I was not fond of my rock garden, which was mine in name only, like so much else. (Like "my" baby come to think of it: surely a changeling, surely something left by the gipsies; surely my real baby-one that cried less and smiled more, and was not so pungent-had been spirited away.) The rock garden was similarly resistant to my ministrations; nothing I did to it pleased it at all. Its rocks made a good show-there was a lot of pink granite, along with the limestone-but I couldn't get anything to grow in it.
I contented myself with books-Perennials for the Rock Garden, Desert Succulents for Northern Climes, and the like. I went through such books, making lists-lists of what I might plant, or else lists of what I had indeed already planted; what ought to have been growing, but was not. Dragon's blood, snow-on-the-mountain, hen-and-chickens. I liked the names, but didn't care much for the plants themselves.
"I don't have a green thumb," I said to Winifred. "Not like you." My pretence of incompetence had now become second nature to me, I scarcely had to think about it. Winifred on her part had ceased to find my fecklessness altogether convenient.
"Well, of course you have to makesome effort," she would say. At which I would produce my dutiful lists of dead plants.
"The rocks are pretty," I said. "Can't we just call it a sculpture?"
I thought of setting off on my own to see Laura. I could leave Aimee with the new nursemaid, whom I thought of as Miss Murgatroyd-all our servants were Murgatroyds to my mind, they were all in cahoots. But no, the nursemaid would alert Winifred. I could defy them all; I could sneak off one morning, take Aimee with me; we could go on the train. But the train to where? I didn't know where Laura was-where she had been stashed away. The Bella Vista Clinic was said to be up north somewhere, butup north covered a lot of territory. I rummaged around in Richard's desk, the one in his study at the house, but found no letters from this clinic. He must have been keeping them at the office.
One day Richard came home early. He seemed quite disturbed. Laura was no longer at Bella Vista, he said.
How could that be? I asked.
A man had arrived, he said. This man claimed to be Laura's lawyer, or acting on her behalf. He was a trustee, he said-a trustee of Miss Chase's trust fund. He'd challenged the authority by which she had been placed in Bella Vista. He had threatened legal action. Did I know anything about these proceedings?
No, I did not. (I kept my hands folded in my lap. I expressed surprise, and mild interest. I did not express glee.) And then what happened? I asked.
The director of Bella Vista had been absent, the staff had been confused. They had let her go, in custody of this man. They had judged that the family would wish to avoid undue publicity. (The lawyer had threatened some of this.)
Well, I said, I guess they did the right thing.
Yes, said Richard, no doubt; but was Lauracompos mentis? For her own good, for her ownsafety, we should at least determine that. Although on the surface of things she'd appeared calmer, the staff at Bella Vista had their doubts. Who knew what danger to herself or others she might pose if allowed to run around at large?
I didn't happen by any chance to know where she was?
I did not.
I hadn't heard from her?
I had not.
I wouldn't hesitate to inform him, in that eventuality?
I would not hesitate. Those were my very words. It was a sentence without an object, and therefore not technically a lie.
I let a judicious amount of time go past, and then I set off to Port Ticonderoga, on the train, to consult Reenie. I invented a telephone calclass="underline" Reenie was not in good health, I explained to Richard, and she wanted to see me again before something happened. I gave the impression that she was at death's door. She'd appreciate a photograph of Aimee, I said; she'd want to have a chat about old times. It was the least I could do. After all, she'd practically brought us up. Brought me up, I corrected, to divert Richard's attention away from the thought of Laura.
I arranged to see Reenie at Betty's Luncheonette. (She had a telephone by then, she was holding her own in the world.) That would be best, she said. She was still working there, part-time, but we could meet after her hours were up. Betty's had new owners, she said; the old owners wouldn't have liked her sitting out front like a paying customer, even if she was paying, but the new ones had figured out that they needed all the paying customers they could get.
Betty's had gone severely downhill. The striped awning was gone, the dark booths looked scratched and tawdry. The smell was no longer of fresh vanilla, but of rancid grease. I was overdressed, I realised. I shouldn't have worn my white fox neckpiece. What had been the point of showing off, under the circumstances?
I didn't like the look of Reenie: she was too puffy, too yellow, she was breathing a little too heavily. Perhaps she really wasn't in good health: I wondered if I should ask. "Good to take the weight off my feet," she said as she subsided into the booth across from me.
Myra -how old were you, Myra? You must have been three or four, I've lost count- Myra was with her. Her cheeks were red with excitement, her eyes were round and slightly bulged out, as if she were being gently strangled.
"I've told her all about you," said Reenie fondly. "The both of you." Myra wasn't too interested in me, I have to say, but she was intrigued by the foxes around my neck. Children of that age usually like furry animals, even if dead.
"You've seen Laura," I said, "or talked with her?"
"Least said, soonest mended," said Reenie, glancing around her, as if even here the walls might have ears. I saw no need for such caution.
"I suppose it was you who organised the lawyer?" I said.
Reenie looked wise. "I did what was required," she said. "Anyways, that lawyer was your mother's second cousin's husband, he was family in a way. So he saw the point of it, once I knew what was going on, that is."
"How did you know?" I was savingwhat did you know for later.
"She wrote me," said Reenie. "Said she wrote you, but never got an answer. She wasn't allowed to be mailing any letters as such, but the cook helped her out. Laura sent her the money for it afterwards, and a little extra."
"I didn't get any letter," I said.
"That's what she figured. She figured they'd seen to that."
I knew? who was meantby they. "I suppose she came here," I said.
"Where else would she go?" said Reenie. "The poor creature. After all she'd been through."
"What had she been through?" I very much wanted to know; at the same time I dreaded it. Laura could be fabricating, I told myself. Laura could be suffering from delusions. That couldn't be ruled out.
Reenie had ruled it out, however: no matter what story Laura had told her, she'd believed it. I doubted that it was the same story I'd heard. I doubted especially that there had been a baby in it, in any shape or form. "There's children present, so I won't go into it," she said. She nodded at Myra, who was gobbling up a slice of grisly pink cake and staring at me as if she wanted to lick me. "If I told you all of it you wouldn't sleep at night. The only comfort is that you had no part in it. That's what she said."
"She said that?" I was relieved to hear it. Richard and Winifred had been cast as the monsters then, and I'd been excused-on the grounds of moral feebleness, no doubt. Though I could tell Reenie hadn't entirely forgiven me for having been so careless as to let all of this happen. (Once Laura had gone off the bridge, she forgave me even less. In her view I must have had something to do with it. She was cool to me after that. She died begrudgingly.)
"She oughtn't to have been put in such a place at all, a young girl like her," said Reenie. "No matter what. Men walking around with their trousers undone, all kinds of goings-on. Shameful!"