I'll Let You Go (82 page)

“Tull!” she cried. “Tull, help me! Help me!” To add insult to injury, Bluey began to sing—“ ‘
All of the kids—to teacher carried—candy and ice cream cones—but who do you think the teacher married? Wood'nhead Pudd'nhead Jones!' ”
—all happening in a blink yet feeling like an eternity to the child trapped beneath. Winter, who'd been taking a much-earned
respite in the commissary, was on her way back when she saw the commotion through a garden fence. By the time she'd passed through the gate and emerged to the wandering path, the staff was already lifting Bluey from her traumatized guest, whose stylish retro print was soaked in the former's pungent urine.

Winter and Toulouse helped her up as the old woman was led away. The smelly rubberneckers muttered oaths and inanities as they dispersed to rejoin traffic on the sumptuously topiaried loop.

“Are you all right?” asked Winter.

Lucy stood there, stunned.

“She didn't mean it. She doesn't know what she's doing … she didn't know who you were—”

Lucille Rose, who had by now wandered a short way down the path, turned and looked at her—at both of them—then tightly closed her eyes as if to teleport herself to another place.

Winter came closer.

Lucy screamed her
own
little scream, but it didn't last—then ran like the devil to the car.

T
he Trotter women were having a time of it.

Trinnie hadn't been the same since returning from
another
wedding—an old rehab chum's, in Manhattan. She took to her room without explanation and wouldn't speak to anyone, not even Marcus, who had shown himself to be an easy confidant. She shed twenty pounds in half as many days and was sleeping barely two hours a night. Out of suicidal desperation, she finally called Samson and said it was urgent that she see him.

When the detective arrived at Saint-Cloud, the feeling was of a city deserted. Trinnie had ordered the staff away; she could no longer tolerate their accusatory eyes.

“What's wrong? My God, what's happened?”

She stood at the door, emaciated and trembling. He'd never seen her so haunted.

“Oh, Sam!” she said, glomming on to his jacket. “Something terrible—something so
horrible …”

“Is it Marcus? Did he leave?”

“No—no! Marcus is
fine
 … better than
ever
.”

“Then Toulouse—”

“No,” she said, frantically shaking her head. “They're all fine. It's
me
this time, Sam, it's me …”

She led him outside to the flagstone terrace, where she had laid a possum on a delicate porcelain plate. Its breath was labored; it was clearly dying.

“I think he fell from the roof. Look how sweet he is! Poor thing can't breathe … do you think he's going to die? He's just a baby. Where's his mother, Sam? Maybe he's just playing possum, no? I put out some peanut butter—they're supposed to like peanut butter. That's not such a bad thing to smell if you have to die, is it, Sam? That's not such a bad thing to be smelling before he …”

She began to sob. He helped her to the wrought-iron divan.

“Trinnie—tell me what's wrong. What's happened?”

“I was in New York last week … and I saw something from the hotel, on the street. Oh, Sam, I
saw
something!—”

“Tell me.”

“—and things have been going so
well
, Sam! That's what's so—that's what's so
crazy
 … but it's always like that, isn't it? Just when you think everything's great!”

“Trinnie, you have to calm down. Try to—”

“A man and woman … arguing. It must have been two in the morning. Two or three. You know New York—these
dramas
playing themselves out … junkies and whatever. Like some awful play—you hear everything. The streets are like canyons, everything echoes. Especially if you're high up—and they … the man, he kept walking away. He didn't want to listen anymore. And she kept coming after him, like a harridan—and … it
was
like a play—some stupid Sam Shepard—because each time they moved in front of a town house, the lights would come on—you know, those automatic lights in front of houses that get triggered when you …—so as they walked, each house lit them up in pools of—oh, Sam! You don't
know
, you don't
know
, you don't
know
!”

“Tell me, Trinnie,” he said, his tone nearly harsh.

“At a certain point, the man walked away and the woman came after—he turned—and she … hit his neck. And he fell backward …”

“She used a knife?—”

“No, no, nothing like that! With her
hand
—a fist,
something
. I don't know. I couldn't
see
.”

“The police came?”

“No! No! You don't understand!
No one can understand
. Oh I am fucked I am fucked I am fucked! Sam … when I went to see my father last year—maybe it was the year before—when I went to see him at the quarry—I went to see him because I found out that he—it was after you told me the two of you found Marcus—I was so
angry
—and he was getting his hair cut when I came in, Sam, so
helpless
and so
small
and I struck him with my
hand
on his
little neck
! I was so angry and my hand just lashed out and I hit him
hard
, Sam, hard enough for him to fall back and I
know
that I hurt him! And he couldn't button his shirts after that—do you remember? He couldn't button his shirts! And then Marcus told me … Marcus said that when he met Toulouse for the first time—I was in the desert—Marcus wrote in a letter that when he met Toulouse at Saint-Cloud, Papa was holding a towel to his neck like a poultice … he was holding a towel there! And I never pursued it! I said I would but I didn't! And the doctors—Sam, the doctors said the tear in his vein came from a blow! They asked if he'd been in a car crash—they said sometimes this sort of thing can happen as a result of an accident or a fight. But I didn't think of it—I didn't
remember
, Sam, until I saw that dreadful couple on the street! And I sat in the lawyers' office feeling so smug, so
benevolent
because I didn't want the hospital to be sued. The hospital—when it was
me
! Oh, Sam, I killed him, I really did! And what I want to know—what I
need
to know—from
you
—the reason why I asked you here, what I need to know—because that would be catastrophic—what I need to know is if they can put me in prison. Because I couldn't survive that, Sam—I couldn't survive! After everything we've been through, Sam, with Marcus and Toulouse, for it to end this way! But I
did
kill him, Sam, I killed my father! Toulouse's grandpa! Toulouse and Lucy and poor Edward's
—
Bluey's
husband …
oh, Sam Sam Sam, the way he
looked
at me in the ICU—his eyes suddenly opened and he
smiled
at me and I think he was smiling because he realized I didn't know what I'd done and he would have wanted to spare me from that knowledge because he would
have
to have known that me
knowing
something like that—well I simply could not
live
—and so he was glad that I—but now I
do
know, Sam, I
do
know—everything!—and oh, Sam Sam, what am I going to do, what am I going to do, what am I going to do?”

M
arcus wasn't overly concerned by his wife's prolonged absence. Always careful not to make demands, he had resolved to calmly subjugate himself to her moods. He thought it best to maintain an attitude that at least on its surface was High Victorian laissez-faire.

He took to visiting the Westwood cemetery on a daily basis. It was a decent walk from his Cañon Drive home, and he enjoyed the sloping stretch of Wilshire Boulevard that bisected the country club. Sometimes you could see deer behind the fence butting heads.

He befriended Dot Campbell, who found him winning, and a great comfort.
^†
His sartorial style reminded her of Mr. Trotter's in that it was a tad antiquated—a “bespoke” lapel, golden fob or the unusual cut of a pocket amicably connoting another era (she wasn't always sure which).
Sometimes he came with Toulouse, but more often he was alone, and strolled the grounds scrutinizing stones and taking the air. He occasionally knelt to read an inscription but was not one of those tedious hobbyists who with paper and charcoal make imprints of headstone faces.

Marcus often walked alongside the caretaker while the latter performed his duties, and sometimes (though Dot frowned on it) the burly companion assisted with a rake. He was happy to talk with Sling Blade about the old man, and it seemed to relieve them both of pent-up sorrows. Marcus was especially intrigued by the Candlelighters' parcel, with its whirling grave markers—he counted more than twenty now. He never failed to brush Edward's plaque with the tips of his fingers and say, “Sleep well, son. Sleep well.”

Invariably, he ended his visit with a walk to where the digger lay. There was no memorial as yet, but that wasn't what disturbed him (for even the portraits of the founders of William Morris bore no names). The man had spent so many years imagining a monument, and Trinnie would soon make her decision—but how? By what lights? And who had the right? Perhaps they should just leave things as they were, he thought. Perhaps in the end it was best that Mr. Trotter take a note from the Candlelighters and join his grandson in oblivion.

Whenever he left that place, always in dusky hour, when a chill stole through the gate, Marcus felt no peace—and was certain that it did not bode well for the migrant, entrepreneurial spirit of his dear, departed benefactor.

“D
oddie?”

“Mother! Hello—”

“Doddie, I'm so glad I reached you!”

“Are you OK? Is everything OK?”

“Yes, yes, wonderful! Where—where are you?”

“I'm on my way to India, Mother.”

“India!”

“Can you believe it?”

“How wonderful!”

“I'll only be gone a few days.”

“A few days! But why on earth
India
?”

“We have factories there. Quincunx has factories there.”

“Well now,
that's
really something.”

“How are you feeling?”

“I'm clear today!”

“That's so great. You sound wonderful.”

“I'm not
afraid
today! And Winter's here—she's been so marvelous.”

“Winter's a terrific lady.”

“I haven't been the hostess with the mostess. In fact, I've been a royal pain in the you-know-what!”

“She understands, Mother. She understands … God, it's so great to
talk
to you like this. To hear you sounding so—”

“I
can
talk, you know. People seem to have written me off.”

“No one's written you off. That would be an impossibility.”

“Doddie …”

“What is it, Mother?”

“Doddie, I know that Louis isn't here. That my dear Louis is gone.”

“Did one of the nurses tell you that?”

“No, no. There are certain things a person doesn't have to be told. And I say: what's so great about this little blue planet anyway, that's what
I
say! Doddie, did I tell you that marvelous little aphorism of Winter's? God is wringing his hands. He's sitting on a bench in the clouds, wringing his hands. ‘I'm in love with an atheist,' he says, tears
streaming
down his cheeks onto that long white beard. ‘I'm in love with an atheist who lives in New York—but she doesn't even know I exist!' Isn't that marvelous, Doddie?”

“It's a
wonderful
joke.”

“It's not a joke, it's an aphorism.”

“I laugh every time you tell it.”

“Oh, don't be so stupid.”

“I'll come see you, soon as I get back. Thursday, all right? I'll bring you something, would you like that? I'll bring you a sari.”

“I'm so sorry.”

“Mother? I didn't hear you. What did you—”

“I'm so sorry, said she, but we're not accepting saris today.”

He laughed. “It's
great
to hear you like this. To hear your sense of humor again.”

“Doddie, how are we fixed for cash?”

“We're fine, Mother.”

“I don't want you spending all your money on that plane.”

“Can't happen.”

“Why don't you get rid of that plane and fly American Airlines?”

“I actually
save
money with the jet, Mother.”