Blackwood Farm (20 page)

“No sooner had that lid come down than Patsy broke into sobs. That painted mask of a face just broke into pieces. She just cut loose. It was the most heartrending chorus to hear, as she cried and cried and called out ‘Mamma' as the pallbearers lifted the coffin to carry it out. ‘Mamma, Mamma,' she kept crying, and that idiot Seymour held her, with a stupid face and a limp hug, saying ‘Hush' of all things, as if he had the right.

“I took hold of Patsy and her arms came around me very tight. She cried all the way out to Metairie Cemetery, her body shaking violently as I held her, and then she said she couldn't get out of the car for the graveside ceremony. I didn't know what to do. I held her. I stayed there. I could hear and see the folks at the graveside, but I stayed with Patsy in the car.

“On the long drive back home, Patsy cried herself out. She fell asleep with her head against me, and when she woke up she looked up at me—I was already about six feet tall at that point—in a kind of sleepy way, and she said softly:

“ ‘Quinn, she's the only person who's ever been really interested in me.'

“That night, Patsy and Seymour played the most deafening music yet to come out of the back-shed studio, and Jasmine and Lolly were in a rage. As for Pops, he didn't seem to hear it or care.

“About two days later, after spreading out her suitcases to be packed once more, Aunt Queen told me that she wanted me to go to college. She was going to look for another teacher for me—someone as brilliant as Lynelle who could prepare me for the finest schools.

“I told her I never wanted to leave Blackwood Manor, and she only smiled at this and said I'd soon change.

“ ‘You don't have a beard yet, my baby,' she said, ‘you're growing out of that dress shirt as we sit here talking, and your shoes must be size twelve, if I have any knack for guessing such things. Believe you me, there are exciting things to come.'

“I smiled at all this. I was still feeling the dazed elation, the cruel excitement that surrounded Sweetheart's funeral for me, and I didn't really care about growing up or anything else.

“ ‘When that testosterone really hits your blood,' Aunt Queen proceeded, ‘you'll want to see the wide world, and Goblin won't seem the fascination that he is now.'

“The next morning she left for New York to catch a flight to Jerusalem, which she hadn't visited in many years. I don't remember where she went after that—only that she was gone a long while.

“About a week after the funeral, Pops produced a handwritten will from Sweetheart's dressing table drawer that left all her personal jewelry to Patsy along with all her clothes.

“We were gathered in the kitchen when he read out the words, ‘For my only girl, my dearest, sweetest girl.' Pops then gave the will to Patsy and he looked away, and his eyes had that same flat metallic look which I had seen in Big Ramona right after Little Ida died.

“That look never went away.

“A trust fund was also left to Patsy, he mumbled, but there was a formal bank paper to deal with that. He produced an envelope of little Polaroid photographs which Sweetheart had made of her heirlooms, identifying each with writing on the front and back.

“ ‘Yeah, well that trust fund is next to nothing,' Patsy said, shoving the photographs and will in her purse. ‘It's one thousand a month and that might have been big money thirty years ago but now it's small change. And I can tell you right now, I want my mother's things.'

“Pops took the pearl necklace out of his pants pocket and pushed it towards her, and she took it, but when he drew out the wedding ring, he said, ‘I'm keeping this,' and Patsy just shrugged and left the room.

“For days and nights Pops did little or nothing but sit at the kitchen table and push away the plates of food set before him, and ignore the questions put to him, as Jasmine and Lolly and Clem took over the running of Blackwood Farm.

“I had a hand in the running of things also, and very gradually, as I conducted my first tours of Blackwood Farm and did my best to exert a charm over the guests, I realized that the crazy elation which had carried me through Sweetheart's vivid funeral was breaking up.

“A dark panic was reemerging. It was right behind me, ready to take over. I kept myself as busy as I could. I went over menus with Jasmine and Lolly, tasting hollandaise sauce and béarnaise sauce, and picking patterns of china, and chatting with guests who had come back to celebrate anniversaries, and even cleaning out bedrooms when the schedule demanded it, and driving the tractor mower over the lawns.

“As I watched the Shed Men lay in the late spring flowers—the impatiens and the zinnias and the hibiscus—a desperate sentimental fury possessed me. I clung tight to the vision of Blackwood Manor and all it meant.

“I went walking down the long avenue of pecan trees out front, looking back at the house to treasure the sight of it and imagine how it struck the new guests.

“I went from room to room, checking on toilet articles and throw pillows and porcelain statues on mantelpieces, and the portraits, most definitely the famous portraits, and when the inevitable portrait of Sweetheart arrived—done from a photograph by a painter in New Orleans—I took down the mirror in the back right-side bedroom for the portrait to go up in its place.

“I think, in retrospect, it was a cruelty to show that portrait to Pops, but he looked at it in the same dull way in which he regarded everything else.

“Then one day he said in a low voice, after clearing his throat, Would Jasmine and Lolly take all of Sweetheart's clothing and jewels out of their room and put them in Patsy's room above the shed? ‘I don't want what belongs to Patsy in my room.'

“Now, Sweetheart's clothing included two ranch-mink coats and some beautiful ballgowns from the days when Sweetheart had been young and single and had gone to Mardi Gras balls. It included Sweetheart's wedding dress and other fashionable suits that were years out of date. As for the jewelry, there were many diamonds and some emeralds, and most of it had come down to Sweetheart from her own mother, or her grandmother before that. There were pieces that Sweetheart had worn when she hosted weddings at Blackwood Manor, and favorite pieces—pearls, mostly—that she had worn every day.

“One morning, early, while Pops was in his half slumber at the table over a cold bowl of oatmeal, Patsy quietly loaded all these possessions into her van and drove away. I didn't know what to make of it, except that I knew, as everyone did, that Seymour, Patsy's bum of a backup band and a sometime lover, had a crash pad in New Orleans, and I figured she meant to take these clothes there.

“Two weeks later, Patsy came home in a brand-new van. It was already painted with her name on it. She and Seymour (the bum) unloaded a new drum set and a new electric guitar. They shut the door of the studio and began practicing at full volume. New speakers too.

“Pops was aware of all this, because Jasmine and Lolly were at the screen door commenting on all of it, and when Patsy came through the kitchen after supper he grabbed her by the arm and demanded to know where she'd earned the money for all the new things.

“His voice was hoarse from not speaking and he looked sleepy and wild.

“What followed was the worst fight they had ever had.

“Patsy was up front about the fact that she'd sold everything Sweetheart left her, even the wedding dress and the heirloom jewelry and the keepsakes, and once again, when Pops came at her she grabbed up a big knife.

“ ‘You threw that stuff into my bedroom!' Patsy screamed. ‘You had them cart it out and shove it into my closets like it was trash.'

“ ‘You sold your mother's wedding dress, you sold her diamonds!' Pops roared. ‘You're a monster. You should never have been born.'

“I ran between them and pleaded with them to stop, claiming that the guests in the house could hear them; this had to come to an end. Pops shook his head. He went out the back door. He went towards the shed, and later I saw him out there in a rocking chair, just smoking and looking into the dark.

“As for Patsy, she moved some clothes of her own out of the upstairs front bedroom, where she stayed from time to time, demanding that I help her, and when I demurred—I didn't want to be seen with her—she called me a spoilt brat, a Little Lord Fauntleroy, a sissy and a queer.

“ ‘It wasn't my bright idea to have you,' she said, and then she headed for the spiral stairs. ‘I should have gotten rid of you,' she hollered out over her shoulder. ‘Damned sorry I didn't do what I wanted to do.'

“At that precise moment, she appeared to trip over her own feet. In a flash I saw Goblin near to her with his back to her, smiling at me. She let out a loud ‘Ow!' The clothes fell down on the staircase, and with great difficulty she caught herself at the top step. I rushed to steady her. She turned and glared at me, and the dreadful realization came over me that Goblin had pushed her, or in some other manner made her trip.

“I was horror-struck. I picked up all the clothes quickly and I said, ‘I'll go down with you.' The expression on her face, the combination of wariness and excitement, of morbid respect and detestation, is something I'll never forget. But what was in her heart I don't know.

“I was afraid of Goblin. Afraid of what he might do.

“I helped Patsy load all her things in the van so Goblin would know I meant her no ill will. And then Patsy was off, declaring that she was never coming back, but of course she was back in two weeks, demanding to stay in the big house because she ran out of money and there was no place to go but home.

“That night, as soon as Patsy was safely away, I demanded of Goblin, ‘What did you do? You almost made her fall!' But I got no answer from Goblin; it was as though he was hiding, and when I went back upstairs to my room and sat down at the computer he at once grabbed my hand and typed out,

“ ‘Patsy hurt you. I don't like Patsy.'

“ ‘That doesn't mean you can hurt her,' I wrote, speaking the words aloud.

“At once my left hand was snatched up with extraordinary force.

“ ‘I made Patsy stop,' he answered.

“ ‘You almost killed Patsy!' I countered. ‘Don't ever hurt anyone. It's not fun.'

“ ‘No fun,' he wrote. ‘She stopped hurting you.'

“ ‘If you hurt other people,' I answered, ‘I won't love you.'

“There came a silence and a chill in the room, and then by his power the computer was turned off. Then came the embrace, and with it a faint loving warmth. I felt a vague loathing of the pleasure this embrace produced in me, and a sudden fear that it would become erotic. I don't remember ever feeling that fear before.

“Patsy had called me a queer. Maybe I was one, I thought. Maybe I was steered in that direction. Maybe Goblin knew. Goblin and me together. Fear stole over me. It seemed like mortal sin.

“ ‘Don't be sad, Goblin,' I whispered. ‘There's too much sadness as it is, at home. Go off, now, Goblin. Go off, and let me think by myself.'

“In the weeks that followed, Patsy never looked at me in quite a familiar way, but I did not want to admit to anything regarding the event on the staircase, so I couldn't ask her what she had felt.

“Meantime everybody knew that in her bathroom in the big house she was vomiting and retching in the morning, and she took to hanging about the kitchen, saying that all the food disgusted her, and Pops, driven away from the table, spent his long hours in the shed.

“He didn't talk to the men. He didn't talk to anyone. He watched the television and he drank Barq's Root Beer, but he wasn't seeing or hearing a thing.

“Then, one night when Patsy drove up late and came into the kitchen claiming she was sick and Jasmine had to make her some dinner, Pops sat down at the table opposite her and told me to get out of the room.

“ ‘No, you let him stay if you've got something to say to me,' Patsy said. ‘Go on, out with it.'

“I didn't know quite what to do, so I stepped into the hallway and leaned against the back doors. I could see Patsy's face, and the back of Pops' head, and I could hear every word that was said.

“ ‘I'll give you fifty thousand dollars for it,' Pops said.

“Patsy stared at him for a full minute, and then she said, ‘What are you talking about?'

“ ‘I know you're pregnant,' he said. ‘Fifty thousand dollars. And you leave the baby here with us.'

“ ‘You crazy old man,' she said. ‘You're sixty-five. What are you going to do with a baby? You think I'd go through all that again for fifty grand?'

“ ‘A hundred thousand dollars,' he said calmly. And then he said, ‘Two hundred thousand dollars, Patsy Blackwood, on the day that it's born and you sign it over to me.'

“Patsy rose from the table. She shot up and backwards, glaring at him. ‘Why the hell didn't you tell me that yesterday!' she shouted. ‘Why the hell didn't you tell me that this morning!' She made her hands into fists and stomped her foot. ‘You crazy old man!' she said. ‘Damn you.' And she turned and flew out the kitchen. The screen door banged shut after her, and Pops bowed his head.

“I came into the kitchen and stood at his side.

“ ‘She's already gotten rid of it,' he said. He bowed his head. He looked utterly defeated. He never said another word about it. He went back to his silent ways.

“As for Patsy, she did lie sick in her room for a couple of days during which Jasmine cooked for her and took general care of her, and then she was up and off in her new van for a series of country jamborees.

“I was very curious. Would Patsy immediately get pregnant just to make two hundred thousand dollars? And what would it be like to have a baby sister or brother? I really wanted to know.

“Pops set himself to solitary tasks around the farm. He painted the white fences where they needed it; he clipped back the azaleas. He laid in more of the spring flowers. In fact, he enlarged the garden patches and made them more brilliant than they'd ever been before. Red geraniums were his favorite flower, and though they didn't last too long in the heat he set out plenty of them in the beds, and he stepped back often to get perspective on his schemes.