The Moon Around Sarah (5 page)

‘Well, Edward, what now?’ Sal Dennison asked. The bearded attorney sat tilted back in his huge green-leather swivel chair, fingers steepled before his chest. He had removed his coat. His gray vest was partially unbuttoned. Square gold cufflinks reflected lamplight. He had put on a pair of
half-round
spectacles worn low on his nose. Outside, the sky was gray and tumultuous. Distant lightning briefly illuminated the darkly-tinted office window overlooking the sea. ‘We have a problem don’t we?’

‘Don’t let it worry you, Sal. It can be handled,’ Edward said with barely subdued frustration, ‘I can get my father’s signature. I’ll sign of course, and I will sign for Sarah as conservator.’

‘And your aunt will sign?’

‘Just try to keep Trish from signing!’ Edward said. ‘She wants this all wrapped up even more than you and I do.’

‘Yes…’ Dennison fiddled with a gold fountain pen briefly, ‘that still leaves us with problems. After that grand little exhibition here – the fistfight, that is – what about your brother? Will Eric balk?’

‘He has no reason to. I know he needs the money. It’s a matter of me finding him, I guess. I doubt he would be willing to come back to the office.’ Edward stood staring out the window where cold, rapid rivulets raced across the dark glass. ‘Damn it, Sal! You know how much I want this wrapped up as well.’

‘Yes,’ the attorney said, allowing his swivel chair to spring upright. ‘I do, Edward, but Golden West, as much as they want the property, won’t sit still for endless delays because of your family problems. And I
do
represent them, Edward … I don’t have to remind you that they do have an option on three hundred acres on the other side of Bottleneck Creek.’

‘I know, yes,’ Edward said impatiently.

‘And,’ Dennison reminded his fellow lawyer, ‘I do have other business to conduct in this office. Please understand me….’

‘I do understand you,’ Edward said sharply.

‘I was given to understand that everyone could amicably and in his own best interest, execute the contracts. I do not understand how deeply the rape.…’

‘The contracts will be executed! Today!’ Edward flared up.
He was immediately apologetic about his burst of anger. He had sworn years ago that he would repress any tendencies toward the sort of fury that was his father’s terrible flaw. ‘Sorry, Sal,’ Edward added, ‘I’ll find them. I’ll hand-carry the contracts. If they can’t sit down together for half an hour to get this done, I’ll see to it that they sign individually.’

‘Today?’ Dennison asked dubiously.

‘Today. Yes – that’s what I said, isn’t it? I’ll have Father’s and Aunt Trish’s signature within ten minutes. She’s
downstairs
; he’s out in the car. I’ll find Eric.’

‘And do you know where your mother is, Edward? I mean, this is quite serious, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I know how to find her,’ Edward said tightly. ‘Don’t worry, Sal, you have no idea how much I want to get this all over and done with.’

And be gone from this miserable town. And live a life in which contact with his sad, broken and damned family was limited to an exchange of Christmas cards.

Sal Dennison had reached into his desk drawer and now he removed a fresh sheaf of legal-sized documents which he pushed across the desk, his eyes cast down.

‘The commitment papers, Edward.’ Sal said, still not lifting his eyes to Edward’s.

‘Yes, yes,’ Edward said. He snatched up Dennison’s gold pen and removed the cap shakily. He signed all three copies with rapid flourish.
That
was done at least. One less thing to worry about. If the rest of this mess wasn’t resolved soon, Edward thought they might come and drag
him
off to an institution.

‘I’ll find them,’ Edward promised, picking up the stack of bound contracts to stuff them into his normally
carefully-ordered
briefcase. Then, with an unseen nod, he went out of Dennison’s office, leaving the bemused attorney to sit staring at the commitment papers Edward Tucker had just signed, before he tossed them into the wire basket on his desk with a shrug, and buzzed Sylvia to ask for coffee.

The sea was Eric’s emotional brother, his mentor. Wildly flailing and churning, ranting against the pilings of the dark pier and the never-changing, precariously brooding, black bluffs stretching far into the northern distances. It slashed bitterly against the bracings of the long, empty, desolate pier where no other soul existed. Only Eric’s own dark sea-soul – ravaged by the bitter storm – churned to wild, eternal, unpredictable motion. A single lost gull white and shrieking; an endless battering of rain and the inflexible cycle of the sea continued despite the storm. A frothing madness. An inward-rushing attempt at emotional coitus. The rebuff of the dark headlands. Some broken estuary where the tide briefly is, briefly rested and beloved sea and land could co-join. A swirl of angry tide, a hissing withdrawal from the rocky beach as it was rebuffed endlessly … sea dreams. All
they
knew of the sea was that it collected in mercury-gray tidepools when the dream-storm was ended. These were the residues of rages past, a spattering of quiescence detested for its stagnant after-soul, crowded with unspeakable, strangely flapping, quite desolate mud-colored sea life. And yet the sea
continued to rage forward, to beat its futile head against the unyielding rock.…

I am mad. If I wasn’t always mad, I am surely mad now.

Eric’s heart was beginning to slow. He had his forehead bent to the cold wooden rail at the very end of the pier.

‘I should have known better!’ he shouted into the buffeting wind. Had he actually believed anything could be different this time? Returning like a dog who has been kicked into the alley without any real memory of
transgression
.

‘
It’s a lie
,’ he said, lifting his bloody face to the icy wind. It
was
a lie! But it had been repeated so often that at times he couldn’t force himself to remember the truth. The endless repetition had transformed the accusation into truth, even in his own mind at times. Some crime committed in a dark, savagely-scarred night dream. The prisoner stands accused and is judged guilty: by his
own admission
… of dreams. The nightmare is the admission….

Eric straightened up, reached shakily for a handkerchief and wiped the blood from his lumpy face.

‘I hate you! I hate you, Raymond!
Father
.…’ he added with a twisted expression.

What bastard Fate had deposited his small soul among that twisted family?
Family
. Now that was funny. Is that what you would call a nest of mis-fitting grotesques like them? Some poison crept in their veins. Everyone said it was because of what had happened to Sarah, but that was not true. There had always been a sickness dwelling among them.

As a child, he did not think there was a night when he had gone to sleep without hearing Raymond roaring at Mother; without her shrieking back. Only Edward seemed to have survived unscathed somehow – maybe because he was always lost in his books.

‘If only I didn’t need the god-damned money.’

But he did. His adolescent ambition had been music. He had dreamed of applause, rapid acclaim, independence. But the truth, painfully discovered, was that he did not have the talent or the showmanship or the sheer perseverance to make much of that career. He had left home with the mockery ringing in his ears, to make an attempt at it; a swelling bravado in his heart. But the truth was, he had only left home to be leaving, and years of weekend gigs at cheap roadside bars had done more to complete his collapse than to free him. A dozen pairs of hands clapping almost apologetically; sleeping in a van with drugged-up
musicians
. Standing beside a muddy road somewhere in Nebraska until a truck slowed down and stopped and two bearded farm boys got out and beat him senseless, taking his last twenty dollars and his battered Gibson Les Paul guitar.

And so Cain cometh home.

And so Adam beat the shit out of him.

Original Sin: oh, yes, there is such a thing – much larger than some Biblical concept. It was all around, hovering like a stormy sky. We are all guilty … of
something
called know-not-what … just ask Sarah.

Just ask Sister Sarah.

With his hands anchored deep in his pockets, Eric started back toward the shore, the wrathful rain driving down against his back.

Finish it! Be gone…. He smiled to himself, thinking: there must be
some
place east of Eden if one could only scrape up the bus fare.

Ellen didn’t feel well at all. It had been all right earlier; fun, in fact. More fun than she had had for a long time. She had liked dancing with that crazy cowboy with the green eyes until he had started buying her straight shots of whisky. Then she had thrown up in the bathroom, losing her blue hat in the pool of toilet vomit. By the time she returned, the cowboy had taken up with a much younger blonde. That hadn’t mattered much. She didn’t want to dance anymore. She sat alone at the end of the bar trying to kill her whisky-sickness by drinking more whisky, while the sad-eyed bartender polished glasses and wondered what to do with her.

Outside it was still raining madly. Ike, the bartender, didn’t want to throw her out in this weather, nor did he want to cut her off. Sometimes people got crazy when you refused to serve them; he didn’t want anyone screaming and cursing in the bar. It was warm and peaceful inside; the Country music played softly and the atmosphere was subdued and friendly. The customers were quietly gentle; they appreciated the refuge from the storming day, it seemed. All he could do was to try to slow the lady down, the bartender decided. Water her drinks if he had to; that was
what he had been doing for a while when, sometime later, she pitched forward off her barstool and split her forehead wide open on the floor.

Shit
! Edward stood in the rain staring out along the length of the deserted pier. That was where he had hoped to find Mother and Sarah. He
had
told his mother he would pick them up there, but that was before it had started raining. Of course they would have sought shelter, but where? He should have known that today would implode, self-destruct. He walked on now through the rain which had lightened slightly. The Buick was gone when he had left to find Raymond. His father had driven off somewhere; why, God only knew.

Aunt Trish had signed the contracts with hasty anxiety, wanting to be done with all of this. That was all Edward wanted!

Finishing in Dennison’s office, he and Trish had exited the building to find the Roadmaster gone.

‘He told me he’d wait,’ Edward said in exasperation. ‘He promised me…’ he stared up the empty street.

‘I’ll go on in a cab,’ Aunt Trish had said with tight-lipped determination. ‘I can’t wait for him, wherever he is. I’m sorry, Edward. I can’t wait for him. I can’t do anything more. I’ve done all I could for this family. I’ll be waiting at the house.’

She managed to flag down a taxi within minutes and as Edward watched, the heavy-hipped woman positioned herself in the back of the cab and pulled the door shut.
Watching the yellow cab draw away from the curb, Edward wished he could be so lucky. Just go to the house, pack a suitcase and leave.

Unfortunately he had his obligations; he had to find Mother, Sarah, Eric. And now Raymond had taken off on him as well.

Shit!

There was nobody on the dark, cloud-shadowed pier but one young man walking slowly toward him…. Eric!

Edward started quickly toward his brother. His gray suit was damp and heavy on him. At first glance, Eric looked directly at him, but then seemed to be looking through or past him.

‘Eric!’ Edward shouted, meeting his brother, turning to fall in stride with Eric’s measured, unhalting steps.

‘He’s still a filthy bastard,’ Eric said without raising his eyes.

‘What?’

‘Raymond. He hasn’t changed a bit. He’s still a bastard, isn’t he?’

Edward had no intention of discussing his father’s personality.

‘Where is Mother?’ he wanted to know. ‘We have to get these documents signed today, Eric. It’s most important.’

‘I haven’t seen the old doll,’ Eric said with a haphazard smile. ‘But wait…!’ He stopped in his tracks. They had reached the blue-trimmed white bait-house at the foot of the pier. ‘God! I think I saw Sarah, Edward. I went right by her.’

‘She was alone?’ Edward was shocked, fearful.

‘Yes…’ Eric amended that quickly, ‘without Mother, that is. But she was with some guy.…’

‘
What
guy?’

‘I don’t know,’ Eric said weakly, ‘some guy.’ The rain had begun to fall more heavily again. Far out at sea, thunder grumbled. They had to yell to be heard.

‘You didn’t stop her?’ Edward demanded angrily. ‘You know your sister. She can’t be out there wandering around alone, for Christ’s sake!’

‘It didn’t register. Edward. It really didn’t. After that fight with Raymond … maybe I was concussed or
something
, but it just didn’t register. I was on another planet for a while, you know? If she’d been with Mother, yeah, it would have registered. But it just didn’t.…’

‘All right,’ Edward interrupted harshly. ‘It didn’t register. Your own problems were too important for you to be concerned about your sister.’

‘It wasn’t like that! Edward….’ Eric was genuinely distressed. The brothers faced each other through the mesh of driving rain for a long silent minute.

‘OK,’ Edward said with a deep sigh, ‘where did you see her?’

‘Three, four blocks up that way. Where’s your car?’

‘I have no idea,’ Edward answered woodenly. ‘We’ll walk. We can’t get any wetter. Let’s find Sarah first, all right?’

‘Sure.’

They started up the sloping, narrow road toward the avenue where Eric had seen Sarah. Neither spoke; there
was nothing to say, and the buffeting wind made normal conversation impossible. Directed by Eric’s occasionally pointing finger, Edward slogged along in his heavy suit, briefcase in hand, continually, proficiently, and
energetically
cursing the day, his fate and his family.