God in Concord Part 8

Her door was locked. They knocked, but there was no answer.

Mavis was tall. Standing on tiptoe, she could see into Shirley's bedroom window. "Oh, for G.o.d's sake," said Mavis, "she's still in bed."

Mavis rapped sharply on the window, but Shirley didn't stir. "Shirley," called Mavis, "get up, it's time for church."

Shirley still didn't budge.

"Oh, dear G.o.d," said Mavis, turning to Honey with wide eyes. "She looks really strange."

They hurried down the road to the park manager's house, because he had duplicate keys to all the mobile homes. The manager came back with them, and soon they were all standing over Shirley's bed, looking down at her. Honey shook her and called her name.

Shirley didn't respond. She was curled up tight, her eyes squeezed shut, her features pinched together in a grimace.

They looked at each other in horrified surmise. "I think she's dead," said the park manager.

"Oh, no," sobbed Mavis. "She was just fine yesterday."

"She was only fifty-two," wept Honey. "I know, because she was exactly five years older than me, to the very day."

They called Dr. Stefano, the physician who took care of all the people at Pond View. He called them his private zoo.

"But I don't think I ever examined Shirley Mills," he said, looking down at her sadly. "I just saw her once, when she had the flu."

"She had a heart condition," explained Honey. "Didn't she tell you?"

"You know," said Dr. Stefano, looking at Honey severely, "you people shouldn't be living alone. If somebody had called me, I might have been able to save her life. It's dangerous for all of you to be by yourselves. Why don't you women double up and live together?"

"I'm a married woman myself," said Mavis proudly.

"We all keep an eye on each other," said Honey.

"Think about it," said Dr. Stefano, packing up his black bag.

Roger Bland made a habit of reading the obituary page of the Concord Journal, and he noted with satisfaction the pa.s.sing of one more resident of Pond View. "Look," he said, showing the paper to his wife, "another one of them is gone."

Marjorie Bland's face took on its automatic expression of sorrow before the transitory nature of life on earth. "Oh, too bad," she said, sipping her sherry. Then her attention was caught by the birds fluttering around the feeder just outside the living room window. "Oh, Roger, look at the darling chickadees."

"That's thirteen now," said her husband, hardly glancing at the chickadees.

"Oh, no, not as many as that. One, two, three. No, four. Five! Oh, Roger, look!"

Thirteen, thought Roger, smiling to himself. Only thirteen more to go.

*20*

Instead of n.o.blemen, let us have n.o.ble

villages of men. a"Walden, "Reading"

Under the guidance of Hope Fry, Jack Markey approached the town boards with good luck in his pocket.

Concord was one of the best-run suburbs west of Boston. Dozens of public-spirited citizens devoted their spare time to serving the town without pay, attending endless meetings, submitting themselves to continuous public scrutiny and criticism.

"It's democracy in action," people said when they approved of a decision made by one of the boards.

"Throw them all out," they said, when they didn't.

It was a good system, everybody agreed, and on the whole it worked well.

Jack was especially lucky in the hearings he attended. Not only did he have the shrewd advice of Mimi Pink, he had the keen insider's information supplied by Hope Fry. Best of all, he had the good fortune to follow in the footsteps of the finance committee, which had preceded him and prepared the ground.

FinCom had all the appalling figures at their fingertips. They knew how perilous the town's financial condition really was. Like all the other small munic.i.p.alities in Ma.s.sachusetts, Concord had been abandoned by the commonwealth, which had reneged disastrously on its promise of local aid.

"You've got to cut at least ten percent from the budget pa.s.sed at the spring town meeting," FinCom said to each of the boards. "We're sorry, but we won't approve anything less drastic."

"Look, we can always raise taxes a little bit," said one or another anguished member of the personnel board or the public works commission or the school committee.

"Impossible," said FinCom. "We can't ask the elderly or the unemployed or the young to pay any more, and we certainly can't add to the burden of the hardworking professionals who are already paying through the nose. You've got to cut. You've got to cut until you bleed."

One by one the committees came before the judgment seat to plead. FinCom treated them all the same way. They were cruel but fair. Again and again they raised their glittering scythes and slashed the dewy, hopeful gra.s.s.

"Look here," said FinCom to the library committee, "why don't you impose a six-month moratorium on the purchase of new books? I mean, you've got a whole lot of books already, right? I'll bet you've got a million books."

The director of the library was scandalized. "Not buy new books? Not buy new books? What's a library for? We can't stop buying books!"

"Well, take your choice," said FinCom heartlessly. "It's either books or staff members."

So in the end a couple of librarians were thrown to the wolves.

FinCom had another money-saving suggestion for the public works commission. "Why not forget about potholes next spring? Just let 'em go. It'll be hard on people's suspension systems, but, what the h.e.l.l, you've got to cut somewhere. If we have an open winter, you'll be okay."

"Not repair potholes?" exclaimed the chairwoman of Public Works. "You don't know what you're saying. If we don't do simple maintenance on our forty-two miles of public ways this year, we'll have forty-two miles of major reconstruction in years to come. You don't really mean it."

It was the same story in every department of town government. The modernization of the light plant was canceled. The acceptance of new streets was denied. The new telephone system for the high school was postponed. Even the expansion of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery was rejected.

"So what are we going to do with the deceased?" snarled the cemetery committee. "Take them to the dump?"

Everybody was angry. The atmosphere in the Town House was one of testiness and rancor, exacerbated by news of still more million-dollar deficits in the commonwealth, grimly reported by the Boston Globe.

For Jack Markey it was all to the good. When his turn came, each of the town boards was in a softened-up condition, ready to clutch at any straw. Some of them caved in reluctantly, some stroked their chins and postponed judgment, some were delighted from the start.

The chairwoman of the Concord Housing Authority was one of the latter. She was a tough-minded down-to-earth woman who had been fighting for low-income housing in Concord for years. She was suspicious of easy excuses based on mere aesthetics or on the town's historic heritage. The hard fact was that the Concord Housing Authority needed more housing. Their waiting list was pathetically long.

She looked over Jack's plans for the condominiums at Walden Green with a practiced eye.

"Three units of low-income rentals," said Jack, getting down to bra.s.s tacks. "Seven moderate income."

"Ten low. We don't give a d.a.m.n about moderate-income housing. Those people can take care of themselves."

Jack didn't promise anything, but he could see that the woman was on his side.

Refuse Disposal was a pushover, too, although the chairperson seemed doubtful at first. He looked at Jack solemnly. "In case you don't know it already, trash disposal is a serious matter in this town. Well, it's a serious matter all over the place." The man was in earnest. He wasn't fooling.

"You're d.a.m.ned right," agreed Jack, who knew a lot about the subject already. His employer, Jefferson Grandison, was into waste removal in a big way. It was the coming thing, and Grandison knew it. From his lofty perch in the Grandison Building he stretched out his hand not only to create, but to bear away that which had been created. (Jesus, thought Jack, remembering Lot Seventeen.) "You need a really good transfer station," he told the chairman. "What if we provide you with the equipment?" And then he listed one succulent item after anothera"a compactor to reduce volume, a complete recycling center with hydraulic lifts, a trammer mill to turn used building materials into wood chips, even an on-site chemist.

The chairman was impressed in spite of himself. "We're putting in a compactor ourselves, just as an experiment," he said. "But those other things, my G.o.d, they're so expensive. How can your people afford it?"

"Oh, we hope to make enough from the leasing of our shopping mall and the rental of the condo units to get a substantial return on our investment. And of course we have a vested interest in keeping the intersection of Route Two and Route One Twenty-six as well landscaped as possible. Right now, with that big hole in the ground, it's ... well, let's just say it's not very attractive."

"It sure isn't very attractive. And it's an insult to Henry Th.o.r.eau, the whole d.a.m.ned thing. I just happen to be a Th.o.r.eau nut myself. Look here, I'll tell you the truth. I hate what you're doing, but I don't know how else the town of Concord can afford a transfer station."

The next board on the list was tricky, very tricky. Jack approached the natural resources commission cautiously. They were a hard-nosed conservation-minded bunch of people with an affection for swamps, bogs, and thistly wildernesses. But they could find no fault with Jack Markey's plan. The percolation tests had been superb. The thirsty subsoil of the high school site gulped down surface water through thick layers of gravel and sand.

Jack brought forward his hard facts truthfully. The buildings would occupy one hundred thousand square feet, he said, with an effluent of ten thousand gallons a day. And then he talked knowledgeably about wetland buffer zones, catchment basins, and sewage. The entire board leaned forward and p.r.i.c.ked up its ears when Jack offered to extend the town's sewer pipes all the way from the county courthouse to Route 2. What a boon that would be!

But his ace in the hole was t.i.tcomb's Bog. t.i.tcomb's Bog would be bought by Grandison Enterprises and given to the town as a free gift. "t.i.tcomb's Bog," said Jack triumphantly, "sacred to the memory of Henry Th.o.r.eau."

"I fear not," said the chairperson of the natural resources commission. "You're wrong there, friend. Henry Th.o.r.eau never wrote a word about t.i.tcomb's Bog. But I admit we'd be pleased to see it in conservation."

The planning board was the last on Hope's list. It was too important, she said, to be approached head on. So Jack made an appointment for a Sat.u.r.day morning visit with its chairman, Roger Bland, at his home on Musketaquid Road.

Roger's house was an impressive dwelling, quite new, overlooking the Concord River beside the Nashawtuc bridge. A little pale gray horse looked inquisitively at Jack from a field beside the house and whinnied at him, as if to warn its master. Jack couldn't help thinking at once of the four hors.e.m.e.n of the apocalypse in the book of Revelationa""And I saw, and behold a white horse; and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him; and he went forth conquering."

Marjorie Bland opened the door, wearing an ap.r.o.n over her peach-colored turtleneck and lavender trousers. "Oh, come right in," she said gaily, waving a potholder. "Roger will be right down."

And there he was, coming down the stairs, Roger Bland the country squire, in old khakis and a plaid shirt. Jack could see him sitting high on the white horse, going forth to conquer.

"Let's go in here," said Roger, leading the way into his study. It was a rich warm room with an Oriental rug, a computer, and shelves full of books. If Homer Kelly had been there, he would have snorted at the books, which were not like those belonging to Charlotte Harris in her mobile home at Pond View. Roger had inherited his library from an elderly aunt, whose taste had run to Gene Stratton Porter, Faith Baldwin, and Ethel M. Dell.

But Jack didn't know anything about books, and he was impressed. "What do you use the computer for?"

"Investments," said Roger. "I have a direct line to my broker. I've got this software program that sends me information. You know, the daily performance of the Dow, all kinds of stuff. It's kind of a hobby of mine."

"How's your average?" said Jack, daring a jocular intimacy.

"Pretty good, if I do say so myself."

They sat down, and Jack put his roll of maps on the coffee table. Roger knew what Jack had come for, and he spoke bluntly. "You understand, there'll be a lot of opposition to your proposal. A shopping mall across from Walden Pond! Wait till you lock horns with the Th.o.r.eau types."

"Oh, I know about the Th.o.r.eau types." Jack grinned engagingly. "But I think they may change their tune when they hear what we have to offer." He unrolled one of his maps. "We understand the Burroughs farm on Monument Street is for sale. What if we were to buy it and deed it to the town of Concord for conservation?"

Roger whistled, trying not to show his pleasure. Who cared what happened to a dusty woods right next to a noisy highway, compared with the preservation of a twenty-five-acre farm on the most beautiful street in town?

Outwardly he was careful to remain noncommittal. He gave Jack neither encouragement nor discouragement. But after Jack took his leave, Roger stood dreamily in the hall, thinking about the Burroughs farm and the figures his visitor had tossed off into the air, the amount of money that would flow into the town treasury in taxes every year from Walden Green. "Even suppose," Roger murmured to himself, "that it's only half what he said. Even supposea""

"What, dear?" shouted Marjorie from the kitchen, where she was bustling about, whipping up a ca.s.serole of coq au vin for a dinner party, pouring in a dash of cognac and touching it courageously with a match. Whoosh, went the cognac, blazing up, and Marjorie uttered a little shriek. Oh, cooking was such fun!

*21*

YOU HAVE BEEN ELECTED CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD. a"Chance card, Monopoly Mimi Pink was thinking big. "What we need," she said to her a.s.sistant in the Porcelain Parlor, "is an organization of retailers. All our own people."

"Well," said Bonnie Glover, "there's, you know, the Concord Chamber of Commerce."

Mimi laughed scornfully. "The Chamber of Commerce, what good is that? A lot of old-fashioned people stuffing themselves with pancakes and sausage once a month at the Colonial Inn. No imagination. No creativity. No, we need our own team, our own elite corps."

"Oh, fabulous," murmured Bonnie Glover. "Fabulous" was Bonnie's noncommittal way of saying "Hmmm."

They pondered over names for the new organization. "Coalition of Concord Shops?" suggested Mimi.

"Fantastic," said Bonnie automatically.

But Mimi shot it down herself. The word coalition implied equality among the partic.i.p.ants, and that was out, because as the owner of all the shops, Mimi herself must be more equal than the rest.

In the end she came up with Consortium of Concord Boutiques.

"Awesome," said Bonnie, clapping her hands, sensing that this was Mimi's choice, this was it.

"The Consortium for short," said Mimi.

The first meeting of the Consortium of Concord Boutiques was called for July 17 in the Porcelain Parlor immediately after closing hours.

"The meeting will come to order," said Mimi, smiling at her audience, enjoying the way they had all adopted a Mimi Pink look.

Bonnie Glover was the best clone. Bonnie was extremely pretty in her own right, and she had made the most of her endowments. But the others, too, were good demonstrations of the Pink style. Narrow skirts rode high over black nylon knees. That year the fashion was for big football shoulders, and Mimi's were wider than anybody's. There was hardly room along the rows of folding chairs for the bundles of shoulder padding crowded together side by side. Everyone's hair had been blown into fluffy exaggerated shapes like Mimi's and sprayed with a glistening coating. Fingernails were silver, scarlet, baby pink. All Mimi's people were drenched in scent from the Parfumerie. Swooning fragrances blended in an olfactory mishmash.