Black Diamond (19 page)

Bruce took a long look at the husband. Baxter was standing with his jacket slung over one shoulder and his shirtsleeves rolled up. He wore a pair of lightly tinted glasses against the sun. His hair was black and gray, his body thickset but not fat. He had the appearance of a man who took good care of himself, but he also seemed like someone who hadn’t been born with the expensive jacket and sunglasses and the generally easy air of comfort. He looked tough. You wouldn’t want to get into a fight with a man like that.

The wife came later: Joanna Elizabeth. Bruce was writing out a deposit slip at the bank. He heard one of the cashiers say, ‘Mrs Baxter.’ He looked up, seeing her distinctly in three-quarter profile and hearing her voice, although not clearly enough to distinguish the words.

She was as glamorous as a moviestar or a television actress: honey-blonde, slim, in a pale knitted suit and strappy,
high-heeled
shoes. Her face was hard, pretty and bored. She had her sunglasses in one hand, gesticulating with them. The stones in her rings flashed as she moved her hand. She looked young and sexy, and as if she intended to give that impression. The shoulder-length hair had been artificially streaked, her make-up applied in order to attract. The lines of her figure were easily followed through the material of the clothes she wore. You’d
never have thought she had two grown daughters. He looked and looked, as if caught in a ball of fire, consumed by the power of his own eyesight. He would have known she was the one, even if he hadn’t heard someone speak her name.
Not
two,
he thought:
three.
She’s
had
three
children.

*

Alma took two training courses over the summer: teaching and librarianship. While she was studying, she met a man named Ernest Allgood. She told him that she’d just been in a play called
The
Importance
of
Being
Earnest.
He said: Yes, he had the perfect name for a villain.

He was in his early thirties, divorced, and had a daughter. The wife had remarried. They’d separated within three years. He told Alma that he still liked his wife; she was a nice girl. The trouble was that they’d both been too young for marriage.

Alma was lonely. She missed Bruce all the time. Now that school was over, she felt as if she’d parted from her parents too, even though she still lived with them. Ernest was easy-going and jovial. She didn’t want to lose his company, but there was no way of explaining to him that she just needed a friend. He wanted to sleep with her.

He kept her laughing and made her feel comfortable, and one evening got a couple of drinks into her and took her to his place. She kept saying, ‘Don’t get me pregnant,’ and he kept repeating, ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to get you pregnant.’ She thought afterwards that she’d probably known – before going home with him – how the evening would turn out, otherwise she’d have told him that she didn’t want to see him any more.

She went back to Dr Morse and asked all about birth control. This time she could talk. She even thought of asking how many women, who got pregnant, wanted to. But it was no use asking a thing like that. In any case, she now believed the answer to be unconnected to medical fact: it was a matter of opinion. All people had their opinions. And sometimes they had other people’s on loan, either temporarily or because that was the only way they could acquire any of their own. There were lots of things you couldn’t find out by asking other people.

Ernest said to her, ‘I never knew a girl who was so scared of getting pregnant.’

‘It’s what happened to my mother.’

‘It’s what happens to all mothers.’

‘I mean my real mother. That’s why I’m adopted.’

‘Oh.’

‘I never understood how it could have happened if she hadn’t wanted it. But now I do. Because I did the same thing. I left it up to the man. When you said everything was all right, I believed you.’

‘It’s true. It’s all right.’

‘It better be.’

‘What would you do if it wasn’t?’

‘I’d rather be dead.’

‘You don’t mean that.’

She did mean it. She said so.

‘Don’t you want children?’ he asked.

‘Sure, but not yet.’ She had discovered that it was possible to live with someone, without love, as long as you were decent to each other. You could still have a good life. But to have the child of a man you didn’t love: that would be different. She wondered if that had been her inheritance – if her mother had carried her so unwillingly that every drop of blood going to the womb had helped to produce a creature that would look for ways to make itself miserable.

For the moment, and as long as she didn’t get stuck in her thoughts about love and family, everything was all right. She was happy with Ernest. At the end of the summer he asked her to marry him. She said no. He told her that he’d been a fool to take her to bed so soon: if he’d waited, he’d have been able to win her over.

‘I could have had you for life,’ he said, ‘instead of just this summer. You aren’t really going way out to California, are you?’

They sat in his kitchen: he talked and she drank coffee. He kept reaching over to take her hand. She couldn’t understand how it was that she should feel so queasy about breaking off with a man
she didn’t love as much as she ought to. If she’d loved him better, she wouldn’t be feeling so bad. But, of course, if she’d loved him, she wouldn’t be going away. He wanted to know if he’d see her again. She said she hoped so. He told her that he should have gotten her pregnant after all. Even if he had, she thought, it wouldn’t have done any good. She was still in love with Bruce.

She left for California at te weekend.

*

She’d spent hours writing letters.
Dear
Mrs
Shelton.
Dear
Mother.
Dear
Rose
Ellen.
Maybe
you
don’t
want
to
hear
from
me
but
…
I
hope
you
don’t
mind
if
I
ask
you
a
few
questions
about
yourself,
just
…
My
name
is
Alma.
My
mother’s
name
was
Rose
Ellen
Parker.
Do
you
think
we
could
meet
sometime,
just
to
say
hello?

She hadn’t been able to finish any of them. She’d asked herself how she’d feel if a letter came to her out of the blue, eighteen years after the event that still must be one of the most dramatic, even if perhaps not the worst, in her life.

Her mother might feel hunted and distressed. She might suspect blackmail, or that Alma was out to pay her back for making her illegitimate. She might hate Alma. Mrs Roberts had said that Rose Ellen went through a bad time after the birth.
Maybe
she’d
want
to
hurt
me,
Alma thought.
Maybe
she’d
think
I
really
put
her
through
it.
Maybe
she’d
tried
to
get
an
abortion
and
couldn’t.
The fact that Rose had later had two more children – and so, presumably, had been happy to become a mother again – might not contradict what had gone before. People always had room for all the emotions and they could change their minds at any time.

She didn’t believe that she had the right to disturb the life her mother had made for herself. She decided not to say anything – just to get to know her for a little, and then move on.

*

Bruce met the two daughters at a dance. He danced with the older one first. She was called Mandy. The younger one was Didi. He didn’t feel for a single minute that there was anything sweet or sisterly about them. They were stuck-up, brainless egoists with rich-kid affectations. He hated them.

He talked Mandy into going out with him later that same night, and Didi the week after. He could have laughed at how easy it was. They practically threw themselves at him.

*

Alma saw her mother, Rose, standing with two boys at the door of the school library. She knew that that was who the woman was. The younger child was looking up and holding out his hand while he talked – as if he might, babylike, tug at her clothing to hold her attention. The mother looked down and spoke. Alma saw with a pang that the woman had some gray hair. Surely she was still too young to start going gray. But perhaps it ran in the family. Maybe she too would go gray early. She felt shy in the presence of the two boys. It amazed her to think that they were her brothers. She wanted to back away.

Rose laughed at something the older boy said, and looked up. She caught sight of Alma. She said, ‘Hi. Are you here about the Beatrix Potter?’

‘I’m here about the job,’ Alma said. She moved forward. She held out her hand. They introduced themselves. Rose told her the names of the children, Jerry and Toby, who said, ‘Hi,’ and ran off. She led the way back into the library. Alma couldn’t think of anything except how strange it was that she should be taller than either of her mothers.

A few days later she met the husband, Tom. He walked over to pick up the boys from school. He was working at home that day; their house was only a few blocks away. As he approached, Jerry and Toby were asking Alma to show them how she could do the splits; she’d made a tremendous impression on them by kicking high into the air so that her foot was above her head.

‘I’m Tom Shelton,’ he said. ‘I guess you’re Alma, is that right?’

They stood talking while the boys collected their sneakers and notebooks. Toby had to go back into his classroom to find a box of crayons he’d left behind.

Tom was light-eyed and freckled and had a wiry build. His manner was friendly. He couldn’t stand still for long but bounced up and down on his toes or shifted his weight from one
foot to the other. He looked younger than his wife. Rose had told Alma that he was at a good stage in his work. When things piled up, he got tense: his stomach would begin to bother him and he’d lose weight.

‘They’re nice boys,’ Alma told him.

‘Oh, they’re great,’ he said. ‘But Rose always wanted a daughter.’

Was it possible that Rose had never said anything? No. She’d have had to tell her husband. It would be too big a risk if the truth ever came out. And besides, Alma thought, if a man didn’t love you enough to want to know that kind of thing about you, there wouldn’t be much point in getting married to him, especially after you’d been let down once already.

Rose talked a lot about her family. She didn’t chatter – sometimes she wouldn’t say anything for a long time. And then she’d tell you something about herself, as if she’d known you for years.
She
likes
me,
Alma thought.

One day while they were reshelving the nature and biology sections of the library, a floorboard creaked on the upper level, where the gallery was. Rose looked up. She ran her eye around the curve of the balustrade on the second story.

Alma said, ‘What is it?’

‘It’s the ghost. It always makes me nervous.’

‘What ghost?’

‘I was in here one day, all alone, and I couldn’t stand it. I don’t believe in those things at all, but I had to leave.’

‘What ghost?’ Alma said again.

The building they were in, Rose told her, had at one time been a large private house. Late in the last century, at about the turn of the century, the house had been bought by a man from San Francisco, who was newly married to a beautiful young wife. He and the wife had come up from town to move in. They were still on their honeymoon. As soon as they arrived, she started to unpack. She opened one of his suitcases that had a loaded pistol in it and the pistol went off and killed her instantly. Three people connected with the school had seen her ghost, standing up on the balcony in a long, dark dress.

‘Do you think it was really an accident?’ Alma asked.

‘Oh, I’m sure it was. They’d just been married. They were happy. It was a terrible thing.’

‘It seems funny to pack a loaded pistol like that.’

‘Everybody carried guns in those days. It wouldn’t have been so unusual. And they’d always be loaded, in case you needed to use them.’

‘When she appears, is she unhappy?’

‘No. She’s just there. She’s drawn to the house.’

‘You really believe it?’

‘I don’t know. I only know I wasn’t able to stay here when I heard the boards starting to make noises. It went all the way around, like somebody walking.’

‘My mother used to tell me ghost stories,’ Alma said.

‘But this one is true.’

‘They’re all supposed to be true.’

‘Do you come from a big family?’

‘Just the two of us, me and my brother.’ Alma went back to the books. She added quickly, ‘We’re both adopted.’ There was a long pause. She kept her head turned away.

Rose asked, ‘Do you ever think about your real mother?’

Alma began to feel suffocated. She felt as if she were dying. She said, ‘Yes, a lot.’

‘Do you hate her?’

‘Of course not.’ She looked up, but Rose had moved; she was staring down at a book in her hand and her voice sounded muffled. ‘I just knew somebody once,’ she said, ‘who told me that that was how a lot of adopted children felt. They hated the real ones for letting them go. So, they never wanted to meet them.’

‘My brother feels that way. Full of hatred. But he’s a man. He isn’t ever going to get pregnant and not know what to do.’

‘But I guess it would be hard to forgive.’

‘Not for me.’

She’s
going
to
tell
me
now,
Alma thought. But Rose didn’t say anything more: she sighed. She gave her attention to the books. All the science sections, she said, were in a mess.