Barbara Greer (40 page)

They walked across the terrace, her hand in his arm, toward the path that led past the clump of hemlocks to the curve of the hill. They went down the path. She kept hold of his arm, walking toward the sloping lawn, toward the water, saying, ‘What do you think? Think we could ever
get
him committed? You're the business school graduate. Would that work?'

Then suddenly she gripped his arm and stopped him. ‘Barney!' she said.

‘What?'

‘Look!' she pointed. ‘There's a light in the guesthouse—see it?'

He didn't answer her.

‘Who in the world?' she whispered. ‘Barney!'

He stood absolutely motionless beside her.

‘See it? There's somebody there! Shall we call the police, or—' She let go of his arm. ‘Or—no. No,' she breathed, and she turned to him slowly. ‘Is it Barbara?
Is it?
Oh, of course!
Of course!
' She drew back from him.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Of course it is! Why didn't I guess? Of course—the guesthouse—that's where she always takes them!'

‘Who?'

‘Her men. And last night, too—of course, that's where you're going. You met her there last night, too, didn't you? Oh, of course!'

He started quickly down the hill.

‘Stop!' she commanded, and when he didn't stop she ran after him and seized his arm again. ‘It
is
Barbara, isn't it? It's been going on all along …'

He walked rapidly and she stayed beside him, holding his arm, trying to stop him. ‘It
is
Barbara! It is! Tell me!'

‘Yes,' he said.

‘Oh, God!' she said. ‘I should have known! That damn bitch! That bitch!'

He kept walking, faster now, down the hill.

‘Stop,' she said. ‘Listen to me. Listen to me!' But he continued, pulling her beside him. ‘Listen,' she said savagely, ‘don't be a fool! Don't go to her! Don't be taken in by her! Listen. I know her. She's a rotten little bitch, a whore, she only wants you for one thing—listen to me—'

At the edge of the lake, he stopped. He looked across, then turned and stepped down to the sandy strip of beach. ‘Listen to me,' she repeated. ‘Let me tell you what you're doing, listen—'

He jerked his arm away from her, but she ran after him. ‘Where are you going?' she demanded. ‘Wait. Listen to me—'

He walked to where the old canoe lay, the
Bobby-Boo
, its bottom-side up, on the bank. He lifted it and turned it, and the paddle inside it rattled against its thwarts. He began pulling it toward the water.

‘Are you going in that?' she asked. ‘Listen to me, Barney—please—for a minute. Be sensible. Look, maybe you and I are through—I'm willing to admit that. But don't do it for her! Don't be such a fool, Barney. Don't be more of a fool than you've already been!'

‘I'm sorry, Peggy,' he said.

She stopped and stood still, watching him. He pulled the canoe across the sand. Then she said quietly, ‘That canoe is full of leaks. You'll never make it.'

‘I'll make it,' he said.

‘You're an idiot. It will sink twenty feet out.'

‘It will take me farther than that.'

‘Listen to me, Barney,' she said. ‘What are you trying to accomplish?'

‘I don't know,' he said simply.

‘Don't be silly,' she said, her flat voice seeming to grow flatter. ‘What good will it do you? Going to her. Do you love her? What good will that do you? Do you think she'll marry you? She won't. She's no fool. She has Carson and her children. They'll always come first with her, no matter what she tells you. She's really just not a very nice girl. It's that simple. And if you go to her now you'll lose both of us. And you'll be throwing over a damn good deal, my dear. Because you can marry one Woodcock girl. But not two.'

In the darkness, he seemed to watch her thoughtfully, though his face was turned away. When he finally spoke, his voice was almost inaudible. ‘It's always the Woodcock girls, isn't it? It never changes. Well, Peggy, you may be right.'

‘Then come back to the house.'

‘I'm sorry,' he said. He turned, seized the canoe and slid it into the water.

Peggy came two steps closer. She seemed to reach out for him, then lowered her hands. ‘Barney!' she cried.

‘What?'

‘I thought you were a leader!'

‘No,' he said, ‘I'm not a leader. I'm one of the led. I always have been. I let you lead me to this place, don't forget, to the farm. And I've let her lead me. I'm always being led.' He stepped nimbly into the canoe, took the paddle and pushed off.

‘Stop!' she commanded again. But he moved swiftly away, the shadows closing around him, and disappeared into the darkness. She could hear only the receding sound of his paddling.

She stood on the shore for several minutes, staring across the dark water. Far away, through the trees, was the little waiting light. Then she turned and started slowly up the path toward the house.

She was about halfway up the hill when she stopped and for several minutes more she stood very still, statue-like. She listened. She heard only night sounds, crickets and peepers from the marshy shore, and the faint, high sound of an airplane passing overhead, bound for New York.

She knew that the canoe would not make it across the lake. It could not. She had kicked her toe against it, many summers in the past; the bottom was like paper, full of wormholes and rot. From one shore to the other was more than five hundred yards, more than a quarter of a mile. The canoe would never make it, he could not swim, and the lake was deep. Very well.

She stood there. Her mind was filled with several images, which seemed to come all at once. In one, she heard herself screaming, running back to the house. In another, she saw water bubbling quickly through the bottom of the canoe, the lake rising swiftly about its sides, as he paddled. Then she saw Barney's body, white, long, like a piece of sunken sculpture, at the bottom of the lake, in the brown weeds under the clean water. She saw him lifted, icewhite, dead, his face bloated and horrible and disgusting. She turned now and faced the lake. She stood and watched, and waited, and listened. Very well.

The little light still glimmered through the trees—far, very far, away. She smiled at it.

She would hear his cries. As the canoe foundered, as he thrashed helplessly in the water, he would cry out for her and she would hear him. She waited for a long time, waiting for the cries, hearing only the crickets and the peepers, waiting and thinking: I'll decide then.

She waited, but there were no cries. Eventually—it was a little while later—she was struck with the thundering knowledge that he was dead, that he had sunk into the lake without uttering a single sound. And it was this, perhaps—the realisation of this final, intolerable cheat, this ultimate robbery of her life—that he had gone like a thief, depriving her of even the sound of his cries—that started her screaming. She screamed until her throat hurt. Running, stumbling, screaming and sobbing wildly, she started up the hill again, crying, ‘Help! Help!'

In the guesthouse, things were as she remembered them. But the ruffled chintz curtains were limp with age and a thin, even film of dust lay over everything. She wandered through the rooms. In the bedroom, on the table beside the bed, she picked up a copy of the
Reader's Digest
. She turned its pages; they were brown and brittle, and she noticed that it was an issue dated February, 1946. She put it down. She opened the closet door. The closet was empty but, on the inside wall, someone—a child, evidently—had carefully written ‘Hello' in red crayon. She studied this strangely silent greeting for a moment, then closed the door. She turned off the bedroom light.

In the little, musty kitchen, neat rows of cups hung from the glass cupboard doors. She opened the refrigerator. In it were ice trays, thick with frost, a small can of tomato juice and a bottle, three quarters empty, of prepared Martini cocktails, left from some house party long ago. She removed the bottle, forced loose one of the ice trays and, in a little round glass pitcher from the cupboard, she fixed drinks.

She filled two glasses and carried them into the living room, where she placed them on the rustic cocktail table. She started to sip one, thinking it might give her courage, but then she put it down, knowing that it would do no good. Nothing would do any good. She sat back quickly and closed her eyes, her temples throbbing. She sat for a long time in the dirty, stale-smelling little room.

She opened her eyes and then she began to laugh, a little hysterically, at the absurd sight of two Martinis floating palely in the stemmed glasses on the dusty table, looking like two faded and foolish little flowers, and at the absurd sight of herself looking at them. She laughed until tears streamed down her face and then, wondering if she was truly going out of her mind, she stopped. She knew then that it was useless, that she would not and could not go through with it. And she felt suddenly much better, knowing this. She would go—run, just as she had run from Charlie Muir.

She stood up and started to go.

Then she heard distant sounds. She went quickly to the door and stepped outside. The sounds were cries and, far off, across the lake, where the house stood in shade behind the trees, she saw lights appear—first one light, then another, and presently the whole house was ablaze with lights, and there were more sounds, more cries. She grabbed her coat and ran down the steps, across the grass, down the road through the trees.

Everyone had gathered at the lake's edge—her mother, her father, Emily and John, Peggy and Nancy. She ran toward them.

‘What is it? What's happened?'

Everyone was shouting.

‘The canoe, in the canoe—'

‘The
Bobby-Boo
—'

‘Call the police—'

‘Oh, no—not the police!'

‘It's got to be the police!'

‘What is it?' she cried. ‘What happened?'

‘In the canoe—drowned—'

‘Who? Who?'

Her mother suddenly seemed to notice her and turned to her. ‘What are you doing here?' she said. ‘Where have you been? What are you doing here? Get out of here—up to the house—into your room! Get out of here!'

20

Carson's appointment with Bill Brewer was over at eleven o'clock that Monday morning, and he left Brewer's office in Victoria Street with two hours to kill before his lunch date at one. The day was sunny and cool and he decided to walk. He felt much better than he had yesterday. It was mostly, he supposed, because it was good to be working again. The meeting with Brewer had gone well; and he was pleased with himself. Whenever his spirits sagged, it was good to be reminded that he was, after all, a damned good salesman. He was a good salesman because he never had to sell very hard. People liked him right away and listened to what he had to say. He got along, he thought, particularly well with the English. They liked him because he was courteous and soft-spoken, with none of the braggishness and swagger that they resented in Americans. He had learned, with the English, never to boast of his product; in fact, he was carefully modest about it and they appreciated this. The company knew that he was good, too, and this was why they wanted him in the International Sales Division. He was a good ambassador.

He walked north, toward the park. As he approached Buckingham Palace he walked more slowly, as a sightseer now, looking up at the palace and down along the Mall, at the vivid red beds of geraniums that matched, almost exactly, the red coats of the guards' uniforms. In front of the gate, a little knot of tourists stood—all of them girls, college girls, Smith girls he would guess—combed and scrubbed and neat, sweatered and skirted with white raincoats and cameras slung across their shoulders. He imagined them all, on their first trip to Europe, travelling in a group of twenty or thirty with one or two chaperons, filing into the tour bus every morning with their cameras, stopping at Places of Interest, filing out of the bus, winding their cameras, taking pictures. Tomorrow they would do Stratford-on-Avon, where they would visit the Shakespeare Museum and Ann Hathaway's cottage. And the next day they would file into the bus again for a trip through typical English countryside to the Lake District with, perhaps, a side trip to an Abbey or Stately Home on the way. Carrying their cameras they would file, respectfully, through Wordsworth's Cottage, then into the bus again. He watched them from a short distance away. Their round, polished faces were intent upon what the guide was saying.

‘The Palace,' the guide said, ‘was built in 1793 as a mansion for the Duke of Buckingham. It was built on the site of a mulberry garden planted by King James the First for the support of the silk industry. The Palace still retains some of the atmosphere of a country house. The Palace has forty acres of grounds, including a five-acre lake, and enjoys a beautiful setting amid the trees and lawns of St. James's Park. The present façade, designed by Sir Anston Webb, was added in 1912 and completed in less than three months. The Palace is the London residence of the Queen, Prince Philip, Prince Charles and Princess Anne. When the Queen is in residence her flag flies from the top of that pole up there. There is no flag flying today because the Queen and Prince Philip are at the royal estate at Balmoral, in Scotland …'

Carson skirted the little group and walked on toward Green Park. He decided to walk through the park. Then he would stop at the Dorchester and check on his mail.

‘But you sound so strange, Mrs. Greer!'
Flora's voice said. ‘Not like yourself at all. Are you sure there's nothing wrong?'

‘No,' Barbara said. ‘Nothing's wrong.'

‘You're coming down with a cold then, a summer cold. My sister has one. She's all stuffed up with it, a summer cold. That's what you've got.'