Candlemoth

by R.J. Ellory

  'Go on,' Father John prompted.

  'She was different, that was all, and I think that was her method of dealing with her family situation.'

  Father John frowned. 'Her family situation?'

  I waved my hand nonchalantly. 'People said her father was Klan, this kind of thing. He was an influential man, big money, big opinions, and rumor had it that he was Klan. A guy I knew in Sumter, a guy called Schembri… even he told me something of the guy's reputation. Even heard her father was in some way involved with Robert Kennedy's death.'

  Father John raised his eyebrows. 'You think he was?'

  'I try not to think about it now.'

  'How come?' Father John leaned towards me.

  I looked at him. I looked to his left at the one-way window. Everything I said here would be taped. I shook my head. 'Whatever he was into was whatever he was into, I have no opinion about it. There were rumors, hearsay… nothing else. Linny Goldbourne sat in a car with me, we heard on the radio that Robert Kennedy had been killed, and that was the moment she left.'

  'When she heard Kennedy had been killed?'

  'Right.'

  'And you think her father was involved?' Father John asked.

  I shrugged. 'All I know was that we heard he'd died, and she changed… everything changed at that point. She left and I didn't see her until after we came back to Greenleaf.'

  'And you think she suspected her father had some involvement in the assassination?'

  I shook my head. 'There were people at the time, later, weeks later… people who said that Goldbourne had business interests, millions, billions even, tied up in industry throughout the South. There was an opinion that the industrialists and money men were as afraid of Robert getting to the White House as they had been of his brother before him. There was even some guy, an investigator, Stroud I think his name was, and he was mouthing off about how Goldbourne was implicated in all manner of things that might lead back to the Kennedy administration.'

  I sighed. I felt agitated. 'Linny left… she went home, and that was the end of the era.' 'But you suspected she might have known something, and when she heard Robert had been killed she got scared?'

  'I don't have an opinion about that.'

  'Have none or don't want to have one?'

  I sighed. 'You want me to tell you what happened?'

  Father John relaxed slightly. He leaned back in his chair, lit another cigarette. 'That's why I'm here,' he said.

  I smiled. 'I thought you were here to save my soul.'

  Father John nodded. 'That too.'

  I noticed he was not carrying his Bible today. I thought to mention it but decided not. Right now Father John Rousseau was the only man I could speak to and I didn't wish to unsettle this relationship.

  'It was the week before Christmas 1969, the end of the '60s, the end of an era in a lot of ways…'

  Linny Goldbourne had heard from Marty Hooper's elder sister, who in turn had heard from Karl Winterson, who in turn had heard from Benny Amundsen. She didn't tell me that right away, she told me a little later, and the mere fact that so many people were talking about my return to Greenleaf gave me slight cause for concern. Greenleaf was a small place, but not that small. This was no seven hundred population miss-it-with-a-blink watering hole, it was bigger, much bigger than that. I presumed that people were interested because Ma had died. I put it down to that.

  Linny hadn't changed. She was still as beautiful as ever, stunningly so, and the verve and enthusiasm with which she breezed into the house was almost overwhelming. She once again encapsulated me within everything she was, and I was swallowed. Jonah and the whale.

  I remember standing there, standing breathless and still and silent as she embraced me, embraced me as if nothing had happened.

  And then she saw Nathan.

  'Oh my God… oh my God… oh my God! Nathan!

  Nathan Verney! Come here, Nathan Verney… oh my God, you're alive!'

  Nathan stood rooted to the spot at the other end of the hall.

  His expression was a complete mystery.

  Linny rushed towards him, her arms out, almost running, and when she reached him she seemed to enclose him completely.

  Nathan was caught off-balance and almost fell backwards.

  I thought nothing of her reaction to seeing him at the time, for Linny was always so enthused about everything.

  'My God, Nathan,' she shouted. 'When did you get back?'

  'His parents had told everyone that he went to Vietnam,' I said.

  Father John nodded.

  'They were ashamed of what he'd done, at least that's what Nathan felt, and so they told everyone that he'd gone to Vietnam and died.'

  'They didn't expect to see him again?' Father John asked.

  'Nathan said they must have hoped they wouldn't see him again.'

  'Why?'

  'So they wouldn't have to explain how come he wasn't dead.'

  'But he never spoke to them?' Father John asked.

  I shook my head.

  'And you never went to see them to tell them he was alive?'

  'No, I never went to see them… didn't see them again until after.'

  'After what?'

  'After he was dead,' I said.

  'Yeah, right, sorry,' Father John said.

  I raised my hand. 'I actually feel really tired,' I said.

  'Okay, just tell me what happened with Nathan and you after Linny came back.'

  'Tomorrow,' I said. 'Let's talk about it tomorrow.'

  'Tell me now, Danny.'

  'Why the hurry?'

  Father John looked momentarily awkward. 'The tape,' he suddenly replied. 'Use up the video tape.'

  I glanced at the one-way window, remembered the camera behind, the fact that every word, every sound, every expression was being recorded.

  I was puzzled.

  'You wanna talk about this today because you don't want to waste a video tape? That's the problem? What is it, you payin' for them or something?'

  Father John smiled. He looked a little embarrassed. He shook his head. 'No, I'm not paying for them, Danny. It's just that -'

  'Just that we don't have that much time do we, Father? Four weeks, give or take, right?'

  Father John smiled, something reassuring in his expression. 'Right,' he said.

  I was quiet for a moment.

  'So how come all of this is so important to know?' I asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders, an effort at nonchalance. 'Important? I just feel I want to know exactly what happened, Danny. I've read the trial records, read the statements, listened to the taped interviews -'

  I smiled. 'You've listened to the tape where I confessed?'

  'Yes,' Father John said. 'I've listened to your confession.'

  'So you've heard everything.'

  'I've heard everything that I'm meant to hear, read everything that I'm supposed to read, but there's so much missing.'

  I looked up. I wanted a cigarette. 'Missing?' I asked.

  Father John shook his head slowly. 'You take in everything, you study all of that stuff, and you come away… at least I came away with a definite feeling that here was a man who didn't fight back.'

  I smiled. 'Didn't fight back? Fight back against what? Against the might of the North Carolina District Attorney's Office, the Federal Court, the Fifth Circuit, the State Appellate, the Supreme Court, the Governor? Or was there someone else involved that maybe I should have argued with'

  Father John leaned back. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I do understand what happened.'

  I nodded. 'And what happened was what was meant to happen, and for all I know had been arranged long before Linny Goldbourne came back.'

  'And how did it make you feel, the fact that she'd left so suddenly after Robert Kennedy's death the year before, and now had returned so unexpectedly?'

  I smiled. 'It made me feel great, Father John, it made me feel… Hell, I don't know. I don't think I'd ever stopped loving her.'

  'Tell me.'


  I took another cigarette. I was smoking so much now. Had I possessed any reason to concern myself with the subjects of health and physical well-being I would have slowed down.

  But I had no reason to think of these things.

  A month and I'd be dead.

  I looked at him, this priest, this man of God, and in his face I saw all the weatherworn signs, the moments when his own faith must have been tested to its limit. It was hard in a world such as this to consider that things were arranged in any other fashion than to bring a man down.

  'Danny?'

  'Uh huh?'

  'Tell me,' Father John repeated.

  'Get back?' Nathan asked, as soon as Linny had climbed down off of him. 'Get back from where?'

  He was laughing, shocked by her reaction, and when she told him that she thought he'd gone to Vietnam and died, a dark cloud seemed to descend on the room.

  I was still standing by the front door, a little amazed at the speed and enthusiasm with which she'd hurtled down the hall and enveloped Nathan. As far as I knew they could never really have had anything to do with each other. Linny Goldbourne had been distant from anyone but her peers, and with her father's apparent racial persuasion she would have been forbidden to even speak to blacks, let alone make lifelong friends.

  I knew Nathan had figured it out even as I closed the front door and joined them in the kitchen.

  Reverend and Mrs. Verney, reading his note, not believing for a moment that he'd gone north for work, had told all and sundry he'd gone to Vietnam and died. That had been their solution. A solution to shame, to reputation, to the Reverend's credibility and position.

  They had killed their son to save face.

  In that moment I was glad I'd never gone over and seen them, never told them that Nathan was back in Greenleaf.

  We sat around the kitchen table, the same table where Nathan and I had sat as kids, and we talked.

  'You gotta understand that you cannot tell anyone I'm here,' he told her.

  Linny smiled. 'Take it easy, Nathan… not a word.'

  'I'm serious,' he said. 'You say something and word'll get around, and before I know it there'll be State Troopers or the fuckin' National Guard down here.'

  Linny raised her hand in a placatory fashion. 'Nathan, look,' she said. 'I have no reason to say anything. I wouldn't even consider saying anything. Besides, if I said something and they slung you in jail I wouldn't get to come down here and see you guys.'

  She turned to me and I looked at her - the dark hair, the hazel eyes, the full and passionate mouth. She reached out and closed her hand against the side of my face.

  'I missed you,' she said softly. 'I missed you so much, Daniel Ford.'

  'And me you,' I said, and raised my hand to cover hers.

  She leaned across the table and kissed me, her lips against mine for what seemed an age and everything that I'd felt - the loss and betrayal, the heartache I had worn on my sleeve since the day she'd left - seemed to evaporate.

  I looked at Linny Goldbourne.

  Linny Goldbourne looked at me.

  There was something smooth and electric passing between us.

  I sensed it, could almost reach out and touch it. There was a wavelength that flowed in slow-motion: psychic molasses.

  She smiled once more, withdrew her hand, and turned to look at Nathan.

  'But Christ, you can't stay inside the whole time… the war might go on for years,' she said.

  Nathan shrugged his shoulders.

  There was silence for a moment.

  'Look,' she said. 'I understand what you're getting at, but hell, Nathan, a prison is a prison whatever the hell it looks like. You stay here you'll go out of your mind.'

  And then she turned to look at me again. To look and to smile. And I perceived it: that thing that was so much Linny, so much whoever she was. Her magic.

  'I'm not going to argue with you,' she said, and both her expression and her voice had warmed. 'I'm here, and I can make things a little more interesting for you guys.'

  She looked at me. 'Okay?'

  I nodded. 'Okay.'

  'Let's have a drink,' she said. 'Fuck it, let's have seven and get completely shitfaced and puke in the garden, huh?'

  Nathan looked at me and smiled, a genuine smile, and then he started to laugh, a sound I hadn't heard for as long as I could recall. The tension was broken, and I thanked her for that, thanked her silently from the bottom of my heart.

  'Sure, let's drink,' Nathan said. 'Let's drink the place dry.'

  I fetched a bottle of Crown Royal, opened it, took glasses from the side.

  'So maybe we could go out some,' Linny suggested.

  Nathan shook his head. 'Going no place,' he replied.

  'I don't mean now, right now, Nathan. I mean sometime soon, maybe when things have settled down.'

  Nathan shook his head. 'Believe me, things won't settle down 'til this goddam war is over.'

  Goddam. He said Goddam. So unlike Nathan.

  'They'll settle,' she said. 'And I think you'd be surprised how little people really care about who went to the war and who didn't. The mood has changed… people are beginning to resent the fact that it ever started, and the ones that jumped the Draft are being talked about as the ones who really had guts.'

  I watched Linny. I knew what she was doing, knew she always moved towards opportunities. Here was a girl who could have anything she wanted, had always had anything she wanted, and to be denied something that piqued her interest was a violation of her fundamental rights as a human being. I felt like saying something, even opened my mouth, but nothing came out. She would convince Nathan that going out was the only real solution to anything he was feeling.

  I poured another drink. I didn't want to talk of the war. I didn't even want to talk of whether we would ever leave the house. Now Linny was here I would have been content to be under house arrest for the duration.

  She laughed suddenly, loudly, a little drunkenly perhaps. 'It's so great to be here with people that have lived some kind of life… I mean, for Christ's sake, everyone here is so narrow-minded and predictable, don'tcha think? Get up, go to work, mow the lawn, read the paper… Jesus, could you imagine having a life like that?'

  She reached out once again and touched my hand. 'So rare to collide with someone on the same wavelength, eh?'

  Someone.

  That's what she said.

  And again she looked at me, and for the first time since leaving Greenleaf I felt that something right was happening. Just for a moment I felt that the past had all disappeared behind me and meant nothing at all.

  A little later we smoked some weed that Linny had brought, and despite everything she seemed to lift the mood and atmosphere for a while. Nathan and I had become introverted, spending too much time thinking about what had happened, what was happening, what might happen if this or that occurred.

  Linny Goldbourne had arrived, and with her arrival the seriousness of our situation was eased briefly. I think both of us - regardless of those things that were never really voiced - were grateful for that.

  When she left she held me close, pulled me tight towards her and kissed me again. 'I would stay,' she said, 'but I can't. It's good to see you.'

  'And you,' I said, and buried my face in her hair, smelled the rich and heady scent of her perfume, the whisky, everything that she was.

  She promised to return the following day, to bring some provisions, to make some dinner for us.

  Nathan had again asked for her discretion, to say nothing, to come and go quietly.

  She had smiled, reached up her hand and held it there against his cheek. She said she would be quiet, like a ghost, and she hugged him.

  I watched her go from the door, and when I closed it I felt the light had gone out.

  I was drunk, but I did not sleep.

  She had held me the same way she'd held me in a diner in Atlanta on the day Martin Luther King was buried. Held me slowly and closely - a little too l
ong to be simply the pleasure of a chance meeting, a reunion, an acquaintance missed and reconnected.

  I hadn't asked her why she had suddenly disappeared back then, that afternoon in June of the previous year. So sudden. So unexpected and unexplained.