“Hello,” he said.
“That your wife just left?”
He nodded.
She said, “Pretty,” and added thoughtfully, “I guess. Where’d she go?”
“To the market, maybe into town to do some shopping, probably to the beauty parlor. Why?”
“I knew her hair was dyed.” Luella plumped down on the sand. Her back to John, she chewed one of her braids, staring at a couple who lay between them and the water. There was a long silence before either of them spoke again.
Then Luella said rapidly, “They’re not married. His wife’s getting a divorce for non-support and desertion and uncompatibility—”
“Incompatibility.”
“Okay. She used to be a manicurist at Rex’s barber shop but she doesn’t have to work now because she lives with him.”
With some difficulty John unraveled the breathlessly complex information. The girl, not the wife, had been a manicurist. “Do you know those people?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then how on earth did you find out about them? And about half a dozen other people you’ve pointed out to me?”
Luella, it seemed, had become conveniently deaf.
“You’re a menace,” he said, half meaning it. “If you were my little girl I’d give you a good spanking.”
The small head pivoted on the long thin neck. Luella’s brown eyes looked sleepily into his and John experienced a sensation similar to a mild electric shock. Before he could analyze it, Luella had scrambled to her feet and started toward the water. At a distance of three yards she turned and walked backward for a moment, grinning. Then she ran up the beach, disappearing behind a clump of colored umbrellas.
Left alone, John tried again to read. He struggled through two pages before he put the book back in his pocket. After that he did nothing but wait for Marla and, from time to time, glance curiously at the couple (married? unmarried?) lying thirty feet away.
Marla arrived at noon, a full hour before her customary time. She wore a new and highly revealing swimming suit completely unsuited to her personality as John had always understood her personality. It occurred to him that, since his accident, she had changed. She no longer seemed to care especially for his opinion.
“There’s your wife,” Luella said. He had not realized she’d come back. “That’s Shelby Granville with her.”
John removed his dark glasses for a better view. Granville, with his black crew-cut and overly handsome face, was at Marla’s side. He wore bathing trunks and waved to John as they approached.
Marla called, “Shelby had some trouble with his car. I gave him a lift.”
“Good enough.”
“Hello, old boy,” Granville said, a form of address John disliked extremely. Beyond that, he really had nothing against the man. He was a mental lightweight, but amusing.
“Hello,” he said.
“I’m going for a swim.” Marla kicked off her beach shoes. “The young lady a friend of yours?”
John was surprised to see that Luella’s face had suddenly grown sullen. “Luella, this is Mrs. Carter and Mr. Granville.”
“Hi, Shelby.” She did not speak to Marla. So far as she was concerned, Marla wasn’t there.
Granville nodded warily, and Luella muttered, “Gotta go now. Gotta go on home and get my lunch.” She walked away.
Marla laughed. “A new facet to your already multifaceted character, Shelby?”
Granville shrugged. “I know her aunt slightly.”
“Coming?” Marla adjusted a rubber cap. Followed by Granville, she ran to the water and waded in. She stood hip-deep for a time, getting used to the cooler temperature, and the receding waves plastered the wet suit to her body. Granville, who had dived in immediately, returned to speak to her. She laughed. He took her hand and guided her to deeper water. Then they struck out side by side, and the ebb tide carried them out of sight beyond the Point of Rocks.
They were gone for more than half an hour. John saw Luella again before they returned. She came from the direction in which Marla and Granville had disappeared.
“No lunch?”
“Nobody home. I ate an apple. Your wife’s down there” — she pointed — “on the beach.”
“Yes?”
“With Shelby.”
“So?”
Luella suddenly giggled. She walked off in the direction of her home.
Shortly afterward, John saw Marla and Granville coming toward him. He tried to get up but couldn’t make it. Marla had to help him from his chair.
They dropped Granville at the garage where his car was being fixed, and went home for lunch. After lunch Marla took her nap. Later she would go out again to finish the day’s round of chores and John, if he did not go with her, would be left with a bitter choice between reading and television. He hated daytime television, but usually he preferred it to being a helpless passenger. When Marla had retired to her room, he limped out to sit on the end of the boat dock in the shade of an overhanging live oak.
The Carter home was on the edge of a natural canal between the Gulf and a small bay. They had a boat, its outboard motor covered by a tarpaulin; the boat had been unused now for months and was laid away in the carport against a more active time. Sitting there, John wondered why the motor had to be inactive, why he had allowed himself to drift into an inertia as complete as that of the motor. There were literally hundreds of things he could still do. He liked to fish. There was a wheelbarrow in the tool shed. Tomorrow he would trundle the motor down here, set it up in the boat, and go out with his tackle. There were also plenty of odd jobs to do around the house. The guard-rail on this boat dock needed strengthening. He had always been handy with tools, and it was merely a question of getting interested again. A change of attitude — no more than that. Tomorrow...
Marla came out of the house, a preoccupied expression on her face. “Is anything the matter, John?”
“Not that I know of. Why?”
“The way you act — like a sulky little boy. You make me feel as if I’d done something wrong.”
“Have you?”
“Of course not. Coming into town?”
He shook his head. “Rather listen to TV. Good program coming up. Captain Alligator. It’s about—”
“Do you have to be so bitter?”
“I’m not bitter. I just want to listen to Captain Alligator. Do you mind?”
He went to bed that night and decided that in the morning he would skip going to the beach. There were too many more constructive methods of killing time. But when he awoke it was to a familiar condition of lassitude. It tired him even to think of the exertion that would be necessary to install the outboard motor and take the boat down to the bay. He was ready at nine fifteen when, following their established schedule, Marla ran the car out in the drive.
Luella did not appear that morning, but the following day he had been on the beach only a few minutes when he saw her coming toward his chair.
“Hi.”
“Hello, Luella. Where were you yesterday?”
She studied him gravely. “My aunt locked me in my room.”
“Well, that’s the price small girls have to pay for being naughty.”
“I didn’t mind. I had lots to think about. And I’ll get even. Don’t you worry,” she said. “I’ll get even.”
John shifted his position uneasily. “See here, Luella. Your aunt must have had good reason to lock you up. What did you do?”
She didn’t answer, and it occurred to John that this was her set pattern. Asked a question she preferred not to answer, she simply ignored it. A thoroughly exasperating trait.
“Shelby isn’t here today,” she said abruptly. “Was he here yesterday?”
“I didn’t see him.”