Nobody's Fool

Sully seldom required more information than people gave him. What she’d had in mind, though, was a doctor like her own in Bath, an older man, understanding but not too swift, but a stranger, someone who wouldn’t snitch. She hadn’t been prepared for this mere boy.
    â€œYou live alone?” asked the mere boy.
    Miss Beryl said she did, adding that she had done so, pretty much without incident, since her husband’s death nearly thirty years before.
    â€œAnd you fear losing your independence?”
    Miss Beryl raised his grade from a B-plus to an A-minus. “Such as it is,” she admitted.
    â€œDo you drive?”
    â€œSeldom. To the store and back. I’m thinking of giving it up altogether. Frankly, I’ve never understood this nation’s obsession with cars. It means something, and I hate to think what. I also hate to think I might do something foolish and harm someone. My husband, Clive—star of my firmament—was killed in a car, and my son’s fiancée, who is a wrecker even when afoot, nearly killed him in one yesterday.”
    The young man was nodding at her, clearly pretending comprehension.
    â€œI only use the Ford for grocery shopping,” Miss Beryl repeated. “And when there’s a grand opening in some store between here and Albany I get roped into taking Mrs. Gruber, my neighbor. She’s a snitch too.” In fact, Mrs. Gruber was waiting for her in the lobby of the clinic, happily contemplating lunch in the new hospital cafeteria she’d read aboutin the
North Bath Weekly Journal
and had long hoped to visit. Miss Beryl had told her friend nothing of the gusher, fearing that the information would find its way back to Clive Jr. “So you see I wouldn’t miss driving. My independence is my routine, my way of doing things, which is not the way others do them. I eat what I want and when I want. I read and talk to myself and look out my window and contemplate the verities. I know my neighbors and I like them, but I wouldn’t want them any closer, and I certainly wouldn’t want to share living quarters with the best of them. I have a boarder upstairs, and the best thing about him is that he’s seldom home. He drops in in the morning to find out if I’m still alive and then he leaves, doesn’t come home until the bars close. He’s a free spirit. Donald Sullivan. I may have mentioned him. Clive says I’d be happier if I had companionship. He doesn’t count his father and Ed.”
    The young man frowned. “I thought you said your husband was killed in a car accident.”
    â€œHe was,” Miss Beryl said, delighted to discover that her listener had been paying attention.
    â€œAnd yet …”
    â€œI keep his photograph on the television, and we continue many of the discussions we had when he was alive. We never reached conclusions then, and we still don’t.”
    â€œWhich leaves … Ed?”
    â€œEd’s a Zamble.”
    â€œA which?”
    â€œAn African spirit mask. Part human, part animal, part bird. Like the rest of us.”
    The young man smiled. “I think I see what you mean about talking to yourself. Do you find yourself entertaining?”
    â€œMildly,” Miss Beryl told him. “Compared to television. Clive thinks I should get cable. That’s what he means when he says I should have more companionship.”
    The doctor was squinting now.
    â€œClive Jr.,” Miss Beryl decided to help the young man out, since he was trying. “Clive Sr. is dead. His son survives.”
    â€œ
His
son?”
    â€œOur son,” Miss Beryl conceded. “There. I’ve admitted it. I hope you’re happy.”
    â€œYou and your son don’t see eye to eye, I take it?”
    â€œHe’s a banker,” Miss Beryl explained.
    The doctor appeared to be waiting for her to continue.
    â€œYou don’t think that’s sufficient reason, I gather.”
    More confusion. “For what?”
    â€œHe’s the one responsible for that new theme park they’re going to build. He thinks Bath is the Gold Coast. He says money is creeping up the interstate.”
    â€œHmmm,” the young doctor said.
    â€œLet’s discuss something you may know about,” Miss Beryl suggested. “What’s wrong with me? In addition to my being eighty years old.”
    When the young physician opened his mouth to speak, Miss Beryl