The Wapshot Chronicle - John Cheever [13]
“Yesterday afternoon,” says Aunt Adelaide, “about three o’clock, three or three thirty—when there was enough shade in the garden so’s I wouldn’t get sunstroke, I went out to pull some carrots for my supper. Well, I was pulling carrots and suddenly I pulled this very unusual carrot.” She spread the fingers of her right hand over her breast—her powers of description seemed overtaken, but then they rallied. “Well, I’ve been pulling carrots all my life, but I never seen a carrot like this. It was just growing in an awdinary row of carrots. There wasn’t no rocks or anything to account for it. Well, this carrot looked like—I don’t know how to say it—this carrot was the spit and image of Mr. Forbes’ parts.” Blood rushed to her face but modesty would not halt nor even delay her progress. Sarah Wapshot smiled seraphically at the twilight. “Well, I took the other carrots into the kitchen for my supper,” Aunt Adelaide said, “and I wrapped this unusual carrot up in a piece of paper and took it right over to Reba Heaslip. She’s such an old maid I thought she’d be interested. She was in the kitchen so I give her this carrot. That’s what it looks like, Reba, I said. That’s just what it looks like.”
Then Lulu called them in to supper where the smell of claret, fish and spices in the dining room would make your head swim. Leander said grace and served them and when they had all tasted the carp they said that it hadn’t a pondy taste. Leander had caught the carp with a rig of his own invention, baited with stale doughnuts. They talked about other carp that had been taken from the fresh-water inlet to the river. There were six in all—six or seven. Adelaide would remember one that the others couldn’t recall. Leander had caught three and Mr. Dexter had caught two and a mill hand who lived on the other side of the river—a Pole—had caught one. The fish had come from China to St. Botolphs to be used in ornamental garden pools. In the ’90’s they had been dumped into the stream to take their chances and their chances had been good enough. Leander was saying that he knew there were more carp when they all heard the crash that, considering the dilapidation of the car, sounded extraordinarily rich as if some miscreant had put an ax through the lid of a jewel box. Leander and his sons got up from the table and went out the side door.
It was a vast summer night. There was an unusual softness to the dark air and the bland starlight and an unusual density to the darkness so that even on his own land Leander had to move cautiously to keep from stumbling over a stone or stepping into a brier patch. The car had gone off the road at the bend and run into an elm in the old field. Its red tail lamp and one of its headlights were still burning and in this light the grass and the leaves on the elm shone a bright green. Steam, as they approached the car, was escaping from the radiator and hissing, but as they crossed the field this hissing lessened and when they reached the car it had stopped, although the smell of the vapors was still in the air.
“He’s dead,” Leander said. “He’s dead. What a Christly mess. Stay here, Moses. I’ll go up to the house and call the police. You come with me, Coverly. I want you to drive Adelaide home. They’ll be enough trouble without her. He’s dead,” he muttered, and Coverly followed him up the field and across the road to the house where all the windows were being lighted, one by one.
Moses seemed stunned. There was nothing for him to do and then a sound of crackling