Low Country (21 page)

company business do it, too. He even turned his fre-

quent flyer mileage back to the company. Hayes ragged

him incessantly about it.

The house seemed to settle in around me all at once,

fitting like a sweet skin. The dark night stopped press-

ing against the windows and wrapped them tenderly.

I lit the logs in the big

Low Country / 181

sitting room so that the house would smell of apple

wood and peeked into the oven. Estelle had left a pot

roast there, ready to be heated. Clay’s favorite. That

and some of the Merlot he had brought back from At-

lanta the last time he went, and the last of the key lime

pie we had had the weekend before…or, no, I would

make something for dessert. It would pass the time,

and please Clay, and I suddenly wanted very much to

be in my own kitchen, making something wonderful

with my own hands. I looked into the refrigerator.

Creme caramel; we had everything I needed. When I

went upstairs to our bedroom, I was nearly dancing

on the steps.

He was late coming. At one A.M., I gave up and

went upstairs and turned on my little television and

found a rerun of
Pillow Talk
and fell asleep before

Doris Day even had time to get pertly angry with Rock

Hudson. I don’t know how much later it was when a

sound from the kitchen woke me. I got up and ran my

hands through my tousled hair and shrugged into the

nicest negligee I had, and hurried downstairs. I was

not afraid. I knew it would be Clay.

He did not hear me coming in my bare feet. He was

sitting at the kitchen table with the platter of cold, un-

carved pot roast and vegetables in front of him, hands

in his lap beneath the table, staring into space. I had

never seen him look so old, or so tired, or so…ill? I

was afraid sud

182 / Anne Rivers Siddons

denly, so afraid that for a moment I could not get my

breath to speak. I remembered Shawna’s words the

day before…or was it the day before that?…and that

I had brushed them aside impatiently.

Then I said, “Honey?” and he looked up, and his

face was Clay’s again, with only the normal fatigue of

a late night home from a business trip on it.

“Hi, sweetie,” he said, and got up, and came over

and hugged me. His face against mine was cold, but

his arms were tight and hard around me, and he held

me for a long time. I hugged back, eyes closed, my

face pressed into his shoulder.

“You hopped a ride on a jet,” I said, still close against

the fabric of his coat.

“Yep. The guys we went to see were coming to

Charleston anyway, and I talked them into staying

over a day or two with us. Well, not with
us
. I put

them in the guest house, now that the new kids are in

their own places. It saved me a bad three hours in the

Atlanta airport.”

“Clever,” I said, kissing the side of his face. I felt

stubble there, and was surprised. He hardly ever al-

lowed a trace of growth on his chin. He must have

skipped shaving that morning. I had never known him

to do that in all the years we had been married, and

the anxiety came nagging back.

Low Country / 183

“Are you okay?” I said, leaning back to look at him.

“You looked awfully beat up there for a minute, and

Shawna was carrying on the other day about being

worried about you. Your health, I mean. I blew her

off; I thought she was just being Shawna. Should I

have?”

He made a small, disgusted noise.

“You should have. She drives me nuts with that

sweet-concern business. I’m thinking about assigning

her to Hayes. He can’t stand her. Yes, to answer your

question, I’m okay. I just hate Atlanta. And I’m getting

really sick of this money-raising business.”

“Why don’t you let somebody else take that over?”

I said, picking up the platter and putting it into the

microwave. “Surely Hayes could do it by himself by

now; he goes with you every time you go.”

“Most investors still want to see the honcho do his

dog and pony show,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Makes

’em feel like they can jerk him around. Which of course

they can. You want a glass of wine while that’s heat-

ing?”

“No,” I said, perhaps more forcefully than I meant

to, and he shot an oblique look at me but said nothing

more. He poured himself a glass and sat back down

at the table.

“So tell me about the island,” he said. “I assume you

stayed over there? Shawna said you hadn’t called in

when I called the office.”

184 / Anne Rivers Siddons

“I was going to call her in the morning and find out

where you were and all that,” I said. “Yes, I did stay

over. It was awfully foggy, but I got some nice water-

colors started, and one morning of photographs. Oh,

and I saw Nissy and she has a colt! Wouldn’t…isn’t

that something? You remember, we’ve never known

how old she is, so we thought maybe she was too old

to have a baby, but apparently not. I’d love to know

who the daddy is. Oh, and I met that new man of

yours. That Lou Cassells person. He came over looking

for his granddaughter. She’d run away after the ponies

and ended up at the house.”

“Cassells…” he said reflectively. “Oh. Yeah. The plant

guy, the Cuban. His granddaughter was at the house?”

“Yes. Apparently she saw the ponies and had been

chasing them around for a while, and sneaked out early

yesterday morning and followed them over to our

place. I’d been feeding them, so they’re hanging

around. She’s a nice child, about five, I guess. There’s

a sad little story about her I’ll tell you sometime, but

right now you need to eat and then I need a snuggle,

and there’s just no telling where that could lead.”

I smiled at him and he smiled back. I did not men-

tion seeing the child the night before, in the fog, and

wished that I had not mentioned Lou Cassells, and

wondered why I had. That could have waited for

morning. This was not the time

Low Country / 185

for that. Perhaps there would not be a good time for

it. Perhaps I would, after all, just let the whole thing

lie. I did not want to tax my tired husband with that

can of worms. It all seemed, suddenly, so absurd as

to have been a fairy tale, something I had heard long

ago.

The microwave dinged and I took out the roast and

carved him a couple of slices and spooned the browned

vegetables onto his plate. He took a big mouthful and

smiled appreciatively around it.

“Estelle never forgets, does she?” he said.

“Never.” I smiled back. “I don’t, either. I made crème

caramel. We can eat it in bed.”

“Well, you hussy,” he said, grinning a little. It was

the grin I loved most. I had not seen it in some time.

“Can’t you even let a man get his nourishment first?”

“Be quick about it,” I said.

An hour later we lay tangled together in the big bed

in our “real” bedroom, the one that faced the sea. The

drapes were closed against the darkness, and they

muffled the sound of the waves. The palms still

scratched and rattled, though, and banged against the

wrought-iron railing of the balcony that lay beyond

the French doors. I burrowed my ear deep into the

hollow of Clay’s naked shoulder and heard, instead of

the palms, the roar of my own diminishing blood and

the pulse of his. If I moved my head slightly I could

186 / Anne Rivers Siddons

taste the sweet salt sweat on his neck. I did that, tasted

the essence of Clay after love, and hugged him hard

with the other arm that was flung over his chest. He

hugged back.

“Not bad for an old bag,” he said drowsily into my

hair. His breath tickled.

“Or for an old crock,” I said. “The only trouble is, I

know all your tricks. Why don’t you get some new

tricks to amaze and delight me?”

“And just where do you suggest I get them? Shawna?

Some daughter of joy from the mean streets of At-

lanta?”

“You could get a book,” I said. “Or we could rent a

video. I bet Hayes knows some good ones.”

He laughed and shifted me slightly in his arms. We

lay still for a while, I listening to the regular cadence

of his breathing. I kept thinking that I would get up

and bring the comforter and spread it over us, but I

did not move, and before long I began to think that

he had fallen asleep. But he had not.

“So what do you think of him? My new guy?” he

said, when I was just thinking that I would disengage

myself and get up. My stomach gave a small squeeze

of anxiety. I did not want to speak of this. I was done

with this.

“Oh, who cares?” I said. “Go to sleep. It’s almost

three.”

“I’m not sleepy,” he said into the dark. “No

Low Country / 187

kidding, what did you think of him? His credentials

are good, but I don’t know…there’s something about

him. I realized after I hired him that I really don’t know

anything about him.”

For some reason, I felt a stab of perversely propriet-

ary protectiveness toward Lou Cassells. I said, “He

seemed fine. Like I said, he had his little granddaughter

with him and he’s certainly crazy about her. He’s ap-

parently had a pretty rough life; he just lost his wife,

and his daughter…died…having a baby, back in Cuba.

He takes care of the child now. You’ve got to admire

that.”

“I suppose,” Clay said. “I just don’t much like the

idea of him hanging around the house over there, or

knowing when you’re there and when you’re not. I’m

going to have to make that clear, I think.”

“No, don’t. He wouldn’t have been there if the little

girl hadn’t come there. He told Lottie he didn’t plan

to bother me.”

“Lottie…oh, terrific. I guess he’s shagging Lottie

Funderburke like half of the rest of my staff, huh?”

“Well, you don’t have any rules about that, do you?

Let him be. He was…nice. And apparently he’s highly

educated. He was telling me a little about himself.”

Clay lay in the darkness for a while, and then he

said, “What else did you talk about?”

“Oh…nothing. Everything. About Day

188 / Anne Rivers Siddons

clear. He’s staying over there, and you know who

with? Ezra Upchurch. Isn’t that something? Ezra, back

in Dayclear?”

“There goes the neighborhood,” Clay said neutrally.

“So…did he say what he was doing over there? Ezra,

I mean? Him, too, for that matter. I thought he lived

on John’s Island. I thought they both did.”

“He’s visiting his old aunt, apparently. She’s the only

one he’s got left, Lou said. Ezra, I mean. As for Lou,

he’s there because he knew Ezra somehow or other on

John’s Island and I guess this is a lot closer to his work.

He didn’t say.”

“Lou, huh?”

“It’s what he said his name was, Clay.”

“He told me Luis.”

“Well, what’s the difference?”

“It’s just…familiar, that’s all. I don’t like the idea of

him being familiar with you. I want you to tell me if

you see him over there again. As a matter of fact, it

might be a good idea if you gave the island a rest for

a while.”

“Why, for pity’s sake?” I could not keep the exasper-

ation out of my voice. This was not at all like Clay.

Not at all.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Caro, because I said so,

okay?” he snapped. “Is it a terrible great lot to ask, just

for a little while?”

I raised myself up on one elbow and stared at him.

Low Country / 189

“I think you’re jealous, and I think it’s absolutely ri-

diculous,” I said.

He raised himself up, too, and glared at me.

“Jealous of you and a…Cuban Jew gardener? Not

hardly,” he said, and there was something cold in his

voice.

I was stung.

“Well, maybe you ought to be concerned, though

not for the reason you think,” I said, trying to match

his coldness with my own. “He seems to know an awful

lot about your business. He seems to think you’re

about to put a resort over there in Dayclear. In fact,

he’s awfully sure about that. If he’s telling me about

it, who knows who else he’s telling? If you have to

make anything clear to him, that’s what you ought to

clear up. It made my hair stand on end.”

The cold sickness did not start until the silence had

spun out so long that it was obvious that he was not

going to answer me. Then it flooded me and took me

deep under, so that I could not move or get my breath

to speak. Over it, very gradually, came not anger, or

fear, but a terrible desolation that was the sum of every

bad thing I have ever known was waiting ahead for

me. It was not anxiety or even terror; that presupposes

a catastrophic event still ahead of you. This event was

here. I knew as certainly as I knew it was I who sat

here in the dark with Clay that what Luis Cassells had

said was true, and that my