For a moment the crafty grin resurfaced on Ed's face - a look that said I know a trick worth two of that - and then it subsided into puzzlement again as he found nothing further down but more fertilizer. When he drew his arm out of the barrel, it was dusty and aromatic with the mix. Another flash of lightning exploded above the airport. The thunder which followed was almost deafening.
'Get that off your skin before it rains, I'm warning you,' Heavyset said. He reached through the Ranger's open passenger window and produced a McDonald's take-out sack. He rummaged in it, came out with a couple of napkins, and handed them to Ed, who began to wipe the fertilizer dust from his forearm like a man in a dream. While he did this, Heavyset replaced the lid on the barrel, tamping it into place with one large, freckled fist and taking quick glances up at the darkening sky. When Ed touched the shoulder of his white shirt, the man stiffened and pulled away, looking at Ed warily.
'I think I owe you an apology,' Ed said, and to Ralph his voice sounded completely clear and sane for the first time.
'You're damn tooting,' Heavyset said, but he sounded relieved. He stretched the plastic-coated tarpaulin back into place and tied it in a series of quick, efficient gestures. Watching him, Ralph was struck by what a sly thief time was. Once he could have tied that same sheetbend with that same dextrous ease. Today he could still tie it, but it would take him at least two minutes and maybe three of his best curse-words.
Heavyset patted the tarp and then turned to them, folding his arms across the substantial expanse of his chest. 'Did you see the accident?' he asked Ralph.
'No,' Ralph said at once. He had no idea why he was lying, but the decision to do it was instantaneous. 'I was watching the plane land. The United.'
To his complete surprise, the flushed patches on Heavyset's cheeks began to spread. You were watching it, too! Ralph thought suddenly. And not just watching it land, either, or you wouldn't be blushing like that . . . you were watching it taxi!
This thought was followed by a complete revelation: Heavyset thought the accident had been his fault, or that the cop or cops who showed up to investigate might read it that way. He had been watching the plane and hadn't seen Ed's reckless charge through the service gate and out to the Extension.
'Look, I'm really sorry,' Ed was saying earnestly, but he actually looked more than sorry; he looked dismayed. Ralph suddenly found himself wondering how much he trusted that expression, and if he really had even the slightest idea of (Hey, hey, Susan Day) what had just happened here . . . and who the hell was Susan Day, anyhow?
'I bumped my head on the steering wheel,' Ed was saying,'and I guess it . . . you know, it rattled my cage pretty good.'
'Yeah, I guess it did,' Heavyset said. He scratched his head, looked up at the dark and convoluted sky, then looked back at Ed again. 'Want to make you a deal, friend.'
'Oh? What deal is that?'
'Let's just exchange names and phone numbers instead of going through all that insurance shit. Then you go your way and I go mine.'
Ed looked uncertainly at Ralph, who shrugged, and then back at the man in the West Side Gardeners cap.
'If we get into it with the cops,' Heavyset went on, 'I'm in for a ration of shit. First thing they're going to find out when they call it in is I had an Operating Under the Influence last winter, and I'm drivin on a provisional license. They're apt to make problems for me even though I was on the main drag and had the right-of-way. See what I mean?'
'Yes,' Ed said,'I guess so, but the accident was entirely my fault. I was going much too fast--'
'The accident part is maybe not so important,' Heavyset said, then looked mistrustfully around at an approaching panel truck that was pulling over onto the shoulder. He looked back at Ed again and spoke with some urgency. 'You lost some oil, but it's stopped leakin now. I bet you could drive her home . . . if you live here in town. You live here in town?'
'Yes,' Ed said.
'And I'd stand you good on repairs, up to fifty bucks or so.'
Another revelation struck Ralph; it was the only thing he could think of to explain the man's sudden change from truculence to something close to wheedling. An OUI last winter? Yes, probably. But Ralph had never heard of such a thing as a provisional license, and thought it was almost certainly bullshit. Old Mr West Side Gardeners had been driving without a license. What complicated the situation was this: Ed was telling the truth - the accident had been entirely his fault.
'If we just drive away and call it good,' Heavyset was going on, 'I don't have to explain all over again about my OUI and you don't have to explain why you jumped out of your car and started slapping me and yelling about how I had a truckload of dead bodies.'
'Did I actually say that?' Ed asked, sounding bewildered.
'You know you did,' Heavyset told him grimly.
A voice with a wispy French-Canadian accent asked, 'Everyt'ing okay here, fellers? Nobody urt? . . . Eyyy, Ralph! Dat you?'
The truck which had pulled over had Derry Dry Cleaners printed on the side, and Ralph recognized the driver as one of the Vachon brothers from Old Cape. Probably Trigger, the youngest.
'That's me,' Ralph said, and without knowing or asking himself why - he was operating purely on instinct at this point - he went to Trigger, put an arm around his shoulders, and led him back in the direction of the laundry truck.
'Dem guys okay?'
'Fine, fine,' Ralph said. He glanced back and saw that Ed and Heavyset were standing by the truckbed with their heads together. Another cold spatter of rain fell, drumming on the blue tarpaulin like impatient fingers. 'A little fender-bender, that's all. They're working it out.'
'Beauty, beauty,' Trigger Vachon said complacently. 'Howdat pretty little wife of yours, Ralph?'
Ralph twitched, suddenly feeling like a man who remembers at lunch that he has forgotten to turn off the stove before leaving for work. 'Jesus!' he said, and looked at his watch, hoping for five-fifteen, five-thirty at the latest. Instead he saw it was ten minutes of six. Already twenty minutes past the time Carolyn expected him to bring her a bowl of soup and half a sandwich. She would be worried. In fact, with the lightning and the thunder booming through the empty apartment, she might be downright scared. And if it did rain, she would not be able to close the windows; she had almost no strength left in her hands.
'Ralph?' Trigger asked. 'What's wrong?'
'Nothing,' he said. 'It's just that I got walking and lost all track of time. Then this accident happened, and . . . could you give me a ride home, Trig? I'll pay you.'
'No need to pay nuttin,' Trigger said. 'It's on my way. Hop in, Ralph. You t'ink dose guys gonna be all right? Ain't gonna take after each udder or nuttin?'
'No,' Ralph said. 'I don't think so. Just one second.'
'Sure.'
Ralph walked over to Ed. 'Are you okay with this? Are you getting it worked out?'
'Yes,' Ed replied. 'We're going to settle it privately. Why not? A little broken glass is all it really comes down to.'
He sounded completely like his old self now, and the big man in the white shirt was looking at him with something that was almost respect. Ralph still felt perplexed and uneasy about what had happened here, but he decided he was going to let it go. He liked Ed Deepneau a lot, but Ed was not his business this July; Carolyn was. Carolyn and the thing which had started ticking in the walls of their bedroom - and inside her - late at night.
'Great,' he told Ed. 'I'm headed home. I make Carolyn her supper these days, and I'm running way late.'
He started to turn away. The heavyset man stopped him with an outstretched hand. 'John Tandy,' he said.
He shook it. 'Ralph Roberts. Pleased to meet you.'
Tandy smiled. 'Under the circumstances, I kinda doubt that . . . but I'm real glad you showed up when you did. For a few seconds there I really thought him and me was gonna tango.'
So did I, Ralph thought but didn't say. He looked at Ed, his troubled eye taking in the unfamiliar tee-shirt clinging to Ed's stalk-th
in midriff and the white silk scarf with the Chinese-red figures embroidered on it. He didn't entirely like the look in Ed's eyes when they met his; Ed was perhaps not all the way back after all.
'Sure you're okay?' Ralph asked him. He wanted to go, wanted to get back to Carolyn, and yet he was somehow reluctant. The feeling that this situation was about nine miles from right persisted.
'Yes, fine,' Ed said quickly, and gave him a big smile which did not reach his dark green eyes. They studied Ralph carefully, as if asking how much he had seen . . . and how much (hey hey Susan Day) he would remember later on.
3
The interior of Trigger Vachon's truck smelled of clean, freshly pressed clothes, an aroma which for some reason always reminded Ralph of fresh bread. There was no passenger seat, so he stood with one hand wrapped around the doorhandle and the other gripping the edge of a Dandux laundry basket.
'Man, dat look like some strange go-on back dere,' Trigger said, glancing into his outside mirror.
'You don't know the half of it,' Ralph replied.
'I know the guy drivin the rice-burner - Deepneau, his name is. He got a pretty little wife, send stuff out sometime. Seem like a nice fella, mos usually.'
'He sure wasn't himself today,' Ralph said.
'Had a bug up his ass, did he?'
'Had a whole damn ant-farm up there, I think.'
Trigger laughed hard at that, pounding the worn black plastic of the big steering wheel. 'Whole damn ant-farm! Beauty! Beauty! I'm savin dat one, me!' Trigger wiped his streaming eyes with a handkerchief almost the size of a tablecloth. 'Look to me like Mr Deepneau come out dat airport service gate, him.'
'That's right, he did.'
'You need a pass to use dat way,' Trigger said. 'How Mr D get a pass, you tink?'
Ralph thought it over, frowning, then shook his head. 'I don't know. It never even occurred to me. I'll have to ask him next time I see him.'
'You do dat,' Trigger said. 'And ask him how dem ants doin.' This stimulated a fresh throe of laughter, which in turn occasioned more flourishes of the comic-opera handkerchief.
As they turned off the Extension and onto Harris Avenue proper, the storm finally broke. There was no hail, but the rain came in an extravagant summer flood, so heavy at first that Trigger had to slow the panel truck to a crawl. 'Wow!' he said respectfully. 'Dis remine me of the big storm back in '85, when haffa downtown fell inna damn Canal! Member dat, Ralph?'
'Yes,' Ralph said. 'Let's hope it doesn't happen again.'
'Nah,' Trigger said, grinning and peering past his extravagantly flapping windshield wipers, 'dey got the drainage system all fixed up now. Beauty!'
The combination of the cold rain and the warm cab caused the bottom half of the windshield to steam up. Without thinking, Ralph reached out a finger and drew a figure in the steam:
'What's dat?' Trigger asked.
'I don't really know. Looks Chinese, doesn't it? It was on the scarf Ed Deepneau was wearing.'
'Look a little familiar to me,' Trigger said, glancing at it again. Then he snorted and flapped a hand. 'Listen to me, wouldja? On'y t'ing I can say in Chinese is moo-goo-gai-pan!'
Ralph smiled, but didn't seem to have a laugh in him. It was Carolyn. Now that he had remembered her, he couldn't stop thinking about her - couldn't stop imagining the windows open, and the curtains streaming like Edward Gorey ghost arms as the rain poured in.
'You still live in dat two-storey across from the Red Apple?'
'Yes.'
Trigger pulled in to the curb, the wheels of the truck spraying up big fans of water. The rain was still pouring down in sheets. Lightning raced across the sky; thunder cracked.
'You better stay right here wit me for a little bit,' Trigger said. 'She let up in a minute or two.'
'I'll be all right.' Ralph didn't think anything could keep him in the truck a second longer, not even handcuffs. 'Thanks, Trig.'
'Wait a sec! Let me give you a piece of plastic - you can puddit over your head like a rainhat!'
'No, that's okay, no problem, thanks, I'll just--'
There seemed to be no way of finishing whatever it was he was trying to say, and now what he felt was close to panic. He shoved the truck's passenger door back on its track and jumped out, landing ankle-deep in the cold water racing down the gutter. He gave Trigger a final wave without looking back, then hurried up the walk to the house he and Carolyn shared with Bill McGovern, feeling in his pocket for his latchkey as he went. When he reached the porch steps he saw he wouldn't need it - the door was standing ajar. Bill, who lived downstairs, often forgot to lock it, and Ralph would rather think it had been him than think that Carolyn had wandered out to look for him and been caught in the storm. That was a possibility Ralph did not even want to consider.
He hurried into the shadowy foyer, wincing as thunder banged deafeningly overhead, and crossed to the foot of the stairs. He paused there a moment, hand on the newel post of the banister, listening to rainwater drip from his soaked pants and shirt onto the hardwood floor. Then he started up, wanting to run but no longer able to find the next gear up from a fast walk. His heart was beating hard and fast in his chest, his soaked sneakers were clammy anchors dragging at his feet, and for some reason he kept seeing the way Ed Deepneau's head had moved when he got out of his Datsun - those stiff, quick jabs that made him look like a rooster spoiling for a fight.
The third riser creaked loudly, as it always did, and the sound provoked hurried footsteps from above. They were no relief because they weren't Carolyn's, he knew that at once, and when Bill McGovern leaned over the rail, his face pale and worried beneath his Panama hat, Ralph wasn't really surprised. All the way back from the Extension he had felt that something was wrong, hadn't he? Yes. But under the circumstances, that hardly qualified as precognition. When things reached a certain degree of wrongness, he was discovering, they could no longer be redeemed or turned around; they just kept going wronger and wronger. He supposed that on some level or other he'd always known that. What he had never suspected was how long that wrong road could be.
'Ralph!' Bill called down. 'Thank God! Carolyn's having . . . well, I guess it's some sort of seizure. I just dialed 911, asked them to send an ambulance.'
Ralph discovered he could run up the rest of the stairs, after all.
4
She was lying half in and half out of the kitchen with her hair in her face. Ralph thought there was something particularly horrible about that; it looked sloppy, and if there was one thing Carolyn refused to be, it was sloppy. He knelt beside her and brushed the hair away from her eyes and forehead. The skin beneath his fingers felt as chilly as his feet inside his soaked sneakers.
'I wanted to put her on the couch, but she's too heavy for me,' Bill said nervously. He had taken off his Panama and was fiddling nervously with the band. 'My back, you know--'
'I know, Bill, it's okay,' Ralph said. He slid his arms under Carolyn and picked her up. She did not feel heavy to him at all, but light - almost as light as a milkweed pod which is ready to burst open and disgorge its filaments into the wind. 'Thank God you were here.'
'I almost wasn't,' Bill replied, following Ralph into the living room and still fiddling with his hat. He made Ralph think of old Dorrance Marstellar with his book of poems. I wouldn't touch him anymore, if I were you, old Dorrance had said. I can't see your hands. 'I was on my way out when I heard a hell of a thud . . . it must have been her falling . . .' Bill looked around the storm-darkened living room, his face somehow distraught and avid at the same time, his eyes seeming to search for something that wasn't there. Then they brightened. 'The door!' he said. 'I'll bet it's still open! It'll be raining in! I'll be right back, Ralph.'
He hurried out. Ralph barely noticed; the day had taken on the surreal aspects of a nightmare. The ticking was the worst. He could hear it in the walls, so loud now that even the thunder could not blot it out.
He put Carolyn on the couch and knelt beside her. Her respiration was fast and sha
llow, and her breath was terrible. Ralph did not turn away from it, however. 'Hang in there, sweetheart,' he said. He picked up one of her hands - it was almost as clammy as her brow had been - and kissed it gently. 'You just hang in there. It's fine, everything's fine.'
But it wasn't fine, the ticking sound meant that nothing was fine. It wasn't in the walls, either - it had never been in the walls, but only in his wife. In Carolyn. It was in his dear one, she was slipping away from him, and what would he ever do without her?
'You just hang on,' he said. 'Hang on, you hear me?' He kissed her hand again, and held it against his cheek, and when he heard the warble of the approaching ambulance, he began to cry.
5
She came around in the ambulance as it sped across Derry (the sun was already out again, the wet streets steaming), and at first she talked such gibberish that Ralph was sure she had suffered a stroke. Then, just as she began to clear up and speak coherently, a second convulsion struck, and it took both Ralph and one of the paramedics who had answered the call to hold her down.
It wasn't Dr Litchfield who came to see Ralph in the third-floor waiting room early that evening but Dr Jamal, the neurologist. Jamal talked to him in a low, soothing voice, telling him that Carolyn was now stabilized, that they were going to keep her overnight, just to be safe, but that she would be able to go home in the morning. There were going to be some new medications - drugs that were expensive, yes, but also quite wonderful.
'We must not be losing the hope, Mr Roberts,' Dr Jamal said.
'No,' Ralph said, 'I suppose not. Will there be more of these, Dr Jamal?'
Dr Jamal smiled. He spoke in a quiet voice that was rendered somehow even more comforting by his soft Indian accent. And although Dr Jamal did not come right out and tell him that Carolyn was going to die, he came as close as anyone ever did during that long year in which she battled to stay alive. The new medications, Jamal said, would probably prevent any further seizures, but things had reached a stage where all predictions had to be taken 'with the grains of salt'. The tumor was spreading in spite of everything they had tried, unfortunately.
'The motor-control problems may show up next,' Dr Jamal said in his comforting voice. 'And I am seeing some deterioration in the eyesight, I am afraid.'