Els carried her wine upstairs and out onto the shower platform. It was the dark of the moon; even the stars were muted. She took a long shower, and as she was shutting off the taps, she thought she heard the gate rattle as if someone had closed it carefully. A sedan drove away toward town. It was nondescript, like all the other used cars shipped by a dealer in Florida to rust out their remaining years on Nevis. “Drink someplace else, boys,” she muttered. Despite a sign clearly noting the pub’s opening hours, people persisted in testing the gate and sometimes even walked up just to be sure.
She toweled off, pulled on running shorts and a T-shirt, and went to the lounge, planning to rummage in the kitchen for a snack of leftovers.
She smelled smoke, different from grill smoke, and stepped out onto the gallery to sniff. Susie was sprawled on her side on the court and didn’t move when called. Els hurried to her and lifted her head. She was breathing, but shallowly. Els tried to rouse the puppy, who looked at her in an unfocused way and flopped back down.
A flicker caught her eye. Flames under the pergola, licking the legs of the domino table. She ran for the kitchen bucket. No water at the tap. By then, flames were devouring the table and starting to scale the pergola. Black smoke rose, thick and noxious. She sprinted to the tool shed, grabbed a shovel, and raced back to the patio, where she beat at the flames and tried to scatter the fire. Fighting choking smoke, she dragged the dining furniture to the safety of the gravel court. Flames leapt from the pergola toward the shutters and the house’s wooden story above.
Giulietta screamed for Els from the deck of Toad Hall.
“Stay where you are,” Els screamed back.
“Get out, cara! Fire will fall on you.”
“Go upstairs and call the fire brigade.” She broke off in a fit of coughing. Giulietta hurried across the court.
Pinky appeared as if he’d taken form from the smoke and disappeared as quickly, and Els wasn’t sure she’d seen him at all. Moments later he reappeared with the hose from the cistern. In her panic, she’d forgotten all about it. He sprayed the base of the fire until it stopped rekindling, then doused the side of the house and the flaming pergola. He shoved Els so hard that she hit the stone wall, scraping her elbow, just before a section of pergola fell in a shower of sparks where she’d been standing. Giulietta, now on the gallery, began screaming again.
After wetting the grass all around, Pinky handed the hose to Els, took the shovel, and beat at the remaining flames. He scooped up something and tossed it into the court. Susie rallied at this, walked unsteadily farther away, and collapsed again.
Els plied the hose until a puddle of water and floating char formed at the edge of the court. Pinky made a cutting gesture at his throat and disappeared. The water dribbled to a stop. The substance in the court continued to smolder. Everything smelled of wet ash and burnt rubber. Above the charred remains of the pergola, stars winked in the inky sky.
When Pinky touched her elbow, Els jumped. She hugged him. “Thank God for you, Pinky. And thank you, Jack, for your wacky waterworks.”
Pinky exhaled in a puff and stepped away when Giulietta arrived at the edge of the court. “Stay out there, Mum,” Els said, and surveyed the jumble of timbers—reminiscent of the pick-up sticks after the hurricane, but far more sinister. She took stock of her own condition: soot everywhere, a small burn on her left foot, a gash on her right ankle where she’d hit it with the shovel. Though she’d fought the fire in flip-flops, her feet were mostly unharmed. She stepped over a beam onto the court. Giulietta flew at her and embraced her so hard she thought her bones might crack. She clung to her mother, gasping in that spicy scent. Pinky smiled and disappeared into the night.
Giulietta released Els but continued to grasp her shoulders and search her face, her eyes glistening. “My only baby,” she said.
“I’m fine, Mum,” Els said. “Really.”
Still clutching Els’s shoulders, now as if for balance, Giulietta looked down at their feet.
“Susie,” Els said, and eased herself away. The puppy was still lying on the court but was no longer flat on her side. Els felt her warm nose and carried her to the kitchen. In the light she examined every inch of the pup; except for her bleary eyes, nothing seemed amiss. Els encouraged her to drink a little water and settled her into her bed.
The siren’s distant warble cut through the still night. Els lit the floodlights on Jack’s flag, walked to the gate, and waited, breathing consciously to balance the adrenaline still surging through her. When the fire truck arrived, she shielded her eyes against its blinking lights and said to the man at the wheel, “All under control.”
“Let us make sure,” he said.
She rolled open the gate and followed the gleaming truck into the court. The three men roamed their torches over the fire scene and surrounding area.
“You put this out by youself?” the lead man asked.
“I had some help.”
The fireman glanced at Giulietta, who was sitting on the steps in her nightgown, pristine compared to Els, and more agitated. “One of my employees,” Els said. “He . . . lives nearby. He’s gone home now. He thought to hook up the cistern. Fine time for the government water to cut out.”
She told them how the fire appeared to have started near the domino table, now a charred fragment, and how fast it had built.
The headman eyed the grill. “Any kind a’ accident can happen if you don’t exercise care with an open fire, ’specially by a wooden structure.”
“We’re extremely careful,” she said. The grill was upright and closed. She opened it. The unspent charcoal and ashes had been removed.
Speaking quietly among themselves, the men picked around the fire scene. When they started toward the truck, one of them kicked the chunk Pinky had heaved onto the court and called the others over to look. The headman dispatched one of his underlings to the gate.
“That thing wouldn’t quit smoldering,” Els said.
“Bit a’ tire,” the headman said.
The colleague returned from the gate and whispered something to the boss.
“Government water fine,” the boss said. “The valve turn off.”
She stared at them. A scrap of combustible rubber, placed among some of Pinky’s charcoal and sticks and palm fronds from the compost pile. The water turned off. No accident.
The truck radio squawked. One of the men said something into it, but all she could catch was, “Domestic fire. Damage limited.”
The headman took the shovel, dug a hole in the mud at the edge of the court, and buried the scrap. “Leave that ’til after the holiday,” he said. “Make sure it out good, then bring it in for evidence.”
“What do yi expect to find, fingerprints?” she asked.
“I tell the inspectors,” he said. “They going stop by soon, get the details.”
“What, a car that could be anybody’s at the gate, a fragment of tire that could have come from anyone’s yard? What possible motive could anyone have?”
He shrugged. “Come by the station for you report. You gon’ need it for you insurance.”
She looked at the mess, mentally calculating the cost of cleaning up and rebuilding the pergola. The house had survived with only a little blistered paint. It could be weeks before repairs were done, but she couldn’t afford to close the pub at peak season for even a few days.
She closed the gate after the fire truck drove away and looked up the hill. From that angle, the house looked normal, perfect, and she mentally caressed each beloved detail. She climbed the driveway and found her mother still sitting on the steps in a daze. Els left her to sort herself and went to check on Susie, who lifted her head and slapped her tail once. Els gathered the floppy creature into her arms. “I know you would have barked to warn us if they hadn’t done this to you, sweet thing,” she said. “We’re lucky it was only drugs instead of poison.”
The screen door to the lounge slammed. “Cara, where are you?” There was an edge of panic in her moth
er’s voice. Els put Susie back in her bed and hurried up the steps. When she reached the lounge, Giulietta sprang forward and embraced her again.
“Mum,” Els said. “Nothing’s harmed that can’t be fixed.”
Giulietta sank onto the ottoman, her eyes crazed. “You were surrounded by flames, like the fire would turn you to ashes. I cannot lose you again.”
“Nor I you.”
“I come here with big curiosity, to see who you are. You want answers, but I don’t plan to speak of it, ever. Yet I am thinking and thinking about how dark water terrifies you. You say in your letter that you don’t have a life unless . . . .” She clasped her upper arms. “Unless I tell you. I want my daughter back, but I am so afraid I will lose my daughter again.”
Els sought Giulietta’s eyes, but her glance was flitting around the room; her agitation was so infectious that Els’s heart began to race again. Susie padded up from the kitchen and rested her chin on Giulietta’s thigh.
Els went to the bar and turned on the tap, which gushed air, then water. The valve turn off. She suppressed a shiver, took a glass of water to her mother, and sat in the big chair so that their knees nearly touched.
Giulietta stared into the water as if direction might be found there. Afraid to say anything that might derail her mother’s urgency, Els waited. If it took a near disaster to shake loose the answers she so craved, all the damage would be worth it.
“Okay,” Giulietta said. “Okay.” She fixed her eyes on her cobalt and orange painting of the ships. “We are in battle, you and me,” she said, “from when you are a tiny fish in my belly. You fight me in the womb; you are already fierce the second you are born. You steal all my strength. You are greedy at my breast, but you refuse to be cuddled.”
Els balled her hands in her T-shirt. Prickly from the start. Unlovable.
“The only thing I do that pleases your father is to produce you. He adores you, and when he is home, he puts you in a dog bed in the Rover and drives you all over the hills. I wish to show you off in the little dresses I order from London, but I am not invited by the neighbor ladies. They talk only of horses and dogs and are competitive about their flowers. In the shooting season the Big Laird invites many bankers, and Cook makes huge, terrible food, and the men are laughing late into the night. Grayness is filling me up. I begin to drink in bed. Soon I am not leaving the bed.”
“Was there nothing about Cairnoch that you enjoyed?” Els asked, hoping she’d brought at least a little joy into her mother’s life.
“The only place in that house I am content is the glass room. I fill it with ferns, orchids, palm trees.”
“You sang to me there.”
Giulietta’s frown softened. “You stay with me sometimes when I paint. You fuss a lot, get on my nerves. Singing is a way to make you quiet. When you reach two, cara, you are as terrible as they say. Such a temper.”
Els ached to stand up and pace, but she pressed her knees together and ran the blue bead back and forth on its chain.
“About that time I fall into real blackness,” Giulietta said. “I believe you are a little demon, sent to prove I fail as a mother. The village doctor says I have depressione after birth—a little late, maybe, but all the same.”
“Surely you got more qualified help than Doc Gowan,” Els said.
“The only mental places then are like prisons,” Giulietta said. “Anyway, nobody admits to a problem, as long as I hide myself. Oh yes, I yell at the servants sometimes, but I keep away from the village, and nobody visits but the hunters.”
Els thought how Cairnoch in winter—the isolation, ancient stone, low gray skies, and muted colors she loved—must have compounded her mother’s misery.
Giulietta sipped her water. “Beatrice believes fresh air cures everything. That December we barely see the sun, but every day I am pushing you up and down the hills until I am exhausted. You behave a little better in the pram. We watch for animals, and I tell you their names in English and Italian. Scoiattolo, coniglio.”
“Volpe, cervo,” Els said. “I love that first drawing.”
“One day I choose my favorite little coat, and you are fighting the sleeves, the pram, everything. You scream the whole way that you want to walk.” Giulietta raked back her hair, twisted it, and let it go. The telling etched the lines more deeply into her cheeks. She looked at Els. “Once I say the rest, there is no going back.”
“Already there is no going back,” Els said.
Giulietta went to the bar and poured a glass of wine, took a gulp, and returned to her seat. She took Els’s hand and looked at their intertwined fingers.
“At the bridge,” she said, “you always want to see the ducks. I hold you on the parapetto and you are calling ‘duck, duck, duck.’ My head is aching. I cannot make you shut up. The wind is so cold. I try to lift you. You twist and scream until your face becomes purple. All I want is for the noise to stop.” Giulietta looked toward the door and took her hand away. “I let go, cara,” she whispered. “I make a little push. You splash into that gray water. The ducks make big noise. Your pink hat floats under the bridge.”
In Els’s recurring dreams, cold drove her breath away. Wan light glittered at a surface she couldn’t reach. Her arms and legs were bound too tightly to move. The terror of those dreams bloomed now in her chest and her lungs refused to take in air. Desperate to avoid another panic attack, she recalled Liz’s soothing voice as she breathed raggedly in and out on a count of ten.
Giulietta grabbed both of Els’s hands. “Cara, this is as bad for you to hear as for me to say. I fear this moment for years.”
Els managed a deeper breath. “That fear I have of dark water. It actually helps to know why.”
Giulietta held on tight until Els’s breathing calmed.
“And then you fished me out, right?” she asked.
Giulietta released her grip and looked away. “I start walking back to the house,” she said. “I reach the front door. Then I become afraid. I am yelling to everyone for help. Clyde, the ape who works in the garden, has already pulled you out. He hears the ducks and comes running.”
Els stood up, went to the bar, and splashed water on her face then dabbed her eyes, turning a bar napkin gray with soot. Her mother’s story felt both raw and rehearsed. Had she confessed it to one psychiatrist or another, one priest or another, until the truth of it became distilled or wrung out in the retelling? Susie padded over and leaned against her shins.
Giulietta cradled her wine glass and stared into its ruby depths. “I tell everyone you run away from me and fall in the lake and I cannot swim,” she said. “There is big commotion in the house. Cook makes a warm bath and turns you from blue back to pink. Clyde is big hero. He gives me a look that says he saves me as much as you. But then the servants begin to whisper to Beatrice. She whispers to your father, and they decide I am a no-good mother and I must return to Italy. If I will go to doctors they choose, they will send money. I cannot see my child unless the doctors approve. They make me sign papers. I leave the next morning.”
Harald had been so forceful, so practical. By reputation, steely in business. With Els, he’d been strict, hard to impress, and often distant, but never unkind. Perhaps he had been as vindictive as Mallo often claimed.
“I accept to be banished because I am convinced an evil woman lives inside me and I cannot control what she will do,” Giulietta said. “I renounce my child.”
Susie scratched at the door, and Els let her out and leaned against the doorframe. “But you sent the birthday paintings.”
“When I hear nothing back, I decide maybe your father and grandmother teach you to hate me. Maybe even tell you what I did.”
“You persisted.”
“After a while, it becomes as much to poke at Mr. Big Laird,” she said. “Remind him he shares the blame that his daughter has no mother.”
The case clock scrabbled and bonged ten times.
“I’ve always known your leaving was somehow my fault,” Els said.
Giulietta finally looked at her. “The path of blame begins long before you are born. I work hard all these years with those doctors to step off it.” She finished her wine. “That is why I write you I am not the mama you want.” Her smile was rueful. “When you invite me, I fear you imagine we have big tears and all is forgiven. The real world is not like that.”
“I believe the real world piles more shit on you than you could ever imagine, and turns its back and lets you deal with it alone,” Els said.
“Cara, your path has always been up to you.” Giulietta stood up and carried her glass to the bar. She touched Els’s arm. “I do wish for some forgiveness, though, like in your books.”
Els looked at her mother and covered her face with her hands. “Not just now, Mum.”
“Finché siamo vivi,” Giulietta said, “tutto è possibile.” She went out to the gallery, letting in Susie, who threw herself against Els’s legs.
Els carried the puppy to the leather chair and curled up with her, wetting her fur with tears.
CHAPTER 46
She showered and pulled on the long sundress she’d tossed onto her bed hours before and her lavender cashmere cardi. In the lounge, she looked around at her treasures and Jack’s, then turned off all the lights and threw herself into the big chair. Her hair still smelled faintly of smoke. To the ceiling fan’s tick, visions and admonitions looped in her head. Unlovable, bitch, ice queen, where there’s life there’s hope, admit what you feel, icy water, duck bellies, paddling black feet, unlovable, rotting weeds, my fault, his fault, her fault, unlovable, feel what you feel, hope, your path, your path, your path.
The case clock announced midnight. As Boxing Day began, all was silent but for the frogs and the distant roosters, whose waves of screaming sounded like the tortures of the damned. She went to the kitchen and set the kettle to boil, but killed the flame before the water was tepid.
The Moon Always Rising Page 30