The Hard Blue Sky

by Shirley Ann Grau

  She said, because she had to find something to say: “You really been drinking.”

  And then she was sorry, and wondered if he was going to be offended. He was slow in answering and she tried to think of an apology.

  “I been drunker,” he said.

  “Nearly got yourself cut up.” She sipped and looked at him over the rim of the cup.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said softly.

  She watched him, sitting under the kerosene lamp, the yellow light making a kind of halo.

  “Tell me about your boyfriends,” he said suddenly.

  She frowned. And had a little flutter of panic. “You asked me that before.”

  “Tell me about the rest of it.”

  “I can’t do that,” Annie said.

  “Answer my questions?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Start with that tall thin fellow, the one tonight.”

  “Perique?”

  “Yea.”

  She laughed and her fear relaxed a little. “Oh, him …”

  “He’s your boyfriend?”

  “In a way.” She felt better now, now that she’d had time to think. She could remember now and tell him, tell him carefully so that there wouldn’t be any contradictions. She had thought it all out, long ago, all about the different ones who had been her lovers. She could close her eyes now and see some of them, she had imagined them so clearly. She could remember how they had kissed her even … but that was as far as she could feel. Even her daydreams had ended here. Had left her irritated.

  “What way?”

  “Huh?”

  “You heard me,” Inky said. “Don’t be a sneaky little bitch.”

  “Well,” she said and stared up at the carefully polished beams of the ceiling, “I didn’t go to bed with him.”

  She watched Inky carefully. Her answer had surprised him. His face showed it. She felt better, more confident.

  “He’s a nice boy,” she said, “but I just didn’t feel that way about him.”

  “You got to feel that way?”

  She said: “Don’t you?”

  “Sometimes,” he said.

  “And sometimes not?”

  “Finish your drink,” he said. “Don’t make me waste it.”

  She took another small sip.

  “Too strong?”

  “Hell no,” she said.

  “Where’d you learn words like that?”

  “Nowhere.” It was hot in the cabin. She wondered how he could sleep here.

  “In a convent?”

  “Maybe,” she said. He would live in this cabin, not the forward one—she was almost sure of that. But there wasn’t a sign of him anywhere—not a jacket nor a cap, not a paper nor a book. The cabin was clear and spotless, like a picture advertisement for a boat.

  “Tell me what it was like, in the convent.”

  “Sort of dull,” she said.

  “How many of the sisters made passes at you?”

  “Well …” she did not quite understand. She was afraid to say yes and she did not want to admit a no.

  Then she understood. “No,” she said quickly. “Course not.”

  She began to wish she had stayed home, that she’d stayed home and not started the evening at all. Whenever she looked back now, she’d have to remember the unpleasantness. It was this business of remembering that annoyed her.

  The evening had changed and there was a bad taste in her mouth.

  “Didn’t want to hurt your feelings,” Inky said, “I was just asking about what I’d heard.”

  “You know some funny people,” she said. She sounded peevish though she hadn’t meant to, and she was sorry.

  “Forget it,” Inky said.

  The first thing she knew she was crying was the little splash of a tear on her hand. She looked at it in surprise. “What sort of night is it?” She went and looked out the hatch, and wiped her eyes while her back was turned.

  “Come on,” he said. “Tell me more about your boyfriends.”

  “Well,” she said. And she turned her memory back on the big gray stone building, with its stained-glass windows in the long halls, and the little red glasses of vigil lights in all the corners, and the smell of furniture polish so strong in closed rooms you could hardly breathe. And Beatriz, lovely and old for her age, moving down the corridors with a slow step and a soft wiggle of her behind that no amount of nuns’ scoldings could change. Beatriz, with her heavy-lashed eyes, that she mascaraed secretly every morning.

  “No,” she said, “it wasn’t me.”

  But the more she thought the more she remembered: the dark wine-red color of Beatriz’s robe gliding down the black linoleum-floored hall. And the ring Beatriz had pinned to her bra. And the lights of the car flickering through the leaves and the trunks for just a second before they switched off.

  And looking back, she was Beatriz. She could feel her lips form the characteristic half-smile, sleepy and alert all at once. And when she turned away from the open hatch, she had the slow walk and the soft little wiggle.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Annie said and her voice had taken on a very faint accent.

  “Why not?”

  She sat down on the bunk and her fingers touched the left bra strap, the way Beatriz did.

  “It was sad,” she said, “and I don’t want to remember it.” She felt so confident now.

  “What happened?” Inky frowned in the effort to see her more clearly. “He go off with somebody else?”

  “Please. …” She hissed her s’s just slightly and looked away in disgust.

  “Why didn’t you keep him?”

  “There are some things—” she hesitated just a little, “beyond help.” That sounded good so she repeated the phrase: “Beyond help.”

  “Why?” He was pouring himself another drink. “He leave town or something?”

  She was fingering the little clasp on the strap; it could have been a ring. “He left—in a way.”

  “You sound like he died.”

  She was a little surprised: the idea had not occurred to her. She stood up and peered out the little porthole, and she lifted her chin the way Beatriz would have done.

  Of course he had died: he was killed in a car crash.

  She was crying now, really meaning it now. But still she held her chin up.

  The tears were very warm on her face and she could feel them spreading out, spreading out, until her whole body was warm and tingling.

  She was so busy with her make-believe grief that she did not notice Inky until he came and sat beside her. She jumped—just a little. She couldn’t help that.

  “Have a drink,” he said.

  She shook her head, but he took her cup and filled it.

  “Look,” he said, “you got troubles, I got troubles. Nothing so different in that.”

  She hardly heard him. She was thinking clearly—so clearly that it seemed like she was talking out loud—If I’m going, I have to go now. And if I stay, I can’t cry tomorrow. Because I’m sober enough now. And I could go up that ladder and go straight home.

  She thought about that: going up the ladder step by step. She could feel that hard surface under the balls of her feet. Then the deck, then the wharf boards.

  She stared down at the brownish-yellow mixture in her cup. “That looks strong,” she said, and leaned back.

  Inky’s arm was across the back cushions. And her neck rested on it at an uncomfortable angle, but she did not move. It would look too funny, she thought.

  “Want some music?”

  “You get anything this late?”

  “All-night station in New Orleans.”

  “Where’s the radio?”

  “There.” He pointed to her left.

  “Okay.” He reached his right arm across her. “Can’t make it,” he said. “Got to move.”

  His arm brushed across her throat. “Lemme get one swallow first,” she said, forcing herself to sound calm.

  His arm stayed where it wa
s. “Move,” she said. She took a couple of swallows and sat up.

  He leaned behind her this time and turned on the radio. She could feel the heat of his body and she wondered how anybody could sleep down in the cabin.

  She asked him: “How can you sleep down here?”

  He straightened himself up. “Sleep on deck,” he said.

  The radio was on, very softly. Annie cocked her head listening. “I’m real glad to know about that station.”

  “Nice in a car at night.”

  She sipped at her cup, not quite sure what to say.

  “Drink up.”

  She hesitated.

  “Won’t hurt you.”

  She swallowed quickly, shivering a little as the liquid burned down her throat and chest.

  He grinned. “Feel that?”

  “Right here.” She put a finger to her chest.

  He put a hand on top of hers. “There, huh?”

  She nodded.

  “Rubbing helps.” He began to massage her hand around, a small circle in the middle of her chest, rubbing fairly hard so that she squirmed a little as the bra straps cut her shoulders.

  “Quit,” she said.

  He got up and fixed her another drink without a word. She stood up too, shaking out her skirt.

  “One thing been bothering me,” he said.

  “What?” There was a stubborn crease in the skirt; she tried to pull it out between her fingers.

  “Story about the guy in New Orleans—that true?”

  “Sure it is,” she said.

  “You been to bed with a man, huh?”

  She gave a little snickering laugh, more from embarrassment than anything else. And turned to look at the papers on the little hanging table. There were a couple of pens and a bottle of India ink and some water colors there.

  “You been drawing?”

  He did not answer. She shuffled the papers. For a minute in the dim light, she did not believe what she saw.

  It was an ink sketch, done with great care—a naked woman, lying on her back, her legs open.

  “Got a better one,” Inky said, and hunted until he found it: a nude sleeping on the sands of some beach, her sun hat over her face.

  “Oh,” Annie said.

  “They bother you?”

  “No,” Annie said. And that was the truth. She was surprised, and she was startled by the beauty of the women’s bodies. Do you suppose, she asked herself, I’ll look like that someday?

  “I get five bucks or so for these,” Inky said, “in New Orleans.”

  “You do?”

  “Sure,” he said, “They color ’em up for the tourists.”

  “Oh.” She took the drink from his hand and went back to the couch. The radio was still playing.

  “Pick up a lot extra money that way.”

  She put her nose down in the paper cup, sniffing the bourbon. “Didn’t know you could draw.”

  “Sort of,” he said. “Want me to do one of you?”

  “Like that?”

  “Sure,” he said, “I wasn’t ever very good with faces, never could get a likeness.”

  She shook her head.

  “Why not?” he said. “I bet you got a cute shape.”

  She buried herself in the cup, blushing with the compliment. Her ears were singing now, very steadily. “No,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said. “It’s a shame.”

  She was a little groggy and very hot. “I don’t see how you can take it down here,” she said. “I’m burning up.”

  “Slip off the dress,” he said. “It’s too pretty to get it sweaty and wet.”

  She was thinking that over when his fingers were quickly opening the buttons of the blouse. By the time she’d decided to say no, he had the blouse thrown back and the soft fingers were dragging the bra down.

  “No,” she said uncertainly.

  “Listen to the radio,” Inky said, “and finish your drink.”

  The fingers fastened themselves to her nipple, coaxingly.

  “Look,” he said, “why didn’t you tell me, for Chrissake?”

  “What,” she said, “what?”

  “I ask you.”

  “What?”

  “If you’d been to bed with a man before.”

  “I was.”

  “Oh sure,” he said, “oh sure. … Look at the cushion.”

  “I’ll clean it.”

  “God damn,” Inky said thickly. “I didn’t want anything to do with a god-damn virgin.”

  Even through the whisky she could feel that hurt.

  “It gets light early,” Inky said.

  She was barely listening. The whisky had worn off, leaving her with a sodden heavy feeling. I’ll feel god awful tomorrow, she thought.

  And then, surprised, she had to add, tomorrow is here now.

  “Know what time it is?”

  She shook her head.

  “Just about four-thirty.”

  “You don’t have a clock.”

  “There.” He turned her head, so that she saw the little green luminous numbers. “See.”

  She yawned deeply.

  “Don’t you think you better get home?”

  She was so tired she could hardly hold her head up.

  “You don’t want people to see, do you?”

  She kept thinking, tomorrow is here now.

  “C’on, honey. I’ll walk you home.”

  The gulls were beginning to scream. It must be near morning. She wanted so badly to go to sleep.

  His hand on her arm urged her up the ladder. On the deck she stopped: the little fresh air made her feel better. “Give me the comb,” she said.

  He handed her the one from his shirt pocket. “It’s clean, all right.”

  She jerked it through her hair quickly. “That’ll do.”

  Did he kiss her good-by, she wondered. And was too unsure to look at his face to see. Or maybe she was supposed to do something. She tried to think but her thoughts kept scattering like water drops. There was something … something …

  “Don’t fall,” he said when she swung over to the dock.

  “Water might feel good,” she had a tired little smile. She tried to put the faint little accent back in her words, but somehow she couldn’t manage it.

  “Can you make it?”

  She took a couple of sharp breaths. Her body ached all over. Standing up brought a pain to the pit of her stomach, a pain she hadn’t noticed before.

  “I’ll walk you home.”

  “No,” she said. “You stay here.”

  “Now look …

  “You couldn’t find you way back in the dark. And maybe George got a real drunk on—wait for him to sober up before you run into him.”

  There was something that should be done. There was something that needed to be done. And now knowing, she began to feel restless and embarrassed.

  “Can’t let you do that,” Inky said and he scratched his close-cut brown hair.

  “Oh hell,” Annie said. Her head felt clearer. She wanted to stay and she wanted to leave. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Don’t be mad,” Inky said.

  “Who’s mad?” She wasn’t. She swore she wasn’t. She tried to remember Beatriz, tried to imagine herself Beatriz again. She closed her eyes to try. She would have the image for a minute, but then it would fall to pieces.

  “I just didn’t want people seeing you here.”

  “I can take care of myself.” The pain in her stomach was making her sick. She wanted to go home.

  “I don’t know,” Inky said doubtfully and scratched his ear.

  “You’ll just get lost,” she said, and she had already turned away with the nasty taste of confusion in her mouth. “Me, I’m used to it.”

  She moved off down the pier, stepping carefully on the rickety boards. Inky watched her out of sight, but she did not once turn or wave.

  As she got to the end of the wharf and turned off it to the path, she noticed somebody sitting quietly on the big
rusty windlass that had been abandoned there years ago. Somebody waiting, out of sight of the Pixie. She noticed without any emotion at all that the sitting figure was Perique.

  She passed within five feet of him. For a minute or so she wondered whether he was going to take a knife or his fists to her—if he were drunk, he might. He sat with his feet tucked up under him and his arms wrapped around his knees. He was not asleep, she was sure of that, but he didn’t move at all when she passed him.

  The dogs were barking down at the western end of the island. From the sound they’d have something treed.

  The barking always sounded muffled at night, she thought.

  Against the uneven shells of the path, her shoes slipped and jogged.

  If I take them off, she thought. But her fingers, hanging down from her hands, felt stiff and heavy. So she didn’t bother.

  I’m moving hard, she thought, but I’m not moving fast.

  From a chinaberry tree an owl stared down at her, and then flapped silently away.

  Evil eye, she thought, that’s what they used to say. Owl looks at you, devil looks at you.

  She crossed herself with a small vague movement.

  You weren’t supposed to kill an owl. They said if you did, you’d be killing your three-times great-grandmother. Boys did, sometimes, but never on purpose, and though they fell to laughing and joking about it, they had a different and a scared tone.

  A cricket now … that was the same sort of thing. He was your three-times great-grandfather, they said. If a cricket got in the house you weren’t supposed to kill it, the way you did roaches and ants. You chased it out, but not with the broom, with the feather duster.

  There were crickets all around now, singing. They’d hush when she passed, and then take up again when she’d gone. It was like she was moving in a well of silence, carrying it with her.

  And if a cricket got to singing in the house … and if a cricket sang in the house during the night, that was a death.

  Before her mother had died, hadn’t she woke up one night to find a cricket sitting in the corner of the room, singing. And hadn’t her screaming gotten the whole house up. …

  They were the color of death, black, shiny black, like the limousines at funerals in New Orleans. And when you looked at them close, at their nubby head and their bone-thin bodies, they were the shape of death too.