The Unforgiven (29 page)

Evy’s car rolled slowly out of the lot where she had parked and began to trail, at a distance, the old black Buick. Evy automatically prepared for the left-hand turn which led to the road out of town. However, just before the turn for the Midland Road, the Buick swerved right, down the road to the ferry. Perplexed and angered by the unexpected turn, Evy hesitated for a moment. Then, at a cautious distance, she followed.

•   •   •

Maggie debated with herself for a moment before deciding to leave the keys in the ignition.
Who would steal it?
she thought.
Someone will drive it back to Thornhill’s.

She was trying to think of everything, but the agitation she felt made it difficult to focus her thoughts. Her hands twitched as she riffled her pocketbook for the third time.

“Wallet,” she said aloud. “Money, address book, makeup case.” She touched each item as she named it. There was a steady throb of anxiety in her throat. “Keys,” she said. “Leave the keys.” With trembling fingers she wrested the jingling house keys from her purse and left them on the dashboard.

“There,” she said. Looking up through the raindrop prisms that covered the windshield, she could see the lights of the ferry beaming out across the water as the boat rocked through the waves toward the dock. The sight of the boat steadied her.

She forced herself to take a mental inventory of her belongings at the Thornhill house. She felt compelled to marshal a complete image of what she was leaving behind. It was a meager picture. Some old clothes. A few books. The objects shifted, kaleidoscopically, in the tumult of her thoughts. Nothing irreplaceable except, perhaps, Jess’s gift of perfume, she decided. Let it go.

Maggie opened the car door, clutching her purse, and stepped out into the storm. The wind shoved her back against the car. She put her shoulder to the wind
and watched the boat come, moving slowly through the stormy swells of the sea.
Hurry,
she urged it on impatiently. She was oblivious to the water that streamed down her face and neck.

Tonight I’ll stay in a hotel,
she thought. Tomorrow she would go somewhere else. Another town, anywhere but here.

I am so tired.
The image of Jess’s face, now lost to her for good, crowded into her thoughts.
I just need to get away from here. Start again.

Start again? Doubt hissed in her ear. Rain trickled down her cheeks. She screwed up her face and covered her ears with her fists. Her mind was made up. A foggy blast of the boat’s whistle penetrated her clenched hands. The boat hit the dock with a clunk that could be heard over the roar of the storm. Clutching her coat tightly around her, Maggie began to run toward the lights of the steamship office.

The young man in a gray shirt behind the counter was pulling down a plastic partition which closed his window as she threw open the door and ran up to him. Maggie began to bang on the plastic. Hesitantly he raised it up enough to hear her.

“I need a ticket for the last boat out.”

“Sorry, lady,” he said, gesturing toward the dock. “That was it. No more boats tonight.”

“But I have to leave.”

“Not tonight. Sea’s too rough. Tomorrow morning, if the storm lets up.” The young man began to lower the plastic shield down between them.

“Wait a minute,” Maggie insisted. “There’s a schedule
right here that says there’s one more boat out tonight.” She poked her finger at the posted timetable.

The young man shook his head. “Can’t help the weather,” he said.

“Listen,” Maggie cried, thrusting her hands beneath the plastic barrier and trying to force it upward. “It’s very important. It’s an emergency.”

The young man glared at her. “Let go of that.”

“Please,” she said, clinging to the shield.

For a moment the young man fumed visibly. Then he turned to a bald, heavyset man who was seated at a desk behind the counter. “Hey, Tom,” he said, in a voice which called for reinforcements, “we got a problem here…”

Maggie turned and ran outside. A few cars were still issuing slowly from the belly of the boat as several passengers straggled down the swaying gangplank to the dock. Recklessly, she ran toward the knot of crewmen who were shepherding the last passengers out and preparing to close the ship down for the night.

“Wait, please!”

The mariners observed the woman running toward them, her arms waving, seemingly unconscious of the rain soaking her clothes and hair.

She grabbed onto the jacket of one of the men who was directing the operation. “Please,” she gasped. “I have to leave tonight.”

The swarthy-complected man laughed, and his teeth gleamed in the darkness of the night. “Hey, lady, don’t you see it’s raining?” His bright smile faded as he looked into her eyes. “What’s the matter with you?” The other
men paused in their work and looked on curiously.

“The schedule says there’s one more boat out tonight,” she stammered. “I have to be on it.”

“I’m sorry, dear,” said the sailor, kindly patting the hand that clutched his sleeve. “You’re gonna have to wait until morning.”

“No, I can’t,” she cried, pulling away from him. “I have to leave tonight.”

A look of consternation softened his pock-scarred face. “Somebody’s sick over there?” he asked soothingly in a singsong voice, pointing over his shoulder toward the mainland. “It’ll be all right. These things happen. But we can’t go tonight. It’s bad out there.”

A wild, unreasoning fear shone in Maggie’s eyes. “You have to help me,” she whispered. “I’ll pay you.” By now the other crewmen were clustered around them.

“I can’t help you,” the man explained. “There,” he said, relief flooding into his voice. “There’s the captain. You tell him all about it.”

Maggie whirled around and saw a bulky man in a squashed captain’s cap walking toward them. She raced over to the man and blocked his path.

“Captain,” she pleaded, trying to keep her voice from rising out of the realm of the rational. “I realize that there is a storm, and that it’s a bad night out, but I have to leave this island tonight, and the schedule calls for one more trip.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. We can’t go back out there.”

“You have to,” Maggie screamed. “You have to make another trip. You can’t keep me a prisoner here!”

Taken aback, the man stared at Maggie, whose taut veins stood out on her neck and forehead. Her eyes blazed in furious protest. He raised his hands as if to ward her off.

Turning away from him, Maggie began to run blindly down the slick dock toward the ferry, which was rolling giddily in the outsize waves. Her leather soles slipped and slid on the dock as she stumbled toward it. She had to get on board the boat. She felt that if she could just climb into the vessel she would be safe. She could hear the voices of the men behind her crying out in protest as she ran. She spotted a man still working on the lower deck in the cavernous belly of the boat.
If I can just get in there,
she thought,
they’ll have to take me.

“Come back here!” they cried.

Ignoring their yells, she scrambled toward the yawning hull. In the darkness she did not see the rope coiled on the dock, which the crewman inside the ship was winding on a pulley. She ran toward the ship’s open portals. The whizzing rope caught her ankle and twisted around it. She felt the shocking jerk, and then she fell. Her head smacked against a stanchion. Stunned, she crumpled, arms still extended, to the shining boards of the gangway.

21

Maggie was floating. Semiconscious, she drifted peacefully in a narcotic cocoon. But gradually, through her blissful state, she became aware of an uncomfortable dryness in her mouth. She ran the rough, sticky surface of her tongue over her cracked lips. Her mouth felt gummy but not relieved by the gesture. All at once, the cool, nubby surface of wet terry cloth pressed up against her lips. Maggie sucked greedily at the damp fabric and forced her eyes open to seek her benefactor.

“Don’t swallow the washcloth,” Owen scolded her, tugging it away from her.

“Owen,” she whispered.

“Hi.” The large, bearded man sat back in the chair beside the bed, then dropped the washcloth in a plastic basin on the bedside table. Maggie looked around the room and recognized the pale walls and sterile fixtures of a hospital. Her head ached, and she felt weary.

“What am I doing here?”

“Well, from what I heard, you were injured while trying to hijack a ferry last night.”

Maggie winced more at the memory of her actions than at the pain in her head.

“You weren’t really hurt,” Owen went on. “Just a
bump. I believe the medical reason for your admission was exhaustion.”

“I was trying to get away,” she explained.

“So I heard. I shouldn’t have left you alone last night. Anyone could see you were wiped out.”

“It wasn’t your fault. It was just… everything that’s happened. I just couldn’t take it. I tried to run…”

“It’s been rough,” Owen observed.

“Yes.”

“You really cared for him.”

Maggie nodded.

Owen sighed. “I could see you were hurting. I don’t know. I just needed a drink. I had to, you know… absorb it.”

“I know you did,” Maggie said. “Please, don’t blame yourself. It was me. I just felt like something terrible was happening to me again. It’s the same thing, all over again. I fall in love with a man, and the next thing you know.… Well, I just had to get away from here.”

“You were reacting to all the strain,” said Owen. “You’re worn out.”

“I guess you’re right. To tell you the truth, I’m still exhausted. Although I must have been sleeping for hours. All kinds of dreams. What time is it, anyway?”

“You have been. It’s five o’clock.”

Maggie’s eyes drooped closed for a moment. Then she looked up at her guest. “I want to get out of here, Owen. I need to get away from here. Every time I think of Jess.…” Her voice caught on the name. She cleared her throat and twisted her head on the pillow.

Owen stood up and rearranged the water glass and
pitcher by her bed. “I guess they’re going to spring you tomorrow morning. The doctor’ll be by to talk to you.”

Maggie made an effort to compose her face. “Okay,” she said.

“Anything I can get you before I leave?” he asked.

“Don’t go yet.”

“I don’t want to tire you. Do you have a way to get home tomorrow?”

Maggie shook her head and smiled bleakly. “Home,” she said.

“Why don’t I come get you?” he said.

“You don’t have to.”

“I don’t mind,” he said. “I’ll call you later on to see what time to come.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yeah,” said Owen, pulling on his parka, which added an extra layer to his already formidable girth. “Now I’m off.”

Maggie watched him as he left the room, holding back the door for the nurse who was entering with a tray of miniature paper cups filled with pills.

“Here we go,” said the nurse. “How are you feeling?”

Distracted by the nurse’s bustling, Maggie did not see her friend disappear until she looked up and the door was closed behind him.

Owen scraped his boots on the welcome mat and hung his coat on the rack in the hall. A few slips of paper were piled up on the telephone table beside the staircase. He walked over, picked them up, and began to leaf through them. Just then Mireille appeared in the
doorway wearing her winter coat, a brightly flowered scarf tied around her head.

“Oh,” she gasped, then broke out in a trilling laugh. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I just got here,” he replied.

“How’s your friend?” Mireille asked in a suggestive tone.

“Improved,” Owen said firmly. “What’s for dinner?”

“It’s in the oven,” said Mireille, gesturing back toward the kitchen. “It’s a casserole. Turn it to three-fifty for forty minutes. It’s one you like.”

“A surprise?” Owen asked, a trace of sarcasm in his voice.

“Yeah, I gotta run,” Mireille replied happily.

Owen grunted and returned to his messages.

“Hey,” said Mireille, stopping at the threshold. “You got an important call before.”

Owen held up the slips. “Which?”

“It’s in there,” she said. “Some secretary from
Life
Magazine. Editor wants you in New York first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow?”

“That’s what she said. Read the message.”

“Are they going to do my wild bird series?” Owen asked eagerly.

“I don’t know. That’s all she said.”

“I’ll bet that’s it. I should call them back,” Owen muttered. He glanced at his watch. “They’ve probably all gone home by now. Damn.”

“I gotta go,” Mireille insisted. “I got a Mother of Mercy Guild meeting tonight.”

“Go ahead,” Owen murmured, his forehead furrowed in thought.

“Shall I come anyway tomorrow?” she asked.

“I’ll have to get on the early boat, and then fly from the mainland. Catch the seven thirty plane,” he thought aloud.

“Tomorrow?” Mireille repeated.

Owen looked up. “Don’t bother tomorrow.”

Mireille grinned. “Okay. Have a good trip.” She waved good-bye as she backed out the door.

Owen stood in the hallway, staring down at the message in his hand.
How about that?
he thought.

The gentle clacking of blinds being lowered roused Maggie from the stupor through which she had been drifting. She looked around the room and saw the white expanse of the nurse’s back as she neatly wound the cord from the blinds around the bracket in the wall.

“What time is it?” Maggie asked groggily.

The nurse did not turn around but continued to busy herself with changing the water and arranging the bedclothes in the empty bed next to Maggie’s. “It’s almost seven thirty,” she replied briskly.

“All I do is sleep,” Maggie complained.

“That’s what you’re here for,” said the nurse, coming around to her bedside and plopping a piece of pale green paper and pencil down on the blanket she had tucked in around Maggie.

“What’s this?”

“Tomorrow’s menu,” said the nurse. “Check off what you want from the kitchen.”

Maggie held out the paper and pencil to her. “Oh, no. I won’t be needing this. I’m leaving tomorrow morning.” The nurse eyed her skeptically.