Gerald's Party by Robert Coover

Author:Robert Coover [Coover, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: urn|isbn|9780141193014
Publisher: Penguin Adult
Published: 2011-05-22T16:00:00+00:00

It seemed to me, as I stepped over the threshold, that an age had passed since I’d crossed it going the other way, and for some reason I thought of that phrase that Tania had been so fond of and had concealed in several of her paintings – in ‘Orthodoxy,’ for example, and in (or on) ‘Gulliver’s Peter’: ‘What was without’s within, within, without.’ ‘Awright, ma’am, try to be a little more helpful if you can,’ Fred was saying, more or less echoing Alison’s husband (I felt him close behind me like an arbiter, a referee), and I thought: Tania was right, everything – even going out for a pee in the garden – was full of mystery. ‘We’d hate to have to bring in the old exploding sausage …’

‘Just a moment,’ I protested. ‘This really isn’t necessary. My wife had nothing to do with—’

‘It’s all right, Gerald,’ she said weakly, craning her head around under the bright fluorescent lamp. ‘It’s only a routine—’

‘That’s right, so just move along now, fella—’

‘But I tell you, you’re wasting your time! She doesn’t know anything!’

‘She knows more than you think, sir,’ Bob said, pulling on rubber gloves from the sink, and my wife whispered: ‘Your fly’s undone, Gerald.’

‘Ah! Sorry …’

‘What’s that … in your hand?’

‘What—? Oh yes, nothing …’ I’d almost forgotten it was there. I realized I must have been rubbing it like a talisman throughout my encounter with Alison’s husband, who now leaned closer to see what it was. ‘Just something I, uh, found outside—’

‘Looks like one of my buttons,’ said Fred. We all looked: indeed it was. He searched his jacket, which gaped still around his bloodstained belly. ‘Yeah, there it is. Musta come off when I was trying to button up out there in the dark …’

‘Outside … ?’ my wife asked faintly, her face puffy. Bob was holding a damp tab of litmus paper up to the light. ‘Are my … flowers all right?’

‘Well …’

‘I guess I owe you one,’ Fred acknowledged, pocketing the button. Alison’s husband had pulled back, but I could smell his pipe still (I was thinking about hidden fortunes, something a woman had once said to me down in some catacombs: ‘All these bones – like buried pearls, dried semen …’ – whatever happened to that woman?), its aroma hovering like a subtle doubt. ‘The Old Man woulda raised hell with me if I’d lost it!’

‘You could start,’ I suggested, ‘by letting her down.’

Fred hesitated, glancing at his partner. Bob shrugged, nodded: Fred loosened the ropes and eased her down, though he kept her legs still in their shackles, a foot or so off the table. My wife looked greatly relieved and exchanged a tender glance with me. How tired she looked! ‘Some more people have arrived,’ she said with a pained sigh.

‘Yes.’ I could hear them wailing in the next room. ‘Ros’s friends mostly.’ The blood, which had before rushed to her head, now drained away, and the old pallor returned, making the bruises there seem darker.

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