Джон Макдональд - A Flash of Green

“Wicked,” Kat whispered. “Cruel and wicked.”

“She told me about it after we were up in the room. The pain isn’t so bad. He froze it somehow. She told me in bits and pieces, not orderly like I’ve told you. There’ll be scars for a long time. Maybe as long as she lives. She was always a girl who was proud of not having any scars and blemishes. And she never liked being hurt. If she’d scald a finger cooking, it would scare her and upset her.”

“Don’t talk about her that way,” Kat said. “Don’t use the past tense, Ross, please.”

He gave her that strange thoughtful look. “Isn’t it accurate? What makes you think the Jackie we know is still living?”

“Don’t, Ross!”

“They took it all out of her, Kat. All the joy and the spunk and the spirit. It all leaked out of her back. You can’t do that to a woman like that and expect to have much left. She’s dull now, Kat. Her eyes are dull and her face is dull, and you can see how she’ll look when she’s old. She doesn’t give a damn whether they fill your goddam bay or leave it alone. She’s in a world she doesn’t like any more, because now she knows there’s no part of it you can trust. She trusted too much, and I didn’t trust enough. I suppose I could go looking for those people. And if I’m as unlucky as I think I am, I might find them. Once I found them, I’d have to kill them. There’s no other conceivable thing to do. And how much good would that do Jackie? So I’m not even going to look. When she’s well enough, we’ll move along. I don’t think either of us will want to stay here.” He looked at Jimmy in a slightly puzzled way. “Kat thought you could write this up. But you can’t. And we wouldn’t want you to. We don’t want to advertise anything or fight anybody. We’re going to take our losses and run, kids. And if you have any sense, Kat, you’ll run too.” He finished his drink and stood up. “I want to be right there in case she wakes up.”

“Ross,” Kat said. “Maybe it won’t be as...”

He leaned one hand on the table to brace himself, reached with his right hand to cup her cheek in a clumsy way. “For everything you’re thinking... for everything you’re wishing... thanks.”

He dropped a bill on the table and was gone, walking swiftly to the door and out into the night.

Kat looked down at her fists and said, “I wish it had been me. I wish it had been me. I’m tougher, Jimmy.”

“Not that tough.”

She tilted her head to give him a sidelong glance from narrowed eyes. “All that righteousness,” she said. “That’s the worst part of it. The way they must have enjoyed it. Repent! Shining those lights on her. Smacking their lips. A naked, painted, evil woman. Such a contrast she must have been, compared to their own women, their sorry, dumpy, drab little women. They couldn’t have ever earned the love of a woman like Jackie. It was like rape, wasn’t it, only better because they don’t have to feel guilt. They can feel virtuous and stern. The mighty wrath of Jehovah.” She rested her forehead on her clenched fists. Her hair was a sorrel gleam in the slant of the light. “What’s happening to everything, Jimmy?” she said in an almost inaudible voice.

He caressed the shining hair. She leaned her head against the caress, pressing hard. Then suddenly she sat up, dug into her purse for a tissue, dabbed her eyes, blew her nose.

“Down to three little Indians,” he said.

“These are bad times for Indians. Tom felt so damn guilty about Mortie. He kept saying over and over that he should have let Mortie quit when he wanted to. He’s feeling responsible for the whole thing now. He’s sick about getting all of us into it. I don’t know what this will do to him, when he hears about Jackie. I don’t think he’ll give up. But he’ll try to go the rest of the way alone. Of course, he’s damn close to being alone right now. My car is at the hospital. I don’t like to sound like a coward, but will you follow me home? And stay with me while I phone... No, I can’t phone him from the house, darn it. Anyway, it’s so late. He needs what sleep he can get. I’ll leave for work early tomorrow and stop there on the way and tell him.”

“Are you back in your own house now?”

“Things quieted down. I thought it was all right.”

“I think you better stay at the Sinnats.”

“I guess so. Faithful Natalie is the emergency sitter. I guess we better move back there again tonight.”

“I’ll follow you home.”

“Will... this be in the paper?”

“Wednesday morning. Yes. It’ll get in through the emergency room records. Bressard will have to make a report. It will be picked up as a matter of routine, even though there’s no complaint, no charges filed. Woman hospitalized, beaten by unknown assailants.”

“I’m so tired, Jimmy. So gosh-darn tired.”

“So let’s get you home.”

“I got a card from Claire from the Madeira Islands. She said it’s a dreary boat, and get the filter unit changed in the pool please, and she hopes I’m having more fun than she is.”

It was almost two-thirty when he drove out of the Estates. He hesitated at the gates, then turned right toward Turk’s Pass instead of left toward town. There were no other cars parked at the pass. There was a high far fragment of moon and a moist steady breeze out of the west. He walked around to the Gulf side. The breeze kept the mosquitoes away. He sat on soft dry sand. The small waves spilled up the gradual slant of the beach and slid back, leaving a gleam which quickly soaked away into darkness. There was a phosphorescence in the waves, a green flickering where they broke. He found bits of broken shell in the sand and snapped them toward the water.

Now then, he kept saying to himself. Now. He wanted a beginning. He wanted to pick things up and build a plausible structure. He wanted a starting place and a middle place and an ending place.

“Now then!” he said, and was startled to realize he had said it aloud. But nothing began. Things were in bright fragments, and they were all static. They existed, and could not be moved. He took off his clothes and waded out. Fish sped away from him, leaving faint green lines of phosphorescence. He stood where the incoming march of the slow waves slapped his thighs. He felt the suck of water around his feet, pulling the sand out from under them, settling him slowly, washing him in like a pier. He moved out and swam for a little while, floated on the lift and fall of the swell, looking at the stars, then swam in. He knelt at the surf line and combed the sand with his fingers, combed out a half handful of coquinas, then walked slowly on the packed wet sand letting the wind dry him, eating the coquinas, opening the small shells with his thumbnail as if they were pistachios, licking out the tiny sweet bits of living meat with the tip of his tongue.

When he was dry he put his clothing back on. He stretched out in the dry sand and made a sand pillow for his head. A night bird flew by, croaking with sad, habitual alarm. Now then, he told himself. But nothing began. When he awoke, the beach, the sea and the sky were all the same shade of silver-gray. Far out over the Gulf lightning made a small silent calligraphy between cloud blackness and the gray horizon. A crab stood on tiptoe nearby, a small ballet of wariness. Beyond the storm dunes and sea oats was a crimson line over the mainland. He bent over and brushed the sand out of his hair. A hundred yards away, in shallow water, there was a turmoil of fish, startling him. It was still too early for birds. The tide was running in swiftly. He walked slowly along the shore line of the pass, around toward the bay side where his car was parked. When he was opposite the middle of the pass, an oiled black arc of porpoise appeared, made a gasping huff and sounded again.