Peter Beagle - The Line Between

«The hands," he says. «I don't understand.»

«And it ain't the hands," I say, «it's the buyers. And it ain't the buyers.» I take a breath, wish God'd put a noggin of rum in me fist right now, but there ain't no God. «It's the wine.»

Henry Lee shakes his head. He reaches for a bottle on the sideboard, pours himself a drink. Salt wine, it is — I knock it out of his hand, so it splashes on his fancy rug, and now I'm whispering, because if I shout everything comes apart. «It's the wine, Henry Lee. You know it, and now I know.»

That about him knowing, that was a guess, and now I'm the one looking away, 'acos of I don't want to find out I'm right. And because it's hard to say the bloody words, either way. «The salt wine," I says. «It frigging well killed a man, this time out, and I'm betting it's done it before.»

«No," Henry Lee says. «No, Ben, that's not possible.» But I look straight back at him, and I know what he's fighting not to think.

«Maybe he didn't mean no harm, your Gorblimey," I go on. «Maybe he'd no notion

what his old precious gift would do to human beings. Maybe it depends on how much of it you drink, or how often.» So still in that fine house, I can hear his Julia Caterina turning in the bed upstairs, murmuring into her pillow. I say, «Old Monkey Sucker, he never could keep away from the cask in the hold, maybe that's why … why it happened. Maybe if you don't drink too much.»

«No," Henry Lee answers me, and his voice is real quiet too. «That wouldn't make sense, Ben. I drink salt wine every day. A lot of it.»

He's always got a flask of the creature somewhere about him, true enough, and you won't see him go too long without his drop. But there's no sign of any change, not in his face, nor in his skin, nor his teeth — and that last time Monkey Sucker said «water» I could see his teeth had got all sprawled outlike, couldn't hardly close his mouth. But Henry Lee just went on looking like Henry Lee, except a little bit grayer, a bit wearier, a bit more pulled–down, like, the way quitting the sea will do to you. No merrow borning there, not that I could see.

«Well, then," says I, «it's not the amount of wine. But it is the wine. Tell me that's not so, and I'll believe you, Henry Lee. I will.»

Because I never knew him lie to me. Might take his time getting around to telling me some things, but he wouldn't never lie outright. But he just shook his head again, and looked down, and he heaved a sigh sounded more like a death rattle. Says, «It could be. It could be. I don't know, Ben.»

«You know," I says. «How long?» He don't answer, don't say nowt for a while — he just turns and turns in a little tight circle, this way and that, like a bear at a baiting. Finally he goes on, mumbling now, like he'd as soon I didn't hear. «The Tagus, last year, that time I took Julia Caterina to Lisbon. A man on the riverbank, he just tumbled … I didn't get a really good look, I couldn't be sure what I was seeing, I swear, Ben.» I can't make no sound. Henry Lee grabs me hands, wrings them between his until they hurt. «Ben, it's like you said, maybe Gorblimey didn't know himself — "

I pull me hands free, and for a minute I have to close me eyes, 'acos if I was on a ship I'd be seasick. I hear meself saying, «Maybe he didn't. But we do. We know now.»

«No, we don't! It still mightn't be the wine — it could be any number of things.» He takes a deep, deep breath, plunges on. «Even if — even if that's so, obviously it's just a few, a very few, not one in a thousand, if even … I mean, you don't see it happening everywhere, it's just — it's like the way some folk can't abide shellfish, the way cheese gripes your gut, Ben, every time. It's got to be so with the salt wine.»

«Even one," I says. It catches in me throat and comes out a whisper, so I can't tell if he's heard. We stand there, looking at each other, like we're waiting to be introduced. Henry Lee reaches for me hand again, but I step away. Henry Lee starts to say summat, but then he don't. There's blood in me mouth, I can taste it.

«I done bad things, Henry Lee," I says at last. «I know where I'm going when I go, and none to blame but me. I know who's waiting for me there, too — some nights I see their faces all around the room, plain as I now see you. But in me life I never done nothing, nothing … I got to get out of your house, Henry Lee.»

And I'm for the door, because I can't look at him no more. He calls after me — once, twice — and I think he's bound sure to try and drag me back, maybe to gull me into seeing things his way, maybe just not to be alone. But he don't, and I walk on home along the seafront, a deal slower than I came. And when I get there — it were a plain little house, nobbut the one servant, and him not living in, because I can't abide folk around me when I rise — when I got there, I drank meself to sleep with me whole stock of good Christian rum. And in the morning I went to see Henry Lee's lawyer— our lawyer — Portygee–Goan, he were, name of Andres Furtado, near enough — and I started working an old fool name of Ben Hazeltine loose from the salt wine business. It took me some while.

Cost me a few bob, too, I don't mind saying. We'd made an agreement long back, Henry Lee and me, that if ever I wanted to sell me forty percent, he'd have to buy me out, will–he, nil–he. But I didn't want no more of that salt wine money — couldn't swallow the notion, no more than I could have swallowed a single mouthful of the stuff ever again after that second time.

So by and by, all what you call the legalities was taken care of, and there was I, on the beach again, in a manner of speaking. But at least I'd saved a bit — wouldn't last forever, but leastways I could bide me time finding other work, and not before the mast, neither. Too old to climb the rigging, too used to proper dining to go back to cooking in burned pots and rusty pannikins in some Grand Banks trawler's galley — aye, and far too fast–set in me ways of doing things to be taking orders from no captain hadn't seen what I've seen in this world. «Best bide ashore awhile, Ben Hazeltine," I says to meself, «and see who might be needing what you yet can do. There'll be someone," I says, «as there always is," and I'd believe it, too, days on end. But I'd been used to a lot of things regular, not only me meals. Henry Lee, he were one of them, him and his bloody salt wine. Not that I'd have gone back working for the fool — over the side meself first, and I can't swim no better than poor old Monkey Sucker. But still.

So when Henry Lee's young wife shows up at me door, all by herself, no husband, no servants, just her parasol and a whole great snowy spill of lace down her front, I asked her in like she were me long–lost baby sister. We weren't close, didn't know each other much past the salon and the dining room, but she were pretty and sweet, and I liked her the best I could. Like I tried to tell Henry Lee, I don't belong in the same room with no lady. Even when it's me own room. Any road, she comes in, and she sat down, and she says, «Mr. Ben, my husband, he miss you very much.» Never knew a woman quicker off the mark and to the point than little Mrs. Julia Caterina Five–other–names Lee. I can still see her, sitting in me best company chair, with her little fan and her hands in her lap, and that bit of a smile that she could never quite

hide. Henry Lee said it were a nervous thing with her mouth, and that she were shamed by it, but I don't know.

«We're old partners, him and me," I answers her. «We was sailors together when we was young. But I'm done working with him, no point in pretending otherwise. You're wasting your time, ma'am, I have to tell you. He shouldn't ought to have sent you here.»

«Oh, he did not sent me," she says quickly. «I come — how is it? — on my ownsome? And no, I do not imagine you to come back for him, I would not ask you such a thing, not for him. But you … I think for you this would be good.» I gawk at her, and she smiles a real smile now. She says, «You come to us alone — no friend, no woman, never. I think you are lonely.»