“Yes.”
“When?”
“I can’t go till-” He broke off. “Soon. I’ll go soon.” His eyes narrowed as he stared into the sink. “I’ve got something to do. One last thing, then I’ll get out and never come back.”
He went upstairs, and when Beth came down a few moments later I carried her martini and my Scotch into the bacchante room. The sofa had been taken away to be recovered, and we sat on either side of the fireplace, she in the Salem rocker, I in a Windsor ladder-back.
“The Widow says Kate can come down for a little while tomorrow,” she said, rubbing her finger around the edge of the glass.
“That’s good.”
“But only for an hour or so.”
“Fine.”
The Tiffany clock ticked, filling the silence between us.
“Beth.”
“Mm?”
“Why are you acting this way?”
“I’m not acting any way. I just-”
“Just what?”
“I just didn’t think it was possible.”
“Possible for what?”
“Possible for you-” She took a sip of her drink. “Please, Ned, I don’t want to fight-”
“I don’t want to either. There’s nothing to fight about.”
“Then can’t we leave it at that? Kate’s going to be all right and-”
“Yes. Kate’s going to be all right. But are we?”
“Yes. I guess so. I don’t know.”
“Look at me.” She raised her head and returned my gaze. “I went to Tamar Penrose’s, yes. But nothing happened. I promise you that nothing happened.”
“Then it must have been a wasted visit.” She drank again, and asked, “Why
“I didn’t go with her, I went with the kid-Missy. I-” I broke off. How could I explain to her why I had gone with Missy that afternoon? Or what it was I was trying to find out from her. Or my fears, which I considered foolish ones but which, nonetheless, I had failed to rid myself of. “It’s true,” I maintained stolidly. I felt hot and confused, hating the distance between us, wishing we could put down our glasses and hold each other. “It’s true,” I said again.
“You went home with a little girl at six o’clock in the evening? For what possible reason?”
“To find out something.”
“From a thirteen-year-old child?” Her smile was the one she used when she wanted me to feel like a fool. And I did. How could I tell her about the red pointing finger, the mad child prophesying in her mother’s kitchen, the bloody chicken, guts spilled all over the floor?
“She fell out of a tree-I went to see if she was all right-I followed her-we were sitting on the porch, in the swing. We were playing cat’s cradle-”
“Ned.”
“It’s true. She tied my hands. Tamar came home.”
“Tamar…”
“What should I call her-Miss Penrose?”
“That’s what you used to call her. Until things got on a different-footing.”
I rose angrily. “Look, I’m trying to tell you the truth. I’m trying to tell you what happened.”
“You said nothing did.”
“It didn’t.”
“I didn’t bother saving your shirt. I threw it out.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t feel required to sew back the buttons some other woman had ripped off my husband’s clothing in her eagerness to avail herself of his body.”
“I kissed her.”
“Once.”
“No-”
“More than once.”
“Yes-”
“And you had a few drinks and got a little stinko, and she was there and she was so inviting you couldn’t help yourself-isn’t that the way it went?”
“I__”
“You couldn’t help yourself. The male instinct. Loin lust. What did you do about the child?”
“She wasn’t there. She went out.”
“Nice. The mother sends the child out to play while she-”
I crashed my glass into the fireplace to silence her. “You can believe me or not, however you choose, but I’ll say it once more. Nothing happened beyond a couple of drinks and a kiss.”
“I’d better get a broom,” she said.
I watched her go into the kitchen, and above the ticking of the clock I heard Kate coughing upstairs. I took my car keys from the hook and left the house.
When I got home, it was after three o’clock in the morning. I tiptoed into the kitchen and put two quart cartons into the refrigerator, turned off the light Beth had left for me, and moved up the stairway. Outside Kate’s door, I stopped and listened. I could hear the sound of her easy breathing. I went across the hall and opened the door to our bedroom. Beth was asleep in the four-poster bed. The light on the bureau was still burning. I undressed, and laid my things on the chair. For some reason I was thinking of Cassandra, the prophetess of Troy. Having spurned the love of Apollo, it had been given to her to speak with his tongue, but, speaking, it had been her fate that no one should believe her. But the hollow horse came, and the walls of Ilium were tumbled.
And the walls of Cornwall Coombe? It was Missy Penrose’s fate that everyone should believe her, every last villager. I switched off the light. Outside, there was no moon. All was still and dark. A quiet night. I wondered what and who could make it “all-prevailing.”
19
Even after I had had only four hours’ sleep, the yellow bird managed to wake me the following morning at my accustomed hour. I could hear Beth in the shower, and when she emerged from the bathroom, pink and flushed, I wanted to pull her back into bed. She put on her robe, removed the towel she had wrapped around her, and sat at the dressing table brushing her hair.
“Morning,” I said.
“Good morning.” From her tone, I felt it was not. I yawned widely.
“You’d better roll over and have another six hours.”
“Why?”
“You didn’t get very much last night.”
“No.”
She brushed crisply for ten or so strokes. “I suppose the urge was irresistible.”
“No.”
“What, then?”
“I went for a drive.”
“Oh?” She gave me a look in the mirror. “Till three in the morning?”
