chicken, and green bean salad and coleslaw, and soft dinner rolls with butter sticks piled up and jelly in a little dish, and pies and cake for dessert – and the singing had been riveting. He found himself wishing he could blend in unnoticed. It would be nice to be black, he thought, if only for the afternoon.
He had some friends at school, though not many, since he was quiet there in a way that would have been unthinkable at home. He was happiest now, anyway, with Duval, since his friendship took place under the loving eye of Vanetta, the closest thing to a mother he had. When he was invited to a sleepover by his classmate Ernie Dreisbach, he told his father he didn’t want to go.
‘You sure?’
‘Not unless he invites Duval.’
‘But Ernie doesn’t even know Duval.’
‘Then I don’t want to go.’
A few minutes later he found his father in his study, in the short hall off the kitchen. ‘Dad, could Duval sleep over here sometime?’
‘Don’t you see enough of Duval during the week? Besides, we haven’t really got room. I can’t make Mike sleep on the sofa in the living room so you two little monkeys can raise Cain all night.’
What was Cain? ‘Then maybe I could go sleep over at Duval’s.’
‘That’s not a good idea,’ his father said.
This usually signalled the end of any discussion, but this time Bobby didn’t give up. ‘Why isn’t it a good idea, Dad?’
His father sighed. ‘There aren’t any white people where Duval lives.’
‘But there aren’t any black people here.’
His father’s silence told him he had won the argument; it also told him it was not a victory he was going to get to enjoy.
Merrill was an increasing presence in the household. Bobby knew by now that she was a widow, and that her husband had been a surgeon at the university hospital. Like her husband, Merrill was from New England, which she never let the Midwestern riffraff she was now surrounded by forget.
Bobby was sure she disapproved of Duval spending so many afternoons there. Sensing this, Bobby was at pains to keep a low profile for his friend, but sometimes he forgot himself. One dinner time he announced, ‘Duval says Negroes are better at music than white people.’
Merrill raised an eyebrow at his father.
Lily clucked derisively. ‘Name a famous Negro concert pianist.’
‘I’m not sure he could name a white one,’ his father said mildly.
Mike stifled a laugh as Bobby frowned. His grandmother had taken him to a concert in Orchestra Hall the spring before. He said tentatively, ‘Daniel Barenberg?’
‘Barenboim,’ corrected Lily, but Bobby could tell she was surprised.
‘Well done,’ said his father.
At dessert they were talking about Vietnam again, Lily saying it was an evil war, while his father stiffened. Bobby knew his father didn’t like the war either, but he seemed to hate the draft dodgers even more. He said the protests were unpatriotic; when he saw demonstrators on the television news it put him in a bad mood. But tonight seemed okay; Merrill’s presence always kept all of them on their best behaviour.
Eventually Bobby thought he should make a contribution to the conversation. ‘Duval says—’ he began.
‘Duval says, Duval says,’ his father thundered. ‘If I hear one more time what a little coloured boy thinks about world events . . .’ He paused, and Merrill interrupted, speaking in her soothing, syrupy voice.
‘Don’t you have any other friends, Bobby?’
After this, he knew not to talk about Duval at the dinner table.
That first spring, Duval had said he didn’t like baseball, which Bobby could understand since he saw at once that Duval was no good at it. He claimed he was good at basketball – B-ball be my game, he said – but when Bobby took him down the block to visit his friend Eric, whose father had put up a basketball hoop in their back alley, Duval turned out to be absolutely hopeless. He was fumbling, and near-sighted, and without any hand-to-eye coordination. Eric ran Duval ragged, dribbling around him almost contemptuously, laying the ball up for an easy two points again and again.
After that they stayed home and played baseball. At first, Duval couldn’t hit the ball, so the score was lopsided. It wasn’t much fun – the opposite of playing with Mike, who won every single time, which made Bobby understand now why Mike didn’t often want to play with him. Then he had a small inspiration, and pitched underhand to Duval, softball style, and Duval could hit