Destiny (23 page)

"Pink?" The eyebrows arched a httle higher. "Darling. Rather vulgar."

Helene lowered her eyes. "I thought it was nice," she said slowly, and again that awful uncertainty came back. She was wrong again, it seemed. She'd thought it was pretty, and it wasn't. Her mother said it was vulgar. Just like that. She raised her eyes again, slowly, to her mother's face. How could her mother be so certain?

There was a little silence. Her mother leaned back in her chair, "And after that?" she said at last. "What did you do after that? You weren't waiting for me too long, I hope?"

She asked the question out of habit, Helene thought. Once, it had truly worried her if she was late. Helene wasn't sure if it did so much now. She hesitated, drawing hnes on the oilcloth with her fingernail, plucking up courage.

"I just mooched about. For a bit." She shrugged. "And then—then, I started thinking. ..."

She swallowed. She still didn't dare come right out with it. If her mother knew she'd counted the money in the box, she'd be angry. And when she was angry, she frightened Helene. Those spots of color came into her cheeks, and the veins stood out in her temples, and the violet eyes flashed, or filled with tears, and her voice would rise, and she would start to shake.

"I was just wondering, you know. If we were still saving up to go to England."

Her mother sat up then, at once. Her eyes grew intent, and she seemed about to say something, and then checked herself Her face had gone hard and tight. Then, all at once, it softened again, and she smiled. A long slow odd smile, shghtly secretive.

"Of course, my darling," she said. "Of course we are. I've always, told you that, haven't I? I wouldn't forget." She paused. Helene's eyes never left her face. "It's just that . . . well, we've been here a long time now, and you're settled in school, and sometimes I think it might be nicer to stay."

"Stay?" Helene felt herself go very red. "Here? In the trailer park?"

Her mother laughed. "No, darling, of course not. Stay—in this place—a moment longer than we had to? No, darling, I don't mean that at all. It's just that ... if our circumstances changed. Changed quite considerably. Then it might be very pleasant to stay in America, even in Alabama, don't you think?"

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"Changed? Changed how?" Her voice rose uncontrollably, but her mother only smiled.

"For the better, of course, darling. If we had more money, for instance, quite a lot of money. And a nice place to live. If we had a car—all the new clothes we wanted. If we could forget about budgeting forever, and just buy almost anything we wanted ..." She waved her hands a little vaguely in the air. "If that happened, then I don't think I would mind staying here." She looked at Helene's hot skeptical face. "Darling, don't look so stubborn, it's very unattractive. After all, parts of Alabama are very beautiful. There are some beautiful houses—lovely gardens, almost like English ones." She smiled coaxingly. "There are lawns, and flowers, camellias in the spring. There are gardeners, and you can still get servants here—why, some people in Alabama live in a way scarcely anyone in England can afford these days, and ..."

Helene stood up. She couldn't bear to listen anymore. Her mother must be going crazy. It was all a dream, a fantasy—just hke going back to England.

"Where?" she cried. She made a wild waving gesture at the window. "Where? Gardens? Servants? CameUias? You see any of those outside in that trailer park?"

"Not there. Of course not there." Her mother's voice had risen now too. "I wasn't talking about out there. You know I wasn't. ..."

"Then where?"

"Lots of places. You've seen them." She hesitated. "The Calverts' for instance. They have beautiful camellias up at the Calverts'. . . ."

"They do? They do?" Helene knew she was almost shouting now, and she couldn't stop. She pushed away from the table and made for the open door. She knew she had to run out, go away, go someplace. She just couldn't bear to be in that hot stuffy little room a second longer. She couldn't bear to see that expression on her mother's face, half-crumpled, half-hopeful, and the violet eyes suddenly afraid. At the door she spun round, her throat so tight with pain and love and anger all mixed up that she could hardly speak.

"Who cares about the Calverts?" she said. "Who cares? What are you planning now. Mother? Buying the Calverts' house with a hundred and fifty dollars?"

She just ran, to begin with, not thinking where she was going, just wanting to be alone. She ran, and the tears streamed down her face, and then after a while she stopped. She was over on the edge of the old

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cotton fields, and she knew where she wanted to go. Down by the pool. Into that cool brown water. Without pausing, she jumped the ditch, ducked under the wire, began to run through the shrubbery. She didn't slow to look at the house, or the lawn, or even the httle summerhouse. If someone saw her, she couldn't have cared less. In minutes she was in the shade of the cottonwood trees, and half-shding, half-faUing down the slopes to the water.

She stood there on the edge for a moment, feeling the sudden coolness of the air dry the tears on her face. Then she pulled oflF all her clothes, throwing them down carelessly. She stood for a moment, naked under the trees, sunhght and shadows patterning her skin. Then she dived into the water.

Billy had taught her well, and she swam strongly, but the pool was not nearly as large as it had seemed to her when she was little, so she just went back and forth, back and forth, compulsively, unthinkingly, until she was breathless, and all the anger and shame and confusion were gone.

Then she stopped, and stood up in the shallows, and tilted her head back, so the long wet skein of her fair hair, darkened by the water, laced and rippled down her back. She looked down at her own body, at the long narrow flanks; she was the tallest girl in her class by two inches. Skin, pale in this Ught, gold in the sun. A tiny triangle of hairs between her thighs now. Her breasts were soft and small, Ufting from her rib cage. Her nipples were hard and pointed from the cold of the water; their aureoles looked wide and dark. That was how they went when boys touched you, Priscilla-Anne said. Boys Uked that; they liked to touch them, and then kiss them, and touch the nipples with their tongue, and suck on them. And when they did that, Priscilla-Anne said, it felt amazing, incredible, just magical . . . like you never wanted them to stop.

Slowly she lifted her wet hands and ran them up over her body. Up over the curve of hips and waist, up over her rib cage, and under her breasts. She cupped them delicately in her palms—she could do that now—and then, very carefully, she caressed the hard nipples with her fingers. She felt a wave of sudden pleasure, a shiver of delight.

Quickly, guiltily, she dropped her hands and looked over her shoulder. There was no one there, of course—who would there be? Billy would be working over at the cafe; no one else ever came here.

Yet now the anger had gone, she felt suddenly a little afraid once more, the way she had the last time. As if someone were watching her, someone who saw what she had just done. She stared, wide-eyed, into the shadows. Dappled light; the grayish trunks of the cottonwoods; nobody.

Still, she wanted to leave, wanted to get back to the trailer park—now, quickly, before the light started to go, and the shadows darkened. She

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pulled herself out of the water, and, shivering now, began to pull on her clothes, dragging them on over her wet skin as quickly as she could. She wouldn't bother with the bra, not now, it was too difficult to fix. Just the white blouse, which stuck to her damp skin, and the cotton pants, and the skirt which was too short for her already. She wrung out her hair as best she could, but it still hung in damp tendrils around her face and shoulders. Then, flushed, nervous, she stuffed the bra into her pocket, slipped her bare feet into her shoes, and clambered up the bank as fast as she could. Head bent, she ducked under the branches and came out onto the patch of scrubby grass, into the sunshine.

A man in a white suit was standing there. He was standing right in the center of the grass, near the summerhouse, and he was looking straight at her. For one moment she had the sensation that he knew where she'd been and that he was waiting for her, but she dismissed that thought. She stopped dead.

He had his hands in his pockets, and the sun was behind him, so he looked very tall, and very dark, and very cool and very elegant. Just the way he'd looked on his veranda all those years before. He spoke first.

"Well now, ma'am," he said, smiling, and kind of drawling out the words. Then he took a step forward, and another step, and held out his hand. The smile grew wider. "Do you still say how do you do the way you used to? And shake hands?"

Helene bit her lip. She looked up at him uncertainly.

"Sometimes," she said.

Then she took his hand, and he solemnly shook it. She stared at him, half-expecting him to do as he had all those years before, to press a little, and scratch with his nail, there in the damp circle of her palm. But he didn't. He simply shook her hand quite formally, and then he let it go, and then he looked at her.

He looked at her for what seemed an eternity, though it couldn't have been more than a couple of seconds. He looked at her long wet hair and her flushed face. He looked at the wet blouse that clung to the outline of her breasts. He looked at the short schoolgirl skirt and the long bare tanned legs. He looked at her the way Billy Tanner looked, as if he couldn't quite believe what he saw. And quite suddenly, Helene relaxed.

It was all right, she thought. It was all right. He wasn't angry, and even if he were, she had the oddest feeling that she could stop him if she wanted.

He smiled again, a beautiful warm smile, displaying even white perfect teeth.

"You've grown up," he said at last in a perfectly matter-of-fact voice. "You remember me? You're Helene, aren't you? Helene Craig." He

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paused. "Well, since you're on my land, Helene Craig, can I oflfer you something to drink?"

"I . . . thank you very much. But—well, I ought to be getting home now, and ..."

"Don't be absurd." He smiled, and then, to her astonishment, he took her arm, firmly but lightly, resting it through his, the way her mother had shown her, for all the world as if he were taking her in to dinner. He moved oflF, and Helene went with him.

"So. What will it be? Mint julep? Whiskey sour? Coke? Bourbon on the rocks?"

Helene laughed nervously. "I don't drink. Not alcohol. I'm—well, I'm twelve. My mother says that's too young."

"You astonish me. Twelve? I took you for a grown-up young woman."

Helene flushed with pleasure. "A hmeade would be nice."

"Then a hmeade it shall be."

They processed, that was the word, Helene thought. Not walked: walked was much too ordinary a word. Across the grass, past the old summer-house, and over the lawns in full view of the tall windows of the big house. Along past the tall white portico, along past the magnolia tree that reached almost up to the roof. Arm in arm, right up the veranda steps, in through the huge entrance hall, across a cool stone floor, and mto the most beautiful room she had ever seen m her whole hfe.

It was so big, she couldn't believe it. Why, it must have been forty feet long, fifty n>aybe. And the ceiling was very high, and there were four huge windows. Their blinds were lowered against the evening sun.

He showed her to a chair, and Helene sat down in it. It was the softest, most comfortable, most luxurious-feeling she'd ever known. Silk, against her bare legs, and cushions that were plump with finest goose down. She leaned back, slightly dazed, her heart beating very fast. Major Calvert went over to a cabinet on the far side of the room, and at first she thought he was going to ring for the butler, but he didn't do that. He mixed the drinks himself, from a silver tray: whiskey for him, she saw, on rocks of ice which he took with tongs from a silver bucket. And limeade for her, eau-de-nil green, in a long thin glass. He turned back with the drinks in his hand, and looked at her again. Then he went over, as if it were an afterthought, and shut the tall mahogany doors. And then he brought her her drink and sat down on a chair opposite her.

Helene clutched the glass in her hand. There was a tiny table of polished wood right next to her, with flowers on it, and a httle silver tray which looked as if it might be meant to stand a glass on. But she couldn't be sure. Her eyes turned to the room, but it was too immense, too extraordinary to take in all at once. She just had a confused impression that everything

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shone: the tables, the silver ashtrays and photograph frames, the grand piano at the far end, the gilt frames of the paintings on the wall. And there were flowers everywhere: hothouse flowers and palms. The scent of the flowers came to her on the still cool air, and her eyes dazzled. She looked back at Major Calvert.

He was sitting there, apparently perfectly relaxed, his legs crossed at the knee, one perfectly polished shoe tapping idly on the carpet.

His skin was deeply tanned, his hair and moustache just as dark as she remembered. As she looked at him, he reached into his pocket and drew out a gold cigarette case and a lighter.

"You don't smoke, either, I take it?" The comers of his lips lifted. "Would you mind if I did?"

"Oh. No. No. Of course not."

He lit the cigarette and inhaled slowly. He didn't seem to feel the need to say anything, but Helene did. The silence was terrifying.

"I shouldn't have been there," she burst out suddenly. "I do realize that. In the pond, I mean. I'm sorry."

"Please." He made an amused, courteous gesture of the hands. "It's very hot. If that's where you were, feel free to go there anytime you hke." He paused. "Is it a good place to swim? Do you go there often?"

Helene looked at him uncertainly, for he put the question slightly oddly. Then she shook her head.

"No. Not often. Not now."