Partway up the hill on the side where the old pines marched, a pair of crows stood on a dead branch. For a minute or two they simply stood as if, like himself, they were surveying the landscape. Then all of a sudden, emitting their raucous, hideous caws, they flapped up and deposited themselves on another branch not twenty feet distant. Now what was the purpose of that?
Ellen could make a story out of it. She would paint it in spare, Oriental strokes of black and gray, with a touch of dark pine green. She would make the crows talk. He could see her now at her drawing table, concentrating, and pleased with her work.
Dear God, he thought, and became aware of his familiar, great tiredness. So he went inside, hung his jacket most carefully on the back of a chair, and lay down on the sofa in the library.
When he awoke, the room was filled with sunshine. He looked at his watch, where the hands stood at six o’clock. But that was impossible, and looking again, he saw that that was Tokyo time. The watch was one of those elaborate mechanisms providing not only the date, but the time in all the major capitals of the world; he had had no need of it, since he had no business in any of them, yet he had bought it.
The time here showed him, in this little spot on the globe, that he had slept for over two hours, which was understandable, given the past restless night. It was the date, though, that startled him: It was Penn’s birthday. He sprang up. If he were to put on some speed, he could get there with a cake for lunch.
His route to the highway lay on the other side of the city. Driving along the central avenue, he saw himself again approaching the shady campus and gothic stone of the university on that first day here, so long ago. And here he was at a bakery, the very one where the woman who was no longer his wife and he bought the world’s best donuts for their Sunday breakfasts, buying a birthday cake for their son. “So it goes,” he murmured to himself. “So it goes.”
With the cake in hand, he went next door to the sporting goods store. And now, despite the wistful spirit of the day, he felt a small smile touch the corners of his lips. Penn was playing baseball. A catcher’s mitt would be the thing, his own personal mitt. At the last visit, Robb had watched the game, a great big change from playing roll ball on the lawn. And on that same day, Penn had written his name, in large, round, childish letters, it’s true, but nevertheless he had written it. They had done wonders with Penn, those people in Wheatley.
What a grand thing to know that Penn was happy! You saw it on his face, which had lost the often vacant look that could break your heart. Now in Robb’s inner pocket lay a crude folder of red leather, the wallet that Penn had made for him. Within his limitations, in his own world, Penn was busy. He had friends. Someday he might even have a simple, sheltered job. And he had a home, the one thing fully paid for out of the wreckage.
Ten miles beyond the next turn was the house where Devlin still lived, a solid brick mansion shrouded behind a long drive, a tunnel between old rhododendrons. Robb had been there once. Solid as Fort Knox, that house stood, and so far anyway, regardless of financial hurricanes, tornadoes, or typhoons, would stand. Other people would pick their way through the shambles.
It was a few minutes before noon when he drove into the parking lot at Wheatley. Few cars were there, and vision was unobscured, so that he was able clearly to see the little group approaching the entrance: Ellen, Julie, and Philip, bearing gifts. They had not seen him, or they would have made some sign. Nor would Philip be walking with his arm loosely but possessively lying across Ellen’s waist. She was wearing Robb’s favorite spring green, although the season was fall and the leaves mellow-colored. She had been letting her hair grow; richly waved, it hung like a girl’s to her shoulders.
Oh Ellen, how I loved you! And I probably love you still. What happened to us? Was it your crabby father, my crazy drive for money, or the worthless women? What?
And Julie, my Julie, you’ve lost your nice young man, your quick, bright boy, on account of me.
He stood there until they had gone through the door. He did not want to see them. Perhaps he should wait until they had seen Penn, and then go in. On the other hand, perhaps he should not.…
Quite suddenly, he wanted to go away. And as a workman walked past, he handed two dollar bills to him for himself along with the cake and the mitt.
“Please, will you give these to a young man named Penn? Penn MacDaniel. Here, I’ll write the name. Tell him, please, they’re from Dad, and give him my love.”
“I’ll do that,” the man said with pity.
He got into the car and drove. You really could do this crazy thing, just drive without any destination, could turn the car to any direction on the map and keep going. You could abandon the car someplace, remove all identification, change your name, and disappear. He must have seen dozens of movies and read dozens of books about spies meeting contacts on buses, in restaurants, or parks, or even in movie theaters, and then vanishing across borders or hiding in mobbed cities.
That was nonsense. He was a fly in a spider’s web, and flies did not get away. Yet, without being sure what the purpose might be, he felt that he needed to go someplace and think. So he kept on.
His thoughts were disjointed and fleeting. In one there appeared distinctly the face of a man whom he had defended in a case of embezzlement, a wan face, bewildered, with intelligent, frightened eyes. In another there came the face and form of Eddy, the foolish friend with the shrewd facade, a friend loyal to the last. But Eddy would manage. After the bankruptcy, he would scrape up some money and start afresh. Eddy would be all right. And Glover, poor man, would not be all right.
He thought of Julie. She had all of God’s gifts, and if this fellow Andrew was lost to her, there would be others, though she was probably not in the mood for anyone right now.
He thought of Ellen. With her books, her mother’s modest legacy, and Philip, she would do fine. For an instant he had a vision of her in Philip’s bed, and closing his eyes, came near to driving off the road.
And he kept on. At the equinox, the sun slants lower and the afternoons are shorter. The pervasive dreariness seemed to accommodate itself to his spirit. When he had traveled two hundred miles and only three gallons of gasoline were left in the tank, he stopped in a town where he had never been before and went to a hotel. It looked like a commercial traveler’s place, neither luxurious nor seedy. Tired-looking men carrying heavy suitcases moved through the lobby. He went upstairs and stood a long time at the window looking down at a parking lot that was lined with tired-looking cars. He wondered about the men who had come in those cars, about the infinite variety of their lives, some no doubt longing to go home to a simple house where love awaited them, while others might wish they never had to go home.
What fortune is behind it all? Where is the first fork in Everyman’s road, the one where the choice leads on to the next choice, and so on until the inevitable end? As for himself, had it been the hole, the hole of poverty in the insurance salesman’s shoe? Or the day he had parted with Lily? Surely his life would have been very different if he had not done so.
In his pocket, in a small address book, on the day he had met Ike Wilton he had scribbled the name of the town where she lived. For an instant he felt an impulse to call and say something like this: “I do not regret my marriage to my wonderful Ellen, but I do deeply regret the pain I caused you, and I hope you have been happy in spite of it.” But the impulse died. It would have been melodramatic, and she would have found it uncomfortable, if not absurd.
Was it one of the many times he had failed to heed Ellen’s pleas and warning? Yes, probably so. Surely she would not have fallen so deeply in love with another man if he had listened to her. And he would not be facing what now loomed before him. Once when all these troubles began, he had pictured them in the form of an iceberg, approaching slowly, yet melting away as it moved. Now it had fiercely come upon him, not melted, but unconquerable, enormous as ever, merciless, and dark.
On the edge of the bed he sat down and wrote
a letter. Then he went into the hall and put it in the mail chute next to the elevator.
Back in the twilight-filled room, he suddenly remembered the night of the accident, the thing he had deliberately put out of his mind long ago. Quite clearly now, he heard the trilling of tree frogs and saw the rise of the night mist. He remembered, too, that he had not been especially scared of dying.
Thinking so, he took the revolver from where he had laid it, put its cold mouth to his own mouth, and fired.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
1997–1998
Ellen woke early, or rather rose early, after no more than two hours of sleep. The kitchen, which faced north, was still dim, but dimness seemed fitting to the circumstances, and she let it remain so. When she had made coffee and cut a slice of coffee cake, it seemed astonishing that in the midst of pandemonium, life could continue in its customary ways. Their kindly neighbor must have rushed to bake this cake last evening: funeral meats, she thought. Now the man across the street came out as usual to walk his dog. Now the newspaper, rolled into a tube, landed with a thump at the front door.
This paper was the last thing she wanted to see. No doubt in time, in a few days—or would she possibly be prepared to see it sometime later on this very day? Ultimately, the need to know would propel her to look and inquire and conjecture. But not now. It was enough to know only that Robb was dead.
Her tears poured, one of them falling into the coffee cup. Pictures in rapid, cinematic fashion flashed through her head: Robb in his student quarters, at his commencement, on their wedding day, holding the newborn Julie in her pink coat and bonnet. Pictures always of the old times, of the beginning.
Why had he done this? Because of those meager sentences in Rufus Max’s column? To be sure, they were a painful embarrassment, as was the prospect of bankruptcy itself. To Robb of all men, they were especially so. But were they worth his life?
She wiped her eyes. It was perhaps unseemly that she should be crying like this. After all, she was married—and to a most caring man. Not that he was a saint, for who would want to live with a saint? But even when he was annoyed, Philip was patient. Surely then, he would comprehend this grief.
She was wiping her eyes again, when a car stopped at the foot of the driveway. Recognizing Eddy Morse, she ran to open the door before he should ring and awaken the house. When he put his arms around her, she saw that his eyes, too, were wet.
“My God,” he said. “I heard it on last night’s late news. It hasn’t sunk in yet. Is it true? Robb?”
Ellen put her fingers to her lips. “Philip and Julie are still asleep.”
“How is Julie?”
“Pretty bad. Philip broke the news to her. I didn’t know how to do it. We went over later to her apartment to get some clothes and things. She’ll stay here with us for a while, for as long as she wants.”
“Poor kid, poor kid. She looked up to him as if he were a king or somebody.”
In the kitchen Ellen poured coffee for Eddy, a second cup, and a third.
“I need to drug myself with it,” he said. “Why I came, I know it’s too early to come to somebody’s house, is I thought you or Julie might have a note.” And as Ellen shook her head, he explained, “First I went out to the house. He gave me a key after you—”
“It’s all right to say it, Eddy. After I left.”
“Well, I never used the key, but I thought now maybe there’d be a note. I looked all over the place, and there wasn’t anything. And then the reporters came, three cars already. Vultures. You know what killed me, Ellen? It rained last night, heavy rain, and those guys drove up on the grass, digging trails in Robb’s lawn. Remember how he fussed over that goddamn lawn?”
Yes, she remembered. Robb had fussed over everything in that house. Yet she was surprised that Eddy was sensitive enough to know that about Robb.
“Another reason I’m here,” he said, “is those reporters are sure to come down on you soon.”
“On me? I’m not Mrs. MacDaniel anymore.”
“No difference. But actually they’ll be hunting for Julie. They’ll track her down at her apartment, and some of her friends over there will tell them to come here. God, I can’t believe it.” And Eddy put his hands to his forehead, rumpling his hair.
They were still sitting at the table when Philip came in. Ellen realized that she had never before seen these two men together, so she made the introductions, wondering at the same time how their respective thoughts about Robb might differ. Surely their perspectives were poles apart. And yet, in the face of such a death, perhaps not.
Philip broke the silence. “Like all of us, he was a wanderer, only somehow he lost his way.”
Eddy groaned. “That bastard Devlin with his famous charities! He could have helped out. But his life isn’t over yet. There’s always another bastard coming along who’s still smarter, who’ll do him in. Cut out his guts for all I care.” As the doorbell rang, he jumped up. “Reporters. The same green car.”
“I’ll go,” Philip said.
Poor Julie, Ellen thought. When a person dies of cancer or in a car crash as Robb’s parents did, one can at least talk oneself into some acceptance. But not this death. He must have left a message. Surely a letter will come today or tomorrow, for whatever good it will do. It will come to Julie’s place. Could he have had an inoperable cancer? Could he—
“A hundred questions,” Philip reported, coming back. “They wanted Julie. I asked them please to let her alone. She doesn’t know any more than they do at this point. Here’s the paper.”
“Oh, I don’t think we need—” Ellen began, when Julie came in and stretched her hand out for the paper.
“Oh, I don’t think she ought—” Ellen began again, when Philip stopped her.
“There’s no sense trying to hide it,” he said quietly.
With the paper spread on the kitchen table, everyone read the front page. The article was certainly not a headline, yet it was prominent enough.
“Noted lawyer commits suicide in hotel room … motive unknown … financial difficulties, perhaps.…”
Ellen’s eyes sped down the column, scanning: “Civic affairs … committee chairman … Sebastian Hospital … Red Cross …” Her heartbeat drummed in her ears. And surreptitiously she glanced at Julie, whose eyes were a sickly red in her pinched face.
“We don’t have to read the whole thing, Julie. You need some breakfast first.”
“Mom, I can’t eat.”
“You’ve had nothing since yesterday afternoon.”
“How can you ask me to think of food? Please let me be.”
“So far I haven’t read anything so bad.” Eddy, in his sometimes awkward way, was trying to soothe, but the effort failed.
“My father’s dead,” Julie screamed, “and it’s the newspaper, the media, that’s done it. Andrew, Andrew who’s done it. And why? He and that great boss of his, the awesome, esteemed, all-knowing Rufus Max. Dad committed no crime! He never harmed a soul in his whole life. And these gossipmongers who need to earn their keep feed the printing presses and drive a man like him to despair.”
“I don’t know. We don’t know,” Ellen murmured, taking Julie into her arms. “It was a crazy, momentary impulse. Money worries can drive a man to the brink. It happens.”
“I never knew it was all that bad, Mom. Nobody told me until I met Eddy on the street the other day.”
“Darling, Dad would never have troubled you with it. You have your own life.”
“I wouldn’t have asked for things, the horses, and trips and things, if I had known.”
“Julie, you never asked, and that’s the truth. He gave. It was his greatest pleasure to give.” She will make herself sick, Ellen thought as Julie trembled against her shoulder. “Listen to me. You absolutely must eat something even if it’s only bread. I insist.”
“Here’s a car,” Eddy said. “Yellow. It looks like a soup can on wheels.”
Julie sprang up. “That’s Andrew. How dare he come h
ere! I’m going to my room. Tell him I don’t want to see him. Tell him I don’t ever want to see him. I’ve forgotten I ever knew him. I mean it. He’ll understand that I always mean what I say. Tell him.”
Ellen and Philip went to open the door. Three people met on the threshold, stood for an instant without speaking, as if there were tacit understanding that words were superfluous.
Ellen said then, “Come in.”
Andrew advanced a few feet into the hall. And Ellen, supposing that she ought at the very least to be displeased with him, took a long look at his face and his humble posture, and felt sorry for him.
“I’ve come to see—may I see Julie, please?” he asked.
“It wouldn’t be a very good idea today,” Philip said gently.
“I know. I thought that, only for a minute, I might let her know how I feel.”
“Yes, but not right now,” Philip repeated.
Andrew looked from one to the other. His open-collared shirt revealed a nervous Adam’s apple; there was something pitiful about it. He’s so young, Ellen was thinking, when he spoke again.
“Is it that she doesn’t want to see me? You can tell me. It’s just as well that I know where we stand.”
“Don’t you think,” Philip replied, still quietly, “that it’s far too early to know where you stand?”
“No,” said Andrew. “Julie says what she means. Are you telling me that she doesn’t want to see me, really?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Ellen broke in. “I can’t think straight anymore. I can’t think what’s right or wrong. I liked you so much, Andrew. I still do. But that stuff in the paper—she thinks you could have prevented it. I’ve always heard that when people have a contact, they can keep idle gossip out of the papers.”