‘You’ve told me so before,’ I reminded her.
‘I was just wondering if you even remember that, Yola, being as crazy as you were in those days.’
‘Of course I do; why wouldn’t I? I remember everything about Earl, the only living human I ever had a chance to love properly and who loved me right back.’
‘Well the way I see it, some things are best blocked out,’ she said, hiding her mouth in her cupped hands, a habit people have around here when they want to stop their bad thoughts getting too far away and known by the wrong people.
‘What the hell do you mean?’
‘You’ve got a flat iron, haven’t you?’ she asked, staring full at me over her hands—‘it looked like he’d been slapped with a hot iron to me. Who do you figure did that to him?’
‘The kid wouldn’t tell me,’ I answered.
But he had told me and I’d fallen onto my knees in front of him in a kind of faint. He told me that Christy had reached out and put the palm of his hand against his face. I remember saying, ‘Come on Baby, just tell me where this Christy lives, I want to go and say hello to him. Wouldn’t that be great?’
‘Don’t be silly, Ma,’ he’d answered and he had a look about him of terrible sadness, so that for one second I wished Daddy had not made his solemn oath about my children because it seemed to me that life for Earl was going to be forever dangerous.
‘What did Christy have in his hand to mark you like that, Earl?’ I’d asked him.
He’d raised his fingers towards his cheek then took them away again. ‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘just this part of his hand.’
‘The palm?’
Earl nodded. ‘Can I go now please, Ma? I’ll come back later, I promise.’
I’d watched him wander off with his lopsided walk, saw him disappear through the long grass out front, and then I sat for a long time in the kitchen despairing. Now that wasn’t the type of thing I was going to tell Dulcie, so instead, I poured her some more whiskey and pushed the glass towards her.
‘You must have left the iron on top of the stove and wandered off somewhere,’ she said, and then one of his brothers picked it up and hit him with it. Is that how it went, Yola?’
I was mighty angry with her. ‘I know what you’re thinking, so why don’t you say it outright? I can see it clear in your eyes.’
Dulcie glanced away. ‘Your soda bread will be burnt by now.’
‘Fuck the soda bread,’ I said. ‘The police had that same notion about me for a while, and I found out what malt house syndrome is from the school teacher. How could you ever think I’d hurt my baby? It was Christy who did that to him, Earl told me so himself.’
‘How could Christy have done it if he wasn’t even real?’
‘What makes you so sure he wasn’t real?’
‘Because you told me so, Yola! And don’t deny it.’
‘Okay then, Dulcie, Earl is in Heaven with the Baby Jesus in a giant cot, and they’re both sucking dummies, and I should visit with Doctor Corder and get some pills for being a mad woman, right?’
She shrugged and squeezed her eyes shut for a second. ‘Look, there’s no harm in asking if he can give you something to make you calmer. You go to him about that thing with your bones, don’t you?’
‘Yes, and there’s not a damned thing he can do about my bone sickness. I’ve told you before; my bones are weeping for my boy.’
We didn’t have much to say after that, and so Dulcie lingered a while longer, and left. I could see her bleary through the condensation on the window as she picked her way between the pokeweed that was standing so tall and crowded by now you’d think Daddy and I’d planted it on purpose as a crop.
***
He just doesn’t feel dead to me,’ I said. ‘Sometimes when I go around this house it’s like he’s right beside me, in front of me, behind me. Everywhere.’
Dulcie stared at me a while, trying to decide what to say next, then shrugged. ‘They never did search the swimming hole,’ she said finally, ‘he could be under there.’
‘They didn’t search it because of the dollars it would’ve cost, not because there was pressure from Daddy Hinds, if that’s what you’re thinking now. Besides, Earl hated water Dulcie; he’d never have gone to the swimming hole by himself.’
‘I know that.’
‘Then why d’you say it?’
She put her hand over her mouth and spoke into it. ‘You want the truth?’ she whispered. ‘I think Daddy Hinds did it after all. Either drowned him in that swimming hole, or buried him somewhere they haven’t found yet, like in one of the thick walls between the rooms here or something—or way out in the woods maybe. You nearly left Daddy Hinds once, Yola. You should whip up some courage and really do it. You can take the early morning bus out of town any old Tuesday and I wouldn’t tell on you.’
‘You don’t have to whisper, Dulcie. He’s not here. Listen out for his bike, though. Of course I wondered if it was Daddy at first because of what he did to my baby girl. But he’s as proud as a man can be, and if he says a thing, he sticks to it. He’s always talking about his honour—the idea that he’s a man with honour makes him practically weep with joy about himself, you know? As if it was something particular or holy to be honourable rather than ordinary and just plain decent.
‘See, after Daddy took my baby girl away and I was packed up and ready to leave him for good, he made a bargain with me that if I had another baby that got rickets or any other wrong thing, even a birthmark, he’d let me keep it as long as he never had to be the father to it.
‘So to my way of thinking, it’s nothing to do with Daddy. Cleavon’s the one Daddy goes for if he can, because he sees Cleavon as a man-boy who could push him out of his place before long. That kid’s only fifteen and already a giant—and I’m waiting for the day he looks straight into Daddy’s eyes without flinching.’
‘It’s hard to think of anyone getting the better of Daddy,’ Dulcie whispered, moving over to the window and staring through the dust on the bottom pane. She did that every time she came to visit me, and I never could tell if she was wishing Daddy would return home so she could put her eyes on him, or hoping he wouldn’t. On the few occasions he surprised us and came suddenly into the kitchen, she’d get very swim-headed with her hands going every place—her hair, her neck, her dress, her lips. He used to stare full at her with that mixture of greed and hatred he carried for most women in our neighbourhood. Most women in these woods, I mean—hard to call it a neighbourhood exactly.
Dulcie told me once when we were drinking whiskey out there under those sugar maples that she thought Daddy was just like a bear, beautiful in his innocence, yet hideous in his savagery. We were looking at a magazine she’d stolen from the new shop on the top road; it had a picture of a lyre on one of the pages, and she was running her finger slowly round the shape of it as she talked about Daddy, and the big brown cat from down the trail had come to sit with us. He belonged to Mrs Stanton I think, and for the first time, he let me stroke him.
See, I suspect the real reason Dulcie kept trying to make me leave Daddy Hinds was so that she could move into The Fort House herself. There are certain good things about being attached to Daddy, like always getting a bit of the best meat when someone fells a deer or a hog, or the best logs from the woodsmen if we need extra or the creamiest milk from Mrs Stanton.
‘You’re not married to Daddy,’ I reminded her that day, taking the whiskey bottle out of her hand, ‘So you’ve got the luxury of being able to feel sorry for him. But he wrung that sentiment out of me years ago. That’s what happens when you’re mean; people think bad things of you, and I told him so. Shouted at him. Really gave him what for.’
‘You told him to his face?’
‘Of course to his face. I didn’t tell it to his arse. I gave him a good slapping after that as well and I’ve got strong hands so you can imagine how . . .’
‘There you go again! You’re the biggest liar I know Yola. With you it’s just a longe
vity of lies, isn’t it?’
‘Well thank you, Mam! Nice to get a compliment like that.’
‘Hey, what I mean is you tell me about things you say you’ve done, but they’re just things you’d like to have done if you’d gotten up the courage.’
‘Everyone on the planet does that for fuck’s sake.’
‘Maybe, but you do it more than most folk, Yola. In fact, you do it ninety-nine percent. It’s like you live in Popeye land the way you make things up all the time.’
‘So what does it matter if I do? Who cares?’
‘Sure it matters because it means other people can’t ever believe what you say. Last time I was here you told me you reckoned Earl was alive and still inside this house, remember—remember that crazy talk? You’d just decided to let yourself believe it so you didn’t fret so much.’
I should’ve known back then that Dulcie Miller wouldn’t believe me, but I was bursting to tell someone I’d found Earl at last, and she was the only one I was talking to at the time. That was in 1980, five years after he’d disappeared. I found the kid’s sparkplug up against the skirting board by the linen cupboard and I knew for a fact it hadn’t been there the day before. I knew it.
***
Code is a tiring thing to do after a while, so Earl and me took to only using it in emergencies if it looked like we were on Daddy’s mind, and he was hell bent on giving us trouble. Otherwise, when we had some free time, we’d go into the gunroom or the parlour out the back, or on the bend of the stairs, with Earl on the bannister side so he could pause and look downwards into the dark of the house and me on his right hand side and sometimes on the step above.
The day he first started talking about Christy was much like any other at that time of year. Outside the fog had come close through the pokeweed towards us. The whole family was at home, the boys were playing cards and Daddy was resting upstairs with one of his vicious headaches, the kind that could last for days and that salt couldn’t cure, and that pitched him into a mood so foul that all of us, even his scabby dogs, kept well clear of him.
Earl found me by the sink. I was staring through the window at the way the fog seems to shift around as if it really does have ideas of its own. He fiddled with his sparkplug for a minute or two, and then pulled me out of the kitchen and up the staircase to our talking spot. His face was very pale, beautiful and almost sparkly. ‘You all right?’ I asked him.
‘I think so, Ma.’
‘You only think so—has something happened? You look like you’ve been shuddering.’
‘I’m okay.’
‘You don’t look it. Has someone tried to hurt you?’
He didn’t answer straight off, then after a while he said, ‘Tease a bit, but it’s only joking. He’s not bad on purpose.’
‘One of your brothers again—Vinton?’
‘No.’
‘Daddy Hinds?’
‘No, Ma. You know I don’t go near that man.’
‘Someone I know then?’
‘Nope.’
‘I’m not going to holler or make a fuss, so you can tell me, Earl.’
‘You won’t be angry?’
‘It depends on what you tell me.’
‘That’s what I thought.’ Earl shrugged and stared down past the bannisters into the gloom below us. ‘You might be angry, Ma.’
‘Why, have you done something bad yourself?’ I reached down and put my hand on his shoulder and even though it was pretty cold in the house, Earl was icy-cold through his sweater. ‘Hey!’ I said, ‘What’s up with you, buddy? You’re froze to the bone.’
‘That always happens,’ he whispered.
‘You ill?’
‘No, Ma. I’m fine. I get cold when I’ve touched him.’
‘Touched who, Earl?’ I asked.
‘Christy. I shouldn’t really touch him, but he wants me to,’ he whispered. ‘He badly wants me to.’ He started throwing his sparkplug from one hand to the other, and I knew then that something big was troubling him.
‘Who’s Christy, Earl?’ I asked, my heart pumping against my knee. ‘A new friend?’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe he is. Maybe he’s my best friend ever.’
‘What d’you mean maybe? He either is or he isn’t. Look at me, Earl.’ Now I was afraid; we have some nasty folk around here, not just Daddy Hinds. There’s Joe Bydoon out on the back road and Thin Wesley in the hardware store with rotten teeth, and a good few more like them it’s best to stay clear of. When Earl turned his face up towards me, he was crying. ‘Has this guy been cruel to you?’ I asked, ‘this Christy?’
‘He doesn’t really know things like that. He wouldn’t understand even if I ’splained it.’ Earl stood up suddenly and looked down at me. ‘And he’s not a guy.’ I wish I’d hugged him, held him, kissed him at that moment but I was trying to let him be a little man.
‘A boy, I mean. Where does he live, Earl?’
‘He doesn’t, Ma. It’s not what you’d call living, anyways,’ he said, and walked down the stairs into the darkness of the hall. I sat for some long minutes after he’d gone trying to think if I knew any women round here who had a son of about Earl’s age called Chris, Christopher, Christy.
A lot of weeks went by before he talked about Christy again. We were sitting at the kitchen table, the huge one Daddy had found chucked away down by the railway sidings. It had deep scratches on it as if a bear had gotten to it, and Earl was trying to dig out the dirt in those scratches with my vegetable knife. I didn’t stop him. His sparkplug was there in the middle of the table.
‘Let’s play My Best Friend,’ I said. ‘Do you know that game?’
‘No, Ma.’
‘It’s a bit like What’s the Time, Mr Wolf? only with words, I guess. You have to ask a question about my best friend and I have to tell you the exact truth, and then I ask you the same question and you tell me the truth.’
‘What question?’
‘Oh, like what colour hair does my best friend have?’
‘I know what colour hair Mrs Miller has, Ma.’
‘Yes of course you do, but that’s just an example.’ Earl frowned. I tried again. ‘You ask what colour hair my best friend has and I have to say my friend, Mrs Miller, has fair hair, what colour hair does your friend have, Earl. See? And you have to tell me.’
Earl sighed and gazed at me, and I noticed again how beautiful his eyes were, and wondered how a woman as gawky as me could have him as a son. ‘What colour hair does your best friend have, Ma?’ he asked in his laziest voice.
‘My friend, Mrs Miller, has the same colour hair as Marilyn Monroe,’ I answered. ‘What colour hair does your friend have, Earl?’
‘The same colour.’
‘Blonde?’
‘Not exactly.’ He looked at me again and frowned. ‘This is a silly game, Ma.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s for kids.’
‘No it’s not; it’s just a fun game about best friends. You have got a best friend haven’t you? I thought you had anyway, you told me he was called Christy. Maybe your best friend isn’t called Christy after all,’ I said.
‘Yes he is called Christy. His hair is like fog, so that’s blonde,’ he said, reaching out and moving his sparkplug nearer to him.
‘Fog’s just air Earl,’ I whispered.
‘I know that, Ma; I’m not stupid. Sometimes you can see it and sometimes you can’t. Like Christy.’
My hands began to tremble; I put them under the table. ‘I see. . . . Now it’s your turn,’ I said. ‘Ask me any question you like.’
‘What’s your friend’s favourite colour, Ma?’
‘My friend’s favourite colour is purple,’ I told him. ‘What’s your friend’s favourite colour?’
He didn’t answer me for a bit and I was struck by how silent it was in the kitchen, not even the death watch beetles were clicking. ‘I don’t know,’ he said finally, ‘we don’t talk about colours.’
‘Oh? What d’you talk about then?’
/>
‘That’s cheating Ma, so it’s my turn. What colour panties does your best friend have?’ he asked, and laughed straight out.
‘My best friend has red panties with black stripes,’ I answered seriously. What colour pants does Christy have, Earl?’
‘I’ve never seen them; he probably keeps them somewhere special; he’s always talking about his special place. How old is your best friend, Ma?’
‘Dulcie Miller is forty-two,’ I whispered. ‘How old is your friend?’
‘I don’t know, Ma.’
‘I’ll bet he’s . . . sixteen!’ Earl shook his head. ‘Is he younger?’
‘By the looks of him, no.’
‘He’s older then? Is he a fully-grown man, Earl?’ My throat had gone raw now and I stood up and went to the sink for some water.
‘How would I know Ma? I don’t want to play this game anymore.’
‘Ah, come on, Earl; it’s fun. If you answer me properly, I’ll let you have two goes and you can ask anything you like about Dulcie Miller even if it’s very rude, okay? So—is Christy a fully-grown man?’ I was staring at the cracks in the sink and holding my breath.
‘He might have been.’
‘Might have been?’
‘A grown-up once.’
As I turned to face him I was frightened he’d be able to read through my smile as easily as anything, but he was preoccupied with the dirt in the scratches.
‘Do you know where his special place is?’
‘He said it’s right here in this house. Ma, you asked two questions so that’s cheating.’
‘Okay, Earl,’ I said, ‘Sorry. You can have three goes.’
‘Where is Mrs Miller right now, Ma?’
‘She’s in the iron monger’s shop on Wilder Street.’ My heart was making a big racket and I felt like all the blood had left my head.
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