“All they do is talk,” she told the hot afternoon. “You go to the can and somebody knows it. … I don’t care, me.”
But she did. If everybody knew it, something was spoiled. She shrugged and got up, went inside and turned on the radio.
They had ruined it, she told herself bitterly. They ruin everything. …
She stretched out on the sofa. Her head was aching and her eyes felt funny. She began to wish she hadn’t taken the chicken.
What was it like up in Bayou Cantaque, she wondered. What it was like in all of them, she answered: grasses that were always moving slightly and rustling slightly even when there was no wind, and water that was thick and black and so still—if you dropped a leaf, it sat motionless on the shiny surface.
The shiny surface that reflected back at you like a mirror. And you could no more see through it than you could through a mirror. But you could guess what was under it. Alligators, for one; they came up sometimes to kill muskrats on the bank with one flick of their tails. And Congos, the long black snake that swam like a fish, people said, and had a bite that would kill the strongest man alive in just three hours. You’d see their heads standing up sometimes out of the water, and looking for all the world like a plain dark stick. And the creatures lines and nets brought up: gars whose scales made belts tough as leather; big catfish with whiskers and twin barbs; and eels, their mouths filled with sharp white teeth.
She shivered and swallowed a couple of times. She was glad she wasn’t a man and had to work those waters.
I’d as soon give up and go in to Port Ronquille and get a job at the sulphur plant, she thought. Even if the sulphur got in your lungs and killed you, little by little, it was better.
And then there were people who had never done anything. Not one thing their whole lives long. Like Beatriz, who couldn’t even do her hair. Who hardly knew how to brush it. Who had never seen an iron. Who learned to use it with floods of Spanish words. If I had just remembered them, Annie thought.
And what would Beatriz be doing right now? This same minute. She might be still at the convent. Or she might have gone home. Annie had thought about that home sometimes; she could imagine the place (Beatriz never talked about it, but one of the nuns had told Annie the little bit she knew). The shadowy rooms, one stretching after the other in endless procession, tremendous halls lined with mirrors, a court where mimosa was so sweet and heavy you could hardly breathe.
Annie thought over the picture slowly, touching here and there, smiling to herself. There’d be closets so crammed with clothes you couldn’t shut the door. And the curtains at the windows would be satin. In her room there’d be blue satin, pale blue, at the sides draped up by big gold hooks, and over the window part there’d be white lace, sheer as organdy, and billowing out in the small steady breeze. And there’d be white bearskin rugs on the floor, changed every day so there was never a speck of dirt on them. And a dressing-table, all mirrors with tall thin bottles of perfume, so many that you’d forget about the ones in the back.
Annie stretched and drifted back to the island. That would be the life, she thought. How did some people get it, she wondered. How were some born lucky. …
She liked this house better when it was empty. She walked from room to room. It wasn’t a bad house, the way island houses went. And it was pretty cool in summer. She’d seen worse places in New Orleans, and that was for sure.
In the kitchen she found some left-over coffee and poured it into a dirty cup. She drank it, watching the fat sparrow that perched on the tablette outside the window.
And all of a sudden she was facing her big problem, and it was plain as the dumpy form of the bird: did she put on some lipstick and take a walk down to the wharf or did she wait for Inky to look for her?
Adele had left a pack of cigarettes on the table. She took one and lit it. She tried to inhale, choked, and gave up. She held the cigarette to her knee and watched the white thread of smoke crawl over her skin.
It wouldn’t do to let him think she was too eager. … She half closed her eyes and tried to look bored. … She’d just have to wait until he came. Of course there was nothing that said she couldn’t go down and have a peep, if she stayed behind the palmettos and was careful that he didn’t see her.
And if he forgot, maybe she could think of an excuse to send somebody down there, her father, maybe, or Cecile. Somebody who would remind him, without saying, of her. … She could work something out, if she had to. But he wouldn’t forget.
The cigarette was out. She must have knocked off the coal. She got another match from the back of the stove and lit it. … A holder would be nice. She was crazy not to bring one from New Orleans. … Maybe she should wash her hair today; it was beginning to have a little sweet-sweaty smell. And what sort of shampoo. …
She’d just have to take a walk over to Arcenaux’s and have a look at what he had. She’d try a new one.
She dropped the cigarette into the last little bit of coffee. And then she remembered something else: Inky did not know where she lived.
She ran her fingers under her hair, fluffing it up.
She could go then. She could just happen along the dock. That was better than his coming up to the house anyway. Because of Adele.
She was an old maid, Annie thought as she started another cigarette. She should have gone to the convent; they’d have loved her there. She even sat like a lady or a nun—straight up, so straight that her back curved a little. Jesus. …
And what was it the nuns had told her: a lady never spills things in her lap. If she spills, she spills on her bosom. …
Annie dropped the half-smoked cigarette into the dish water. Let Adele object. … If her hair was going to be dry by tonight, she’d have to get going.
She got a chair and climbed up to the top cupboard shelf. There was a coffee can there. She opened it, reached below the dark brown grounds and got a dollar bill.
She started to leave, hesitated a minute, then went back to the coffee pot and shook it thoughtfully. She drank the little that was left through the spout, not bothering with a cup.
FOR A WHILE FATHER Ryan waited patiently on the Bozo, sitting in the little shade of the wheelhouse, reading his breviary. But he came to the end of that, and he put the book on top of his coat, which he had taken off and folded carefully on the deck, stood up and looked around.
The wharf was completely deserted—not even a seagull or a pelican moving—with one exception: a young man by the sailboat a couple of hundred feet away. He wore bathing-trunks and his body was shining with sweat; he was finishing his washing in a big tub set on the dock. Father Ryan walked over. “Hot work,” he said.
The young man looked up briefly. “Yea,” he said.
There was a line running from forestay to mast, and hung over it were some long pieces of foam rubber, mattress-shaped. Other lines from spreaders to mast held blue-and-white-striped cotton covers.
Inky straightened up. “This is no day for work.”
The priest nodded. “Most people wait till early in the morning.”
“I spilled some coffee on the covers,” Inky said, “and I had to get it out before it stained.” He tipped the tub and poured the water through the cracks in the wharf. “Mildew got in some,” he said, “so I did the lot.”
“A fine-looking boat.”
“Yes,” Inky said, “I just work on her.”
(Annie had come up just then and stopped behind the heavy tangle of bay trees and palmettos. She held the bottle of shampoo in her left hand and with her right she lifted a single palm leaf to see.
She saw the freshly washed covers hanging limp in the still air. And she could feel first her ears, then her whole face go bright red.
It was the sunburn, she told herself, she’d have to get some grease on it before she got sick.
She backed out of the thicket and walked home slowly. She did not want to do her hair any more. She stretched out, flat on her back, on her bed, and cried small angry tears.)
“And cruising.”
“I used to go to the races on the lakefront sometimes when I was in New Orleans.”
“It’s fun,” Inky said. He hung the tub upside down over a piling. “I got some ice below,” he said, “how about a drink?”
Father Ryan nodded and came on board.
“Up in the shade under the covers,” Inky said, “it’ll be cool enough.”
They were sitting there, cross-legged on the deck, when Mike Livaudais came back. He did not seem to notice them. He walked on to the Bozo. Father Ryan got up to follow him.
“Better luck this time,” Inky said.
Mike was staring sadly into the engine hatch. He straightened up when the priest came aboard. “I offer you my house,” he said, “instead of the hard deck.”
He was different, Stanislaus Ryan thought; he was less sad now, and more determined. The priest wondered. He took off his glasses and polished them on his sleeve. “How long will it take you to fix the engine?”
Mike shrugged. “It is old, yes, and, like old people, it get funny things wrong with it.”
“Was it the battery?”
Mike threw out his hands. “How can I tell? Can I look in the inside of the case and see what is going on there? Can I see through lead?”
The priest was scratching his chin with his glasses. “You were going to get somebody to test the battery.”
Mike waved his hand around again. “And that Story LeBlanc, I have looked for him. I have looked all up and down for him. Everywhere I could think of, I look for him. And he is not there.” He walked twice around the open engine hatch and stood looking down. “I got to do the best I can, myself, me. I got to get to work.”
“And how long will that take?”
Mike shrugged.
“And the other boats now … do you think they could be taking me back?”
Mike straightened up and stared down the line of moored luggers. “Hector, now, he is working on his hull.”
“Where?” Father Ryan asked, “I don’t see.”
“From inside,” Mike said. “And the Mickey Mouse got something wrong with her rudder. And the St. Cristopher—that the same Story LeBlanc I am looking for and don’t find. … And for sure we don’t want to take you back in a chabec … but no! That is just too much a risky business. And what would everybody say if we drown the priest. …”
“Yes,” said Father Ryan, “for sure.”
“And then there is Al Landry’s boat, the last one—là-bas,” he pointed, “and he is out taking his new wife for a ride somewhere.”
The priest nodded.
“And you do not ask me to steal a man’s boat while he is gone?”
“No,” Father Ryan said. “No.”
“And you see the other boats, they gone working.”
“I see.”
“But you be cheerful,” Mike said, “I get this fixed.”
Father Ryan stifled a yawn in the heat.
“Why you don’t come back to the house with me? My wife she be proud to have a priest in her house.”
The priest got to his feet slowly, one knee at a time. This was a different man, he thought, from an hour ago. Altogether different. … And he was beginning now to see what was happening. And he wasn’t sure he liked that any better.
Mike slapped one hand to his forehead. “But I have forgot … you must not have any dinner. … How the dogs they must be growling inside you.”
Stanislaus Ryan was a young man, but he felt very tired. “I suppose I am hungry.”
“I got to have my head examined, letting you starve in front of my very eyes.”
Mike got him by one arm and helped him over the rail like a cripple. “Mother Mary,” Mike said, “how I going to talk to myself for doing this.”
“It’s fine,” Father Ryan said. “I’m fine.”
They walked up the path to the house. They did not meet anyone on the way, Father Ryan noticed, though there must be plenty people around.
And all the time Mike was talking. “I go find that Story LeBlanc … sal au pri—excuse,” and he crossed himself. “And I make him tell me why he go and hide so nobody can find him on a Sunday. … And I take my engine apart, I got to fix it … and maybe LeBlanc he take you, if mine don’t go.”
Soon as they got in the front gate, Marie Livaudais came rushing down the steps and got Father Ryan by the other arm. They led him in the house, both talking now. And he had the feeling that had he stopped, they would have just dragged him along and not even noticed.
There was dinner—ready, and not touched. Father Ryan looked at it, scratched his chin again, and kept on wondering.
They got him to the table, urged him to sit down. They pushed the chair persuasively against the back of his knees.
“Now,” Mike shouted, “la neigre, she will feed you good, no?”
Over by the stove his wife said something without turning around.
“And don’t you bring none of the children in here.” Mike yelled out the window: “When we got a priest for dinner you got to eat later.”
There was a murmur and then crying of kids.
“They must be hungry,” Father Ryan said.
“Bunch of cannibals,” Mike scowled. “Not more than two days ago, when we was having shrimp … ”
“Boiled shrimp,” Marie said, “plain cold boiled shrimp.”
“And one of ’em , he can’t stand the sight of another one, and he pick up a shrimp and throw it. And before we got chance to grab anybody, that dish—big, big platter, you can put four duck on it and no spilling over—that dish is all gone and the shrimp they is all over the room.”
“Got on the wall,” Marie said. “Smell.”
Father Ryan sniffed. “I can’t tell,” he said.
Mike patted him gently on the back. “The Father, he is so polite, him!”
“It’s the seminary, for sure,” Marie said. “They teach to be polite in the seminary.”
Stanislaus Ryan opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Mike bent down, staring into his mouth. “You was going to say something, yes? Shut up! the Father, he going to say something.”
“I wasn’t,” Father Ryan said. “Nothing.”
Mike looked disappointed and straightened up again.
A couple of black heads appeared at the window. “Filez d’ici!” Mike roared.
“They must be getting hungry,” the priest suggested.
“Don’t go being sorry for them,” Marie said.
“And you shut up too,” Mike said, “with us waiting for food and getting fainter and fainter.” He waved his hands again.
“Mo’ pere, don’t go being polite, just to save our feelings. …” He opened the armoire that stood in one corner of the kitchen. Down on the bottom, behind the dresses and coats that were hanging there, was a bottle of wine. He took it out, a gallon jug, and held it to the light. “Marie, her cousin’s husband, made it.”
She had the glasses on the table. Mike poured them. Father Ryan tasted carefully.
“Oh …” he said, “orange wine.”
“Shu …” Marie nodded. “My cousin’s husband don’t make nothing but the orange wine.”
“And the best, che’,” Mike said. “Let’s us not go forgetting to say that.”
“How you like it?” Marie asked.
“Very fine.” The wine was strong and very sweet.
“And you have nothing like that back where you come from?” Marie asked.
“In New Orleans?”
“That where you from?”
He nodded.
“You not from Ireland?”
“Marie, you getting mixed up, for sure,” Mike said. “That was the priest before, name of Gillespie.”
“Oh,” Father Ryan said.
“He went and left.” They had found him one morning tossing oyster shells at imaginary cats in the church yard. “Thought it was you,” Marie said. Father Ryan shoo
k his head.
They had dinner while the kids stood outside and watched them, and occasionally squabbled among themselves.
“And do you think you’re going to get that engine fixed this afternoon?”
Mike slapped his forehead. “I have forgot. I am having such a fine time eating dinner with you, it had gone out of my mind entirely.” He jumped to his feet, knocking the table so that the dishes rattled together.
“I’ll come with you,” the priest said.
“But no …” Mike picked up a rocking-chair and carried it to the front porch. “Down at the boat it is hot and there is no reason you should sweat like me. … You sit here, and my wife, she be out to keep you company when she finish cleaning up back there.”
“I could help.”
Mike smiled, sadly, so that the missing-teeth gaps at the sides of his mouth showed. “And what you know about engines?”
“Well, now … ”
“You know about God,” Mike said; “me, I know about engines. … I come get you when I have it fixed.”
He bowed Father Ryan into the rocking-chair and left him.
Stanislaus Ryan put his elbows on the arms of the chair and his chin on his hands, as he watched Mike out of sight. You could hear people laughing and yelling far off, but around the house it was very quiet. Even the children, back in the kitchen, were quiet; they must be getting fed.
There was a telephone on the island somewhere, he remembered. Later on, he would have to use it to tell the housekeeper back at the rectory at Petit Prairie that the CYO would have to meet without him—if the engine didn’t get fixed in time. And he didn’t really think it would.
Marie came out, carrying some sewing in her hands, a bright yellow and red piece of cotton. He looked from her to the spot where the steady, square, plodding back of her husband had disappeared. “Such fine liars,” he muttered.
“Pardon” she said and cupped a hand around her ear. “But I did not hear, me.”
“It was nothing,” he said. “And I wasn’t talking to you.”
It was nearly six o’clock before the engine was fixed. Mike sent a kid up to tell Father Ryan.
“It sounds right now, no?” Mike asked him.
The Hard Blue Sky Page 26