You’re a step or two behind me. Let me do the talking. Dick, you limp on that ankle of yours more’n you have to.’
‘What’s the hat for?’ I asked.
‘So’s I can take it off,’ he said, almost indignantly, like I was the stupe of stupes. ‘Anyone want to make a bet?’
Dick and I looked at each other.
‘What kind of a bet?’ I said cautiously.
‘I’ll bet you a sawbuck her name is Rose, Opal, Pearl, Minnie, Faith, Hope, or Charity.’
‘Okay,’ Fleming said. ‘I’ll take you. It’s got to be Rose, Opal, Pearl, Minnie, Faith, Hope, or Charity, or you owe me ten — right?’
‘Right,’ Donohue said. ‘Let’s go.’
We got out of the car. Closed the doors to keep in the air conditioning. We walked slowly up the driveway to the porch. The woman in the rocking chair watched us approach. Very calm. That chair didn’t pause or vary its rhythm for a second. As we came closer, I saw that she was a big woman in her mid-sixties. Tall rather than full. Almost gaunt. A face like an axe blade. Strong hands. Eyes as clear as water. Wearing an old-fashioned poke bonnet, calico housedress, thick elastic stockings. The shoes were unusual: unbuckled combat boots from World War II. She was chewing something placidly. Gum or tobacco or whatever. (I learned later it was a wad of tar, which she was convinced would make her remaining teeth whiter.)
As we came up to the porch, Donohue motioned Dick and me to stop. He put a foot lightly on the bottom step of the three stairs leading up to the porch.
‘Afternoon, ma’am,’ Jack said, taking off his hat with what I can only describe as a courtly gesture.
She nodded, quite regally.
‘Hot,’ she said, fanning herself. ‘For this time of year.’
‘Yes’m,’ Donohue agreed, ‘it surely is. Ma’am, my name is Sam Morrison. This lovely lady is my good wife, Beatrice. And this other feller is my brother, Dick. Richard, that is. We’re all from Macon, y’know? Well, we’re heading south for a couple of weeks. Figure to do some fishing down in the Florida Keys. But Dick, he up and sprained his ankle just this morning. You saw him limping? Nothing serious, the doc says, but keep the weight offen it a day or more. So we’re in no hurry and figured we’d just rest up awhile and give Dick’s ankle a chance to heal. Him being in pain, and all. So what we were wondering is this: if you could fit us out with two rooms, me and my wife in one, my brother in the other, like for a few days, a week at most? No trouble, no wild parties, oh no, ma’am, nothing like that. We all been working hard. This is our vacation. Rest is all we want, ma’am. Peaceful rest.’
The rocker never stopped. The waving palm leaf fan never stopped. She and Jack Donohue looked at each other. It seemed to me the silence lasted for an eternity. But out there in that deserted countryside, I figured absolute silence was normal: no cicadas, no birdcalls, no passing traffic, no airliners overhead. Nothing.
The stare between Donohue and the woman in the rocking chair never wavered. It was like they were talking to each other with their eyes. I didn’t understand it.
‘Sam Morrison, you said?’ she asked.
‘That’s right, ma’am,’ Donohue said gently. ‘I’m born and bred from up Macon way. My wife and brother, they’re from up north.’
She nodded as if it were the most natural thing in the world that a man from ‘up Macon way’ would have a wife and brother from the north.
‘Ten dollars a day,’ she said, still fanning her sharp face. ‘Per person. That includes breakfast. You all‘11 have to go into town for your other meals. The food ain’t great at Hoxey’s there, but it’s filling. For a week or so. No cooking in your rooms. I don’t hold with hard liquor, but if you want to drink in your rooms, quiet-like, I’m not one to complain. Ice cubes in the kitchen refrigerator. I got myself a TV in the parlor if you’re wanting. You’re welcome to watch.’
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Jack said softly, taking out his wallet. ‘That sounds just grand — a nice quiet place where we can rest up, and my brother, he can let his ankle get good again. And what’s your name, ma’am, if I may ask?’
‘Mrs Pearl Sniffins,’ she said firmly.
From slightly behind me I heard Dick Fleming’s low groan.
‘You can pull in behind the garage,’ she went on. ‘The drive curves around to the back. Plenty of room in there. Just my old Plymouth. A few chickens. One goat. Two hounds. They won’t cause no trouble.’
‘We’ll take care, ma’am,’ Donohue assured her. ‘I’d like to pay in advance. IsMrSniffins …?’
‘Mr Sniffins has passed on.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am,’ Jack Donohue said, hanging his head. ‘But it’s a glory to know he has gone to his reward.’
‘I hope so,’ she said grimly.
Those rooms we stayed in for eight days in the tourist home outside Whittier, Georgia, really belonged in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum. I don’t mean they were furnished with valuable antiques or in exquisite taste. But they were a touching reminder of how middle-class rural Americans lived fifty years ago.
Wide, waxed floorboards. Gossamer, hand-hemmed curtains at the generous windows. Maple furniture with a high gloss. Beds with spindle posts. Armchairs covered in flowered cretonne. Pressed ferns framed on the white walls. Oval rag rugs on the floors.
And all so neat, clean, and glowing that I felt like weeping. Because there was nothing chic, smart, or trendy about those rooms. They were just reminders of what home had once meant. The light filtering through those gauzy curtains seemed to infuse the old rooms with young beauty. They smelled faintly of lavender sachet, and sounded of peace, security, and a sense of the continuum of life.
It was all so different from the speed, violence, loud noise, and sudden death of the preceding days. We were doused in peace, lulled by it. We had almost forgotten a world without fear.
I don’t mean that the past was wiped away. But we did begin to forget.
We carried all our luggage upstairs to the larger of the two rooms assigned to us. There were three other bedrooms on the second floor, all empty, and one enormous bathroom with a tub on legs and a toilet seat with a needlepoint cover.
‘Mrs Pearl says she finds it hard to make the stairs,’ Donohue told us. ‘Arthritis. So she sleeps downstairs on a sofa in the parlor. Got a john down there. A colored lady comes in once a week to clean up for her.’ He looked at Dick Fleming meaningfully, ‘That’s Mrs
‘You son of a bitch,’ Dick said ruefully, handing over the ten dollars. ‘How did you know?’
Black Jack pocketed the bill.
‘Sucker!’ he said. ‘One born every minute. This is my
‘And your mother?’ I asked curiously.
‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘Not my mother.’
We were all in the larger bedroom then, not yet having faced the problem of who was going to sleep with whom, and where. The fact that we had the entire second floor to ourselves simplified things, or complicated them. But I wasn’t worried; just curious.
I sat in one of those neat armchairs. It was equipped with a crocheted antimacassar, naturally. And how long has it been since you’ve seen one of those things? The two men sat on the edge of the bed. It was covered with a patchwork quilt that looked like Betsy Ross had had a hand in it, after she knocked off Old Glory.
When the men sat down, the bed sang and rustled beneath them. Donohue was amused and patted the coverlet with his palm.
‘Straw-filled mattress,’ he explained. ‘Great sleeping — if the noise doesn’t keep you awake. I’ll bet she bought the material and sewed up the tick herself, then stuffed it. A great old lady.’
‘And what a con job you did on her,’ Dick said. ‘She went for it hook, line, and sinker.’
Jack turned slowly to look at him.
‘Think so? Think again, sonny. She knows we’re on the run.’
I gaped at him.
‘Jack,’ I said, ‘how in hell would she know that? Your spiel sounded believable to me. I thought she went for it.’
