Low Country

by Anne Rivers Siddons

  “The paintings are terrific, Caro,” he said. “You really got under our black hides. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  I didn’t, either, I said to myself, watching the truck lurch down the rutted road under the live oaks. And then I went to dress and go back to Peacock’s Island and speak to my husband of things that would, I thought, wound us forever.

  The anger came back when I crossed the bridge onto Peacock’s Island. It sprang up like a living flame when I saw the first Mercedes station wagon leaving the nursery, laden with mature bedding plants that would have cost a family in Dayclear a month’s food money. It licked higher at the sight of two groups of square, tanned women in little golf skirts and T-shirts and sun visors, piloting their private golf carts across the road from the harborside villas to the golf club. It spurted into my nose and throat like lava as I threaded my way around the lushly planted traffic circle that led into the main street of the tiny village center and saw the green-uniformed Peacock’s Island ground crew tearing out great clumps of blooming pansies and setting in their places flat after flat of rioting impatiens and mature ferns. Instant tropical paradise; why had I always thought it beautiful? My hot eyes wanted the tangled, littered coolness of the dank marshes and the forest; wanted, instead of this studied, expensive order, wildness and the vast amplitude of water and sky. By the time I pulled into the parking lot at the company’s headquarters, I was shimmering all over with rage.

  “Well, goodness, Caro, where you been? We been lookin’ all over the place for you. Your wandering boy is back and rarin’ to see you, and here we thought you’d run off with the hired help or something.…”

  Shawna was often familiar with me, when she thought she could get away with it, but she would not have dared go so far if she had not had an audience. It seemed to me that three-fourths of Clay’s female office staff lingered in the front office where her desk sat, finding this and that to do while they waited for me to come. Lottie was wrong, I knew; the office staff knew about the horses even if Clay did not. They must have known I would be furious.

  “Shawna,” I said, smiling savagely at her, “eat a shit sandwich.”

  I did not hear the gasps and the murmurs begin until I had reached Clay’s door, opened it, and gone in.

  “…completely lost her mind,” I heard Shawna squawk as I slammed the door shut behind me.

  Clay was standing at the window wall that overlooked the little enclosed courtyard behind his office. It had been planned to look like an old Charleston garden, sheltered with tabby and old brick walls and lushly planted with vines and shrubs and brilliant oleanders and cape jessamine and camellias. The camellias were out now, hanging from the great bushes like ripe, perfect fruit. The twisted trunk of the massive live oak that grew in the center of the garden was brilliant green with resurrection ferns. The little wrought-iron table against the back wall held the remains of a coffee and pastry breakfast for three or four people. I did not wonder who had shared it with Clay. I did not care. I knew before he turned to face me that I was going to say something that would change us both, would divide time. I could scarcely breathe around the anger.

  He swung around. He needed a shave and looked a little faded, as he always did when he was very tired, but there was nothing of the past holiday’s joy or the pain of Puerto Rico on it. Just the habitual remoteness that the office called out in him, and a cool impatience. I knew that he hated slammed doors. I could not imagine that anyone had ever slammed this one before. He wore one of his immaculate gray tropical worsted suits and a fresh shirt. On the lapel of his coat was a gold pin shaped like a ten-gallon hat. It said, REMEMBER THE ALAMO.

  I had never seen even a Rotary button on Clay’s person before. I stared. For some reason this object made me want to rip it off his coat, rip the coat off him, shake him, scream.

  He looked down at the button and then back at me and made a small, fastidious face.

  “The South Ward brass came back with us,” he said. “They’ve gone over to the island with Hayes. I guess I can take this thing off now. How are you, Caro?”

  He did not call me “baby,” as he sometimes did. The smell of anger must be coming off me like smoke.

  “I am not really very good right now, Clay,” I said, and was appalled to hear that my voice shook so that I could hardly get my words out. Where was all this rage coming from? This was Clay.…“While you were gone somebody poisoned the horses. The ones on the island. The mare—you know, Nissy, Kylie’s mare—died. Her colt just barely lived. We don’t know about the rest of the herd. It was botulism toxin. The vet is sure of that. Ezra thinks he’s going to be able to find out who bought the stuff, or stole it. Then we’ll know who…authorized it. You may know already, of course.”

  He sat down slowly in his chair and put his hands flat on his desk, and leaned forward, staring at me. The color went out of his face.

  “What are you saying?”

  I just looked at him.

  “Do you mean to tell me that you think that I…that I…authorized somebody to kill those horses? Is that what you think? Have you lost your mind? I would never on this earth…I didn’t know. God, Caro. God…”

  He looked sick. It did not dampen the fire of my fury at all. The horrified face over that awful, silly Alamo pin made me angrier than I have ever been in my life. What right had he to mourn that old horse, if indeed that was what he was feeling, when what he planned for its island was so much worse than anything I could even imagine.…

  “Don’t be a fool, Clay. Of course I know that you did not authorize it. I don’t think you had to authorize it. Do you remember, when we saw Becket, in Charleston? And Henry the Second said, ‘Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?’ and looked around at all his…his henchmen? He didn’t say, ‘Somebody go kill Thomas Becket’; he didn’t have to. They all knew what he meant. And pretty soon a couple of them got up and kind of slid out of the room and you knew…Who said it here, Clay? Somebody did. Somebody poisoned those horses in the name of this company. If you didn’t know about it, you ought to be able to figure out who did. I could give you a pretty good guess right now. He’s back over there right now with that bunch of snake-oil salesmen you plan to sell my island to. Okay, I came to tell you what I decided about that. Listen up. There’s not going to be any sale. There’s not going to be any golf course, or marina, or shopping center, or Gullah World over there. I’m not giving it to you. And—”

  He got to his feet and came around the desk.

  “Caro, let’s go home. We can talk about this at home. You’re upset about the horses; God, I don’t blame you. We’ll straighten it out, I promise. I could use some rest, too. We’ll have lunch out on the patio and then we’ll—”

  I took a deep breath. I don’t want to say this, I thought, but I did say it. I only knew as I did that I meant it. At least for now, I meant every word of it. It almost broke my heart.

  “I’m staying over at the island, Clay,” I said. “I can’t go…home…now. I don’t know when I can again. It just feels all of a sudden like I don’t belong here and never did. But the island…at least that’s mine. My place. Maybe in a little while I’ll feel differently, but right now…”

  “No,” he said.

  I stopped and looked at him. There was something strange and terrible in his voice. He had turned to the window again. I could see that his neck and shoulders were held as rigidly as a statue’s.

  “No,” he said again. “It’s not your place. It never was, Caro. It’s still in my name. Technically, I can do whatever I want with it.”

  I could not understand what he was saying.

  “But I…I signed that thing,” I said. “You know, the transfer of title. Remember, you brought it home and I signed it, and you said that all that was left was for you to file it at the county courthouse.…”

  My voice trailed off. He did not turn.

  “You didn’t file it, did you?” I said.

  “I thought I did. Or at least I
thought it had been filed,” he said. “I gave it to Hayes to do; he’s the company lawyer, after all. He said he’d take care of it. But…he didn’t. I didn’t know that, Caro. All those years I thought it was yours, too. He only told me when the business about Calista came up and it looked like we were going under. He said…he said that something just told him not to file that thing, to hang on to that land for me. He said he knew he should have told me, but he didn’t think it would ever come up, and that no harm would be done by you thinking it was yours. And it wouldn’t have…if things had been different in Puerto Rico…”

  My head swam as badly as I remembered it doing when I was first pregnant with Carter and could hardly take an unassisted step for three months. I sat down abruptly in Clay’s visitor’s chair. He still did not turn from the window.

  “You should have told me,” I said.

  “Yes. I should have. But by the time I knew, it looked as if we really might be able to come up with something you…could live with…and I could tell you then. I still thought so until this trip. Even with South Ward in the saddle, I thought my…vision for it could prevail. You always liked my vision for the Lowcountry land, Caro. Your grandfather understood it, and liked it.…”

  “My grandfather would die of shame if he knew about any of this,” I said. “He would die. And your children. How do you think Kylie would feel about this? My God, I’m almost glad…”

  I did not finish, but I saw the words hit home. He flinched slightly, but said nothing. Finally I got up and walked back to the door. I hoped dully that he would not turn around. I did not think I could bear to see the Alamo pin again. I did not think I could bear to see his face.

  “Will you give it to me now?” I said, stopping at the door. I was amazed to hear that my voice was merely conversational.

  “I…no. Caro, I can’t. Don’t you see? This will save us. This will save everything we’ve ever worked for, save everything I’ve ever built here, everything I’ve ever wanted for this land.…Don’t you see that? Don’t you see that it’s for your future, too? Can’t you see that most of it won’t even touch you over at your precious house?”

  “I’ll ask you again. Will you deed it back to me?”

  “I can’t do that,” he said. It was a whisper, a terrible sound. “I can’t just…not have anything. Not after having it all. Not after all this time. Not after what I’ve made here…”

  “It was never yours,” I said. “You were a guest here from the first time you set foot on this island. I asked you here. I let you come. My grandfather let you come because of me. It’s a fine thing you’re doing to repay us, Clay.”

  I went back out through the reception area. Neither Shawna nor any of the other women were there. The phones were ringing shrilly. I left them shrieking their frustration and went out into the sun. After the cool dimness of the office, it was blinding. Behind me, very faintly, I heard him calling me: “Caro! Caro!”

  I don’t remember thinking much at all while I drove back to the island except, I don’t know how to be anything but Clay Venable’s wife and Carter and Kylie’s mother. That leaves one out of three. I wonder if it’s enough.

  Enough for what, I could not have said.

  I drove over to Dayclear and asked Janie to find Ezra Upchurch for me. She looked into my face and said nothing, just went out back and rang the big indigo bell. I sat out front and waited for him, and she did not join me. It was high noon; no one was about. I supposed that most of the people of Dayclear were having their lunches and perhaps their naps. A few, I knew, would be looking at the beginning soaps. Their stories, as they called them. For a moment I ached with the simple, one-celled wish to be one of them.

  Ezra came from behind the settlement, grease on his hands and shirt. He still carried a wrench. I knew that something mechanical in Dayclear had to be fixed every day. I wondered what the settlement would do when Ezra concluded his business here and went back to Washington, or wherever his next crusade took him. I found that I could not imagine this stark, sunny little street without him.

  He dropped down into the chair next to me.

  “He told you about the deed,” he said. It was not a question.

  I did not ask him how he knew. He told me, though.

  “A deed’s a matter of public record,” he said. “I went and looked it up at the courthouse when I first knew what was going on over here. You always check your facts before you start a fight. I always knew that you really thought it was yours, though; I never thought you were just blowing smoke at us, to save your husband’s fanny. Nobody over here did. Most of them knew your grandfather. They knew you were his girl.”

  “So…even when I was over here spouting off about nobody ever having to worry about anything again you all knew…Clay still owned it?”

  “Yeah. But we knew how you felt. We still hoped you could change his mind about it. I take it that’s not the case, huh?”

  “I don’t think it is, Ezra,” I said. I was so tired that I thought I would fall out of the chair and simply lie on the sun-warmed earth of the Bigginses’ storeyard until it swallowed me into the damp coolness under its surface.

  “Okay,” Ezra said. “Now we ruin his ass.”

  13

  When Ezra Upchurch set out to ruin an ass, he didn’t waste any time. By afternoon of the next day he had a press conference of national proportions set up for high noon two days later. Because he was Ezra Upchurch, the national media listened when his people in Washington called to announce it. Because he was Ezra Upchurch, most of them planned to attend. The Today Show was in North Carolina filming a series on black church bombings and would send a crew. All three major evening news shows scheduled reporters. Virtually all the national news magazines and many of the dailies would at least have stringers and photographers present. They would all meet at the bridge from Peacock’s over to the island. Ezra would meet them there with the residents of Dayclear, five or six other Gullah communities in the Lowcountry, and representatives of every significant environmental group that could mount a presence. They would march from Dayclear to the bridge, singing and holding hands as they had done, many of them, so many years before, in Selma.

  Even in my fugue state of a pathetic grief, I knew that it would be irresistible. No matter if Clay could have managed to prevail over the natural tastelessness of South Ward and create something approaching environmental genius for the island, he would be dead meat now in the eyes of the nation, a despoiler of priceless wetlands and a fragile, ancient culture. It might not matter at all to South Ward, but it would, indeed, be the emotional ruin of Clay Venable.

  Oh, Clay, I thought in such pure sorrow that it surprised me, when Sophia Bridges told me Ezra’s plans. What did you think would happen? Did you think the Sierra Club would give you a lifetime achievement award?

  While I was still sitting in the chair in front of the Bigginses’s store the afternoon I confronted Clay, spent and silent, Auntie Tuesday came out of her cabin, toddled down the street on Janie’s arm, and brought me a giant pickle jar full of her tea.

  “You take you some of this when you gits home,” she said, peering into my face. “Take you another cup befo’ you goes to bed. You sleep through without no hag-ridin’. You gon’ need yo’ sleep for a while. I fix you some fiddlehead broth tomorrow and send it over. This time I put some St. John in it. You gon’ need yo’ courage, too.”

  “Auntie,” I said tiredly, “please don’t ever tell me whether you saw all that in fire or water.”

  “Didn’t see nothin’ this time,” she said. “Ezra been talkin’ all along about callin’ in those news folks did he have to. I knowed from the look of you when I seen you out my window that he gon’ have to now. That gon’ be hard on you. Likely gon’ split you right in two. This he’p. It really will.”

  I hugged her when I left with my pickle jar, holding her hard. She was almost a head shorter than I and so frail that I could feel her tiny bird’s ribs, but there was a strength in her that I cou
ld feel in my own hollowed and watery bones. I wished that I could simply move in with her and be cosseted, as she had cosseted Lita. But I knew that there was no place for me now in Dayclear. I was not the enemy. They all knew that. But I was married to him. I could not blame them if they wondered which loyalty would finally prevail.

  So I drove slowly back to my island house and before the grief that hung like heavy, rotted fruit over my head could fall, I heated the tea and drank a cup. I could not handle much more right now than drowsiness, sleep. The knowledge of the betrayal needed time to work its way deep into the fibers of my mind and heart so that I knew its whole scope, its essential truth. Until that could happen, I knew that I would spend my time veering wildly from despair to denial, and back again. I had done it with Kylie. I would do it, too, now, with whatever might be left of my marriage. Better to drowse. Better still to sleep.

  And I did. The smoky, slightly bitter tea eased the ache in my heart and the snarl in my head just enough so that I could read, and I stretched out on the sofa and lit my fire and pulled out the crumbling, yellowed old copy of The Jungle Book that had been Kylie’s favorite. The exotic, firelit world of Mowgli and Baloo and Bagheera and Shere Khan swallowed me totally. I fell asleep before the fire and dreamed, not of my own threatened river and forest, but of a gold-green jungle where animals spoke and a child lived in a profound and sustaining harmony with them. When I awoke, it was almost ten the next morning, and I was cold and stiff and hungry, and the razor-sharp new pain was infinitesimally dulled.

  It seemed to me that I should make a plan, a blueprint for living a new way, a map for getting through the next days in a new and diminished territory. So I showered and washed my hair and put on clean jeans and shirt and sat down on the deck with coffee and a fossilized bagel. I brought a legal pad and a pen with me for the outlining of my new life, but nothing came to me. Nothing at all. I could not think of a life without this island and this house, and I could not imagine one without Clay. It was a strange, suspended time, that morning. I both had a husband and did not; both had a home and did not. I would think, Well, we can live very well over here if we lose the Peacock’s house, and then think, But who is we? Or I would think, This is absurd; Clay will no more let me lose this place than he would let me go naked, or starve, and then realize that he was prepared to put the machinery of that loss into motion whenever he wished, and so far as I knew, would do it without delay. I felt nearly crazy, actually near insanity. I did not know how even to think of Clay in any terms but the ones in which I had always thought of him: my husband; the man I had always loved; the man I would grow old with; would, with luck, come to the end of my days with.