Michael Malone

by Dingley Falls

  Hayes and Smalter stared, nevertheless, because the possessions of those separated from the rest of the world by the fame of fortune or misfortune or by a madness to create or destroy seem to take on the mystery of their owners' secret, whether the secret is one of glory, or horror, or death. Ordinary objects seem granted the significance of talismans. And once granted, of course endowed.

  But on Barnum's top floor there were possessions perhaps less ordinary, perhaps less ambiguous as clues to the secret of their owner than all the things collected downstairs. They were certainly more personal things, at least in the sense that none of the men who looked at them now had been meant to see them. In the opened door Smalter and Hayes stood, staring. Joe MacDermott, by a closet, held up a Nazi military jacket with bewildered dismay in his bland face.

  Shoddy pictures torn from magazines, the articles known as sexual "aids" and those designed for sexual "discipline," cheap, false-colored, shiny plastic and rubber objects flashed stark bright with the hissing eye of the policeman's camera.

  Hundreds of dollars in self-improvement equipment lay on the floor, instruments for all the muscles of the body. And prominently in the center of the room was a full-length mirror hung on swivels inside a heavy, ornate wooden frame; its feet were clawed balls, and an eagle was carved into the top piece. The glass of the mirror had been smashed. The photographer with a grin drew the attention of MacDermott to a picture taped to the wall of a man forcing a bound woman to fellatio him.

  Smalter felt angry and ashamed of his sex, ashamed of himself and the money he made with cheap, false books about quick guns and fast women. He felt sad about the human race, sad and sick at heart. Looking at the mirror, he thought of the words Ramona had said to him jokingly last night. "Deathbed advice, Sammy. Listen.

  Get a big mirror. Take off your clothes. Stand there. Laugh. Come too, stand beside you, if I could walk. Am I saying words? Can't hear.

  Nod. Good. All these years. Same house. Not true aunt. Should have had sex. Why not? Curiosity. Now, never know. Missed it. Old woman, but as a favor you could have. Too late now. Don't be so prissy. Blushing. Shame, ain't it? Laugh."

  "Oh, Lord," said Hayes, shaking his head at the room where Limus Barnum had spent that time that others did not care to spend with him. "Poor creepy bastard."

  Smalter took Hayes by the arm and led him home. Brushing his hand through his wreath of hair, he said, "Ah, well, Alvis, you see, even in the land of romance, sometimes character is destiny. Sadly enough. Go to bed now."

  chapter 64

  Tracy Canopy's television set was tuned to the Argyle news on which was now being shown a clip of the sooty Cecil Hedgerow talking authoritatively into the camera while, somehow, beside him Evelyn Troyes gazed admiringly up. Behind them the woods were burning.

  Tracy ate a late dinner absentmindedly alone. She could rarely remember, once she'd thrown out the aluminum containers, what it was she'd had for dinner. She was not, like Evelyn, like Beanie, a creature-comfort creature at all. Not a sensualist. Not, she supposed, if certain sorts of things were meant by it, a terribly womanly woman.

  Thus, to be absolutely honest, she was happier now than during her homely childhood, when she had been for the most part frightened or frustrated, happier than during her plain adolescence, when she had been continually baffled and humiliated, happier than in her severe young matronhood, when she had been at least partially conflicted and restricted. Now, finally, at fifty-two, Tracy Canopy was free. Never again would she be caught between the shame of having her pigtails yanked and the shame of not having them yanked. Never again, to escape pity and censure, need she submit to the rituals of being whistled at (or not), being asked out to be whiskered across the face and squeezed elsewhere (or not), of being given away, a raffle prize, in a church, then carted off to the deflowering like Anne Boleyn (or not). Free from the urge to give birth, and from months calendared by blood, Tracy Canopy felt free as a butterfly after a clumsy crawl as a caterpillar and a long, will-less, squishy passivity in the marriage cocoon.

  No doubt it was a matter of metabolism or hormones or genes or diet or morphology. Look at Beanie. Or Evelyn, confessing that she "longed to have a man." Longed? What did that mean? The way Evelyn had oohed and aahed all her life over men, had even at six delighted in getting her hair yanked, had even at fourteen secretly fashioned in an attic room a shrine to Charles Boyer, with candles burning before his photograph. And still now in that gush over Louie Daytona, or even the selectman Cecil Hedgerow last night at the fire. Well, Evelyn was up to something moony and hidden again.

  Something like the shrine or her running off, unwed, with Hugo Eroica. But that was Evelyn. Tracy wouldn't press her. She'd wait. In good time Evelyn would come to her with a confession.

  Yet Priss would not. Absentmindedly sipping tea in which the bag still sat, turning the liquid to tannic acid, Tracy puzzled now over a moral dilemma. On the one hand, she believed that Priss had been in the wrong, speaking so unfeelingly to Beanie and to her; but on the other hand, should she cast Priss aside for that offense? For she knew that Priss would be unable to ask forgiveness, might even want to but simply would not be capable of taking that first step any more than someone whose legs were broken could climb a mountain. And yet Priss would miss her; her absence would become gradually a more conscious irritant in Priss's daily activities. This Tracy knew from their past quarrels. She suspected, in fact, that there was a way in which Priss, who seemed to care for so little, was more in need of Tracy, than she of Priss. Well then, what was there to do but move the mountain over to Mrs. Ransom? Mrs. Canopy decided to go up and speak to her friend tomorrow after church, seeking her out, but matter-of-factly, so as not to embarrass her. A neutral topic. Well, she would think of one. Then from England she'd write (as she always did—quatrains on postcards: "Wish you were here in Windermere /Except the rotten weather's dreary. / Beanie climbed mountains, while I, I fear, / Soon quit because I'd gotten weary. Love, Tracy").

  Then when she returned to Dingley Falls, life between them would take up its old dance, discord forgotten though not formally forgiven.

  Tracy would call to inquire about Ramona once more, then she really should get to bed. There were a million and one things she needed to do before Tuesday when her trip with Beanie would begin.

  Not that she held out much hope that this excursion to the Lake District would save the Abernathy marriage, though it should help temporarily to save its face. For people could be snide. Well, Beanie was Beanie. And why assume that someone doesn't know what she's doing if she says she does? If Beanie chose to leave a snug lake to dive headfirst into the raging ocean, then no doubt the landlocked, the high-grounders, for whom even the most shallow pond was too wet (and oh, my, Vincent, I hope I was not really an awful disappointment, because we were very good friends, weren't we?), then all those scared of drowning should admit, "I am out of my element and ought not to judge what certainly looks like the most terrifying folly from back here, high and dry, on the shore."

  In their off-mauve living room the Ransoms were trying to decide what to do for dinner. Meanwhile, cocktails were being served. Ernest, in sailing blazer, served a martini to his wife, in caftan, and a Scotch and soda to himself. Arthur Abernathy, in suit and tie, was invited to serve himself as he awaited Emerald, who was up in her room engaged in those somnambulistically serene rites known in the family as "Emerald's getting ready." Kate, in shorts and a T-shirt stamped WOMEN BELONG IN THE HOUSE…AND THE SENATE, served herself a Scotch and took a glass of wine to Sidney Blossom, who had surprised her by showing up in what looked like a starched shirt. Blossom was at the piano in the corner, forcing himself to work to win the Ransoms' affection, though he didn't especially want it; or at least their tacit tolerance of him as the future kinsman he intended to become. While ten years ago Sid had been thrust into moral absolutism by the strategies of the revolutionary times, and had thus earned Kate's parents' nervous enmity as a "protester" and a "freak," he was by na
ture a pragmatist. What he wanted was Kate.

  Kate was connected to a family. Best all around if relations with the family were as near cordiality as goodwill could make them.

  Rummaging through the piano seat, he found a book of Cole Porter songs inscribed PRISCILLA HANCOCK. He flipped it open and began "Begin the Beguine."

  If Emerald ever appeared, she and Arthur would be dining with acquaintances in Argyle. Kate and Sid would be eating at Mama Marco's. The Ransoms, senior, were at somewhat looser ends.

  Neither felt tonight like another trip to the Prim or the Club or the Old Towne, or a drive elsewhere, or a show, or much of anything.

  Priss had tried unsuccessfully to stir up two players for bridge. Evelyn had never answered. Finally Walter Saar had, explaining he'd passed the afternoon at St. Andrew's listening to the choir rehearsal and was now unfortunately in bed with, he said, a sudden attack of something he must have picked up there. "Not the curate?" she had queried lightly, and he had managed a laugh, and she had laughed back, and they had arranged to be partners at the Club's duplicates tournament the following Friday. Mrs. Ransom decided it would probably be pleasant to share with Saar private innuendos about his illicit perversity. Naturally, they'd never mention it directly; she would never "know" he was homosexual, but they would play with knowledge as with cards. She liked him better than ever. Still, what were she and Ernest going to do this evening?

  "Why don't you pick up a couple of grinders and go bowling?"

  suggested Kate.

  "Take your legs off the arm rests, dear," her mother replied.

  "Tell you what, I bet we could get Sloan. And Tracy. Play a few rubbers," Ransom urged politely. (He actually would have preferred to watch television.)

  "Sloan doesn't play bridge."

  "Oh. Sorry. Are you sure?"

  "Yes. He plays Hearts and, I believe, Go Fish."

  Sid gave an appreciative chuckle and swept into a medley from Kiss Me, Kate. Kate looked at him with alarm and returned to the magazine she was reading.

  Ransom passed his wife a smoked oyster on a cracker. "Well, the rector said he was preaching tomorrow anyhow. Probably burning the midnight oil."

  "Not unless he's making soap," replied Priss. Sid chuckled again.

  She took her martini to the coiled gold mirror, where she brushed back a short lock of hair and thought again that perhaps she should salt and pepper her hair, like Ernest's. She said over her shoulder, "Really. When is your vestry going to admit that Sloan Highwick ought to retire?"

  "That's true." Arthur Abernathy nodded.

  "Really. He's becoming senile. The man's mind is like a Dr. Seuss book."

  "Oh, don't be silly, Priss. Sloan's always been like that."

  "Is that a defense? Ernest, you yourself told me when you met his mother that she was certifiable."

  "What's that got to do with it?" asked Ransom, refurbishing his drink.

  "Listen to this!" Kate mumbled from her book. "'Resolved that the women of this nation in eighteen seventy-six have greater cause for discontent, rebellion, and revolution than the men of seventeen seventy-six.' Susan B. Anthony. And here we are, with another hundred years of crap dumped on our heads!" She threw the magazine on the floor and yelled, "And where's the fucking revolution for us?"

  "Kate! Hold on, now! I don't think that's the right kind of language for you to—"

  "Oh, Daddy! You know, I bet if a truck ran over me and I were lying on the sidewalk dying, and I said, 'Oh, fuck it, Daddy, I'm dying!' you'd say it wasn't the right kind of language to use."

  Around Ransom's mouth the skin turned white. "Don't talk about your dying like that."

  "See!"

  Ernest Ransom took his drink, told everyone to help themselves to his liquor, said he hoped he would be excused, and retired to his den.

  "Oh, shit! Now I've hurt his feelings." Kate went over to the piano, where Blossom was tinkling through "Miss Otis Regrets." She pummeled him on the back, the gesture somewhere between a massage and an assault. "I feel like I ought to stick a dollar in your glass," she told him. "What is this, cocktail hour at the Ramada Inn? What are you playing this junk for?"

  "I, for one, happen to be enjoying it," said Mrs. Ransom from her plum wing chair. "Porter's my favorite." Sid slowed seductively into "It's All Right with Me."

  Finally the double glass doors opened, and there stood Emerald, ready. Her glossy black curls were blown into perfect disorder. Her lips and fingernails and toenails and blouse were red, her scarf and skirt were white, her blazer and her sling-back open-toe pumps were blue, as if she had been decorated to commemorate the bicentennial year.

  Pierced through her ears were tiny ruby hearts. Perfectly she waited.

  "If Daddy were in here, he'd take a picture of you," said Kate. All Emerald's life people had been taking pictures of her. Now she always seemed to expect it.

  "You look lovely, dear. Have a good time," her mother told her.

  "Have a nice evening," Arthur told Mrs. Ransom.

  The couple went to the door. Then Emerald paused, turned. She raised her hand, diamond twinking, and said, "Ciao."

  "Ciao!" called Sid Blossom with a friendly wave, and swooped into "What a Swell Party This Is."

  chapter 65

  In the fold-out bed beside Chin Lam, her sleeping head pressed in the crook of his neck, her arm across his thin chest, Maynard Henry lay awake and concluded, after a series of speculations, that his luck, bad as it had been, could have been worse. These speculations did not question the justice of what he had elected to do to Limus Barnum, or had been forced to do to John Haig, any more than he would have brooded over whether or not he should have killed a spider that had bitten him, or deflected a rock thrown at his head.

  But Maynard Henry did have a few theories about what had happened since the shooting; about, for example, the feelings about Judith Haig that had motivated Winslow Abernathy to protect (and then to blackmail) him. Yet, some of Henry's conclusions were based on false premises. It was not true that Judith Haig had told the lawyer everything, and that she and Abernathy were conscious conspirators.

  She had told him no more than he had repeated to Henry. Also false was the younger man's immediate assumption, when told that a bullet had been fired into Barnum's face, that Judith had held the gun there and squeezed the trigger in violent revenge, in uncontrollable disgust and despair. He understood the phenomenon, having seen other corpses shot at, but he thought the less of Judith Haig for doing it. Such vengeance was not clean, so he judged.

  Henry was frustrated. He didn't understand her code of debt and payment, and his ignorance tilted him off balance. What equaled what?

  What kind of woman would shield a man who had killed her husband (though by chance misfortune)? Unless she wanted her husband killed.

  Or was his causing Haig's death justified by his executing the rapist for her? An exchange of necessities? He wanted to know if he and Mrs. Haig were even. If she sent no bill, that would make it harder.

  The flat disc of the moon, a hunter's moon, came like a watch light through the small window and whitened the slender arm that, enclosing him, moved with his breath. The wound from the bullet ached, but he could not turn away without moving her aside. Henry's legs were too long for the cheap, thin mattress; his feet had always hung over the edge, and Night had often startled him by licking them. Now Maynard Henry curled himself against Chin Lam, bending his legs toward her.

  The sheets on Judith Haig's bed were white and mild as milk against her skin. She had let the weight of her head sink into the pillow; it felt tender. Judith had been washed by nurses with warm, easy hands and dressed in the open nightgown. Now, unmedicated, she lay, drowsy, in the dark room. After the clatter of the day, silence in the night-lit corridor was slumbery and peaceful. Beyond the curtain, her neighbor, Betty, slept with soft, regular snores. Judith held a piece of cloth against the white blanket and touched it with her fingers as if it were an infant creature of some sort. It was t
he scarf she had knitted over the past week from scraps of yarn. Cleaned, brought to the hospital, placed in her hands by Chin Lam Henry, the returned scarf was, Judith knew, the wordless statement of Chin's understanding and gratitude. Neither had needed to say anything to translate its message.

  The wool strip now looked nothing like the bright, scattered, multicolored threads, the scarf of scraps that Maynard Henry had snatched up from Judith's chair to press against his wound. Last night Chin Lam must have soaked the wool in chemicals to bleach the blood away. Now the stains flowed into a pattern, for the scarf was one pastel flow of delicate hues run together. Judith liked the way it looked.

  She was thinking, waiting for sleep, about Winslow Abernathy, who had sat with her again this afternoon, coming back to tell her of Maynard Henry's response to her statement about the shootings. He had told her, also, suddenly, of his separation from his wife. He had told her, in a rush, how he felt. The pretense about Henry was like a barred window between them, she felt. She'd thought she was being kind, not telling him she planned to testify to a literal, though not a spiritual, lie by saying Barnum had killed John. She'd thought it was unkind to burden Winslow with that guilty knowledge. Now she saw the unkindness in separating him from a burden that was a gift as well. She would ask him to share it. As she had chosen to share Maynard Henry's act.

  Not that Judith Haig ever would have herself killed Barnum, or approved Henry's doing so. But she had taken from the nuns' teaching the outmoded idea that the purpose of punishment is to redeem the offender's soul through the cleansing of penance. She did not think of punishment either as unnecessary or as a salve or recompense to the victim. Consequently, to murder a murderer was not in her philosophy, whether the murdered were Limus Barnum or Maynard Henry. Yet at the heart of her protection of Maynard Henry lay not merely her Christian condemnation of retaliatory justice (as Abernathy surmised), not merely her fear that prejudice would falsely punish Henry if he were brought to trial (as Abernathy surmised). At the heart lay her knowledge that she could not disconnect herself from Maynard Henry.