Jody seemed to listen intently. Dr. Norman had brought a wave of bright confidence and hope into the room, and she was affecting them all. Except, perhaps, for Tyler Hammond, who looked as guarded and unconvinced as ever. What on earth was the matter with him? Kelsey thought impatiently. She glanced at Marisa, who merely raised an eyebrow in understanding and smiled.
“I’ll come to see you again in a few days, Jody,” Dr. Norman told him, “and I’ll bring my friend who does acupuncture and knows about spastic problems. The sooner we get started, the better. A lot of what happens now will depend on what you think inside your own head.”
Again Jody said “Um,” and Dr. Norman nodded.
“Good. Jody, I want you to start now and think about how a lot of people are working to help you get well. You won’t feel cheerful and hopeful all the time—nobody does. But you can learn how to pull yourself back on the right track. What’s happened in the past doesn’t matter—it’s from now on that counts. There’s always a from-now-on. Do you understand me, Jody?”
He made a hissing sound that was almost a “yes,” and Ginnie and Kelsey looked at each other, pleased.
Dr. Norman patted him again and left the bed to speak quietly to Tyler. “Is there a place where we can discuss a few matters?”
Tyler motioned toward the small room across the hall, and Dr. Norman beckoned to Ginnie and Kelsey to come too. Marisa stayed with Jody, talking to him, backing up the things Dr. Norman had said.
When they were sitting at the small table, Dr. Norman opened the tote bag she’d brought and took out several small packages.
“I brought some bottles along, so we can get started at once. Are you willing to give this a try, Mr. Hammond? Do you think Jody’s mother should be here to hear about this?”
“No,” Tyler said quickly. “I can explain what I think she should know. I don’t want to raise false hopes in my wife.”
For the first time, Dr. Norman looked exasperated. “I’m not sure there’s any such thing as false hope. Doctors understand that what goes on in the minds of patients and those around them is one of the best of all healing tools. A lack of hope can kill.”
Tyler needed to listen to that, Kelsey thought, and didn’t realize that she was staring at him angrily, until he caught her eye and looked startled. Then he almost smiled.
“You may be right, Dr. Norman,” he said. “But what I want to know now is what’s in those bottles. If there are any new drugs, I want to consult my own doctor.”
“No drugs at all, Mr. Hammond. Nothing that isn’t approved by the FDA. This is a different approach. The treatment is being used in a number of places right now. Octocosanol has been found to regenerate brain cells in some cases, and the sooner it’s used, the better.”
“What is this stuff?” Tyler asked.
“It’s a harmless substance concentrated from wheat germ oil, where a lot of life power exists. The oil alone won’t do it. This has been refined from the basic oil into something much more complex. We’re only beginning to understand how complex and useful it is.”
“This is supposed to help Jody’s brain cells?” Tyler asked in disbelief.
“It may. The least it will do is to help his general health. We used to believe that brain cells could never be repaired. Now we’re learning that sometimes they may be revitalized. No promises, because of all the variables, such as individual reactions. Are you willing to try, Mr. Hammond?”
Tyler looked at Ginnie, and then at Kelsey. Finally he shrugged. “What can we lose?”
“You may even gain,” Dr. Norman said. “Of course nothing works alone in nutrition. I’m going to prescribe a number of supporting vitamins and minerals for Jody that will help in this treatment. It’s not damage and disease alone that we must deal with. The immune system has to be built up. When that is strong, the body’s better able to perform its own repairs. Which is probably what was intended in the first place. Will you let us begin, Mr. Hammond?”
Dr. Norman’s own strong conviction must have reached him. He said, “Go ahead,” surrendering. “We’ll see what happens.
Dr. Norman held out her packages to Ginnie. “These are what I’d like to start with. I’ll have some blood and hair tests done so we can know where he stands chemically. We’ll use capsule vitamin preparations where possible because they’ll be easy to open and put into fluid in his feeding tube. There are a few hard tablets that you’ll need to grind into fine powder so they can be mixed with liquid. All this stuff tastes pretty bad, and when he can start taking it by mouth you’ll need to disguise it in apple sauce or something else that he can swallow. He may not be able to swallow capsules for a while.”
When she’d made sure that Ginnie understood her instructions, she prepared to leave. “Is there anything else you’d like to ask, Mr. Hammond?”
Tyler looked a bit stunned, as though a world he’d never dreamed of had suddenly opened before him, and he still didn’t know what to make of it, or whether he dared to hope. For once, he was almost gracious.
“Thank you for coming, Dr. Norman. Is there anything else you want us to do?”
She nodded at him, not smiling now. “Just pray a lot. Perhaps that comes first of all.”
She went back to Jody’s room to say good-bye to him and add a few more words of encouragement. Then she told Marisa she would see her soon, and hurried off to another appointment, leaving Kelsey with a feeling that a beneficial summer storm had just breezed through, and that none of them would ever be the same again. She only hoped that Tyler would give Ruth a positive account of what had happened.
Ginnie went to work at once, opening the packages, to find that Dr. Norman had provided a small mortar and pestle for turning the hard tablets into powder.
Kelsey spoke to the boy in the bed. “Interesting things are going to happen now to help you, Jody. Ginnie will explain when she has everything ready.”
“Well?” Marisa asked Tyler when he came into the room.
“We’ll see,” he said.
She shook her head. “I know—‘it won’t help, but it can’t hurt.’ That’s the phrase to fall back on when you don’t understand something. Dr. Norman belongs to a new breed, and you’d better listen.”
“I’ve listened,” Tyler said. “I hope you know what you’re doing. Anyway, thanks for bringing her here.”
He went off, his shoulders stooped again, and Kelsey looked after him, troubled, remembering the terrible things Ruth had said. When she followed Marisa up to the car, she put her uneasy thoughts into words.
“Sometimes I wonder if Tyler really wants Jody to get well.”
Marisa gave her a long, searching look as she got into her car. “He doesn’t know what he wants. Let’s go have lunch. You need a breather, and we can talk more freely away from this house.”
They drove down from the Highlands to the fork where the road turned into Carmel Valley. On either hand mountains rimmed the long valley that stretched between steep slopes where shadow and sunlight patterned the land. For Kelsey, the view had a heart-lifting effect—calming, and without the threat that always stirred the ocean.
“We’re going to the Barnyard, not far into the Valley,” Marisa said. “After lunch we’ll take the Valley road for a few miles on. There’s something I’d like to show you.”
The Barnyard proved to be a center for small shops built on several levels, like a cluster of barns. Creative planning had turned it into something of a garden show as well. Paved walks with rustic steps wound among bright flowerbeds. Outside galleries overlooked the walks, and benches invited visitors to rest. A number of people were moving about, looking as colorful as the flowerbeds, in their California clothes.
Now, however, Marisa had lunch in mind. The restaurant was first of all a bookstore. A wide door opened from the book area into a spacious room with big windows and more bookshelves, so it was possible to eat and read at the same time. Through the windows, walks and flowerbeds and rustic buildings were visible.
&n
bsp; When they’d ordered a light meal, Marisa said, “All right—tell me what’s worrying you, Kelsey.”
“I give everything away, don’t I? But it’s not all troubling. Jody’s trying hard to say a few words. He can understand, and he’s frustrated because he can’t communicate. I think he’s upset by whatever it is Tyler sometimes shows toward him. When we went to Tor House, Jody seemed happier for a time, and interested in everything. Until Tyler got angry, and spoiled the good mood.”
“What else?”
Kelsey wished she could consult Marisa about her encounter with Ruth in the library last night, but on this she had to be silent. She didn’t want to betray Ruth, who seemed almost as vulnerable as Jody. Marisa might very well tell Tyler if she knew.
“Tell me about Mrs. Langford,” Kelsey said. “Ruth’s mother seems anxious to please, anxious not to do anything to upset anyone. So much so that sometimes she’s ineffectual.” Though that hadn’t been the case last night, Kelsey remembered.
“Anyone who lived all those years with the General needed to develop an inner toughness. Even though it’s well hidden by what sometimes looks like a meek exterior. We’ve become rather good friends—though when it comes to Ruth, I think Dora’d sacrifice anyone else.”
“Did you know the General?”
“I met him a few times. When Tyler went off on his own, he lived at first in the Los Angeles area, and worked for one of the studios. Mostly scriptwriting while he was learning the business. He met Ruth when he was doing an early documentary on the side—about college young people—and he fell for her hard. So when he wanted me to meet her and her family, I visited Ruth’s home near Palm Springs.
“How did they happen to have a home base when the General always moved around?”
“Dora finally put down her foot and insisted on her own place. She liked the desert, and once in a while the General had to give in. Besides, he could always go his own way, which he did. He happened to be there on my first visit, and I felt some very bad vibes when I met him. The only one who really stood up to him was Ruth, though she was eager to escape, and she fell in love with Tyler at the right time. General Langford didn’t know how to be anything but a commanding officer, and one with pretty narrow views at that. When he found he couldn’t order Tyler around, the way he did Denis, he set himself against the marriage. Of course Ruth knew how to get her own way with him.”
“Tyler Hammond doesn’t listen much to other people’s opinions, either,” Kelsey said. “He and the General must really have clashed.”
“I wasn’t there for all the fireworks, but I hear there were a few. You’re right about Tyler. From the time when he was ten and came to live with us, he only listened to his own strange drummer. Which makes it hard for those around him. Brilliant men are often difficult. There can be a ruthless streak. He doesn’t want to be distracted by side roads, and he can march right toward his own fixed goal, whether anyone else approves or not. If you oppose him, you can get trampled. Ruth wasn’t used to that. But he really loved her, I think—at least in the beginning. He was doing well in his work, happy with his son—and then all this happened. In a single instant, he lost both Ruth and Jody, and perhaps he realized for the first time that they were the foundation under his work. He’s lost his direction now, and he feels doomed. That tragedy when he was a child, and now this.… He’s turned fatalistic. I think he’s wrong, but while he’s willing to listen to me, he goes his own way.”
Kelsey wondered if Marisa knew that Tyler had wanted a divorce. “Anyway,” she said, “he’s giving Dr. Norman a chance, and I think she may really help Jody.”
“As you are helping him,” Marisa said. “Don’t ever discount the role you’ve already played in this short time. Ginnie tells me you’ve made friends with Jody and that he trusts you. That’s a big accomplishment right there.”
When their salads and soup came, Kelsey remembered the other thing she’d wanted to talk to Marisa about—those three black beads that had disturbed her ever since she’d seen them on Denis’s desk. She told Marisa about what had happened.
“I had a feeling that I’d seen similar beads before,” she finished, “and later I remembered the photograph you did of Francesca Fallon. Wasn’t she wearing a strand of black beads in that picture?”
“Yes. In fact, I was there when the strand broke.”
“Denis seemed upset when he saw those beads on his desk. He said that Tyler must have been in his office. Why?”
“I suppose because he knew Tyler had those three beads. You see, the necklace was broken during that radio interview Francesca did with Tyler. They made the broadcast right in the library of his house, since Tyler wouldn’t go to the studio. Francesca started in on him hard after a few innocuous preliminaries. Of course she should have known better. She had a way of asking nasty questions that could be taken in the wrong way by listeners. Tyler saw what she was doing, and when he couldn’t sidetrack her, he got mad. When he gets mad, watch out! He lit into her with a few barbed questions of his own, and the battle was on. She almost lost control, she was so furious. Just before the broadcast ended, she caught at those beads in her anger and gave them a tug that broke the strand. They went flying all over the library. She claimed to have bought them in Nairobi, and apparently treasured them. So when the program was off the air she went down on her hands and knees, picking them up. Tyler had invited me to be there, and Denis had come too. So we all hunted beads.
“I suppose, in a way, what happened when the beads scattered made a good diversion for Francesca. She knew her outburst had been anything but admirable, and she was so upset that she needed a coverup until she could pull herself together. She and Tyler didn’t even speak to each other again. As soon as she thought she had all the beads, she got the crew and herself out of the house.”
“Tyler asked me not to listen to that interview,” Kelsey said. “But I think I’d like to hear it.”
“I’m not sure you would. I haven’t decided whether to destroy the tape or not.”
“The three beads turned up later?”
“Jody found them. He’d been allowed to sit in a corner and watch, and afterwards he found them under a chair. He gave them to his father. But how they wound up on Denis’s desk, I’ve no idea.”
“Your inner voices don’t answer questions?” Kelsey asked, half joking.
“They aren’t to be ordered. They speak when they please, and mostly I like it best when they keep still.”
Kelsey returned to the unpleasant scene in the library. “Since Tyler didn’t like Francesca Fallon, why would he agree to do the interview in the first place? I asked him once, but he didn’t tell me. I’d have thought he’d have avoided it, no matter what.”
“It wasn’t in character for him to do it. I’ve never understood that either, and he would never talk about it. In those Los Angeles days they all knew one another, and it could be that she was calling in some debt he owed her. I don’t know. I don’t much like it that those beads have surfaced again, yet I don’t see what they might have to do with Denis. They’ve always seemed evil little faces to me. Perhaps because objects sometimes have their own energies that I react to.”
This was Marisa’s mystical streak again, but since Kelsey had experienced an uneasy feeling when she’d touched the beads herself, she could almost accept this concept of objects being evil.
“I wish I could feel more settled in my own mind,” she said. “I feel as though I’m being pulled in different directions, and that doesn’t help me to be calm and quiet with Jody. He needs serenity as well as stimulation. Serenity in those around him.”
“We all do, but it isn’t easy to come by. I suppose we try to work toward that ideal—an undivided self. But instead, we go splitting off in all directions. Maybe getting oneself together into one piece is what maturing is all about. Tyler was almost there at one point, I think. At least he’d put behind him the things in his life that he couldn’t do anything about, and was really moving ahead
in his work. Now he’s cracked apart so badly that I worry. He needs patching together as much as Jody does. And Ruth.”
After lunch, Kelsey picked up some paperbacks in the bookstore before they drove into the Valley. There was no fog here, and mountains ran along on each side, their tops gentle and rolling against the sky, protecting the stretch of valley between. There were groves of redwoods now, and blue gum eucalyptus on some of the hills. At first there were houses, but not all of the Valley was built up as yet.
Marisa turned the car up a narrow side road that cut into a canyon in the mountains. This was more isolated country as the slopes steepened. They passed one dilapidated shack that had been abandoned, and a small house with chickens in the yard. Higher up, Kelsey saw a third house set against a grove of oak trees.
“That’s where we’re going,” Marisa said. “This is a private road.”
The way came to an end at the house, and Marisa got out. “Since Tyler’s given me a key, I come out once in a while to make sure everything’s all right. He hates the place and won’t come here himself. So far he’s been unable to sell it. There are too many stories connected with it that people don’t like. It’s the sort of spot Robinson Jeffers might have written about when he and Una roamed around exploring.”
Kelsey joined Marisa on the walk to the house. Log fences, some of them fallen, had once closed off what must have been a grazing pasture above the house. Weeds grew high in front, thrusting through cracks in the cement walk.
“Nature takes over so quickly,” Marisa said. “Somebody’s got to get out here and clear out the weeds and spruce it up a bit, or Tyler will never sell it.”
The gray, shingled roof overhung a narrow porch where oak leaves had drifted into brown piles. To the right, a few yards from the house, stood the gaunt black skeleton of an oak tree. Along one dead arm that reached toward the sky, parasite ivy struggled for life.
Flaming Tree Page 18
