Джон Макдональд - More Good Old Stuff

“But us, Roy!”

“No problem, Rosie. You must have a nice little nest egg saved. You’re good-looking and you’ve learned a lot. Tomorrow when I get back, I’ll put this place up for sale. By then you can be at the hotel. As soon as I get a buyer, I’ll give you cash in the amount of the sale. Then you can go anywhere you please, just so long as it isn’t Cranesbay.”

It was as though she were dreaming the words. It didn’t seem possible he could be saying them. She had always thought that one day he would marry her.

“You can’t do this to me!” she had screamed. “I won’t go!”

Still smiling, he had slapped her across the mouth. She had staggered back against the wall.

“Pretty please, Rosie? Pretty please?”

When he had stepped toward her again, she had cowered back and said, “I’ll go away, Roy.”

Her answer had been the door slamming behind him, the high whine of the motor and skid of gravel as he turned out of the drive.

She lifted the glass to her puffed lips and drank deeply of the tart red wine. Holding her arms out, she turned slowly in ritual dance to the tempo of the music and the sound of the sea.

She laughed. She laughed until there was salt on her lips mingling with the taste of the wine.

Long after Matthew had left Patience Furnivall, he walked down past the hotel to the docks. Clouds hurried across the slim face of the new moon. The wind was rising and he could taste the sea on his lips. He stood with his hands shoved deep in his topcoat pockets, his head tilted, listening — to voices of long ago.

With sudden resolution, he turned away from the sea and walked back through the silent heart of the city, back toward the distant hill. It was an hour before he arrived at the cemetery. The iron gate was chained. He stepped over the low stone wall. The moon was just bright enough so that he could make out the shadowy names on the headstones.

The family of Crane had the place of honor, directly opposite the gates. The third match he lit showed him the headstone. “Alicia Belle Crane 1919–1939.” The earth was damp. He walked over to the family stone, sat on the edge of it and lit a cigarette.

Below the surface was the body of the girl who had haunted his dreams for nine years. Through all his dreams she had called to him, and it was as though she were trying to tell him something.

“What have you been trying to tell me, darling?” he asked softly.

There was no answer but the sigh of wind in the pines, the far-off whisper of the surf.

He had been afraid to come to that spot and yet, sitting there, he felt a sense of peace.

He flipped the cigarette away and stood up, enormously tired. He stepped over the wall, and walked down the hill toward the city.

Back in the hotel he took a shower and climbed into bed. He lay in the darkness, listening to the sea, thinking of Alicia...

He was back on the stone and in the silent air was the echo of his voice. He stared at the ground where she was buried.

Suddenly there was a call, a distant call — her clear, thin voice in a vast place of echoes. He jumped up, and turned. She was walking through the silent stones, with a radiance about her. She wore the white dress that she had worn at high school graduation. Her face was younger than he had remembered it.

“Matthew, darling! Matthew Otis!”

“Alicia!” he called, but as in other dreams, his voice was frozen in his throat. He turned and began to run toward her.

“What have you been trying to tell me?”

His voice was loud and clear. They were no longer in the cemetery. They were in a huge room like a railroad station. The floor felt odd and he looked down and saw that he was running on the moving belt of a treadmill. She was also on a treadmill, running in the opposite direction. They moved ever steadily apart.

“Matthew!” she called. “Matthew, darling!” Her voice was lost in a thousand echoes against the great dark ceiling.

Suddenly she stopped running, stood still and was carried off into the darkness, her figure diminishing until at last it was a tiny white glowing spot against the black horizon before it was gone altogether.

He stood in the blackness and the loneliness.

He awakened standing near the windows, cold and trembling. Exhausted, he found his way back to the bed.

Susan lay rigid in the darkness, her mind filled with loathing. Beside her, Roy Bedford stirred in his sleep and his hand touched her shoulder. With infinite care she moved further away so that he no longer touched her.

It had gone wrong. Incredibly wrong. They had stood in the small cheap parlor of the marriage mill and she had said, her voice trembling, her tone light, “By the way, Roy. I sold all my stock to Patience just before you picked me up at the house.”

His lips had drawn back from his teeth in a parody of a smile. “You what!”

“Oh, it was legal enough. Bill of sale and everything. It was Matt Otis’ idea. I suppose you don’t want to marry me now.”

He had looked at her with those unreadable eyes for long seconds. Then, while the man waiting to marry them had coughed and fussed with the book, Roy had laughed. Humorless laughter. A senseless bray that twisted his body.

When he could get his breath he said, “Matt Otis’ idea? Oh, that’s great! Yes, Susan, I want to marry you. Very much.”

The tears stood in her eyes as he fitted the ring on her finger. But his wedding kiss wasn’t tender. He had put a hard hand at the back of her neck and brought his lips down on hers with ferocity. His teeth had bruised her lips and she had gasped with the pain. When she had pushed him away, tasting the warm blood from her lip, he had laughed again. The man who still held the book was embarrassed and a bit angry. Roy had laughed at him, too, and had flung a ten-dollar bill at him. His hard fingers had bruised Susan’s arm as he led her out to the car.

He was asleep now. She felt soiled from the touch of him. She wanted to go and scrub her body, but she was afraid she would awaken him. She felt lost and young and hopeless.

It was at that moment that she began to wonder if she had the courage to kill him one day.

The bedside phone rang insistently. Matthew Otis reached up out of his sleep, lifted it from the cradle and held it to his ear. The luminous dial of his wristwatch said that it was a quarter to four.

“You’re Matt Otis?” a woman’s voice said.

“That’s right,” he mumbled. “Who is it?”

“Rosie Carney. I saw you a long time ago.” Her voice was slurred. He could imagine the loose drunken lips, the wet eyes.

“I remember you,” he said.

“I’m glad you remember me, Matt Otis. I saw you that night your girl died. She was Roy’s girl, you know.”

“Look, it’s four in the morning. What is this? A little talk about old times? Save it until tomorrow, will you?”

“Save it?” She laughed. “Sure, old Rose Carney’ll save it. For a long time. Wanted to tell you ’bout that night. Wanted to tell you Roy took me home and left me. And came back later.”

She hung up. “Hello! Hello!” he shouted.

He put the phone back on the cradle. Drunken woman. Probably went off the deep end when she heard about Susan. Talking nonsense. He went back to sleep...

Rose Carney stood in her stocking feet on the sand and looked up at the beach house. She held the bottle of wine by the neck. She could hear distant fragments of music. The night was cold, but she didn’t feel cold.

It was like waiting for something exciting to happen. She lifted the bottle and drank deeply. She threw it from her, heard it shatter on the rocks.

At last the little glow touched the windows. Breathless, she watched as it grew brighter.

All my nice clothes, she thought. All the records. They’ll melt and burn. All the wine bottles will break. Present for Roy. Li’l present for my boy Roy.