Knight was surprised by his daughter's frank and negative statement. "Now, honey, you know you don't mean that!" he protested.
"I know I do mean it, Daddy," she insisted, looking at him steadily with her innocent thick-lashed eyes. "She's a… a bitch! A cold, selfish bitch! Sometimes I wish – I know I shouldn't say this… Promise you won't tell – I wish she were dead!"
"Davie! Words like that are not very pretty coming from a young girl like yourself. Besides, your mother is your mother, and you know she loves you very much. She's trying to do what's best for you, darling."
Not for a moment did Peter Knight have the conviction off his words. He knew Francine was a bitch; knew she was cold and calculating. He did feel that she loved Davie – in her own way. But he also knew that his selfish society wife never really wanted to have a child, that she had always resented Davie – now, probably more than ever, since she was becoming a beautiful young woman and therefore, a threat! Damn! He was a rotten bastard himself for leaving his precious daughter with that – bitch!
"Do you call what's best having me raised by nurse-maids and housekeepers? Do you call what's best keeping boys away from me because she's afraid I might do something to spoil her reputation? She doesn't trust me, you know. Do you call what's best running around with airy little fairies; having them in the house all the time; sleeping with them?" Tears were beginning to well up in Davie's eyes. Her hand was trembling. "She does, you know. My mother sleeps with homosexuals! I've seen her!"
Peter Knight was shocked and outraged. He never expected to hear what came from the lips of his naive young daughter. Rage began to burn in his chest as he thought of Davie being sullied by witnessing her mother in bed – and with a faggot! It made him feel nauseous. "You… you saw your mother with a man?"
"Oh, I wouldn't call him that! And it wasn't just one – there were two of them…" she sobbed.
"What??? But… but I…" He was at a loss for words, unwilling to voice the question. He didn't have to.
"One day I came home early from school. I had just gotten the curse and had these terrible cramps, so I got to go home. The housekeeper was out. I was on the way to my room and I heard all these noises coming from Mother's bedroom; mostly men's voices, although there were other sounds, too. It was so strange… I couldn't imagine what was going on, but it all seemed kind of violent. So I tiptoed down the hall. The bedroom door was open, so I just sort of looked in."
She drew a deep breath. The tears were rolling down her cheeks and her young body was shaking with emotion. "There were these two fairies on the bed and they were… doing it, the way they do it… one behind the other one. And the one in front… well, there was my mother, lying on her back, and her head was between his legs – the one in front – and she was… she had his thing in her mouth and she was doing it to him with her mouth!"
"You saw that? You saw that? Oh my God! Oh my poor darling girl!" he said, rising from his chair and coming over to kneel beside her and hug her to his broad chest. He was almost as overcome with emotion as she was. She sobbed into his jacket and he stroked her silky hair, smelling again the clean, untainted fragrance of wild grasses newly mown. "Davie, my darling Davie, I'm so sorry, darling. So very, very sorry!" he said to her, the anguish apparent in his voice.
She went on, compelled to complete the gruesome story, which had lain on her chest like a millstone. She had kept her secret to herself, too ashamed to tell her friends. There was no one she could confide in, until now. "They didn't see me. The guys had their backs to the door. And my mother well, naturally she couldn't see anyone but that person. He's her decorator, Lewis. I didn't know the other one. I ran to my room and stayed there the rest of the day. Oh Daddy, it was so awful, so sick! And all this time, I can't even have a party at the house with boys! I can't go to a dance or a movie or anything unless there's a grownup along! Yet she sends me to this school, so she can say, 'My daughter goes to this very proper, very fashionable lah-dee-dah school for rich girls.' Hah! If she only knew what went on there!"
Now Peter Knight had another source of concern. "What are you taking about, Davie?"
"Daddy, you wouldn't believe it. Practically all the girls smoke dope, and some even push it! I've done it myself – smoked it a few times. They call you a square if you don't. And some of my friends drink. Are you shocked, Daddy, to find out that your little girl knows how to drink and smoke dope? I don't really dig it that much. But I have to go along with it. Otherwise I won't have any friends at all! But that's not the worst. There are other things you'd be shocked, Daddy, you really would be."
He was already as shocked as he ever expected to be. Now, her last statement had hinted of a thing he couldn't bear to face. Not his little girl. Not Davie. He gave her an incredulous and wounded look it conveyed his thoughts.
"Don't worry, Daddy I'm not talking about boys – although there's a lot of that with some of the girls. It's worse than that, in a way. Do you know what I'm taking about?"
One apprehension exited only to be followed close on the heels by another one. His mind was racing. He felt a terrible queasiness in the pit of his stomach.
"You don't mean…?" He couldn't say it.
"Slumber parties. I didn't want to go when I found out what was going on – what was expected of me. But they gave me a really hard time. Called me names and made fun of me. So I… finally had to go along. But I don't like myself for being weak. I guess in some ways, that makes me just about as rotten a person as my mother…"
"No, Davie, no!" he defended. His jaw was clenched but there was compassion in his eyes. Compassion, pain and great love. He blamed himself for his daughter's debasement. If only he had stayed in New York… if only he hadn't run away to the solace of an island paradise… But he knew all too well the futility of the "if only" game – and it was a game. Now his task was to rescue Davie from the sordid existence her mother had exposed her to. Curse that bitch! He would see to it that his precious daughter was freed from her mother's clutches if it was the last thing he did – even if it meant selling French Leave and moving to another part of the country… or to another part of the world!
But how? Davie was still a minor, and in her mother's custody. Yet he knew perfectly well that if she wanted to live with him no judge in the world would send a truant officer to drag her back to her mother. Still, Francine was vindictive – hadn't she kept Davie from seeing him for three long years? And she had money. Next to fear, money was The Great Persuader. She might hound him to the ends of the earth, just to make him suffer. What could he do that would keep Francine off his back and Davie in his life for as long as she wanted, until she was ready to go off on her own? He suddenly realized that he hadn't asked his daughter if she would, in fact, like to remain with him. Unless she did, his efforts would all be in vain.
He produced a handkerchief from his pocket and began to dab his daughter's eyes very gently. God, she was lovely. It sickened him afresh to recall the details of her mother's perverted display. What the hell had gone haywire with Francine? He always felt she preferred no sex to any kind of lovemaking at all! But then, that was with him. How could she have turned on to faggots at this stage in life!
"Davie… sweetheart," he said softly. "Tell me something. I want you to be completely honest, darling. Don't say anything you don't mean – not even to spare my feelings. I've got to know the absolute truth, OK?"
She looked at him so earnestly, so ingenuously that he was embarrassed at having asked for her honesty. "Sure, Daddy I'll level with you," she answered, managing a small but endearing smile.
"Darling, do you think you could be happy living with me – I mean, living with me for a long, long time; not just these next ten days?"