Walker Percy - Lancelot

“No.”

“They’re popping pills and hauling anisette and tequila up to the belvedere. They’re going to have a party.”

“I know.”

Merlin gave me a long firm handshake with two hands and a long level-eyed stare clouded with hidden meanings. He’d been in the movies too long.

“Lucy, jump in your Porsche and take off for school. You’ve got thirty minutes.”

“Papaaauh!” She trailed off in a musical downbeat-up-beat, an exact rendering of Raine’s famous mannerism.

“You heard me.”

“I want to stay with Raine through the hurricane.”

“No goddamn it. Now get going.”

Lucy looked surprised. Everyone acted as if I were an ancestor who had wandered out of his portrait and begun giving orders. Everyone obeyed from sheer surprise.

Later I heard Lucy ask Suellen, who was packing her metal candy boxes in Elgin’s Plymouth Charger: “What’s got into Papa?”

“Mr. Lance know what he doing, girl,” said Suellen conventionally but in truth relieved that somebody, anybody, was taking charge.

“What’s the hurry. Papa?” asked Lucy, thinking of Raine again.

“Well, for one thing, they need you at the Tri-Phi house. I just talked to Mrs. Davaux. The freshmen are getting panicky even though the storm is only going to sideswipe them. Mrs. Davaux thinks you’re the one to calm them. She says you have real leadership qualities. Otherwise you’re going to lose half your pledges to the Chi O’s — whose seniors are all back.” (I did talk to Mrs. Davaux and she did say something like that.)

Ah, that was a different story. A hard choice between Raine and Troy and the hurricane, and shoring up wavering Tri-Phi pledges. Her Tri-Phi loyalties would have won out, I think, even without my orders.

“Anyhow, Raine’s not leaving. She’ll be around for a while.”

It was true in a sense.

“Okay, Papa. To tell you the truth, I’m a little scared.”

“Good. Now get going.”

“Okay, Papa.”

Putting her hands on my shoulders, she held me off, setting her head to one side Rainelike. Jesus Christ, the movies.

“Papa, I love you.”

“I love you too.”

The wind was picking up. Now it was sustained between gusts. I went out on the galleries and closed the shutters, shot the heavy bolts. They locked from the outside.

Afterwards I met Raine in the hall on her way to the belvedere with a tray.

“What’s the matter with you, Lance?”

“What do you mean?”

“You look awful.”

“I’m tired.”

“Here. I’ve got drinks right here.”

“No thanks.”

“Then try a couple of these. One now and one later.” She gave me two capsules. “They’re the best of all downers. They leave you relaxed but euphoric. You feel absolutely free to choose, to plan and act. You can choose to sleep or not to sleep. You become your true self.”

I looked at her. “Very well.”

The truth was, I needed something. There was a cold numbing sensation spreading from the pit of my stomach. What I really wanted was a drink.

She set down the tray and poured me a drink of water. I swallowed both pills. She looked at me. “Why don’t we meet later tonight?”

“Very well.”

She started up the attic steps.

“I wouldn’t stay up there too long, Raine. The wind is expected to reach over a hundred. The glass may not hold.”

“We won’t. We’re just enjoying the lovely sky and clouds and lightning. Did you ever see such a sky? Why don’t you join us?”

“Not right now. Send Margot down though. I want to speak to her.”

Margot came down. She stood in the dark hall at right angles to me, arms crossed, foot cocked on heel.

“Margot, will you leave with me now? We can go anywhere you like.”

“No.”

“Then will you come and stay with me tonight?”

“No.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“What do you mean, that’s it?”

“I do love you, Lance.”

“But—”

“No buts. I love you as I’ve always loved you, with the old me. But there are other me’s. One grows.”

“Then love me with the old me.”

“What can I do?” She shrugged. She was not too attentive. Her head was slightly atilt as if she were listening for a new overtone in the storm. “The feeling is not there. One can’t help one’s feelings.”

She hollowed her mouth and cocked her head. I could not hear over the uproar of the storm, but I knew her tongue went tock tock against the roof of her mouth.

Something worked in the pit of my stomach. It took hold and caught. I realized it was the drug catching on, meshing into my body like a gear.

She swung around to face me, hands on her hips. Holding herself erect, she set one foot forward and turned slightly out. Her face was severe, unpainted, Scandinavian. Christ, she was already Nora Helmer in A Doll’s House.

“What are you going to do, Margot?” I asked dreamily.

“What am I going to do?” Tock tock. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing I can’t do. I can’t just sit here year in and year out waxing furniture and watching the camellias bloom. You can understand that.”

“Sure. Then let’s go to — ah, Virginia.”

“Virginia?” Her face strayed two degrees toward me.

“I don’t know why I said Virginia,” I said, feeling an odd not unpleasant distance opening in my head. “If not Virginia, then anywhere you please.”

“No. I’m sorry, sweetie.” She kissed and hugged me absentmindedly. In the hug I could feel that her diaphragm was held high. She was breathing in a certain way. She was being Nora.

The drug was acting. A certain distance set in between me and myself. Here’s what I hoped for from the pills: a little space between me and the pain. I understood what Margot said but I couldn’t stand it. But how do you live with something you can’t stand? How do you get comfortable with a sword through your guts? I didn’t expect a solution or even relief. I only wanted a little distance: how does one live with it — the way a drunk lives with being a drunk, or a crook lives with being a crook? No problem! I envied both. But this! How do you live with this: being stuck onto pain like a cockroach impaled on a pin? The drug did this: before, I was part of the pain, there was no getting away from it. Now I had some distance. The pain was still there, but I stood off a ways. It became a problem to be solved. Hm, what to do about the pain? Who knows, there might even be a solution. Perhaps there’s something you can do to ease it. Let’s see.

“Why don’t you come up to the belvedere with us? It is absolutely spectacular.”

“No. There’re some things I have to do.”

“Very well.” She kissed me distractedly with a loud kinfolks kiss, smack. Tock tock.

When I finished locking the shutters, I returned to the pigeonnier. One had to lean into the south wind. There was wind between the gusts. The storm was like a man who can’t get his breath.

The space between me and myself widened. I was sitting in my plantation rocker feeling a widening in my head.

The next thing I knew I was still sitting in my rocker. It was moonlight outside. The moonlight was coming in. I got up and opened the door. It was still. An orange moon rose behind the English Coast. A great yellow rampart of cloud filled the western sky beyond the levee. It looked as solid as the Andes and had peaks and valleys and glaciers and crevasses.

Leaving the door open, I went inside and sat in the rocker and thought of nothing. I breathed. My eye followed the line between the moonlight and the shadow of the doorjamb which ran across the floor of St. Joseph bricks set in a herringbone pattern.