by Robin Hobb
“Yes sir. That’s what the lady wanted done and so I did it. You and I might think it’s a bit silly, but it’s her fence and her yard, so she has the right to have it as she wants.” Josh stood slowly, stretched the kink out of his back, and then stooped to pick up the heavy iron gate. Real wrought iron and heavy as all get-out. She could have had one that looked just like it for a fraction of the cost. She’d insisted on cold iron.
“And what’s all that concrete there, that trough running through the yard.”
It stung to hear his handiwork called a trough. Josh answered slowly. “It’s a water feature. It’s not turned on yet; the owner didn’t want it started until all the rest of the work was done. She’ll have a little stream that encircles the house. She calls it a moat. She hasn’t decided yet if she wants stepping-stones or an ornamental bridge for crossing it. She hasn’t chosen the lilies for it either. I told her she might want to put koi in there. Be real pretty.”
“Yes. It would. Moving water is always pretty. Here. Let me give you a hand with that gate,” the old man offered, surprising Josh and making him feel a bit more kindly toward him. The visitor’s canvas satchel clanked heavily when he set it down. The old fellow was stronger than he looked. He helped lift the gate and then held it steady while Josh aligned the two halves of the hinges. “She say why she wanted all this stuff done?” the man asked him, his voice tight with the effort of holding the gate steady.
Josh didn’t want to answer him, but it seemed stingy to be rude while the fellow was still holding the gate in place for him. He took a breath and then spoke reluctantly. “She’s afraid of vampires.” The pin was being stubborn about dropping down into the hinge. He wriggled it hopefully, and it dropped a quarter inch. “All this stuff, the crosses and the silver, the garlic and wolfsbane, and all this stuff is supposed to keep vampires away. They can’t cross it, she says. You and I might think that’s silly, but she says her husband was killed by a vampire, and she’s never gotten over it. Never been able to forget it, never been able to forgive it.” The little holes for the pin were not lining up. Josh grunted as he tried to edge the pieces into a better alignment. “I think she’s a little bit crazy, but she pays me on time.”
“She told you all that?” The man gasped out the words. Evidently holding up the wrought-iron gate was a harder task for him than Josh had thought.
“Yeah. Lift a little more, I nearly got the hinges lined up. She said it happened a long time ago, but it couldn’t have been that long. She doesn’t look any older than my kid sister, and she’s just twenty-two. That’s one pin in, just let me get the second one. Mrs. Reid said she loved her husband more than life itself, more than she loved herself. Kind of funny. She’s said that to me about six times now. That she wishes she’d realized sooner that she loved him more than life itself. That it would have changed everything.”
The stranger lost his grip on the gate for a second, but it was all right. Josh had just slid the pin into place. “You can let go now,” he told the man.
The old man did, and then he turned abruptly away. He coughed a couple of times and then pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “She in there now, you think?”
“Oh, sure. She works at night, sleeps days. I think she’s a writer or something. She told me that on the phone first time she called me. ‘Hope you don’t mind me calling so late, but I’m a night person,’ she said. I suspect she doesn’t sleep well at night. Too afraid of the vampires.” He shook his head in sympathy for the woman. “Well. Just about done here. Only thing left to do is set the stop for the gate, and then start her water flowing. Should be done just about sunset. Then I’ll get my pay and be gone.”
The old man turned, wiped his face with his handkerchief, and then turned back to him. The lines on his face seemed deeper. He cleared his throat. “So she’ll be coming out to pay you tonight?”
“Like clockwork. Every Thursday, right about sundown. Always pays cash, and last time, there were three old silver certificates mixed in with the regular bills. I showed them to her and told her that they were worth more than the others, that she should sell them to a coin collector or something. She just laughed and said money was just paper to her and that I could do whatever I wanted with them. She’s a nice lady.”
The old man cleared his throat again. “I might just stand here and wait with you for her to come out. That okay with you?”
“Sure. I don’t mind. Long as you don’t mind me finishing up my chore here.” He was getting more and more uncomfortable with the man’s questions. He decided to take a direct approach. “Look, Mister, if you’re a visitor, you can go knock on her door. I’m not the watchman or anything like that. I’m just the local handyman, doing odd jobs. She might already be awake.”
“I think I’ll just wait here with you, if it’s all the same to you. It’s a pleasure to watch a workman finish a task. Always good to see a job finished. Especially one that’s been a long time in the works.” A thin smile came to the old man’s face.
Well, he was an odd duck. “Fine with me.” Josh shrugged. There wasn’t much left for him to do. He had a piece of iron pipe to pound into the ground, and then a sack of dry Redi-Mix and just enough water in a jerrican to finish up the job. Once the pipe was set in the ground, the catch for the gate would drop into it and hold it shut until someone lifted the latch. He’d already wrapped the latch handle in silver wire like she’d requested. He’d done that job on his workbench the night before, trying to lay the coils smooth and flat. He’d done a pretty good job, he thought. The silver looked nice against the black of the wrought iron.
The man was mostly quiet as he watched Josh work. Once he took out a pocket watch and consulted it, and then glanced up at the sky. “Going to be dark soon,” he commented, and Josh nodded. He troweled the concrete flat and checked his work with a level. “That’s done,” he said, and with a grunt and a groan, he got to his feet. As he packed up his tools and tidied away the empty Redi-Mix bag, the lights in the cottage came on. “And just in time,” he added.
The stranger didn’t say a word. He just stood, staring toward the house, so silent he seemed to be holding his breath. His right hand stole into his coat pocket. He stared at the cottage door, and when the porch light came on, he gave a small gasp. A moment later, the door opened and Mrs. Reid stood framed in it. The porch light lit her as if it were a spotlight on a stage. She was dressed, as she always was, in what Josh had come to think of as her mourning dress. It was a simple shirtwaist dress, like something his mother might have worn in her youth, in a sensible dark fabric. Her hair framed her brow in two smooth dark wings that were pulled back into a loose bun at the back of her neck. Her makeup was perfect, but dated, as if she’d copied it from an old magazine. She looked at the both of them and did not speak.
“Evening, Mrs. Reid. I’m just finishing up here,” he said, when the silence seemed to stretch a bit too long.
“And just when you said you would,” she replied. Her voice was pleasant and husky and her words articulated. Her eyes moved from him to the stranger. Josh waited for the man to say something. When he didn’t, he filled in.
“I try to make my estimates as exact as I can. And when you’ve been a handyman as long as I have, well, you get a fair idea of how long a job should take. Now, this cement is still wet, so try to use the gate latch as little as possible until it’s set.”
“I won’t use it at all,” she promised promptly. But she seemed to aim her words at the man next to him. The stranger spoke suddenly.
“I got a letter. All these years of trying to track you down, and suddenly a letter comes and tells me exactly where you are. I should have known it came from you.”
She nodded slowly.
“So, all those years, did you know where I was?”
Her lips moved very slightly, stretching almost into a smile. “I did. Of course I did.”
“You did.” Josh heard the man swallow. “So
. ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’ Was that it?”
“Something like that. And you’ve been both, haven’t you, Raymond?”
“Many more years as the one than the other,” he said, and his wariness came more harshly into his voice.
“That’s true. Only a few years of being a friend. Back at the beginning.” She said the words, and the man’s confirming silence flowed up to drown the conversation.
Josh felt uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure what he was witnessing, but knew he didn’t want to know. He put the last of his tools into his toolbox, shut it, and latched it. Mrs. Reid had been a good customer, and he knew he couldn’t just stand by if the stranger became rude or aggressive. He spoke into their silence, his voice too loud and his affability sounding false. “Well, if you’re satisfied, Mrs. Reid, I’ll call it a day and head for home. Got a cat to feed, you know.” He glanced at the man and added, “Unless there’s something else you need before I go. Anything else you want me to do?”
She looked at the man before she brought her gaze back to him. “No, Josh, I think you’ve done everything I need. I’m satisfied.” She looked at the stranger again and added, “How about you, Raymond? Are you satisfied?”
The man was quiet for a moment and then said, “I think I am. But I don’t understand why.”
“You don’t understand why you are satisfied? Come, Raymond. I thought this was what you longed for, all these years.”
“It might be. But what I don’t understand is why you are doing it? And why you sent me a letter. Unless you wanted to me to witness it?” The last words came slowly, even more reluctantly from him.
She lifted one slim shoulder in an elegant shrug. “Because it finishes it, I suppose. Because I thought it would give you pleasure. Give you, perhaps, a sense of something finished.”
She stepped off the porch then and came down the path. The stranger made a small sound in his throat. But Josh carefully unlatched the gate and went to meet her. He’d recognized the fat envelope she carried. It would be the final payment for his work, in cash, just like before. As he took it from her, she smiled and then her mouth worked oddly, as if there were something she wanted to say. She swallowed hard and turned away from him abruptly. As she walked back toward her house, she spoke without looking back at him. She crossed the dry moat and stopped briefly on the other side. No bridge, she’d specified. Strange, but that was what the customer wanted, so that was how he’d built it. “Turn on the water for me, so the stream runs, before you leave. And shut the gate behind you when you go, will you?”
“Of course.” He was a bit hurt by her abruptness but decided it probably had something to do with the stranger at the gate. The man hadn’t even tried to come in, hadn’t even greeted her, really. And she hadn’t asked him in. Must be some very bad history between them, he decided, and resolved he’d see the stranger on his way before he left. He left the path and knelt in the dirt to find the spigot for the stream. He’d set it into the ground, along with the switch for the pump. It was only accessible from this side. She’d have to cross the running water if she wanted to turn it off. He’d pointed that out to her once, to be sure she understood. She’d just looked at him and then said quietly, “That’s part of the plan. Build it that way, please.”
And he had.
He opened the fiberglass hatch on the protective box and reached in to turn open the valve and then flick on the pump. Within minutes, the pipe hissed. He heard the gurgling as water filled the race. When the water reached the level, he heard the auto shutoff kick in, and then the quiet hum of the pump that would keep the water circulating. “Works perfectly,” he said in satisfaction. He stood up and was surprised to see that Mrs. Reid was still standing on the porch, watching him. He could not read the emotion on her face. Regret? Resignation?
When he glanced at the gate, the stranger was still standing there. His face was a complete contrast to the widow’s. The satisfaction was unmistakable. Josh felt a surge of revulsion for the fellow. What was the matter with the man? She was just a woman alone in the world, obviously consumed with her grief for her husband and beset with an irrational fear. The stranger stared at her as she stood alone, backlit by her porch light, as if his eyes could never drink enough of the sight. With both hands, he gripped the iron gate. The moment Josh stepped through it, he said, through gritted teeth, “Please, allow me.” And he shut it with a clash of iron against iron that abruptly sounded to Josh like a weapon clashed against a shield. Behind him, he was startled to hear Mrs. Reid give a low moan.
When he turned to look at her, she was staring at them both, her face white and both her hands clasped over her mouth.
The stranger spoke, his voice gentle and his words harsh. “I hope it takes a long time, Doria.”
She spoke through her muffling hands. “I loved him, Raymond. I loved your brother just as much as you did. I was clumsy. He was my first and it didn’t end for him the way I’d planned it would. But I loved him. Loved him more than life itself.” Her voice shook.
“And you call what you have now a life?” Raymond suddenly roared at her.
Her voice trembled as she replied. “No, Raymond. No, I don’t. It’s not life. And I don’t want it anymore. Without Adam, it’s not worth having. It took me years to realize that, and even longer to figure out what to do about it. But now I have. And I’ve given you the last thing that I have to give to anyone. Satisfaction.”
“Damn right you have. Satisfaction.” The man’s voice was thick with it, cold with righteousness.
It was too much. He couldn’t leave her standing there with this man threatening her from outside her gate. “Look, you, whoever you are, you’re frightening her. I think you’d better leave.”
“I’ll be glad to. But I haven’t frightened her. She’s done that to herself. There’s just one more thing I want to do for her before I go.” With both his hands, he unfastened the silver chain and the tiny crucifix it bore from around his neck. He watched Mrs. Reid as he slowly wrapped it around the gate catch and then fastened it.
“That’s not going to work,” Josh pointed out quietly to him. “She’ll have to undo it each time she wants to open the gate. I understand you think it might keep vampires out, but . . .”
“It will work just fine,” Raymond Reid said as he picked up his canvas satchel. He looked older than he had a few moments before. As if he’d finished some task and no longer needed to force a vitality he didn’t have. “Son, she won’t be opening that gate. And she didn’t have you build all this to keep vampires out.”
Raymond gave a final glance to the lone figure standing so still on the porch. He bent to pick up the canvas satchel. The top had come open and a mallet had fallen out of it. Laboriously, he picked it up and put it back inside. He turned his back on both of them and walked toward his rental car. He didn’t turn his head as he spoke. “It’s to keep a vampire in.”
Drum Machine
Sometimes that single sentence that heralds the approach of a story doesn’t come at two in the morning or when I’m mowing a lawn. Sometimes, in the midst of a discussion with a friend, someone will say something so succinct and so true that the pieces of a story just start falling into place around it.
I think that many people assume that being a writer brings me into contact with all sorts of interesting people. And that’s true. But wondrous to tell, the majority of fascinating people I’ve met have intersected with my life in other ways. Last summer, an extraordinary natural philosopher was part of the crew putting a new roof on my house. I spent several afternoons outside, listening to his random observations as he fastened roof tiles down on my house. Marty the junkman, who used to come by our old place to see if we had any scrap metal for him, was a fountain of stories from the Depression era. A random encounter that delivers a person like that to my life is like beachcombing and finding a little treasure chest.
One such friend is Jeff Lin of Harvey Danger. He came into my home years ago as my daugh
ter’s friend. In the course of sharing coffee, cats, and conversation, his thoughts on creativity in the music field, performing for an audience, and Who Owns the Work left a definite impression on me. I wrote “Drum Machine” as a direct result of one such conversation and indeed a single sentence from Jeff. It’s languished in my files for a long time. In the course of looking over stories for this collection, I took it out, read it, and wondered if its time had finally come to see print.
The client leaned forward across the desk and all but hissed at me, “I have a right to the child of my choice.”
I smiled at her warmly, reassuringly, and read my line from the prompter. “That’s not precisely correct, Mrs. Daw. You have the right to a child. That’s very clear.” I tapped the notarized slip from her husband, ceding his population replacement right to her. “And you have the right to a choice. The Constitution guarantees you that.”
She thrust her already prominent chin at me. “Then I want my choice. Another EagleScout12.” She smiled exultantly. “Derek is almost six now, and he has been the perfect choice for my husband and me. When we decided we wanted another child, we decided, well, why take a chance? Get one we know we’ll like.”
I leaned back in my chair and blinked my eyes twice quickly to call up the next screen. I chose the conciliatory option. “I’m sure, on the face of it, that seemed logical to both of you. But consider the reality, Mrs. Daw. You would essentially be raising identical twins, born six years apart, into the same environment. Same nature, same nurture. Where’s the variety in that? You’d be defeating our entire Genetic Variety Preservation program. Even if you can’t choose an EagleScout12 again, that doesn’t mean your next child won’t be just as perfect for you as your first one was. That’s the whole purpose of our counseling, Mrs. Daw. The embryo options that the program has chosen are selected to be compatible with you and Mr. Daw. And, I might add, with Derek.”
