Walker Percy - The Second Coming

“Don’t you remember Daddy’s Lincoln?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember the last time?”

“The last time?”

“After you came back from Santa Fe. Before you took off for good?”

“Ah—”

“When we parked behind the golf course like this?”

“Ah—”

“Ho ho ho you remember all right. Now, Will, listen to me.”

“All right.”

“We need to talk. About Allie, for one thing. I need to see you. Go home. Get cleaned up. Shave. My God, where have you been, laying in some gutter? Tomcattin’?” She gave him a poke. “All this time you could have been at Dun Romin’ with me taking care of you. After you get settled, come over to my villa. We need to talk about Allie. I’m right over there in number six, Dun Romin’—don’t you like that?”

“Very well, but if it’s about Allison, I’ll need to talk to Walter too.”

“Honey, I done told you. Friend Walter has split.”

“Split.”

“Checked out. Long gone. Headed for the islands, or rather the island. Come to Dun Romin’ and I’ll tell you all about it.” She hooked three fingers inside his belt and gave him a tug.

“I see.” He mused: Did Kitty’s special boldness come from a special sadness? Or do women grow more lustful as they grow older? “You and Walter are separated?”

“I told you things have been popping around here!” Now swinging around merrily, she knelt as if she were in a pew, arms on the back of the seat. Was she merry or sad? “No, seriously. It’s been in the cards for years. It’s not that Walter has this thing for his little receptionists — the older he gets, the younger they get — I couldn’t care less. What it is is there’s nothing between us. Nothing. Maybe there never was. So we’ve split. And we’ve agreed. He gets the Georgia island. I get the mountain here.”

“Don’t they belong to Allie?” He was watching her eyes, which were rounded and merry but also going away.

“Did I tell you I think I found out where Allie is?”

“No.”

“She’s here!”

“Here?”

“Not a mile from this spot. Lewis told me without knowing he was telling me. He thinks the world of you, thinks you’re the solidest citizen around. I didn’t tell him otherwise, that you’re the original flake and we’re two of a kind, the original misfits. Oh, Will, you’re the raunchiest loveliest mess I ever saw, let’s get in the Lincoln — no, I’m kidding. Lewis just happened to mention that a girl’s been living out at the old Kemp place, a shy blond little woods creature. She called it her place. Who else could it be? All he had to say was that she comes to town once a week, goes to the A & P, buys oatmeal, talks funny, says no more than three words, and I knew. It’s Allie. I’m going to see her now. Lewis drew me a map. Want to come? No, you go home.”

“What do you and Walter want to do with Allie?”

“Just me. Walter has copped out. He’s agreeable to anything. All he can think about are what he calls his Ayrabs. He and his Ayrabs, as he calls them, are going to turn the island into a 144-hole golf course with an airport big enough to take 727s from Kuwait.”

“Very well. What do you want to do with Allie?”

“Allie.” For the first time the merry Polly Bergen wrinkles at the corners of her eyes ironed out, showing white. Her eyes went fond and far away. “Allie Allie Allie. What to do with Allie?” Her eyes came back. “Let’s face it, Will.”

“Okay.”

“Alistair’s been telling me this for years but I couldn’t or wouldn’t believe him.”

“Alistair?”

“Dr. Duk.”

“What’s he been telling you?”

“Will,” said Kitty and in her voice he recognized the sweet timbre, the old authentic Alabama thrill of bad news. “Will, Allie can’t make it. Allie is not going to make it, Will. She can’t live in this world. No way.”

“Me neither.”

“What?” said Kitty dreamily.

“Nothing. How do you know she can’t make it?” On the contrary, he thought. She may be the only one who can make it.

“Because Alistair told me. And because I know her and I know what happens when she tries. Do I ever know.”

“What happens when she tries?”

“At first she’s bright as can be. Too bright. Everything is Christmas morning. And that’s the trouble. She can only live if every day is Christmas morning. But she doesn’t know how to live from one Christmas to the next.”

“What happens when she tries?”

“She can’t cope.”

“What does that mean?”

“I mean that she literally does not know how to live. She can’t talk, she can’t sleep, she can’t work. So she crawls into a hole and pulls it in after her. Twice I’ve saved her from starvation. I can’t take that responsibility any more.”

“What do you want to do with her?”

“What is best for her. The best-structured environment money can buy, and all the freedom she can handle.”

“You mean you want to commit her.”

“I’ve talked it over again with Alistair. She can have her own cottage. She can do anything that you or I can do. The only difference is that I intend to make sure she will not injure herself. She will be around people who understand her and with whom she can talk or not talk as she chooses. She will have everything you and I have — books, music, art, companionship, you name it. And you and I will be here if she needs us.”

He must have fallen silent for some time because the next thing he knew she was poking him in her old style.

“What?” he said with a start.

“Wake up. I was talking about Allie.”

“I know.”

“Tell me something, Will.”

“Okay.”

“Does Allie’s life make sense to you?”

“Well I don’t—” he began.

“It’s like Ludean said. Ludean, Grace’s wonderful old Nigra cook. You know what she told me? She said: That chile don’t belong in this world, Miss Kitty.”

He was silent. He was thinking about firelight on Allie’s face and arms and breasts as she knelt to feed logs into the iron stove.

“You know what she meant, don’t you?”

“No.”

“In her own way she was expressing the wisdom of the ages. I’m sure Ludean never heard of reincarnation, but what she was saying in her own way was that Allie had come from another life but had not quite made it all the way. That does happen, you know. I can’t find much written on the subject but it seems quite reasonable to me that some incarnations are more successful than others, that some, like Allie’s, don’t take. That’s why we use expressions like she’s not all there. Though I would say she’s not all here. You ought to see her eyes. She’s seeing something we don’t see.”

He thought of Allie’s eyes, the quick lively look she gave him, lips pressed tight, after she hoisted him onto the bunk, her hands busy with him like a child bedding down a big doll.

“There is no other explanation for it, Will. If I didn’t know what I know, I couldn’t stand it. As it is, it is so simple, so obvious.”

For a fact, she did seem to know something. There was in her eyes just above the Mercedes seat the liveliness (so like Allie yet unlike) of someone who knows a secret you haven’t caught on to. “Don’t you see it, you dummy, or do I have to tell you?”

“What is it you know?”

“Allie did have another life. Unlike most of us, you and me for instance, her karma is so strong she almost remembers it. Sometimes I think she does. In fact, after one session with Ray at Virginia Beach, she did remember it.”

“Ray?”

“A true mystic — and you know how hardheaded I am about such things. Well, I can tell you there was no humbug here. After trance and regression, first Ray’s trance without Allie present, then Allie’s regression, both wrote down what they saw. I was there, I took the papers, I read them. It’s scientific proof. The particulars differ but there is enough to know what sort of life Allie had and the explanation of what she’s going through now. The upshot is that our duty is to protect her and take care of her while she works it out.”