by Belva Plain
“Go home and ask her. She will tell you. Sally does not lie, I think, and certainly not to you.”
Dan’s hands were covering his face. The gasps had become dry sobs. “I never thought … Are you such an evil man that you would concoct a story like this? I never thought … we were like brothers … better than some brothers.”
Ian laid a hand on Dan’s shoulder and now he, too, was close to sobbing.
“But listen to me: Would I concoct a story like this to hurt you? You of all people, Dan? There are only three houses on that road. None of them owns a Jeep like hers, and anyway I saw her face and that sheepskin hat she wears. I had my brights on in all that storm and I saw her. So help me God, I did. But you needn’t worry, needn’t fear; no one will ever know. No one has known in all these weeks. Two months it’s been. Go home and ask her. She’ll tell you the truth.”
My Sally! My wife! Dan thought. As if he has to tell me she won’t lie to me! Sally, an open book with everything writ clear!
He pulled himself out of the chair. “I’m going home,” he said, taking his coat from the hook. At the door he turned around to Ian. “I wish I never had to see you again.”
He closed the bedroom door and locked it against any interruption. Sally was reading on the sofa.
“What’s that on your face?” she cried.
“Dried blood. My cousin Ian and I had a little altercation, fancy word for a damn big blowup.”
“You came to blows? Whatever for?”
“Well, I’ll tell you. I guess I have to tell you.” He was still shaking. “He dared to say—he dared—that you killed Oliver.”
So here it was, just neatly taken out of her hands. Well, hadn’t she been telling herself that somebody, something, somehow always turns up? She felt slightly faint. Yet she was able to speak calmly.
“What makes him think so?”
“He says he recognized your car, and you, on the road leaving Red Hill.”
She had never expected to be found out by anyone literally that close to home. As Happy would say: You never know, do you. She laid her head back and closed her eyes.
“Oh, Dan, it’s true.”
There was a long, long silence. When she opened her eyes, he was standing there, still with his overcoat on, just looking at her out of eyes, a face, that you see on television when, in Bosnia or some other godforsaken place on this bloodied globe, you see a father or a mother holding a dead child. And then suddenly he fell on his knees and put his arms around her, burying his face in her lap.
“Oh my God, oh my darling.”
Presently, she began to talk. It seemed to her that her own voice was coming from far away.
“On the day that Amanda came,” she began, “and told me the things that you have not been willing to believe, but will now have to believe—”
Then it seemed to her that she had been talking for hours before she reached the end: “If you had been here with Amanda, there would have been no doubt in your mind. Believe me, Dan. And if you had heard Tina, and seen, above all, seen, what she showed me.”
For an instant, when he raised his head, she did not recognize him; in three minutes—or was it five, or was it a century?—he had grown old. His eyes were seeing not Sally, his wife, or anything in the room; they were staring into some unfathomable black hole where all belief, all trust, all faith had vanished. Ah, she knew!
“It’s true, Dan, undeniably true. Tina told me herself. I didn’t suggest or hint or plant ideas in any way. I only listened to her words and saw her gestures. They were unmistakable. Her account and Amanda’s were identical, even though one had been twelve years old and the other was five.”
“Five!” Dan got up. He walked to the chest of drawers, on which stood a wedding photograph, a group of twenty people or more, ushers and bridesmaids, cousins and siblings—although not Amanda—surrounding the bride and groom with Sally’s parents next to her and Uncle Oliver next to him. They always joked about their royal wedding party.
“All it lacks is the balcony at Buckingham Palace,” they said, laughing at themselves and liking it, nevertheless.
“How is it possible?” Dan cried now. “How is it possible?” And Sally knew he must be examining Oliver’s fine face. When he turned around, he was weeping. “Five years old.”
“Yes,” she repeated, “the same story, the silver carousel—who wouldn’t, especially what child, wouldn’t be fascinated? A bribe for silence, a threat of punishment. That’s how it was.”
“And he, he couldn’t deny it?”
“He tried, but he knew he’d been driven to the wall. So he made his last attempt to back me down. He was going to blame you.”
“To say that I—hurt Tina?”
“Yes, that was when I started smashing things. I threw the gun, pistol, revolver—I don’t know what it was. He’d been polishing all the metal things. It was loaded.”
She couldn’t bear the way he looked. Never before had she seen his tears. She ran to him and put her arms around him thinking only, What is to become of him and our babies when they take me away? Because now that Ian knows, they will. If not tomorrow, then next week or next month, but they will.
And with his tears on her cheeks, she murmured, “Dr. Lisle says Tina will be all right. Just keep her going there. It’s the right place. And I’m sure Happy will help you with the children. And my mother will come for a while.”
He let her go. Horrified, he demanded, “What are you saying? You’re not going anywhere! What are you talking about?”
“Darling, you know what will happen to me. For God’s sake, I’ve killed a man!”
“Nothing is going to happen to you. I swear to you I will not let it.”
“It won’t be up to you. If Ian knows, soon others will.”
“Ian won’t tell. It’s already been two months. If he had wanted to, he would have done it by now.”
She didn’t believe it, and doubted whether Dan believed it either. The gray fortress-prison on the hill was looming nearer.
“You’ve kept this since before Christmas … why did you … I don’t know how you lived with it … you’re made of iron.”
“What are you doing?” she asked, while he was unbuttoning her sweater.
“Undressing you. Putting you to bed. Look at you, your ribs are showing. You’re cold, you’re sick and you never told me, never asked for help.” He bustled about the room, fetching a quilted bed jacket, drawing the curtains, turning down the bed. “I’m going to bring up something to eat. Just rest.”
“I’m not hungry. Honestly, I can’t eat.”
“You have to eat. I’ll open a can of soup. Soup and a sandwich, a cup of tea. You’re freezing. It’s nerves. I’ll tell Nanny to put them to bed and leave you alone.”
He was frantic.
Late that night, lying awake, he protested, “You are not going to admit anything. I won’t let you.”
“You know I’ll have to. It will come to that. I will be better off if I make a clean, voluntary confession before I am forced to.”
“No!”
“Dan, please. It doesn’t help me for you to get so excited.”
“Okay, I’ll say it calmly. Let me appeal to you for Tina’s sake. We both agree that it will be hard for her to be labeled a victim. She’ll be growing up here, and why should every kid in school find out what happened to her? If he—I can’t say the name—were alive, it would be different. We’d bring him to public justice and let everything else be damned. The most I can do right now is go down to the cemetery and curse him.” Dan groaned. “And the best we can do for Tina is to keep this quiet. We’ve agreed.”
“I wouldn’t have to say anything about her or Oliver. I would simply say that I went to talk to him about Amanda, to make peace between them, and the pistol went off accidentally—”
Dan groaned again. “In weather like that, in the dark and alone, you found it absolutely necessary to drive all those miles to talk about making peace with Amanda. It couldn’t possibly hav
e waited till daylight, at least? And you expect anybody in his right mind to believe a cock-and-bull story like that?”
“They can believe it or not. I can’t go on living this way. The weight is too heavy. It seems to me that wherever I go people are pointing at me, ‘That woman killed a man,’ they’re thinking. It’s like wearing a brand, a scarlet letter.”
He stroked her forehead. “It’s your conscience, your sturdy, healthy conscience. Ask it what you’ll do to Tina and Susannah if you confess.”
Too tired to speak any further, she whispered, “No more. We can talk tomorrow. I think maybe I can sleep a little.”
“All right, but promise me you will keep this between us two only, that you’ll do nothing without me.”
“I promise.”
“Because if you don’t promise, I won’t leave the house. I won’t go to work, I’ll not let you out of my sight.”
“I promise,” she said again. “Now let me sleep.”
* * *
Dan said, “I struck you, Ian, and I’ve come to say I’m sorry, because you were right. It was Sally.”
His collar was too tight, he was choking, and ripping it open, he flung his tie on the floor.
Ian got up from his chair and retrieved it. Then he went to a cabinet, poured brandy into a glass, and gave it to Dan.
“Here, take this, you need it. You’re dead white.”
“I haven’t slept. She did, for the first time in weeks. I don’t know why I didn’t notice how she was suffering. I love her so.” And Dan turned away to hide his tears.
“Sit down. Take it easy.”
“She’s going to turn herself in. She wants to. I won’t let her, but she will anyway. Her conscience, she says. But it was an accident!”
“Take it easy, take another swallow. Then tell me what this is all about.”
“Anyone can have an accident. Isn’t that so, isn’t it?”
“I ask you again, what is this all about?”
“She went there to talk business. To make peace between Oliver and Amanda. He was cleaning guns—pistols—and when she touched it, it went off.”
“That’s not the truth,” Ian said.
“It is the truth, it is.”
“No. But I can’t force you to tell it if you refuse.”
The muscles in Dan’s cheeks were working; he felt as if every muscle in his body was jumping. Only his brain was paralyzed. And the two men, who yesterday had been grappling with each other, sat motionless, staring at each other.
“Sally is not mentally ill, so she had a reason,” Ian said. “What is it?”
“I can’t tell you.” Had they not agreed to shield Tina, to tell no one what their child had suffered? And a picture flared: little Tina, black braids, red ribbons, ruffled panties under her skirt, being fouled, fouled—
“I wish I could raise him from the dead and pull him apart,” he shouted in an agony of hatred. “With these hands, these two hands.”
Ian leaned forward across his desk, as if he were ready to leap over it. “Since it’s my father whom you’re talking about, I have a right to know. Tell me now.”
So Dan told him. He was usually a fluent speaker, impatient of inaccuracies and hesitations, but this was different and he barely stumbled through what had to be said. He had, as he spoke, an odd sensation that these walls were incredulous, accustomed as they were to simple talk of weights, freights, and tariffs, of cereal and coffee.
When he finished, there Was a long silence, during which Ian cleared his throat once and Dan, careful not to look up at the other man’s face, looked down to the floor and the black polished tips of Ian’s shoes. The other man, the son. It would not have been at all surprising if Ian had risen in fury from his chair and shouted his outraged denial. In fact, Dan half expected him to.
Instead, he said only, “I am at a loss.”
At that, Dan raised his head. “I am too,” he replied.
There was another silence. Then Ian got up and went back to the liquor cabinet.
“I never drink in the morning. Actually, I don’t really drink at all, but I need it.”
Dan watched him, thinking that this quiet was unreal. And he said abruptly, “You don’t challenge me! You just accept. Or am I wrong about accepting?”
“I want to say I don’t believe you. I want to say it’s insane, that you’re insane, or that Amanda is. I know I’ve said a hundred times when I was disgusted with her that she’s crazy, but of course I know she isn’t. And Sally is certainly no hysteric.” He wiped his forehead.
Dan said gently, “Sally says Oliver didn’t exactly deny anything. I guess he was cornered, what with Amanda and Tina giving the same account.”
“Yes, it’s laid out pretty clearly, isn’t it? And I’m a quick study.”
That was true. Ian’s mind was like the proverbial steel trap, that quick to grasp, that sharp.
“Yes, the child, Amanda, the doctor, even the damned carousel.” He went over and laid a hand on Dan’s shoulder. “I’m trying to take it all in. It’s sort of too big to fit inside your head, isn’t it? Of course, it’s not the same for me as for you with a little girl, but still—”
He walked away again and stopped in the center of the room, with his back to Dan. His shoulders shook, and Dan knew that he was crying. Proud, he thought, Ian is prouder than I am. And that thought in some way filled him with pity.
Then he heard Ian talking, perhaps only to himself. “A sickness, a crippling sickness, even priests … they must hate themselves … such disgust …” Then he whirled about. “Nobody must know! Let his name be clean. For all the good he did, let him at least have a clean name. I know you can’t care about that, though why should you?”
“No, I can hardly care about his name. Tell me, why did you keep it a secret when all the time you knew that Sally was the one?”
“Because he asked me to.”
“He—asked?”
“Yes, he was dying when we found him, shot in the chest, bleeding from the mouth. He knew me. I bent over him and he said—he could barely talk, but he was quite distinct—‘Nobody, no fault, no blame. You hear?’ He even repeated ‘You hear?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I promise. Nobody’s fault. I hear you.’ And then he died.”
“Jesus,” Dan said. “You’re sure you heard it right?”
“I’m hardly apt to forget that scene.”
“Did Happy hear it?”
“No, she was in the hall telephoning for help.”
“So you kept the promise,” Dan said. “But then yesterday you broke it. Why?”
Ian looked him straight in the eye. “Frankly, I was furious that you went back on your word about the sale. It flashed through my mind that if I were to tell you about Sally, you would pay me back by doing what I want, that you would appreciate my having kept quiet during all the investigation.”
“Yes,” Dan said, with a bitter smile, “quid pro quo.”
“Just about.”
“Well, but if I were unwilling to pay you back, you would have told.”
“Not at all. Never. I swear I would not. What good would it do to send Sally to prison, or even to risk a prison sentence? Wrecking your children wouldn’t bring Father back.” He mused. “Even if it hadn’t been an accident.”
“It was an accident, Ian.”
“All right, I believe you. I also know that plenty of people would say he deserved it, accident or not.”
To that Dan gave no answer. Deserved it! My baby girl! And again came that image: black braids, red ribbons, chubby legs in white socks. Once more his eyes filled; he hadn’t had wet eyes since the day of his parents’ funeral.
“What’s the use?” cried Ian, throwing up his hands. “It’s over. The harm can’t be undone. He’s buried, along with the good he did and the harm he did. We can’t bring him back; if I could, I would beg him to tell me why. For God’s sake, why? But there’s no answer.… I suppose you’ve taken Tina someplace to repair the damage.”
“Yes
, and we’d appreciate it if you kept that strictly to yourself. We don’t want Tina to become a public victim.”
“You don’t have to tell me, Dan. Do you think I would hurt your kid? Well, we grew up together. I’ve got my ways, but I’ve got my limits, too.”
It was overwhelming. Mind and body, accustomed to a predictable routine, an orderly environment, all the ingredients of respectability and responsibility, needed more than the last twenty-four hours to comprehend that a bomb had been dropped upon the Greys of Hawthorne.
And Dan looked around the room where three generations of those Greys had done their work. His glance stopped at a vase of daffodils on Ian’s desk; they were a reminder that the days had been growing longer and that the grim sky outside would again turn blue. Spring. But for us, he asked himself, what spring?
“She wants to give herself up,” he said abruptly.
“She can’t do that. There’s no sense in it.”
“She says she can’t live with herself.”
“Let me talk to her.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Dan—”
“Yes?”
“It’s suddenly become so unimportant, but—we have to give those people an answer.”
“About the sale.” His mind had been so far from the woods and the sale that he had to jerk it back into focus. And he made a neutral palms-up gesture, saying, “It doesn’t matter to me, except that I promised Clive.”
“An academic problem. He won’t be here much longer, poor guy, as I’ve already said.”
“I don’t know about that, but if it’s so, that sort of gives you the answer, doesn’t it?”
“Okay. Then we’ll wait. They’re not coming for another month, anyway.”
“Do you still want the money that badly?” Dan asked curiously.
“Twenty-eight million, brother. Half goes to the IRS, then divide the other half among us and—”
Funny how a man can be so large-minded as Ian had shown himself to be just now and still be so greedy! It must be some gene, like having a gift for music or an allergy to shrimp.
He finished Ian’s sentence: “And you would still have a fortune, more than you need.”
“I hate to say this, Dan, but if Sally does anything foolish, you’ll need every cent of that and more for lawyers.”
