The Last Days of Dogtown Page 15

  She would never again suggest that they leave the quiet of Dogtown for Portsmouth or anywhere else.

  Molly dozed off, too, waking up to the sound of Mrs.

  Stanley’s return. She leapt to her feet, afraid that the madam would be able to tell that something had happened in her absence, terrified that she would send the two of them packing.

  But Molly had no cause to worry. Mrs. Stanley paid little attention to anything that did not directly touch upon her own needs and comforts. Once Sammy left, Sally and Molly had the whole of the front room to themselves and looked forward to long winter nights when business was dead and they could bundle without fear of discovery, warm and

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  content in each other’s arms. In truth, there was no one on earth who cared what Sally and Molly did, which suited them just fine.

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  Oliver Younger’s Heart

  The courtship of Oliver Younger and Polly

  Boynton began on the day he brought John

  Stanwood to yank out two of Tammy’s rotten

  teeth. Oliver was fourteen at the time, and though he’d gotten his height, his voice was still changing and he was far too shy to look Polly square in the eye as she stood, half hidden, in the doorway of her father’s house.

  She had retreated to Dogtown, planning to remain a widow the rest of her days, but Oliver’s visits seemed harmless and she appreciated having a little bit of company besides her father. He found a hundred reasons to stop “on his way” from one place to another, and he always brought her a gift: a bucket of clams, fistfuls of lilacs or bittersweet, or at least a few sticks of kindling.

  While he was there, Oliver fixed broken clapboards, carried water, pulled weeds from the kitchen garden, and whittled a new walking stick for Mr. Wharf. In exchange for his help, Polly insisted upon washing and mending his clothes.

  Sundays became their regular day together. Polly stopped walking to church so she could stay with her father, who claimed that his swollen knees would carry him no farther than Easter’s place. Oliver would appear

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  midmorning—as clean and combed as he could manage—

  and drink a pot of tea with father and daughter. He would bring whatever news he had from Tammy or from town and then spend the better part of an hour while Mr. Wharf dissected the weather as though it might contain the secrets of the universe. “Rain this early is usually a good sign,” said Mr. Wharf and Oliver agreed heartily, though he didn’t quite know why that should be so.

  Polly would prepare the Sunday meal while the men talked, serving apologies alongside the burned fish and gummy bread. Oliver protested that it was the most delicious food he’d ever tasted.

  “No need to fib, son,” Wharf said, laughing. “Though it would all taste a fair sight better if we had something to drink.”

  After living with Boynton, who had rarely been sober, Polly refused to permit any spirits in the house. So after dinner her father invariably pronounced himself “parched,”

  patted Polly’s cheek, shook hands with Oliver, and hobbled to Easter’s for refreshment. Oliver dried the dishes and lingered while Polly took out her sewing basket; her clever dressmaking earned enough to keep the last two Dogtown Wharfs fed and clothed.

  Polly asked Oliver to read aloud from the Bible while she worked, gently guiding him over the words he’d never seen before and helping him to pronounce the impossible Israelite names. It took them two years to work their way through the scripture, both Old and New, and by the end Oliver was as fluent as Polly.

  “Should we get another book?” she asked.

  “I think we better start over on this one,” he said, trying

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  to figure how they might skip right to the Song of Solomon, which did not seem at all pious to him but was a treat to share with Polly, who blushed all the way through it.

  Reading wasn’t their only entertainment. Once Oliver’s voice found its bottom, Polly taught him all the hymns and lullabies she knew. One day, he offered up a sea shanty he’d heard at Easter’s, pruned a bit for decency. Polly was delighted. “What a wonderful gift.”

  “I’d rather give you some ivory combs for your hair,” he said, thinking of the displays in the dry goods shops in Gloucester. “Or a silk paisley shawl.”

  “But a song never wears out,” said Polly.

  Oliver believed that was the wisest and sweetest thing he’d ever heard. Indeed, he thought Polly the cleverest and kindest girl who ever lived and agreed with everything she said. Or nearly. When she mentioned her longing to hear the pastor up in Sandy Bay, who was said to have a fine baritone voice, he grimaced and shrugged. He had never been inside a church and was sure that he’d do something stupid and prove himself a backwoods simpleton in front of Polly and the whole congregation. He knew he’d have to go to a church to marry Polly, but that would be worth it.

  Oliver brought Polly blueberries whenever he could, knowing they were her favorites. “I should bake a pie,”

  she said.

  “Why bother,” Oliver said, delighting in her pleasure as she ate them two at a time, no more and no less.

  Three years into their friendship, he found a thicket of

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  the sweetest blueberries he’d ever tasted and picked a brimming pail of them for her. He hurried to get them to her house while they were still warm from the sun, imagining the bliss on her face as she took the first two into her mouth.

  When he arrived, no one answered his knock.

  Disappointed, he opened the door, thinking to leave them for her and sad that he would not be there to watch her enjoyment.

  But Polly was at home. She was alone, washing her hair, her dress hanging over a chair. Her long blonde tresses dripped over her bare shoulders.

  “The berries look wonderful,” she said, as though she wasn’t naked to the waist.

  Oliver stared at her small rosebud breasts, and the brown birthmark on her right collarbone.

  “Bring them here,” she said. “Put the pail down.”

  Oliver did as he was told.

  “Take off your shirt.” She dipped the flannel in cool water and lathered it with a small cake of lavender soap.

  Oliver closed his eyes, inhaled the scent of flowers, and felt the strength of her short, tapered fingers beneath the softness of the cloth. She circled behind him and washed his back and neck, running her hands over the muscles in his shoulders, down his arms to his hands, first the left and then the right. He had been touched so little in his life; he trembled at the tenderness of her hands on him.

  “Should I stop?” she whispered.

  He opened his eyes and turned to face her. They were both breathing as though they’d run a race. “You are so beautiful,” he said.

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  Polly touched the soft, new beard on his face, and said,

  “You are so good to me.” She leaned against him, and he was overwhelmed by her silken flesh, the press of her lips, and the damp perfume of her hair. Oliver thought his knees would have buckled without the support of the table beside him.

  She took his hand and led him to the bed, but it was not an auspicious beginning. Oliver tried not to think of all the rutting pigs and cattle he’d watched, and struggled against the howl that filled his mouth almost as soon as Polly’s legs opened under him.

  Polly tried not to think of the times her husband had pushed his way inside her. Aft
er Boynton had finished, he’d roll over snoring and she would walk to the river where the cold water would numb her chafed skin and raw heart.

  When Polly and Oliver were done, they lay still, sticky and afraid. Polly turned away and started to rise, but Oliver reached out. “Wait,” he said and fetched the berries. Sitting on the bed, he fed them to her, two at a time, until she swore she could eat no more.

  He walked his fingers up her arm and down her back, softly tracing the miniature peaks and valleys of her spine, the height and pitch of each perfect bone from her neck to her waist. His hand was so light, Polly sighed and leaned against him.

  They embraced a second time, slowly. Polly kissed every inch of Oliver’s face as he tangled his hands in her hair. He saw the dimples on her shoulders for the first time and like an explorer discovering a new country, claimed them for his own. She admired the strength of his arms and

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  the beauty of his back. They stared into each other’s eyes as Oliver rocked against her and into her.

  They slept through the sunset and woke up in the darkness. It was raining hard and the world smelled new.

  Polly lit a candle, and they held each other, shyly at first.

  When Oliver’s need became apparent again, Polly smiled her assent and they closed their eyes and lost themselves in the shared rhythm of their young bodies. In the middle of their union, they understood what they were doing as love.

  Oliver and Polly were different people after that. The gnawing hunger that had plagued Oliver since childhood vanished and he seemed to grow another inch for the way he held his head up taller. She refused to answer to her married name and told people that she was Polly Wharf again.

  There was a light around the two of them, and had they been spotted together by the ladies of Gloucester, there would have been a storm of talk. But only John Wharf really knew what was afoot, and he died happier knowing his daughter was in good hands.

  After the old man passed away, Oliver spent all his nights with Polly and woke early enough so that he could lie beside his beloved and bask in his good fortune. During waking hours, she became uncomfortable under his worshipful gaze, but he could stare and adore as much as he liked while she slept.

  In the morning light, Oliver studied his darling’s face, enchanted and amazed, and tried to master the lump in his throat. Polly’s puckered slightly at each exhale; her hair fell

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  across her face, a pale blonde web shot through with the strong spring sun. As usual, he was helpless to stop his tears and thoroughly ashamed of himself. At seventeen years old, it was unmanly to weep so easily and yet he seemed to have a bottomless supply of tears. Perhaps it was because he’d cried so little as a child: Tammy used to taunt him mercilessly for any sign of weakness.

  But these tears worried him because they seemed

  like an affront to his good fortune, a threat even. He had to be stronger, he told himself; he should count his blessings, pinch himself, and get on with things. But then Polly sighed in her sleep, and he was overwhelmed at his own luck: she was his antidote and his salvation, his light and his hope. There was just no point in waking up if she wasn’t there.

  It was a heartbreak every morning to leave his Polly, awake or asleep. Oliver pushed away the thought of where he was supposed to be and what he was supposed to be doing.

  Oliver no longer lived in Tammy’s house, but he hadn’t quite severed his ties to her. Her legs had grown too painful for her to take the cows to pasture or to get her butter to market, and these tasks fell to Oliver.

  He was already late that morning, but then, he really didn’t see what difference it made where Tammy’s cows grazed. “Damn,” he muttered.

  Polly opened a lazy eye. “Have you been awake long?”

  “Hours,” Oliver said.

  “Well, then, where’s my tea?”

  “You haven’t a crumb in the house. But I figure there’ll be enough for both of us when I take you over to Dora Stiles’s.”

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  “I thought you couldn’t walk to town with me today,”

  she said.

  “I’m damned.” Oliver sat up and shook his head. “I was supposed to get those damn cows of hers to pasture at dawn, and it’s getting near noon.”

  “Oh, it’s nowhere near that late,” said Polly, putting her finger to the tip of Oliver’s nose. “But it’s getting later all the time. And you know Aunt Hannah wants to marry me off to Silas Ridge.”

  “Does she now,” Oliver mocked. “A man with a harelip and a mortgaged boat?”

  “A man who owns half of the biggest fish market in town, and a house on Main Street,” said Polly, imitating the superior tone and nasal phrasing of her aunt.

  “Why don’t you marry him, then?” Oliver shrugged, making a show of not caring one way or the other.

  “Because I’m going to marry you.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “And when might that happen?” she asked wearily, knowing full well what he’d say next.

  “When I can buy you a proper dress,” Oliver insisted.

  “When we can stand every last one of your damned cousins to punch and a cake. When I can . . .”

  Polly threw off the covers and got out of the bed.

  “There won’t be any tea left at Dora’s if I don’t step lively.”

  “Oh, Polly,” Oliver sighed. “Don’t make a fuss. I love you more than all the tea and all the coffee and all the biscuits. . . .”

  Polly laughed. “And all the blueberries, too?”

  At the mention of blueberries, Oliver pulled her back down beside him and began to kiss her in earnest and it was

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  another hour before the two of them said their good-byes and went their separate ways: Polly to Dora Stiles’s elegant Gloucester home, where a basket of mending awaited her; Oliver to face Tammy and her cows.

  With Polly’s scent on his skin, he had no fears of the foul tirade that awaited him, but even so, the smile drained from his face as the house came into view. The cows were grazing by the front door.

  With better roads and quicker routes elsewhere on Cape Ann, the traffic over Tammy’s bridge had slowed to almost nothing. Without her tolls, she’d taken up dairying.

  Oliver couldn’t quite fathom how she’d paid for the two huge, brown creatures, but Betsy and Bertie did what Oliver would never have believed possible: they made a mother out of Tammy Younger.

  Although she tried to hide it, he knew she doted on those animals and spent hours brushing them, her eyes half-closed, her forehead against their great bowed bellies. She even sang to them in her piercing, reedy voice; weird lullabies: one song for Bertie, a different one for Betsy.

  When Oliver caught her putting dandelion wreaths on their necks, Tammy spat at him and called him a dim-witted son-of-a-bitch who didn’t know his ass from his elbow. “I’m working a charm,” she said.

  No one could argue that the milk wasn’t the richest on Cape Ann, and it churned into the sweetest butter anyone could remember. Even so, no one would buy it from the foul-tempered crone who insulted the housewives and shopkeepers who were willing to pay double for her perfect yellow-gold logs.

  So Oliver became the go-between, welcomed at general

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  stores and bakeshops in Gloucester, where Tammy’s butter gained him a large circle of acquaintances and a few friends.

  He kept half of what he took in for himself, deciding that when Tammy discovere
d the extent of his thievery, he’d quit and be done with her forever.

  Tammy was scratching at the dirt like an angry rooster when Oliver appeared. “You bastard no-good mutton-head,” she shrieked. “You lying sack of shit. The girls had their hearts set on the high pasture this morning.”

  The cows seemed happy enough, nibbling and chewing where they were. He shrugged.

  “You dunderhead, I oughta . . .” But she had no idea of what she ought to do to Oliver. He was taller than she and her knees were much too sore to chase him. She knew he was keeping part of her profit, but assumed the gutless fool wasn’t taking more than a trifle. Not that she spent any time pondering her nephew’s habits or choices; she hadn’t even noticed that his clothes fit him properly and that his shirts were always clean.

  The girls had her full attention. Bertie was twice as good a milker as Betsy, but Betsy’s milk was so rich and fat, it ran yellow from the teat. Between the two of them, Tammy was assured of her sugar and cocoa. The nuisance was that it should come by way of Oliver, but she had no choice, as no one in town would speak to her.

  Toothless, breathless, and lame as she was, outrage was still strong in Tammy. When Oliver hadn’t shown up, she’d cussed and spit and undertaken such a furious fit of

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  churning that there was an extra log of butter in the cooling bucket. “You ought to be horsewhipped,” she said. Oliver laughed at that, another proof of her weakness.

  “Take your backside into town and bring me some

  tobacco from Mansfield,” she ordered. “And a pound of sugar, and another packet of cocoa, and three of those bananas if he’s got ’em.” She tried to come up with an order too big for Oliver to skim anything from the transaction.

  “And don’t be leaving my linen there this time. You lost me the best wrapper last time.”

  “That was a year ago, old woman,” Oliver said.

  “You think you’re smart enough to pull something over on me?” she shrieked.

  Oliver shook his head and poured away half of the water to make the pail lighter for the journey.