Drop by Drop

by Morgan Llywelyn

  By now Jack was grinning. “Just listen to us! If we can get this far on our own, the human race can go all the way!”

  * * *

  As they did almost every Sunday, Gerry and Gloria Delmonico attended the church on the corner of Pine Grove and Alcott Place, where their daughter, Danielle, recently had been baptized. Although the morning had dawned bright and clear, a low bank of dark clouds to the north held the threat of rain later. As they stepped out of the church into the sunlight they exchanged smiles with one another. In spite of the Change, their lives seemed good that day; filled with promise. By focusing on the here and now they had everything they could wish for.

  That morning the headline in The Sycamore Seed referred to a foreign country where a new type of tank had been developed that would soon roll onto undefended shores. Some glanced at the paper and looked away before meaning could invade their minds. Others absorbed every word, acquiring another layer of hopelessness.

  * * *

  Fred Mortenson desperately wanted to kill his wife. He refused to think of it as murder. Louise was always complaining about how miserable she was, and that’s what you did, wasn’t it? Put a suffering creature out of its misery?

  Killing her should be simple enough. His dry cleaning plant employed a toxic solvent called perchloroethylene that would kill in a matter of minutes, but A: How to get her to drink the vile smelling stuff? and B: Could it be traced to him?

  While watching himself in the shaving mirror Mortenson thought of half a dozen other methods using items from around his house, not to mention his collection of legally held firearms. But if he shot her with a gun registered to himself Sheriff Whittaker would be all over him like ugly on an ape.

  Look how quickly he’d found Dwayne Nyeberger. And taken the man back to the hospital with another breakdown.

  We’re all suffering breakdowns, Mortenson thought. Innocent by reason of insanity.

  He regarded himself in the mirror. Not bad; a little jowly perhaps, but not bad at all. Deserved a young, prettier woman, not someone who whined because he’d hung his shaving mirror too high for her to apply her lipstick.

  Why wait? Spousal slaughter was happening all the time now. According to the Seed, murder rates were going through the roof. Okay. No time like the present. First he would get his .22 out of his rifle case and do a little target practice, just to be sure.

  The locked rifle case was in the back hall. When he stepped into the hall the first thing he saw was Louise with a metal nail file in her hand and a grin on her face. Then he saw the rifle.

  “Gotcha!” said Louise Mortenson.

  * * *

  Colin Bennett stood in the middle of his grandmother’s living room with his fists planted on his hips. “I don’t want to live in our old house again, Mom! Nothing works in it, everything’s ruined. Besides, we’d still smell the smoke from the fire.”

  “You couldn’t possibly,” she asserted, “that’s just your imagination. RobBenn was miles away from our house.”

  “I can smell it anyway. Why can’t we stay here with Gramma?”

  “We’re too cramped here. Besides, it’s a dreadful imposition on her.”

  “That’s not the reason,” the boy said. “You two fight all the time, that’s why you want to leave.”

  “We don’t fight all the time, Colin, you’re exaggerating. We have differences of opinion, but that’s inevitable when people live together in close quarters.”

  “So find some other place.”

  “There isn’t another place available right now; don’t you think I’ve looked?”

  “How about Jack? Could we move in with him?”

  “Jack Reece?”

  “He takes you out in his car sometimes, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes, but we’re just friends.”

  “He’s got a super car and I’ll bet he’s got tons of money.”

  Nell could not remember how it felt to love Robert Bennett, but she loved his son; she did not want Colin to become the same kind of man with the same set of values. “I don’t know if Jack has money and I don’t care.”

  “When you go out with him you come back awful late. Me and Jess have been talking and we don’t want you to marry some snot-clot who can’t take care of you.” The boy smiled then: not his father’s self-centered smirk but an expression of concern that was purely Colin Bennett.

  * * *

  O. M. Staunton was not a sensitive man. But he could take a hint. Slowly and quietly in the beginning, not enough to cause a ripple on the surface, changes had been occurring in his body long before his daughter died. He had never paid much attention to his health, assuming it would serve him as obediently as did everything else in his life. Then he began experiencing bouts of nausea. A hollow pain at the base of his throat. A pounding heartbeat that awoke him in the middle of the night to find himself bathed in sweat.

  Never one to panic, in his own good time he had gone to see his doctor. His doctor sent him to a specialist who sent him to another specialist

  On Sunday afternoon Staunton appeared at Bea Fontaine’s front door again.

  “Miz Bea, I need to talk to you. Is anybody else here?”

  “No, Jack’s out for the day and I have no idea when or even if he’ll return. You know how young men are.”

  “I can’t even remember,” Staunton said hoarsely. “Can I come in?”

  When they were seated in the living room Staunton refused any offer of refreshment. “Let’s make this quick; I have to. Since I was born the human life-span has lengthened dramatically; ninety is the new seventy and all that. But mine’s done all the lengthening it’s going to do.”

  Shock sent pins and needles through Bea’s body. The Old Man had seemed immortal, like the Old Man of the Mountain in New Hampshire. “You can’t mean…”

  “I do mean. The medicos give me weeks, a couple of months at the most; I don’t have enough heart muscle left to use as a shoelace. I’m not a candidate for a heart transplant, my lungs and kidneys are shot too. I’ve got to make arrangements pretty smartly and I need your help. I hate to keep asking you for favors, but…”

  She found herself looking at his trousered knees as he sat in the armchair. Bony knees, thrusting sharply up like mountain peaks. When did he become so thin?

  “Somebody’s going to have to take over the bank while I’m still able to oversee the transition,” he went on. “My son-in-law’s off the rails. After Tricia’s funeral I urged him to come back into the bank, hoping it would steady him, but … I want to appoint you as president of the Sycamore and Staunton. You know more about this bank than anyone else and I can trust you to do what I would. It’s a poisoned chalice right now, but things are going to get better, they always do if you hang on long enough. What do you say, Miz Bea?”

  Miz Bea did not say anything. To the dismay of them both, she began to cry.

  She recalled that the stone face of the Old Man of the Mountain had crumbled away to nothing.

  The bank of dark clouds that appeared in the morning sky had spread throughout the day, keeping the temperature unseasonably low, yet there was the faintest shimmer on the air, like heat waves rising from the earth.

  Staunton stood beside Bea on her front porch, surveying the weather with a dubious eye. His familiar black car waited at the curb. “Is this supposed to be summer or winter?” he asked.

  “Are you sure you’re able to drive? What about your car?”

  “I’m able to do anything I want to do, I just don’t want to do much anymore. And that car’ll go where I tell it to. You still haven’t given me your answer, Miz Bea.”

  She drew a deep breath, like someone on a high diving board about to jump off for the first time. “If you really want me to…”

  “I do.”

  “Well, then…”

  “Well, then be in my office by seven in the morning, before anyone else gets there.”

  He did not say thank you. Or good-bye. He got in his car and drove away.

>   * * *

  Dwayne Nyeberger was furious. “I’ll go to the board of directors!” he shouted at Bea when she gave him the news on Tuesday morning. In his office, with the door closed, and him pounding his fist on the desk.

  Bea was determined to remain calm. The Old Man expected her to be able to weather this storm, and she would. “Stauntons have chosen every member of the board since the bank was established,” she reminded Dwayne, “and it’s always rubber-stamped them. Don’t worry, your job is secure. You’ll continue on the same salary, he’s insisting on that. But—”

  “No buts! I’m going to take this to the banking commission and the board of trade; I’m going to have the whole rotten deal overturned! I’ll have that old fool put away!”

  “You’ll be wasting time and money,” Bea warned. “Don’t you know him by now? He has every contingency covered.” She lowered her voice to cushion the blow as she added, “He’s already filed copies of your medical records to show that you are unstable; the authorities won’t take your word over his. Be thankful for what you have, Dwayne.”

  Dwayne responded with the worst temper tantrum of his life. Bea insisted that he take the rest of the day off.

  As she returned to her office—with its gallery of former bank presidents watching from the walls—she became aware that the parquet floor was sticky. She stopped. Bent down. Ran her fingertips across flooring made of imitation teak laminate that was just beginning to dissolve.

  Bea straightened up. The eyes of Oliver Staunton’s grandfather appeared to meet hers. The stern visage expressed mild disapproval.

  Every portrait had been painted in the same style.

  * * *

  The Nyeberger boys were still recovering from their injuries at home; still cared for by Staunton’s housekeeper and a rotating assortment of nurses when required. Haydon Leveritt, a stocky woman with frizzy hair and deep frown lines, was doing the best she could, but her temper had worn very thin. Years ago there reputedly had been a Mr. Leveritt, but according to town gossip, “He stepped outside one day for a quick smoke and just never came back.”

  Keeping house for the town’s richest banker had been the height of her ambition. Being saddled with the young Nyebergers and their problems was a step too far. When their father rampaged into the house cursing and shouting, the boys were alarmed. Haydon was terrified.

  Since the disaster at RobBenn, Flub, the elder—by eight minutes—of the Nyeberger twins, had not spoken. There was no physical reason, according to their doctors. As his father’s uncontrollable outburst reached its peak Flub tugged on the housekeeper’s arm. “Daddy’s sick again. He’s always sick. I wish he’d melt.”

  21

  Martha Frobisher had never expected to be in a position to buy the florist’s shop where she worked. As long as Gold’s Court Florist was a going concern the owners were content to keep it in their portfolio of assets. One of the results of the Change was a decrease in the sale of luxury items such as commercially grown flowers. When the till receipts diminished enough to be worrying, the shop was put on the market while it still had some commercial value.

  Martha’s only connection with the S&S had been as a repository of her salary and widow’s pension. She did not know how to go about applying for a mortgage; her home was the tiny cottage she had inherited from her late husband. It took several days to bring herself to the point of entering the bank.

  She was surprised to discover that rough wooden planks had been laid across the floors of the lobby, like paths running in different directions. She was wary of stepping onto one until the receptionist got up from her desk and came toward her. “Can I help you?”

  “I’d like to see an officer … a loan officer,” Martha said timidly.

  “That position’s been amalgamated with the vice presidency; a reduction in staff, you understand. But the vice president is away right now. Would you like to see the president?”

  The mere suggestion sent a shiver up Martha Frobisher’s spine. Presidents were not on her radar. “I don’t think Mr. Staunton would—”

  “It’s not Mr. Staunton anymore. Sit down a moment and I’ll get her for you.”

  Martha perched on the edge of a chair, a bird about to take flight. The room with its marble surfaces echoed like a tomb. Her nerve broke. She was about to hurry away when Bea Fontaine appeared, carefully negotiating a path of planks.

  When she saw who was waiting for her she smiled warmly. Over the years Bea had purchased a number of floral arrangements from Gold’s Court Florist, a few for her own use but most to brighten up the bank. “Martha! What can I do for you?”

  At Bea’s request the receptionist brought coffee and cookies into the president’s office—which also had planks on the floor—and left the room. For a quarter of an hour the two women discussed the weather and their mutual acquaintances. From time to time Martha glanced at the portraits on the wall. She couldn’t help asking, “Do they ever make you nervous?”

  “I’m starting to get used to them, but at first it was like having Mr. Staunton looking over my shoulder. Sometimes I wonder how he stood it all these years.”

  “Is he not coming back?”

  “I’m afraid not. We’re going to have his picture painted, though.”

  After checking Martha’s financial situation, Bea assured her she could qualify for a business loan. “We’ll give it to you in the form of credit. Not much actual money changes hands these days; people are trying to do all they can by barter. Barter depends on trust to a certain extent, but in a town the size of Sycamore River almost everyone knows everyone and you’re unlikely to cheat a person you’ll see again tomorrow. The situation’s probably different in the cities, though.”

  “I used to wish I lived in a city with symphonies and theaters,” the other woman said wistfully. “Now I’m glad I don’t. Still, I don’t understand how a bank can stay in business without using money.”

  Bea replied, “Money’s just one way of representing value. The monetary quantity theory recognizes a distinction between nominal money and real money. ‘Nominal’ refers to a unit of currency, like dollars. ‘Real’ refers to the goods and services the dollars will buy.” She did not realize she had fallen into Jack’s lecturing mode, or that Martha was struggling to keep up. “We assume that what ultimately matters to purchasers is not the nominal but the real, so in the bank we’ve become brokers. We take a portion for our services.”

  “Oh my,” said Martha Frobisher. “Does that mean I can pay off my loan in flowers?”

  “Part of it, at least, as long as we need flowers or have a customer who does. It’s different from the banking we used to do.”

  Martha was still nervous. “Are you sure everything’s all right? I mean, is there anyone else who—”

  Bea gave her a sad smile. “I’m it. There’s no one left to ask.”

  * * *

  Jack Reece was not the only person cursed with intuition. In Sycamore River as in communities around the world, anxiety was reaching a new level. Supplies of tranquilizers and sleeping pills had long since been exhausted. Patients suffering from hysteria and nervous exhaustion were sleeping on the floors in the hospital. The only questions were what, when and where catastrophe would strike. But it all came back to the Change.

  The Wednesday Club discussed little else.

  “As far as we know,” Jack reminded them, “the Change still hasn’t affected any living organism. Whatever damage is being done, we’re doing to ourselves.”

  Gerry said, “If there’s global war that’ll be more than enough.”

  “Edgar Tilbury thinks humans have a biological need to cull themselves every few generations like lemmings,” said Lila. “He says that may explain why we keep going to war: to kill off the breeding-age males.”

  “Why didn’t he come with you tonight?” Bill Burdick asked as he set down a fresh pitcher of beer.

  “He has a lot of things to get ready.”

  “Ready for what?”


  “I wish I knew.”

  * * *

  Within the tunnels the smell of the earth was sweet and strong, the way he liked it. Better than coffee, even. Or at least as good as. Except for Jamaican Blue Mountain. Edgar Tilbury wondered if he should start weaning himself off from Jamaican Blue Mountain. Not only had it become nearly impossible to obtain, but luxury coffees were part of the world Up There.

  Down Here was sanity.

  He was carrying a heavy-duty flashlight as he made his way down the sloping tunnel, but he hardly needed its light; his feet knew every inch of the passage. Or so he thought until he tripped and fell to his knees. He made a mental note to smooth out the footing.

  At the end of the passage a right turn gave way to another tunnel lined with wooden shelves holding several years’ worth of dried legumes, rice and oatmeal in sturdy cotton sacks. An angle to the left led to the pasta stores—Tilbury was particularly fond of pasta—and tightly sealed cellophane bags of cookies and crackers. Beyond these were the fruits and vegetables. He loathed prunes only slightly less than he despised dried apricots, but healthy bowels and an adequate supply of vitamin C were necessities.

  On other shelves hundreds of glass jars gleamed like jewels with the gold and red of canned peaches and strawberries and rhubarb, the dull green of runner beans and the fleshy hues of pickled mushrooms. Row upon row of cans held more soups and stews than a man could consume in a lifetime. Fruit cocktail and dill pickles, tomato paste and powdered milk, bottled lemon juice and packaged spices, salmon and mackerel and sardines and herring—it was all there, everything Edgar Tilbury liked to eat and a few things he was prepared to tolerate for the good of his health.

  Deep in the ground below the barn, sound from Up There was muffled. Tilbury had taken the precaution of equipping his property with a highly sensitive alarm system that worked on sound vibrations and would warn him of any visitors. It was connected to the house, the barn and the cattle guard at the end of the lane. Whenever he entered the tunnels it was turned on.