By a woman Rupert has not seen for over thirty years and I have never met. Gertrude herself never phoned. Apparently that is not her way. If she has a way that she herself is aware of. Rupert says she used not to. We do not speak of her easily now. Who could? We took the bus. We no longer take the subway because of the stairs, and its general rottenness. I’m stingy on taxis, except in emergencies. The bus is an old favorite. Even at eleven in the morning, the widows’ hour, it’s not as full of the old as the crosstowns are, and it gets us out, along a route we know so well. Rupert always enumerates as we pass. ‘The flower market,’ he says. ‘Those buildings quiver with humidity. People don’t realize. Whole caverns of green storage, in the rear.’ At Thirty-fourth Street he said: ‘Macy’s is like a large, square fact. Of course it would be. Herald Square.’ Then, when we are stuck in traffic for a while: ‘That British voice that called. I suppose it was the nurse?’ A matter-of-fact woman, the day after the one with Sherm and Kit.
