“I did,” said Nancy.
Rob’s brow had been blistered a little, she recalled, for that had been back early in the summer, soon after they had met—but the changes the sun made on him went without particular attention. The seasons here were old ground to him. He said that the island was new, however—or at least forgotten. He said he had never been there but once, and that many years ago, on a Boy Scout picnic. Soon they were exploring the fort, reading the dates off the metal signs whose letters glowed so smoothly in the sun, and the brief summaries of what those little boys, little military-academy boys turned into soldiers, had endured. Not old enough to fill up the name of soldier, or of prisoner, either, which is what they were—not old enough to shave, Nancy bet—still, they had died there, miserably far from home, and had been buried in the sand. There was a lot more. Rob would have been glad to read all about it, but she wasn’t interested. What they knew already was plenty, just about those boys. A bright, worried lizard ran out of a hot rubble of brick. They came out of the fort and walked alone together eastward toward the dunes, now skirting near the shore that faced the sound and now wandering south, where they could hear or sometimes glimpse the gulf. They were overlooked all the way by an old white lighthouse. From far away behind, the twenty-five members of the adult Bible class could be overheard playing a silly, shrill Sunday-school game. It came across the ruins of the fort and the sad story of the dead soldiers like something that had happened long ago that you could not quite remember having joined in. On the beach to their right, toward the gulf, a flock of sandpipers with blinding-white breasts stepped pecking along the water’s edge, and on the inner beach, toward the sound, a wrecked sailboat with a broken mast lay half buried in the sand.
Rob kept teasing her along, pulling at the soft wool strings of her bathing suit, which knotted at the nape and again under her shoulder blades, worrying loose the damp hair that she had carefully slicked back and pinned. “There isn’t anybody in that house,” he assured her, some minutes later, having explored most of that part of the island and almost as much of Nancy as well, having almost, but not quite—his arms around her—coaxed and caressed her down to ground level in a clump of reeds. “There hasn’t been in years and years,” he said, encouraging her.
“It’s only those picnic people,” she said, holding off, for the reeds would not have concealed a medium-sized mouse. They had been to look at the sailboat and thought about climbing inside (kissing closely, they had almost fallen right over into it), but it did have a rotten tin can in the bottom and smelled, so here they were back out in the dunes.
“They’ve got to drink all those Coca-Colas,” Rob said, “and give out all those prizes, and anyway—”
She never learned anyway what, but it didn’t matter. Maybe she began to make up for all that the poor little soldiers had missed out on, in the way of making love. The island’s very spine, a warm reach of thin ground, came smoothly up into the arch of her back; and it was at least halfway the day itself, with its fair, wide-open eyes, that she went over to. She felt somewhat historical afterward, as though they had themselves added one more mark to all those that place remembered.
Having played all the games and given out the prizes, having eaten all the homemade cookies and drunk the case of soft drinks just getting warm, and gone sight-seeing through the fort, the Bible class was now coming, too, crying “Yoohoo!” to explore the island. They discovered Rob hurling shells and bits of rock into the surf, while Nancy, scavenging a little distance away, tugged up out of the sand a shell so extraordinary it was worth showing around. It was purple, pink, and violet inside—a palace of colors; the king of the oysters had no doubt lived there. When she held it shyly out to them, they cried “Look!” and “Ooo!” so there was no need for talking to them much at all, and in the meantime the evening softened, the water glowed, the glare dissolved. Far out, there were other islands one could see now, and beyond those must be many more. They had been there all along.
Going home, Nancy gave the wonderful shell to the boy who stood in the pilothouse playing “Over the Waves.” She glanced back as they walked off up the pier and saw him look at the shell, try it for weight, and then throw it in the water, leaning far back on his arm and putting a good spin on the throw, the way boys like to do—the way Rob Acklen himself had been doing, too, just that afternoon.
“Why did you do that?” Rob had demanded. He was frowning; he looked angry. He had thought they should keep the shell—to remember, she supposed.
“For the music,” she explained.
“But it was ours,” he said. When she didn’t answer, he said again, “Why did you, Nancy?”
But still she didn’t answer.
When Nancy returned to their table at the Beach View, having put her lipstick back straight after eating fish, Rob was paying the check. “Why not believe me?” she asked him. “It was true. The rain was hot as fire. I thought I would be scarred for life.”
It was still broad daylight, not even twilight. In the bright, air-conditioned restaurant, the light from the water glazed flatly against the broad picture windows, the chandeliers, and the glasses. It was the hour when mirrors reflect nothing and bars look tired. The restaurant was a boozy, cheap sort of place with a black-lined gambling hall in the back, but everyone went there because the food was good.
“You’re just like Mama,” she said. “You think I made it up.”
Rob said, teasing, “I didn’t say that. I just said I didn’t believe it.” He loved getting her caught in some sort of logic she couldn’t get out of. When he opened the door for her, she got a good sidelong view of his longish, firm face and saw the way his somewhat fine brows arched up with one or two bright reddish hairs in among the dark ones; his hair was that way, too, when the sun hit it. Maybe, if nobody had told him, he wouldn’t have known it; he seemed not to notice so very much about himself. Having the confidence of people who don’t worry much, his grin could snare her instantly—a glance alone could make her feel how lucky she was he’d ever noticed her. But it didn’t do at all to think about him now. It would be ages before they made it through the evening and back, retracing the way and then turning off to the bayou, and even then, there would be those mosquitoes.
Bayou love-making suited Rob just fine; he was one of those people mosquitoes didn’t bite. They certainly bit Nancy. They were huge and silent, and the minute the car stopped they would even come and sit upon her eyelids, if she closed her eyes, a dozen to each tender arc of flesh. They would gather on her face, around her nose and mouth. Clothlike, like rags and tatters, like large dry ashes of burnt cloth, they came in lazy droves, in fleets, sailing on the air. They were never in any hurry, being everywhere at once and always ready to bite. Nancy had been known to jump all the way out of the car and go stamping across the grass like a calf. She grew sulky and despairing and stood on one leg at a time in the moonlight, slapping at her ankles, while Rob leaned his chin on the doorframe and watched her with his affectionate, total interest.
Nancy, riddled and stinging with beads of actual blood briar-pointed here and there upon her, longed to be almost anywhere else—she especially longed for New Orleans. She always talked about it, although, never having been there, she had to say the things that other people said—food and jazz in the French Quarter, beer and crabs out on Lake Pontchartrain. Rob said vaguely they would go sometime. But she could tell that things were wrong for him at this point. “The food’s just as good around here,” he said.
“Oh, Rob!” She knew it wasn’t so. She could feel that city, hanging just over the horizon from them scarcely fifty miles away, like some swollen bronze moon, at once brilliant and shadowy and drenched in every sort of amplified smell. Rob was stroking her hair, and in time his repeated, gentle touch gained her attention. It seemed to tell what he liked—girls all spanking clean, with scrubbed fingernails, wearing shoes still damp with white shoe polish. Even a fresh gardenia stuck in their hair wouldn’t be too much for him. There woul
d be all sorts of differences, to him, between Ship Island and the French Quarter, but she did not have much idea just what they were. Nancy took all this in, out of his hand on her head. She decided she had better not talk any more about New Orleans. She wriggled around, looking out over his shoulder, through the moonlight, toward where the pitch-black surface of the bayou water showed in patches through the trees. The trees were awful, hung with great spooky gray tatters of Spanish moss. Nancy was reminded of the house she and her family were living in; it had recently occurred to her that the peculiar smell it had must come from some Spanish moss that had got sealed in behind the paneling, between the walls. The moss was alive in there and growing, and that was where she was going to seal Bernard Nattier up someday, for him to see how it felt. She had tried to kill him once, by filling her purse with rocks and oyster shells—the roughest she could find. She had read somewhere that this weapon was effective for ladies in case of attack. But he had ducked when she swung the purse at him, and she had only gone spinning round and round, falling at last into a camellia tree, which had scratched her….
“The Skeltons said for us to stop by there for a drink,” Rob told her. They were driving again, and the car was back on the boulevard, in the still surprising daylight. “What did you say?” he asked her.
“Nothing.”
“You just don’t want to go?”
“No, I don’t much want to go.”
“Well, then, we won’t stay long.”
The Skelton house was right on the water, with a second-story, glassed-in, air-conditioned living room looking out over the sound. The sofas and chairs were covered with gold-and-white striped satin, and the room was full of Rob’s friends. Lorna Skelton, who had been Rob’s girl the summer before and who dressed so beautifully, was handing drinks round and saying, “So which is your favorite bayou, Rob?” She had a sort of fake “good sport” tone of voice and wanted to appear ready for anything. (Being so determined to be nice around Nancy, she was going to fall right over backward one day.)
“Do I have to have a favorite?” Rob asked. “They all look good to me. Full of slime and alligators.”
“I should have asked Nancy.”
“They’re full of mosquitoes,” said Nancy, hoping that was O.K. for an answer. She thought that virgins were awful people.
“Trapped, boy!” Turner Carmichael said to Rob, and banged him on the shoulder. Turner wanted to be a writer, so he thought it was all right to tell people about themselves. “Women will be your downfall, Acklen. Nancy, honey, you haven’t spoken to the general.”
Old General Skelton, Lorna’s grandfather, sat in the corner of the living room near the mantel, drinking a scotch highball. You had to shout at him.
“How’s the election going, General?” Turner asked.
“Election? Election? What election? Oh, the election! Well—” He lowered his voice, confidentially. As with most deaf people, his tone went to extremes. “There’s no question of it. The one we want is the one we know. Know Houghman’s father. Knew his grandfather. His stand is the same, identical one that we are all accustomed to. On every subject—this race thing especially. Very dangerous now. Extremely touchy. But Houghman—absolute! Never experiment, never question, never turn back. These are perilous times.”
“Yes, sir,” said Turner, nodding in an earnestly false way, which was better than the earnestly impressed way a younger boy at the general’s elbow shouted, “General Skelton, that’s just what my daddy says!”
“Oh yes,” said the old man, sipping scotch. “Oh yes, it’s true. And you, missy?” he thundered suddenly at Nancy, making her jump. “Are you just visiting here?”
“Why, Granddaddy,” Lorna explained, joining them, “Nancy lives here now. You know Nancy.”
“Then why isn’t she tan?” the old man continued. “Why so pale and wan, fair nymph?”
“Were you a nymph?” Turner asked. “All this time?”
“For me I’m dark,” Nancy explained. But this awkward way of putting it proved more than General Skelton could hear, even after three shoutings.
Turner Carmichael said, “We used to have this crazy colored girl who went around saying, ‘I’se really white, ’cause all my chillun is,’” and of course that was what General Skelton picked to hear. “Party’s getting rough,” he complained.
“Granddaddy,” Lorna cried, giggling, “you don’t understand!”
“Don’t I?” said the old gentleman. “Well, maybe I don’t.”
“Here, Nancy, come help me,” said Lorna, leading her guest toward the kitchen.
On the way, Nancy heard Rob ask Turner, “Just where did you have this colored girl, did you say?”
“Don’t be a dope. I said she worked for us.”
“Aren’t they a scream?” Lorna said, dragging a quart bottle of soda out of the refrigerator. “I thank God every night Granddaddy’s deaf. You know, he was in the First World War and killed I don’t know how many Germans, and he still can’t stand to hear what he calls loose talk before a lady.”
“I thought he was in the Civil War,” said Nancy, and then of course she knew that that was the wrong thing and that Lorna, who just for an instant gave her a glance less than polite, was not going to forget it. The fact was, Nancy had never thought till that minute which war General Skelton had been in. She hadn’t thought because she didn’t care.
It had grown dark by now, and through the kitchen windows Nancy could see that the moon had risen—a moon in the clumsy stage, swelling between three-quarters and full, yet pouring out light on the water. Its rays were bursting against the long breakwater of concrete slabs, the remains of what the hurricane had shattered.
After saying such a fool thing, Nancy felt she could not stay in that kitchen another minute with Lorna, so she asked where she could go comb her hair. Lorna showed her down a hallway, kindly switching the lights on.
The Skeltons’ bathroom was all pale blue and white, with handsome jars of rose bath salts and big fat scented bars of rosy soap. The lights came on impressively and the fixtures were heavy, yet somehow it all looked dead. It came to Nancy that she had really been wondering about just what would be in this sort of bathroom ever since she had seen those boys, with maybe Rob among them, playing tennis while she jumped on the trampoline. Surely the place had the air of an inner shrine, but what was there to see? The tops of all the bottles fitted firmly tight, and the soap in the tub was dry. Somebody had picked it all out—that was the point—judging soap and bath salts just the way they judged outsiders, business, real estate, politics. Nancy’s father made judgments, too. Once, he argued all evening that Hitler was a well-meaning man; another time, he said the world was ready for communism. You could tell he was judging wrong, because he didn’t have a bathroom like this one. Nancy’s face in the mirror resembled a flower in a room that was too warm.
When she went out again, they had started dancing a little—a sort of friendly shifting around before the big glass windows overlooking the sound. General Skelton’s chair was empty; he was gone. Down below, Lorna’s parents could be heard coming in; her mother called upstairs. Her father appeared and shook hands all around. Mrs. Skelton soon followed him. He was wearing a white jacket, and she had on a silver cocktail dress with silver shoes. They looked like people in magazines. Mrs. Skelton held a crystal platter of things to eat in one hand, with a lace handkerchief pressed between the flesh and the glass in an inevitable sort of way.
In a moment, when the faces, talking and eating, the music, the talk, and the dancing swam to a still point before Nancy’s eyes, she said, “You must all come to my house next week. We’ll have a party.”
A silence fell. Everyone knew where Nancy lived, in that cluster of old run-down houses the boulevard swept by. They knew that her house, especially, needed paint outside and furniture inside. Her daddy drank too much, and through her dress they could perhaps clearly discern the pin that held her slip together. Maybe, since they knew everything, they could
look right through the walls of the house and see her daddy’s donkey.
“Sure we will,” said Rob Acklen at once. “I think that would be grand.”
“Sure we will, Nancy,” said Lorna Skelton, who was such a good sport and who was not seeing Rob this summer.
“A party?” said Turner Carmichael, and swallowed a whole anchovy. “Can I come, too?”
Oh, dear Lord, Nancy was wondering, what made me say it? Then she was on the stairs with her knees shaking, leaving the party, leaving with Rob to go down to Biloxi, where the two of them always went, and hearing the right things said to her and Rob, and smiling back at the right things but longing to jump off into the dark as if it were water. The dark, with the moon mixed in with it, seemed to her like good deep water to go off in.
She might have known that in the Marine Room of the Buena Vista down in Biloxi, they would run into more friends of Rob’s. They always ran into somebody, and she might have known. These particular ones had already arrived and were even waiting for Rob, being somewhat bored in the process. It wasn’t that Rob was so bright and witty, but he listened and liked everybody; he saw them the way they liked to be seen. So then they would go on to new heights, outdoing themselves, coming to believe how marvelous they really were. Two fraternity brothers of his were there tonight. They were sitting at a table with their dates—two tiny girls with tiny voices, like mosquitoes. They at once asked Nancy where she went to college, but before she could reply and give it away that her school so far had been only a cow college up in Arkansas and that she had gone there because her daddy couldn’t afford anywhere else, Rob broke in and answered for her. “She’s been in a finishing school in Little Rock,” he said, “but I’m trying to talk her into going to the university.”
On the Gulf Page 8