by L. R. Wright
"Sure. Fine. That would be grand. I want to see you anyway."
Cassandra drove to his house preoccupied and uneasy. When he opened the door she looked at him intently. He appeared calm, and looked back at her steadily. He was tidily dressed and his hair was combed and she smelled fresh coffee. She relaxed somewhat, and smiled, but he didn't smile back.
He led her into the kitchen and insisted she sit in the leather chair. The library books—the two mysteries and the Mozart biography—were in a neat pile on the footstool. He poured coffee, fussed with sugar and milk, and finally settled in a straight-backed chair opposite her.
"I got you here under false pretenses, Cassandra, which until lately hasn't been my nature."
"You mean the books? But I was going to come anyway.”
He got up stiffly and picked up from the kitchen counter the crystal pitcher, which was overflowing with sweet peas.
"I want you to take these with you when you go," he said. "And the pitcher too."
"I can't take the pitcher, Mr. Wilcox. But I'll take the flowers, with pleasure.”
"I want you to have the pitcher." He sat down again. "It's important to me. It was my sister who gave it to Myra and me, for our wedding." He put his hand on her arm, impatiently shaking his head. "Please don't argue with me, Cassandra. I'm trying to get my life in order, here. I need your help for that, and in exchange I want to give you something." He looked at her slyly. "I'm getting rid of everything. I could have offered you my house, or my car.”
She spluttered, horrified.
"See?" he said, grinning at her. "You're getting off lightly. Will you take it?"
She hesitated, and watched his smile disappear. "Yes, all right. I'll take it. It's beautiful, and of course I'll take it, if you want me to.”
He let go of her arm and sat back. "I'm moving away. Going to live with my daughter, Carol, in Vancouver. " He frowned and reached for a notepad which lay on the footstool next to the library books. He took a pen from his shirt pocket and laboriously added something to a lengthy list. "Haven't told her yet," he muttered. "Better give her a call."
"But when?" said Cassandra. "When are you going?"
George put the pen back in his pocket but he held on to the pad, as though it might occur to him to write something else there. "Tomorrow," he said.
"Tomorrow?” said Cassandra, incredulous.
"That's why I had to get these books back to you today, you see.”
"Tomorrow? But why? You mean, forever? You're never coming back?"
He shook his head.
"But why? I thought you were happy here. What about your garden? What about the hospital? What about me?"
Her voice had risen, and tears were pushing at the backs of her eyes.
"I was happy here,” said George, taking no notice of her distress. "For a long time. And then Carlyle arrived, and then Myra died, and now I'm not happy any more." He glanced through the window. "What about my garden? That depends on who moves in here, I guess." He turned back to her. "As for the hospital, there are lots of people who can do what I do there. It's just half a day a week. I don't do much. Got good eyesight, so I read to people. Anybody can do that. You could do it yourself, if you wanted to.”
"Do you think you'll be happier in Vancouver?” It was a question she knew she shouldn't have asked.
"I doubt it." He leaned toward her, his hands grasping his knees. "The thing I can't stand the thought of, Cassandra, is dying where Carlyle died, and being buried where he's buried. That's the whole thing of it, in a nutshell." He sat back.
"But isn't your wife buried there too?" She needn't have asked that either, she thought; she knew the answer well enough.
He sat unmoving for a moment. His eyes were dry. "Yes. She is."
I could get up and leave now, thought Cassandra. I could get up gracefully and kiss him on the cheek and take the pitcher and the sweet peas and the library books and warmly wish him well and just leave, walk right out to my car and drive away. And he wouldn't think less of me for doing it, either. They were silent for what seemed to Cassandra a very long time, and in that whole time she never took her eyes from his face.
"Why do you hate him so much,” she said finally, quietly, "even though he's dead now?”
"Because I killed him," said George.
Cassandra felt very strange. She heard herself breathing, patiently, and finally realized she was still waiting for him to answer her, although he already had. Maybe she was waiting for him to change his mind, or tell her he'd been joking. But looking at him, at his face the color of cement, at his brown eyes looking steadily back at her, she knew he had told her the truth.
"It's a bad thing I'm doing now, I know it," said George.
"I'm using up all our friendship, grown so slow and strong, tight now, in this single minute.”
"But I'm letting you do it," said Cassandra, numbly.
"I'm not asking you to keep this a secret,” he said. "I don't care if you tell anybody or not, or who it is you tell. But I had to say it to somebody, and I knew I'd only be able to say once, and you're the only person came to my mind."
"Why did you do it?" she said after a minute.
"I don't think I can tell you that part," said George wearily. "It's too long a story. It goes back too far. I thought it was because of Audrey, my sister." He closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples. "But it turns out it's more complicated than that. I didn't have any idea, when I did it, how complicated was going to turn out to be." He looked at her and tried to smile. "It's all bound up with responsibility, you see. It's a good thing, in the main—responsibility. But I've a feeling, now, that you can carry it too far, or get it all wrong. And it brings me to awful uncertainties about myself."
He squeezed his eyes tight shut, fiercely rejecting the comfort of tears.
"Ah," he said a little later, "you'd think by the time a man gets to my age he'd have accumulated some wisdom around him, wouldn't you?" He looked out again at his garden. "I guess Myra was my wisdom."
Cassandra stood up quickly. He struggled to his feet. She put her arms around him and held him close to her, his thick white hair pressed against the curve of her chin. She looked over his shoulder through the window at his garden, glowing exuberant and abundant against the backdrop of the sea and the summer sky. She had no tears for him, but she held him to her with a fierce protectiveness, patting his back and saying into his ear murmured things meant to be soothing.
CHAPTER 27
It was afternoon by the time Alberg arrived at Carlyle Burke's house. The sun was as bright and hot as it had been before the single day and night of cloud. He thought of the waitress in the diner, as he waited for Sanducci to let him into the house; she had seemed so certain of her predictions, and he had accepted them unquestioningly.
Sanducci had taken off his hat and his jacket, but his shirt looked crisp and the creases in his pants were still sharp. "No luck so far, Staff,” he said, as he followed Alberg into the living room. "I've done this room, the kitchen, and the bathroom. There's only the bedroom left, and the room with the piano in it.”
Alberg, his hands in his pockets, had wandered over to the window to stand in front of the rocking chair, looking outside.
"And that toolshed," he said.
"There's one thing, Staff, before I get back to work.”
"Yeah? What?”
"I wanted to speak to you for a minute.”
Alberg turned around. "Go ahead.”
Sanducci was standing very straight. His black hair gleamed. His eyes were the color of the sea out there. At least his wasn't showing.
"It's about the other night,” said the corporal.
"Go on.”
"I have to tell you, Staff, that I've been overextended a bit lately.”
"Overextending yourself? What the hell does that mean?"
"I mean that I've been indulging myself in too many what you might call extracurricular activities."
Alberg walked closer to h
im. Sanducci stared straight ahead, over Alberg's right shoulder. "Extracurricular activities?"
"Yes, Staff."
I take it that's a euphemism for. . . women."
"Yes., Staff, I'm afraid it is."
"And what are you trying to tell me, precisely?"
"That I fell asleep, Staff. On the front porch, here. I guess that's why I didn't hear the old guy out in back. I'm truly sorry, Staff.”
Alberg stared at the corporal. There was, he realized, considerable envy in his stare. He went back to the window. "I'll do the toolshed," he said.
"Yes, okay, Staff. I'll finish up in here."
"And Sanducci," said Alberg, without turning around. "You don't want to get busted down to constable, do you?"
"No, Staff."
"Then I suggest you start taking a lot of cold showers."
"Yes, Staff.” Without looking at him, he handed Alberg the key to the toolshed.
Christ, thought Alberg, trudging out the side door from the kitchen. Where the hell did he find them all? Better he didn't know, he thought; the guy might have a harem of sixteen-year-olds.
The toolshed was much like George Wilcox's, except that it was bigger, dirtier, and less tidy. Carlyle Burke had himself a power mower, instead of a push-it model, and his ladder was an extendable aluminum job instead of a wooden six-footer, and he had a lot of expensive, little-used lawn furniture stacked away in a corner, instead of three threadbare canvas chairs with slivery wooden arms. But his gardening tools were piled in a heap on a counter and looked as rusty as those in Alberg's garage, and bags of fertilizer and grass seed had been thrown in carelessly, to slump against the wall.
The obvious place to start, thought Alberg, sighing, was with the four cardboard cartons on the highest of several shelves lining one wall. They had been marked on the outside with black felt pen: XMAS DECORATIONS. But what the hell, you never know, he thought, and dragged them down.
The place was clotted with spiderwebs. The beam of sunlight which struggled through the single dirty window was choked with dust. Alberg carried the boxes out onto the lawn and sat on the bench there while he went through them.
There were boxes of tinsel, some unopened, some half emptied, with silver strings seeping from them. There were gaudy garlands of orange and blue-odd colors, he thought, with which to bedeck a Christmas tree. There were boxes and boxes of ornaments, and string after string of lights, ranging from tiny blinking ones to the large kind used to decorate the outdoors. Three cartons he opened, emptied, sifted through, refilled, and replaced on the shelf in the filthy toolshed.
But the fourth carton didn't contain anything having to do with Christmas. It was filled with women's underclothes—panties and bras and slips and garter belts—and with nylon hose, and negligees, and lace-trimmed pajamas. And it was at the bottom of this carton that he found an ebony box about six inches by eight, bearing on its lid, in gold, the initials AMW.
This, thought Alberg, is why Carlyle Burke willed George all his possessions; he wanted him to find whatever's in this small black box. He thought it inexpressibly tasteless, or perhaps simply malevolent, that it should have been buried under a pile of what must have been Audrey's underthings.
Alberg let the clothing slip languorously through his hands. She hadn't been a slim woman—not fat, but not thin, either. She had been feminine, but not lusty; her nightgowns were long-sleeved and scoop necked, threaded with now-faded ribbon, and her underwear was pretty but not particularly seductive. He sniffed at it cautiously and smelled only mustiness.
He put the box next to him on the bench while he slowly packed the clothing, neatly, almost tenderly, back into the carton. He took both box and carton into the toolshed and put the carton back on the shelf.
He pulled out a lawn chair, wiped from it spiders and their webs, and set it up in the tremulous shaft of sunlight from the window. Then he sat down with the ebony box.
It contained several pieces. of jewelry: a cameo pin, a gold filigree necklace, a topaz ring, and a wide gold bracelet with no engraving inside. And beneath the jewelry, a small pile of letters.
Alberg put the jewelry back in the box, closed the lid, and arranged the letters according to date.
He sat for a moment with them in his lap. Subdued sunlight washed upon them, made uncertain by dust and a grime-streaked window He was profoundly reluctant to start reading. But after a while, he did.
He soon realized they were letters exchanged between Carlyle Burke and his wife over a period of about six weeks in the summer of 1956; Burke was in Victoria, apparently taking courses at the university there, and Audrey had remained at home in Vancouver.
Alberg read through them once quickly, then started over again, paying particular attention to certain sections, certain phrases.
You bring it on yourself, Audrey, you know you do, Carlyle wrote on July 3. You can't help yourself. Having a kid wouldn't make any difference—you sure as hell ought to know that ....
Why can't we admit it? said Audrey a week later. There's no shame in it. We can just say we've made a mistake, and get a divorce, and go on with our lives.
We have NOT made a mistake, wrote Carlyle on July 13. I've always had trouble with my temper, I've told you that, time and time again. It's part of being a man, for God's sake. Women have to understand that, they want to live with a man.
July 23: Some men do that kind of thing, of course I know that, Audrey replied. Who could know it better than I do?. . .I cannot live in fear. It's a terrible, terrible thing, living in fear, and I am not going to do it again.
Don't talk to me about your goddamn George, said Carlyle, near the end of July. Look at him, of in Europe. They never give single men that kind of opportunity. Talk about prejudice—just try being a single man past thirty-five or so! And now hey tell me fifty's the cutoff—I can't even apply again! So don't talk to me about George. And you know he's no better than the rest of us. You've told me yourself for God's sake, what he's capable of. Are you MAD? Are you out of your mind? To imply that the little bursts of temper that happen to me are as bad as what HE did?... We can keep ourselves under control, Audrey, if we try. It just takes work, that's all .... I'll never hit you again. I can promise you that. I DO promise you that. We can't humiliate ourselves, for God's sake ....
August 9: I just don't know if I can believe you, wrote Audrey. You don't understand about George. It wasn't the same kind of thing at all. I should never have told you, but I thought it would HELP you, Carlyle. Oh, God. . .I don't want to fail, either. But I can't believe you then I'm going to leave you, Carlyle, I swear it. I just can't go on like this. I won't go on like this.
Alberg refolded the letters and put them back in the box, under the jewelry. He sat for a long time, holding the black box in his big, long-fingered hands, running the tips of his fingers over the initials on the top, aware of the smoothness of the ebony, warmed by his hands.
It had been like watching bits and pieces of an old movie, starring actors he had heard of but never seen before. He felt dazed, disoriented.
Maybe that's what did it, he thought, sitting in Carlyle Burke's dusty toolshed. Maybe Carlyle invited him over and spilled his guts, told him everything, confirmed all of George's worst suspicions.
And confronted him, probably for the first time, with whatever it was that George had once done that had let Carlyle Burke feel less corrupt by comparison.
He got up slowly, folded the chair and put it away, and, still holding the ebony box, went out of the toolshed and locked it behind him.
He told Sanducci to stop the search.
When he got back to the office, for some reason not clear to him he didn't tag the ebony box but put it in the bottom drawer of his desk.
Then he went off to see George Wilcox.
CHAPTER 28
George was trying to pack. The clothes hadn't been difficult. He'd just shoved them all into the suitcases he and Myra used to use when they went traveling. There was still room left in them, enou
gh for whatever personal things he decided to take with him, but the problem was that in wandering through his house he couldn't find anything except clothes that he wanted to bring.
He had called a real estate agent and told him to put the house up for sale. Maybe he should sell all the furniture with it. What use would he have for furniture, anyway? Carol had a big two-bedroom apartment filled with her own stuff; she certainly wouldn't need any of his. He didn't have anything really good, anyway; he and Myra had spent all their extra money on trips, and never regretted a penny of it, either. Maybe he should take his slides and photo albums. And he'd have to take his books. And surely there must be lots more things, he thought with growing desperation, that he couldn't bear to leave behind. He stood in his kitchen looking around but couldn't see a single thing he didn't mind abandoning.
Then through his window he saw his garden, and lifted his hands and made a strange sound in his throat. He wouldn't want to take it with him even if he could: he didn't deserve it any longer; his life-guilt was much too heavy. It hurt his soul to see it spread so joyously out there, unaware that he was deserting it, but he refused to step outside. Never again would he go out there.
He went into his den and sat in the chair behind his desk, wondering what to do next. He'd called the garage where his car was being repaired and told them to sell it. He'd phoned the matron at the hospital and let her know he wouldn't be going there any more. Anybody else who ought to know he would write to from Vancouver.
He folded his arms on the desk and rested his head there, and he heard Carlyle's nasal voice again, but this time he was too tired, too tired to get up and get himself some coffee or sweep the floor or do anything, anything at all, to push that voice out of his head ....
How had he persuaded him to come? How had he done it, anyway?
"George, it's Carlyle," he'd said briskly. "I'm not feeling too well these days, George, don't think I've got much longer to go, and I want to get some things said while there's still time. Don't do it for me, George"—he'd chuckled, here—"I know you'd never do anything for me, but do it for Myra. You know how she was always trying to make things right between us. And do it for Audrey, George. Come to see me. just once more."
