‘You’re saying you didn’t write that name in the sand?’
‘No. I thought I made that clear.’
‘One of your other friends, then?’
‘They were all from Nokomis Village, and didn’t even know about that island. We never would have paddled out to such an uninteresting little rock on our own. Robbie knew it was there, he was also from the Point, but he was hundreds of miles north.’
‘All right …’
‘My chum Robbie never came back from that vacation. We got word a week or so later that he’d taken a fall while out horseback riding. He broke his neck. Killed instantly. His parents were heartbroken. So was I.’
There is silence while Wayland considers this. While they both consider it. Somewhere far off, a helicopter beats at the sky over the Gulf. The DEA looking for drug runners, the Judge supposes. He hears them every night. It’s the modern age, and in some ways – in many – he’ll be glad to be shed of it.
At last Wayland says, ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ the Judge says. ‘What do you think I’m saying?’
But Anthony Wayland is a lawyer, and refusing to be drawn is an ingrained habit with him. ‘Did you tell your grandfather?’
‘On the day the telegram about Robbie came, he wasn’t there to tell. He never stayed in one place for long. We didn’t see him again for six months or more. No, I kept it to myself. And like Mary after she gave birth to God’s only son, I considered these things in my heart.’
‘And what conclusion did you draw?’
‘I kept canoeing out to that island to look at the dune. That should answer your question. There was nothing … and nothing … and nothing. I guess I was on the verge of forgetting all about it, but then I went out one afternoon after school and there was another name written in the sand. Printed in the sand, to be courtroom-exact. No sign of a stick that time, either, although I suppose a stick could have been thrown into the water. This time the name was Peter Alderson. It meant nothing to me until a few days later. It was my chore to go out to the end of the road and get the paper, and it was my habit to scan the front page while I walked back up the drive – which, as you know from driving it yourself, is a good quarter mile long. In the summer I’d also check on how the Washington Senators had done, because back then they were as close to a southern team as we had.
‘This particular day, a headline on the bottom of the front page caught my eye: WINDOW WASHER KILLED IN FREAK FALL. The poor guy was doing the third-floor windows of the Sarasota Public Library when the scaffolding he was standing on gave way. His name was Peter Alderson.’
The Judge can see from Wayland’s face that he believes this is either a prank or some sort of elaborate fantasy the Judge is spinning out. He can also see that Wayland is enjoying his drink, and when the Judge moves to top it up, Wayland doesn’t say no. And really, the young man’s belief or disbelief is beside the point. It’s just such a luxury to tell it.
‘Maybe you see why I go back and forth in my mind about where the magic lies,’ Beecher says. ‘I knew Robbie, and the misspelling of his name was my misspelling. But I didn’t know this window washer from Adam. In any case, that’s when the dune really started to get a hold on me. I began going out almost every day, a habit that’s continued into my very old age. I respect the place, I fear the place, and most of all, I’m addicted to the place.
‘Over the years, many names have appeared on that dune, and the people the names belong to always die. Sometimes it’s within the week, sometimes it’s two, but it’s never more than a month. Some have been people I knew, and if it’s by a nickname I knew them, it’s the nickname I see. One day in nineteen forty I paddled out there and saw GRAMPY BEECHER drawn into the sand. He died in Key West three days later. It was a heart attack.’
With the air of someone humoring a man who is mentally unbalanced but not actually dangerous, Wayland asks, ‘Did you never try to interfere with this … this process? Call your grandfather, for instance, and tell him to see a doctor?’
Beecher shakes his head. ‘I didn’t know it was a heart attack until we got word from the Monroe County medical examiner, did I? It could have been an accident, or even a murder. Certainly there were people who had reasons to hate my grandfather; his dealings were not of the purest sort.’
‘Still …’
‘Also, I was afraid. I felt, I still feel, as if there on that island, there’s a hatch that’s come ajar. On this side is what we’re pleased to call “the real world.” On the other is all the machinery of the universe, running at top speed. Only a fool would stick his hand into such machinery in an attempt to stop it.’
‘Judge Beecher, if you want your paperwork to sail through probate, I’d keep quiet about all this. You might think there’s no one to contest your will, but when large amounts of money are at stake, third and fourth cousins have a way of appearing like rabbits from a magician’s hat. And you know the time-honored criterion: “being of sound mind.”’
‘I’ve kept it to myself for eighty years,’ Beecher says, and in his voice Wayland can hear objection overruled. ‘Never a word until now. And – perhaps I need to point it out again, although I shouldn’t – whatever I say to you falls under the umbrella of privilege.’
‘All right,’ Wayland says. ‘Fine.’
‘I was always excited on days when names appeared in the sand – unhealthily excited, I’m sure – but terrified of the phenomenon only once. That single time I was deeply terrified, and fled back to the Point in my canoe as if devils were after me. Shall I tell you?’
‘Please.’ Wayland lifts his drink and sips. Why not? Billable hours are, after all, billable hours.
‘It was nineteen fifty-nine. I was still on the Point. I’ve always lived here except for the years in Tallahassee, and it’s better not to speak of them … although I now think part of the hate I felt for that provincial backwater of a town, perhaps even most of it, was simply a masked longing for the island, and the dune. I kept wondering what I was missing, you see. Who I was missing. Being able to read obituaries in advance gives a man an extraordinary sense of power. Perhaps you find that unlovely, but there it is.
‘So. Nineteen fifty-nine. Harvey Beecher lawyering in Sarasota and living at Pelican Point. If it wasn’t pouring down rain when I got home, I’d always change into old clothes and paddle out to the island for a look-see before supper. On this particular day I’d been kept at the office late, and by the time I’d gotten out to the island, tied up, and walked over to the dune side, the sun was going down big and red, as it so often does over the Gulf. What I saw stunned me. I literally could not move.
‘There wasn’t just one name written in the sand that evening but many, and in that red sunset light they looked as if they had been written in blood. They were crammed together, they wove in and out, they were written over and above and up and down. The whole length and breadth of the dune was covered with a tapestry of names. The ones down by the water had been half erased.
‘I think I screamed. I can’t remember for sure, but yes, I think so. What I do remember is breaking the paralysis and running away as fast as I could, down the path to where my canoe was tied up. It seemed to take me forever to unpluck the knot, and when I did, I pushed the canoe out into the water before I climbed in. I was soaked from head to toe, and it’s a wonder I didn’t tump it over. Although in those days I could have easily swum to shore, and pushing the canoe ahead of me. Not these days; if I tipped my kayak over now, that would be all she wrote.’ He grins. ‘Speaking of writing, as we are.’