walk.

In its day, the house would have been a Gothic dream, with its fanciful turret, high-pitched roof, pointed arches, and elaborately carved stonework. But time had taken its toll. The figures tooled in the soft limestone had weathered, and much of the detail had worn away, so that they seemed now like strange creatures in the midst of forming. Thick branches of ivy gripped the walls in a grim embrace.

“We can’t go in there with these,” said O, holding up her coffee cup. Rosebushes flanked the walk on either side. She took a quick look around, then reached in and wedged her cup in the crook of a branch. Emily followed
suit, but thorns raked the back of her hand as she pulled it out.

“Ow!” she cried, clutching it with her other hand.

As they started up the steps of the covered porch, O noticed the stonework within it had been protected from the weather. The twin faces that peered down at them from their perch atop the sidelights were startlingly realistic. One of them wore glasses and bore a striking resemblance to the photo of Lawrence Linton she had seen. She wondered whether he had set his face here as a sort of signature. The other figure was a Green Man.

Emily rang the bell. The sound echoed inside the house. Blood trickled from the scratches on the back of her hand. She searched her pockets in vain for something to wipe it with.

“Do you have a hankie or something?” she asked. “I’ve cut myself.”

“Oh, yes you have.” O found a tissue in her pocket and handed it to her aunt as footsteps sounded from the far side of the door. An old woman opened it just wide enough to peer out at them.

“Miss Linton?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Emily Endicott, and this is my niece, Ophelia. I’ve come to see the collection.”

“Oh, yes, Miss Endicott. Please come in.” And she
opened the door wide. “You must forgive me for being overly cautious, but I live alone here. And with this being the only house still inhabited on the street, I’m inclined to be a little nervous.”

“I completely understand.”

They stood in a long, high-ceilinged hall. O had never been in such a grand house. It was like something from another place and time.

“May I take your jacket?” Miss Linton said.

“Yes, thank you,” said Emily. “My, what a lovely house.”

Miss Linton hung her coat on a wooden rack, mounted below a mirror on the wall.

A wide staircase swept off to the upper floors. The stained-glass window on the landing spilled puddles of colored light on the polished stairs. A dark wooden rail curled down to a newel post carved in the shape of a sleeping dragon.

“Thank you. I’m afraid it’s all a little much for me now. I had a housekeeper until about a year ago, but she had to leave. A death in the family. Please come this way, Miss Endicott, Ophelia.” And she led them through a door that opened off the hall on the left.

“I’m afraid I’m a little late,” said Emily. “My car wouldn’t start.”

“Don’t fret about it, my dear. At my age, I’ve got nothing but time.”

They entered a large circular room. In its day, it would have been a showpiece, a grand room for entertaining. Now, it seemed far too large for the few pieces of furniture it contained.

The walls were papered in a repeating pattern of flowers. Above a polished sideboard hung a large portrait in oil of a dignified middle-aged man seated on a chair, his hands folded in his lap. He looked vaguely troubled to be there, as though more pressing duties awaited him. He wore the same small round glasses as the sculpted figure on the front porch.

“My great-grandfather, the architect Lawrence Linton,” said Miss Linton, when she noticed Emily studying the portrait.

“Yes. A very important man in the history of this community.”

Miss Linton nodded, obviously pleased at the compliment. “Would you care to join me over here by the fire?” Four high-backed, red-velvet armchairs huddled around a vast fireplace on the far side of the room. She settled into one of them and motioned Emily and O to sit down opposite her.

A small oval table stood beside Miss Linton’s chair, with a silver tea service and two cups and saucers. “Would you care for a cup of tea?” she asked.

“That would be very nice, thank you,” said Emily.

O found it stifling this close to the fire. As Miss Linton went to get another cup from the sideboard, she shifted her chair a little farther back.

Miss Linton wore a dark silk dress, trimmed at the wrist and the neck with old lace. Her gray hair was drawn back into a bun. Her ruby earrings hung by her neck like bright drops of blood. She looked like someone who had gone astray in the centuries. In her prime, she would have been a beauty. Even now, something about her commanded attention.

“You will be wondering why I called you about the collection, rather than a large dealer or an appraiser,” said Miss Linton, pouring the tea.

“As a matter of fact, I had wondered.”

“Well, as I said on the phone, you came highly recommended by an old friend.”

“May I ask who?”

“You may certainly ask, but I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to tell you. Suffice it to say that your paths have crossed in the past and he was impressed by you.”

“I see.”

There was something condescending in the woman’s tone – a quiet but clear reminder that they were not of the same class.

“I was drawn by the name of your shop. I’ve always had a fascination for the Green Man, as did my
great-grandfather. You can see several examples of the figure in the ornamentation on his buildings.”

O remembered the sculpted figure above the sidelight at the front door.

“Was it you who named the shop?” asked Miss Linton.

“No,” said Emily, “it’s been a bookshop for many years. The original owner gave the shop its name.”

“A very mysterious figure, the Green Man. I often wonder whether he is meant to be a symbol of good or of evil, an image of life or of death. The earliest examples are really quite frightening.”

“Perhaps a little of both,” said Emily. “He stands at the doorway between worlds. Life springs from him, all green and growing. But that life is rooted in darkness, as all life must be. And I imagine that, sometimes, a bit of the dark world crosses over.”

T
he fire crackled in the grate. Emily sipped her tea. She felt hot and ill at ease. It was all she could do to sit quietly and keep up her end of the conversation. She put her cup down before it was finished and folded her hands on her lap. Red welts had risen around the scratches from the rosebush. Her hand throbbed, and she was feeling a little dizzy. The perfume the woman was wearing seemed suddenly overwhelming.