Dark Don't Catch Me (18 page)

A
T ELEVEN-THIRTY
in Paradise, down in the brow below Linoleum Hill, Kate Bailey says it seems a shame.

“Yes, it does,” Colonel sighs. “It all started off so nice, too.”

“And I never tasted Brunswick stew that good, did you, Guessie?”

“Law, no. Hus must have some secret ingredient.”

“Seems a shame,” Kate repeats. “But maybe Storey can do something about
Vivie
anyway. How'd she get in such a temper? It isn't like her, do you think, Marianne?”

“Hmm?” Marianne Ficklin looks away from Major Post's shadow, off by the queen-of-China trees, where he's clearing the plank table. He sure is mad, she thinks; he sure got mad when Thad Hooper told him hell, no, he couldn't leave the barbecue and go down to The Toe to see what become of Black Bryan in the wreck. Thad said, “Don't you worry, boy,
he
ain't hurt! Fellow who called said only thing hurt is my pickup and a black-gum. Don't you worry, Major, the way your old man was feeling he couldn't feel hurt if he had it!” That sure made Major Post's black eyes flash up, sure made his jaw set hard, big hard-looking nigger boy, mad like sixty, he is, Marianne Ficklin thinks; and answers Kate: “What'd you say, honey?”

“I said I never saw Vivie in such a temper. Did you?”

“Naw, Gawd, Thad sure got his hands full tonight. First Vivie, and then Major Post's pa wrecking his pickup. Major Post's sure burning, isn't he?”

“What's he like as a worker, Marianne?” Joh Greene pokes the dying campfire with a stick, sparking it. “I got some odd jobs around the rectory needs looking at. Thinking of hiring Major.”

“He does his work, but he's sullen. It's as though he had something smoldering inside of him.”

Bill Ficklin smiles. “Marianne here thinks any colored boy that can count beyond ten is thinking dark thoughts. Major's just brighter than most. Probably resents having to tote for a living.”

“What do you know about it, Fick?” his wife says sharply. “Do you have him around all morning? Even now, lookit him. Slamming things around back there.”

“He's angry,” Colonel Pirkle says. “Boy wanted to see for sure that his father got out of the wreck. Thad should have let him go. Don't know what's got into Thad tonight. Boy got a cousin coming in over at Manteo, too. Worried about his cousin. It isn't like Thad to be so hard on one of his niggers.”

“Aw, Thad's had more than his share of bother tonight,” Joh Greene says. “And it seems to me Bryan Post is always wrecking something that belongs to him.”

“Still, the boy can't be blamed for being concerned about his family. Thad should have let him go.”

“I make a motion we
all
go soon. Party's sort of broken up.” Joh Greene tosses the stick onto the campfire. “Ought to make it an early evening.”

“We got to wait for Thad to come back. Shouldn't be long now. He just had to check and see that the pickup isn't obstructing any part of the highway. I swear I don't blame him for getting hot under the collar. Nice enough of him to lend Bryan Post the car. Now he has to leave his party and go investigate the damage.”

“Maybe Storey can get Vivie out of her mood before he gets back,” Kate says. “That'd make Thad feel better. Storey has a way with her. Maybe I ought to run up to the house and help him.”

Then for a while they sit around the died-down campfire, lost in their individual thoughts; crickets squeak down in the brambles by the spring, brambles rustle in the slight breeze of the underbrush behind them; and the ashes of twigs and burnt-up paper supper plates, autumn leaves and scrub logs, dry and flake in the fire's grave before them, with the few remaining coals still hot and giving glow. All of them think inside themselves for that lazy interlude at the end of the evening.

Colonel wonders what he'll find when he gets back home — Ada drunk still? — wondering vaguely where Dix has been spending his nights lately; reminding himself it's been a long time since Dix and he have had a talk; ought to do something about that. Used to talk a lot together about life and all, but Ada makes everything so tense in the house when she's at it. How did this problem come on him; why?

Guessie Greene, beside Colonel, vaguely planning the menu for the church social on Friday. Fried fish, let's see, and hush-puppies, slaw, potato chips, pickles, apple cobbler and coffee. Got to remember to take her red silk down to be cleaned in time …

Bill Ficklin ponders the reason for Marianne's irritability, increasing daily; not just in small matters, like this morning's with Major, but in larger, more important ones. Like last week's argument, which had started off as a silly discussion about small towns and large cities — the dullness, she had complained, of small towns; and then the talk had grown and expanded until Ficklin had realized she was criticizing him for something, blaming him for something. Then finally she had snarled: “I'm still young! I'm not ready to decay here along with last year's crops!” He guesses maybe they should go someplace on their vacation next year — save, so they can afford to take a trip, maybe even to Europe. No, he'd never save that much from his salary, but New Orleans, maybe. Someplace exciting …

And Joh Greene remembers it's been a long time since he's given his “apples” sales pitch on a Sunday. Everybody's heard it; still, won't hurt to say it again and again, same way singing commercials on the radio start to sink in on the unconscious. There's a lot of value to repetition; just keep on saying it. Ought to drive down to The Toe and have a talk with Doc James too; he's a sensible Nigraw, don't want trouble any more than the rest of us in Paradise; he'd keep it under his hat too, no sense Colonel knowing anything about Dix and the James girl. Colonel's got his hands full already with Ada. But Doc don't want trouble; he'd know to keep the girl on close rein, put an end to it right here and now, before it's too late. Nip it in the bud.

Vivie ought to take up an instrument, Kate Bailey decides; no reason a woman's got to think about herself to a point she gets herself out of control, embarrassing Thad before the guests that way — not showing up at all at the barbecue. Band could use a saxaphone. Poor Storey up there at the house trying to talk reason into her; ought to get up there and help him. Saxophone'd be a good thing for Vivie Hooper, and the Bigger Band sure'd sound fine!

Black eyes and a hard-set jaw; big hard-looking nigger boy; what'd you like to do if you could, Marianne Ficklin thinks; what'd you like to do, buck? If you could — what'd you like to?

At eleven-thirty in Paradise, up on the road near Awful Dark Woods, driving slowly, Doc James watches the land around him. “See anything, Myra?”

“Aw, Ed, I don't think you're right about Barbara.”

“Then why didn't she tell me the truth about last night?”

“I think she just objected to having to explain her every move, Ed, that's all. She's not a child, like Betty. She's a grown lady.”

The doctor shakes his head. “No, Myra,” he says, studying the darkness carefully through the car's windows. “No, Barb and I have always been close. She's doing something she's ashamed of. She's doing something with a white man.”

“Ed, it won't do any good even if we find them up here together. Don't you know that by now?”

“Hollis Jordan'll listen to
me!
That's one white man I don't have any qualms about speaking up to!”

“And if it's not him?”

“I've got a hunch it is. When I saw him the other night, and then picked Barbara up right after, I had a funny feeling — even before I saw Neal sitting on the porch. I got that same feeling tonight, Myra, when Barb sneaked off again; and a few minutes back, when we passed Jordan's house and saw it dark. I got a hunch they're together right now.”

“Just because of Juddville, Ed?”

“That, and other things too. It couldn't be anyone else.” “Be hard to find them around up here even if you're right, Ed.”

Doc James says, “Just keep looking, Myra. We've got to just keep looking.”

• • •

At eleven-thirty, down in the two-story yellow frame house on East Church Street, Cindy walks into the large upstairs bedroom, mumbling as she views the debris; the neck of the phone dangling from its hook, an overturned wine bottle, clothes strewn along the floor, a photograph of Mister Dix dropped beside the mauve stuffed chair Miz Pirkle slumps in asleep. Cindy mumbles, “Lord, Lord, this place looks like a hooraw's nest. Miz Pirkle sure raised herself some hell t'night and put a chunk under it at that. She sure carry on wid dat giggle soup, she do; she walk out in high cotton all right.”

The colored girl stares down at her mistress; then touches her shoulders. “Miz Pirkle, ma'am?” … “Miz Pirkle, ma'am?”

“Done passed out.” Cindy frowns. “Lord, Lord!” She calls again, “Miz Pirkle, ma'am. Hey, dere — ”

• • •

“It must be late, Storey,” she says, sitting beside him on the shell-shaped violet-splotched couch in the living room.

“Only eleven-thirty, Vivs.” With his finger he traces a pattern in the cotton covering of the couch, and continues tracing as he talks, making a series of spirals. “No. Don't you see?” he continues. “I'm not saying Thad's perfect — nothing like that at all — but just that he's good, Vivs. He's like Kate. There's a basic goodness about him; he's strong, do you know what I mean? He knows what he stands for. Principles! Some of us just — well, just don't know how to keep ahold of ourselves. Some of us get sloppy — ” Storey Bailey stops himself as his finger uncontrollably comes in contact with the flesh of her arm; he withdraws it suddenly and heaves his breath out, sighing, “Hell! Hell, I don't know. I had a lot to drink!”

She sets the coffee cup down on the round antique end table beside the couch; looking over at the opposite wall; at the black wood-framed Currier and Ives print above the shelf of cactus and ivy plants. “Do you remember that night at Mike's, Storey?” she asks him abruptly.

“Remember it?” he answers, feigning nonchalance, showing some considerable embarrassment; shrugging, “Sure, I suppose. It was a long time ago though.”

“I always wondered why you changed; changed the minute you stepped out of the car and went inside. I always wondered why you had to talk nasty, Storey. I never figured it out … I suppose it was because of Thad.”

“In a way. You were his girl … Still, you started it — started all that nasty talk and I couldn't stand you telling me I was rotten. It made me sore because I thought then that you were as much to blame as I was … It was you who changed so quickly.” He shakes his head. “Aw, we were only just kids, Vivs. What the — ”

She stares down at her nails, polished bright red, long and tapered; studying them. “When I went into Mike's and heard your conversation, I wanted to die.”

“My conversation?”

“I heard what you said. I didn't know why you wanted to talk that way about me. It wasn't like you. I was shocked.”

“You must be crazy, Vivs. I didn't say anything at all to Mike! What'd I say?”

“No — no, let's not go into it. It was too long ago. There's no sense going over it.”

“But you're mistaken.”

“All right, Storey. Let's not talk about that. We were both such kids. You with your crush on Thad, and me with mine on you … We were kids, that's all.”

“Yours on me?” He looks at her. “Huh? Gawd,
I
didn't know anything about yours on me.”

She stands up, her hands in the pockets of the blue cotton dress, stands staring out the window at the light up at the barbecue pit off in the distance. “Poor Hus worked late tonight.” She sighs. “No, Storey, I don't know. I don't know that you and I wouldn't have worked out better than — ”

“Don't say something like that, Vivs.”

“All right, don't worry. I'm not going to.”

She reaches to the end table for a cigarette, and Storey rises from the couch, goes over beside her and lights a match, touching it to the cigarette. “I swear I never knew about any crush you ever had on me, Vivs … Why, Thad was such a — ”

“That's why you never knew. You were too busy worshipping Thad. Oh well, what's the sense in going on about it … it's pointless.” Sucking on the cigarette for a moment, she is silent. Then she adds, “That night in the car with you … I never felt that way … I don't know.”

He reaches his hand out and touches her arm lightly. “Vivs — Vivs.” His hand grips her arm now, but she pulls herself away.

“And Thad.” She gives a dry little laugh. “Poor man! I never loved him. Respected him, yes. Oh God, didn't everyone? He was so good, wasn't he? He was so damnably respectable, huh, Storey, wasn't he? But — ”

“Vivs — ”

“No, don't, Storey.” She moves away from him, from his hand on hers. “I tried to love him. You know I even felt there was something wrong,
bad,
about not being able to love him, but I couldn't ever be myself around him. He wanted me to be someone else — I don't know — Thel, maybe. Dear sweet Virgin Thel, maybe. But I was his wife — ” suddenly, dropping her head, beginning to weep.

“I never should have come up here,” Storey says. “I was a fool. I should have let you alone to get over it by yourself. You don't mean all this. Vivs. I never should have — ”

“Never should have what?” Vivian Hooper says, the tears starting down her cheeks, her hand reaching up to push them way in an irritated gesture. “Listened to this? Because it's true and it doesn't have a pleasant sound? If I can't tell you, Storey, who can I tell? Joh Greene? Guessie? Maybe I should tell Ada;
she'd
listen, if I'd give her a drink. No, Storey, the only one I can tell is you. I can tell you that I'm not some pure little Southern belle that does it because it's part of her marital duties and not because she likes to do it. I
like
to do it, hear? Yes, and that shocks Thad Hooper, that I like to do it. But you knew it all along, didn't you, Storey. Knew it before Thad knew it. You — ”