Bertie's downtown again," Cash said. "I wouldn't call you, Ed, but she just won't budge for me" Cash is the oldest of the town cops. He knows everyone, all two thousand in this tourist town, and it is he who invariably ran into my great-aunt, my grandfather's sister Bertha—Bertie, or sometimes Birdie because more and more she dwindles to tiny bones twigging along astumble. At odd times day or night my great-aunt would wander from her house on the North Road, across from what used to be her grandpapa's house, walk off in whatever she happened to have on, unaware or indifferent, impelled by whatever sudden thought motivated her pilgrimage into a time alien to the others around her.

"I'll be right there, Cash"

Downtown, the waterfront, is only a hop from any place in town, but holiday traffic was heavy. Fourth of July week the plague descends: tourists darken the streets, swarm the beaches, boats crowd the docks, the ferries are laden day and night, strangers strip the grocery shelves the way the neighborhood used to strip my grandfather's little store for the credit that drove him bankrupt when the First World War broke out. When the tourists go, they leave the town a still and exhausted body after their orgy.