Donna Tartt - The Little Friend

After she left, Harriet kept her face pressed into the pillow. The blankets were soft. Noises stretched out and ran smoothly over her head. Then down she spun quickly, into wide heartsick emptiness, the old weightlessness of first nightmares.

“But I didn’t want tea,” said a fretful, familiar voice.

The room was now dark. There were two people in it. A weak light burned in a corona behind their heads. Then, to her dismay, Harriet heard a voice she hadn’t heard in a long time: her father’s.

“Tea’s all they had.” He spoke with an exaggerated politeness that verged on sarcasm. “Except coffee and juice.”

“I told you not to go all the way down to the cafeteria. There’s a Coke machine in the hall.”

“Don’t drink it if you don’t want it.”

Harriet lay very still, with her eyes half-closed. Whenever both of her parents were in the room, the atmosphere grew chilled and uncomfortable, no matter how civil they were to each other. Why are they here ? she thought drowsily. I wish it was Tatty and Edie .

Then, with a shock, she realized that she’d heard her father say Danny Ratliff’s name.

“Isn’t that too bad?” he was saying. “They were all talking about it, down in the cafeteria.”

“What?”

“Danny Ratliff. Robin’s little friend, don’t you remember? He used to come up in the yard and play sometimes.”

Friend ? thought Harriet.

Fully awake now, her heart pounding so wildly that it was an effort not to tremble, she lay with her eyes closed, and listened. She heard her father take a sip of coffee. Then he continued: “Came by the house. Afterwards. Raggedy little boy, don’t you remember him? Knocked on the door and said he was sorry he wasn’t at the funeral, he didn’t have a ride.”

But that’s not true , thought Harriet, panicked now. They hated each other. Ida told me so .

“Oh, yes!” Her mother’s voice lively now, with a kind of pain. “Poor little thing. I do remember him. Oh, that’s too bad.”

“It’s strange.” Harriet’s father sighed, heavily. “Seems like yesterday he and Robin were playing around the yard.”

Harriet lay rigid with horror.

“I was so sorry,” said Harriet’s mother, “I was so sorry when I heard he’d started getting into trouble a while ago.”

“It was bound to happen, with a family like that.”

“Well, they’re not all bad. I saw Roy Dial in the hall and he told me that one of the other brothers had dropped in to see about Harriet.”

“Oh, really?” Her father took another long sip of his coffee. “Do you think he knew who she was?”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised. That’s probably why he stopped in.”

Their talk turned to other things as Harriet—seized by fear—lay with her face pressed in the pillow, very still. Never had it occurred to her that she might be wrong in her suspicions about Danny Ratliff—simply wrong. What if he hadn’t killed Robin at all?

She had not bargained for the black horror that fell over her at this thought, as if of a trap clicking shut behind her, and immediately she tried to push the thought from her mind. Danny Ratliff was guilty, she knew it, knew it for a fact; it was the only explanation that made any sense. She knew what he’d done, even if nobody else did.

But all the same, doubt had come down on her suddenly and with great force, and with it the fear that she’d stumbled blindly into something terrible. She tried to calm herself down. Danny Ratliff had killed Robin; she knew it was true, it had to be. And yet when she tried to remind herself exactly how she knew it was true, the reasons were no longer so clear in her mind as they had been and now, when she tried to recall them, she couldn’t.

She bit the inside of her cheek. Why had she been so sure it was him? At one time, she was very sure; the idea had felt right, and that was the important thing. But—like the foul taste in her mouth—a queasy fear now lingered close, and would not leave her. Why had she been so sure? Yes, Ida had told her a lot of things—but all of a sudden those accounts (the quarrels, the stolen bicycle) no longer seemed quite so convincing. Didn’t Ida hate Hely, for absolutely no reason? And when Hely came over to play, didn’t Ida often get outraged on Harriet’s behalf without bothering to find out whose fault the quarrel was?

Maybe she was right. Maybe he had done it. But now, how would she ever know for sure? With a sickening feeling, she remembered the hand clawing up from the green water.

Why didn’t I ask ? she thought. He was right there . But no, she was too frightened, all she’d wanted was to get away.

“Oh, look!” said Harriet’s mother suddenly, standing up. “She’s awake!”

Harriet froze. She’d been so caught up in her thoughts, she’d forgotten to keep her eyes shut.

“Look who’s here, Harriet!”

Her father rose, advanced to the bed. Even in the shadowy room, Harriet could tell that he had put on a bit of weight since she had last seen him.

“Haven’t seen old Daddy in a while, have you?” he said. When he was in a jocular mood, he liked to refer to himself as “old Daddy.” “How’s my girl?”

Harriet suffered herself to be kissed on the forehead and cuffed on the cheek—briskly, with a cupped hand. This was her father’s customary endearment, but Harriet disliked it intensely, especially from the hand that sometimes slapped her in anger.

“How you doing?” he was saying. He’d been smoking cigars; she could smell it on him. “You’ve fooled these doctors but good, girl!” He said it as if she’d pulled off some great academic or sports triumph.

Harriet’s mother was hovering anxiously. “She may not feel like talking, Dix.”

Her father said, without turning around: “Well, she doesn’t have to talk if she doesn’t feel like it.”

Looking up into her father’s stout red face, his quick, observant eyes, Harriet had an intense urge to ask him about Danny Ratliff. But she was afraid.

“What?” her father said.

“I didn’t say anything.” Harriet’s voice surprised her, it was so scratchy and feeble.

“No, but you were about to.” Her father regarded her cordially. “What is it?”

“Leave her alone, Dix,” said her mother in a low murmur.

Her father turned his head—quickly, without saying a word—in a manner that Harriet knew very well.

“But she’s tired!”

“I know she’s tired. I’m tired,” said Harriet’s father, in the cold and excessively polite voice. “I drove eight hours in the car to get here. Now I’m not supposed to speak to her?”

After they finally left—the visiting hours were over at nine—Harriet was much too afraid to go to sleep, and sat up in bed with her eyes on the door for fear that the preacher would come back. An un-announced visit from her father was in itself occasion for anxiety—especially given the new threat of moving up to Nashville—but now he was the least of her worries; who knew what the preacher might do, with Danny Ratliff dead?

Then she thought of the gun cabinet, and her heart sank. Her father didn’t check it every time he came home—usually only in hunting season—but it would be just her luck if he did check it. Maybe throwing the gun in the river had been a mistake. If Hely had hidden it in the yard, she could have put it back where it belonged, but it was too late for that now.

Never had she dreamed he’d be home so soon. Of course, she hadn’t actually shot anyone with the gun—for some reason she kept forgetting that—and if Hely was telling the truth, it was at the bottom of the river now. If her father checked the cabinet, and noticed it was missing, he couldn’t connect it to her, could he?