Islands

by Anne Rivers Siddons

  “Speaking of exercise,” Simms said, “I think I’ve found just the boat for you, Lewis. Guy I know in Fort Lauderdale told me about it when I mentioned I might be looking. It’s a Hinckley sloop, Pilot 35. Got four berths and wheel steering, and a tile fireplace. She was built in 1966, but she’s been totally renovated. I know how you feel about Hinckleys, and the Pilot has one of the prettiest hulls I’ve ever seen. The price seems right. I thought if you were interested we might fly down sometime next week and take a look at her. He said he could get someone to bring her up the waterway for you, if you liked her.”

  I looked at Lewis. He had said nothing about being in the market for a boat. I knew he was loving the sailing he did with Simms, but it was odd that he had not mentioned it.

  “A Hinckley,” he said reverently. “I’ve always wanted one. I love the old ones. I went to the Hinckley boatyard in Southwest Harbor one summer, when I went to visit Mike Stewart in Maine. It was awesome. I still remember those beautiful hulls, and the smell of teak and varnish.” He turned to me.

  “Want to be a sailing wife, Anny?” he said, grinning.

  I was obscurely annoyed, without knowing why.

  “You had one of those,” I said. “Surely that was enough.”

  Everyone laughed aloud, and Lewis waggled his eyebrows at me.

  “One day out on the harbor in a Hinckley and I’ll change your mind,” he said. “Sure, Simms, let’s go look at her. Is next week good for you?”

  They settled on flying down the next Wednesday, and coming back on Saturday. That would, Simms said, give them time to sail the Pilot in many different weather conditions.

  “Have a feast ready,” Lewis said happily. “A home-is-the-sailor-from-the-sea feast. Lay in the champagne. Slaughter the fatted calf.”

  Camilla still had not spoken. Her face was grave and beautiful in the candlelight.

  We went back to Sweetgrass on Sunday afternoon, and spent the late afternoon and evening swimming off the dock in the river. We had a thousand things that needed doing, but the sense of impending change was still queer and heavy on us, and I for one wanted simply to drift in the blood-warm waters of home. Water is eternal, immutable.

  We swam until the last light faded, and then crawled out on the dock. The boards were still warm from the day, but a little wind was chilling the thick air. For some reason the mosquitoes were taking a sabbatical elsewhere. We lay, wrapped in damp towels, watching the ghost moon rise in the lavender sky.

  “Do you remember?” Lewis said. And I did. The night, that first night I saw Sweetgrass, when we had made love on this dock under the yellow eyes of a bobcat. “Want to give it a try, old lady?” Lewis said.

  “Wait ten minutes and tell me if ‘old lady’ still applies,” I said, dropping my towel and reaching out to him. His body was firm and sweet and damp, as it had been under my hands for many, many nights. It still made my body burn.

  Afterward we lay in each other’s arms, our breathing slowing, our limbs heavy with lassitude and completion.

  “It’s still good, isn’t it?” I said into his neck.

  “It’s the best.”

  “It always will be.”

  “Damn straight,” he said.

  I got up early the next morning. Lewis was still asleep, deep under the bleached old coverlet that had been his grandmother’s. I made myself coffee and an English muffin, and reluctantly pulled on my office clothes. I was flying to the University of Richmond later in the morning, to speak with the dean of the school of nursing about the possibility of making our program one of the school’s elective specialties. Ordinarily I would have sent Allie, my young assistant, but this could, if effective, open up an entirely new direction for us. I needed to be there in person. I was set to stay until Wednesday night, and fly home on Thursday. In the green morning gloom of our bedroom, I thought that I had never wanted to go anywhere less than this trip.

  I kissed Lewis on his forehead and he opened his eyes and blinked up at me.

  “I’m going now,” I said. “I’m sorry I won’t be here to see you off.”

  “As long as you’re here to see us home,” he said, and kissed my knuckles, and went back to sleep.

  The session at the university was profitable, but fully as tedious as all things academic, and took about a day and a half longer than it should have. I was tired when I got to my motel room on my last night there, and whispered, “Shit,” softly, when I saw my message light blinking. It had blinked off and on for three days with “academic input.” I almost did not pick it up, and then I did.

  It was Lewis, with a message to call his hotel in Fort Lauderdale no matter how late I got in. Heart thundering, I dialed.

  “What?” I said when he picked up. “What is it?”

  “Bad news, babe. Double dose. Henry just called and told us. Camilla fell this morning and sprained her ankle really badly. She can’t walk a step. And, Anny…Gladys died last night.”

  “Oh, Lewis!” I wailed, feeling tears gather in my eyes. “How? What happened? How is Henry?”

  “Apparently, she just slipped away in her sleep. He found her at the foot of his bed, all curled up, her nose on her paws. He said it must have been very peaceful.”

  “Is he devastated?”

  “Not really. He seemed sort of at peace with it. He said, ‘Well, she waited for me, and that’s all you can ever ask, isn’t it?’ He’s going to take her over to Sullivan’s Island and bury her just above the dune line where the beach house used to be. The people who bought the lot aren’t anywhere near ready to build on it yet.”

  “And Camilla…what’s going to happen to her? Oh, Lewis, I need to go straight on to the creek tomorrow. Who’s going to take care of Camilla?”

  “Lila’s going for a day or two, and then Henry plans to take over. Cammy’s being really stubborn; he wants her to go have an X ray, and she simply smiles and refuses. You can’t just haul her there bodily. She says she can manage fine with her crutches, but of course she almost falls every time she gets up. Go and spell Henry for a while, and see if you can talk some sense into her. Henry says this thing could keep her off her feet for months if she doesn’t get treatment.”

  “Oh, Lord. How will she manage?”

  “She’ll manage,” Lewis said. “She always does.”

  “Have you seen the boat yet?”

  “First thing in the morning. I offered to come on back, but Henry said absolutely not. We just got in from a stone-crab dinner, and I’m going to hit the sack. I’ll call you at the creek Friday.”

  “I love you, Lewis.”

  “Always, babe.”

  I replaced the receiver and crept into bed, and lay there for a long time, crying softly for my beautiful failing friend, and for the old dog I had so loved, and for the thin, wounded man who had loved her, too.

  When I got out to the creek the next afternoon, everything was still and silent, stunned into sleep by the savagely reborn sun. I looked onto everybody’s porch, but saw no one, and, thinking perhaps they were napping in the heat, went into our cottage and flicked on the ceiling fan. I skinned out of my suit and panty hose before the sluggish air even began to move, and went out onto the back deck, clad only in shorts and a tee, sighing with relief. I vowed that I would do no more out-of-town trips. Not enough happened where I visited; too much happened where I left behind.

  There was a languid splashing in the pool, and I squinted into the wire cage. Henry was swimming laps, slowly and easily, only his wet white hair showing when he turned his head for air. Like Lewis, like all Low Country boys, Henry was a good swimmer. The water was like air to them, another element. I saw no one else.

  Henry saw me and pulled himself out of the pool. He was quite deeply tanned now, almost as he had been when he was much younger, in the days of the beach house, and it seemed to me that some of the cruel hollows around his bones had filled in. I went into the cage to meet him.

  “Bad two days, huh?” I said, slumping beside him onto a canva
s lounge.

  “Bad,” he agreed. “I’ve seen worse, but bad.”

  “Henry, I’m so sorry about Gladys. It just breaks my heart to think about it.”

  “Don’t feel that way,” he said, and his voice was as peaceful as Lewis had said it was. “She was a great old lady and she gave everybody who knew her a lot of pleasure. I want all of you to remember the good times with her, and the goofy ones. She was, above all, a funny dog.”

  “Well, at least it was a good way to die. In your sleep, with the one you love best nearby.”

  “I’d settle for it,” he said.

  We sat quietly for a time, listening to the rustle of marsh grass and the little waterfalls of birdsong out on the hummocks.

  “I’ve always been afraid that when she died you wouldn’t have any more reason to stay with us,” I said.

  “No. In a way, it’s better. There’s literally nothing left now of…the time before, but us. This place is different. I don’t see Fairlie here. I won’t see her now, every time I look at Gladys. I’m going to have to make a life out of this because I don’t have anything left of the old one. Might as well start now.”

  “We all hoped you’d like the creek for itself,” I said softly.

  “I do. It’s beautiful. And I practically grew up out here, you know, bumming around with Lewis and Booter. All the associations are good ones.”

  “I’m glad. Is Gladys…have you…?”

  “This morning, very early. The sun was just coming up. There was nobody around. She has a pretty place; one of the few things the new people have left on the property is that huge myrtle right on the dune line. I put her there, under it. It’ll flourish like the green bay tree, and they’ll never know it’s Gladys.”

  “Was it awful, seeing the island and the beach again?”

  “No. I was afraid it might be, but it wasn’t. There’s nothing left of us there. They’ve dozed the lot absolutely flat and are landscaping it all to hell, and judging from the amount of framing and supplies lying around, it’s going to be four stories tall and have Palladian windows. It’s going to cost a mint, and look like every other house on the beach now. In a way, that’s comforting. I’d hate thinking the old house was out there, just waiting, with none of us going back.”

  I felt a lump in my throat.

  “Do you think about the old house and…everything, Henry?”

  “Only fifty times a day. Do you?”

  “Yes. I try hard not to, but I do. I see it like it was, though. It’s sort of good to know it won’t be like that anymore.”

  “Well, there’ll always be a little of the Scrubs there now, what with Gladys under her dune. Do you remember how she used to sit in the golf cart there, watching us down on the beach, but afraid to come down, after Hugo? ‘Pore pitiful Pearl,’ we called her.”

  I choked a little. I did remember. I remembered everything.

  “Tell me about Camilla,” I said. “How bad is it? I’ve been afraid of something like this for a long time.”

  He frowned.

  “It’s bad enough. I found her lying on the pool apron when I came out after breakfast. She was dripping wet, and just about out of it with pain and shock. It was the shock that worried me. I carried her into her house and wrapped her up in blankets until her pulse picked up. The ankle itself is a mess, but it will eventually heal. Or would, if she’d go see somebody about it, get it X-rayed, a walking cast, if she needs it. If she doesn’t, she could literally be crippled for life.”

  “Why is she being so stubborn? It’s not like Camilla to worry people. The last thing in the world she’d want is to be a burden to anybody.”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Henry said.

  “So where’s Lila?”

  “She’s gone to get groceries and stuff. I stayed here because it would be easier for me to lift Camilla if she fell. Although she can’t weigh ninety-five pounds. God, when did she get so thin?”

  Presently Lila came back with sacks of groceries and boxes of wine and other liquor, and we helped her carry them into her house.

  “If I’m going to be stuck out here, I’m not going to be without the necessities,” she said. “I’m glad you’re here, Anny. Maybe she’ll listen to you about the doctor. I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”

  Camilla appeared at dinnertime, leaning on her crutch with one arm and on Henry with the other. She was paper white, almost translucent, and under the Ace bandage on her ankle lurid blue bruising stained her entire foot and ran up her leg. She was obviously in pain, but she had put on a bright Mexican print skirt and blouse, and lipstick and a little blush. On her waxen face the blush stood out like circles of color on a clown’s face.

  But she smiled.

  “Is this crap, or what?” she said. “I have the grace of a dancing beaver.”

  Henry settled her at the dinner table and Lila brought out our meal. It was a cold one, light against the heat that had come seeping back: shrimp salad and avocado, and some of the last of the wonderful John’s Island tomatoes. We drank a flowery Chablis with it.

  After dinner we moved to the porch, and sat in the soft, black night of the Low Country. It was so dark I could hardly make out the others’ shapes; only the creak of the rocking chairs told me we were all there.

  “Okay, now that we have a quorum, we’re going to take up this business of the doctor again,” Lila said firmly. I could hear annoyance in her honeyed voice.

  “You need to go, Camilla,” I said. “It would only take maybe a morning; Henry can get you in to see a good orthopedic man with one phone call. Chances are, all you’d need is a walking cast. It would make you a lot more stable, and you’d get well a whole lot quicker. Much as we love you, it would be hard for Lila or me to stay with you full-time. And you remember that Henry said he needs to get back to work pretty soon. You know Henry; he’ll stay as long as you need him. But a doctor could cut the time in half.”

  She was silent. Then, from the dark, she said, “I’ll go. Of course I will. I can’t bear having all of you mad at me. And of course Henry must get back into the world; I don’t think he’s had that truck off John’s Island since he got here. It’s just that…I haven’t been back in a hospital since Charlie…”

  My heart smote me.

  “I’ll take you in,” I said. “And I’ll stay with you every minute.”

  “No,” Lila said. “I’ll do it. Henry wants to put a ramp over Camilla’s front steps, and you need to start getting things ready for the big homecoming party. Simms says the boat is a beauty. They’ll have pictures to show us Saturday night.”

  The next morning, Lila and Camilla drove away toward the appointment Henry did indeed make for her with a top orthopedist, and he brought out lumber and a handsaw while I sat under the pavilion on the end of the dock making a grocery list.

  The morning was soft and blue, and spiderwebs sparkled with dew in the marsh grasses. It would, I knew, be hot by noon, but there was that telltale riffle of wind out on the creek, and the tide was in full. I yearned, suddenly, for the Whaler. And then I thought of Gladys, and my eyes misted over.

  Henry appeared at my side and thumped himself down on the bench seat beside me.

  “I just plain don’t want to work this morning,” he said. “Let’s run away. I know, I’ll take you down and show you the shell ring. You really should see it, and Lewis is going to be out sailing from now on until we all fall over. You good for that?”

  My heart leaped up. To be out on the morning water, perhaps to laugh, perhaps to see Henry laugh…

  “I’ll go make us some sandwiches,” I said, getting up.

  “Bring some wine!” he called after me.

  In half an hour we were out in mid-channel, facing into the freshening wind, bubbling down the October-blue creek.

  We did not speak until we were in sight of the hummock that held the shell ring. To get to it, we had to cut the engine and glide the Whaler as close to the bank as possible, then anchor it and cli
mb over the side and wade in. Where we went ashore, the creek floor was soft and slick and plushy, and the water was a dark, thick soup. I stepped as lightly as possible, dreading what, in those old, secret waters, I might step on. Henry had said there were no sharp oyster or clam shells here, but once, out in the Whaler with Gladys, I had seen the dark, triangular shape of a great skate float beneath the boat, and my blood had run cold. It was no use for Lewis to tell me that our creek skates were harmless and even shy, nor that they made sweet, wonderful eating. Whenever I see dark, opaque water, I people it with primordial skates. I was glad indeed when we slipped and slid up the bank and trudged through the deep grasses to the shade of the shell ring.

  The hummock was large enough to harbor a grove of live oaks, ancient and gnarled, with ground-skimming beards of Spanish moss. Even this late in the year they were a vivid green with resurrection ferns and interspersed with the swords of palmettos. Under the canopy of oaks, a level green-mossed floor looked as landscaped as a suburban yard. It had been, Henry said, the site of the Indian village that had made the shell ring, built there for the secluded shade and the rich creek waters and the little freshwater spring that bubbled on the far side of the green. It was as hushed as a cathedral. You wanted to whisper under those trees.

  We plunged the wine bottle into the spring and set out for the shell ring. It was tall, twice our height, and Henry said that if you climbed it, you would see, in its middle, a crater, like that of a volcano.

  “But we never climbed it,” he said. “Nobody told us not to; it just seemed wrong. We always felt like they were watching us.”

  “ ‘They’?”

  “Whoever first started that ring. Whoever kept it going. I’ve never known. Some geologists around here reckon that this creek and the others around here are at least six thousand years old. They formed when the oceans stopped rising. The first people who lived here could be a tribe nobody’s ever heard of.”

  I looked up at the big, sheer wall of shells and detritus, covered now with scrubby grass and ferns and sediment laid down over uncounted ages. It was dark in the shade of the ring, and cool. We rummaged desultorily along the edge of the ring, and found shells and pottery shards, arrowheads, fragments of bowls and cups, strings of broken beads. We found one gigantic prehistoric shark’s tooth; Henry said it would have been used as money, and been worth a great deal of it. We left the tooth where we found it, and the other things, too. Henry was right. There was a great and silent sense of other beings around the ring and under the live oaks. When I looked back into the green shade under them, the dappling sunlight could easily be mistaken for shadowy brown people going about the ancient, everyday business of wresting a living from the creek and the hummocks. I shivered.