Christine Falls: A Novele

by Benjamin Black

  HE KNEW HE WAS IN TROUBLE, MAYBE THE WORST TROUBLE HE HAD ever been in—it was the knife, he should not have brought out the knife—but he did not care. He was exultant. He had made his mark, had shown what he was capable of. His lap felt wet still but the sweat on his back and on the insides of his arms had cooled and was like oil, like—what was the word?—like balm. He wished that Cora Bennett could have seen him in the Buick with the girl out there on the headland, he wished Cora could have been there, and forced to watch. Cora, Claire, the big Irishman, Rose Crawford, Joe Lanigan and his sidekick that looked like Lou Costello, he imagined them all standing around the car, looking in the windows at him, shouting at him to stop and him just laughing at them.

  Cora Bennett had laughed at him that night when her blood got all over him and he rolled away from her and felt it on his thighs, the hot stickiness of it. “Why, hell,” she had said, laughing, “it’s only blood!” There had been blood with the girl, too, but not much. If Cora had been there he would have smeared it on her face, and laughed, and said, Why, Cora, it’s only blood! When she had seen how mad he was she had said she was sorry, though she was still sort of grinning. When she came back from the bathroom she sat down on the side of the bed where he was lying and rubbed her hand along his back and said again she was sorry, that it was not at him she had been laughing, but only that she was relieved because she had been kind of worrying, seeing she was two weeks late and she was never late, and that was why she had begun to wonder if what Claire had told her might not be the case, might just be one of crazy Claire’s crazy fantasies. He had sat up on the bed then, all his nerves alert, and asked her what she meant, and what it was that Claire had told her. “Why, that you shoot blanks, Tex,” she said, with that grin again, and put up her hand and mussed his hair. “Hence no little Andys or little Claires, or little Christines, either, of your own.”

  He could hardly believe she was saying what she was saying. At first he did not understand—Claire had told her it was him and not her who could not make a kid? But when she had come home from the doctor’s that day after she got the results of the tests that they had both taken she had said to him that the doctor had told her it was she who was the dud, that there was something wrong with her insides and that she could never have a baby, no matter how hard she tried. Cora, who was beginning to look like she was sorry she had started to tell him all this, said, well, Claire had told her it was the other way around, one day when he was at work and she had gone up to see if Claire maybe needed a cup of coffee or something. Claire was real upset, Cora said, crying and talking about the kid and the accident, and then she had told Cora about what the doctor had really said and how she had lied about it to Andy. As Cora was speaking, Andy’s leg had begun to shake that way that it did when he was worried or mad. Why, he wanted to know, why would Claire say it was her if it was really him that could not, could not…? “Oh, honey,” Cora had said soothingly, not grinning now but all serious, seeing clearly the damage she had done, “maybe it’s just what she told you, a little lie, you know, so you wouldn’t feel bad?” That was when he had smacked Cora. He knew he should not have done it, but she should not have said what she said, either. He had smacked her pretty hard, across the face and his knuckles caught her across the bridge of her nose. There was more blood then, but she just sat there on the bed, leaning away from him with a hand to her face and the blood running down out of her nose and her eyes cold and sharp as needles. That was the end, of course, for them. Cora would probably have kept it on, once she got over being sore at him for smacking her, but the truth was he was tired of her, of that slack belly of hers and her flat-fronted boobs and her ass that was already starting to get puckers in it. Now the laugh was on her.

  BY THE TIME HE HAD LEFT THE GIRL AND GOT BACK TO THE HOUSE HE had decided to take Claire with him. The decision surprised him, but it pleased him, too. It must be that he loved her, despite everything, despite even the things she had told Cora Bennett about him. He parked the car a couple of houses down, not because he did not want the neighbors noticing the fancy car—they had seen him in the Buick before this—but he wanted to get into the house without Cora Bennett coming out and pestering him. He slipped across the yard and went up the outside stairs three at a time, thankful for the snow that muffled the sound of his boot heels on the wood.

  Claire in her housecoat was slumped on the couch in front of the television on which some dumb quiz show was playing—who gives a fuck what the capital of North Dakota is?—and he paused in passing by her and gave her shoulders a shake and told her to get up and start packing. She did not move, of course, and he had to come back and put his fist in front of her nose and shout at her. He was in the bedroom, throwing shirts into the old carpet bag that had once belonged to his daddy, when he felt her behind him—he had developed a sixth sense, and could feel her presence without looking, as if she was a ghost already—and turned to find her leaning in the doorway in that tired-out, drooping way that she did, the housecoat pulled shut and her arms folded so tight it was like this was the only way she had of holding herself together.

  “There were people here today,” she said.

  “Oh, yeah? What people?” He had not realized he had so many shirts and coats and pairs of jeans—where did it come from, all this stuff?

  “They were asking about the baby,” Claire said.

  He went still suddenly, and turned slowly to look at her. “What?” he said softly. He was holding in his hand a belt with a buckle shaped like a steer’s head with horns.

  She told him, in that wispy voice she had developed lately, that sounded as if it was wearing out and would soon be just a sort of sighing, a sort of breathing, with no words. It was the Irish guy and the nurse. They had asked her about little Christine, and the accident, and what had happened. As she spoke she paused now and then to pick at stray bits of lint on the housecoat. She might have been talking about the weather. Once she stopped altogether and he had to give her a push to get her started up again. Christ, a clockwork ghost, that was what she was turning into! He would have gone at her with the belt except that she looked so strange, sort of not here, but lost somewhere inside herself.

  He paced the room, gnawing on a knuckle. They would have to go tonight—they would have to go now! As if she sensed what he was thinking, Claire took note for the first time of the bag on the bed, the gaping drawers, and the closet doors standing open.

  “Are you leaving me?” she said, sounding as if it would not much matter to her if he was.

  “No,” he said, stopping in front of her with his hands on his hips and speaking slow so she would understand him, “I’m not leaving you, baby. You’re coming with me. We’re going west. Will Dakes is out there, he’s in Roswell, he’ll help us, help me find a job, maybe.” He moved closer to her and touched her face. “We can start a new life,” he said softly. “You could get another kid, another little Christine. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He was surprised how little, really, he minded her saying that to Cora about the doctor’s test, or telling the Irish guy about the accident—surprised, in fact, at how little he cared about any of that. The Irish guy, Rose Crawford, that nun and the priest, they were the past now. But he knew they would be coming for him, and soon, and that the two of them had to get away. Claire’s cheek was cold under his hand, as if there was no blood at all under the skin. Claire; his Claire. He had never felt so tenderly toward her as he did at that moment, there in the doorway, with the snow coming down outside and the light failing and the walnut tree in the window holding up its bare arms, and everything ending for them here.

  HE WAS DRIVING TOO FAST. THE ROADS WERE SLICK UNDER THE SOFT new snow. Every time a cop car passed by heading into the city he expected it to swing around on two wheels and come bumping over the central divide after them with its blue light flashing and its siren going. The girl would be back at the house by now and would have told them her story, and he knew, of course, what a story it would be. He did not care.
In two days they would be in New Mexico, and Will Dakes would file off the engine number and whatever else needed to be done, and the car would be sold and he and Claire would take the money and travel on, to Texas, maybe, or maybe they would go north, to Colorado, Utah, Wyoming. The wide world was before them. Out there, under those skies, Claire would forget the kid and would be her old self again, and they would begin to live, like they had never lived before. He saw through the swirls of snow the red light flashing ahead, at the crossing. It reminded him of the girl, of Phoebe, and he smiled to himself, feeling good remembering her sprawled under him on the back seat of the car, and he put his foot down. Yes, life was just starting, his real life, out where he belonged, in those wide-open spaces, on those plains, in that sweet air. The barrier was coming down, but they would make it. They would flash under it and on the other side there would be a new place, a new world, and they would be new people in it. He glanced at Claire beside him. She was feeling the same excitement, the same wild expectancy, he could see it in her face, in the way she was leaning forward with her neck thrust out and her eyes wide, and then they were on the tracks, and suddenly—what was she doing?—she reached out a hand sideways and snatched the wheel and wrenched it out of his grip, and the big car screeched and spun on the snow and the shiny steel rails and stopped, and the engine stopped, and everything stopped, except the train that was rushing toward them, its single eye glaring, and which at the last moment seemed to raise itself up as if it would take to the black air, shrieking and flaming, and fly, and fly.

  34

  PHOEBE HAD DISLIKED THIS ROOM FROM THE FIRST TIME SHE SAW IT. She knew Rose had meant well, putting her here, but it was more like a child’s nursery than a bedroom for a grown-up. She was tired—she was exhausted!—but she could not sleep. They had thought she would want them to stay with her, to sit by the bed holding her hand and looking down at her with their sorrowing, pitying eyes, and in the end she had pretended to be asleep so they would all go away and let her be by herself. Since Quirke had spoken to her in the hall she had wanted only to be alone, so she could think, and sort things out in her head. That was why she had gone to the garage to sit in the Buick, as she used to do when she was a child, hiding herself away in Daddy’s car.

  Daddy.

  SHE HAD HARDLY NOTICED ANDY STAFFORD WHEN HE CAME INTO THE garage. He was just the driver—why should she notice him? She thought he had probably come to polish the car, or check the oil or inflate the tires, or whatever it was that drivers did when they were not driving. She had not been afraid when he got behind the wheel and drove her away, or even when he turned the car off the road and went along the track to the edge of the dunes where the wind was blowing and she could hardly see anything through the snow. She should have spoken, should have said something, should have ordered him to turn back; he might have done as he was told, since that was what she presumed he had been trained to do. But she had said nothing, and then they had stopped and he was climbing into the back seat after her, and there was the knife…

  WHEN HE LEFT HER IN THE VILLAGE SHE HAD NOT TELEPHONED THE house. There were many reasons why she would not, but the main one was simply that she would not have known what to say. There were no words she could think of to account for what had happened. So she had set off walking, down the main street and out of the village and along the road, despite the cold and the snow and the soreness between her legs. At the house it was Rose who had come to the door, pushing Deirdre the maid aside and taking her by the arm and leading her upstairs. Rose had needed only the simplest words—car, driver, dunes, knife—and at once she understood. She had made her drink a mouthful of brandy, and had told the maid to run a bath, and only when Phoebe was in the bath had she gone off to summon Sarah, and Mal, and Quirke, who was not there, who was never there.

  Then there had been the fussing, the tiptoed comings and goings, the cups of tea and bowls of soup, the whispered consultations in the doorway, the bumbling white-haired doctor with his bag and his minty breath, the police detective clearing his throat and twiddling the brim of his brown hat, embarrassed by the things he was having to ask her. There was that strange exchange with her mother—with Sarah—it had sounded as if they were talking not about her but about someone else they had both known in another life. Which, she reflected, was true. Before, she had been certain of who she was; now she was no one. “You’re still my Phoebe,” Sarah had said, trying not to cry, but Phoebe had answered nothing to that, having nothing to say. Mal was his usual totem pole. Yet of the two of them, these two who until a few hours ago had been her father and her mother, it was Mal whom she most loved, if love, any longer, was the word.

  The worst of it now was the bite mark on her neck, where Andy Stafford had sunk his teeth in her. That was the real violation. She could not explain, she did not understand it, but it was so.

  She would not speak of Andy Stafford. He was the unspeakable, not because of the knife, or what he had done to her, or not solely for these reasons, but because there were no words that would, for her, accommodate him. When the police telephoned Rose to tell her Andy and his wife were dead, killed when the Buick stalled on a level crossing, Phoebe was the only one who was not shocked, or even surprised. There was a neatness to their dying, a tidiness, as at the end of a fairy tale she might have been told as a child, first to frighten her and then, with all resolved and the wicked trolls slain, so that she might be satisfied and go to sleep. Toward Andy himself she felt nothing, neither anger nor revulsion. He had been a steel edge at her throat and a hard body pounding down on hers, that was all.

  Quirke, arrived at last, came and stood at the foot of the bed, leaning awkwardly on his stick. He asked her to come back with him, to Ireland. She refused.

  “I’m staying here for a while,” she said. “And then I’ll see.” He looked as if he would plead with her, but she made her face hard, lying there against the pillows, and he lowered his head like a wounded ox. “Tell me,” she said, “there’s one thing I want to know—who named me?”

  He raised his eyes, frowning.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Who gave me the name Phoebe?”

  He looked down again.

  “They called you after Sarah’s grandmother, Josh’s mother.”

  She was silent for a long moment, turning it over in her head, then “I see,” she said, and without looking at her again Quirke turned and limped out of the room.

  SARAH AND MAL SAT TOGETHER ON A LITTLE GILT SOFA ON THE WIDE landing at the top of the great oak staircase. The last of the day’s stealthy light was drifting down from the big curved windows above them. Like Quirke, Sarah too felt that she had been struggling all day through mire and ice, over frozen wastes, along treacherous roads, and now had come to some kind of a stopping place at last. The skin on her hands and on her arms was gray and grainy and seemed to be cringing, somehow, like her mind. The look of the broad expanse of carpet on the landing, like a nubbled, pale-pink ice floe, made her feel slightly ill; the carpet, like so much else in the house, had been installed at Rose’s command, Rose, who no doubt knew everything, too, that there was to know.

  She said:

  “Well—what do we do now?”

  “We live,” Mal answered, “as best we can. Phoebe will need our help.”

  He seemed so calm, so resigned. What goes on in his mind? she wondered. It struck her, not for the first time, how little, really, she knew of this man with whom she had already spent a large part of her life.

  “You should have told me,” she said.

  He stirred, but did not turn to look at her.

  “Told you what?” he murmured.

  “About Christine Falls. About the child. Everything.”

  He expelled a long, weary breath; it was like listening to a part of his self leaking out of him.

  “About Christine Falls,” he said, echoing her. “How did you find out—did Quirke tell you?”

  “No. What does it matter how I found out? You s
hould have told me. You owed it to me. I would have listened. I would have tried to understand.”

  “I had my duty.”

  “My God,” she said, with a violent, shaking laugh, “what a hypocrite you are.”

  “I had my duty,” he said again stubbornly, “to all of us. I had to keep it together, under control. There was no one else. Everything would have been destroyed.”

  She looked at the carpet and again her insides quailed. She closed her eyes, and out of that darkness said:

  “You still have time.”