“It’s not gossip. It really happened. I wanted to tell you about the twenty dollars he—”
“I don’t want to listen, is that clear? Their private life isn’t my business or yours. Now you’d better settle down and go to sleep before your mother comes charging in here and shows you how mad someone can really get.”
“I’m not afraid of her. She never does anything.”
“Well, I might do something, kiddo, so watch it. No more drinks of water, no more tucking in, and no more gossip. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Lie down and I’ll turn out your light”
“I haven’t said my prayers.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sa— O.K. O.K., say your prayers.”
She closed her eyes and folded her hands.
“Dear Jesus up in heaven,
Like a star so bright,
I thank you for the lovely day,
Please bless me for the night.
“Amen. I don’t really think it’s been such a lovely day,” she added candidly. “But that’s in the prayer so I have to say it. I hope God won’t consider me a liar.”
“I hope not,” her father said. His hand moved toward the light switch but he didn’t turn it off. Instead, ‘‘What was the matter with your day, Jessie?”
“Lots of things.”
“Such as?”
“I was treated just like a child. Mike even went to the school with me and Mary Martha to make sure I didn’t play on the jungle gym because of my hands. He acted real mean. I’m thinking of divorcing him.”
“Then you’d better think again,” Dave said. “You can’t divorce a brother or any blood relative.”
“Mary Martha did. She divorced Sheridan.”
“That’s silly.”
“Well, she never ever sees him, so it’s practically the same thing as divorce.”
“Why doesn’t she ever see him?”
Jessie looked carefully around the room as if she were checking for spies. “Can you keep a secret even from Ellen?”
Although he smiled, the question seemed to annoy him. “It may be difficult but I could try.”
“Cross your heart.”
“Consider it crossed.”
“Sheridan went to live with another woman,” Jessie whispered, “so he can’t see Mary Martha ever again. Not ever in his whole life.”
“That seems a little unreasonable to me.”
“Oh no. She’s a very bad woman, Mary Martha told me this morning. She looked up a certain word in the dictionary. It took her a long time because she didn’t know how to spell it but she figured it out.”
“She figured it out,” Dave repeated. “Yes, that’s Mary Martha all right.”
“Naturally. She’s the best speller in the school.”
“And you, my little friend, are about to become the best gossip.”
“Why is it gossip if I’m only telling the truth?”
“You don’t know it’s the truth, for one thing.” He paused, rubbing the side of his neck as if the muscles there had stiffened and turned painful. “The woman involved might not be so bad. Certainly Mrs. Oakley’s opinion of her is bound to be biased.” He paused again. “How on earth I get dragged into discussions like this, I don’t know. Now you settle down and close your eyes and start thinking about your own affairs for a change.”
She lay back on the pillow but her eyes wouldn’t close. They were fixed on Dave’s face as if she were trying to memorize it. “If you and Ellen got divorced, would I ever see you again?”
“Of course you would,” he said roughly and turned out the light. “I want no more nonsense out of you tonight, do you hear? And kindly refer to your mother as your mother. This first-name business is going to be nipped in the bud.”
“I wish the morning would hurry up and come.”
“Stop wishing and start sleeping and it will.”
“I hate the night, I just hate it.” She struck the side of the pillow with her fist. “Nothing to do but just lie here and sleep. When I’m sleeping I don’t feel like me, myself.”
“You’re not supposed to feel like anything when you’re sleeping.”
“I mean, when I’m sleeping and wake up real suddenly, I don’t feel like me. It’s different with you. When you wake up and turn on the light, you see Ellen in the other bed and you think, that’s Ellen over there so I must be Dave. You know right away you’re Dave.”
“Do I?” His voice was grave and he didn’t rebuke her for using first names. “Suppose I woke up and Ellen wasn’t in the other bed?”
“Then you’d know she was just in the kitchen getting a snack or making a cup of tea. Ellen’s always around some place. I never worry about her.”
“That sounds as if you worry about me, Jess. Do you?”
“I guess not.”
“But you’re not sure?”
She put one hand over her eyes to shade them from the hall light coming through the door. “Well, fathers are different. They can just move out, like Sheridan, and you never see them anymore.”
“That’s nonsense,” he said sharply. “The Oakley case is a very special one.”
“Mary Martha says it always happens the same way.”
“If it makes Mary Martha feel better to believe that, let her. But you don’t have to.” He leaned over and smoothed her hair back from her forehead. “I’ll always be around, see? In fact, I’ll be around for such a long time that you’ll get mighty sick of me eventually.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Wait until the young men start calling on you and you want the living room to entertain them in. You’ll be wishing dear old Dad would take a one-way trip to the moon.”
She let out a faint sound which he interpreted as a giggle.
“There now,” he added. “You’re feeling better, aren’t you? No more worrying about me and no more thinking about the Oakleys. They’re in a class by themselves.”
“No, there are others.”
“Now what do you mean by that, if anything? Or are you just trying to prolong the conversation by dreaming up—”
“No. I heard with my own ears.”
“Heard what?”
“You might call it gossip if I tell you.”
“I might. Try me.”
She spoke in a whisper as if the Arlingtons might be listening at the window. “Howard is moving out, exactly the way Sheridan did. He told Virginia last night, right in front of me. ‘I’m leaving,’ he said, and then he stomped away.”
“He didn’t stomp very far,” Dave said dryly. “I saw him outside helping the gardener this morning. Look, Jessie, married people often say things to each other that they don’t mean. Your mother and I do it sometimes, although we shouldn’t. So do you and Mike, for that matter. You get mad at each other or your feelings are hurt and you start making threats. You both know very well they won’t be carried out.”
“Howard meant it.”
“Perhaps he did at the time. But he obviously changed his mind.”
“He could change it back again, couldn’t he?”
“It’s possible.” He stared down at her but he could tell nothing from her face. She had averted it from the shaft of light coming from the hall. “You sound almost as if you wanted Howard to leave, Jessie.”
“I don’t care.”
“The Arlingtons have always been very nice to you, haven’t they?”
“I guess so. Only it would be more fun if somebody else lived next door, a family with children of their own.”
“What makes you think the Arlingtons are going to sell their house?”
“If Howard leaves, Virginia will have to because she’ll be without money like Mrs. Oakley.”
He stood up stra
ight and crossed his arms on his chest in a gesture of suppressed anger. “I’m getting pretty damned tired of the Oakleys. Best friend or no best friend, I may have to insist that you see less of Mary Martha if you’re going to let her situation dominate your thinking.”
She sensed that his anger was directed not against the Oakleys, whom he didn’t even know except for Mary Martha, but against the Arlingtons and perhaps even Ellen and himself. One night she had overheard him telling Ellen he wanted to move back to San Francisco and Ellen had appeared at breakfast the next morning with her eyes swollen. Nobody questioned her story about an eye allergy but nobody believed it either. For a whole week afterward Dave had acted very quiet and allowed Mike and Jessie to get away with being late for meals and fighting over television programs.
“Did you hear me, Jessie?”
“Yes. But I’m getting sleepy.”
“Well, it’s about time,” Dave said and went out and shut the door very quickly as if he were afraid she might start getting unsleepy again.
Left alone, Jessie closed her eyes because there was nothing to see anyway. But her ears wouldn’t close. She heard the Arlingtons arriving home in Howard’s car—it was noisier than Virginia’s—the barking of their dog Chap, the squawk of the garage door, the quick, impatient rhythm of Howard’s step, the slow one of Virginia’s that sounded as if she were being dragged some place she didn’t want to go.
“The Brants’ lights are still on,” Virginia said, her voice slurred and softened by fog. “I think I’ll drop over for a minute and say good night.”
“No you won’t,” Howard said.
“Are you telling me I can’t?”
“Try it and see.”
“What would you do, Howard? Embarrass me in front of the Brants? That’s old stuff, and I don’t embarrass so easily any more. Or perhaps you’d try and bring Jessie into the act. It’s funny you can’t solve your problems without dragging in the neighbors. You’re such a big, clever man. Can’t you handle one wife all by yourself?”
“I could handle a wife. I can’t handle an enemy.”
Jessie tiptoed over to the window and looked out through the slats of the Venetian blind. The floodlight was turned on in the Arlingtons’ yard and she could see Howard bending over unlocking the back door. Virginia stood behind him holding her purse high against her shoulder as if she intended to bring it down on the back of Howard’s neck. For a moment everything seemed reversed to Jessie: Howard was the smaller, weaker of the two and Virginia was the powerful one, the boss. Then Howard stood up straight and things seemed normal again.
Howard opened the door and said, “Get inside,” and Virginia walked in quickly, her head bowed.
The floodlight went off, leaving the yard to the fog and the darkness, and the only sound Jessie heard was the dripping of moisture among the loquat leaves.
(14)
The following morning Ralph MacPherson rose, as usual, at 5:30. Since his wife had died he found it possible to fill his days, but the nights were unbearably lonely. He minimized them by getting up very early and going to bed when many lawyers were just finishing dinner. His matchmaking friends disapproved of this routine but Mac thrived on it. It was a healthy life.
Before breakfast he took his two dogs for a run, worked in the garden and put out food and water for the wild birds and mammals. After breakfast he read at the dining-room window, raising his head from time to time to watch the birds swooping down from the oaks and pines, the bush bunnies darting out of poison oak thickets at the bottom of the canyon and the chipmunks scampering up the lemon tree after the peanuts he’d placed in an empty coconut shell. Helping the wild creatures survive made him feel good, like a secret conspirator against the depredations and greed of man.
He reached his office at 8:30. Miss Edgeworth was already at her desk, looking fresh and crisp in a beige silk suit. Although he’d never accused her of it—Miss Edgeworth didn’t encourage personal conversation—Mac sometimes had the notion that she was making a game out of beating him to the office, no matter how early he arrived, and that winning this game was important to her; it reinforced her low opinion of the practicality and efficiency of men.
There was always a note of triumph in her “Good morning, Mr. MacPherson.”
“Good morning, Miss Edgeworth.”
Her name was Alethea and she had worked for him long enough to be on a first-name basis. But it seemed to him that “Good morning, Alethea” was even more formal than “Good morning, Miss Edgeworth.” He was afraid the day would come when he would accidentally call her what the girls in the office called her behind her back—Edgy.
He said, “Any calls for me?”
“Lieutenant Gallantyne wants you to contact him at police headquarters. It’s about a car. Shall I get him for you?”
“No. I’ll do it.”
“Mrs. Oakley also—”
“That can wait.”
He went into his office, closed the door and dialed police headquarters.
“Gallantyne? MacPherson here.”
“Hope I didn’t wake you up,” Gallantyne said in a tone that hoped the opposite. “You lawyers nowadays keep bankers’ hours.”
“Do we. Any line on the green coupé?”
“One of the traffic boys spotted it an hour ago. It’s standing in Jim Baker’s used-car lot on lower Bojeta Street near the wharf.”
“How long has it been there?”
“Garcia didn’t ask any questions. He wasn’t instructed to.”
“I see. Well, thanks a lot, Gallantyne. I’ll check it out myself.”
He hung up, leaned back in the swivel chair and frowned at the ceiling. The fact that the green car had been sold made it more likely that Kate was right in claiming that the man behind the wheel had been Sheridan. Ordinarily Mac took her accusations against Sheridan with a grain of salt. A number of them were real, a number were fantasy, but most of them fell somewhere in the middle. If she walked across a room and stubbed her toe she would blame Sheridan even if he happened to be several hundred miles away. On the other hand, Sheridan had pulled some pretty wild stuff. It was quite possible that he’d tried to frighten her into coming to terms over the divorce and had ended up being frightened himself when she pursued him with her car.
Mac thought, as he had a hundred times in the past, that they were people caught like animals in a death grip. Neither was strong enough to win and neither would let go. The grip had continued for so long that it was now a way of life. It was not the sun that brightened Kate’s mornings or the sea air that freshened Sheridan’s. It was the anticipation, for each of them, of a victory over the other. They could no longer live without the excitement of battle. Mac remembered two lines from the children’s poem about a gingham dog and a calico cat who had disappeared simultaneously:
“The truth about the cat and pup
Is this: they ate each other up.”
It hardly mattered now who took the first bite, Kate or Sheridan. The important thing was how to prevent the last bite, and so far Mac hadn’t found any way of doing it. With the idea that perhaps someone else could, he had tried many times to persuade Kate to engage another lawyer. She always had the same answer: “1 couldn’t possibly. No other lawyer would understand me.” “I don’t understand you either, Kate.” “But you must, you’ve known me since I was a little girl.”
Kate’s attitude toward men was one of unrealistic expectation or unjustified contempt, with nothing in between. If they behaved perfectly and lived up to the standards she set, they were god figures. When they failed as gods, they were immediately demoted to devils. Mac had avoided demotion simply by refusing either to accept her standards or to take her expectations seriously.
Sheridan’s demotion had been quick and thorough, and there was no possibility of a reversal. Sheridan was awa
re of this. One of the main reasons why he went on fighting her was his knowledge that no matter how generous a settlement he made or how many of her demands he satisfied, he could never regain his godship.
Mac was sorry for them both and sick of them both. He almost wished they would move away or finish the job of eating each other up. Mary Martha might be better off in a foster home.
He told Miss Edgeworth he’d be back in an hour, then he drove down to the lower end of Bojeta Street near the wharf. It was an area of the city that was doomed now that newcomers from land-locked areas were moving in and discovering the sea. Real estate speculators were greedily buying up ocean-front lots and razing the old buildings, the warehouses and fish-processing plants and shacks for Mexican agricultural workers. All of these had been built in what the natives considered the damp and undesirable part of town.
Jim Baker’s used-car lot was jammed between a three-story motel under construction and a new restaurant and bar called the Sea Aira Club. A number of large signs announced bargains because Baker was about to lose his lease. Baker himself looked as if he’d already lost it. He was an elderly man with skin wrinkled like an old paper bag and a thick, husky voice that sounded as if he’d swallowed too many years of fog.
He came out of his oven-sized office, chewing something that might have been gum or what was left of his breakfast, or an undigested fiber of the past. “Can I do anything for you?”
“I’m interested in the green coupé at the rear of the lot.”
“Interested in what way?” Baker said with a long, deliberate look at Mac’s new Buick. “Something fishy about the deal?”
“Not that I’m aware of. My name is Ralph MacPherson, by the way. I’d like to know when the car was sold to you.”
“Last night about six o’clock. I didn’t handle the transaction —my son, Jamie, did—but I was in the office. I’d brought Jamie’s dinner to him from home. We’re open fourteen hours out of the twenty-four, and Jamie and I have to spell each other. He sold the young man a nice clean late-model Pontiac that had been pampered like a baby. I hated to see it go, frankly, but the young man seemed anxious and he had the cash. Sooo—” Baker shrugged and spread his hands.
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