Exiles in the Garden (34 page)

By the time Annalise arrived the formalities were done with. She took the taxi from the ferry landing to High House, the driver close-mouthed but glancing frequently into his rear-view mirror at Annalise, who sat with her face averted, staring out the window at the endless expanse of firs and water beyond the firs. When he remarked that it was a mighty shame about poor Mr. Malone she nodded but did not speak. Seemed a nice fella, the driver said, a good enough sailor who had bad luck. The weather in these parts is hard on people from away, the driver added, but allowed his voice to trail off when Annalise pulled a pair of sunglasses from her purse and put them on even though the day was overcast, threatening rain. She gave him twenty dollars and told him to keep the change and not to bother about her bag; she'd fetch it herself from the trunk.

Mr. Malone was familiar with these waters, Annalise said.

Yes, ma'am, the driver said.

And he was a skilled sailor. Beautiful sailor.

But the weather was awful bad, the driver said.

Annalise nodded and dismissed him. She stood in the driveway next to Alec's Chevy, her bags at her feet, looking at the foolish house nestled among the spruces, higher than all of them, an assertion of temporal authority. She had never liked it, this willful, arrogant, hopeless house built by totalitarians. You were obliged to accommodate yourself to it. Concessions were not in its nature. Annalise stood in the driveway and grew angrier as she glared at it, wondering what it would take to burn High House to the ground. Burn it so that only ash remained, a conflagration that could be seen from the mainland, causing people to wonder what was happening on the island, no doubt some perverse maritime ritual. Islanders were strange in their habits. Their children were strange. Families intermarried. Dangerous drugs were epidemic and also disease. They disliked outsiders, and if you got into trouble God help you—the islanders wouldn't. They feared people from away. They were a sly, crafty, spiteful tribe without compassion—and then Annalise broke down. She thought there were no more tears left in her. She had cried in Vancouver, cried on the airplane, cried once more on the ferry. She had stood in the stern watching the lights of the mainland recede until she had pulled herself together, hunched against the bitter western wind. The crew seemed to know who she was and why she was there. They helped her with her bag and asked if there was anything she wanted. They couldn't have been nicer. When she walked to the stern they left her alone but someone was always nearby.

Annalise looked into Alec's Chevy. The keys were in the ignition. She put her bag on the rear seat and stood looking over the roof of the car to the preposterous house. She saw Alec's rain hat on the dashboard and almost broke down again but gathered herself and walked the twenty yards to the front door, unlocked as Mathilde promised it would be. Inside, she looked at the unmade bed, coins on the dresser, Alec's clothes on the chair. Annalise did not linger there but climbed at once to the second floor. The time was just before seven, dusk well along. In the refrigerator was a bottle of Montrachet that Alec had brought from Washington. The corkscrew was on the sideboard so she opened the Montrachet and poured a glass. She took it to the third floor. There was enough light to see by so she did not switch on the lamps. She noticed Gunter Grass's recent memoir and a copy of the Bangor newspaper on the coffee table along with a stack of picture books relating to the state of Maine. The Leica was there, too.

The telephone rang but she did not answer. It would be Vancouver and she did not want to talk to Vancouver.

Annalise stepped to the window and then stepped back, conscious of the wall of books behind her. From where she stood the island looked deserted, undiscovered country. It looked as it must have looked to the Indians or the Norsemen or whoever found it first and staked a claim. Probably the island seemed hospitable, a natural anchorage on the southern side, ponds inland, acres and acres of timber, enough stone to build the pyramids at Giza had it occurred to them to build pyramids; and naturally all the fishes of the sea. Probably on a summer or autumn day it would look like paradise. Of course they would have to beware of weather, fair skies followed by long hours of fog followed by cold and then squalls. Even very experienced mariners lost their way. A compass was essential along with good nerves and an adventurous spirit; probably the two went together.

Why had Alec come to this place? Annalise had no satisfactory answer to that question. Blind fate, she supposed. Dusk continued to fall. There were no lights anywhere in her line of vision and no sounds, and then she heard the cry of a gull and the rattle of a pickup truck on the road. Annalise stepped forward, closer to the window, fearing very much what she would see, and her fear was realized at once: the Herreshoff swinging easily on its mooring. She watched it move in the breeze and the current, hardly more than a shadow now, sails safely stowed in the bow. Her dread eased as she looked at the Herreshoff, lines as clean as a Matisse sketch. Alec had said that. She missed his way of speaking, his turns of phrase, the look he had when in reverie, a hundred small things, and his fidelity. At that instant, in the quiet of the evening, time ceased and nothing existed for her except the room and the boat swinging on its mooring in the twilight.

Annalise switched on a lamp and looked around the room. She would collect Alec's clothes, as she had promised she would do, and the car and whatever personal items were about. His wristwatch, his reading glasses, his wallet, and the Leica. They were all that was left but they would have to do. Looking at Alec's private things, Annalise felt pushed back in time, to some earlier life, a long-ago time when she was young and the world mysterious and filled with possibility. The world was no longer mysterious but the possibilities, alas, remained infinite.