“Rake picked me up in Elwood’s carriage. He brought me a bouquet, simple old snapdragons and a few strands of marsh grass. Most romantic thing a seventeen-year-old girl could ask for…” She looked out the window at the cars whizzing past on 6A, then continued down this sandy old path.
“We rode through the Barleyneck dairy field to Nauset Beach. It was deserted, of course. Everyone was at church, praying for an end to the Great War. The only thing out on the water was an old tug pulling a string of coal barges.
“We went a ways toward the inlet, just to be sure no one would spy on us. Then he pulled off his shirt and sat on a big piece of driftwood to take off his shoes. I just stood there, feelin’ my dress blowin’ against my bare legs and fidgetin’ with my bouquet. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was a little scared.”
“That was kind of scandalous then.”
“An unchaperoned boy and girl strippin’ down on a deserted beach—we thought we were the first rebellious generation but—”
“Every generation thinks that, Aggie.”
“—I was a good Methodist and a very reluctant rebel. I didn’t know what I’d do if he decided to kiss me.”
Geoff was back there with her, in the heart of her youth. He could almost feel the hot sand burning his toes, hear the roll of the surf.
“I was still afraid to let him see my bathing bloomers. Compared to today, they were a suit of armor, but I thought if I made a joke, he might laugh and forget whatever was on his mind. The driftwood log he was sittin’ on gave me an idea. ‘Jump up,’ I said. ‘I think you’re sittin’ on the log of the Mayflower.’ ”
“And you know what? He didn’t laugh at all. He just said, ‘This isn’t the log, Aggie. I’ll guarantee you that.’
“ ‘It was just a joke,’ I said. ‘The log burned in the Hilyard House fire.’
“He allowed as how it had. Then he said, ‘The book of history will set us free from the evil that bricks us up.’ ”
Geoff was right. Her ramblings did lead back to the point, and the past led back to the present, and to the list that he carried in his pocket. “Why did he say that?”
“That’s what his father told him when he asked about the log. I’m not sure he knew what it meant, and it puzzled me. Then we heard the first explosion.”
“Explosion?”
“German U-boat. U-156, firing her deck gun. You could barely see it, about a mile offshore, long and flat, with a little tower that looked like nothing more than an oil barrel floating upright on the water. One shot hit in front of the tug, one hit the bluff right above us—blew out a great big chunk. Rake threw me down and threw himself on top of me, and I remember thinkin’ how brave he was, and how happy I was to have his body on top of me but his mind on something else.”
“Anybody hurt?”
“The crew got off the tug. Then the German commenced to sinkin’ her and all the three barges. By now, everybody in Orleans was comin’ out to watch, and it must’ve made the German nervous, because it took him about a hundred shots, which we thought was some funny, until he sent a few more at the bluff. Somebody said he was firin’ at the cottages that showed the American flag, but…”
She stared out the window, hummed a bit, then said suddenly, “More than anything else, you know what I remember? How puny that gun sounded. Like the sky couldn’t be bothered with the noise and just swallowed it up. Then we heard the putt-putt of an airplane engine.”
“Navy fliers?”
“Un-huh, but the feller with the key to the bomb locker at the Chatham Naval Air Station was off playin’ baseball. So the plane flew over and dropped a monkey wrench at the submarine. And that was that for the only German attack ever on American soil.”
Geoff laughed. “The world sure has changed.”
“Rake thought it changed right then. He said we weren’t safe on our own beaches anymore, and it was time he did something about it. Hitched up for two years, which is a very long time in the life of a young girl. While he was gone, I fell in love with a man ten years older… and a Bigelow to boot.” Hum, hum, tuneless, thoughtless, a sound track for the past.
“Rake felt betrayed, of course. We’d written letters, thought we were in love… but he got over it. People get over things. I thought the truth about the log would help you and Janice get over your problems, but an hour ago here she came, snatched up the kids, and away she went.”
After an hour with Agnes, Geoff was ready to believe that everything was related—Rake’s hunt for the log, Geoff’s hunt for what Rake knew, Rake’s anger at Agnes, Geoff’s at Janice. A wheel, coming around again and again.
“Where did she go?”
“She didn’t say.”
Geoff picked at the thread coming loose on the arm of the sofa. “Why didn’t you say anything about the log burning up before?”
“I’m old, Geoffrey. Nobody asked me.”
ii.
Geoff wanted to believe Agnes, to free himself of the past that threatened to brick him up. But who had ransacked Rake’s house and prowled in his barn? Who were those guys on the boat? Was the Humpster really stupid enough to beat up George? And for what, beyond a little fag-bashing? And, as always, there was the list. Why was Carolyn Hallissey’s name at the top?
If Agnes’s story was true, Janice’s skepticism had triumphed. But Carolyn Hallissey might have some skepticism of her own—for Agnes’s story.
It was five-thirty when he arrived at Carolyn’s little Cape near Arey’s Pond. From somewhere in the house he heard the sound of an afternoon game show. Two hamburger patties were frying on the range, two plates already arranged with sliced buns, ketchup, pickles, chips….
He was surprised at how homey, and homely, she looked, barefoot, in jeans and baggy T-shirt.
And for the first time since they’d met, Carolyn did not seem happy to see him. Nor did she offer any skepticism. “If it’s gone, it’s gone. End of story. Go back to your wife and tell her I’m sorry for spoiling your reunion this morning.”
“One word from Agnes Bigelow and you quit? Why haven’t you interviewed her before this?”
“She’s on the calendar. But I’m less interested in interviews than I am in art—pictures.” She pointed to a picture on the wall. “My little boy did that.”
It was a crudely drawn stick figure with long hair and the words “My Mother.”
“How old is he?” asked Geoff.
“Eleven.”
It looked like the work of a five-year-old. Another setup? he wondered.
But Carolyn called to Robby, who came shuffling in from the living room.
He seemed small for his age, a little round-shouldered, maybe, and he carried his head at a strange, crooked angle. As he approached, Geoff first saw the sandy hair, the friendly smile, then the unaccountably old face and sad eyes of Down’s syndrome.
Carolyn introduced Geoff as Mr. Hilyard, and the boy took Geoff’s hand with a practiced politeness that was all the more touching for the pride he took in it.
“Nice to meet you, Robby.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Hilyard. Do you… do you like to fish?”
“I love to.” Geoff told the boy about his fishing boat and promised to take him out someday.
After the boy had gone back to the television, Carolyn pulled out a chair. “Get the surprise off your feet.”
“Nice boy,” said Geoff.
“You’re a nice guy. When I meet a man, I always gauge him on how he’ll do with Robby. I pegged you for a good one. But you’re taken. End of another story.”
They talked a bit about the boy and his drawings, and that led naturally back to Tom Hilyard’s paintings.
“He had the log, he painted from it, he lost it.” She took two beers from the refrigerator. Then she jumped to the stove and flipped the hamburgers before they burned. Not nearly as cool in the kitchen as in the office.
He went to the counter to open the beers for her. That was when he noticed the black wig and sunglasses. Strang
e. And something stranger lay beneath them: a set of proofs for an Old Comers promotional brochure, with head shots of the directors, including John M. Nance.
Geoff took a moment, took a sip of beer, swallowed his anger at his own ignorance. Then he softly said Nance’s name. “You told me you didn’t know anything about him.”
Carolyn took a tomato out of the refrigerator. “I told you I didn’t know anything about his entry on the list.”
“I never mentioned a list.”
She put the tomato on the cutting board and sliced into it, as though it were a prop. “Your friends, Geoff… choose them more carefully. One of them talks a lot.”
“And one of them was beaten up last night, by your boss’s Bigelow friends. Did they do that to get information?”
“I don’t know a thing about that. But I sent people into Rake Hilyard’s barn last night, because I knew about the list and could deduce a bit more, thanks to one of your friends. Now it’s over, so it doesn’t matter which friend. I see no reason why Agnes Bigelow would tell you anything but the truth.”
Another setup, after all? He stood there, hating the smell of hamburger fat in a kitchen. “You’ve been lying to me since I laid eyes on you, Carolyn. Why should I believe you now?”
“Listen”—she slammed the knife on the cutting board and sent tomato seeds splattering—“I have two loyalties: to that boy in there and to the job that lets me give him the best life I can. Nance gave me the job. Guess the rest of the syllogism.”
Life was full of surprises. A lot of them were bad. Some were sad. More than anything, he wanted to see his kids.
iii.
As he drove over the causeway, he imagined the lives Jack’s Island had lived. Those lives had been full of surprises, too, a lot of them bad. And some sad.
He saw it as Jack Hilyard must have seen it, covered with tall hardwoods, dense and primeval. Then it was treeless, with corn growing and windmills pumping water into salt vats. Then the great white hotel rose on Nauseiput Creek. Then the red cedars began to fill in the meadows, making way for the pitch pine forest that now was giving way to oak and that might someday become beech and maple again.
He drove by the house that Elwood had built on the hotel foundation. Nothing else remained of the Hilyard House. Nature covered her scars, if given time. But bulldozers gouged deep….
And damned if he didn’t hear one when he got out of the car in front of Rake’s house. Then he saw the Voyager. A bad surprise, then a good one. From somewhere, his kids came scampering and falling over each other, covering him with kisses and questions. Where had he been? Why wasn’t he staying in Truro? When was he going to make up his mind so they could all be back together again? What had she been telling them?
She had her arms folded across her chest, which meant she was ready for a fight, but her words were the neutral color of sand. “I thought you’d stay here tonight, to be ready for the Conservation Commission walk tomorrow.”
A snappy answer would have been good, but that bulldozer…
Janice told the kids to go down and play with Jimmy and Jason.
“Jimmy’s kids?” Geoff asked. “Are Jimmy and Samantha here, too? Is this, like, a party?” More like a wake, he was thinking, and from the way she was standing in the doorway, she could be the guest of honor.
“I asked them to come. To help us.”
Crack! The sound of a tree snapping at the trunk. “What’s that bulldozer doing?”
“Geoff, do I have to worry about this Carolyn Hallissey?”
“You have to worry about us… and that bulldozer.” If she wanted to make him feel squeezed, she couldn’t have done a better job. The bulldozer, the kids, the questions—bring it all to a point right now, right in the open.
Somewhere off on the west side of the island, another tree trunk split, then snapped. The crown sweeping through the surrounding branches sounded like the wind.
“Forget the bulldozer,” said Janice, still frozen in the doorway. “The log burned. My family’s in trouble. We’re in trouble—”
“Because you ran away.”
“You ran away.”
“And your family’s in trouble, Janice, because your brother’s on the hook to John M. Nance.”
She didn’t move, didn’t even seem shocked, which surprised him. “I heard. Jimmy went to the registry. There’s a mortgage on file, between Bigelow and Iron Axe.”
“Yeah”—Jimmy came out of the house and distributed beers to Geoff and Janice—“but I couldn’t get any further than the catalog, because in the summer they close at four o’clock on Mondays around here. Librarian called me a typical Indian. Day late and a dollar short.”
“Nobody’s called him a typical Indian in a long time,” Samantha followed her husband. “I’m not sure I like it.”
Jimmy took a swallow of beer. “Ma laughed like hell when I told her.”
“Did she laugh about Nance? Strip-the-Plants, stomp the foe, run him off the road.” Geoff pulled from his pocket the piece of fabric, blue with a little white anchor woven into it. “I found this on the bumper of Rake’s car.”
Just then George’s Bronco came banging down the road and into the driveway. He had his new friend with him, and he didn’t look too bad for all that had happened to him. He even got out of the car with a little spring in his step, though his friend stayed inside.
Geoff went over to him and lifted his sunglasses and he looked a lot worse. “Hiya, George.”
George tried to smile, but it looked as if it hurt too much. “It got uglier, Geoff.”
“The Humpster?” asked Geoff.
George just shrugged.
Now Samantha came over to him and pinned a purple paper heart to his shirt. “The kids made this.”
“Cute,” said George.
“Are you sure the Humpster did this to you?” asked Janice.
“They wrote his favorite line on the front door.”
In the woods, the bulldozer growled, shifted gears.
“Now he’s cuttin’ new scars in Mother Earth,” said Jimmy.
“What would Ma Little do about that?” asked Geoff.
“As long as they’re a hundred feet from the wetlands,” answered Jimmy, “not a thing. Legally, that is.”
Geoff picked up a garden spade leaning against a fence post. “Ma would kick a little ass. And old Rake would say, ‘Fuck ’em, let’s fight about it.’ You guys with me?”
George fitted the glasses back on his nose gingerly. “Hey, guys, I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
“So bring your friend along.” Geoff looked into the car, at George’s friend. “What about—David? The secretary?”
The young man from Provincetown who served coffee and fetched files for Carolyn Hallissey. He gave Geoff a little wave with his fingertips and then looked straight through the windshield.
“Secretary?” George looked in at David from the other side of the car. “Of what?”
“Old Comers Plantation. He’s been passing everything you know to Carolyn Hallissey, Georgie.”
George looked at David, and David just shrugged. No big deal. Nice knowin’ ya. See ya around. He got out of the car and started down the road.
And for a moment, the others stood there listening to the growling of the Humpster’s bulldozer in the woods, while George hid whatever he was feeling behind his sunglasses.
Finally George shouted, “Thanks for bein’ there last night, David. And thanks for nothin’.” Then he smoothed the little purple heart on his chest. “Helluva life, isn’t it, kids?”
The thunderous echo of an empty scoop striking a boulder made them all jump. Geoff grabbed his shovel and said the Humpster should pay for what he had done to Georgie.
“This is stupid,” said Janice.
Jimmy patted her arm. “I’m still a lawyer. I still know how to talk. We’ll let the Humpster know he shouldn’t do what he’s doing. We’re not that stupid.”
Geoff was already halfway down the road. Jimmy gave
his wife a little kiss and went hurrying after him.
George said, “I can’t be a lover, so I guess I’ll be a fighter.”
And Janice went in to call her brother.
A chain saw was baying after the bulldozer. And as Geoff approached the edge of the woods near Doug’s house, he smelled diesel exhaust.
The baloney roll hanging over the Humpster’s belt jiggled. At first he didn’t see them. Running a rig like this was demanding work, and the Humpster was no amateur. Give him that much. He drove the yellow monster the way most men drove a car.
The trees fell, and the rocks rolled, and the scanty topsoil came scraping up like sunburned skin under a fingernail. And three other guys went about the business of cleaning up after him, one with a chain saw, two with shovels.
“Hey, fat ass,” shouted Geoff.
“What the fuck do you want?” screamed the Humpster.
“What are you doin’?” demanded Geoff.
“I’m fuckin’ a snake. What does it look like?”
The guy with the chain saw gunned his little monster into the air, just for show. The others raised their shovels.
“You need Conservation Commission approval to cut these trees,” said Jimmy.
The Humpster pointed across the road, to a red stake about thirty feet from Doug’s driveway. “There’s the hundred-foot wetlands marker. Beyond it, we can do anything we want outside of buildin’ a house. So fuck off, Hiawatha.”
Jimmy took a few steps. “I’ll have the C.C. here in twenty minutes. Cutting these trees threatens the watershed.”
“In twenty minutes, they’ll all be down. One acre.”
“Then you’ll be fined,” said Jimmy.
The Humpster gave them the finger and leaned on the throttle. The earthmover scraped into another clump of trees. The earth beneath it was a strange yellow color. Then he backed up, crunching and grinding over broken branches and rocks, straight at Geoff Hilyard, without even looking.
Geoff raised his shovel. Jimmy stood at his shoulder.
Fat jiggled, wood chips flew, and somebody finally saw that the Humpster wasn’t going to stop. George grabbed Jimmy, Jimmy grabbed Geoff, and the three of them went sprawling sideways into the sand as the treads crawled past, like a Japanese tank in a war movie.
Cape Cod Page 62
