Маргарет Миллар - The Cannibal Heart

He turned out to avoid a hole in the road, and the boxes of groceries slid across the back seat and the milk cans, packed in ice, rattled and gurgled.

“On this road,” he said, “it is like the desert. You must keep covered up for protection.”

In spite of the heat he wore a heavy plaid wool jacket buttoned to the neck, and a grey fedora jammed well down on his head so that only a little of his white hair showed at the back of his neck. He had eyes like brown plush, and a full sensitive mouth that quivered when he was moved to emotion; but it was chiefly the prematurely white hair that gave Mr. Roma his air of distinction. To Evelyn he looked like an English colonel charred by a tropic sun. She was surprised when he told her he was a mulatto.

“Perhaps,” Mr. Roma said, “next Saturday I could go alone and do the shopping.”

“Oh, no. I really enjoy shopping.”

“It’s not much of a town to buy things in,” he said in a half-deprecating, half-hopeful tone. Marsalupe was the only town he knew very well, and while he realized its limitations, he wanted other people to approve of it, especially strangers from the East. “There are no delicacies.”

“I don’t like delicacies much,” Evelyn said with a faint smile.

“You can always order things from Los Angeles. Mrs. Wakefield did that sometimes. Once, hearts of palm in a can. Mr. Wakefield had a sudden craving for it. It’s a great delicacy. Compared to hearts of palm, caviar is as common as dirt.” After a time he added, “From this curve it’s only a mile and a half. Already you can smell the sea.”

Evelyn couldn’t smell the sea, though she sniffed hard to oblige Mr. Roma, who always spoke as if he had a controlling interest in the sea as well as in the house built on the cliff above it.

“Don’t you smell it, Mrs. Banner?”

“Well, not quite. It’s not like a smell, exactly. It’s more like a feeling against my skin.”

“I smell it very clearly.”

“There, I think I do now. Yes, I’m sure of it.”

Evelyn didn’t like anyone to be disappointed. It was this characteristic that led some of her friends into thinking she was weak-willed; and once Mark, in a fit of temper, had told her she was wispy, that she had a wispy personality and a wispy mind. Sometimes, especially when she first got up in the morning and wasn’t quite awake, she felt wispy, like a floating, detached piece of fog. But once she’d washed the sleep from her eyes she saw herself quite distinctly as a person of substance, and by the time she went into the adjoining bedroom to help Jessie dress, she felt as clear and sharp and hard as a diamond.

The fact remained that at thirty-two Evelyn was, as she always had been, a very practical creature. It was often practical to make people, like Mark or Mr. Roma, feel good; and so she smelled the sea and told Mr. Roma that she felt refreshed already.

Mr. Roma was very pleased to have the salubrious qualities of his ocean recognized, and he rounded the next curve with such sweeping grace that Evelyn clutched at the door with both hands to balance and the groceries and the milk cans and the books for Mark slid in noisy unison to the other side of the jeep.

For the past eight years Mr. Roma had been making his Saturday trips to Marsalupe for supplies. It was only a matter of nine miles, but few people used the road and it was left in bad repair. During the wet season Mrs. Wakefield’s heavy Lincoln used to sink to its hub caps in mud, and during the dry season the road was dusty and full of holes, and there was about a mile of slide area where unexpected boulders brushed the old Lincoln’s tires and tortured its ageing springs. After the war Mrs. Wakefield bought a second-hand jeep which raced along the road like a tireless and indestructible child. When Mrs. Wakefield departed suddenly, over a year ago, she left the jeep with Mr. Roma.

Every month Mr. Roma received a check from Mrs. Wakefield’s bank, to cover his salary and necessary repairs for the house. Together, he and Carmelita had kept the place ready for occupancy, expecting that at any time Mrs. Wakefield would send word that she and Billy were coming home. But the only news he had of her were two letters, the first from Billy’s nurse.

“Dear Mr. Roma: Mrs. Wakefield wrote and asked me to put the house in the hands of a real estate agent here in San Diego. She wants you to stay on until a sale is made. This may not be for a long time because of the drought affecting the water supply and also because the house is quite out of the way and most people have to go out and scrounge for a living just like me! Mrs. Wakefield and Billy returned from Port-au-Prince three months ago but set out again immediately on a cruise down the coast. (By a funny coincidence they went on the Eleutheria , which is, I recall, one of the last ships poor Mr. Wakefield helped to design. Life is odd, isn’t it?) My best wishes to yourself and Carmelita, and tell Luisa I wish her all kinds of luck on her exams.

P. S. I’ve just talked to the real estate man and he says there’s not a chance of selling the house until something is done about the water situation — I guess he means rain. Meanwhile he has an opportunity to rent it furnished, for the summer only, to some people from New York, a man and wife and a child of school age. The man has some connection with publishing books, and he’s got good bank references. He’s willing to pay $2000 up to September 15th (including you and Carmelita, of course). I think it’s a good offer, considering the disadvantages of the place. Anyway I said, go ahead. I guess it’ll be all right, though I do think it would be nicer if Mrs. Wakefield kept in closer touch with me!

A week after the Banners had moved in, the second letter arrived. It was an abrupt little note from Mrs. Wakefield herself, telling Mr. Roma that he might expect her within a week or two, and that she wanted to “straighten out a few things.”

“One more hill,” Mr. Roma said, shifting into second. “Maybe you would care to stop and see the view?”

“For a minute.”

“Mrs. Wakefield’s been all over, in nearly all the countries, and she says right here is the most wonderful view in the world.”

Evelyn smiled again. She couldn’t help being amused by Mr. Roma’s soft intensity, his air of innocent earnestness. “Perhaps it’s because this is her home, she has a sentimental attachment.”

Mr. Roma gave her a sharp glance. “She has no such attachment.”

“She must be unusual then.”

“Unusual, oh, yes. She’s a real — a real gentlewoman .” He handled the word awkwardly, as if he was aware that it was obsolete but could find no newer word to take its place.

“Is she pretty?”

“Some people think so. It is a matter of opinion. She has fine eyes and hair — red hair, quite dark.”

He stopped the jeep at the top of the hill. The road curved down below them through a grove of giant eucalyptus trees. Beyond the trees the sea shone blue and silver, with the cliffs zigzagging along its shore. As far as the eye could see, the cliffs stretched, a wilderness of stone, with here and there part of a house visible, or a tendril of rising smoke that implied a house with people living in it. There were no people to be seen, though — no movement at all except the sea. From such a height even the sea looked sluggish, and the breakers crawled languidly along the beach.

“There’s an island out there,” Mr. Roma said, pointing. “Twenty miles or so.”

“I can’t see it.”

“Not today — there is a slight haze — but on some days you can see it quite clearly.”

She thought instantly of Jessie, how eager she would be to see the island and explore.