The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress

by Beryl Bainbridge

  ‘So what?’ he said, kicking the gravel and wishing it was Webster.

  ‘Have you forgotten what happened when Bud took on his Pa?’

  Harold did remember. Bud had been left a large sum of money by his mother. His father had contested the will on the grounds that his son was too young for such wealth and would probably drink himself into the grave. Bud won. His father, hopelessly in debt, threw himself from the twenty-ninth floor of the SunLife Insurance building. After that Bud drank like a fish.

  Harold said, ‘I have to see Wheeler.’

  ‘It won’t do no good.’

  ‘Lots of things don’t do no good,’ he retorted. ‘Including the part you played.’

  Webster shot up and slammed the hood down. ‘Anyone else,’ he shouted, ‘unless fucking blind and deaf would have known what was going on.’

  ‘You were my friend too,’ Harold said, and heard the whine in his voice. The dog bounded towards them, barking.

  ‘Fuck off,’ bawled Webster; he wasn’t talking to the dog. Seizing Harold by the shoulders he sent him sprawling. A bunch of keys jerked onto the grass.

  What happened next was embarrassing. Rose ran down the steps and, enfolding him in her arms, shouted at Webster to go away. Her lips were on his cheek, breath musky with tobacco smoke. She wriggled two fingers behind his ear, scrabbling at his skin as though it was the cat she held. Cradled there, Harold reminded himself that women were programmed to show sympathy, not rationally, merely from need.

  After a conciliatory handshake with Webster, he strode towards the camper, followed almost immediately by a hasty return and an undignified crawl on all fours in search of the spilled keys.

  SIX

  The journey continued down shimmering roads bordered by curly trees. Miraculously, or because of Web­ster, the thumping of the engine had gone away.

  Rose felt considerably more at ease now that she’d actually touched Harold. He didn’t show it, but she sensed the animosity between them had shrunk. It was a bit like the shyness one felt before having sex and the familiarity let loose once it had happened. She’d always been uncomfortable during preliminaries, hadn’t known how to behave, swum free when penetration happened, experienced a tearful relief when love evaporated like steam puffing from a kettle.

  For all their new understanding, she still thought Harold a funny man. For some time he parroted on about how badly Webster had behaved to the woman on the stairs with the painted toenails. He’d obviously let his lover down, he said, treated her with a lack of respect. Rose felt obliged to point out that only women had lovers, not men; Dr. Wheeler, being an educated man, had corrected her on that score after she’d mentioned her involvement with a bulky professor of physics. Besides, scarlet-toes was Webster’s sister, and she’d been in that hysterical state because her husband had just left her for a younger woman and their son was taking it badly. He was called Milton, the boy that is, after the town in which he’d been born, not the poet.

  Harold was quiet after that, mute as the van advanced to wards a smudge of mountains. Looking sideways at him, at the tuft of his beard, the brown spots sprinkling his podgy hands, the constant jiggling of his left knee, Rose was convinced he was a soul immersed in darkness. Perhaps that was why, like herself, he was anxious to find Dr. Wheeler. Many years before, when she’d thought nothing could save her, Dr. Wheeler had shown her the way. He’d never spelt anything out, never mentioned God, only nudged her towards the belief that redemption was necessary.

  Wanakena was not far from Canada, if you were a bird. It was Red Indian country and originally settlers had come here to cut down trees and work in Benson’s mine. Harold didn’t know for sure what the mine had produced, although he thought it might have been iron ore. Rose had heard of that at school, along with oxbow bends. There was a small village, a forest, a graveyard, a lake and a river. Some of the gardens blazed with sunflowers and there was a shop selling Indian relics. Harold said there was nothing of interest to be bought save pretend scalps and arrowheads.

  His friend Mirabella lived in a one-storied timber house on stilts, wooden steps leading down to a patch of earth entirely surrounded by trees. She had to keep the lights on because the sun never got through the windows. She was middle-aged, handsome, and wore jodhpurs though she hadn’t got a horse. When she spoke she sounded very confident, bossy, rather like Mrs Shaefer. Rose thought it was because American women weren’t shy of appearing superior to men.

  The rooms in the house were spacious, with vast fireplaces and a lot of oak furniture, yet Mirabella kept apologising for the lack of amenities. She explained she always came here at the beginning of June to escape the heat of her apartment in New York. ‘You wouldn’t believe,’ she told Rose, ‘how often I’ve been in danger of frying.’

  Dr. Wheeler wasn’t there. Mirabella said that she hadn’t set eyes on him for two years, but a letter had arrived a couple of days ago mentioning that he believed his friend Rose was in the States and that he could be contacted at an address in California.

  Harold didn’t seem surprised, didn’t even ask to see the letter. He told Mirabella that Shaefer sent his love, then collapsed onto one of the many sofas. ‘Oh yes,’ he remembered, ‘Jesse wanted me to remind you that you still have his poster of Lyndon Johnson dressed as a cowboy.’

  Mirabella was very chatty. She talked about a Miss Durant and a Miss Jenks who had come from New York in 1910 and bought up ten houses, including the one they now sat in. Possibly, although in those days it had never been brought into the open, they had been more than just friends. There was a photograph of Miss Jenks above the main fireplace. She was very old, mouth a grim pencil line, and wore a man’s cap on her head. Before her, a Madame Tweedy, a music teacher, had lived here scandalously with a lumberjack. When he died, mysteriously, from a gash in his throat, a girl had replaced him, one who looked so like a leopard, all spots and snarling teeth, that the villagers had run away screaming. ‘I’ve a drawing somewhere,’ Mirabella said and, jumping up, began rummaging in drawers.

  ‘Could I see Dr. Wheeler’s letter?’ Rose asked.

  ‘Later, later,’ Mirabella promised. Unable to find the drawing of the leopard girl she embarked on a story about a desolate family, the McDills, who had lived across the Oswegatchie River. ‘They had four children,’ she said, ‘two girls and twin boys, one with red hair.’

  ‘Did he say why he keeps moving?’ said Rose.

  ‘He was just a kid, no more than six years of age, but he apparently brought a dead wild-cat back to life, which ever after howled at the moon. It was claimed he was possessed by the devil. Ignorance, of course. The state took him away and his sisters became prostitutes.’

  ‘I need to see it,’ Rose said.

  ‘Those days,’ Mirabella declared, ‘tragedy was in the air one breathed.’

  ‘It is now,’ Rose said. ‘Nothing’s changed.’

  A meal was served when Harold woke up. It was pink lamb, not properly roasted, accompanied by a lot of green things. Harold said, ‘Jesse rang you, I guess,’ at which Mirabella nodded. The talk that followed was mostly about the Shaefers and how well Jesse and George were managing their lives, apart from the problem of their only child who was obviously heading for trouble.

  ‘He stays out all night,’ Mirabella said.

  Harold said, ‘You can hardly blame him.’

  An hour passed before Rose felt able to bring up Dr. Wheeler’s letter again, by which time Harold had stumbled back to the sofa. Soon, judging by the snuffling noises emerging from the velvet cushions, he sank into the land of dreams.

  ‘I’m sorry to be a nuisance,’ Rose said, ‘but I have to see that letter.’

  It was very brief, merely an address in a town called Malibu to be given to Rose, and a polite hope that Mirabella was keeping well. He spelt Rose’s name without a capital R.

  ‘We had such good times in the old days,’ Mirabella said. ‘We all went to Paris once, at Fred’s expense. Jesse . . . Bob Maitland . .
. me.’

  ‘When did Dr. Wheeler leave?’ Rose asked.

  ‘Leave?’ Mirabella looked puzzled.

  ‘He said he’d be here,’ Rose said. ‘That’s why I’ve come. I got a letter in Washington.’

  Mirabella was forking the remains of lettuce leaves into a paper bag; one of her fingers was bound with sticking plaster. ‘Why would he be here?’ she queried. ‘He’s on the Kennedy campaign trail . . . somewhere in Oregon.’

  ‘But he’s dead,’ said Rose.

  Mirabella giggled. ‘Not that one,’ she corrected. ‘His brother.’

  It was evening when Harold woke. He scratched at his beard like a man infected with creepy crawlies and said he needed a walk. When Rose asked if she could come too, he flatly refused. ‘You’re not to go out,’ he ordered.

  ‘You’ll be pleased with the rose bush,’ Mirabella said. ‘It’s rambling towards heaven.’

  She handed him a torch, in case it grew dark. Before he left he apologised for leaving her alone with Rose. ‘You’re to keep her inside,’ he said. She said he was not to worry, message understood. Rose thought they were both rude.

  When he’d gone, Mirabella asked how she and Harold had become acquainted. It was obvious from the gleam in her eyes that she took them to be more than just friends.

  ‘We met through people I know . . . Polly and Bernard . . . a year or so ago. Bernard does business with a lot of Americans. I don’t believe that Harold understands me, not really . . . we’re not on the same wavelength . . . but he’s been very kind and he paid for my aeroplane ticket. I don’t have very much money myself, and it’s lucky that he wants to find Dr. Wheeler as much as I do. They go back a long way.’

  ‘They do indeed,’ Mirabella replied. She went to the stove and hovered there, fiddling with a jar of coffee. She was half smiling, as if remembering some joke.

  ‘I knew Dr. Wheeler when I was a child,’ Rose said. ‘He took an interest in me.’

  ‘That’s unique,’ said Mirabella. ‘Fred couldn’t stand children.’

  ‘He always told me that if ever I needed him, he’d be waiting.’

  ‘But not this time,’ said Mirabella.

  ‘I had a difficult childhood,’ blurted Rose. ‘I was saved by Dr. Wheeler. He sorted me out.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ Mirabella said.

  ‘Would you mind,’ Rose asked, ‘if I stretched my legs?’ She was moving towards the door as she spoke.

  ‘Best leave Harold alone,’ Mirabella said. ‘He’s gone to look for his wife.’

  Startled, Rose stared at her. ‘His wife?’ she repeated.

  ‘Didn’t he tell you?’ Mirabella put aside the coffee jar and, taking Rose by the elbow, steered her to the table. She stood looking down at her, tugging at the plaster on her finger.

  Rose said, ‘He never mentioned he was married. Nobody did.’

  ‘Men always keep things to themselves,’ Mirabella told her. ‘You shouldn’t take it to heart.’

  ‘I don’t,’ cried Rose. ‘I just don’t understand why he didn’t tell me he was coming here to see his wife. Where is she?’

  ‘Flat on her back,’ Mirabella said, waving a damaged finger in the direction of the windows. ‘Six foot under.’

  The explanation that followed was brief and to the point. The wife, who was called Dollie, had fallen for another man. She had left Harold to be with him, but after twelve months he’d grown tired of her. She was an intelligent woman and should have known what she was getting herself into. ‘It wasn’t the first time she’d strayed,’ Mirabella said, eyes glittering. ‘She had a fling with Shaefer, but that was only sex.’

  ‘Did Harold find out?’

  ‘God, no. He thinks the world of Jesse. Anyway, Dollie came back to Wanakena and drowned in the lake beyond the trees. It was referred to as an accident, though some of the newspapers hinted at suicide. It was hushed up so that she could have a proper funeral. Suicides can’t be put in consecrated ground.’

  ‘Why here?’ asked Rose.

  ‘It’s where they spent their honeymoon. I lent them the house.’

  ‘I once told my teacher,’ said Rose, ‘that my mother had killed herself. It was a lie. I’d been off school for a week because of trouble at home and I sort of hinted that my mother had gone. Miss Albright took me into the staff room. I felt daft because outside the window Rita Dickens and her cronies in the fourth form were pulling out leaves they’d stuffed up their knickers . . . they were playing at having babies.’

  ‘How inventive,’ said Mirabella.

  ‘I only meant Mother had gone away, but Miss Albright thought I meant really gone . . . gone forever. Her eyes were all glittery.’

  Mirabella was smiling again.

  ‘I need to go outside,’ Rose told her, ‘to think things over. I promise I won’t search for Harold.’

  Once down the steps she was engulfed in shadows. It was as though she was small again, hurrying to meet Dr. Wheeler in the green gloom. Ahead of her, patchy beneath the darkening heavens, she glimpsed the grey outline of that terrible lake.

  Dr. Wheeler was puffing on a cigarette. Gazing upwards, he said the smoke mingled with the presence of those who had once lived. They were standing in front of the tombstone of Mary Eldridge, mother of two children, Ella and Robert, expired from fever, June 5th, 1868. She said she expected the children had cried a lot, even though Mrs Eldridge may not have been a good mother, at which he accused her of thinking of her own parents and always unkindly. None of us, he chided, can know how our actions affect other people, not until it’s too late, nor blame others for our own mistakes.

  The trees were so thick that the iron gate into the graveyard was partially hidden. Rose had difficulty in pushing it open. There was no church to be seen, simply row upon row of gravestones tilting forward on a march towards heaven. The racket of birds in the branches above was discordant enough to waken the dead.

  She felt very sorry for Harold, and was vexed that she hadn’t thought him capable either of being married or of suffering a tragedy. She’d always prided herself on being clever at sensing other people’s emotions and the reasons for their deficiencies. It was curious, seeing that she had such a knowledge of character, that she hadn’t divined Harold as being the sort of man to have a wife, let alone one who had topped herself.

  She didn’t stay long in the cemetery in case Harold appeared and got angry with her. If she had been in his shoes she wouldn’t have liked to be followed. No wonder he had given her a funny look when she’d told him that story about Mother doing herself in. She went out of the gate, shoved it back into place and sat under the trees, watching the leaves blacken as the light leaked from the sky. She felt a mixture of sadness and elation; but then, other people’s tragedies were always more affecting than one’s own.

  She was disturbed by a sudden noise, a sound halfway between a grunt and a roar, followed by a violent snapping of branches. In the distance a tiny beam of light, fluttery as a butterfly, skittered across the ground. She crouched down, waiting for the night to cease its quaking.

  She was climbing the steps of the house when Washington Harold came up behind her. ‘I’ve been searching for you,’ he hissed. ‘I told you not to go outside. You could have been killed.’

  His face, illuminated by torchlight, was furrowed, angry.

  ‘Killed?’ she bleated.

  Didn’t she realise, he demanded, that there were bears nosing through the rubbish dump by the graveyard?

  ‘Bears,’ she said. ‘Like the ones in the zoo?’

  ‘Nothing like,’ he retorted. ‘These are on the loose, red in tooth and claw.’

  If Harold was speaking the truth, it wasn’t her he should have been yelling at. Mirabella hadn’t mentioned a word about wild beasts, but then she was probably bored stiff and needed a spot of excitement. It couldn’t be much fun, stuck in a forest where all the interesting events had happened a century ago.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she lied, ‘Mirabella warned me not to go
outside, but I couldn’t help myself.’

  Harold calmed down when they got inside. He poured her a glass of wine and patted her hand as though he meant it; even so, she knew he didn’t really see her. Nor did he bother to introduce her to the man in a knitted hat who was sitting beside Mirabella at the table.

  A minute after she had sat down she was aware of the man’s bare foot rubbing up and down her leg. She didn’t mind, it being something she was used to, and besides, he was very generous in handing out cigarettes. He had bushy eyebrows and a scar on his upper lip. Now and then Mirabella glanced at her, expression wary; the confident woman had gone.

  There was a lot of talk about the disaster of the Vietnam war and how the sooner they got shut of President Johnson the better it would be for everyone. Harold wanted Richard Nixon to win because he came from a Quaker background, one far removed from the established aristocrats of New England or the landowners of the South. He’d emerged, Harold said, from stock that had fought and prayed their way across a continent.

  A picture came into Rose’s head of a horde of Red Indians galloping down a mountain towards a clearing filled with people on their knees.

  The man in the hat—he had the curious name of Dear Heart—wasn’t in favour of Nixon, even though he apparently worked in the same law firm on Wall Street. Mirabella was of the opinion that Mr. Kennedy would beat someone called McCarthy when it came to the California primary. ‘He’s got to,’ she said. ‘For all our sakes.’

  ‘Don’t bet on it,’ the hat-man shouted.

  ‘Do you remember that film?’ Rose interrupted, looking at Harold, ‘with that little boy crouching beside his dead mother? She’d been tomahawked. There was a lot of blood.’

  ‘He may win, but he won’t live long enough to take it any further,’ the hat-man said. ‘The Cubans have it in for him. It’s tit for tat after what he tried to do to Castro. Think what happened in Los Angeles last month . . .’

  Neither Harold nor Mirabella seemed to know what he was talking about.