Is a contraption like a gallows, with a net for basketball attached to it.

Charlotte's slice of the hill can still just be described as a garden. It is

terraced, and a few of the roses on it are in bloom. But they have been sadly

neglected; when Charley is in one of her depressive moods, even the poor

plants must suffer for it. They have been allowed to grow out into a tangle of

long thorny shoots, with the weeds thick between them.

George climbs slowly, taking it easy. (Only the very young are not

ashamed to arrive panting.) These outdoor staircases are a feature of the

neighborhood. A few of them have the original signs on their steps which

were painted by the bohemian colonists and addressed, apparently, to guests

who were clambering upstairs on their hands and knees, drunk: Upward and

onward. Never weaken. You're in bad shape, sport. Hey — you can't die here!

Ain't this heaven?

The staircases have become, as it were, the instruments of the

colonists' posthumous vengeance on their supplanters, the modern

housewives; for they defy all labor-saving devices. Short of bringing in a

giant crane, there is absolutely no way of getting anything up them except by

hand. The icebox, the stove, the bathtub and all of the furniture have had to

be pushed and dragged up to Charley's by strong, savagely cursing men.

Who then clapped on huge extra charges and expected triple tips.

Charley comes out of the house as he nears the top. She has been

watching for him, as usual, and no doubt fearing some last-moment change

in his plans. They meet on the tiny unsafe wooden porch outside the front

door, and hug. George feels her soft bulky body pressed against his. Then,

abruptly, she releases him with a smart pat on the back, as much as to show

him that she isn't going to overdo the affection; she knows when enough is

enough.

"Come along in with you," she says.

Before following her indoors, George casts a glance out over the little

valley to the line of boardwalk lamps where the beach begins and the dark

62

unseen ocean. This is a mild windless night, with streaks of sea fog dimming

the lights in the houses below. From this porch, when the fog is really thick,

you can't see the houses at all and the lights are just blurs, and Charlotte's

nest seems marvelously remote from everywhere else in the world.

It is a simple rectangular box, one of those prefabs which were put up

right after the war. Newspapers enthused over them, they were acclaimed as the homes of the future; but they didn't catch on. The living room is floored

with tatami, and more than somewhat Oriental-gift-shop in decor. A

teahouse lantern by the door, wind bells at the windows, a huge red paper

fish-kite pinned to the wall. Two picture scrolls: a madly Japanese tiger

snarling at a swooping (American?) eagle; an immortal sitting under a tree,

with half a dozen twenty-foot hairs growing out of his chin. Three low

couches littered with gay silk cushions, too tiny for any useful purpose but

perfect for throwing at people.

"I say, I've just realized that there's a most ghastly smell of cooking in

here!" Charlotte exclaims. There certainly is. George answers politely that