Bill Pronzini - The Lighthouse

Well, why not, then? It was early yet; what difference did it make if she talked to Jan now or an hour from now? Talking to him tonight, away from Cape Despair, was the important thing.

“I guess I can spare an hour or so,” she said. “Can we get down to the beach from here?”

“Oh, yes.” The plaintive quality was gone; Cassie seemed almost animated now, as if spending an hour with Alix-with anyone-meant a great deal to her. “I know a way down the cliffs you probably haven’t discovered. One of the women in the village told me about it. I’ve been there three or four times when the weather’s good, to pick through the driftwood.”

The route down to the beach, it turned out, was only a short distance from the lighthouse gate-no more than four hundred yards. Cassie led her on a zig-zag course among dun-colored outcrops and boulders to a series of natural-and crumbling-“steps” that scaled the cliff wall. Alix paused as the gallery owner started down, feeling a brief flash of vertigo. But when she saw that Cassie didn’t seem to have any trouble keeping her balance, she took a deep breath and followed.

It took almost ten minutes to make it all the way down the series of knobs and outcrops and niches; in one steep place she had to scoot a couple of yards on the seat of her jeans. When she finally reached the beach she was a little winded. But Cassie, in spite of her recent illness, looked nearly as fresh as when they’d started out.

The beach here was narrow, no more than fifty yards wide. A third of it was strewn with driftwood, all sizes and shapes, some of the jumbled pieces driven back and up into declivities in the rocks by the force of the wind and the sea. Here and there, the stark white and gray of the wood was garnished with brownish-green seaweed. Cassie set off at an angle through the coarse, pebbly sand, Alix at her side. The sea was remarkably calm this afternoon. Further down the beach, small shorebirds-sandpipers? grebes? — ran from the breakers, then turned to chase them as they receded. Cassie made no attempt at conversation, and neither did Alix. She breathed deeply of the salt air instead, feeling it relax her even more; even the strain of her thigh muscles as she slogged through the loose sand was not unpleasant.

As they approached the waterline, the birds scattered in a great gray and brown and white cloud, screeching their disapproval of the human interlopers. Alix sat on her heels, let one of the waves break up close to her so she could test the water. It was icy enough to make her jerk back her hand.

Cassie’s voice came from behind her right shoulder, startling her. “On days like this, I’m almost glad I moved here.”

“Only almost?”

“Yes.”

Alix stood, drying her fingers on her jeans. Then in silent accord they both turned and began to move along the wet hard-packed sand toward where the beach narrowed and finally disappeared altogether. It was windier than it had been up by the lighthouse, and Alix buttoned her jacket to the neck and thrust her hands into her pockets. Beside her Cassie seemed to be lost in thought, perhaps trying to decide if she wanted to reveal any more about her feelings for this place and for the village.

At length Cassie said, “I hated it here when I first arrived-the bleakness, the loneliness. Now it’s… home, I guess, as much as any place can ever be for me.”

“What about Eugene? That’s where you used to live, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You weren’t happy there?”

“Well, it’s a nice town. I had a lot of friends. Belonged to an art cooperative and had my studio there. Took courses at the university extension-cooking, French, calligraphy, whatever happened to interest me at the time. And there were concerts and plays…”

“Then why did you leave?” Alix asked. “I know you mentioned you were divorced, but Eugene is a sizable town; surely you wouldn’t have run into your ex-husband very often.”

“It wasn’t that. I had to leave, for my own peace of mind. Ron spoiled the town for me-all my memories as well as my enjoyment of the present. Staying there would have been more than I could bear.”

“He must have really hurt you.”

Cassie stopped walking and turned to face the water, standing still with her back to Alix. There was a fishing boat on the horizon, a small speck that barely moved; she seemed to be watching it. But Alix sensed she wasn’t.

After a time Cassie said, “Ron is a professor at the university. Anthropology. There were women from his classes, girls really… a constant stream of them almost from the first year we were married. You’re a faculty wife; you know how some professors are, the temptations, sex in return for a decent grade…”

“Yes, I know,” Alix said a little awkwardly. “I’ve seen it happen at Stanford.”

“But not to your husband.”

“No.”

Thank God he’d never fallen into that trap, she thought. Not that she knew of, at least. The extension of the thought came as a mild surprise; she’d never suspected him of straying since the time she’d gone up to Boston and checked his closet for another woman’s clothing. Surely she’d have known if there had been someone else, wouldn’t she?

But lately, in some ways, it seemed she’d never known him at all.

“… an old story, isn’t it?” Cassie was saying bitterly. “Happens all the time.”

“More often than we care to think about.” But Alix’s mind was still on Jan.

“I wouldn’t have cared about an occasional fling,” Cassie said. “I can understand temptation and weakness as well as the next person. But with Ron it was constant, one romance after another. ”

“He didn’t tell you about them, did he?”

“Oh no. He was very discreet; he had to be, because of his position. But I knew. I always knew.”

“What finally made you leave him?”

Cassie was silent for a moment. “I guess,” she said then, “he went one romance too far.”

She turned, hugging her sweater closely about her, and continued on toward where the beach ended in a fall of rocks. Alix fell in at her side, wondering what she would have done in such a situation. The same as Cassie, probably. Only she wouldn’t have waited nearly so long. Or would she?

They walked in silence until they reached the jumble of rocks. Then, as they turned and started back, Alix said, “Well, all that’s behind you-your life in Eugene, I mean. You’ve made a new start here, and it’s to your credit that you did it on your own.”

“I suppose so,” Cassie said. But her smile was wry. “But is the past ever really dead? Don’t the bad things come back to haunt us sometimes, in one way or another?”

Alix felt a small chill. “It doesn’t have to be like that.”

“Not for you, maybe. I hope it never does. I hope all that’s happened here doesn’t come back to haunt you.”

“Why do you say that?”

Her voice was sharper than she’d intended it, and Cassie glanced at her, then glanced away. There was a pause, awkward now. Then Cassie said, “Well, one can’t help but hear things in a place this small. I told you before, Lillian Hilliard’s stock in trade is rumor and gossip and innuendo; she was in her glory when I went into the store this morning. I don’t put any stock in that kind of malicious tongue-wagging, but I can’t help wondering how it’s affecting you and your husband.”

And suddenly Alix couldn’t help wondering if that was the real reason Cassie had come out here this afternoon, or at least part of it. She didn’t want to believe that; it would diminish the woman, make her less than the friend she seemed to want to be. But there was the evident fact that Cassie herself was something of a gossip, and that alone was enough to keep Alix from backing down on her resolve not to confide in anyone else in this area. A casual friend was one thing; an ally was another. And her only ally in this situation, the only person she could count on-at least until she could make Jan listen to reason-was herself.