Dover Beach

by Richard Bowker

  "Luck? The lucky ones were in Washington or driving past a missile silo twenty-two years ago. The lucky ones died being born or, better yet, weren't even conceived. Don't talk to me about luck." He stared at each of us in turn, as if daring us to mention the word. His gaze fixed on Winfield.

  "The lucky ones have the genius to overcome everything—even life itself," Winfield said to the older version of himself. He was sober now, and he seemed angry. "Why are you wasting your luck?"

  Cornwall shook his head. "Can't I make you see how it is?" he said. "Can't I make you see that you're wasting everything, wasting your life—your life—chasing this dream? I suppose I can't. You are me, and nothing is going to change that.

  "I came to England chasing the same dream. I let them put me in that awful military base for three months after I arrived because I thought I had it within my grasp, and I didn't want to lose it because of a goddamn nuclear war. I worked for years setting everything up at Bromford, and I lied and lied, to make the dream come true.

  "I know what you are thinking, because I thought the same thoughts. There's got to be happiness somewhere, sometime. If not in America, then in England. If not in this life, then another life. But that's so stupid, don't you see?" He was whispering now, on the verge of tears. "There is only me, and I am what I have always been—a wretched, lost soul in a wretched, lost world. I know nothing, I have nothing, I am nothing. And that won't change—in America or in England, now or in the future."

  His grip on Kathy had loosened. She stared at me, pleading. What was I supposed to do? "You have your daughter," I said to Cornwall.

  He looked at her and shook his head. "It's not enough," he whispered. And suddenly the gun moved from Kathy's head to his own. She was free, and she slumped to the ground.

  "No," she cried.

  "It took me so long to discover," he said, and he was speaking to Winfield again. "But you'll discover it, too, as you live through this awful life that I've forced upon you. The dream is crazy and evil. I cheated Hemphill, I turned my back on America, I failed as a husband and a father. For what? So that you can do these things all over again? So that you can face the same disappointments I've faced? I saw you in Oxford, and it was just too much, finally. I couldn't stand to look at you, couldn't stand thinking of you and the others having to suffer the way I've suffered, having to cause the suffering I know you will cause. And I knew I couldn't let it go on. It's time to stop. If you people had any sense you'd let me finish the job, let me wipe out every last vestige of my genes before they cause more harm, more unhappiness." He stared at the gun. "I'm so tired."

  Kathy was sobbing at his feet, her hands clutching his leg. He looked down at her, and I like to think that maybe in that instant he changed his mind; maybe he decided she was enough, that the love of a daughter like her could make up for a great deal of evil in a world like this, in a man like him. But I suppose it doesn't matter.

  When the instant was over, the tunnel roared with the sound of a bullet, and there was blood everywhere, and he fell beside her.

  It took me a moment to realize that the roar had not come from Cornwall's gun. I turned, and Winfield was standing next to me, gun in hand, staring at the man he had killed.

  "There will be another life," he whispered, his face wet with tears. "It will be a perfect life. And it will be mine." Then he turned and ran from the underpass.

  —ran past a long-haired boy in a leather jacket, who stood at the entrance to the underpass, trembling uncontrollably. I followed. Winfield made it to the bridge, where he suddenly fell to his knees and rocked back and forth as he stared at the frozen river below.

  He wasn't going anywhere. I returned to the underpass and looked at the boy; the boy looked at me. I didn't know if he understood what he had witnessed, but I knew that his life would not be the perfect one that Winfield sought so desperately, and I pitied him. "Call the police, Michael," I said, and I went back into the underpass.

  Chapter 31

  They buried Cornwall in Oxford on New Year's Eve. Kathy was the only one who cried.

  A lot of reporters looked on, sniffing around a story they only half understood. A few colleagues from the university attended the service; they seemed very uncomfortable. Mrs. Cornwall was there, somber and polite. And Hemphill. And me.

  Afterward, I found myself standing next to Hemphill in the crusty snow of the cemetery. "A long way to come, for this," he murmured.

  "Was it worth it?"

  He shrugged. "It doesn't matter at this point. I thought it did, but I was wrong."

  "Are you going back?" I asked.

  "I suppose. I have a life in America. There's nothing for me here. There could have been, once, but I missed my chance a long time ago."

  I tried to think of something encouraging to say, but couldn't come up with anything. Some people are doomed to be unhappy, I guess, and even the best private eye can't help them. "Well, good luck," I said. "And Happy New Year."

  "Happy New Year," Hemphill repeated, and he made the words sound like a sick joke. Then he shuffled off through the snow, the weight of the world on his stooped shoulders.

  I walked over to where Kathy and her mother were waiting in their hired car. "Ready?" Kathy asked.

  I scrunched into the back seat of the little three-wheeler. "Ready."

  We drove silently out of the cemetery.

  Kathy was taking her mother home before returning to London. It was not a pleasant trip. Mrs. Cornwall, I thought, was doing her best in what must have been a terrible situation. She tried hard to be pleasant and sympathetic to Kathy, but Kathy was having none of it. "Wasn't it a lovely ceremony?" was met with "Someone should shoot those reporters." "You must be quite tired, dear" provoked a "Just tired of talking, that's all." Eventually Mrs. Cornwall took the hint, and the journey ended as it began, in silence.

  Kathy reluctantly agreed to stay for a while at the house. A few of Mrs. Cornwall's friends were there, ready with tea and sandwiches and sympathy. Mrs. Stumple was on her best behavior, except for one brief moment, when she caught me alone in the kitchen. "What are they going to do with that one?" she asked me.

  "Which one is that one?"

  "You know." She pretended to shoot me with her index finger.

  "Oh. Winfield. Well, I expect they'll send him to prison for a while, don't you?"

  Mrs. Stumple shook her head emphatically. "Oughta rip his guts out and stuff 'em in his mouth," she said. Then she got the mustard from the refrigerator and returned to the living room.

  Just before Kathy and I left, Mrs. Cornwall also managed to have a brief conversation with me in private. "It was good of you to come, Walter," she said.

  "I wanted to," I replied. I noticed she was wearing the mauve blouse Kathy had given her for Christmas.

  "What will you do now?"

  I shrugged. "Hard to say. I have plenty of options."

  Mrs. Cornwall nodded. "You know, this has been quite hard on Kathy," she said.

  "Yes, I know."

  She gazed at me. "I think that Kathy could use a friend," she said.

  I could see the longing and the love in her eyes, and I felt very sorry for her. She wanted to be that friend, but Kathy wasn't going to let her. "I think you're right," I said.

  She pressed my hand in hers for a quick moment. Then Kathy called for me, and the conversation was over.

  We drove to London in silence. It was early evening by the time we had dropped off the car and walked back to her flat.

  Winfield's belongings were still scattered in the second bedroom. "I suppose I should ring the police and see about getting rid of these things," Kathy murmured as we looked at them.

  "Plenty of time for that."

  Kathy wandered into the kitchen without replying. She got out her bottle of whiskey, but Winfield had drunk most of it. She finished it off and threw the empty bottle into the trash. "I'm so tired," she whispered.

  "Why don't you just go to bed?" I said. "Not much point in trying to k
eep awake to see the new year in."

  She nodded. "What about you?"

  "I guess I'll stay up for a while. You know how I am."

  She smiled weakly. "Okay. I know how you are."

  She was too tired to bother putting her nightgown on. I watched her strip down to her bra and panties, then fall into bed. She was wearing the necklace her father had given her. She looked very beautiful. She was asleep instantly. I shut the bedroom door and went over to the rocking chair.

  I suppose the Ghost of New Year's Past should have come for me then, but he didn't. Perhaps he was otherwise engaged, or perhaps I had become stronger in the past few days. Or perhaps I had other things on my mind besides reminiscences. Whatever the reason, I rocked silently, hour after hour, and my memories stayed where they were supposed to.

  Eventually a crowd of drunken teenagers came down the street, singing "Auld Lang Syne" at the top of their lungs. I glanced at my watch: they were jumping the gun by a few minutes. Probably couldn't wait. Some people in America were like that. They went wild on New Year's Eve, so happy to have survived another year, so certain that next year would be better. I wasn't one of them. I could never understand why the passage of time was a cause for celebration.

  "Walter?" Kathy came out of the bedroom, wrapping her white robe around her nakedness.

  "Hi."

  "Hi." She sat on the sofa. "Rather noisy out there, isn't it?"

  "Yeah."

  "This isn't the best neighborhood if you want to sleep on New Year's Eve."

  "Yeah."

  We were silent for a moment, and then she reached out and put her hand on my knee. "Walter," she said, "I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate all you've done for me the past few days. I don't know how I could have kept on without you. You're a very special person."

  I waited. She was silent. I started rocking slowly, staring out the window. Eventually she took her hand away.

  "Walter?"

  I turned to her. If not now, when? She was very beautiful. "You know," I said, "it bothers me that you didn't like the ending of The Maltese Falcon."

  "What do you mean?" she whispered.

  "Remember it?" I said. "The surprise ending, when we find out that Sam Spade's beautiful client had set him up all along. Why didn't you like that ending?"

  "It wasn't a happy ending," she replied. "We talked about that. Besides, it's only a movie. What does a movie have to do with anything?"

  "Absolutely nothing. Except it gets a private eye to thinking. And when a private eye thinks, sometimes he comes up with a theory."

  Silence. "And what's your theory?" she asked finally. Her voice sounded miles and miles away.

  "Just what went on at your father's house after I left?" I asked in turn. "Who burned the damn thing down? Winfield has an alibi, Hemphill says he didn't do it—and I believe him. He just doesn't seem the type. I can't figure out a reason why your father would have done it. And that leaves just one person."

  Kathy stared at me, wide-eyed, and then shook her head violently. "But that's crazy," she said. "Why would I rush over to the railway station to get you if I'd just burned my father's house down?"

  "For the simplest reason in the private eye's textbook," I replied. "So you could ask that very question. 'Patsy' is the word that springs to mind."

  "But why would I burn the house down, Walter? Hemphill at least had a reason, if what you told me about him is true. What reason would I have?"

  "I'm not exactly sure, Kathy," I said truthfully. "Human beings are a little too complex for me to figure out. I guess I just need more experience in this business. But I've figured out this much: you knew. Knew about the clones, knew about your father's obsession. And the knowledge must have tormented you. Maybe you found out on that special birthday when he gave you your necklace—you even brought it up when you were talking to him in that underpass in Bath. Where was that playground you stopped in front of? East Norton? Castle Frome? He brought you to see one of the clones, didn't he? On your birthday, on the day that seemed so beautiful, so perfect. You were the one that loved him, you were the one that was real. But the clone was the one that mattered to him. And that was enough, eventually, to make you burn down your father's house."

  Kathy was crying now, desperate sobs, each one an admission of guilt. It was all straight from the textbook. But it didn't give me any satisfaction. I pushed on.

  "Burning down a house—who cares, besides Inspector Grimby? But you knew something else, Kathy: you knew your father was killing those clones. It doesn't really matter when you found out. Maybe it wasn't right away. Maybe it was one of those mornings when we sat together at the breakfast table, reading the newspaper like an old married couple. Maybe you saw one of those articles that I saw, and you recognized the town, or the boy's name, and you understood what your father was up to.

  "What matters is that you didn't say anything—out of love? Because he was finally showing that he loved you? I don't know. And when I finally figured out about the killing of the clones, you fought it, you made me waste a day lying to people at the Ministry of Science while your father stalked another victim. That's the bad thing you did, Kathy. That's the thing you're going to have to live with."

  Kathy's face twisted with the effort to control the emotions she had tried to control for so long. And when she finally failed, the words that came pouring out sounded hoarse and feral, as if she hadn't used her voice in a long, long time. "Goddamn him. Goddamn those... things. I should have killed them. And I should have killed him, too, and then maybe I could live like everyone else. Why wouldn't he love me? How could he have been so stupid? Even at the end, when there was nothing left, even then... goddamn him...."

  And then abruptly she stopped, and the tears returned. "Oh Walter, I'm so sorry," she sobbed. "So sorry. Can you—can you ever—" She couldn't finish the question, but I suppose she didn't need to.

  I went and got her a glass of water. She drank it down greedily, and she looked at me, and she realized the time had come. Time to tell it all. "Where do I start?" she asked softly.

  "The clones," I said, just as softly.

  She nodded. "I knew about them all along. I wasn't quite as stupid as my mother about such things. But in spite of them, I tried so hard to make him love me. I kept thinking I was succeeding, and then it would all turn to ashes. Like the birthday. So beautiful, so perfect, and then I realize that he's scarcely even thinking of me—he's just using me as an excuse to check up on one of his creatures."

  "Then you must have known Winfield was a clone as soon as you saw him," I said.

  "Yes, but as usual I decided to give my father one more chance. He had seemed so depressed lately by all he had done, so worn out, that I had begun to hope. I rang him up and begged him—if he loved me—to deny the clone. I was offering him a choice—do you see?—between real life, real love, and his—his solipsism. And it worked, Walter. He had his choice, and he chose me. I was so happy.

  "But as usual it turned, out badly. He had made his choice, but he was angry with me for forcing him to do it. After Winfield and you had left he said, 'I denied him—my own flesh and blood, my own genes. What more do you want?' And I said what I have said so many times: 'I want you to love me.' And then the phone rang."

  "Hemphill," I said.

  "I didn't know it at the time, but it makes sense—more pressure, more fear for my father. It pushed him over the edge, I think. When he hung up, he started screaming: 'Just leave me alone. All of you. I don't care. I don't care about anything.' And he took his coat and stormed out.

  "Can you understand, Walter? That pushed me over the edge. I suppose I share my father's temper. If he wouldn't give me his love, if I couldn't make him care, then I wanted to destroy everything that was his. And that's what I did."

  Silence. Kathy's eyes were closed. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she was squeezing them spasmodically together. I had seen the gesture before—her father had done it, in Oxford, with Kathy and Winfield both s
taring at him, both demanding his love. I didn't feel much like it, but I had to push the story along. That was my job. "And then you got me involved," I said.

  She opened her eyes and looked at me, pleading. "I didn't mean to make you a patsy, Walter. I was confused and alone and frightened, and you were the only person I could turn to—but I couldn't tell you the truth. I just couldn't. I suppose I knew Winfield would get blamed, and that was all right with me, but I honestly didn't think anything would come of it.

  "And the killing of the clones: yes, you're right. I should have told you straightaway. But can you see that it was the same thing all over again—the same old hope that this time it would happen, this time he would show his love? Only this was the ultimate act that would show his love. Denying Winfield—all right, that's something. But killing them... what more could he do?"

  "They were real people that he was killing, Kathy," I said.

  She nodded. "I know, but I suppose I've never thought of them as being quite human—they have always been simply this force that opposed me, that possessed what was rightfully mine. Even seeing Winfield didn't change that. But in the end—in Bath, seeing that boy—it was different. The boy was real. Why should he have to die? And then in the subway, I told my father to stop. Don't you remember? I told him it wasn't right; I tried to make him understand.

  "But finally, of course, it turned to ashes again. He knew that what he had done was wrong; he understood everything. But all that understanding, all that guilt couldn't make him love me. And that's what I wanted, Walter. That's all I ever wanted."

  Kathy looked at me, but she didn't see what she wanted to see, and then she covered her face with her hands. She wasn't crying now. Her tears, perhaps, were exhausted. I heard a distant cheering and looked at my watch: Happy New Year. From the flat below came the sound of happy voices singing:

  "Should auld acquaintance be forgot..."

  "I'm sorry it had to end like this, Kathy," I said.

  She looked up at me. She seemed terribly vulnerable. "What are you going to do?"