She pointed to the water, which we could see beyond the church, below a bluff, and told of the boats that had come. Bill had told me their names, the Ark and Dove, the night he got so drunk, but I let her tell me all over, as they seemed to mean so much to her. She told how it was spring when the settlers came ashore, “with the flowers blooming, the Indians friendly, and even the birds singing a welcome.” She said they picked one bird to be their special friend, “on account of the nest it built, so strong, so safe, as they hoped this place would be. The bird was the oriole.”
“That’s the Baltimore oriole?”
“Lord Baltimore had the patent.”
She went on: “Soon they built their statehouse, the one you see right there, except this one is a duplicate, put up in 1934, when we had the three hundredth anniversary. The original was carted off, as Port Tobacco was, in the dark, poor days. And they built Trinity Church, the one you see right there, which at least is partly original. At first Church of England, then Protestant Episcopal, as I am.”
“That you came to pray in. Remember?”
“...Don’t hurry me, Duke.”
“Why haven’t you gone to church?”
“All kinds of reasons, Duke.”
She thought, and then: “I’ve talked about doing good, and maybe I have done a little. But that’s not the reason I made a life in the church, and the real reason was wrong. I went there to hide. To be safe. To be where no one could laugh at me for being fat. Now you know. Now I’ve told the truth. I’m not that person at all, the one I pretended to be. She was just part of the lying. Duke, I’ve been trying to fool God.”
“Is He so easy fooled?”
“I tell you I’ve been living a lie.”
“And so far as reasons go, on this, there aren’t any bad ones. Some are better than others, that’s all that can be said. Listen, it’s getting late. Shove off, and make with the mumbling.”
“...If I do.”
“If? You better, do you hear me?”
She tied a scarf over her head, dropped the robe from her knees, and got out. She had put on a light tan coat, and stopped to button it. Then, her head bowed, she walked quite slow to a break in the hedge, went through, and headed for the church. She was gone some little time. A guy came out, and two or three women went in. Then here she came back, but the way her head was still bent didn’t mean peace of mind. She got in, pulled the robe over her knees, leaned her head on the door, but so the scarf hid her face. I waited for her to speak, and when she didn’t, asked her: “You pray?”
“...I didn’t go in.”
“Why not?”
“I couldn’t.”
She looked at the trees, and went on: “I went up to the door, then wanted to wait or something. Lloyd Dennis, my uncle, came out, passed, and didn’t know me. I realized, then, how different I must look, and a funny feeling came over me. Then those ladies came up, half peeped, and went in, and didn’t know me either, though I know them, from way-back. It was like that dream you have, where you’re floating downstairs, and everyone is there, staring into the coffin, and it’s you, so beautiful and all, at your own funeral. I wanted to go in, and couldn’t. I walked to the edge of the bluff, so nobody else would see me, and tried to make myself go in and kneel — and that’s all. I thought: if I could just come down here, where it’s part of me and all — I would get straightened out. I’m not. I’m in — worse shape — than ever.”
She started to cry, and I pulled ahead. I swung left past the statehouse, hit No. 5 again, and started back where we came from. After we passed the inlet, and were in open country again, I said: “Listen, you can’t kid a pal. There’s more to this, a whole lot more, than fine points connected with reasons. If that was all, you could start over, and I imagine God would be satisfied. Now, out with it: what’s this really about?”
“I couldn’t make myself tell you. Duke, some things are so black you dare not take them to church. You can’t have them in your heart when you kneel in there. To make with the mumbling, that’s sweet, to hear you say it, to know how you feel about it. But it’s not enough, to mumble. It won’t cleanse your heart. That has to come first — then all the rest follows. Duke, for the first time since I’ve owned that place up there, since by a crazy accident it was left to me — I’ve known Booth to be there. In me has been evil.”
It seemed, for some minutes, the most beautiful wish of my life, that I might perhaps hold her close, tell her to open her heart, so I could make the evil go away — whatever it was. I took it to be some hangover of the rows she’d had with Val. But then, all of a sudden, she said: “How far would you go for a friend?”
“I don’t quite know what you mean.”
“I know how far you went.”
She said that day by the tree I could have saved myself and left her there to be killed, with nobody the wiser, and that instead I had saved her first and only then myself. She said: “I can’t do less, and won’t.”
There was something terrible about it, and for some minutes my heart just sang. But then here it came creeping in, that same fear I had had, of prison, and the spot I was in. She could mean, I realized, that something was in the wind, that the cops had something in mind, or Val had, or somebody. I said: “Are you talking about me? My release? Or — some kind of trial I may have to face?”
“You are released. Aren’t you?”
“Not to be told, anyhow.”
“I don’t understand you, Duke. I know nothing about your release, beyond what Val tried to tell me, over the phone that night, when I cut him off. I’ve never discussed it since, with him or anybody. Why? Has something come up?”
“Nothing’s come up, that I know of. And nothing’s been settled either. I just thought — from what you said just now — you could have heard something. I’m sorry I brought the thing up. Let’s skip it.”
“You want to leave? That’s it?”
“I’d like to know where I’m at.”
“Then — please — ask Val.”
We sounded like a hired man making his squawk and the boss’s wife not liking it. Of what had been between us, or I supposed there had been, there wasn’t even a trace. I drove on, sick with fear, trembling from her hold on me, and furious that so long as things held like they were, I couldn’t hold my head up.
Chapter XI
That night, at dinner, instead of eating her fruit, she cut herself some pie, wrapped it in a doily, and said she’d have it later, while Val all but danced, and I went to bed sicker than ever. Next day, and for several days, she let me eat alone, humming little tunes as she served my food, and saying nothing at all, except maybe what beautiful weather. And then one day in the field, while I was sorting the pumpkins to be wired as counter displays in the restaurants at Halloween, I heard the slam of a car door, and when I looked, there was Bill. I managed to come out with the usual hello, where-you-been, and long-time-no-see, but he didn’t hear me, and didn’t see my hand. He popped out with it quick, like on purpose to catch my guard down and watch the look in my eyes: “What cooks with Holly?”
“How the hell would I know?”
It came out without my knowing it would, and sounded mean, but he sounded meaner still. He said: “Cut out the goddam stalling.”
“What does she say about it?”
“Nothing, but you will, Duke. She’s in the house right now, not answering the bell, pretending she’s not there. But her car’s there, so she is. It’s gone on now three months. She calls every day, she talks to Mom, to Marge, to me, to everyone. But she doesn’t come and she doesn’t ask anyone here. Something’s up. What is it?”