Strawberries in the Sea (7 page)

She followed its serpentine curves around ledges and past thickets of alder and wild rose whose leaves gleamed like wet green enamel in the ray of light. There was a strong perfume among the herbal and spruce scents, coming from a kind of wild honeysuckle that twined wherever it could. At first the fog floated in among thick old spruce trunks like the artificial streamers of mist in bad horror movies, but soon it grew thicker and smelled of salt and iodine, of beach debris and fresh rockweed blotting out the sweetness of the wild honeysuckle.

All at once she was out of the woods and at the brink of space, standing on the edge of a cliff. It was as jolting as her awakening had been, until she flashed the light downward and saw the gradual fall of rosy rock sloping away from her feet, crevices dark with mossy and prickly growth, and then, far below, water glimmering through the shifting thicknesses of fog. The tide was very low, and so quiet around the weed-grown boulders that the dripping in the woods and the horn five miles out were the only sounds.

She put off her light. The very deadness of the fog and the low tide made her feel worse; it was like the deadness in herself, to which she had wakened. A crash of surf and rattle of great rocks down there, wind beating against her face so she could hardly keep her eyes open to it, the woods creaking and thrashing behind her—that would be proof that the planet hadn't died while she slept, to become one monstrous black and silent swamp.

She was eager to get back to the house now, to make a light and a fire. Her clothes were coated with moisture, her face and hair wet. When she got back to the yard she saw through the spruce boughs a misty light next door, and at the same time someone down toward the shore whistled to a dog.

Tiger
. And that recalled the man with the round face and shy smile, the wheelbarrow, the wharf. The boat. Dear God, the boat. Tied up at a strange wharf and forgotten for more than twelve hours. Low tide.

She was alive now, frightened, furious with herself. She ran down the path and across the field past the well. If that wharf was out at dead low water, and
Sea Star
had fallen over on her side onto the rocks— loaded with traps—she wanted to sob in rage and panic, and averted it by calling herself profane names in a choked whisper as she ran.

She'd never forgotten the boat before, even with Con around; the boat was always
there
, a part of her like an identical twin.

At the end of the wharf the light showed damp sand and ledge, and the boat was gone.

Con?
Borrowed a boat and followed her out here? How did he know? Did he have a friend out here? What about the Dinsmore man? Was the grin sly rather than shy? What about the one who'd challenged her before she'd ever set foot on the shore? She flashed the light around, knowing it was futile; she was positive that Con had come and taken the boat as she slept this afternoon, and by now Seal Point was rocking with the joke.

By God, she'd call off the divorce and let him whistle, and then see who was the laughingstock. She swept the beam rapidly back and forth, uselessly, ready to cry with rage. It picked up as if through gauze the moorings closest to the wharf. The familiar shape of
Sea Star
took gradual if unsubstantial form.

A sound of relief and joy burst from her throat. Then she blushed. What must they have thought of her, coming out alone in the fog and then disappearing like this and never giving her boat another thought?

She hurried back to the house as if it were midday and the village teeming with people to be astonished or shocked by her behavior, or, in the case of the blue-eyed frontier guard, contemptuous.

She lit a lamp, built a fire, fried bacon and eggs and toasted some bread. The house became her cave, with a campfire to keep the beasts away. With dry socks on her feet and food in her stomach, she thought expansively, Poor Con, what awful things I thought about him! As if he'd do anything like that.

No, except where women were concerned, Con was straight as a spar spruce, and he was a lot more honest about women than some men were. He was like Edwin not being ashamed of his deafness, just saying to the world,
This is the way I am
.

She took down her guitar and sat on the floor with her back comfortably in the corner and sang for a while. She sang none of the love songs that the kids always asked for; she would never sing those again. She went through a variety of sea and fishing songs, her own tunes and others, and then, growing tired she finished off with a few little short verses for which she had made up tunes when she was quite small. She used to sing herself to sleep with them, and they amused her now and lulled her.

She sang
Monday's child is fair of face
, and
When the wind is in the east
, then four lines which had attracted her for the words in them and not for any sense they made.

The tune was a minor one, and if you sang the song quietly enough, with the right chords, it seemed to have some poignant significance; it asked far different questions from the nonsensical ones about strawberries and red herrings. For instance, who was the man in the wilderness? She always saw him, or rather the mysterious form of him, standing alone in a clearing in a wilderness that was like nothing she had ever seen outside dreams and books.

She hung the guitar from a handy nail, blew out the lamp, and took her sleeping bag upstairs to a room that faced the invisible harbor. There was an iron bed here with a clean dry mattress, and she spread the bag on it. She pried up the window and held it open with a piece of lath that must have been used for the same purpose by the Wylies.

She made herself think of the wilderness until she was lost in the glories of the word, and fell asleep.

She woke in a chilly, clear dawn and at once thought of the boat. From the window there was a clear view between two big spruces over the fishhouse roofs to the harbor and beyond.
Sea Star
was there all right, and so were all the other boats. This puzzled her for a moment until she remembered that it was Sunday.

At the Percy house a door slammed and someone came around the corner whistling
Soldier's Joy
; the spruces hid the whistler but didn't dull the whistle, then she saw him for a moment before he crossed the lane at the foot of his lawn. He was a stocky man with a brisk walk. When he was out of sight the whistle came back sharp and merry in the early hush.

She looked back at
Sea Star
. The boat seemed perfectly at home out there, with one gull standing atop the traps, and another walking around on the bow deck.

She went downstairs and built a fire, put water on for coffee, then stripped for the first time since she'd gone to bed at home two nights ago, and washed in cold water, standing before the open oven door.

“Get rid of all that blubber, girl,” she said, mercilessly scrubbing with a rough washcloth and then with a coarse towel. “If you wanted to kill yourself, why didn't you pick out something faster than food?”

She dug into a duffle bag for clean underwear, jeans, and shirt, and brushed her hair in front of a wavy mirror on the wall between the two front windows. She propped her sneakers, wet from last night, on the oven hearth, and carried her suitcases upstairs to the room where she had slept.

After she washed her breakfast dishes in the rusty sink, which would have to wait until she got some kerosene to clean it with, she dusted and swept the kitchen, scrubbed the counters on either side of the sink, and washed the refrigerator and gas stove. But all at once she'd had enough of indoor chores, and anguish was threatening like the first signal of a recurring pain.

She went out fast, but grabbed the broom on the way, and picked up a broken bushel basket from the clutter between bulkhead and back steps. She propped the toilet door wide open; rehanging it wouldn't be much of a job if she could get hold of some tools. She wished she'd brought some from home. Inside, she ripped down the tattered and rain-stained pictures tacked on the walls, and removed a stack of mildewed paperbacks. All this went into the basket for burning. Then she swept the ceiling and down the walls, as vigorously as she could when she had to work around nails.

“Why didn't you have the sense to bring a hammer?” she muttered. “God, if you had any more brains you'd be a half-wit.”

When she finished sweeping she brought out water and a piece of old flannel shirt she'd found in the entry. With this and a thin slab of yellow soap she scrubbed the seat and the small window high up on one wall.

Then she went around behind the building to see about digging a trench. Alders and bay, wound through with the wild honeysuckle, were crowding in, and she longed for a machete or an ax, but she did the best she could with her jackknife and by breaking down and ripping off thicker branches that got in her way. Now there was room for a trench but she had nothing to dig with. She sat down on a rock, puffing, itching from twigs down her neck, and wondered if there was anything in the fishhouse she could use. She'd be damned if she'd borrow; she'd come out here to be left alone, and that worked both ways.

L
ying by her feet was a spray of wild honeysuckle, its fragile blossoms pale yellow and ivory. She took it into the house and put it in a broken-nosed pitcher. This used up her water, and she was just about to go to the well for more when she heard voices and saw movement past the kitchen's side windows. Before she could escape, someone was knocking gently at the back door.

At least this time she didn't expect Con, she thought with an attempt at cynicism. “Come in!” she called.

Instantly the place filled up with young girls, all looking exactly alike with streaming hair, shorts, long legs, and bare feet. After a confused moment the throng shook down to three. She felt enormous. She made a weak gesture with the pail. “I was just—”

A tall girl with yellow hair said, “There's a telephone call for you. For you to call back, I mean. He called up yesterday.” She frowned, and it made her look familiar in some way. “No, last night, really.”

Another girl had thick black bangs and round dark eyes, like a Shetland pony, and a pony's way of moving head and feet. “Young Mark came up to tell you, but there was no light and he was too bashful to knock. He wanted to get the first look at the new lady.”

“I'm sorry I disappointed him,” said Rosa, and they laughed with relief, so she wondered if she'd looked grim, wild-eyed, or vacant. Then there was a self-conscious silence, a shifting of bare feet and of eyes, and Rosa's mind was quite blank of anything except Con waiting for her to call.

She started to say, “Well, thank you for—”

The blond girl said at the same time, “Well, we'd better be going—”

There was another little burst of nervous laughter, a general movement toward the door, when the third girl stopped and said, “Is that your guitar?”

“Yes,” said Rosa, so anxious to get them out that she began to sweat.

“It looks as if it's been played a lot.” She had sharp, freckled features and elbows to match. She had a brusque, choppy manner except when she reached out and touched the guitar delicately with one finger.

“That one's been played for about ten years,” Rosa said, trying to get them in motion again.

“Gosh, you must really know how to play, then.”

“I'm pretty good,” Rosa admitted.

“Vic's a pretty good piano player,” offered the blond girl, smiling affectionately at her friend.

“Vic for Victoria?”

The freckled girl, diverted from the guitar, became jerky and self-conscious again. “Isn't it awful for somebody who looks like me?”

“Rosa's just as awful, especially when you're hefty,” said Rosa. “It makes people think of baby elephants, for some reason.” She was amusing them, and she felt better. “What's your name?” she asked the blond girl.

“Linnea Sorensen, and this is my cousin Holly Bennett”—the Shetland pony—“and my friend from school who's spending the summer with me. Vic Marchant. I mean Victoria Imogene Marchant.”

“How'd you like to pick this out of your eye?” Vic doubled a fist. All three burst into laughter.

How easy they were, luxuriously foolish, spendthrift with summer. She didn't resent that; they were children, and hard times came soon enough, not only to the fat ones and the fidgety ones with awkward elbows. Look at Phyllis, pretty as a money kitten; she must have put in some sick hours knowing she couldn't pass the baby off as Adam's and scared that Rosa wouldn't divorce Con in time.

Well, she's safe enough now, Rosa thought, or will be by August.

“. . . Mrs. Fleming?” It was the blond girl, serious and polite. “Are you all
right?
”

“Of course,” she said crossly. “Is there a short cut to the store or do I have to go down across the field?”

They were all in a hurry to tell her about the lane turning into a path to the store. She felt she'd upset them and was sorry. None of them was Phyllis, even if she turned out to be a Phyllis in time.