The Road Through the Wall (26 page)

•   •   •

It wasn't safe behind the wall where a brick might fall on him, and yet Tod was afraid to move anywhere else, with people going all up and down the block, flashing lights and talking to one another. Tod thought they were looking for him, and yet there had never been this much fuss made over him before in his life, and the principal reason he had not run out and said “Here I am,” was his fear of the sudden surprise and the humiliating laughter when they saw him and realized that he thought they were looking for him.

It was cold behind the wall, and Tod kept turning his eyes nervously sideways to see if any of his slight movements had loosened a brick that might come plunging downward; it was like the night he hid in the bushes and heard Hester talking to his brother. James was not visible in the street now; Tod had only been behind the wall for a few minutes and so did not know that his family sat within the walls of their house, all together in one room. What did occur to him was that in any case no one in his family would bother to look for him.

He could see Mr. Ransom-Jones, and Mr. Merriam; they had stood together like that, talking, for a few minutes at the party. Tod had left the party without saying good-bye to Mrs. Ransom-Jones; while leaving stealthily was a social error, technically he was still at the party until he told Mrs. Ransom-Jones that he had had a lovely time. For a minute Tod was prepared to step out from behind the wall and find Mrs. Ransom-Jones, and then he cowered back again. He was safer where he was. But it was long past his bedtime.

He heard voices nearby and looked out carefully to see Mr. and Mrs. Roberts going past across the street. “Too damn drunk to go out with the other men,” Mrs. Roberts was saying.

It was a long time after that; Tod had finally figured out a way to sit down, and had perhaps fallen asleep with his head against the wall, but he looked out suddenly and the street was empty. Not a person, not a light outside. He waited to see if anyone came, and then slipped out from behind the wall and ran, across Cortez Road and on to the sidewalk again in front of Miss Fielding's, quickly past Miss Fielding's, jumping almost automatically, as he had done so many times before, over the broken spot in the sidewalk, past the house-for-rent, dark and asleep against the heavy pines that almost hid his own house from him; he stopped, horrified, when he saw that there were lights in his house; were they, could they be waiting up for him?

He went quietly around to the back door, hesitated there till he was sure everything was quiet, and then turned the knob cautiously. It opened, and he slid inside through a narrow opening, closed it softly without trying to make sure that it latched, and then eased himself, step by silent step, up the back stairs. Once in the upstairs hall, familiar and lighted and warm and safe, he could not go slowly any longer but raced for his bed, the pillow, the covers over his head.

Downstairs in the living-room James looked upward, said, “Did I hear something?” looked around at his mother, no longer crying, his father reading, Virginia twisting a lock of hair in her fingers, and rose, saying, “Might as well look again.” He went upstairs and, outside the door of the room he shared with his brother, said, “Toddie?”

“What?” Toddie said from the bed.

“Christ!” James said, and ran to the head of the stairs, yelling downward, “He's here, everyone! I found him!”

As his mother and father and sister started up the stairs James yelled again, “Virginia, get the Desmonds, hurry!”

•   •   •

The policeman looked like a doctor, like a dentist, like the man at the movie theatre who wanted to know how old you were before he let you in for half-price. Except that he wore a uniform fascinatingly official, he looked at you in the same way, as though he knew things about you he was not going to tell and yet was going to hurt you anyway, of his own accord, whether you wanted him to or not, like the dentist. Or as though there were no way of getting out of it, and he knew best anyway, like the doctor. Or as though he hated everybody who was legally under twelve, the way the man at the movies looked.

Many people had been in and out of the dining-room where Tod sat with the policeman; James looking stern, and Tod's mother and father, and unrecognizable people who looked at Tod as though this were their house and not his. Finally he sat there alone with the policeman—the dentist, the doctor—wondering what was going to happen to him.

“All right,” the policeman said finally, leaning back in his chair, the dining-room chair where Mr. Donald sat every night. “All right.”

Tod stared; when they brought him into the dining-room he had gone directly to his own chair, and he sat there now, his legs wrapped around the rungs, his hands in his lap.

“All right,” the policeman said. “Let's hear all about it.”

Tod shook his head numbly; if he opened his mouth the man might start drilling his teeth, if he moved his arm the man might seize it and puncture him with a needle.

“Scared?” the policeman said. “I'm not surprised. Just tell me what happened.”

Tod shook his head again, and the policeman looked at him, bright cold eyes waiting. “You're going to have to tell me, sonny,” the policeman said. “You might as well start.”

You're going to have to. . . . The familiar words stirred in Tod's mind, and he moved as though to stand up, but the policeman held out a hand and Tod sat still.

“Look,” the policeman said, his voice a little harder, “about an hour or so ago two policemen and—” he looked down at a piece of paper in front of him—“your friend Patrick Byrne went up to the creek and they found the little girl up there, so we know all about it now. You just tell me what happened.”

Patrick Byrne. That would be Pat. Down on the little piece of paper.

“No one wants to frighten you,” the policeman said. He leaned forward and pointed his pencil toward Tod, now like, most horribly, the school superintendent. “This is a serious thing. I want you to realize that. Tell me how you killed that little girl.”

Tod gasped; once he had been caught copying from his book in an exam.

“Listen, sonny,” the policeman said, “we're going to put you in jail.”

Without waiting, he stood up after this, and said, gathering his papers together, “Don't try to run away again. I'm going to leave you here for a little while to think about all this. When you decide to tell me all about it you let me know.” He went out the living-room door, his big back stern and unforgiving and angry as the door closed behind him.

•   •   •

He was gone longer than he intended, nearly an hour, but Mr. Desmond, crying now, detained him in the hall, and when he came back Tod was dead.

He had taken a piece of clothesline from the kitchen, and his own chair to stand on, the one he sat on every night at dinner. Hanging, his body was straighter than it had ever been in life.

The policeman stood for a minute just inside the door, looking at Tod and flipping his thumbnail across the papers he still held in his hand. “Well,” he said in a great gusty breath, and, finally, “That settles
that,”
he said.

•   •   •

Harriet Merriam woke up the next morning with a recollection of disaster. Looking around her sunny room with her head still on the pillow, she searched for the source of the flat dead feeling inside her, the knowledge of despair. Something had happened. She remembered slowly; standing in the street she remembered clearly, and coming home alone to bed in the darkness, and, before that, the people in the street, and Mr. Desmond. Mr. Desmond was part of it, she remembered then, and at last it came to her: he was standing laughing in the kitchen when she went by, following Miss Tyler into the house to hear . . .
fat
.

The ugly, the sickening word came back to her, spoken in Miss Tyler's small voice: fat. Harriet looked down at herself under the bedclothes; she was gross, a revolting series of huge mountains, a fat fat fat girl.

She turned her head from side to side on the pillow, her eyes shut so as not to see herself. You'll always be fat, she thought, never pretty, never charming, never dainty. In an ecstasy of shame she searched for every pretty word she knew; she would never be any of them.

Finally she sat up in bed, tears on her cheeks, and looked out of the window. Outside were the eucalyptus trees, like lace against the sky. If it were only possible to lie against them, light and bodiless, sink into their softness, deeper and deeper, lost in them, buried, never come back again. . . .

•   •   •

“Sure I saw it,” Pat said. He closed his eyes. “It was awful,” he said.

Marilyn smiled involuntarily, and said urgently, “Well, what was it
like
?
”

“Awful,” Pat said vividly. “All blood, and dirty. It was awful.”

“Was the rock there?” Jamie Roberts asked with respect.

“Sure. I nearly touched it,” Pat said, and the children sighed, all together. “It was all covered with blood,” he said.

“Golly,” Jamie said. He folded his arms and stared wistfully. “I
wish
I'd been there,” he said.

“Yeah,” Pat said scornfully, “you wouldn't have liked it much, I can tell you. Boy,” he said reminiscently, “it was sure awful.”

“Listen, Pat,” Mary said, “listen, was she
awful
? I mean, all bloody?”

Pat made an expressive face. “There was blood all over
every
thing,” he said. “I nearly got some on my
shoe.”

“Oooh,” Marilyn said, her face all screwed up, “Pat, you're
terrible
!
”

•   •   •

Mr. Merriam, walking slowly by the creek in the first dusk, met and recognized Mr. Perlman by the fallen log. They smiled embarrassedly at one another and then stood together, looking out beyond the creek over the golf course.

“I was just looking around,” Mr. Merriam said. “I just had an idea I'd kind of like to look around.” He laughed uncomfortably. “Suppose the police have covered everything pretty thoroughly,” he said.

“I suppose so,” Mr. Perlman said. “Doesn't seem quite right, does it?”

“That's what I thought,” Mr. Merriam said. “It just doesn't seem quite right.”

“He was too small, for one thing,” Mr. Perlman said eagerly. “You can't tell me a boy that small could heft a rock that big. Stands to reason.”

“No,” Mr. Merriam said quietly. “No, I thought of that.”

“Just isn't possible,” Mr. Perlman said. “And another thing, he came home. Wouldn't have done that.”

“You know,” Mr. Merriam confided, “Desmond's been saying the kid had blood all over his clothes. Well, now, I was one of the people saw Tod when he came home.” Mr. Merriam paused for effect, and then said, “There was not one spot of blood on him. Not a spot.”

“Well, then, that's another thing,” Mr. Perlman said. “He'd have gotten some blood on him, wouldn't he?”

“You know what I think?” Mr. Merriam said, “I think it was a tramp. Some Godforsaken old bum just hanging around down here. Never did like the kids playing up here, it's a natural place for tramps to hang out.”

“Something in that,” Mr. Perlman said. “Marilyn's been playing up here; I don't like to think what might have happened.”

“My kid too,” Mr. Merriam said.

They were both quiet for a minute, looking at the silent trees and the deserted golf course. Then Mr. Perlman said, “At any rate, the whole thing was too hasty. Far too hasty. Everyone jumping to conclusions.”

“Take my word for it, it was some tramp,” Mr. Merriam said.

•   •   •

“
I
think they're not telling all they know,” Mrs. Merriam said. She nodded emphatically, and Mrs. Byrne said in her comfortable voice, “I don't blame the poor people for not wanting any more fuss, after all.”

“
I
think,” Mrs. Merriam said, leaning forward to emphasize her point, “that when you get a young boy like Tod, who's obviously, well, not
right
, somehow, taking a little girl like that off into a deserted spot. . . . Well.” She nodded again and leaned back.

“Really,” Mrs. Byrne said. She stirred uneasily, and Mrs. Merriam said, “More tea, Mrs. Byrne?” Mrs. Byrne held up a hand in refusal. Mrs. Merriam gave a muffled little laugh, and said, “You'd think I invited you just to talk about this dreadful affair, Mrs. Byrne, but really I can't
help
thinking about it all the time. It's so fresh in all our minds, I suppose, and then it makes you so
mad
to think of him getting off so easy.”

“Easy?” Mrs. Byrne said, startled.

“Well,” Mrs. Merriam said, flustered, “you know what I mean. Of course, the way he . . . did it, without telling anything first, is as good as a confession. But they should have gotten the
facts
first.”

“He was such a quiet little thing all the time,” Mrs. Byrne said. “Seems funny to think about him having gumption enough to go and get the rope, and—”

“Don't,” Mrs. Merriam said with a shiver. “I can't even think about it.”

“Well, now, Pat, my son, he was there,” Mrs. Byrne said. “He went with the policemen that found the . . . that found her. Not that I think he
should
have been along.” She looked at Mrs. Merriam, and Mrs. Merriam rolled her eyes in horrified agreement. “Well,” Mrs. Byrne continued, “Pat seemed to think it was like an accident. Like she fell against this rock and hit her head, and Tod saw he couldn't help her and got frightened, and no wonder.”

Mrs. Merriam said, “No, indeed, that could
not
have happened, Mrs. Byrne. Think about that boy, think about how he acted all the time. He was always strange, I remember myself, noticing how strange he always was. And then think about the facts they're not giving out. Mark my words,” Mrs. Merriam said, “even if that killing was an accident, there were other things about it that
were not
accidental.” She tightened her lips and looked triumphant.