Duma Key

This dogtrot, filled with light courtesy of its long glass ceiling, was lined with planters. At its far end, Wireman hung a right. I followed him into an enormous cool parlor. A row of windows gave on a side courtyard filled with flowers - my daughters could have named half of them, Pam all of them, but I could only name the asters, dayflowers, elderberry, and foxglove. Oh, and the rhododendron. There was plenty of that. Beyond the tangle, on a blue-tiled walk that presumably connected with the main courtyard, stalked a sharp-eyed heron. It looked both thoughtful and grim, but I never saw a one on the ground that didn't look like a Puritan elder considering which witch to burn next.

In the center of the room was the woman Ilse and I had seen on the day we tried exploring Duma Key Road. Then she'd been in a wheelchair, her feet clad in blue Hi-Tops. Today she was standing with her hands planted on the grips of a walker, and her feet - large and very pale - were bare. She was dressed in a high-waisted pair of beige slacks and a dark brown silk blouse with amusingly wide shoulders and full sleeves. It was an outfit that made me think of Katharine Hepburn in those old movies they sometimes show on Turner Classic Movies: Adam's Rib, or Woman of the Year. Only I couldn't remember Katharine Hepburn looking this old, even when she was old.

The room was dominated by a long, low table of the sort my father had had in the cellar for his electric trains, only this one was covered in some light wood - it looked like bamboo - rather than fake grass. It was crowded with model buildings and china figurines: men, women, children, barnyard animals, zoo animals, creatures of mythical renown. Speaking of mythical creatures, I saw a couple of fellows in blackface that wouldn't have passed muster with the N-double-A-C-P.

Elizabeth Eastlake looked at Wireman with an expression of sweet delight I would have enjoyed drawing... although I'm not sure anyone would have taken it seriously. I'm not sure we ever believe the simplest emotions in our art, although we see them all around us, every day.

"Wireman!" she said. "I woke up early and I've been having such a wonderful time with my chinas!" She had a deep southern-girl accent that turned chinas into CHA-nahs. "Look, the family's at home!"

At one end of the table was a model mansion. The kind with pillars. Think Tara in Gone With the Wind and you'll be fine. Or fahn, if you talk like Elizabeth. Around it were ranged almost a dozen figures, standing in a circle. The pose was strangely ceremonial.

"So they are," Wireman agreed.

"And the schoolhouse! See how I've put the children outside the schoolhouse! Do come see!"

"I will, but you know I don't like you to get up without me," he said.

"I didn't feel like calling on that old talkie-walkie. I'm really feeling very well. Come and see. Your new friend as well. Oh, I know who you are." She smiled and crooked a finger at me to come closer. "Wireman tells me all about you. You're the new fellow at Salmon Point."

"He calls it Big Pink," Wireman said.

She laughed. It was the cigarettey kind that dissolves into coughing. Wireman had to hurry forward and steady her. Miss Eastlake didn't seem to mind either the coughing or the steadying. "I like that!" she said when she was able. "Oh hon, I like that! Come and see my new schoolhouse arrangement, Mr...? I'm sure I've been told your name but it escapes me, so much does now, you are Mr...?"

"Freemantle," I said. "Edgar Freemantle."

I joined them at her play-table; she offered her hand. It wasn't muscular, but was, like her feet, of a good size. She hadn't forgotten the fine art of greeting, and gripped as well as she could. Also, she looked at me with cheerful interest as we shook. I liked her for her frank admission of memory troubles. And, Alzheimer's or not, I did far more mental and verbal stuttering than I'd seen so far from her.

"It's good to know you, Edgar. I have seen you before, but I don't recall when. It will come to me. Big Pink! That's sassy!"

"I like the house, ma'am."

"Good. I'm very glad if it gives satisfaction. It's an artist's house, you know. Are you an artist, Edgar?"

She was looking at me with her guileless blue eyes. "Yes," I said. It was the easiest, the quickest, and maybe it was the truth. "I guess I am."

"Of course you are, hon, I knew right away. I'll need one of your pictures. Wireman will strike a price with you. He's a lawyer as well as an excellent cook, did he tell you that?"

"Yes... no... I mean-" I was lost. Her conversation seemed to have developed too many threads, and all at once. Wireman, that dog, looked as if he were struggling not to laugh. Which made me feel like laughing, of course.

"I try to get pictures from all the artists who've stayed in your Big Pink. I have a Haring that was painted there. Also a Dal sketch."

That stopped any impulse to laugh. "Really?"