Destiny (11 page)

She gave a little giggle. Billy raised his eyes to the sky.

"Girls! Hurry ..."

So Helene went behind the bush, and when she came out she felt a whole lot better. She took Billy's hand again, and they went on, Indian file. Helene stepped where he stepped; that way she made hardly any noise, and she felt pleased with herself. Piss, she said softly to herself under her breath. Piss. It was a nice word. She liked it. She was learning.

Just on the edge of the gully and the cottonwood trees, there was a httle clearing. You couldn't see the big house now, it was hidden by shrubs, and Helene guessed they must be in back of it. In front of them there was some scrubby ill-kept grass, as yellow and brown as the grass in the trailer park. On their right she could just see a funny little wooden shack, surrounded by bushes. Billy paused. He looked to the right and left. Helene tugged his hand.

"Billy, Billy—what's that place there? That httle shack?"

72 • SALLY BEAUMAN

Billy grinned. "That? That's some kind of summerhouse, they call it. Nice and private, you know?"

"Private?" Helene stared at him. He seemed to be amused by something, and she couldn't imagine what. She knew what summerhouses were: they had them in English gardens.

"Sure." Billy hesitated. "My mama says old man Calvert had it put up. Used to go there with the nigger ladies—you know? But I guess I don't believe that. Just an old story, I guess . . ."

Helene's eyes grew round.

"Old man Calvert? You mean Major Calvert?"

Billy laughed. "Not him! His old daddy, I mean. Died a long ways back —a real mean sonuvabitch, my mama says . . ." He pulled her hand. "Come on now—over here."

He pulled her quickly across the grass, into the gully and out of sight. Then down through the trees, a sharp steep drop, and there was the pool.

They stopped, and Helene looked at it silently. It was cooler in here under the trees, and the water was still and brown. On its surface two dragonflies darted and lit; their wings were iridescent. She frowned. "Nigger ladies?" She'd never said that word before, and she knew her mother wouldn't like it. "I don't understand. Why would a white man take a nigger lady to a summerhouse?"

"Well now, it's a mystery, I guess. . . ." Billy drawled, and Helene felt cross for a minute because she realized there was something he knew and he wasn't going to tell her. Then the next minute she forgot all about it, because Billy let go her hand, and dived clean into the water, jeans and all.

He surfaced, spluttering. Diamonds of water ran down his face.

"You comin' in?"

Helene hesitated. The etiquette of this situation was beyond her. She didn't know what she ought to do, and she didn't much care. All she knew was that she was hot, and she wanted to be in that water.

"I shall take my dress off," she said at last, with dignity. "I shall swim in my knickers."

"Suits me. Anyways you like." Billy ducked casually back under the water.

Carefully and methodically, Helene undressed. She took off her sandals and folded her dress neatly on top of them. Then she tiptoed down to the edge of the water. Billy swam over and stood up. He held out his hand to her.

"Come on." He looked at her again, and again she saw that queer look in his eyes. They went very serious, and they seemed to turn darker. He looked at her like he wanted to go on looking for a long time, and couldn't quite believe what he saw.

DESTINY • 73

"Come on," he said again, more softly this time. Then he reached up, very gently took her hand, and helped her down into the water.

Helene gave a little cry. She could feel soft cool mud between her toes, and the water was so cold it almost took her breath away. She moved a step forward, and the ground wasn't there. Water was washing up over her hair and chin. She floundered and cried out.

Billy caught her. She felt his arms come around her and lift her up, and then before she knew it, she was floating.

"Isn't it just great?" Billy smiled at her, and she noticed he had a chip in his front tooth. "Isn't that just the greatest feehng in the whole wide world?"

"Oh, it is, BiUy," she said. "It is."

Afterward they sat on the muddy bank in a patch of sunhght to get dry. From time to time, Billy picked up httle bits of rock and tossed them into the pool, and they watched the ripples widen. He'd become very quiet, Helene thought.

"I wasn't very good," she said at last in a small voice. "It's harder than it looks."

"You done good." Billy sounded definite. "You swum three strokes. Four maybe. Near on four."

There was a little silence. Billy threw another stone.

"You want to come here again?" he said at last, his voice very casual. "I'll bring you, if you want to. Your mama works some mornings over at Cassie Wyatt's place, right? I'll bring you then, maybe."

"Would you?" Helene turned to him with an eager smile. "I'd like that very much." She stopped and frowned.

"I shouldn't though. My mother would be very cross if she knew."

"Don't tell her. Why let on? Folks need a secret—everybody does. I remember my daddy sayin' that." He paused. "This place is my secret. I like it here. It's quiet and it's pretty, real pretty. I come here sometimes— in winter even. Just to be by myself. When I get sick of the other kids— you know."

He hesitated, and she knew he was looking at her again in that way he did, though she didn't turn her head.

"It can be your secret, too, if you want." With a funny stealthy movement he took her hand, and then let it go again.

"You're pretty, too, real pretty. So it kind of makes sense, bringin' you here. You know . . ."He hesitated again, as if unsure whether to go on, and Helene turned to look at him. "You know, the other kids, they don't

74 • SALLY BEAUMAN

want to have nothin' to do with you. Say you're stuck up, that kind of thing. But I don't think so. You talk funny, that's for sure." He grinned. "But that ain't your fault. And they say your mama has fancy ways, and she give you a stupid fancy name. But I think it's a real pretty name, and I never even said it. Not to you."

Helene looked at him uncertainly.

"It's French," she said at last, still not sure if he might not burst out laughing the way some of the other Tanner kids did once when she told them.

"It's really an English name, but you're supposed to say it the way the French do. My mother likes it like that. She says it's softer. Like—you know—sort of like a sigh."

"I like that. You've got a funny English voice and a funny French name, and they suit you. And your hair—you know, when the sun shines on your hair, it's the same color as com when it's ripe. I've seen com that color— all gold. I saw it up in Iowa once. Fields of it. I've got an uncle, up in Iowa —" He broke off, and stood up. He tossed one last little rock into the pool and watched the ripples. "So—you goin' to come with me here again? Let me teach you to swim real good? Let it be our secret—just you and me?"

Helene got to her feet. She put on her sandals slowly, then pulled her dress on over her shoulders. Billy pulled up the zipper for her. All the time she did that she was trying to think—knowing she ought to say no, and knowing she didn't want to. She felt queer inside, all excited and happy somehow, like she wanted to dance.

She looked up into Billy's eyes, which were as blue as a kingfisher's wing.

"All right, Billy," she said.

Billy leaned forward. He planted a dry quick kiss on her cheek.

"That's our secret too," he said. His face had gone beet-red again. "And don't tell no one I did it, see?"

"No, Billy."

"I don't want no one saying I'm stuck on some kid, all right? We're friends, okay? Now—let's go home."

He helped her back up the steep gully and through the cottonwood out into the clearing. Then he stopped, and she saw his head go up, like an animal's, as he listened. She didn't know why at first, then she heard it too. A man's voice, muffled; then a woman's laugh; then a funny noise, a bit like a sigh, a bit like a groan. It was coming from the little wood shack, the summerhouse. She saw Billy glance at the shack, then back at her, then he grabbed her hand and started to run. He didn't stop running, not even in the bushes, not till they were under the wire and out on the edge of the fields again. Then he stopped. They were both panting.

DESTINY • 75

"What was that, Billy, in the shack? What was it?"

"Some folks. Nothin' ..."

"Could you see them? I couldn't see them. What were they doing?"

"Just a httle. Lovemakin'—courtin'—you know."

"I don't—I don't . . ." He had moved off again, and she had to run to keep up with him. "Who was it? Could you see? Was it a colored lady?"

"No way. She was white." He stopped for a second, frowned, then shook his head. "None of our business, anyways. Come on home now— look." He gestured up to the sky. "It's going to rain real soon. Hurry."

But the rain held off. Billy got her back to the yard and left her there, and she sat outside in the heavy sun until her knickers and her hair were quite dry. That was a relief: no questions from Mother now, and if there were, she'd just say she got wet over by the pump, getting the water.

Her mother came into sight just as the first large drops of rain began to fall. Helene saw her look up at the sky, and down at her dress, and then start to run. She ran awkwardly in her best high-heeled shoes, and her hair was mussed up from the wind, and she couldn't have touched up her face because her lipstick was all gone. She ran in through the httle gate and scooped Helene up, and ran into the trailer with her, laughing.

"Just in time! It's going to pour. And I'm late. ..." She glanced at the clock and then at Helene. "A little late. But I had such a nice time, and ..." She came to a stop.

"Did you look after yourself, my darhng? I missed you, you know, and now we can't go for our walk—not in this downpour. ..." She hesitated, and turned round, and Helene thought she had never seen her mother's eyes look so bright, or her face so pale.

Helene sat down on one of the wooden chairs. She kept her back very straight.

"It doesn't matter about the walk," she said carefully. She paused. "Will you be going out to see your friend again?"

Her mother was pleating the silk of her dress between her fingers, her head bent, but now she looked up.

"Maybe. I might. Just sometimes—you know. Not often."

"Can I come too?"

"No, darling." She looked away. "Not for the moment. This is Mummy's friend, you see. But one day, maybe . . . We'll have to see. This is a special friend, you see. A sort of secret friend, can you understand that? You know how Mother hates gossip, and how she's told you about the people 'round here, the Tanners and Cassie Wyatt. . . ." She gave a sudden angry gesture with her fingers. "Talk, talk, talk, all day long. Nothing better to do. Well, I don't want them to talk about me, do I? So . . ." She paused, and then knelt down and put her arm around Helene.

76 • SALLY BEAUMAN

"So—don't mention this to anyone, will you, darling?—you know, if you come in to Cassie Wyatt's with me, the way you do sometimes. Or if anyone came to the trailer while I was away. Don't mention Mother has a friend, will you, Helene? It'll be more fun that way. It can be our secret, do you see?"

Helene looked at her steadily. Her mother's face was smiling, but her eyes were wide and anxious. Helene knew, just the way she'd known with Billy, that her mother was leaving something out, that there was something she wasn't saying. She felt that tight hurt feeling around her heart again. When her mother bent to kiss her, she turned her face away, so the kiss just brushed her hair. "All right," she said at last. "May I have a cookie now? I'm hungry."

Her mother jumped to her feet quickly. Too quickly. And she didn't correct the word "cookie" to biscuit, either. Helene couldn't understand it at all. It was like the times Mother lost her temper, and was sorry afterward, and tried to make amends.

She watched her mother coldly as she reached into the kitchen cupboard, and she was glad she'd gone to the swimming hole, glad she'd been with Billy Tanner, glad she hadn't told her mother.

Let her have her secrets, she thought. She didn't care. She hugged her arms around herself, and smiled. She had two secrets now. Going swimming with Billy, and the way Major Calvert shook her hand. That was a start.

It might be nice to have some more.

EDOUARD

LONDON—PARIS, 1941-1944

^ ^ Ij douard. Edouard. I have the impression—misguided no doubt ri .—that you are not concentrating. That you are in some secret J-^ world of your own, to which I, alas, do not have access."

Hugo Glendinning looked up suddenly from the book he had been reading aloud, and fixed Edouard with his blue eyes. Edouard jumped.

"Edouard." Hugo sighed. "Have you heard a word of this? One word?" He pushed the book away from him impatiently, and lit another cigarette. Edouard looked down at the account of the Napoleonic campaigns, and hastily tried to find the place where Hugo had left off". It could have been pages before. He had no idea.

"Edouard." Hugo was attempting patience. "Two months ago now, on June twenty-second to be precise, the armies of the Reich attacked Russia. It is possible, just possible, that this may be the turning point in this never-ending war. It thus seems a good moment, a reasonable moment, to examine the fate of Napoleon Bonaparte and his armies when he attempted a similar enterprise. We shall look—^we are looking, or I was—at the historical accounts of that campaign. We may then go on and compare them with the fictional account in Tolstoy's War and Peace. This seems to me a timely, indeed imaginative choice. Certain of your own ancestors fought in those campaigns. Unless I am mistaken, the eighth Baron de Chavigny, who seems to have ingratiated himself with the upstart Corsican very successfully, was killed at the Battle of Borodino. You therefore have a personal reason for finding this subject as interesting and instructive as I do. You will shortly be celebrating your sixteenth birthday. It is not a particularly taxing subject for a young man of your age and ability. And yet I sense your interest is less than total. Would you like to tell me why?"