The L A S T D AY S of D O G TOW N
Oliver and Judy walked out in the sunset.
“It’s getting dark much earlier these days,” she said.
“There’s a touch of fall tonight.”
He took her bag and, on impulse, offered her his arm.
“Allow me.”
Judy took it and leaned against him, wrung out by the evening.
“You knew Cornelius in Dogtown, then?” Oliver
asked, after they’d been walking for a while.
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“It was a long time ago,” Judy said firmly, and Oliver heard the door close on any further conversation about the African.
Oliver patted her hand, and they continued for a long way without saying a word.
Judy had a headache, and she longed to lie down and sort out the anguish and anger and desire that had roiled up in her when she heard her name in Cornelius’s mouth.
Oliver tried to reconcile his liking for Cornelius with queasy outrage over the way he had moaned for Judy. Her name in his mouth seemed obscene, and yet he was not sure why. Cornelius was a man, same as him, or Everett Mansfield, or every Wharf or Tarr, Tom or William, who ever walked Cape Ann.
The African question was too complicated for Oliver to fathom on his own. He would try to discuss it with Polly, he decided, and turned his attention back to Judy, who seemed to need cheering up.
He leaned toward his friend and, in a tone of
lighthearted conspiracy, said, “I haven’t told Polly yet, but
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I’m starting to look around for a new situation,” and filled the rest of the journey with his plan for an escape from the stink of fish, which Polly could no longer wash out of his clothes.
Judy warmed to his plans and before they knew it, they had arrived. Judy clucked at the lights blazing from every window in the house. “That girl.”
“I’ll come by and tell you how he’s faring,” said Oliver, as he opened the garden gate for her.
“Thank you, my dear boy,” she whispered. Before
letting go of his arm, she reached up and kissed him lightly on the cheek, and wondered why she had never done that before.
By morning, Cornelius’s fever was nearly gone and he was able to rise and limp outside. But overnight, something had changed in the household. Polly was as pleasant as ever, but she looked at him with obvious pity. Oliver did nothing out of the ordinary, but he would not meet his eye.
He left a few days later, his knee stiff but tolerable. “I’ll be thanking you the rest of my days,” he said.
Oliver shook his hand firmly.
“Will you come by and visit the boys?” Polly asked.