Twisting the Rope

by MacAvoy, R. A. ;

  “You bet we will!” Martha slammed a suitcase with energy. “All dirty clothes,” she murmured. “They seem to swell, when dirty.” She felt Long staring at her, but ignored the feeling, until he said, “Would you have married Pádraig, Martha? Merely to keep him in the country?”

  She giggled. “Of course, my dear. This sailing thing means so much to him. More than the tour ever could. And it would be strictly pro forma: even the church would not object. Not too much.”

  “I would,” he said, smiling grimly. “Very much.”

  Now she looked at him. With his clean shirt and ebony skin, he stood out against the blue-green bedspread in sharp black and white. His expression was languid, except for the startling pale eyes.

  Like a box of black iron, with fire inside.

  “You look a bit different tonight,” said Martha, coming to sit beside him. “Happier, oddly enough. And a little daunting too. Did you finally split your skin?”

  He caused her hand to disappear in his. “Maybe. Or maybe I’m just through with apologizing for my every inadequacy. Something that happened between Jude and me.”

  Martha gave a short, almost coarse laugh. “Praise all ye winds and rains!” Her inspection of his face continued.

  “What did you do to Judy, Mayland? Or for him. What worked?”

  He opened his mouth and then paused, as though he didn’t know what he ought to say. Then he grinned in a blaze of teeth. “I recited him the Prajna Paramita Sutra.” He kissed her hand.

  Martha looked away, into the mirror on the far wall, and then back again. “Such a cold sort of scripture. No eyes, no ears, no tongue… Surely it fits him, but it’s still a heavy lesson for a brain-damaged child.”

  “Or for an elderly man in a business suit.”

  Now she put their joined hands up to her face. “It would bother you so much if I married someone, even just a paper marriage?”

  “Yes, it would, because my heart is set on marrying you myself. And not merely on paper. Come, Martha. I’m wealthy, and you know every beautiful woman is bound by tradition to marry a wealthy old man. It’s in half a dozen of your songs.”

  She snickered and kissed his fingers.

  “And I call heaven to witness that I am faithful by nature, and biddable beyond the norm of mankind. You know I have been biddable! My health is improving hourly and I have a certain skill dealing with waiters. Don’t you think I have a great deal to offer?”

  Pádraig, shuffling through the connecting door, found them with linked hands. He tried to retreat.

  “A bhúacaill!” called Long. “Pádraig, come back here,” said Martha. “We’re not doing anything the priest couldn’t see.”

  The young man returned, leaning on the door and squinting fiercely. “I wasn’t sure. I was wanting to tell you, Martha, that I can travel tonight, if that was what you had in mind.”

  Martha gave Long’s hand a series of unconscious squeezes. “You don’t want to wait for Elen, after all?” She turned her head and explained, “I’m driving Pádraig to the airport in San Jose, either for the night flight to Boston or the one tomorrow morning. It depends how he feels.”

  “Ah…” Pádraig’s powers seemed to fail him. Long sprang up like a whip and had a chair under him. He put a steadying hand against the young man’s undamaged shoulder. I don’t think so, Martha,” said Pádraig. “She’d be better off if I didn’t.”

  “How’s that? I think she’s fond of you, Pádraig,” Martha said hesitantly.

  He made a face painful to see. “Call me Pat, won’t you? Pat Sullivan. That’s what they’ll call me at the marina. This other was my mother’s idea. And my sister Órla. It’s all been so silly!”

  “What has?” It was Long who asked, standing in the shadow beside Pádraig’s chair. “The name? The tour? Or do you mean twisting the rope with Elen?”

  “We never did any more than that!” Pádraig’s voice was too loud. “Twisted an effing rope in the car park!”

  Very softly Martha replied, “We didn’t think you did and wouldn’t care anyway. I just… I would like to feel there was something—some aspect of this tour—that didn’t leave you feeling bad.”

  Pádraig straightened as far as he was able and glanced up at Martha. She was surprised to see his blue eyes sparkling with tears. “Martha, I’m sorry. That isn’t what I meant. You’ve been grand to me. All of you except George, who was such a swine that it shouldn’t matter.”

  “Then is it knowing that Elen had an illegitimate baby?” Martha kept expression out of her voice.

  “Now I said that was nothing, didn’t I? Poor creature too.” The tears disappeared, to be replaced by the pulled face of worry. “No, it’s something else, and I don’t know…” Once more he let his head hang forward. “If I tell you, will you keep it to yourselves? I’d like to tell someone.”

  I will,” said Long readily. Martha looked unhappy, but at last she nodded.

  “Well, then.” With an effort, Pádraig sat himself up. “I saw Elen out on the pier last night. Late. After the bars closed. I’m sure it was her. She had a car with her, and that friend with the perm.”

  Martha and Long exchanged a glance over Pádraig’s head.

  “I had left my guernsey, you see, because it was so warm in the bar, and after I went out on foot I started to feel the cold. I thought maybe the barman would have left it on the door. That’s what they do in Ballyferriter. So I went back.”

  Long said, “But you didn’t talk to her?”

  The young man shook his head and winced from the wound on his neck. “Didn’t. No. I don’t like to talk to a girl if I’ve been drinking. Never does any good for them to know.”

  “So you didn’t see what they were doing?”

  He gave a grunt and another half shake. “No, but I do know that the tale she twisted for the police was a lie. And how am I to meet her again and pretend I don’t know?” He looked into Martha’s face and then Long’s, as though they could tell him.

  Martha sighed. Her hands drummed on her knees. “But we already know that, Pádraig. That Elen was lying.”

  “It is very uncomfortable for all of us,” added Long.

  There was a shove against the door behind Pádraig, and Elen Evans came in. The people who had been talking about her all looked up.

  Her eyes were red and her face a terrible color. Her hair stood at odd angles from her head. She was half-asleep, and glanced dully at them all.

  “I didn’t hear you come in,” said Martha.

  Elen yawned. “That’s because for once I’m not dragging along my piano wrench.” As though to prove it, she flung her macrame bag onto the bed beside Martha. “No ‘bang, thump bang.’” She shoved between Pádraig and the wall, and sat down on the far corner of the bed. Then she glanced around the room. “Where is everybody?”

  “Elizabeth has taken Marty home,” answered Martha. “Teddy’s next door, napping.”

  It seemed to take Elen a long time to make sense out of these words. At last she bounced her weary head upward in affirmation. “Ah, well. I had hoped to tell everyone the good news at once.

  “I’m not arrested for murder.” She didn’t seem to notice the strained silence.

  “No one’s arrested for murder.”

  Martha straightened her skirt over her thighs. “They decided he killed himself, then?”

  “Something like…” Elen let herself fall back on the bed. Her head rested only inches away from Martha’s knees. “Oh, sweet Sacred Harp, I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again.” In complete contradiction to these words, she closed her eyes and seemed to doze off.

  “Elen!” It was Pádraig, who got out of his chair and stumbled over to her. “Elen, wake up.” He looked left and right: “I think we should tell her. We have to tell her.”

  Elen’s dark eyes came open, warily. “What are you going to tell me, Pat? Is it awful? Should I run away again?”

  “It’s bad enough, I think.”

  Long stepped over to Pádr
aig’s side. Martha remained where she was, by Elen.

  “I saw you last night, on the pier,” said Pádraig.

  The dark eyes blinked once. “Did you? Just what did you see? On the pier? Are you saying that you saw me murder George?”

  Pádraig balled his hands in his lap. “I’m saying I saw you there. With Sandy. And to the gardaí you said nothing about that.”

  Elen looked as much confused as anything. “What time was that?”

  He shrugged and gave an involuntary yip of pain. “Late. After the bars closed. I didn’t have a watch on me.”

  “But you didn’t say this to the police?” Her eyes sought his out.

  “Of course I didn’t. I like you, Elen. I… didn’t like George a bit.”

  Elen laughed, short and harshly, and she glanced over at Long. “What do you think of this, Mayland? Do you think I’m the hidden murderer after all?”

  Long didn’t bend to her. “I also know that you lied.”

  Elen made a face and looked away.

  “You see, Elen, I listen to language,” the dark man explained. “The language of individuals as well as of nations. You said to the detective that St. Ives called you ‘chickie’ when he called you yesterday evening.”

  So he did,” replied Elen, roused out of her exhaustion. “Called me that many times. And ‘baby’ and worse.”

  Long nodded. “I’m sure. But not last night. Not in the course of this tour. Not sober and not drunk and not under the influence of narcotics. George had given up calling women such things.”

  Now Elen was clearly angry. “If you think that hog had changed in any real way since—”

  Long cut her off. “I don’t know how real you would call it, but it was a change in vocabulary at least. For we do change, Elen. Those who cannot in large ways, at least change in small.”

  Martha scratched through her unruly hair. “I agree with him. But I think it was more because it made no sense for an old lech to go about offending three out of four ‘girls’ that he met. I certainly didn’t hear him calling anyone by politically incorrect terms—not even the teeny’s he sopped up.”

  “He did it to me to offend,” Elen mumbled.

  “But he didn’t want to offend you. At that moment,” said Martha. “He wanted your cooperation with the baby.

  “But my reason for doubting your story is different,” she continued. “It’s the knots. The lark’s head, in particular.”

  “Sailor’s knot,” Pádraig interjected. “But I didn’t do it.”

  “Yes, that’s what you said to the sergeant. But it’s not just a sailor’s knot. Even I knew how to make it, though I never knew it had a name. It’s a thing you find in hammocks, and hangings and…” Martha poked a pink finger at Elen’s bag.

  “Who made that, Elen? Didn’t you yourself?”

  Elen pulled the bag away. “You know I did.”

  “And aren’t those lark’s heads attaching the strings to the wooden dowels?”

  Elen stared. “For the life of me, I don’t know the names of all those things. I did it from a book.”

  That phrase rang through Mr. Long’s head. “For the life of me.”

  “Is it only that that convicts me in your eyes, Martha? That I can tie a knot?”

  Martha took a difficult breath. “And that George, couldn’t.”

  “What?” said Long and Pádraig together.

  She shook her grizzled head. “Nope. If George St. Ives had wanted to hang himself, he would have had to have done it with two grannys. And likely they would have slipped open.”

  Pádraig’s features clouded. “But he was out of Cape Breton, where the tradition…”

  “Where the tradition is all fishing boats. I know. But I knew his aunt, remember.” Martha glanced from one to another. “Actually, George was brought up in Ottawa. In a flat with his aunt and grandmother. And like most pipers, he was so obsessed with his music he never did much of anything else. Never learned things for fun: not about people, nor how things worked, nor any sports or games…. I knew his aunt, and as far as his being a sailor: I happen to know he couldn’t take the motion of a ferryboat, let alone a dinghy. Not from childhood.

  “It was all just too bad for him.” Martha’s face was bleak.

  There were thirty seconds of quiet, while everyone gazed at nothing, except for Elen Evans, who glanced from one face to the next. She looked longest at Pádraig.

  “And none of you… Not one of you who knew these damning things said a word of it to the police when you were asked?” She started to giggle, but Pádraig’s hurt glance cut her off. Martha looked out the black window. “I told Sergeant Anderson I would find out what happened to George. My word means a lot to me. But Elen, my dear Elen…”

  Elen Evans glanced wearily at her. “All right, duckies.” She sighed. “I had thought I might spare you all, but as it is, I’ll tell the truth.”

  Long, who had been standing all this time, sank down onto his heels on the carpet. Pádraig braced himself against the chair, Martha’s jaw tightened, but she remained fixed on the window.

  “George called all right, after the concert and just before I was about to go out looking. And he gave me that bit about responsibility and how the Mexican nanny had let him down. I don’t remember his exact words; maybe they weren’t quite so ugly. But his tone was. Not placating at all. And he said he needed help with Jude. Right away. And it was entirely my responsibility. George seemed to think it was more natural for a woman to wash up shit.

  “I, for my part—and Elen wiped her hair from her face with her long-nailed hand—“told him to go fuck himself. I hung up on him. I thought the whole thing would serve him perfectly. Remember, I knew Jude!

  “But then I started thinking about the kid, and though it served George right, it wasn’t fair. I considered calling the Adventist Home, but… but there was still Los Angeles tomorrow, you see?”

  Martha let out a little moan.

  “I know. I know. But at the time it seemed important. So I went out to get Jude and take him back myself.

  “I found the room with no problem; only had to follow the smell. But by the time I got there it was empty, except for the mess.”

  She reached into the pocket of her army fatigues and drew out a tissue with which she wiped her nose.

  “I started wondering what an old drunk would do, in the middle of the night, with a sick retarded boy that screamed inside people’s minds and had chronic runs. Hell, I thought he was only a few doors from the beach. He’d dunk the kid in the ocean, of course.

  “I ran out and found George crossing empty Front Street with that poor sick spastic child tied up like a caterpillar in Pádraig’s rope. My guess was faultless: he was going to clean Jude off in the surf. What is it in June: maybe sixty degrees?

  “I was doing femme yesterday—remember? I wobbled after them in my four-inch spike heels, tripping and twisting left and right, and he heard me and started running. He didn’t head for the beach at all, but for the pier. Maybe he thought I had the police with me and panicked, or maybe he had already decided… Oh, I don’t know.

  “Believe it or not, I chased him the length of the pier, past all the closed shops and stinking fish vendors and dark bars, and there wasn’t a single soul out there but us and the moon.

  “And Jude was howling.

  “I didn’t know at this point what he had in mind, but when we got to the end of the pier he lifted Judy onto the rail, and I knew he was going to throw him in the water. Drown him.

  “‘It’s better,’ he kept yelling, as I pulled against him. “‘It’s better and cleaner, this way.’ And: ‘A lifetime of cowardice,’ Again and again: ‘A lifetime of cowardice.’” Elen took a deep breath and held her head between her hands. Suddenly she looked straight at Martha.

  “You know, without Teddy’s magic pill, I don’t think this would have happened. George was a crank, and a sick crank, but he wasn’t a nut! Ted’s another guy who has a right to feel lucky he’s not
in jail.”

  Martha waved this aside. “How did you get Jude away from him?”

  Elen’s head drooped again. “I hit him. George. I hit him one good one on the back of his head with my piano wrench.” She snorted. “Not femme at all, that. And then he fell against the rail, and the kid too. Jude nearly went over in spite of it all. Into the drink. And the poor boy was practically in convulsions of terror.” She shuddered.

  “It was then that George lay there, looking so like Jude, and both of them so full of hopelessness…. I started getting sick myself about then. Miserable sick, and with my heart pounding—that was Jude, doing that. I might have just shoved them both over and followed them into the cold water. Then you’d all really have had a puzzle on your hands in the morning.”

  She looked earnestly at Martha. “I got really, really frightened. Just like Jude. Can you understand how that was?”

  “I can,” said Long.

  “I sat out there on the bare wood in the cold and I didn’t want to die. And I also didn’t want George, with all his craziness, to wake up and come at me again. I was terribly afraid of George, as he lay there. As afraid as Judy was. Of course. And he would know that I hit him!

  “I thought things would be so much better if he just didn’t open his eyes again…. “Elen opened hers and found Long very close to her.

  “Why didn’t you just push him off?” he asked, with simple curiosity. “That would have been much easier.”

  Elen nodded bleakly. “I almost did. But I was crazy seared. What if the cold water woke him? What if he swam after me? I imagined him waiting at the foot of the pier as I came off, like some material ghost, dripping seaweed, and enveloping me in that heavy ragg sweater of his, smelling of salt and human shit…. I couldn’t bear the thought. So I took the rope and made a knot at one end and a noose at the other and slowly lowered him down it. I wrapped my skirt around my hands, to spare them.”

  “Slowly?” Long knit his brows. “But his neck was broken. There must have been an abrupt drop.”

  With certainty Elen shook her head. “No. I should have tossed him over, all at once, I know, but I couldn’t bear the thought. Besides, I wasn’t sure about the rope.” She glanced imploringly around and said again, “I was crazy scared. I kept seeing him rising out of the tide, coming back for me.