On the morning of the inquest he was left alone with Carmelita. He sat on her lap for a long time while she rocked back and forth in her chair by the kitchen window. They were both quiet.
In the courtroom, under the drab light of the fly-specked chandeliers, a verdict of suicide was returned.
Before she had time to get away, Bracken came over and told her what a real pleasure it had been meeting her.
“Only one thing bothers me, Mrs. Wakefield. It’s about that there watch of his that’s still missing.”
“I know nothing about it except what I’ve told you. He had it with him when he went out that night. He liked to — he was very conscious of time.”
“Brainy guy, oh?”
She looked at him with hatred. “Oh, yes, very brainy.”
“Some of these brainy ones go off their rocker just like that.” He snapped his fingers; the nails were bitten to the quick. “Well, if the watch turns up, let me know. I’m a curious guy. Facts, that’s what I like.”
“I see.”
“Well, it’s been real nice meeting you anyhow. Now we’ve broke the ice, like they say, how about me coming over and...”
She turned and walked away.
She never saw Bracken again. Four days later she drove away in the Lincoln with Billy and Miss Lewis.
Looking now at the horses on the hillside that belonged to Bracken, she wondered what he would say if she phoned him and told him that the watch had been found: Yes, on the side of the cliff, Mr. Bracken, by a little girl who is as curious as you are. How did it get there, in a cormorants’ ledge? I have no facts to satisfy you, Mr. Bracken. But he must have had the watch in his hand when he was standing at the top of the cliff. I’ve told you how he was always checking the time, looking at the minute hand on his watch, marking off the days on the calendar. Well, time was ending for him. He threw the watch as he fell, he threw it away from him, perhaps he was sick of time... Quite a brainy guy, Mr. Bracken.
But the words would never be spoken. She could no longer feel any real anger at Bracken’s boorish stupidity. We are all victims, she thought, of ourselves and of each other. Bracken, John, Billy, myself, and now Mark, whom I love.
She rose, turning her eyes to the sky, and thought how foolish they must all look in the eyes of heaven, how foolish and impotent and grubby, not fit to live.
18
She returned through the woods, walking very slowly, with her arms folded across her breasts. Her eyes were still swollen with tears and her cheeks stung, as if she had bathed her face in the old well that had gone to salt, thinking the water would refresh her and finding out too late that it was sharp as acid.
She passed the swimming pool that she had boarded up herself, nailing it down like a coffin, without anyone even knowing about it except Mr. Roma who had helped her fetch the planks. (“A tarpaulin would be just as good,” Mr. Roma had said. “He couldn’t fall in then.” “No, no. It must be boarded. I had a dream, I dreamt he fell...”) What was under the planks now? What strange dark-loving creatures lived in the concrete coffin and crept through the dust and the leaves powdered by time?
At the end of one of the planks a black furry spider was spinning his web, oblivious to the wind, crossing and recrossing the silken strands with his humped legs. His old web was nearby, spangled with the remains of flies. She stopped to touch the spider. It curled up into a ball from fright. She drew her hand away and walked on.
On the other side of the barranca she saw Jessie and Mr. Roma coming along the path. She knew what they were looking for even before she heard Jessie calling, “James, here James, come on home!” Stepping out of sight for a moment behind a tree, she made a futile attempt to straighten her hair and to brush from her skirt the leaves and twigs that clung to it like guilt.
“James, here James!”
“He isn’t here,” Mrs. Wakefield said.
“We’ve been looking for him everywhere. He might be lost, so we’re leaving a trail of corn.” Jessie’s hands, and the pockets of her blue jeans were filled with kernels of corn, and Mr. Roma was carrying a paper bag.
Mr. Roma was faintly apologetic. “He likes corn, and we thought, just in case...”
“That’s a very good idea,” Mrs. Wakefield said brightly to Jessie. “You mustn’t forget to leave a trail through the barranca.”
“I won’t.”
“Can you do it all by yourself while I talk to Mr. Roma for a minute?”
“I’m not a baby!”
“I’ll wait for you here then.”
“All right.”
With the corn dribbling out of her hand Jessie slid down the side of the barranca.
“He may be hiding,” Mr. Roma said. “Like Billy.”
“Like Billy, yes.”
“James doesn’t like the wind, he gets frightened.”
“He won’t be frightened this time.”
“He always is. Always when there is a wind or before a storm...”
“Not anymore.” She reached out and touched the sleeve of his plaid shirt. “Mr. Roma, listen to me. I couldn’t tell you in front of the child, but James is all right. He’s perfectly safe.”
“You know where he is?”
“Yes. Yes, and he’s all right. He’s better off this way, really much better off.”
Mr. Roma bent his head. He saw the golden trail of corn winding in and out of the trees, and he heard Jessie still calling the gander, “James, James.”
“What have you done?” he said heavily.
“He was so old and helpless and half-blind — I put him out of his misery.”
“No, no, he was not helpless. He was not in misery.”
“It was only a matter of time anyway. I found him wandering here in the woods, lost.”
“He never went into the woods.” Mr. Roma pressed his palms together, and she thought suddenly how grotesque his hands were, with the brown leathery skin covering the tops like half-gloves, and the undersides as pink as Jessie’s cheeks. “Never further than the garage, Mrs. Wakefield. I only came out here to please the little one. I knew James never went into the woods.”
“He did. Why do you keep arguing like this? Don’t you believe me?”
He stood in silence with his head bowed. Beads of sweat glittered on his forehead and along his temples like tears.
“Getting emotional over a gander,” she said bitterly. “Have you nothing better to cry about? We should have fattened him up years ago and put him in a roasting pan. Don’t you see that?” He didn’t answer; his mouth moved, but formed no words that could be spoken. “Carl, listen. I cried today, too. Do you want to hear about it? It doesn’t matter now who knows.”
He seemed not to have heard. “Helpless and in misery, no, he was not. One eye, one eye was all he had, but it was all he needed.” He raised his head and looked at her, and she saw in his eyes no tears, only a dry terrible grief that seemed to be not for the gander but for her.
“Don’t look like that. What have I done?”
“Like Billy,” he said.
“What?”
“Out of his misery.”
“You keep talking about Billy. I don’t...”
“The little fellow trusted you. And you... you...” He couldn’t go on. He moved his head back and forth in helpless anger.
“I see now what’s in your mind. You think I deliberately left Billy alone on deck, that I was deliberately negligent.”
“You... never left him alone before.”
“I’ve told you how it happened. He was thirsty. I went to get him a glass of water. When I left him he was playing with one of those leather-covered dolls, flinging it up in the air and trying to catch it. They found the doll afterwards, floating around in the water. They actually fished it out and gave it to me. Thoughtful, wasn’t it? I was very polite. I said, thank you, thank you, good people. When it was dark I threw it overboard again. I’m the victim, don’t you see? I’m the one who’s suffered, not Billy, not a useless old gander...”