Уильям Макгиверн - Summitt

“Harry, would you like coffee? You sound high.”

“I am high. I told Davic if he filed against you tomorrow he’d find fifty copies of the Emma Green deposition stacked in the pressroom and that I’d hand-deliver the original copy to Earl Thomson’s mother in her private suite. I left it up to him. In the end he agreed there was nothing to negotiate.”

She said quietly, “But you didn’t answer my first question, Harry. You do know my whole story—”

“I don’t know anything, Brett. It was your experience, your truth. If you want to share it with me, well, then it becomes ours, I guess.”

She studied him, and either her eyes had become darker or her skin whiter, he couldn’t be sure which.

“That’s a nice way to put it, Harry. Let me get you a drink. A Scotch, isn’t it?”

A row of brass animals stood on the coffee table, tiny antlers and hooves glinting in the firelight. A pack of cigarettes was beside them, but Selby saw no ashtray or matches.

She came from the kitchen with his whiskey and water on a lacquered tray. Seating herself cross-legged on the sofa, she pushed her hair away from her shoulders.

“It’s not just sex, is it, Harry?” She picked up the pack of cigarettes. “That’s a tiresome question, I know, but it isn’t irrelevant. I’m not smoking,” she added defensively. “That’s the phrase the book advises. Not to say you’ve quit, but just that you aren’t . It’s got something to do with the hang-ups you create if you can’t stick to it and start sneaking a few puffs.” She put the cigarettes back among the brass animals. “You’ve got more in mind than one-night stands in motels, right?”

He was accustomed to her verbal zig-zags, these seemingly erratic detours. “That’s true, but I wouldn’t rule out the motels altogether.”

“You’re serious, you’re serious about this at any rate, so let me try to explain why the motels might be okay but more might be difficult.” Drawing a deep breath, she said, “You’ve got a lot locked up in your past, Harry. Come and sit here with me, please.”

He sat beside her and she touched the scar on his cheek-bone. “I told you that things heal over, that the pain goes away, but I don’t think you really believe that. The wind on the water in Spain, the colors... that’s the perfect place, sealed off in your memories. It belongs to you and nobody else is allowed to go there, not even to visit. It wouldn’t matter if we just shared a motel room and a drink. I could think about something else if you wanted to tell me how beautiful it was back there with her. But if we were serious, I’d feel second class. I’d hate that. I d start looking for what was wrong, the bad weather, the rainy days...”

“Brett, if you’re accusing me of being loyal to my past, I can’t argue about it. But if you don’t want a permanent relationship, don’t blame it on the phantom lady in Spain.”

Her hand strayed to the cigarettes. “Friendly psychiatry, Harry? Behind the battered facade of the All-Pro whatever—”

“For Christ’s sake, let’s be honest about this. Tell me what you’re thinking and feeling.”

“I can’t, goddammit.” She uncrossed her legs in a single fluid movement and began pacing. Picking up the cigarettes, she broke open the pack with a clumsy gesture. Flakes of tobacco sifted over the brass animals. “I want to tell you what I m feeling. I’m not afraid of much when I’m with you, I’ll say that. But if I could put things unemotionally in a clear precise way...” She dropped the pack of cigarettes and sat down again. “I can lecture about my feelings, but that’s just a suit of armor. I can quote laws and statistics about rape like a sociology professor, use antiseptic sentences, draw diagrams on the blackboard with chalk...” (Selby realized she was close to tears.) “But when I talk and think about it personally I start to stutter or cry or get mad... I have, it seems, a need to please people and a need for privacy, which turns them away... I’m trying, Harry, bear with me... Look, I found nothing unusual in my father’s occasional dissatisfaction with me and my sisters for not joining the Green Berets or something to avenge the fallen warrior I was named after, Paul Dorcas, a college classmate of his who died of pneumonia at Fort Ord, Kansas, during basic training.” She looked down at her hands. “Do you know what the hell I’m talking about, Harry?”

“I think maybe you’re inching up on telling me what happened with Toby Clark. Well, I’m telling you that still belongs to you and nobody else. It’s your pain. You can do what you want with it.”

“You really are a nice man, Harry... and wouldn’t it be nice if more people felt that way. But some kinds of pain are as public as a sidewalk.” She brushed impatiently at her eyes. “All right, I won’t — stutter or get mad. No stats or lectures. I was hurt like Shana was, but not as brutally or sickeningly. And I was nineteen, I have five years on her and so could put things in a little more perspective. A little... I’m still not sure how I feel. I admire Shana tremendously for giving her testimony. That’s what takes guts. Telling your story at high noon in the village square, knowing the skeptical grins you’ll get. I have trouble talking to you in my own living room. You noticed I said I was hurt? That’s what I say after nine years, like it was a tennis elbow or a twisted ankle.”

For a moment she stared into the fire, then... “All the other girls got out of the pool on time that night. I’d been studying hard, or something, I wanted to swim a few more laps and relax. But then I was alone in the pool and it was dark except for the door of the dressing room. A light was on in there. It filled the hall and made a tunnel to the pool. But I didn’t want to go into the dressing room and take off my suit. Why not? That interested the police. Why didn’t I want to go into the clean, well-lighted dressing room? My father was curious about that, too. The reason was I knew someone was in there. Someone who shouldn’t be. So then the question was, how had I known? And if I’d known, why had I gone in there? Had I been looking for him? My father thought those questions were reasonable. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. That’s what people would say, he told me. He felt a trial would only make things worse.”

Brett pulled a pillow over her legs. “Those brass animals were a gift.” She nodded at the figures on the coffee table. “I’ve had them since I was Shana’s age. For years I had dreams about that pool, the smell of chlorine and the bright lights in the dressing room. When I saw Shana that first time at Vinegar Hill, it seemed I was reliving both our experiences.” Brett’s body was rigid, except for her hands moving restlessly on the pillow.

“A teacher gave me those little animals for memorizing something or other. Coleridge, I think... ‘The Ancient Mariner.’ I couldn’t find my towel that night. I’d dropped it beside the pool when I went in. I walked around trying to find it, but trying not to look down the lighted hallway to the dressing room. It was cold and my suit was sticking to me. Finally, I got my nerve up. I made myself walk into that bright corridor. I decided it was my imagination after all. The dressing room was empty. I had my suit off and the clothes basket out of my locker before I heard the door click shut behind me. It was Toby Clark. He worked at the school with the maintenance people, washing windows, cutting lawns. He told me he knew I’d waited for him. Then he said he wouldn’t hurt me. I tried to get away. How hard I tried was another thing the detectives were interested in. I hit him and he knocked me down. What was lucky about being nineteen and having read some books,” she said dryly, “was that I knew he was looking for an excuse to get angry. He needed that, and by resisting, I gave it to him. He tried to rape me. He hurt my arms and my hips and my pelvis and cut my mouth. Something stopped him or distracted him. Strangely enough, or not so strangely, come to think of it, it was a church bell ringing, the college chapel sounding the hour.”