Bill Pronzini - The Lighthouse

You can’t put it off any longer, he thought, and he was standing beside the phone, reaching down for the receiver, when he realized that he didn’t want to put it off; that no matter what Alix’s response, the truth was something he could no longer deal with alone.

The afternoon was thick with fog-not the unleavened gray mist that often hung over the coastline, but an opaque white curtain that shifted and billowed before a strong Pacific wind. The offshore rocks were shrouded, as were the hills to the east. The broken lines centering Highway 1 seemed to leap up suddenly, giving little or no warning of curves, and the edges of the pavement bled off into nothingness. When she came to the first exit for Hilliard she turned automatically, even though the route would take her through the village; it was shorter than continuing down the highway and then doubling back on the county road, and she was eager to get to the lighthouse, to see Jan and hear what it was he had to say to her.

The trailer park on its little hill to her left as she entered Hilliard was a blurred scattering of lonely ill-assorted shapes. It made her feel cold in spite of the warmth inside the station wagon. She thought of how depressing life must be inside one of those boxes, with only the thin walls as protection against the elements. And then, with a twinge of pain, she thought of the Bametts, Della and Hod and their other children, alone with their loss; and of Mandy, who would never return to even that poor shelter.

The cannery loomed on her right, pinpoints of light shining along the clumsy line of its roof. Then the road curved, and she was on the main street. The fluorescent interior of the marine supply glowed through the fog, making the windows look like giant TV screens. The green neon sign of the Seafood Grotto was muted and hazed. The street was empty of pedestrians, and most of the buildings had a closed-up, deserted look.

Just past the general store, however, a line of cars was moving slowly, some of their taillights flashing left-turn signals onto the sidestreet that climbed the hillside toward the church. Alix put her foot on the brake to keep from overtaking them. The lead car made the turn across the road, its headlamps probing the mist and quickly becoming dissipated in whiteness. It was a large boxy vehicle, black with ornate chrome trim; shirred white curtains masked the windows of its elongated rear compartment.

It was a hearse. She’d come up behind Mandy Barnett’s funeral cortege.

Other cars followed the hearse, their headlights making the same slow arc: a ten-year-old Cadillac sedan, presumably belonging to the undertaker and containing the bereaved family; a beat-up Volkswagen van; an equally battered pickup truck; three old cars of nondescript make. It was a poor showing, undoubtedly a poor funeral-as poor as the brief life of Mandy Barnett. Again Alix felt a wrench of pity for the girl, and blinked at the wetness that came to her eyes.

She remembered the day Mandy had come to the light with her “business proposition,” the way she’d spoken of Hilliard: “I hate it! It’s ugly and cold, and everybody’s poor.” And the way she’d spoken of California: “Nobody goes to Hollywood and gets rich and famous anymore; that’s a lot of shit. But I figure I could get by down there, and at least it’s sunny and warm.” Mandy hadn’t had much in life; hadn’t wanted all that much, either. And this bleak good-bye was to be all she ever got.

Alix wondered if Mandy had even owned a decent dress to be buried in. Probably not. Perhaps they had laid her out in her bright blue-and-white poncho. In a way, she hoped so: it and the matching beaded headband seemed to have been the girl’s favorite outfit.

Once more she pictured Mandy-that day in the laundromat, angry at her mother and stamping her foot, her red curls bouncing and the beaded ends of the headband clicking together. And then-unbidden and unwelcome-came the image of the girl’s body lying broken on the pine-needled ground, her blood-flecked eyes hideously staring…

She shuddered, trying to banish the ugly vision. For a moment, as the last car ahead made the turn and began climbing the hill, she contemplated following and paying her last respects. But she knew it would be a self-indulgent gesture, perhaps even a dangerous one; the Barnetts and their friends would be certain to resent her presence-an outsider, the wife of the man some of them were saying was Mandy’s murderer. No, there was no place for her at the cemetery beside the run-down little village church.

She watched the taillights as they wound up the road, disappearing into the wall of mist. Then she drove on to Cape Despair, the lighthouse, and Jan.

The funeral was a blur: Della crying, the boys crying, Reverend Olsen up on his pulpit saying Mandy was a good girl and God in His mercy had already welcomed her into His Kingdom for all eternity (What mercy? Hod remembered thinking. What kind of mercy is this?), then all of them leaving the church, entering the fog-wrapped graveyard, and the pallbearers-Mitch and Adam and Barney Nevers and Les Cummins and Seth Bonner and Mike Carstairs-lowering her coffin into the hole in the ground, clods of earth falling on it, “ashes to ashes and dust to dust,” and Della on her knees wailing, “My baby, my baby!” and him just standing there because he couldn’t do anything else, couldn’t even cry.

The ride home and the funeral supper was a blur too. All the people telling him how sorry they were, Lillian Hilliard saying, “If you need anything, Hod, you just let me know, your credit’s good with me from now on,” as if he gave a damn about groceries at a time like this, and Della all of a sudden red-faced and smiling, acting like they were having a party, running around with plates of food and saying, “Have something more to eat, won’t you have something more to eat?” He couldn’t stand it after a while, too many people and too much noise, and he went out and walked around, he didn’t even remember where, and then he was back at the trailer and Mitch put a drink in his hand-whiskey and some ice-and he drank it, didn’t taste it, drank it like it was water, and Mitch gave him another one, and he drank that, and pretty soon he knew he was drunk but he didn’t feel drunk. Somebody tried to get him to go back inside, eat something, but he couldn’t make himself do it. Then Adam said, “Let’s go up to my trailer, I got another bottle up there,” and he went. Anything to get away from all those people, all that noise.

Mitch and Seth Bonner went, too. And they sat around and drank more whiskey. And then he cried. It came over him all at once, like something breaking, spilling over inside him. He put his head down on the table and cried and cried for his dead daughter until there weren’t any more tears in him. Then he sat up and wiped his face, and he was all right. For the first time in three days he could feel again. For the first time since they’d walked into Adam’s trailer he could pay attention to what was being said, take part in the conversation.

Mitch poured him another drink. The bottle was almost empty.

The interior of the watch house was cold and drafty, despite the fire in the woodstove. Outside the wind gusted and whistled, and gray fingers of fog trailed past the windows. She sat on the couch clutching a snifter of brandy. Jan was on the chair across from her, peering down into his glass and swirling the liquor around its convex sides. He looked tired, a little haggard, a little drained-the same way she felt.

She had waited a long time for this conversation, and she knew she should now be patient, should allow him to find his words and tell it in his own way. But instead she was filled with a prickly irritation; every flick of his wrist as he sloshed the brandy nettled her, every moment that he didn’t speak set her nerves on edge. There was something familiar about the scene-something nostalgic yet vaguely unpleasant that she couldn’t place and which nagged at her and increased her annoyance.