Mission accomplished. Gwen should have left the Cully Mansion feeling relieved and content, but as she drove home the last of what Elizabeth had to say lingered disturbingly.
‘He’s been through a lot in his nine years and we worry about his mental health. Gerard got up in the middle of the night a couple of weeks ago – following a Sunday I’d spent in bed with one of my worst migraines ever – and when he was passing Oliver’s open bedroom door he saw him bolt upright in bed. He was talking – having a conversation – with someone who wasn’t there.’
Nine
Oliver came down the dark oak staircase at a little after eight a.m. wearing shorts and a green T-shirt with a black Labrador on the front. Earlier in the week he’d hoped it would remind Elizabeth and Gerard how mean they were about not letting him have a dog. This morning it was a shirt he liked. He was feeling a little more kindly toward his aunt and uncle since they had told him he could go to the house where Twyla was living and have piano lessons with Mrs Garwood. Yesterday he’d gone for his very first one and it had been great. After five minutes he’d been able to find middle C with his eyes closed and was imagining himself on a stage playing for an audience of thousands with all the ladies and some of the men crying. Mrs Garwood made it seem easy and fun. He liked her blue eyes and pretty silver hair. When she left to let him to practice for a little on his own, while she went into the kitchen to make up a pitcher of lemonade, her son had come in and sat in a chair listening. He’d been mostly quiet, but once he said, ‘Nice.’ And then: ‘Good job.’
Twyla had previously told Oliver that Mrs Garwood and Sonny Norris were the lady and man they had sat next to in church on that first Sunday in Sea Glass. What had made him feel especially good was seeing how much Twyla enjoyed helping with Sonny and what good friends she and Mrs Garwood had become. And then there was Jumbo. Oliver had never seen, or even heard of, a bull mastiff before. They had taken to each other right away, and Mrs Garwood had said there was another new friend named Sarah – really Sonny’s friend, she had stressed – who came most days to take Jumbo out for a walk and perhaps, if it was agreeable with Oliver’s aunt and uncle, he could go with them sometimes. When Oliver got to the bottom of the stairs Mrs Polly was in the hall. She didn’t usually come on a Saturday unless she’d left something behind from when she worked the last time. In this case it must have been her instant coffee because she had the jar in her hand. Oliver had adjusted his negative opinion of Mrs Polly since his initial meeting with her at Pleasant Meadows. After seeing her there again in her father’s presence he had decided that she and Willie enjoyed rattling each other’s cages, as she called it, and that she was in her way fond of him.
‘Someone to see you, Mr Pal.’ That’s what she called him. The Mr because she joked that he was her employer and the Pal because she said that’s what he was, a real pal in a place she’d always told Miss Emily belonged back in the Dark Ages.
‘Thank you, Mrs Poll.’ Oliver inclined his head formally, which always made her grin. ‘Is it Twyla?’ His mood soared. Maybe Elizabeth was done with her excuses – that some other time would always be better.
‘A kid. Said he’s a friend, but can’t believe nothin’ nobody tells you these days. Could be a very short gangster on the lam. Wouldn’t hurt to look around for something to hit him over the head with if he comes at you. I’d give you this jar of coffee to pitch, but I’ve none at home and self comes first. He’s in the living room, but don’t ask me to go back in there with you. For all my size I’m Queen of Cowards.’
‘Right!’ Oliver now wished he’d stayed upstairs. ‘I bet it’s Emjagger or Rolling Stone. And I do need a weapon. They’re worse bullies than any at my school . . . old school in Ferry Landing. I hoped I was done with them now I don’t need to ride to and from Ferry Landing with them, but their mother and Elizabeth had made up their minds we are going to be best friends. I could puke!’
Mrs Polly shook her head, sending her heavy braid swinging. ‘I know them brats of Satan. Caught them chucking stones at my cat once and went after them at a gallop, yelling that I’d tear their heads off with my bare hands and boil them in a pot for supper. Never heard such a caterwauling. You could’ve heard ’em a mile off. Almost slipped twice, I did, on the puddles of tears they left behind. Folks can say what they like about my Willie, but he weren’t born evil. No, Mr Pal, the kid that’s waiting to see you is younger than either of them two, and wears glasses.’
‘Brian!’ Oliver exclaimed joyfully. ‘This is the first time he’s been here. He’s my true best friend.’ He threw his arms around Mrs Polly’s middle. All the rest was too far up. Now that he was no longer stiff with fear he could relish the image of her charging after Emjagger and Stone like a figure of vengeance blown up out of all human proportion. She stood patting his head, before prodding him toward the living room.
‘Don’t stand wasting time with the Ogress.’
He couldn’t walk away from that. ‘You’re not . . .’
Mrs Polly chuckled deeply. ‘I’ve been called far worse. Have to face facts in life. And when that’s said, Mr Pal, it does to know it’s never about the nice ones. But you won’t go catching me whimpering or dripping tears. There’s not too many is fool enough to step twice on someone my size, even though I don’t have all my teeth.’ She gave another pleased roar. ‘Used to ask my husband for a new set for Christmas, but nothing doing. That man was so cheap if I’d said I wanted a brooch he’d have stuck a tick on my blouse and tell me I looked like a film star.’
‘I’d buy you some new teeth, any kind you like, if I had the money.’
‘One of these days I’m just might hold you to that.’ Mrs Polly shot him a look that puzzled him. It was like she was trying to tell him something with what Grandpa would call a wink and a nod. ‘A pity some grown folks don’t realize having a bundle and wanting more ain’t the way to happiness. Now off you go. Your gangster friend has his head stuck out the doorway and looks ready to shoot me if I don’t disappear fast. It won’t be long before you have your aunt and uncle on your hands. Had a round with her in the ring the other day and don’t take smarts to guess who come off the winner? That look in her eyes when I said my piece put a smile on my ugly face that’ll last through summer.’
‘You’re not ugly! Now we’re friends, Mrs Poll, I get happier just looking at you.’
‘Go!’ The finger in the back was firmer this time.
‘Just one more thing: when I was up in the attic the other day I found boxes and boxes of paperback books . . .’
‘Romances! And you couldn’t picture Miss Emily reading them, right? Well, she did, lapped them up like a cat at a saucer of milk and wouldn’t have them given away or thrown out in case she wanted to reread them. So every so often I’d do a round up and take them up there.’
‘Thanks. That makes her seem a more comfortable sort of person. I brought a few down with me to look through.’ Oliver departed on a prod between his shoulder blades.
‘So what was all that about gangsters and guns?’ Brian asked when Oliver joined him in the living room. ‘Was that woman trying to get you to join her gang?’
‘She isn’t that woman. And she was just joking about the gangsters and stuff. She’s Mrs Polly. I told you about her. When I met her for the first time in Grandpa’s room at Pleasant Meadows, I wasn’t sure I’d like her. But I do; she’s the only real nice thing about having to live here.’
Brian looked doubtful. ‘You didn’t say she looks like she’d cook people for dinner and pour on lots of ketchup.’
‘Only ones like Emjagger and Rolling Stone.’
‘You’re not still stuck with them, Ollie?’ Brian’s eyes narrowed behind his ever-lopsided glasses. ‘I thought it was goodbye to those creeps now school’s out.’
‘They live next door.’
‘Guess I blocked that out.’
‘Not me. My skin’s still bruised from Rolling Stone pinching my arm in the car.’
‘Why didn’t y
ou get back at him by calling him by his full name – put in the Rolling part? If that’s what his parents want, and with his Mom driving, what could he do but suck it up?’
‘They’d make me pay big time when there’s no one but Emjagger around. Besides he’s got asthma, has to keep an inhaler with him, and much as I can’t stick him I’d be scared to send him into an attack. Twyla says in bad cases people can die from them. Elizabeth’s been talking about them taking me out kayaking.’
‘So she can stand on the shore and watch them drown you?’ Brian waggled his fingers around his face to indicate her ghoulish delight.
It was tempting to laugh nastily at this; especially as Oliver was sure Elizabeth and Gerard were still up in their bedroom and no one could come down the uncarpeted stairs unheard. They never got up early, even on weekdays. But his conscience pricked him. He had been allowed the piano lessons, if not a dog or cat, and he supposed it was a start. More than that really, because on those days he would be in the same house as Twyla for at least a couple of hours. Until now his time with her had been restricted to church on Sundays and the visits twice a week to see Grandpa. He turned this over in his mind. ‘I don’t get Elizabeth and Gerard. Even when they’re trying to be nice it’s like there’s something behind it. But why would they want me drowned or some other kind of dead, when they could just let me go live with Twyla?’ He shrugged.
‘I wouldn’t have hung around wondering. Is your uncle still creeping into your bedroom at dead of night?’
‘Sometimes, but I’ve kind of gotten used to that. I realized the second time that he was sleepwalking. He just stands there looking down at me and then goes away. I’ve tried asking what he wants, but he doesn’t answer.’
‘Creepy! Maybe this house had gotten inside his head. I already get the feeling something wicked is creeping up on us, getting ready to pounce and watch us squirm.’ Brian gave an exaggerated shiver as he looked around. ‘Talk about horror movies! Who’s that spooky old guy?’ He pointed at the dark oil portrait on the wall across from the tombstone fireplace.
‘Elizabeth and Gerard didn’t know, but Mrs Poll told me. She knows a lot from being here working for Miss Emily. He’s the one who built the house. Father of Nathaniel Cully and his two whaler brothers. His wife was so scared of him she used to hide in the attics. I went up the back staircase the other day and looked round. There was loads more old furniture but not what I was looking for. I had the idea there might be a painting of Nathaniel Cully as a boy, or some really old photos, but no luck. I’d already asked Gerard and Elizabeth if they’d come across any. Both said they hadn’t and couldn’t be bothered looking for needles in a haystack. Guess I’ll have to try the historical society next.’
‘But I thought you decided you only thought you were awake when you saw and talked to Nathaniel; that it was really just the end part of a dream. Remember, I was the one who told you that he had to be a ghost, or how do you explain that book you found in the morning? You said Gerard and Elizabeth acted like they truly didn’t know anything about it.’
‘I guess I didn’t want to believe he was really there. But he did seem so real. If only there was some way to at least prove my bedroom was his as a kid.’ Oliver shrugged. ‘You’re still the only person I told. Saying you see and hear things no one else does makes you sound whacko. And Gerard and Elizabeth already seem to think I’m weird enough to be dragged off to a psychiatrist.’
‘Lots of people go to them,’ countered the worldly-wise Brian. ‘My Mom’s friend went and it just had to do with thinking she’d never learn how to text on her phone as fast as everyone else. Besides,’ he drew out his trump card, ‘Aunt Nellie and the people at that church of hers think having contact with the spirit world is perfectly normal. By the way, that’s why I walked over here. I stayed over last night with her and don’t have to go home until this afternoon. She wants me to bring you back over so we can hang out.’
‘Cool!’
It was Brian’s first visit to the Cully Mansion. Oliver hadn’t suggested his coming over because he’d been afraid the answer would be no, forcing him to look deeper into the half-formed fears that swirled murkily beneath the surface of his relationship with Gerard and Elizabeth. Theirs wasn’t clear to him. He’d never heard them arguing. They just seemed to move around each other, when they weren’t sitting staring into space. He’d been told not to interrupt his uncle when he was in one of the back rooms working, but when he’d pass the door he always heard a television, or it could be a radio, going. What Oliver tried to do was think about them as little as possible. It seemed a long time ago that he’d planned to make them so sick of having him around that they’d be glad to let Twyla come and take him, but he’d quickly grasped that wasn’t going to work. When he’d tried acting up they’d said it looked like he’d been allowed to get out of hand since Grandpa was ill and they hoped Twyla wouldn’t continue to be a negative influence. He had been left struggling to come to terms with the realization that there wasn’t going to be a miracle resulting in Grandpa’s recovery. This house did not allow desperate hopes to survive. Or maybe love had more to do with it. Each time Oliver went to Pleasant Meadows he became more aware that for Grandpa staying alive was an exhausting effort. Tired to the bone. They both knew he was ready to go home, not to the one they’d shared in Ferry Landing, but to his long forever home where Grandma Olive and Mom and Dad and all the other people he’d loved would be waiting for him. It was so clear the only thing keeping him here was the worry of leaving Oliver behind in the wrong hands. And for whatever reason Elizabeth and Gerard weren’t going to give him up. He would have to talk positively about the piano lessons and any other opportunities that offered temporary escapes into happiness.
‘I’ll go find Elizabeth and Gerard and tell them you’re here and that I’m walking back with you to Aunt Nellie’s.’ He stepped into the hall.
‘You think they’ll say yes?’
‘I’m not going to ask them if it’s OK, I’ll just tell me that’s what we’re doing. It’s not like they can make out you’re a bad influence. Your name’s not been in the paper for robbing banks.’
‘I see them as jailers; but Aunt Nellie says that with school out could be they won’t be so keen to have you underfoot all day.’
‘Right.’ Oliver was about to head up the stairs, not all that keen on knocking on Elizabeth and Gerard’s bedroom door, although he couldn’t imagine them in there kissing, when he saw them coming down. No need to have worried. They said it was fine for him to go off with his friend. Elizabeth smiled quite brightly at Brian, and Gerard remarked that it looked like it was going to be one of the first really hot days, so it was good to make the most of it.
‘We’re going out ourselves this morning, Oliver, and when you get back we should have a surprise for you,’ said Elizabeth, ‘so we’d like you back here by twelve thirty or one.’
Could it possibly be they’d changed their minds about getting him a dog or a cat?’ Oliver told himself not to get his hopes up, but there was nothing else he’d asked for. He went out the front door with Brian into bright sunshine under clear blue skies. Lupines, blue, pink and corn-colored, sprang tall along the edges of Salt Marsh Road. His aunt and uncle had not asked if he’d had breakfast. Neither of them seemed much interested in food. Dinner was usually something bought frozen, although there was always a salad and fruit.
He and Brian said goodbye to Elizabeth and set off. ‘It wasn’t like his name was in the book,’ Oliver said, as they turned onto Wild Rose Way. Brian stopped to look at him.
‘Whose wasn’t?’
‘Nathaniel Cully’s. So even though it was an old leather book there’s no way to say it belonged to him.’
‘But you can’t pretend it wasn’t weird that it was Oliver Twist. Have you started reading it?’
‘No. It just seemed too . . . well, you know. The next time I saw Grandpa I asked him if he liked it and he said he did, that it had some of Dickens’ best characters
– some named Fagin and the Artful Dodger, but he hadn’t been sure about talking to me about it, or having us watch the movie because Oliver’s mother died when he was born and it might make me too sad.’
Brian’s eyes widened behind the glasses. ‘You should look through all the pages; maybe Nathaniel wrote something on one of them, and that would prove it was him.’
‘I did and there wasn’t. Tucked in at the back, between the last few pages, there were two folded sheets of paper with boats drawn on them in ink, mostly sloops and frigates. I wondered if one of the brothers did them. Remember they’re the ones that did the scrimshaws that were left to the historical society. But it could have been anybody, even Miss Emily.’
‘You didn’t tell me about the drawings.’
‘Like I said, I’ve been telling myself it was just a dream. I asked Mrs Poll if she knew whether my bedroom was Nathaniel’s when he was a boy, but she didn’t know.’
‘Well, he said it was and I believe it,’ Brian replied firmly. ‘I think he’ll come back because he wants to help you somehow.’
‘Right.’ Oliver wasn’t looking at him. His eyes were on the small white house with the steep green room and picket fence. For some reason – nothing in particular, just a friendly look – it brought stingingly to mind his old home that would sometime soon have to be sold so the money could be used to pay for Pleasant Meadows.
‘Why don’t you talk to Aunt Nellie about seeing Nathaniel?’
It was a sensible suggestion. She of all people wouldn’t think he was nuts, but did he want to share the boy he’d seen and spoken to with anyone but Brian? Dream or no dream, Nathaniel was the one thing in recent weeks that Oliver could think of as his very own. With Brian it was different; talking to him was like thinking out loud.
‘Not this time.’
When they reached Aunt Nellie’s cottage, she welcomed them into her overcrowded interior. There was too much of everything, from furniture to her collections of pickle crocks, patchwork quilts and colored bottles. But unlike the Cully Mansion it all made for a cozy muddle that made you feel right at home before you even worked your way through to the kitchen where three places were set at the table for breakfast. This turned out to be toaster waffles, but with real maple syrup, tall glasses of milk and what she called a fruit compote.
Sea Glass Summer Page 19
