“They are not out of focus?”
“Sometimes the faces are distorted, and the house, when I see it in a dream, looks different, very high and narrow like a witch’s castle; but the things that happen are real. They are worse than nightmares, more lasting and terrifying.”
She picked up the pencil again and printed: two silver candelabra. “They were a wedding present, I haven’t any idea how much they’re worth, or even whether they’re solid silver.”
He tested their weight, frowning in concentration. “They must be solid silver. Three hundred dollars at least, eh?”
“Perhaps.”
“One silver coffee set and tray. You didn’t tell me that Billy was drowned.”
“Didn’t I? I thought I had.”
“No. No, you didn’t.”
“It’s no secret. It was in some of the papers.”
“How did he drown?”
“It was when we were coming back from Manzanilla. He fell off the—over the railing. There’s no use talking about it. It’s finished.”
“But you . . .”
“I won’t talk about it.”
“You talk about things to yourself when you’re dreaming,” Mr. Roma said. “That is worse.”
She said bitterly, “At least if I talk to myself it won’t go any further.”
“But it does. You cry in the night, and people will ask, why? What has this woman got on her mind? What are her sad secrets?”
“Oh, stop it!” She flung the pencil across the table. He stooped immediately and picked it up; the gesture seemed deliberately and cynically servile.
“No secrets,” she said. “There’s simply nothing more to tell you. He was playing on deck. It was very hot, and I left him for a minute to get him a glass of water from the cooler. When I came back he had fallen overboard. No one saw it happen, no one heard him cry out, nothing. It was as if he never existed.”
“I am sorry,” Mr. Roma said. He felt questions stirring in the back of his mind, but they weren’t ready yet to be put into words.
“I looked for him all over the ship before I could bring myself to believe he’d fallen overboard. By the time the ship had turned and made a search it was too late.”
“You should have told me this yesterday.”
“Why? What difference does it make now?”
“It makes me think you were planning not to tell me at all.”
“What nonsense!” She smiled with sudden candor. “You’re becoming very fanciful, Carl.”
She had never called him anything but Mr. Roma, and the use of his first name seemed like a warning to him: Step back, Carl, where you belong. We are old friends but the terms of the friendship have always been set by me.
It was as if she was reminding him that times had changed; she didn’t live there anymore and they no longer had that mutual dependence that exists, apart from class or race, among people living together in a lonely place.
He gave her back the pencil. “One set of Spode china,” he said.
“It doesn’t work out, this verbal sharing of burdens. Do you feel any better now that you know about Billy? Do I feel any better for having told you? It doesn’t work out,” she repeated. “There are some pieces missing from the Spode, aren’t there?”
“Two cups and the cream pitcher.”
“I—let’s leave this for a while. I can’t do any more right now.”
She got up and went to the window, her arms folded across her breasts. “You’re like a child in some ways, Mr. Roma. Things look either black or white to you. It’s all very simple, not having to classify the other shades in the color chart. Like a child,” she said again. “If you like people you must approve of everything they do, they must be perfect. I feel that you’re censuring me because I went to get Billy a glass of water.”
“No, I am puzzled.”
There was a long silence before she turned from the window and spoke again. “The tide’s going out. It will be a good time to find Jessie a starfish.”
“She is all ready and waiting on the beach. Luisa is with her.” With an air of deliberation, he said, “The necklace you gave Luisa is very pretty. Very expensive.”
“I meant to bring her something and I forgot,” Mrs. Wakefield said coolly. “So I gave her the necklace.”
“What is Luisa to do in return?”
“Not a thing.”
“I must ask her to give it back to you.”
“Why?”
He looked carefully down at the floor as if he expected to find an answer written there less blurred and elusive than the one in his mind. “Well, it is too expensive a gift for a young girl, for one thing.”
“But it’s my money. If I choose to give it away in the form of a necklace . . .”
“It is wrong,” Mr. Roma said. “I feel inside that it is wrong.”
“You’re getting as full of hunches and superstitions as Carmelita.”
The words written on the floor were becoming clearer. “Luisa might think that the necklace is a payment of some kind.”
“Then she’s very silly. There’s nothing I’d want to buy from her. I told her—I merely asked her to be a little discreet about what she said to the Banners. It’s none of their business, about John and Billy. It might actually upset them,” she said earnestly. “You see? It’s for everybody’s good, really.”
“I see.”
“It would be tragic for poor Luisa to have to give the necklace back now. She’s crazy about it.”
The victory was hers. He could force Luisa to return the necklace, but he knew that the necklace itself was no longer important; the real issue was the power Mrs. Wakefield had given to Luisa. By urging her to be discreet she had put into her hands the weapon of indiscretion. Luisa’s power would only be reinforced and sharpened by resentment over the loss of the necklace.
“I will not ask her to give it back,” he said.
“I’m glad you’ve seen it my way.”
“I don’t see it your way, Mrs. Wakefield. I know there is nothing to be done, that is all.”
She went out of the room without answering. A few minutes later he saw her crossing the lawn, wearing a terry cloth robe over her bathing suit and carrying a face glass and a pair of rubber swim fins. Before she turned onto the path he had a sudden glimpse of her face; she looked as if she was going to retch.
She has courage, he thought, to go into the sea again.
Jessie was lying on her stomach on the big rock gazing down into a tide pool, absorbed in the strange tiny world uncovered by the ebbing tide. In this world anything was possible. A queen fairy was curled up asleep on a pebble, and a castle grew upside down in a forest of flowers. When she leaned way over to touch one of the flowers with her finger it squeezed itself shut till it looked like a brown stone. These fierce flowers had a wonderful name—Jessie called them Sea Enemies, and sometimes at night when she was compelled to frighten herself in order to stay awake longer, she pictured the Enemies waiting very quietly in the pool to eat her arm off.
“Hello,” Mrs. Wakefield said.
Jessie rolled over on her back and sat up. “Hello.”
“I thought Luisa was down here watching you.”
“She went away. We had a fight. Not really a fight, though. I didn’t scratch or bite her,” Jessie said virtuously. “Or pinch.”
“I couldn’t imagine you pinching anyone.”
“I often have. But I think I’m going to give it up from now on.”
“Here. I’ll lift you down.”
“No, thank you.” She slid off the rock backwards and landed in the sand with a neat somersault. The exhibition cost her several new scratches on her arms and legs, but it was worth it to see the surprised admiration on Mrs. Wakefield’s face. “I looked where you told me but I didn’t find any starfish. I found a cr
ab and put him inside my bathing suit but he tickled too much. I abandoned him.”
“We’ll find a starfish, don’t worry.”
Mrs. Wakefield took off her robe and tied her hair back with a ribbon. “I haven’t been swimming for a long time.”
“How long?”
“Over a year.”
“Are you scared you’ve forgot how?”
“No.”
“You look scared.”
“Do I?” Mrs. Wakefield said brightly. “I’m not, though. I know this part of the sea well. It’s like my garden, you see? I know what is planted here, and where each rock is, and the best paths to swim along. And, as in a garden, there are things to be avoided. On a calm day like this the stingrays like to browse around in the shallow water. We must be careful to let them know we’re coming so they’ll go away.”
“I could shout.”
“There’s a better way.”
Mrs. Wakefield took Jessie’s hand and together they waded slowly into the cold water, stirring it up carefully before each step. The waves slapped Jessie’s stomach and stung the scratches on her legs, but she was too excited to feel the hurt.
They moved as cautiously as thieves into Mrs. Wakefield’s dark garden where all the flowers were alive and the vines of kelp twined around Jessie’s legs like ivy seeking a wall to grow on.
Mrs. Wakefield lifted a strand of kelp and put it around Jessie’s neck. “See now, you have a lei.”
The leaves of the kelp felt cold and oily against her skin. She said, shivering, “I’d just as soon not have.”
“All right.” Mrs. Wakefield threw the kelp back into the water and it drifted slowly away. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Jessie.”
“I’m not afraid of anything!” Letting go of Mrs. Wakefield’s hand she flung herself forward into the water, shrieking, “I can swim! Look, I can swim!”
The next wave caught her and she rolled into shore like a log.
Mrs. Wakefield stood motionless, rooted in her garden. It was as if time, and herself, had been paralyzed, and she must stand forever watching a scene that she had watched before, hearing the same sounds. The water crashed against her thighs, a gull cried, childlike, the sun was bright as a devil’s eye. From its ledge the black flash of a cormorant swooped out to sea. Jessie sat up, gasping and rubbing her eyes. Mrs. Wakefield looked up at the house which peered slyly over the cliff like a knowing face.
9
“Billy?”
Her own voice came up through the years, trailing moments that had been, not lost, but waiting in ambush for her return.
“Be a good boy now and answer me, Billy. You’re not hiding again, are you?”
Sometimes when he was hidden he gave himself away by answering or by giggling with delight at having fooled her.
She went through the house calling him, very softly, so that she wouldn’t disturb Miss Lewis. It was Miss Lewis’s day off and she was still asleep in the room above Billy’s.
Miss Lewis could awaken at the drop of a pin, and she went to sleep just as readily, anywhere and any time, as if her whole body had been trained to respond to the closing and opening of her eyelids. I close my eyes, I sleep. I open my eyes and I am instantly alert, ready for activity, competition, disaster, death, or just a sunny day.
“Billy . . .” The word crept through the house like smoke, and Miss Lewis sat up in bed, scratching the thinning hair above her left temple. Nine o’clock, a sunny day. Too fine to be wasted.
She began to dress, knowing that it would be only a matter of time before Mrs. Wakefield appeared, in need of help. Whenever Billy disappeared for a few minutes Mrs.
Wakefield became very perturbed. She didn’t show it by wringing her hands and getting all excited, but she got what Miss Lewis described to herself as a “gone” look on her face. Mrs. Wakefield never seemed to realize that Billy always turned up, in the toy chest in his room, behind the davenport, or in the broom closet. Hiding was Billy’s favorite game, and when Miss Lewis found him he always looked so comically pleased that she couldn’t help laughing.
Miss Lewis had known other children like Billy and she had never been repelled by their appearance the way many people were. She considered Billy rather appealing, with his expression of vivacious curiosity and his button nose slightly pink at the tip, like a clown’s.
A sunny day.
Miss Lewis pulled aside the drapes, squinting under the sudden splash of sun. When she picked up the brush and began to do her hair, her glance into the mirror on the dressing table was impersonal and uncritical, as if she was meeting a new patient for the first time and was reserving judgment.
“Billy . . . Now answer me, be a good boy, Billy. Are you hiding?”
Of course he’s hiding, Miss Lewis answered silently through the closed door. Under the flying brush her hair sparkled with electricity; it stood way out from her head, a nimbus of fine grey wire.
Of course Billy was hiding. She should know by this time. Always getting in a tizzy. A very quiet tizzy, worse, in a way, than the screaming-meemy kind. Emotional, oh my, yes, in spite of that firm controlled manner of hers. Emotions were necessary, Miss Lewis conceded that, but she kept her own, as she kept her best gloves and handkerchiefs, in an old chocolate box covered with a sachet of rose petals.
“Coming,” she said briskly, like a general with fresh troops and supplies coming in to replace a battered and defeated division.
She opened the door and Mrs. Wakefield said, looking quite “gone”: “I’m sorry I woke you up.”
“I’m not much of a one for lying in bed,” Miss Lewis said, rebuking the defeated troops who might easily have lost the battle by lying too long abed, or having unboxed emotions. “I heard you calling. Now you know, you know, he likes to be called. Remember the time he was in the broom closet? Hours, it was. Simply because everyone made such a fuss calling him.”
“He—he never used to hide like this.”
“It’s only a new game he has. I’m rather pleased with it myself. It shows a development, a step forward. He’s getting more independent. Look at it that way.”
“I’m afraid he might hurt himself.”
“He hasn’t yet,” said Miss Lewis. Afraid. Yes, that was the word for Mrs. Wakefield’s expression, not “gone.” A constant fear that fitted as tight as her skin.
Miss Lewis felt a sharp little pain in her chest, invisible under the starched chambray house dress—a twitch of revelation. Was Mrs. Wakefield’s fear merely that Billy would hurt himself, or was it much deeper, uglier: I am afraid because in the very bottom of my mind, in the depths where I live naked and absolutely alone with myself, Billy is dead, drowned, never existed.
If such a fear existed, Miss Lewis knew that no one could ever find out—except in terms of results—least of all, Mrs. Wakefield herself. She could never recognize it because it was already broken up into little digestible chunks. It was natural, even commendable, for a mother to be afraid that her son might hurt himself. A cut, a scratch, a fall, these were legitimate worries, viewed separately. But when Miss Lewis thought of them as pieces off the big fear, she got a crawly sensation along her spine.
Miss Lewis said, gently, as if in apology for her thoughts, “Have you looked under the beds?”
“Yes. Everywhere I could think of.”
“He might be with Mr. Roma and Carmelita.”
“No, they’re working in the garden.”
“Where did you see him last?”
“He was playing with his blocks on the patio,” Mrs. Wakefield said. “He was very quiet. I thought I’d run upstairs and change into a lighter dress.”
“That’s probably just the chance he was waiting for, blocks or no blocks.” There was no rebuke in Miss Lewis’s voice; she seemed secretly amused that Billy had had wits enough to slip away from his mother and hide. Billy had been showin
g a great improvement lately, and while Miss Lewis gave most of the credit to the thyroid extract, she took some for herself. The odd part of it was that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Wakefield noticed or commented on his improvement. It was as if they dared not look, or hope, for fear he would slide back again.
“He’s getting sharp as a fox,” Miss Lewis said.
They went through the whole house again, systematically, so that Billy wouldn’t have an opportunity to slip from one room to another to elude them. Miss Lewis found a button that had been missing from her best crepe dress, but no Billy.
“He might be with his father,” she said. “Why didn’t we think of that before, my goodness.”
“John’s on the beach. He knows I don’t allow Billy down there without me. It’s too dangerous.”
“We’ll have a look anyway.”
They crossed the lawn, fringed satin embroidered with clumps of marguerites. It had rained during the week. The trellis beyond the patio was a wall of white and scarlet and mauve sweet peas. The ribbed leaves of the loquat almost hid the golden eggs of fruit. The oleanders were choked with blossoms, and the camellia tree stood like a duchess, pink and perfect after its bath.
“It’s a pity they don’t smell,” Miss Lewis said. “The camellias.” But she sniffed them anyway as she passed, just to make sure.
The sun was steaming off the moisture from the roof of the house and from the boulders at the top of the cliff. In the windless air the steam rose straight and purposeful, as if to complete the cycle of change without delay: the cloud, the rain, the steam, the cloud.
Shielding her eyes from the sun, Miss Lewis knelt at the cliff’s edge and peered over at the stretch of sand below.
“Of course. Just as I thought. He’s with his father, you see?”
“Yes.” Mrs. Wakefield knelt, too, looking a little humble, as if she were kneeling not only to see over the cliff more easily, but out of gratitude to a nameless and unpredictable god.
The Cannibal Heart Page 7
