Had it not been for the ice storm and Sally getting the car stuck in the driveway, Alphonse might never have reached deeper into her life. Or so, at first, thought Sally. Later she would realize that her neighbor had been waiting for just such a chance. All morning she had willed the downpour, more ice than snow, to let up, in hopes of taking Alex to the store to choose a packaged costume which would turn him instantly into Superman or Robocop. Since it was closer to Christmas than Halloween, the prices would be down. Giving up on the weather, she had spent the past hour persuading Alex to accept a home-made costume. Being four years old, his top choice was to masquerade as Donovan Bailey, the fastest man alive. When she pointed-out that, even if the weather suited undershirt and shorts, his white skin would sort of spoil the effect, he looked down in annoyance at his chest, as if seeing it for the first time. He would accept to be a pirate but rejected the nine Paisley scarves which she grabbed eagerly one by one from the drawers. Alex knew he was being offered second-best. When the phone rang she welcomed the interruption, that is until she heard Harold’s cheery challenging inquiry, "What’s new? Not the weather, I’m sure. I’m just taking a break. Thought I’d check-up on the home front. Everything okay?" "Well, I’m having a bit of trouble with..." "Sorry, what was that? Water’s splashing a bit. You’ll never guess where I am now. And stark naked." "You can’t be swimming. With a phone?" "No, not even me. But I am enjoying my well-deserved bubble bath. I gave my speech this morning. But you know that, you have the program. Standing ovation, as usual. But you’re right about the sea. This place is magnificent, vast stretches of private beach. Amazing grounds. They gave us these cellular phones so that we can’t get lost." Sally managed to say, "Well, I’m glad you’re having fun, but I’m in a bit of a hurry." "Oh, I’m sorry to take up your valuable time." "Oh, Harold, I’m sorry. I’m just a bit harassed. Maybe I could call you back tonight?" "Fraid not. I’m invited to dinner in the town. Tomorrow too. "Look, why don’t you take the car? After all, it’s your big chance while I’m gone. You should take advantage." "Maybe I will, but you should see the weather. Well, I have to go. Thanks for calling. Talk to you soon." During the phone call, Alex had happily stripped off his black eye-patch and smeared ferocious orange lipstick across his cheek in a leaf pattern she couldn’t have achieved if she’d tried. Laughing, she called after him as he tried to , "You look more like a punk than a pirate." The digital on the stove, the only clock in the house which could be trusted, showed five to one, five minutes till the party started. Anything now would have to do. What if he just goes in his ordinary clothes? Or just misses the party altogether? She dressed him again in a plaid shirt and corduroy pants, stopping to let him hug her chubbily, his hand patting her back as if she needed to be consoled or to bring up wind. She thought, Harold’s right, I’ll have to take the car. It’s our only chance of being in time, and Alex won’t have to wear a snowsuit over the heavy pants. She was already thinking of them as "Cowboy" pants and searching in his top drawer for the silver-buckled belt. "I don’t" said Alex, "want to be a cowboy" "That’s fine, you don’t have to wear the hat, in that case." Nothing could shake her now. A quick make-up and a flick of the brush through her hair was all she needed. As Harold often remarked, although Sally did not share his confidence, natural beauty comes cheap. When she went to the front porch for their boots she could see through the glass of the door the hail bouncing off thick black ice on the walkway. The boots, with yesterday’s dirty snow stains still clinging to them, were put on, the indoor shoes wrapped, coats, mittens, scarves and hats firmly attached, the garage door opened with a bit of a struggle, and they were ready to go. Before he had left on his trip to Mexico, Harold had driven the car nose-in so she had to reverse across the common driveway. The tail swung around and slid heavily towards the neighbor, Alphonse’s garage-door. She hit the brakes hard, managing to stop mere inches from crashing into it. And stuck there. Half-an-hour later, having tried the classic back and forth rock, gravel, salt and gripper frames, she gave-up. Five to two. Waiting for the taxi, she imagined Alphonse turning in the driveway to put away his car and having to back-up. A bad day to leave a car outside, and he such a fussy man with his careful routines. The taxi finally came at two-fifteen. On Frobisher Road cars were inching forward on the sheer but dirty ice, crawling, swinging their backsides around uselessly. One of them, driverless, was wedged across two lanes. Visibility was about eight feet, but the taxi driver was an old hand. They arrived safely, mere minutes before Santa Claus, and long after most of the other kids had abandoned any pretence at disguise. How’s that for ‘just in time’ management, Sally told herself. An hour or so later, hand-in-hand, Alex wearing the cowboy hat, they walked back, stepping around the dangerous patches of ice and removing mittens only to share Christmas candies. Once home, they could see Alphonse’s four-wheel drive parked, most unusually, in the street. Sally didn’t have to confirm the reason, Harold’s Volvo straddling their common driveway. Thawing-out in the kitchen, nursing a mug of hot coffee, Sally wondered how she would face Alphonse, how she would explain her ineptitude. To encourage herself, she remembered instances of his outgoing friendliness, favors tendered but mostly declined. Although, she guessed, only in his forties, he lived like a retired person, puttering around his property most of the day. When Alex’s ball went over the wall into his garden, he had lobbed it back, smiling, uncomplaining. In summer, he would carry his sprinkler over to their garden if he noticed that theirs had stopped functioning, as it so often did. Harold had a low opinion of Alphonse, mainly because he didn’t have a regular job but instead played the stock market with the proceeds from the sale of his restaurant. Sometimes the two men would meet in their common driveway, after which Harold would come in and toss on the hall table some precious package of instructions on how to protest a tax increase or form a Neighborhood Watch Association, remarking typically, "Stone deaf. Bloody nuisance. Queer too, probably, not married at his age." The papers, unread, would clutter the hall table for months. Older people, of course, tend to be fussy, more careful. Alphonse who wanted to share everything was probably lonely, too. As she thought about the two men, Sally began to dread Harold’s sardonic long-distance silence more than Alphonse’s reaction when she confessed about the car. Feeling quite toughened to the cold now, she left Alex dozing in front of the television watching Sesame Street, pulled on her boots, and ran in her black stretch pants and sweater across the hard lumpy snow of their own and then Alphonse’s lawn. She would have preferred to phone but didn’t have the number, unlisted like their own. Even as she ran, singing the program’s theme song, "Everything’s a-okay...", she quailed a bit about the impression she would make running outside in her indoor clothes. Blonde bimbo. What else could he think? But, shaking his head, Alphonse refused to accept her well-rehearsed apology. "No, no. No, no. It’s not your fault. It can happen to anyone. Please come in out of the cold." "That’s very kind but I can’t leave my son for long." "I understand, but don’t worry at all. We’ll just call AA and they’ll get it out. I could see when I came home that it’s impossible without a tow-truck. "In fact", he continued with a warm smile, "you’ve done a wonderful thing. If I’d put the car away, I wouldn’t have got around to visiting my mother in hospital, to-night." "Oh, I’m sorry to hear she’s not well." "And we might never have spoken together before Christmas. You see, everything has a bright side. "Your husband, I hope he is well." "Yes", said she, "He seems to be. He’s in Mexico." "Yes, I know, absorbing sun and tequila. Some people have all the fun. And how are you managing without him?" Sally laughed, "Not too well, if we judge by the car." Her voice faltered, and she gestured towards her own house with her hand, "I’d better get back. Alex is alone and I have to call the AA." "Don’t worry, I’ll do that for you. No, no, it’s a pleasure. Why should I not help a neighbor? And if I call your husband will know nothing of it. I hope Alex is enjoying his playgroup." Sally just nodded as she turned away, wondering how Alphonse knew that Harold was in Mexico, how he guessed that she feared Harold’s anger. And how did he know that Alex was attending a playgroup? Half an hour later Alphonse called to say that he would come for the car and garage keys so that he could take care of the AA when they came. He refused to let her manage alone, saying she must be exhausted after a day like that. She felt guilty later hearing him calling instructions to the breakdown team in the night’s cold darkness. As she finally dropped off to sleep she tried to remember when she had given Alphonse their phone number. Harold would not have done so, but they must know each other better than I realized, she thought. The second time Harold called from Mexico his mood was very different. Incredibly, it was an emergency call on the cellular from the grounds of the resort. Harold seemed to be doubled over with stomach pains. He was groaning, almost weeping, telling her he felt as though he was dying. He wasn’t very coherent but it was clear that he had been trying to call the reception desk at the hotel many times without success. He cursed, "What the hell’s the use of these special phones if they leave theirs off the hook. Honest to God, these countries." "Can’t you ask someone for help? Is there nobody around there?" "No", he answered, his voice fading, "I took a walk around the bay and then tried a short-cut back. Oh, oh, I’m going to throw up." Sally waited, panic rising, wondering if he would come back on the line. "That was awful. I must be poisoned from what we ate last night. Raw scallops from Acapulco Bay. The local specialty, no less. Oh, I think I might be going to collapse. Oh, I’m going down" Sally interrupted, "Harold, sit down before you fall down. Try to relax. But not too much, don’t fall asleep. I have an idea. Why don’t I call the reception desk from here. The number’s on the program. If you could just describe where you are." But all she got in reply was a faint gurgle. Close to panic, she fought to stay in charge. Finally she found the number, the country code and the local code and, miraculously, got through. Once they had found someone who could speak English and got over their astonishment, the hotel people swung into action, getting Harold to answer his cellular phone. Just in time. But the news from the hospital in Acapulco where Harold was taken was not so good. After many confusing reports with Sally scribbling multisyllabic medical terms at the kitchen table, the diagnosis was of a rare virus which could recur, perhaps fatally. Confusion had been caused by the symptoms being identical to those of certain forms of food-poisoning. After a week, Harold pulled through enough to travel and was brought home and treated in a local hospital where the diagnosis was confirmed. During the brief period while his life was in danger Sally, from loyalty or superstition, would not imagine Harold’s death. Nor could she envision it in retrospect, once he was out of danger. When he made her read aloud a copy of his will, she complied but refused to concentrate beyond noting, with some surprise, his adamant demand to be cremated. She simply did her duty, as if programmed, and felt a workmanlike satisfaction when he began to recover. She knew that he was going to survive when he shed his feeble, pathetic persona and resumed his normal forceful self. With nothing much to do, Harold developed the habit of phoning from his hospital bed with instructions about what he would like Sally to bring on her next visit. Within a few days he had formulated elaborate plans for his homecoming Christmas party, along with a list of gifts she should buy, and another of guests she should invite. He also expected the tree to be fetched and decorated, and the cards to be sent out on time. With all that added to the usual housework, cooking and shopping, and twice-daily trips to the hospital and the playgroup, Sally quickly learned to maneuver the car on the icy roads. By the time Harold left the hospital she felt ready to go in for a rest. Alphonse also phoned every day while Harold was in hospital, not only to inquire after the invalid and to keep her up to date with his research on the Mexican virus, but also to offer his help and sympathy. Sally, no longer astonished by Alphonse’s neighborly interest, started to feel as comfortable with him as she would with a woman friend, once or twice even sighing aloud about her husband’s excessive demands. For reasons unclear to her, however, she declined his offer of babysitting for Alex. Alphonse, it appeared, would have undertaken the Christmas shopping and done their snow-clearing had she let him. He surprised and cheered her by dropping in, one miserable solitary evening, with a package of photographs of all three members of the family, apparently taken during the past few years. In the spring, when his mother, during recovery from a hip operation, was living with him for a few weeks, Alphonse called over from his back deck to ask if she could please send Alex to meet the old lady since she was so fond of children. Sally gladly complied but wouldn’t have been so keen if Alphonse had been alone. When he phoned later, to thank her for Alex’s brief visit, he mentioned that it had been just the thing to cheer-up his mother after their morning visit to the funeral home, "Of course she’s too old, too traditional, to consider cremation. She wants even to see the place where she will lie. Almost as if she’s looking forward to it. But I think cremation is much superior, don’t you?" Sally, firmly in her mid-thirties, was uncomfortable even contemplating the topic but was able to say, "Yes, that’s what my husband thinks, too." Alphonse was seen with only one woman, attractive solid-looking in her forties, who was often entertained to early evening dinner on his back deck. The little wooden trestle table would be covered with a cloth, candles lit, soft music playing. Delightful aromas of food prepared with love wafted around the gardens, but something about the laughing tone of their conversation convinced Sally that they were not lovers. Perhaps they had been intimate in the past. Many more men were welcomed in the same way, so Harold’s guess was probably right. But it was confusing. The most frequent male visitor, a handsome heavy-set Italian, sent Sally, along with obligatory visitor’s nods, openly admiring glances. Alphonse would smile in apology and make repressive grimaces at his guest, who only grinned the more for being shushed. Embarrassed and confused, Sally would retreat into her house. One afternoon when she and Alphonse were both out spring-cleaning at the back, Sally ventured some remark about the unusual heat. And instantly regretted it. Alphonse cocked his head as if the few inches gained by that could allow him to hear her soft voice. She tried again to make her words carry over the concrete wall but it didn’t work well enough so, still holding his hand behind his ear, he called, unnecessarily loud, "I’ll come over". Then he proceeded to unlock the gate on his deck, come down the stairs, feel around for his keys, unlock the padlock of his own back-garden gate and then struggle to undo the stiff catch on hers, that pitifully inadequate protection against marauders into Harold’s garden. He stood then, still smiling at her, from the bottom of her stairs, too polite to join her on the deck, uninvited. All this time Sally had tried to invent something more important than the casual remark about the heat forecast for tomorrow which, half-heard, had generated all this activity. She was embarrassed to be wearing just a tee-shirt and short-shorts as she sometimes did for working in the garden. Her only inspiration was to request the special city number for heavy garbage to be picked-up. Obliging as ever, Alphonse returned to his own house and came back with a wealth of information related to her question. She herself, much less organized, had to go and in search of paper and pen to take it all down so that his kind efforts wouldn’t be wasted. Within a few days she found herself cleaning the garage and looking for suitable garbage for the city to collect. Not that she felt obliged to do all that just because Alphonse had given her the information. It was something she’d intended to do, sometime, anyway. Of course, much to Harold’s disgust, then she had to hold a garage sale. It was the Saturday after that when Sally was standing behind a table at her open garage door and systematically down-pricing item by item that Alphonse emerged and, shrugging expressively, commiserated with her about the lack of buyers. They talked about the threat of rain which, besides keeping away the garage-sale customers, had dissuaded him from his favorite country week-end pursuit, second only to fishing. Alphonse was a collector and connoisseur of the mushroom in all its weird and wonderful variety. Typically, he went to fetch a book on the subject. The book was in French but beautifully illustrated. "See," he said his finger pointing out a glossy image of forest floor with barely discernible whitish growths showing above the blades of grass, "this variety is perfectly harmless. Better than that. Some varieties are very nutritious, you know. But others can kill. "Look at the close-up. Do you see the thin red veins on the surface?" Her eyes followed the pointing finger as it moved down the page to a hideously enlarged fleshy version of the fungus. "It’s the exact shade of red that matters. Because, if you make a mistake, you could gather instead..." He paused here to riffle through the pages and to lick his thumb, "this kind. Do you see? And these are deadly to humans. They look exactly alike, don’t they? Except that the veins are darker, and almost purplish." Sally, unable to repay Alphonse’s largesse with help and information, felt she should at least show interest, "Is that the only difference?" "Well, no, but that’s a very intelligent question. In fact, the soils are different. A real mushroom gatherer would not even need to examine the veins. And they require different positions, different light, but that’s harder to explain." "You say they’re deadly to humans, but what about animals?" "Another good question. But no, animals are too smart. They have their own ways to know." "Do you find the same mushrooms here? Or just in Europe?" "Certain types are common to both continents, but they’re not well known here. Another art of the old world." "Do people get poisoned by accident, or on purpose?" "Well, both. The secrets have been known for centuries. Have you heard of the Borgias? Nowadays there are tests, and antidotes if you act fast but what is most interesting is that it’s difficult to prove if a person is poisoned by accident or by plan. Even an expert like me could make a mistake, you know. It’s the best way if you want to get rid of somebody." They both laughed. Standing here in the early Spring sunshine, far from the intrigues of the Middle Ages, such talk was absurd. Just then, a customer sauntered down the driveway to inspect Sally’s wares. Anxious to sell something, anything, she turned eagerly, saying to Alphonse, "Well, thanks for the lesson. If I want to get rid of anyone, I’ll let you know." br> "I’m going up north next week. If I find anything special, I’ll invite you all for dinner." "I’m not sure if it’s such a good idea."., she replied, laughing harder to take out the implied sting. That same spring, she began to take on more work, fitting part-time teaching and business consulting into the hours Alex spent at the playgroup. She kept housework to the late afternoon but was exhausted by the time Alex was in bed. She even managed, with great foresight and coordination of babysitters with Harold’s meager availability at home, to go on a few business trips, where she squeezed three days work into two so as to be away just one night. Harold was either away on business or late at meetings so often that she got used to putting Alex to bed and flopping-down exhausted in front of the TV with a glass of wine, which soon made staying upright impossible. She would read in bed for a while after watching the news at ten-thirty, and was usually fast asleep by eleven whether Harold was home or not. When Harold, it seemed, fell victim to a second and more severe attack of the Mexican virus, Sally was distraught. She even felt guilty that when he was taken to hospital she was away on one of her rare work trips to New York. Having rescued him once with the spectacular emergency call to Mexico she thought that she should be able to save him again. But the desperate rush home was of no avail. A friend met her at the airport with the news of Harold’s death. She arrived at the intensive care unit only in time to confirm for the attending doctor that her husband had indeed suffered the viral attack four months before. Since the specialist who had treated Harold after his first attack confirmed that he had been almost expecting a second, and readily confirmed the cause of death, an autopsy was considered unnecessary. Perhaps he was feeling vindicated since, directly counter to his advice, Harold had resumed his normal frenetic round of work, workout, travel and pleasure. Now regarding Harold as masterful rather than arrogant, she shrank from the insecurity of living without his protection. From seeming cynical and dismissive, he seemed in her eyes, to have been a tough realist, a bulwark standing between her and an uncaring world. As had been impossible while he was alive, she remembered the sweetness of their courtship when he had enveloped her and carried her off. Whatever had held them together through their disagreements was the real thing. Painful as it had been to live with him, it was infinitely more so to live without him. Again, she could not attend to the details of the will and insurance benefits: the realization that her husband had paced himself so hard to provide for herself and Alex redoubled her grief. Images of giant viruses with malevolent faces and carrying paper money in their hands swept menacingly through her dreams of both day and night. Alphonse did not intrude on the coming and going of somber lawyers and weeping relatives and friends who converged in significant numbers from all over the globe. His was one of the many formal notes of condolence which, Sally noted, Harold would have appreciated for their diplomatic superficiality. Alphonse’s was different only in that it contained an old-fashioned mass card which, she felt sure, he must have obtained with the assistance of his mother. The card was embossed with white laurel wreaths and had a black border. It showed a deeply shadowed representation of St. Joseph, resting from his carpenter’s work. "Hail, St. Joseph, pure and gentle. Teach, o teach us, how to die.", it read. She was touched by the gesture, because it was the kind of card her grandmother would have sent, and also because she knew the old hymn. When she sang it aloud, mournfully, Alex came running and hugged her legs. Alphonse’s first approach to her as a widow was a suggestion to take Alex fishing in the mountains, just for half a day. With great delicacy, he posed the question out of Alex’s hearing as if to give her full discretion in responding. Appreciating this, she brought some grace to her reply, thanking him and joking rather lamely about consulting the agenda of Alex’s previous engagements. She had learned, meantime, that one must speak to Alphonse on his left-hand side. Harold had been right, or half-right, about the neighbor’s deafness. She had been content for Alphonse to keep his distance after Harold’s death, so his offer posed her a strange problem. Resentment against the older careful man surviving her brash young husband stirred whenever she thought of him. She wondered also if Alphonse’s fascination with Harold’s comings and goings had betokened a gay interest, something almost unsavory. She wanted nothing to soil the new image, the precious thing she had made of her husband’s memory. In her grief she was vulnerable, feeling newly aged, shrunken almost, as if Harold’s death had taken away a vital portion of her personality. But after the cremation and funeral reception, there was total silence from other friends and relatives. Progressively unable to manage alone, she feared sinking into depression. She wanted ‘male presence’, or any presence, for her young son and they both needed all the congenial contact they could get, but she wasn’t sure enough of Alphonse to send Alex off to the country alone with him. At least, she told herself, I know he’s not interested in me. In that sense there would be no betrayal of Harold. Alex, glad no doubt to the silence of the mourning house, jumped with joy at the idea of the mountain trip, so she decided on the bold move of offering to include herself in the invitation, saying she would like to try some mushroom hunting. Alphonse was delighted and declared they would all do that together, as well as fishing if she could spare a whole day. In the four-wheel drive, just getting near the highway and with Alex strapped securely in the back, into the relative quiet of a red-light stop, the child suddenly asked, "Alphonse, will they be the same mushrooms you gave us for dinner last time?" Sally, puzzled by the question, asked, "When, Alex? What mushrooms? We never had mushrooms from Alphonse." "Oh, yes, we did. Or at least Daddy and me did, didn’t we Alphonse?" "Oh, I didn’t know that.", said Sally turning expectantly towards Alphonse. "Mummy, there are some things you just don’t know. Anyway, you were in New York, remember? Just before Daddy died." As she waited for some explanation from Alphonse, she steeled herself to glance at him. She knew the risk, that her eyes which had sprung open in horror, first of suspicion, and then of certainty, as all the contradictions resolved themselves into the classic tale, would recognize obsessive love, not for Harold or for Alex, but for herself on Alphonse’s face. But, smiling contentedly, he appeared innocent, at least of avoiding her eyes. And so she answered Alex, "Yes, Love, I suppose you’re right. There are some things I just don’t know." Alphonse, looking straight ahead, smiled and appeared to hear nothing. Copyright. All rights reserved.