“Hey!” He caught up with me and turned me around by my waist.
I said, “In case you didn’t know, nuns to the Irish are like, like the pope to the Italians.”
“Yeah? And? The pope likes a good joke.”
An owl called out nearby. “Listen!” he cried in a hoarse whisper. “What is it?”
“It’s an owl,” I said, acting as if in my world owls hooted all the time, left and right.
We both looked around.
“You ever see so many stars?” he said.
“Never,” I said. It was the strangest thing, we were in a moonlit circle. Flowers slept, strewn in a cascading path.
“Oh, no!” I moaned and pulled away.
“What?”
“We’re in the fairy walk!” I don’t want to be here with you, I screamed in my heart.
“The wha?”
“Just look at what you’re wearing!” I shouted instead. “Black jeans and black sneakers and black T-shirt and black racetrack jacket! Aqueduct, no less!”
Johnny looked down at his feet. “I paid a hundred forty bucks for these kicks,” he said huskily.
“Exactly,” I said.
He moved over and took my elbow in the cup of his hand. “I thought you liked how I dress,” he said.
I stood there, seething, breathing in and out like a boxer on the ropes. Before I knew what was happening, I felt the harrowing nudge of his hands, warm, squishing down my pants onto my cold rear end.
I cried out at him, “You don’t want me for months and months, now you come over here just to take possession—”
“Who says I didn’t want you?” He took my wrist. “It’s you who puts the pillow between us every night!”
“That’s not true! Don’t make like it’s me! I put a pillow up on both sides, to rest my knee on. I always liked to sleep that way.”
“You used to like to sleep with your coulie up against my—”
“You’re turning everything around … I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it!”
He opened his pants and took his swollen penis in his hand. “Believe this!” He picked me up and lowered my back onto the rubbery ground.
I almost floated away, but then I saw his hands on Portia McTavish’s neck. “Is this what you do to her?” I cried out, miserable.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes were greedy, already under my blouse. They moved to my eyes. “She has this terrible skin.” He bent and tried to put his ear on my heart. “She puts on all this greasy cream, but the skin underneath is still all rough.” He slipped his calloused hand onto the pulse on my neck. He would always go for that spot. It made me feel like the victim in a crime scene and now he knew I was alive.
I’d stopped struggling.
He sighed. Then he said, “I was always thinking of you. That’s the trouble.”
The terrible truth of it is that that’s what did it. Just knowing he wanted my body more than he’d wanted hers opened me up to him like the loose, vulgar calla lily I suppose I am. If anyone had come out on the moor for a stroll they would have seen these two guile Americans plugging away. And isn’t it sad that it was that superficial admission that made him okay for me and not some higher if guilt-ridden recollections of vows? The truth is never easy. We deserved each other, I suppose. But at that moment, with the moon shining down on his soft, brushy chest hairs, I was transfixed. Around him, a grass as pale as his favorite Del Monte peas framed his long, hairy legs. We carried on for quite some time. Johnny’s brutish demeanor frightened people. It certainly had frightened me. But then when he became intimate he was endearingly selfish and direct, taking what he wanted with such forthright greed that you knew right away what he wanted and how to accommodate. He took me, like that, in the fairy walk, out on the mysterious green with the planets there, all around. Then, with an oil of evening primrose gush of lugubrious heat, I came. Then he came. Then, to make matters worse, we both laughed our heads off. Naked silhouettes on the black horizen. The roused-from-sleeping pinemartins whined with eerie yelps. The owls, at lunch, looked up.
Absurdly contented, I fell back and looked at the stars.
Johnny cleared his throat, making way for some announcement. “Claire,” he said, “I have to tell you, I didn’t come here because of you.”
So. He’d only made the effort because of the children. I knew that well enough. He didn’t have to be so cruel as to say it, though.
Out there in the godless watching of those cursed, translucent limbo dwellers, I could feel my heart break, the way they describe it in songs. It was just like that. Zerissen, the way it sounds in German. That’s what happened to my heart. Zerissen. I could feel it tear.
I knocked him off me.
“Ow!” he cried. “Don’t hit me there!”
“Get away from me!” I screamed.
“What’s the matter with you?” he cried.
“Always the same!” I yelled. “Always! I’m just not enough for you!”
“What is this?” he said. “You lift me up to wipe me out?”
I didn’t have to take this, this humiliation. I collected my clothes and got up at the same time. I dashed off in a furiously dressing huff. He would find his way back to Dayday’s or he wouldn’t. Let him spend a night on the moor, I barked a laugh out loud, it would do him good.
How could I have slept with my husband, I kept thinking. How could I do that, me who wouldn’t do it at home? I made my way back to Molly’s Bed and Breakfast, dropped onto the bed and slept the sleep of the wined and dined and utterly, if swainly, gratified.
* * *
Something scratched. I heard something. I raised my head. It was very late. I’d been sleeping a long time. It was really hot. I got up. Cautiously I went halfway down the stairs. Molly was sitting in front of the blazing fire, her back to me. There was a red heat. She turned and looked at me. She had the strangest look. “Come here,” she said.
Don’t ask me why, but I was frightened. “Have you any aspirin?” I asked her.
“’Tis the middle of the night,” she said. At least I thought that’s what she said.
I went back to bed. I could have sworn I could hear her talking to someone. I looked at the moonlight on the ceiling, moving like the sea. My wooden rosary was on the nightstand. I reached over and grabbed hold of it, clutching it fast, and fell right to sleep.
In the morning I rose, feeling fresh and well, despite the fact I’d slept in my clothes. It was overcast but warm, with the sultry promise of more heat to come.
I grabbed my bag and went out into the hall, thinking I’d go shower. Molly had been stacking towels in the linen closet. “Off to town?” she said as she went down the stairs.
“Yup,” I said, remembering last night and feeling a little foolish. I would have stopped for a chat. I’m ready to talk the minute I wake up. Everyone hates that about me. Then, seeing her disappear into the kitchen, I decided to go back and take advantage of that big claw-foot tub in my room. A nestling bath was in order. While the tub filled, I pushed open the window. It was snug under a low-roofed, slanting dormer that overlooked the moor. Birdsong filled the air. There was an assortment of teas on the dresser, next to a new hot plate. I took the chamomile and peppermint bags and swirled them around the hot water, brewing a lovely, scented bath for myself. While I was lying there, swishing this way and that, turning green and a nebulous yellow, I remembered something my sister Zinnie’d once said to me, when she’d been working on a difficult whodunnit with a family of Lower East Side lowlifes. “The one who is in danger, who they must protect, that’s the dangerous one,” she’d said. I don’t know why that popped into my mind just then, but it did. Well, I thought. That would be Mrs. Wooly, wouldn’t it? Although how she could have orchestrated murder from her arthritic and woebegone cottage was beyond me. And then again, why would she? What would she gain? I didn’t want to float the day away, nor did I want to pursue the idea of someone else being the one to protect … like Jenny Ros
e, so I got out dripping, couldn’t find a towel, dried myself in the bedclothes, put on my silky rayon Punjabi dress the color of sage. All you have to do is hang it up with you while you bathe and you never have to press it. My kind of outfit.
Outside someone was chopping wood. I leaned through the window and saw Molly chopping old furniture up by the shed. “Hello,” I called but she didn’t hear me. I dressed quickly. You never knew what these people considered junk. If I hurried, I might rescue some interesting little souvenir. I slipped into my boots. I’ve got several yards of the most beautiful purples and heathers and mosses that make a good shawl. Everyone thinks I got it at Takashimaya on Fifth Avenue but I really just got it for a song at the Georgetown Fabric Store on Liberty Avenue. It’s nice and soft and warm, and many a night I’ve used it as a blanket while up late watching TV. I rustled through my luggage. Ah, my dangling citron earrings. I stood at the mirror while I screwed them in, then bent over to get my shawl. There was a terrible sound outside. Horrible. I flew to the window.
Molly had raised the shovel up behind her head. I reached my hand out into the air. She crashed the shovel down. She’d hit the cat, Bob the cat from Dayday’s. She’d hit him with the shovel.
I flew down the stairs and out the door. She looked up, shocked, and saw my face.
Mouths agape, we beheld each other.
“What happened?”
“He killed the kitten!” she cried. “He tortured it. The little kitten.”
I covered my mouth with my hand.
I thought Bob must be dead.
She knelt down and picked up the broken kitten and took it to her breast. “Poor wee thing,” she keened and rocked it back and forth. Gently she placed it back on the ground and I helped her into the cottage, went across the room, and got her her cup of tea. It wasn’t hot anymore but it was sweet and I thought she might be in shock. I covered her up with a quilt. I thought I’d better go and get someone but no, she said after a while, she’d be all right. She didn’t want anyone. “There are some terrible things no one can help you get over,” she said and I knew she was going to cry again.
I left her in front of the television and went outside. The big cat must have gotten away. But that was impossible. He had to be dead. I looked into the trees. There was Seamus’s blank form going away, trotting. He had something in his arms. He’ll bury it, I thought. Or bring its demented body back to Dayday. The little one was dead, blood coming still out of its tiny mouth. A wave of nausea came over me. I picked up the shovel and dug a small grave for it in the soft garden earth. It only took a few moments. I patted the earth with the back of the shovel and stomped my feet on the step to shake off the dirt. Molly didn’t get up and come out so I left her there and went away with a heavy heart. I went toward Bally Cashin. Everything felt ruined. I’d hated Johnny already last night but there was something lighthearted and dizzying about the whole episode, as though we’d been Nick and Nora Charles in a film. We hadn’t felt like us. Or, rather, we had, but it had been so much fun. Now it all felt heavy and ruined. And now I had to apologize for his brutish behavior. Why did he always have to behave like a jerk? I went back on the bike the same way Johnny and I’d come. The ground was pressed and stuck where we’d been. I hurried past.
I heard someone behind me, panting, charging toward me, out of breath. I envisioned an enormous cat. When I tell you I was terrified, it’s true. Really, I thought someone was coming to push me over the cliff. I threw myself and the bike down on the ground where I’d be more difficult to wedge away.
But it was Molly. I grasped my chest in relief. “For heaven’s sake,” I said, standing up. “I thought it was someone coming to kill me.”
“Thank God I caught you,” she gasped. “I couldn’t let you go on your own. Are you all right?”
“Yes, of course,” I said gratefully.
We fell into step. “Did you bury them?” she asked.
“I buried the little one.” I touched her shoulder in what I hoped was a comforting gesture.
“Where did you put the other?”
“I didn’t. I saw Seamus carrying it away.”
“Saints preserve us! He’s done it now!”
“Done what? What’s he done?”
She stood still, grasping my arm. “It was Seamus tortured those poor dumb animals!”
“Seamus? How? What do you mean? I thought it was the big cat murdered the little one.”
She regarded me. “That would have been better. I wish that’s how it had been. I should have let you think it.” She chucked a stone at a zillion-stone wall. “He’s always been this way. I used to think I could teach it out of him. We love our Seamus, but— You’re sure the big one’s dead?”
“Yes, I’m sure it must be. You hit it with the shovel.”
“I was trying to put it out of its misery, bleedin’ from the mouth like that. If I’d had a gun, I would have shot it. If it’s not dead, he’ll find it and torture it again. He lays in wait.”
“What do you mean?”
“Seamus.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe this.
She sank woozily down onto the grass. “I just hope it’s dead,” she said.
“Please tell me what’s going on.” I sat beside her.
“There’s something wrong with him. Years ago, when I first moved into Wattles Cottage, I’d find him. I thought he was kindness itself, feeding the things. And what was he doing? Torturing birds.”
“No!”
“It’s true. I’d watch from my window. I didn’t know what he was up to. He’d take them down to the riverbank. Once it was a pig. You should have seen that! Oh, it was a dreadful story. I don’t even like to remember it.” She looked at me. “You mind when it’s a wee animal, but something frightens you when the animal gets closer to human size. You worry what’s next. Know what I mean?”
Stunned, I just sat there.
“He likes to torture things. Animals. Anything, really. He likes to make things squirm.” She shook her head.
“I can’t believe it.”
She clutched her head. “Sometimes I want to tell someone.”
“I’d better tell Uncle Ned.”
“Don’t tell anyone,” she pleaded. “They’ll have him committed! They’ve been talking about it for so long as it is!”
“It’s terrible! He ought to be committed then.”
“And if they have him committed now, what will happen to Mrs. Wooly? Sure, she’ll die of a broken heart is what she’ll do.”
She’ll die soon anyway, I thought. “What if he would do something like that to Jenny Rose?” I said, my teeth aching.
She narrowed her eyes. “He’d never hurt Jenny Rose. He needs her.”
“I just can’t believe it,” I said, getting up. “He seems so gentle.”
“Aye, he’s a sly one.” She pulled herself up, leaning on my arm.
But I could believe it. I’d seen an edge of violence in Seamus. I’d felt it when we’d gone past his old house. Jenny Rose had known I’d felt it, too. She’d covered for him. I know she had. It was just the art of his violence that was such a shock. I’d envisioned a blinding rage, a lashing out in powerful anger, never the slow, time-consuming occupation of torture. I hadn’t sensed that at all. No wonder he could imitate the lot of us. He studied us. I shuddered. It was too horrible. “I have to tell you,” I confided, “there was a moment there … when I saw you raise up that shovel … well, I thought it was you—”
“Who tortured that old cat? Me? I’d be the last to hurt one of God’s creatures. Although … I’ve got to be honest, if just with myself, there’s a spot of that in us all. I remember as a child I’d watch the gulls. My mother said don’t throw your sweets at them now or they’ll choke. Then when she was gone I did, I threw my candy at them just to see what would happen.” She shut her eyes. “I’ll never forget it. My mother was just inside, she was baking and there was flour everywhere. That bird did the most garish dance … I shall never forge
t it.” Her head went down. We both beheld the past in our minds’ eyes, hearing the present’s gulls screaming above us. She turned and faced me. “But you grow from it, away from the horror, like. Not toward it. It’s part of experimenting and growing up, I suppose. I’d never hurt a living thing after that. I guess you know that now.” She held herself dearly as we continued to walk. “There’s them what takes their pleasure from another’s pain,” she said in a tight voice. “I’m just sorry you had to see it.”
“What must have happened to him as a child?”
She smiled at me and shook her head. “Nothing. He’s just lost to goodness. You Americans are always trying to justify evil. That can destroy you.”
“I’m devastated,” I admitted. “But that’s not true. I do believe in evil, plain and simple. I just think there is such a thing as cause and effect.”
“There are people born each day without an arm or a leg. Why should it be impossible to be born without a conscience?” She was trembling, outraged. “A missing gene. It’s not about fault.”
I remembered the poor dead kitten. “And I’m worried about Jenny Rose. No matter what you say.”
“You’re not to worry about that girl.” Molly smiled. “She has luck.”
That was hardly reassuring news to me. I anguish for the fun of it.
“Now,” she said, stopping. “I’ve told you what I had to.”
“Why not come in and have a cool drink? Now that you’ve come the whole distance.”
“No. It’s the walking does me good. It winds me down. Just please don’t say a word. Mrs. Wooly won’t last the summer. If they take him away from her, she’ll—”
“I know. It will break her heart.”
“Not only that. She’ll curse the village.”
“I don’t believe in that sort of superstition,” I said.
“Neither do I.” Molly looked over her shoulder. “But she’ll leave the house to the church, then, for spite. And I want the house.”
I said nothing. I too had longed for my share of forbidden houses. “You can still come in,” I said.
She smiled and looked out over the moor. “And I don’t much care for Bernadette.”
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