‘Well, that’s the whole idea. Lone told me to come to you. He said you got more dough than you know what to do with, and he said you owed him a favour.’
‘A favour?’ That seemed to bother her.
‘Well,’ I tried to tell her, ‘he said he done something for you once and you said some day you’d pay him back for it if you ever could. This is it.’
‘What did he tell you about that?’ She’d got her honk back by then.
‘Not a damn thing.’
‘Please don’t use that word,’ she said, with her eyes closed. Then she opened them and nodded her head. ‘I promised and I’ll do it. You can live here from now on. If-if you want to.’
‘That’s got nothin’ to do with it. Lone
‘You’ll be happy here,’ she said. She gave me an up-and-down. ‘I’ll see to that.’
‘Okay. Shall I go get the other kids?’
‘
‘Yeah. This ain’t for just me. For all of us – the whole gang.’
‘Don’t say „ain’t”.’ She leaned back in her chair, took out a silly little handkerchief and dabbed her lips with it, looking at me the whole time. ‘Now tell me about these -these other children.’
‘Well, there’s Janie, she’s eleven like me. And Bonnie and Beanie are eight, they’re twins, and Baby. Baby is three.’
I screamed. Stern was kneeling beside the couch in a flash, holding his palms against my cheeks to hold my head still; I’d been whipping it back and forth.
‘Good boy,’ he said. ‘You found it. You haven’t found out
‘But for sure,” I said hoarsely. ‘Got water?’
He poured me some water out of a thermos flask. It was so cold it hurt. I lay back and rested, like I’d climbed a cliff. I said, ‘I can’t take anything like that again.’
‘You want to call it quits for today?’
‘What about you?’
‘I’ll go on as long as you want me to.’
I thought about it.’ I’d like to go on, but I don’t want no thumping around. Not for a while yet.”
‘If you want another of those inaccurate analogies,’ Stern said, ‘psychiatry is like a road map. There are always a lot of different ways to get from one place to another place.’
I’ll go around by the long way,’ I told him. ‘The eight-lane highway. Not that track over the hill. My clutch is slipping. Where do I turn off?’
He chuckled. I liked the sound of it. ‘Just past that gravel driveway.’
‘I been there. There’s a bridge washed out.’
‘You’ve been on this whole road before,’ he told me. ‘Start at the other side of the bridge.’
‘I never thought of that. I figured I had to do the whole thing, every inch.’
‘Maybe you won’t have to, maybe you will, but the bridge will be easy to cross when you’ve covered everything else. Maybe there’s nothing of value on the bridge and maybe there is, but you can’t get near it till you’ve looked everywhere else.’
‘Let’s go.’ I was real eager, somehow.
‘Mind a suggestion?’
‘No.’
‘Just talk,’ he said. ‘Don’t try to get too far into what you’re saying. That first stretch, when you were eight – you really lived it. The second one, all about the kids, you just talked about. Then, the visit when you were eleven, you felt that. Now just talk again.’
‘All right.’
He waited, then said quietly, ‘In the library. You told her about the other kids.’
I told her about… and then she said… and something happened, and I screamed. She comforted me and I cussed at her.
But we’re not thinking about that now. We’re going on.
In the library. The leather, the table, and whether I’m able to do with Miss Kew what Lone said.
What Lone said was, ‘There’s a woman lives up on the top of the hill in the Heights section, name of Kew. She’ll have to take care of you. You got to get her to do that. Do everything she tells you, only stay together. Don’t you ever let any one of you get away from the others, hear? Aside from that, just you keep Miss Kew happy and she’ll keep you happy. Now you do what I say.’ That’s what Lone said. Between every word there was a link like steel cable, and the whole thing made something that couldn’t be broken. Not by me it couldn’t.
Miss Kew said, ‘Where are your sisters and the baby?’
I’ll bring ‘em.’
‘Is it near here?’
‘Near enough.’ She didn’t say anything to that, so I got up. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘I – really, I haven’t had time to think. I mean – I’ve got to get things ready, you know.’
I said, ‘You don’t need to think and you are ready. So long.’
From the door I heard her saying, louder and louder as I walked away, ‘Young man, if you’re to live in this house, you’ll learn to be a good deal better-mannered – ‘and a lot more of the same.
I yelled back at her, ‘Okay,
The sun was warm and the sky was good, and pretty soon I got back to Lone’s house. The fire was out and Baby stunk. Janie had knocked over her easel and was sitting on the floor by the door with her head in her hands. Bonnie and Beanie were on a stool with their arms around each other, pulled up together as close as they could get, as if it was cold in there, although it wasn’t.
I hit Janie in the arm to snap her out of it. She raised her head. She had grey eyes – or maybe it was more a kind of green – but now they had a funny look about them, like water in a glass that had some milk left in the bottom of it.
I said, ‘What’s the matter around here?’
‘What’s the matter with what?’ she wanted to know.
‘All of yez,’ I said.
She said, ‘We don’t give a damn, that’s all.’
‘Well, all right,’ I said, ‘but we got to do what Lone said. Gome on.’
‘No.’ I looked at the twins. They turned their backs on me. Janie said, ‘They’re hungry.’
‘Well, why not give ‘em something?’
She just shrugged. I sat down. What did Lone have to go get himself squashed for?
‘We can’t blesh no more,’ said Janie. It seemed to explain everything.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’ve got to be Lone now.’
Janie thought about that and Baby kicked his feet. Janie looked at him. ‘You can’t,’ she said.
‘I know where to get the heavy food and the turpentine,’ I said. ‘I can find that springy moss to stuff in the logs, and cut wood, and all.’
But I couldn’t call Bonnie and Beanie from miles away to unlock doors. I couldn’t just say a word to Janie and make her get water and blow up the fire and fix the battery. I couldn’t make us blesh.
We all stayed like that for a long time. Then I heard the bassinet creak. I looked up. Janie was staring into it.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Who says so?’
‘Baby.’
‘Who’s running things now?’ I said, mad. ‘Me or Baby?’
‘Baby,’ Janie said.
I got up and went over to bust her one in the mouth, and then I stopped. If Baby could make them do what Lone wanted, then it would get done. If I started pushing them all around, it wouldn’t. So I didn’t say anything. Janie got up and walked out the door. The twins watched her go. Then Bonnie disappeared. Beanie picked up
