by Gwen Moffat
‘She hates him.’
‘No, she’s – contemptuous.’
‘Lois!’ They were at the first bend in the trail and they halted on the elbow. ‘How can you live with a guy who’s so neurotic, so’ – he had to search for the words – ‘so rabidly exhibitionist he’s compelled to – demonstrate to his own wife that he’s a pervert and a killer, a man who makes passes – who tries to seduce his own step-daughter— ’
‘No, no!’ Lois laughed.
‘Don’t laugh!’
She shook her head. ‘I have to, what else can I do? He didn’t try to seduce Grace; he said she tried to seduce him.’
‘That’s worse. That’s sick. So why— ’
‘That’s why, Chester.’ She was suddenly serious.
‘You’re sorry for him.’ All the heat was gone. They had both quietened. It was an old and familiar argument and now they fell into a kind of shorthand where there was no necessity to fill the gaps.
‘Other women have loved rogues,’ she said.
‘He knows you backwards.’
‘You have a strong sense of responsibility too.’
‘There are limits.’
‘Grace is all right.’
‘You put him first.’
‘She stands on her own feet. He can’t.’
‘That’s over the top, my dear.’
She didn’t respond, and the trail, narrowing as it zigzagged down from the back of the headland, forced them into silence. She led now, he followed, and both watched their footing.
From here there was no view but the great firs were so widely spaced that vegetation covered the slopes, chequered by light and soaking wet from the fog. Drops of moisture flashed with tiny rainbows, scarlet gilia hung frail lamps against the gloom, a woodpecker hammered a rotten stump. The walkers were oblivious, lost in thought.
A hundred feet above the cove they emerged from the trees to ground which, although brushy, allowed them glimpses of the village. Close below them, at the foot of a crumbling brown cliff, the sea stacks, white with guano, rose ragged but majestic from water that was navy above rock, jade above the sand. The tide was full and most of the visitors had left rather than sit on weedy rocks which were all that remained at high water. For this reason Sundown was not a popular resort for family holidays; in fact it was not a resort at all, merely a scatter of cottages on the coast highway.
The village had grown by chance. There had been a small farm here – no one could call it a ranch when the grazing amounted to no more than a few acres cleared from the brush – and in the twenties the owner had sold the land in lots. People built cottages and a few wealthy latecomers cleared trees and carved ledges out of the mountain to build places so secluded that they showed only a gleam of glass here and there, or a trail of smoke from a chimney. No one farmed in Sundown any more and no one was a native but then, as the residents would point out, who was native in these United States? Even the Indians came from Asia by way of the Bering land bridge. People in Sundown were touchy, feeling that outsiders might regard them as a community of retired folk, of middle-aged drifters, second-rate artists and others out to make a fast buck from the summer visitors.
‘Not much money about,’ Lois observed now, looking over the blackberry bushes to the cove. ‘Jason’s closed the store. There he is: sitting on a log at the mouth of the creek. What d’you think he’s reading? Louis l’Amour, I’ll be bound. He should be running to Fin Whale Head; he’s getting very fat.’
‘It can’t be helped when Mabel Sykes stuffs her menfolk like steers in a feed-lot, but he’s a clever boy; you’re the one says he has a good brain.’
‘That boy is thirty-five if he’s a day. He’s clever but he’s got no application. And he doesn’t care. He’s got no ambition, he’s not the slightest bit vain; look at him now: no shirt on. How can anyone expose all that flab to the public?’
‘He’s conditioned. He probably thinks we’re anorexic.’
‘Boligard’s not fat. He’s paunchy just.’
‘Boligard doesn’t count. Jason’s Momma’s boy.’
Lois looked at him sharply. ‘You’re getting very perceptive. Perception’s my department.’
‘There are times when I wonder if you are all that perceptive.’ She gaped at him. He went on easily, ‘It stands out a mile; they don’t laugh at him but they do indulge him, and what can you expect? The cap, the trimmed white beard, the pale, piercing eyes: you see them all down the coast and round the Gulf: Hemingway lookalikes. If Boligard had the money he’d be out there big game fishing – if he had the skill. Because Hemingway did.’
‘Did Boligard upset you?’
‘Not particularly.’
They dawdled, eating the luscious blackberries. Ahead of them the dust on the trail turned to mud where a spring trickled down the slope. She laid a hand on his arm and his eyes widened as her fingers squeezed.
‘A garter,’ she whispered.
Coiled in the luminous shade of some showy asters was a small snake.
‘It shouldn’t be here,’ she said loudly, and the snake lifted its head, tasting the air.
‘Shouldn’t be here?’ he repeated, bewildered.
‘It’s obvious to anyone coming down the trail.’ The garter started to weave backwards carefully, crimson spots on its sides catching points of sunlight. ‘Beautiful,’ she said, peering close. ‘Each spot is only four or five scales.’
‘Watch it,’ he warned as the snake feinted delicately. ‘Maybe they bite.’
‘Pugnacious little beast.’ She straightened. ‘They bite. I saw one catch a lizard: like a cat pouncing on a chipmunk. This one can’t go until we back off; it needs to turn round.’
They moved away and the garter slid like water into the undergrowth. ‘Now he’s safe,’ Lois said with a small sigh. ‘Safe from men who think every snake is the devil incarnate.’
He made to speak and checked.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘I was going to say: you do get involved.’
‘Someone has to be involved. They can’t look after themselves; they have no defence against people. Man is a vicious predator, nothing else is. A fox gets in a chicken run, he don’t kill for fun; he kills out of panic. Nothing else kills for fun.’ She spat it out. ‘Sport,’ she said. ‘Recreation. Re-creation. You re-create yourself by killing? I was reading about some hit-man in Texas – Alabama, one of those places. The book – quite well written actually – said this guy’s recreation was killing rattlesnakes.’
He sighed and looked away.
She regarded the back of his head, a well-shaped head with thinning grey hair. ‘That’s your strength,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘You can ignore it.’
‘Not exactly, but it tears you apart: compassion, empathy; it takes all your energy.’ He turned and held her eye. ‘Did it never occur to you that you have the same attitude towards your husband that you might have for a rattlesnake?’
‘I have?’ She was startled, then she gave a snort of amusement. ‘He’s not dangerous. You got the wrong simile. He’s more like an abandoned dog – no, a stray cat: amoral, no feelings, but in need of a home, you know?’
‘Cats don’t have malice.’
‘No, but they get bored, they walk out, leave you for weeks at a time.’ She smiled wryly. ‘Cats don’t have loyalty either.’
They had resumed their slow progress down the trail but now she paused, studying the dust. ‘Grace was here. That’s right, she said she’d make a blackberry fool for dessert.’
‘That’s Grace’s shoe?’
‘Of course. A Vasque Clarion, size seven. I gave them to her for her birthday, remember? And she turns her right toe in slightly since she broke her leg skiing.’
‘You’re an amazing woman.’
‘Oh, come on, Chester! You can tell the difference between warblers’ songs.’
‘Not all of them – why, look who’s here. Hi, Miriam!’
A schnauzer came trotting round a bend followed by
a brown woman in shorts and T-shirt and running shoes. She was a tiny woman and although her hair was black, virtually jet-black, her face was scored with the tiny lines that old women collect when they have lived a long time in a hot dry country. She was, in fact, in her mid-seventies, stringy as a bean but with powerful legs. Now she raised an inquiring eyebrow and eyed them suspiciously.
‘I take it Grace is making all the preparations for the party.’
‘Why not?’ Lois was cool. ‘It’s my party.’
‘Oh, sure. Many happy returns. How does it feel?’
‘It feels good. It’s only men who die a little death at forty – present company excepted.’
‘Is that so?’ Miriam Ramet turned to Chester. ‘You never minded being forty?’
‘I never minded being anything. Serenity comes with age.’
‘You could have fooled me. Did Andy remember your birthday, Lois?’
‘Probably. We’ve been out since noon.’
‘What did you say he was doing now? My memory! It has to be Alzheimer’s.’
‘A screenplay,’ Lois told her. ‘Based on Fool’s Gold. I always wanted a movie made out of it.’
‘Oh, of all your books, dear. So he’s in Hollywood?’
‘He could be anywhere, chasing producers, directors, you name it. You know Andy.’
‘We all do,’ Miriam said sweetly, and started a careful jog up the easy gradient of the trail.
‘Miaou,’ Lois murmured as they continued downhill. ‘What do you think it was like: married to Miriam?’
‘For my money, fine, if you go for the type. She’s a good cook and when she accepts a man as her superior— ’
‘As her what? Miriam?’
‘ —then she’d be a dutiful wife: housewife, hostess, perhaps even companion.’
‘You think she had that kind of relationship with her husband?’
‘Definitely. That’s why she’s so bossy now, and catty. Bossy because she’s getting her own back for decades of being in a subordinate position, and catty because she envies you. You have a beautiful and successful daughter, you have youth yourself, and beauty, and you have men dancing attendance. Of course she’s envious; Miriam hates being old. It’s not fear of death but vanity. Her beauty didn’t last; she doesn’t have good bones. You, on the other hand, have everything.’ His tone had dropped and softened to a caress.
‘Chester! You never talked like this before. What’s come over you?’
‘Just because I don’t talk doesn’t mean I don’t have thoughts – about the neighbours.’
‘So why do you suddenly become articulate about them?’
‘Only in your presence. Because you’re forty today? You joined the club.’ He was smiling. She returned the smile, but absently. ‘I love you dearly,’ he said.
She grinned as if reassured. ‘But of course. I love you too. My, what a lot of reassurance we need. And what a pretty evening it is.’ Without a change of tone she switched subjects, regarding the cove and the hinterland with sparkling eyes. ‘I never noticed before how the houses creep up into the forest like little animals.’ She looked down to where an arc of wet sand showed. The tide had turned. ‘Those old logs,’ she said, ‘like bones of long-dead whales.’ She turned to him and her face was radiant. She took his hand. ‘Your mood’s infectious; I caught it too.’
‘You could do worse,’ he said, and they went on, laughing.
Chapter 2
The Keller place was one of the higher houses in the village, backing on to a long loop road that had been carved out of the slope and which provided access for vehicles. People wanting to go to the shore on foot used steep little paths through the chaparral between their gardens and the highway.
The Keller house was built of red cedar, walled and shingled, but the west wall was mostly glass so that the occupants looked out through the plumes of hemlocks to the cove and the stacks and the sea where, at the start of this bright still evening, the fog bank lurked some three miles out beyond the Devil’s Spine.
At the kitchen end of the huge open-plan room Grace Ferguson swore as she dropped an anchovy fillet.
‘Still working,’ chided her mother, coming in from the deck. ‘Go and change. I’ll do that.’
‘I’m finished. Lovejoy! Here, food! How was your hike?’
A black and white cat stalked across the parquet, sniffed at the anchovy and turned away.
‘The cape was fun,’ Lois said. ‘Were there any messages?’
‘Leo and Sadie may be a little late; something about trying to identify an owl over in Coon Gulch?’
‘A hiker reckons he saw a spotted last week.’
‘Isn’t that where they’re threatening to clear-cut? So if it’s a spotted, you got a problem. I hope you’re not going to spike trees again.’
‘I never did.’
‘That’s your story. Who put sugar in the loggers’ gas tanks?’
‘Yes, well … Did anyone else call?’
‘Oliver Harper came by, offering to help. I sent him on his way.’
‘He seems to have taken a shine to you.’
‘He’d better watch it then or Miriam will be giving him his marching orders. What was the term you used?’
‘Gigolo. We met Miriam on the trail. She wasn’t in a good mood.’
‘No wonder. Oliver was supposed to go running with her. He said he’s sprained his Achilles tendon.’
‘Don’t let it slip to Miriam that he was up here.’
‘Mom! You don’t owe Miriam anything, and so what if her boyfriend calls on a neighbour – is she that possessive she’ll make an issue of it?’
‘Yes, she is, and I have to live with her.’
‘You could thumb your nose at her.’ Grace opened the refrigerator and pushed a plate of canapés into the crammed interior. She slammed the door and wiped her hands on her apron. ‘You’re a rich successful lady,’ she said. ‘You did it all yourself, you don’t owe anybody anything.’ The emphasis was studied.
She met her mother’s eye and Lois turned away, saying over her shoulder as she made for the staircase at the end of the room, ‘So, no one else called?’
‘No.’ Grace stared after her, frowning, the little girl showing in the jutting lower lip, the angry eyes that loved her mother and deplored her behaviour: begging to know if her husband had remembered to call on her birthday.
As Chester Hoyle said, Grace was a beautiful girl. The long red hair, straight but of an unbelievable colour that was wholly natural, was caught back in a bow of blue ribbon but tendrils had escaped and clung to her damp neck. Her eyes were grey-green like Cumbrian slate, and her high cheekbones had only the faintest suggestion of a tan. Like all redheads she had to be careful of the sun. She was taller than her mother and on the thin side of slim: a model’s body, her friends told her, but there was muscle too. She was a stylish skier, unlike Lois who would career down the steepest slopes, ragged and fast, juddering on the turns, giving it everything she’d got.
The old longcase clock started to strike. Grace threw it a startled glance and dashed for the stairs. Behind her Lovejoy came in from the deck to see if anything had been left out, forgotten in the excitement. Parties for Lovejoy were treasure-trove. There was nothing on the tables now except silver and china and glasses; there would be pickings as soon as the people came, and talked, and turned their backs on canapés on low side tables. From upstairs came the sound of showers, and an occasional shout between open doors. Lovejoy found the patch of sunshine on the corner of the Bokhara under the piano and settled down to wait.
Chester came first, appearing without sound on the deck. ‘Hi, there,’ he called and walked in carrying a gift package. He wore a cream silk shirt, a scarlet cravat and black slacks. His hair was still damp and he looked neat and distinguished. Lois, running down the stairs in a white and gold caftan, smiled happily. ‘I meant to tell you not to wear a tie,’ she said. ‘You look just right.’
‘Many happy returns.’ He kissed her
cheek and gave her the package. It was a book.
‘You found it! Oh, Chester, how can I ever thank you? It’s a classic.’
‘What is it?’ Grace floated down the staircase in a cloud of Charlie and red chiffon. ‘Hi, Ches, you do look nice.’
‘You’re a vision,’ he said with sincerity. ‘I should have worn a tie.’
‘No sweat, it’s ladies’ night. And who else owns a tie in this neck of the woods anyway? Apart from Leo.’ She held out her hand for the book.
‘No, sweetie.’ Lois was firm. ‘It’s forensic medicine. Nasty pictures. Coloured.’
‘One of those? Yuk.’ She glanced at Chester and smiled. ‘Something you wanted, Mom?’ It was a cue.
‘More than anything.’ The doorbell rang. ‘Would you let them in, Chester?’ She slipped the book among others on a shelf and put on a party smile to welcome the guests while Grace started to unload the refrigerator.
When the party had been in swing for an hour Lovejoy stood up, stretched, and sniffed a flake of pastry which had just landed on the parquet. It smelled of fish. He moved forward and reared bonelessly to push his head past a fold of rosy tussore and closed large jaws on the remains of a lobster puff. Above him Miriam Ramet enthused about New Guinea. ‘Still very uncivilised,’ she was saying. ‘In the back country there are tribes who practise cannibalism yet. They say if you know where to go you can buy a shrunken head.’
‘Did you?’ Chester asked.
‘Of course not. What would I want with a shrunken head?’
