by Farris, John
"Count me out. Not when the sharks are in the water."
The General did something very unusual, for him. He put an arm around Turo's shoulders, squeezed affectionately. Turo looked slightly shocked, then felt compelled to relax and accept the embrace.
"Let's move the party over to my place," the General suggested.
Chapter Fifteen
Tuesday, July 9
Sam called the next afternoon.
"How's the conference going?"
"Like most of these things," he grumbled. "Nobody can agree what we're here for. Are you OK? What are the boys like?"
"Well-mannered and no trouble at all. Naturally the General came for dinner last night, and he tried to tear up the pea patch, as my Aunt Myra used to say. But Rich handled him well."
"Who's Rich?"
"Rich Marsland. Carol's not saying but I think she has more than a casual interest in him. He's big and confident and talks well. He can be glib. He smiles too much. I don't know."
"Don't you like him?"
"I don't think he's right for Carol. There's something very calculating about him. The other boy is Turo. From Central America originally. He's a treasure. I'm mad about him."
"Sounds like I'd better not stay away too long."
"Purely maternal, Sam. But please hurry home anyway."
For dinner the women prepared baked spaghetti, garlic loaves and a huge antipasto, the General's favorite meal. There was plenty of wine again. The General had established a testy rapport with Rich. Turo, having done very well at best-ball the night before, seemed more easily able to accommodate his deep-seated dislike of the General; he had his passions in balance. He wasn't talkative but when he weighed in with an opinion the General listened with rare respect, and never chopped him off before he could finish, as he often did to Rich. Turo was young and not aggressive; even so there was a sureness about him, a level dignity that a sensible man would not want to abuse.
Carol seemed very tired; Felice was sure that she hadn't anticipated the strain of entertaining so soon after her ordeal. But she was determined to carry it off. She hadn't mentioned the kidnapping to Rich and Turo, and she was not likely to.
The weather turned as they were sitting at dinner; all day it had been dead calm and sullenly hot, the sky massed into gray-tinged clouds going nowhere, cutting the sun to a rim, a biting glare. Now the air was cooling. They heard the effect of the wind before the wind itself, leaves slapping furiously together, showing their pale-green undersides in a gale, in vivid storm light. Leaves were torn from limbs and pressed eerily against the glass of the dining room windows like the whitened hands of the dead. The lights dimmed a couple of times. The house was brought to creaking life by the brute insistence of the wind. Thunder was anticipated, a kind of dismal pressure on the subconscious, on full stomachs.
Conversation became difficult, dwindled. Felice saw Carol wipe at a dribble of red wine before it could fall and stain her dress. She looked a little tight and her hands were unsteady. She had done her hair a different way tonight and Felice, who had enjoyed the wine herself, sometimes found herself staring, as if at a total stranger. Felice had a headache and a gritty sense of being distracted by shadows, by spirits massed and willing to announce once the banging of an upstairs shutter ceased and the air was properly charged for their performances.
Only the General seemed unimpressed by the threat of heavy weather.
"Let's move the party to my place," he said ritualistically, lighting a cigarette. "Turo, I've got some evening up to do."
Carol tried to beg off to clean up the kitchen but Felice shooed her out with the others, then settled down for aspirin and a stabilizing cup of coffee. From where she was sitting in the kitchen she could see them hurrying in the direction of the General's scabby castle, braced against the wind and ducking flying leaves, Riggs tagging along like quixotic fire.
He does enjoy them, she thought. How long since he'd had this much fun? The boys had been good for him. Too bad they couldn't stay much longer.
Her head felt a little better. Why did she have this mad impulse lately to drink everybody under the table? She smiled and nodded to the music of the wind chimes on the back porch. She felt a slumberous sense of brick and hearth and solid homely containment. She dozed.
Someone knocking at the back screen awakened her, scared her. Felice sat up and saw him dimly, waiting on the porch steps. She went and turned on the porch light but still couldn't see him well enough. It wasn't raining yet. The wind chimes tinkled pleasantly.
"Yes?" she said from the kitchen.
"Mrs. Holland? I rang the front doorbell. Nobody came, so I thought it might not be working."
"Who are you?"
"It's Dev, Mrs. Holland. Dev Kaufman. We met once in San Francisco."
She recognized his voice then. "Dev? Good Lord, what are you doing here? We'd heard you were in Europe."
"I was. I got back Sunday."
"Well—I think you'd better come in." She unlatched the screen door and the wind almost took it out of her hands. He ducked inside. He wore a pale hat and a poverty-stricken raincoat coming apart at the seams. "I'm sorry about the bell; sometimes it conks out on us. How did you get here, Dev? Why didn't you call?" She didn't mean it as a rebuke, but he seemed to take it that way.
"I didn't want to do that; I thought—" He looked away from her, around her, as if expecting to find Carol in the kitchen.
"You thought Carol wouldn't want to see you? Of course she would, Dev. Let's don't stand out here. Have you eaten? We had spaghetti; it's still warm."
"Thank you, I'm not hungry."
"Some coffee, then." She took him firmly by the elbow and he came along, hunching his shoulders, looking hounded and worried.
"Just barging in this way—" he muttered.
"Dev, it's perfectly all right, we're very pleased to see you. Where are you staying?"
"No place. I mean, I spent last night out by the airport—"
"Then you're staying with us," Felice assured him. "I hope you brought your clothes with you."
"In the car. But I couldn't—"
"You won't be any trouble. There are two other boys staying here for a few days. Friends of Carol's from Berkeley."
That startled him. "Who?"
"Rich Marsiand and Arturo Regalo."
Dev shook his head. "I don't know them; they must have been after my time."
"Everybody's next door at the General's. I'll phone Carol."
He stripped his coat and slumped in a chair and looked at her almost pleadingly. "Could I have that cup of coffee first?" Felice found his state of nerves appealing, and, although she was not altogether sure why, she was very grateful that he had come.
Dev sat with the cup of steaming coffee in both hands, long fingers overlapping. His dark sideburns curled downward to the angle of his jaws. On the slightly overfleshed face he'd had just a year ago they might have seemed childishly opulent, too contrived. But he looked harder and sun-cured now. Wisdom had made unkind demands on the will-o'-the-wisp boy, slowed and deepened him. So he was here to claim Carol, she thought, and felt a chill of affection and pleasure.
"I heard about the kidnapping," he said, looking up.
"You did? How?"
"FBI. They took me in hand as soon as I stepped off the plane from Lisbon. They must have had some idea I knew what was behind it, since Carol and I—"
"What next?" Felice said, sounding indignant.
"How rough was it for her?"
"You wouldn't believe how she looked the night the police brought her home. She'd been wandering for hours. She knew her name; she didn't remember much else. But she's fine now. See for yourself, when you're ready." Felice favored him with an advocate's smile; he replied with a shrug but he looked up to the reunion. She went to the phone.
There were floodlights in aluminum shells on the property, two on poles beside the tennis court, two more high in the trees where the General's land adjoined, and they provided
enough illumination so that there was no hazard in the walk between the two houses, even on the darkest nights.
Felice waited on the porch. She deliberately hadn't mentioned Dev to Carol. When she came she was alone.
"Who is it?" she asked, grimacing. "Gaffney? What do they want this time of the night?"
They went in together. Dev had been washing up in the closet-size lavatory under the back stairs. He returned to the kitchen rolling down his sleeves with an air of having tentatively settled in, offering himself to Carol with a self-conscious nod that Felice disapproved of. He could have used a touch of arrogance, she thought.
"Hello, Carol," Dev said, looking closely at her, appearing badly startled. Felice saw her blink inquiringly at Dev as if he was only slightly familiar, like the newspaper delivery boy. Astonishment quickly altered this initial mild reaction; she tried to smile at him.
"Carol?" Dev said again, and seemed to want to touch her. She gingerly moved a step away and glanced at Felice, still smiling; but her eyes looked grim and there was no pleasure in her manner.
"What are you—where did—"
"Dev just now came," Felice said gently.
Her lip curled disapprovingly. She faced Dev. "You just came?" She struggled to keep her anger at a proper pitch. "After all this time? You show up here? Well, I hope I don't sound ungrateful, Dev, but I don't care to see you. I don't want to talk to you. Please go."
Felice said quickly, "Carol, you can't—"
"I am not going to argue with anyone," she said, raising her voice imperiously. Her cheeks were burning. "I mean what I say. You finished us, Dev. It's over."
He was unprepared for this, for curt dismissal. "Not yet," he said, in a low voice.
They stared at each other, clenched and indecisive. "Put it this way," she said. "You're a little late."
"Somebody else?" Dev asked, finding his own anger.
She looked away. "Yes."
"Who?"
"Listen, Dev, this is humiliating. I'm not going to stand here and—" She stopped for breath, losing impetus and emotion rapidly; when she continued her head was bent and her tone was glum. "I suppose you thought catching me off guard would be a good idea. Well, it worked, but it's a bad idea. Be sensible for once, Dev. I don't need you. I don't want you. Now, how blunt do I have to be before you're satisfied?"
She gave him another look and then in a parody of exasperation said, "You really want to hear it? All right, Dev. Fuck off." She walked by him without haste or loss of dignity, barely brushing against him, her hands limp at her sides; she left the kitchen.
Dev spoke through the lingering chill. "What's the matter with her voice?"
Felice said, "She was hit in the throat, or half strangled. They made her wear a dog collar. There was a terrible bruise. I thought she was speaking normally again."
He shook his head. "She doesn't sound like herself."
"Drink your coffee," Felice suggested.
"I did."
"There's more on the stove. I'll pour you another cup."
"I was told to go," he said, as if he might laugh, but his eyes were utterly barren.
"It's my house," Felice said toughly, "and nobody gets booted out unless I say. I'll talk to Carol."
Felice found her in the dining room, looking dispossessed and at odds with herself, gazing at a vast and sternly bucolic Hudson Valley landscape by John F. Kensett. They had been hearing thunder all evening; now it was closer, within their sphere, visceral.
"That boy—"
She gritted her teeth but didn't turn on Felice. "Oh, Jesus, Mother, really! He doesn't have the judgment or common courtesy to—"
"He wanted to tell you he loves you, and not with a telephone in the way."
"I got thoroughly fed up abiding by his whims. I don't care if he loves me. I don't love him."
"Are you in love with Rich?"
"I like Rich. I'm not making any commitments for a long time to come."
"Then you shouldn't be afraid of hearing Dev out."
All the light in the room was reflected from the glazed surface of the painting. She looked toward Felice, her face falling into shadow. "I suppose that means he's staying."
"Yes. And you shouldn't try to run him off. He looks as if he could be stubborn."
She laughed derisively. "Stubborn's not the word. I lived with him, if you didn't know."
"I knew, Carol."
She chewed avidly at a thumbnail. Thunder seemed to press them closer together, an intimacy which Felice, who was not happy with her daughter, resisted.
"Mother, you might be making a mistake if you let him stay," she said unexpectedly, in a softly belligerent voice.
There was a lick of lightning on the opposite wall, by the windows. The long withheld storm was threatening again.
"It's settled," Felice said shortly.
"You'd better put him in the cottage. I don't think he'd be happy sharing a bath with Rich and Turo. And I don't want him next to me." She walked away. "I'm tired; I'm going up to bed. Would you leave the door unlocked for the boys? The General may keep them up late."
"All right."
She paused in the doorway, head inclined and pressing against the jamb. "You sound cold. I'm sorry. I'm so tired—my knees are like rubber bands. Please understand, I just couldn't be love and kisses and how are you, Dev? He put me over the jumps, Mother. I don't like being reminded so soon, by good old Dev in person."
"Give him a chance," Felice suggested.
"Of course," she said, politely ironic. "Good night."
Dev had moved out to the back porch. The wind was trying to snatch the screen door off its hinges. "Going to rain."
"Dev, I'm afraid she doesn't want to see you tonight."
"No kidding," Dev said calmly.
"I know she'll be more reasonable tomorrow after a decent night's sleep. She really hasn't had much stamina since we got her back."
"Well, actually, I think I'd better be going."
"Oh, no, I wouldn't turn a knight out on a dog like this."
Dev chuckled dutifully. "How does that joke go? I've forgotten."
"Too involved for me to remember. I can't remember the one about Herman's berry, either. Look, I'm going to put you in the cottage out there. Ordinarily it belongs to the Dowds, but I don't think they'd mind."
"Well—"
"The other boys will be gone in a couple of days. And there isn't anybody else, Dev, if that helps."
He came back into the kitchen looking thoughtful. The knuckles of his left hand were scraped and bloody, perhaps from being rubbed over and over against the screen.
"It helps," he said, with a vivid kind smile. "Thanks for wanting to help."
In her room Felice wrote letters while waiting for the thunderstorm to develop. Twice the lights receded to a dull yellow glow, sprang on again almost at once. Finally she grew tired of postponing her bath. Before filling the tub she looked out the streaming windows: the western sky was boiling, illuminated by broad flares of lightning that held no immediate threat.
Thunder was nearer, deflected by the shivering glass. Apparently there were several storms in the area tonight. The rain continued soft, soporifically steady. Felice added a measure of oil to her bath. The warm oiled water clung to her skin and she felt pleasantly enclosed, embryonic, untroubled. She soaked for a quarter of an hour, until the water was tepid, then toweled herself until her skin glowed. She put on an expensive layered gown that was as light against her body as a cloud.
She turned back the covers on the canopied bed, smiling to herself. She hoped the storms would miss them for the remainder of the night, but she welcomed the rain, the drugging rain. She yawned and remembered to go down the hall to Kevin's room to see if any of the rain had come in around a sash window that wasn't watertight.
She found some leakage, which she wiped off the sill and hardwood floor.
Kevin's windows overlooked the back yard and the Dowd cottage. As Felice was resetting the blinds she sa
w a figure below: Carol, slanting through the wetness, holding a slicker above her head like an awning. She ducked under the eaves of the cottage, shook out her slicker, knocked on the door. Felice studied her, speculative, amused, hopeful. After Carol entered the cottage she returned to her room, where she read herself to sleep in five minutes' time.
The thud of a car door awakened her a couple of hours later. She sat up feeling numb across the shoulders and looked hazily at the ornate antique clock on her dresser. It was nearly two. She closed the volume of Marianne Moore's poems which she had been reading and groped to the front windows. It was now raining much harder. Lightning seared the black sky, close enough to make her flinch. She saw Dev standing, trancelike, in the drive below, his back to her. He was wearing his now-soggy raincoat and hat, holding his leather bag by the strap. As the fierce light waned and thunder cracked, Dev tossed his bag into the front seat of the rental Ford, got in quickly himself. Felice was wide awake now. She hadn't seen his face but because of the abruptness of his movements she sensed that he was angry. He drove away, tires slicing through mirror pools of water.
She wondered what had gone wrong. What had Carol said to him, to send him off this way, in the middle of the night?
A jolt of lightning turned her, trembling, from the windows. Felice sat on the bed and reached for her cigarettes. Before she could light one she heard another car. She returned to the windows in time to see the car, obscure in the torrent, turning into the road, highlighted briefly as it passed the lamppost. The car was Rich Marsiand's Le Mans.
Felice doubted it was a coincidence, both of them driving off at the same time. It occurred to her that Carol might have ordered them all to pack up and leave, but that made very little sense.
She knew that she wanted to talk to Carol. She smoked half her cigarette, put it out, selected a robe and went upstairs. Carol wasn't in her room.
The house was silent, silence felt as a tension emphasized by the momentary pauses in the wind-driven rain, the brilliant sledge blows of lightning outside. Felice went numbly down to the second floor and into Kevin's room, opened the blinds there. The cottage below was dark, indistinct in the rain. A caustic burst of lightning half closed her eyes. Felice swallowed a taste of something bitter and retreated from the window, trying to think. Had Carol gone with Dev? She tried to recall if there had been anyone else in the car, but she'd had only a brief look.
