by Belva Plain
“That’s all the more reason for me to thank you for storing my books.”
“No problem at all. As soon as my mother heard from you about the sudden change you’re making, and your troubles with the apartment lease, and your worries about your books, she got this idea.” Lily laughed. “Leave it to Emma Webster, everybody says. A problem-solver if there ever was one! She got right on the phone and demanded our attic.”
“I hope my mother didn’t ask for it!”
“Of course she didn’t, I’ve just told you. But we’re pleased to do it. Think nothing of it, Andrew.”
“It’s a great relief, Mrs. Blair. I didn’t want to store them in a warehouse. Here I feel they’re safe. They’re my dearest possessions, all I own. Books my dad owned—he was a collector—and every book I’ve bought through the years. I guess you’d say I’m a collector, too.”
She didn’t know why she felt what she was feeling; a strain of sadness in the young man’s quiet, otherwise unremarkable manner.
“So where are you going? Chicago?”
“Temporarily, perhaps. There’s a chance of a job there, I think.”
“Just pulling up stakes and leaving Rufus Max? I should imagine that’s a highly desirable job.”
It was a few moments before he replied. His long gaze, lingering on the greenery beyond the window, now emphasized the sadness.
“Yes, if that’s what you want to make of your life,” he said then. “Max is a keen observer of the local scene, practically a detective, and I certainly respect him. But I got tired of it all, investigations of banking fraud and political scandals and baffling suicides—all of it. I hope eventually to travel abroad and get a look at world affairs. Just vanish for a while.”
“Suicides?” Lily was curious. “You investigated suicides?”
“Not often, fortunately. Just important ones. Like that lawyer, Robb MacDaniel, for instance.”
Really, she ought to drop the subject. But she was somehow unable to, and she pressed it, saying vaguely, “Yes, he was a prominent man, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, that he was. But you’d never know it when you met him. He had a way of showing real interest in you when he talked to you. I’ve thought—of course I knew him very slightly—that perhaps all his troubles had softened him, the divorce, the retarded child, the financial crash—” His voice died away with a note almost mournful.
You knew him more than slightly, Lily thought, and wondered.
“His death was a real loss.”
Why was he telling her all this?
“He was an exceptional human being, Mrs. Blair.”
This young man was now making her uncomfortable. She was relieved when he pushed his cup away, rose, and began to depart.
“I’ve a long drive back and I’m flying out first thing in the morning, so will you excuse me?”
The proper good-bye, the repeated thanks, the cordial regards to Dr. Blair, who was at work, and the farewell wave as Andrew’s aged little car started, all these took the expected few minutes, after which Lily returned to the kitchen.
Washing the cups at the sink, she thought how odd it was that recently, after all these years, Robb had come back out of the blue. The confusion within herself was odd, too. There were so many pictures floating past her eyes that she seemed to be turning pages in an album: Robb in a stiff new suit at the high school prom (he had given her a corsage of rosebuds), Robb in the neighbor’s hayloft (it had rained, and they had lain there all one afternoon), Robb in all his moods, in all his brave youth.…
How could he have ended that way? Destroyed by his own bullet, as the newspaper so graphically, so unnecessarily described it? Lily didn’t know. Memory, pity, sorrow—all went swirling without comprehension.
The only sound that came through the open window was the intermittent cluck of the hens, Walter’s precious hens. She must go right now to replenish their water. Dear Walter! Out of all that old, old pain this love, this joy had come to her! How to explain it except perhaps to say quite simply that it was the hand of fortune?
And she went outside into the green and drowsy afternoon.
Eddy, as expected, had put his mind to his job. In a matter of weeks, by canvassing the neighborhood where Andrew had lived, he found someone who still had an address in an old notebook. Andrew had once given it to be used in case of an accident so that certain people down in the southernmost part of the state might tactfully notify his mother in England.
The very next day after receiving the information, Julie’s letter lay on the table beside the telephone. It was a long letter, but not too long, because having once begun, it hastened to the point: She had said awful things, perhaps unforgivable things, so he might not want to forgive her; she had been dreadfully unhappy about her father, but about him also; she understood that his actions had been justified, even kind; she wondered whether, in this long year’s time, he had found someone else, but she prayed not because she loved him; even in her first anger, she had not really stopped loving him, and she knew that now.
This letter, already sealed and stamped, lacked only an address. So with her heart in her mouth, as the saying goes, she picked up the telephone and made the call.
A man answered. Yes, he was Walter Blair. Yes, he knew something about Andrew Harrison. And who was she? A friend of Andrew’s? A very close friend? But then surely he would have given his address to a very close friend. So it was a most important personal matter? That might well be true, but Andrew Harrison had left strict instructions not to give out any information about him. The fact was that Andrew Harrison had had enough to do with newspaper scandal and wanted no more of it. This was not newspaper scandal? But she was giving no proof of that. He did not mean to be rude, but pleading would do no good. He was sorry, and that was that.
* * *
“It’s a pity,” Ellen said when Julie reported the conversation. “Of course we can’t count on your getting back together with Andrew, but at least if you knew where he was, you could find out, one way or the other, and make peace with yourself.”
“Maybe,” Philip suggested, “you ought to go directly to the Blair house, just ring the doorbell and try your luck. When he sees you in person, Julie, he may relent.”
She considered the proposal. “That makes sense, I guess. Still, though I’m not known to be particularly shy”—and she smiled—“I’ll feel uncomfortable appearing at somebody’s house right out of the blue.”
“But it just might work,” Ellen urged. “And if it doesn’t, all you’ll have lost is a day’s journey, and we’ll try some other way.”
Her state of mind as Julie took the wheel of Ellen’s little car, that never-aging jewel, was reflective. She had a sense of moving back through personal history, past the office where Dad had reigned behind his desk, past the columned courthouse where he had made his impressive pleadings, then around the familiar park toward Andrew’s street, and finally onto the highway, the straight road south.
Harvest had barely begun. Wherever country met town, the roadside stands were crammed with corn and fruit and zinnias, bringing to mind the farm that Dad, when she was a child, had used to describe so vividly that she had been able to imagine herself living there, too. A sign announcing the distance to Marchfield gave her such a startle that the car slowed down. Was it perhaps at this intersection that the dreadful accident had happened? If not for that, Dad said, he would no doubt have spent the rest of his life in one of these quiet towns with its long main street, the war memorial, and its consolidated high school.
Then, almost surely, his story would not have ended as it had. Then she, Julie MacDaniel, would not exist. Hardly a tragedy for the world, she thought wryly, but rather a loss for me.
Her mood, as she progressed, was variable. It was hopeful; certainly she would convince Mr. Blair that she was not a reporter and that she really deserved to have Andrew’s address. Her mood was depressed; she would obtain the address only to find that Andy had lost interest in her; inde
ed, he had already found somebody else.
There was an intimidating aspect to all this flat space around her. When the land is so level, Dad told her, that you can see the horizon in an unimpeded circle, then you can actually, in your body, feel Galileo’s truth that the earth is a ball revolving around the sun. The concept, though drastic, was uncomfortable on this particular morning. Already insecure, she did not need to feel herself riding a huge ball through the infinite sky. She needed to stand on something solid.
Some miles later, shortly past noon, the town of Canterbury proclaimed its existence on Main Street’s shop fronts: Canterbury Market, Canterbury Shoe Repair, and Canterbury Post Office. There she stopped to ask where Walter Blair lived.
The place was not far off. Suddenly convinced that this was after all a foolish undertaking, she wished it were farther. Now here it was, a large, plain house, neither rich nor poor, but well kept and comfortable under live oaks in an extensive yard. On the front door there was a doctor’s sign: WALTER BLAIR, M.D. Bravely, she mounted the few steps and rang the bell.
The door was opened promptly. Julie’s thoughts scattered between her own uncertainty and a humorous impression that, with his pepper-and-salt hair and conservative smile, this man could perfectly play the part of a country doctor.
“The office entrance is on the side of the house,” he said pleasantly.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t look—”
“And my hours start at two.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, but you see I’m not … I haven’t come as a patient. It’s a personal matter. You may remember, we spoke on the telephone about Andrew Harrison’s address? I thought perhaps if we could talk face-to-face—”
The doctor was astonished. “You’ve come all this distance to ask me again? It means that much to you?”
“Yes, I—” A lump was forming in her throat. For heaven’s sake, buck up, she scolded herself. “Yes, we, we were very fond of each other, you see, and then something happened—”
He looked at her. A small smile crept to his eyes. “All right. Come in,” he said.
She had no sense of the room except that it had windows and chairs. Invited to sit down, she took a hard, straight-backed chair at the wall.
“I didn’t get your name, Miss—”
“Julie MacDaniel.”
“And you’re sure you’re not employed by a newspaper? Because for some reason that Andrew did not explain, he was, as I told you, determined about that.”
“I’m a graduate student, not employed by anybody. Believe me.”
“Well, you do look honest.”
“I am honest, Doctor.”
“Shall I take a chance that young Andrew won’t come back and shoot me?” He paused. “All right. I’ll take the chance. I’ve got the address upstairs. He’s someplace in Illinois.”
He stood up and went to the foot of the stairs, calling, “Lily, come down for a minute, will you, dear? There’s a young lady, Julie MacDaniel, here who wants Andrew Harrison’s address.”
Quick steps clicked on the uncarpeted stairs, and a small woman, rather pretty in a fussy, flowered cotton dress, entered the room with a piece of paper in her hand.
“This is Julie—you did say MacDaniel?”
“MacDaniel. Thank you so much,” Julie said. “I can’t tell you how I appreciate this.”
The woman was looking at her. “MacDaniel?” she repeated, as if the name were startling.
Oh yes, oh yes of course, she is remembering the name, although it’s not uncommon. But the suicide in the hotel room is something else. Hold your head up and face it, Philip says. If it was a sin, and who is to judge, it wasn’t your sin, Julie.
“The name is familiar to me.”
“Lily, there are other MacDaniels.” The husband seemed mildly disturbed. He probably wanted his lunch.
But the wife was now frankly staring at Julie with such intense curiosity on her pink, flushed face as to be really offensive. And Julie, halfway to the door and because she had what she wanted, no longer cared whether or not her annoyance showed. This was hardly the first time, after all, that somebody had made the connection.
“Yes, I am the daughter of the Robb MacDaniel who killed himself a year ago,” she said bluntly.
The Blairs were taken aback. There was a silence in the room until the woman said, “A terrible tragedy.”
There was another silence. It was time to go, yet this very small person standing between Julie and the door was blocking her way.
“That was not the reason I recognized the name, Miss MacDaniel,” she said. “There were MacDaniels in the area where I grew up.”
“Yes, my father came from this part of the state.”
“And another reason the name rang a bell is that I am familiar with Ellen MacDaniel’s books. I work at the county’s main library, mostly in the children’s department.”
“Ellen MacDaniel is my mother.”
The doctor, joining the conversation, remarked that that was an interesting coincidence, but Miss MacDaniel had a long trip home, and—
His wife interrupted him. “That last book had great charm, I thought. And I thought it was wonderful that she is giving all the royalties to the cause of children with birth deformities.”
This praise of Ellen was touching, and Julie was regretful about her own hasty judgment of the woman. Feeling then that she should not make too abrupt a departure, she remarked briefly that her mother’s desire was to see that every disabled child should have the same quality of life that her retarded brother now had.
“My brother, that is,” she added. And spontaneously, as if the thought had come out of the heart of memory, she added further, “It meant so much to my father, too, on account of his own retarded brother.”
“Your father? I didn’t know.… It’s my mother who was acquainted with the family, not I.… As I said, it was a farming town.… People knew each other … and when this tragedy was in the news last year, she recalled the family.… As I said, it was all before my time, I mean before they moved from where they had been living.… You’re sure about the brother?”
Now this curiosity was really going too far. It was plain nosy. Still, Julie responded very nicely, “Quite sure,” and moved nearer to the front door.
At the same time Mrs. Blair went toward the stairs. “Mother!” she called. “Do come here and meet Julie MacDaniel. She’s from the MacDaniel family that you used to know. My mother is here visiting,” she added unnecessarily.
So Julie, snared within a few feet of the exit, came under new scrutiny. These people were obviously fascinated by the publicity and the drama of the suicide. They would like, if they could, to pump her dry. Well, she just wasn’t going to be pumped.
Mrs. Webster, the mother, was another with startled eyes. She was examining Julie.
“Mother, do you remember any retarded child in the MacDaniel family?”
“No. Whoever said there was one?”
To seize upon a perfectly innocuous remark this way! It was absurd.
“Miss MacDaniel is in a hurry,” the doctor said.
But the older woman, persisting, held up her hand. “In a minute. Since we were neighbors long ago, I admit I’m inquisitive about this. The only brother I know of was born ten years ahead of your father, Miss MacDaniel, and there wasn’t a thing wrong with him. On the contrary, he was an unusually bright little boy. He was already beginning to read when he was four years old.”
At this Julie became interested. “I don’t understand,” she said. “I always heard that he was born like that.”
“Well, I do understand,” Mrs. Webster snapped.
We don’t like each other, Julie thought.
“It’s quite another story, miss. The boy had a severe head injury when he was five. It was New Year’s Eve, and his father, who liked his drink, fell down the stairs with the boy in his arms. The father was bruised, but the child bled severely inside his head and was never right after that. So when they moved to
Marchfield among strangers, they passed him off as being backward, and the father became a teetotaler. That’s the story, and that’s the truth. I know what I’m talking about,” she finished, as though someone had contradicted her.
“My God,” Julie whispered. “What happened to him? How did he die?”
“Luckily for him, he died of pneumonia about a year later. So if you don’t need me, Lily, I’m busy. I’m going back upstairs.”
What is it about me that angers her? Julie wondered. She certainly made no attempt to hide it, with those cold eyes and cold courtesy.
The doctor and his wife must have been embarrassed about that, too, because they walked halfway to the curb with her, as if to make amends. They were happy to have given her the address she wanted, and they wished her a safe trip home.
While the doctor went to his office, Mrs. Blair seemed to want to linger. She took great pains to describe a shortcut out of Canterbury. She mentioned Andrew’s books—a surprise to Julie, of course—and would have gone on if Julie had waited, to tell of the day he had brought them there. What a very nice young man he was.…
But Julie, in a rush to get away, could not possibly have guessed what was going on in the other woman’s head.
How pretty she is! Do I see something of Robb in her? Not much; she must resemble her mother. Although perhaps the mouth? The effect of a scallop on the upper lip? And there definitely is a glow about her that is like his, an urge to hurry, and enjoy, and accomplish … If I had married Robb would I have a girl like her? Or a boy like the brother? Or would I be childless as I am now? I don’t think I would be as contented as I am now, anyway.…
Julie looked through the rearview mirror. Mrs. Blair was still standing there at the curb. A sweet woman, she was, a person you might like to know. But too curious. Talked too much. And the old woman had been hostile. All in all, this had been an unusual experience. An extraordinary experience! That poor child’s dreadful fall downstairs! The lie that colored Dad’s life! Strange … Strange. It made you wonder how many other lies in this world are left to grow and swell until they are accepted as the truth.
