Salem's Lot

Mike, Mom?’

But Mrs Norton was not to be sidetracked so quickly. ‘Nonetheless, there’s some that think we’ve had a little too much excitement in ‘salem’s Lot since Mr Ben Mears showed his face. A little too much altogether.’

‘That’s foolishness!’ Susan said, exasperated. ‘Now, what did Mike-’

‘They haven’t decided that yet,’ Mrs Norton said. She twirled her ball of yarn and let out slack. ‘There’s some that think he may have caught a disease from the little Glick boy.’

‘If so, why hasn’t anyone else caught it? Like his folks?’

‘Some young people think they know everything,’ Mrs Norton remarked to the air. Her needles flashed up and down.

Susan got up. ‘I think I’ll go down street and see if-’

Sit back down a minute,’ Mrs Norton said. ‘I have a few more things to say to you.’

Susan sat down again, her face neutral.

‘Sometimes young people don’t know all there is to know,’ Ann Norton said. A spurious tone of comfort had come into her voice that Susan distrusted immediately.

‘Like what, Mom?’

‘Well, it seems that Mr Ben Mears had an accident a few years ago. Just after his second book was published. A motorcycle accident. He was drunk. His wife was killed.’

Susan stood up. ‘I don’t want to hear any more.’

‘I’m telling you for your own good,’ Mrs Norton said calmly.

‘Who told you?’ Susan asked. She felt none of the old hot and impotent anger, or the urge to run upstairs away from that calm, knowing voice and weep. She only felt cold and distant, as if drifting in space. ‘It was Mabel Werts, wasn’t it?’

‘That doesn’t matter. It’s true.’

‘Sure it is. And we won in Vietnam and Jesus Christ drives through the center of town in a gocart every day at high noon.’

‘Mabel thought he looked familiar,’ Ann Norton said, land so she went through the back issues of her newspapers box by box-’

‘You mean the scandal sheets? The ones that specialize in astrology and pictures of car wrecks and starlets’ tits? Oh, what an informed source.’ She laughed harshly.

‘No need to be obscene. The story was right there in black and white. The woman-his wife if she really was- was riding on the back seat and he skidded on the pavement and they went smack into the side of a moving van. They gave him a breathalyzer test on the spot, the article said. Right… on… the spot.’ She emphasized intensifier, preposition, and object by tapping a knitting needle against the arm of her rocker.

‘Then why isn’t he in prison?’

‘These famous fellows always know people,’ she said with calm certainty. ‘There are ways to get out of everything, if you’re rich enough. Just look at what those Kennedy boys have gotten away with.’

‘Was he tried in court?’

‘I told you, they gave him a-’

‘You said that, Mother. But was he drunk?’

‘I told you he was drunk!’ Spots of color had begun to creep into her cheeks. ‘They don’t give you a breathalyzer test if you’re sober! His wife died! It was just like that Chappaquiddick business! Just like it!’

‘I’m going to move into town,’ Susan said slowly. ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you. I should have done it a long time ago, Mom. For both of us. I was talking to Babs Griffen, and she says there’s a nice little four-room place on Sister’s Lane-’

‘Oh, she’s offended!’ Mrs Norton remarked to the air. ‘Someone just spoiled her pretty picture of Mr Ben Bigshot Mears and she’s just so mad she could spit.’ This line had been particularly effective some years back.

‘Mom, what’s happened to you?’ Susan asked a little despairingly. ‘You never used to… to get this low-’

Ann Norton’s head jerked up. Her knitting slid off her lap as she stood up, clapped her hands to Susan’s shoulders, and gave her a smart shake.

‘You listen to me! I won’t have you running around like a common trollop with some sissy boy who’s got your head all filled up with moonlight. Do you hear me?’

Susan slapped her across the face.

Ann Norton’s eyes blinked and then opened wide in stunned surprise. They looked at each other for a moment in silence, shocked. A tiny sound came and died in Susan’s throat.

‘I’m going upstairs,’ she said. ‘I’ll be out by Tuesday at the latest.’

‘Floyd was here,’ Mrs Norton said. Her face was still rigid from the slap. Her daughter’s finger marks stood out in red, like exclamation points.

‘I’m through with Floyd,’ Susan said tonelessly. ‘Get used to the idea. Tell your harpy friend Mabel all about it on the telephone, why don’t you? Maybe then it will seem real to you.’

‘Floyd loves you, Susan ‘ This is… ruining him. He broke down and told me everything. He poured out his heart to me.’ Her eyes shone with the memory of it. ‘He broke down at the end and cried like a baby.’