The Drowning House (19 page)

“The Hayeses. Well, they go with the house,” I said, not mentioning my early confusion about their identity.

Harriet tilted her head. “Possibly. In any case, my house is going to be sold. So what to do with these? People like to say you can’t choose your relatives. But who knows?”

“What about the portrait of Stella?”

“Ah,” said Harriet. “That’s another thing entirely. I saw you looking at it during the party the other night.”

Once again the strangeness of the relief struck me—the winsome, childlike face above a body that was plainly adult. The womanly breasts and thighs revealed in a way that contrasted sharply with the photo of Stella below—her formal dress with its stiff bodice and yards of heavy fabric.

Sally came back carrying two small landscapes. “You’re sure about these?” she asked.

“Oh yes,” Harriet said happily.

“But there must be someone—” I said.

“No.” Harriet spoke firmly. “There isn’t. And I prefer this. My dear.” She touched my cheek, and her hand felt as cool and dry as paper.

Sally wrote some figures on the back of an envelope. “I’ll have to speak to my partner before we can make an offer,” she said.

“Oh, an offer,” Harriet said dismissively. “I don’t want an offer. You can have them.”

The woman looked doubtful. She pursed her lips. “But the frames alone—”

“I’m not senile,” Harriet responded, “and there’s no one to object. Give me a receipt, if you must.” She sat back in the chair. “Clare,” she said. “Will you come back with me? You’ve been very patient.”

At the far end of the room, Sally was talking to another woman in a suit. She waved the envelope. The other woman pursed her lips. They were disagreeing in a way that was clearly familiar to both of them, comfortable and without any real risk. I realized that they were a couple. Sally returned carrying a slip of yellow paper. “This is highly unusual,” she said, frowning.

“Good,” said Harriet. She reached for my shoulder as she stood, and the pressure of her weight reminded me suddenly what it felt like to carry a child, how even a small body could anchor you, make you feel that you were exactly where you ought to be.

“You know,” said Harriet, “I’ve been looking forward to this little jaunt. And now it’s over. So quickly. Well, that’s the way, isn’t it?”

THERE WAS A BANK OF HIBISCUS
and a railing on either side of Harriet’s front steps, but she linked her arm in mine and went straight up the middle. “We’ll go out to the veranda,” she said. “Unless it’s too hot for you? I’ve never minded the heat and now, well.” She pushed the front door open. Inside I paused, waiting for my eyes to adjust. The staircase with its big, turned baluster came into focus, then Harriet standing against it, resting, a shape only at first, but looking different somehow. I blinked, confused. Her hair was gone.

She laughed, the wonderful rippling laugh I remembered from
the Carradays’ party, and pointed to the hall table. Next to a vase of gerbera daisies stood a row of heads, each wearing a wig. They were all the same silvery white, but each was done in a different style—the crown of braids, the figure eight I remembered from our first meeting at the Carradays’. Harriet’s real hair, what remained of it, was soft and downy, like the feathers of a baby chick. It stood out around her head, a fluffy aura. I remembered the papery feel of her hand. “Pure vanity,” she said. “It doesn’t leave you just because you get old. Or sick. Come.”

I followed her to the back porch. She walked more slowly now, pausing occasionally to steady herself with a hand on a bookcase, a doorframe. Outside were a pair of fan-backed wicker chairs that creaked pleasantly when she settled into one of them. “Now this is nice,” said Harriet. “A young visitor. I don’t mean to sound ageist, but a lot of older people are just not very exciting. Sit down and tell me what you’re thinking.”

I didn’t know what to say. “What I’m thinking right now?”

“No, I can make a pretty good guess at that. I mean in general. What occupies your thoughts? What occurs to you when you wake up in the morning? What do you dream about?”

There are places on the Gulf side of the Island, parts of the stone piers, where water shoots up unexpectedly through the openings in the rocks. You can be standing there with dry feet and never see it coming. I was completely unprepared for her question and I sat down suddenly. Then I bent forward and covered my face with my hands. Harriet seemed unperturbed. When I looked up, she removed a Kleenex from her sleeve. “Here,” she said. “I haven’t used this. Well, only to clean my glasses. I heard what happened to your little girl. It’s a terrible thing to lose a child.” She reached over and touched my knee. “I’m so sorry.” After a while, she said, “There’s ice tea in the refrigerator. Why don’t you go and get us some?”

In her kitchen I wiped my eyes and blew my nose. I was surprised to find that my headache was gone.

The room was orderly in the fashion of a person who rarely cooks—seed catalogues and woven baskets stacked on top of the stove, the
porcelain sink dry. But there was little clutter and I found the glasses easily.

“Ah,” said Harriet when I held one toward her. “Perfect.” For a while we sat together quietly. Harriet’s head was turned, she was looking out into the garden, and I had a chance to study her, the soft folds of translucent skin along her jaw, the ear, like candle wax. I let my gaze follow hers. There too, despite an air of randomness, the beds were trim, weeded, and watered. I saw pink-and-yellow lantanas, zinnias, marigolds. More gerbera daisies. “It’s a frightful mess,” she said. “I plant in hope of butterflies, and I do get a few, though not so many as I used to. Also lots of floppy brown moths.”

She sipped her tea. “Will gives a good party,” she said. “I always try to go. You must have been looking for Patrick? Well, no mystery there. You two were inseparable.” She paused and her face grew thoughtful. “You were good for him. People think it’s a blessing to be born into that kind of money. I don’t know why. His drinking isn’t any better.”

I said nothing. I understood how Patrick seemed to other people. And yet, however hard I tried, I could never see him the way they did.

“I was good for him?”

“Your persistence.”

“You can say that now because of the way things have turned out.”

She regarded me almost fiercely. “Don’t be silly. If you’re going to take the blame for what happens in your life, you must learn to take the credit too. All success entails some element of chance. You were very young, I understand that. Which may have made it seem chancier still. But if you were a man, you wouldn’t hesitate to claim it.”

“Oh, I claim it. For the record, anyway.”

“You’re just not sure you deserve it? My dear, who does? The fact is, you have always been …” She thought for a minute. “Focused.” She smiled at her own small joke. “Patrick, on the other hand …” She sighed. “A person needs to have something to do that matters. And I don’t mean sitting around his daddy’s office.”

“Is that all he’s doing?”

She looked at me sharply, then shifted in her chair and reached into a pocket. “I’m going to smoke now, I hope you don’t mind.” She
pulled out what looked like a little cigar and lit it with a kitchen match that she struck against the wall. There was a pattern of scratches there as if someone had begun to write a message but had never gotten past the first stroke.

Harriet shook out the match. She gazed at me for a moment. Then she said, “You must wonder about this house, why I don’t paint it. I know your parents were diligent about that. In this climate it’s an endless burden. Eventually the responsibility fell to me. I didn’t want it. So I don’t do it. I’ve replaced some rotten wood over the years, but that’s all.” She exhaled and watched the smoke rise.

“Why didn’t you leave? Sell the house? If you didn’t want to …” I stopped myself. I had been about to say “keep it up,” but that wasn’t right. The house was kept up.

“I did leave. I was gone, on and off, for years. I rented the house, and it gave me a nice little income. I went to Mexico City and Taxco and San Miguel, and of course money goes farther there. And then I lived in Taos for several years. But I think I always knew I’d come back eventually. It draws you, doesn’t it?” She paused. “And in your case, there’s Patrick. It’s hard to leave things unfinished.”

She leaned over and extinguished her cigarette and pushed it through a crack in the porch. “Fear not, nothing down there except dirt. And a lot of those—cigarette butts. I hide them because I’m not supposed to smoke.” She pointed to a striped cushion. “If you wouldn’t mind? I can’t always get comfortable.” I positioned the cushion behind her and she sat back. “Better,” she said. “Now.” She took several deep breaths and gazed off into the garden, until I began to wonder if she had forgotten me.

When she looked back, all the color was gone from her face. “I’m sorry. These days it doesn’t take much to wear me out. Give me just a sec.” She closed her eyes, and I saw that her lids were crisscrossed with tiny purple lines.

In the garden, the sunlight turned the dancing bodies of passing insects from brown to gold. Harriet Kinkaid’s chest rose and fell, and the hot wind moved the plants and eddied across the porch. It was as if the house and the garden breathed with her. After a few minutes
she roused herself. “We can talk a little now. And perhaps you’ll come again. I’m not the most scintillating company, I know. But I’m willing to tell you what I can. If that’s a bribe, so be it.” She smiled.

“About Patrick. You said things were left unfinished.”

“You must have sensed that? I don’t mean that they didn’t take care of the situation. After the fire. Everyone was … compensated. The girl had only her mother, who worked at one of the hotels. She moved away. The people who owned the house never came here. And they had insurance.”

“You know this?” I asked. “For a fact?”

Harriet waved my question away. “I know how things happen in Galveston. And so do you.” She paused, then went on. “But I don’t mean all that. I’m talking about you and Patrick.”

“I’ve tried to find him,” I said. “To talk to him. But he didn’t come to the party. And when I drove out to his house, the one on the beach, he was gone.” I didn’t feel it was necessary to mention Lafitte’s or what had happened there. “Eleanor said he looks different. That he was burned.”

“That’s true.”

I waited for Harriet to say more, but she was either tired or reluctant. Finally I asked, “Do you think he doesn’t want to see me?”

Harriet seemed to settle more deeply into her chair. “I think it’s complicated,” she said. “He is shy about appearing publicly—that may be why he skipped the party. And why he so seldom appears at the bank. I’m sure he knows you’re here, though.”

I didn’t say anything. We both understood how information percolated through the Island. Harriet said, “We’ll talk again.” Her eyelids fluttered. “Don’t worry about the door, I never lock it.” She lay back against the striped cushion, lines of effort still visible around her mouth and eyes. Her closed face held the promise of more. Slowly, I rose and left her sleeping.

Chapter 18

I
’
D BEEN PREPARED TO DISREGARD
Eleanor’s comments concerning Patrick.
He’s put a lot of things behind him. He may not want to go back there
. But Harriet was different. I had no reason not to believe her. I had to consider the possibility that Patrick knew I was on the Island but didn’t want to see me.
It’s complicated
, Harriet had said. Did he think of me now as one more awkward social situation to be avoided? Did he imagine me turning away from his burned face?

Back at the archive, I noted with satisfaction that my notes and the piles of photos I had left the day before were undisturbed. A new box sat next to them. Across the way, the door of Gwen’s office was open. My feet made no sound on the carpeted floor as I approached.

I had expected a more impressive space. There was just room for a scarred desk and a small bookcase. A single window with a cracked pane overlooked the side street. Gwen was leaning back in her chair, her bare feet propped against the edge of her desk. She was gazing at the wall to her right, and she had an absent, dreamy look on her face. Her narrow skirt had inched up toward her hips. Taped to the wall was an image clipped from a newspaper. A man bent over a ceremonial shovel smiled into the camera. It was Will Carraday.

I had just time to raise my Leica and press the shutter before she reacted, sitting up abruptly and tugging on her hem. She reached out a foot and wriggled it into one of her shoes, but the other had traveled under the desk and she had to bend over to retrieve it. She stood up, flushed and breathless. “I hope you don’t think that I … that I
was …” she began. Then she must have decided it was wiser not to say exactly what it was she hadn’t been doing.

“How are you?” I asked. The silence between us grew, and I saw that a discussion was unavoidable. “It’s a good shot,” I said. “Nice light. Interesting composition.” She looked over at the wall. “You wouldn’t let him see it?” Her discomfort at the thought was palpable.