Ritual (4 page)

Alien’s Corners
lay seven miles from Washington and five miles from Bethlehem, in a wooded
hollow where the Quas-sapaug tributary ran. The heart of the town was a plain,
sloping green, faced on three sides by white-painted colonial buildings, and
dappled by crimson maples. There was a colonial cannon standing at the lower
end of the green, and in the striped shadow of its wheel spokes two elderly men
were sitting on a bench, their trousers protected from the wet wooden slats by
carefully folded up newspapers.

‘Best thing we
can do is get some directions from those two,’ said Charlie.

Martin looked
around, his hands tucked into the front pockets of his jeans. ‘You’re sure this
place has a bowling alley?’

‘Down on the
south side of town, next to the supermarket and the railroad depot. What the
folks from the historical district call the commercial district.’

Charlie tugged
his well-thumbed copy of MARIA out of his sagging coat pocket, licked his
finger, and leafed through it until he found Alien’s Corners, population 671,
one gas station (daytimes only); two restaurants, Billy’s Beer & Bite and
The English Muffin; one boarding house, 313 Naugatuck, six guests only, no
dogs.

MARIA was the
popular acronym for the guide called Motor-Courts, Apartments, Restaurants and
Inns of America. For Charlie, it was appropriate that it should have been a
woman’s name, because MARIA had been the mistress that had broken up his
marriage. MARIA was the siren who had lured him away from home, and sent him
driving around America in search of an illusory fulfilment that he had realized
years ago would never be his. He wasn’t bitter about it.

He knew that he
would never be able to settle down, so the best thing he could do was to go on
driving around until some early-morning maid in some small mid-West hotel tried
to wake him up one day and found that she couldn’t.

Founded in 1927
by a flannelette salesman called Wilbur Burke who had been stranded in rural
communities just once too often ‘sans beefsteak, sans bed’, MARIA had been the
travelling man’s Bible for twenty years. In his preface to the first edition,
Burke had written, ‘This guide is dedicated to every man whose Model A has let
him down somewhere in the vastness of the American continent, on endless plain
or wind-swept mountain, and who has been obliged through lack of local
knowledge to dine on Air Pie; and to seek his rest on the cushions of his back
seat.’

Lately,
however, MARIA had been overtaken in stylishness and circulation by Michelin
and Dining Out in America. Salesmen flew to their destinations these days,
eating and sleeping high above the prairies which they once used to cross in
overloaded station wagons. But MARIA still sold 30,000 copies every year, and
that was enough to justify the perpetual travels of Charlie and his five
colleagues, constantly updating and correcting like the clerks in George
Orwell’s Ministry of Truth.

MARIA’s
restaurant inspectors managed on average to survive their jobs for three years.
At the end of three years, they were usually suffering from emotional
exhaustion, alcoholism, and stomach disorders. Very few inspectors were
married, but almost all of those who were went through separation or divorce.
Charlie had lost Marjorie; but he had outlasted the next-longest serving
inspector five times over.

Mrs Verity
Burke Trafford, who owned MARIA, said without kindness that Charlie must have
been born a glutton; not only for food but for punishment. Charlie, in reply,
said nothing.

Charlie walked
across the dappled shadows of the green towards the two elderly men, and Martin
followed him. Their feet made parallel tracks in the silvery moisture on the
grass. The old men watched them approach with their hands shading their eyes.
One of them was ruddy-faced, and blue-eyed, with the deceptively healthy looks
of high blood pressure. The other was sallow and bent, with tufts of white hair
that reminded Charlie of an old photograph he had once seen of an Indian scout
who had been scalped by Apaches.

‘Fine
afternoon,’ said Charlie, by way of greeting.

‘It’ll rain
again before nightfall,’ replied the ruddy-faced man. ‘You can make a bet on
that.’

‘Wonder if you
could help me,’ said Charlie. ‘I’m looking for a restaurant hereabouts.’

‘There’s Billy’s
down by the depot,’ said the ruddy-faced man. Although the church clock was
clearly visible through the maples, he took out a pocket watch and examined it
for a while as if he wasn’t sure that it was working. ‘Be closed by now,
though. Five after three.’

‘It’s a
particular restaurant I’m interested in,
Le
Reposoir
.’

The ruddy-faced
man thought about that, and then shook his head.
‘Never heard
of any place called anything like that.
Sure it’s Alien’s Corners you
want? Not Bethlehem?’

‘I had lunch at
the Iron Kettle,’ said Charlie. ‘Mrs Foss told me about it.’

‘What did he
say?’ the white-haired man cried out, leaning forward and cupping his hand to
his whiskery ear.

‘He said he had
lunch at the Iron Kettle,’ the ruddy-faced man shouted at him.

‘Well, rather
him than me,’ his companion replied. ‘Never could tolerate that Wickes family.’

‘The Fosses own
it now,’ the ruddy-faced man told him.

‘Oh, the
Fosses,’ said his white-haired friend. ‘I remember.
That
woman with the fancy eyeglasses and the stupid sons.
And that daughter
that went missing – what was her name?’

‘Ivy,’ the
ruddy-faced man reminded him. ‘And she wasn’t a daughter, she was a niece.’

‘You’re a
hair-splitter, Christopher Prescott,’ the white-haired man snapped.

‘And you,
Oliver T. Burack, are a xenophobe.’

Charlie
interrupted them. ‘You don’t know where this restaurant could be, then?’

The ruddy-faced
Christopher Prescott said, ‘
You’ve
been misguided, my
friend, if you want my opinion. Somebody’s led you astray.’

‘Harriet the
waitress told me about it. She even spelled it out.’

‘Harriet?
Harriet Greene?’

‘I guess that’s
her name, yes.’

Christopher
Prescott reached out and gently took hold of the sleeve of Charlie’s coat. ‘My
dear man, Harriet Greene is well known in this locality for having an unusually
low proportion of active brain cells. In other words, she’s what you might call
doolally.’

‘Mrs Foss
mentioned the place, too,’ said Charlie. Beside him, Martin was growing
restless, and scuffing his feet.

‘What did he
say?’ Oliver T. Burack wanted to know.

‘He was talking
about the Fosses,’ Christopher Prescott shouted.

‘The Fosses of
Evil,’ cackled Oliver T. Burack. ‘That’s what I call them.
The
Fosses of Evil.’

‘Be quiet,
Oliver,’ Christopher Prescott admonished him.

It was then
that a young sheriff’s deputy came walking across the grass towards them. He
was thin and big-nosed and he had grown a drooping blond moustache in an
obvious effort to make himself look more mature. His eyes were concealed behind
impenetrable dark sunglasses. He came up to Charlie and Martin and stood with
his hands on his narrow hips, inspecting them.

‘That your car,
sir?
That Olds with the Michigan plates?’

‘Yes, it is,’
said Charlie.
‘Anything wrong?’

‘I’d appreciate
it if you’d move it, that’s all,’ the deputy told him.

‘It’s not
illegally parked,’ said Charlie.

‘Did you hear
anybody say that it was?’ the deputy inquired. Charlie – who had argued with
traffic cops and deputies on almost every highway from Walla Walla, Washington,
to Wind River, Wyoming – took a deep and patient breath.

‘If it’s not
illegally parked, deputy, then I’d honestly prefer it to remain where it is.’

The deputy
looked past Charlie and Martin to the two old men on the bench. ‘How’re you
doing Mr Prescott, sir? Mr Burack?’

‘We’re doing
fine, thank you, Clive,’ Christopher Prescott replied.

‘These two people bothering you any?’

‘No, sir, not at all.
Asking for directions, that was all.’

‘Lost your
way?’ the deputy said, turning back to Charlie.

‘Not really.
I’m trying to find a restaurant, that’s all.
Le Reposoir
.’

The deputy
thoughtfully stroked at his blond moustache. He had a ferocious red spot right
on the end of his nose. ‘You know something, sir? There are laws and there are
customs.’

‘Are you trying
to make some kind of a point?’ Charlie asked.

‘What I’m
trying to say, sir, without giving unnecessary offence, is that your vehicle is
parked in the place where the president of the savings bank parks. He’s still
out at lunch right now, but he’ll be back before too long, and you can
understand what his feelings are going to be if he discovers an out-of-state
vehicle occupying his customary place.’

Charlie stared
at the deputy in disbelief. The wind whispered through the maples, and over by
the commercial district a dog was barking. At last, Charlie said, with
uncompromising coldness,

‘Take off those
sunglasses.’

The deputy
hesitated at first, but then slowly removed them. His eyes were green and one
of them was slightly bloodshot.

Charlie said,
‘Do you happen to know where I can find a French-style restaurant called
Le Reposoir
?’

The deputy
glanced at the two old men. ‘Is that what you asked these gentlemen?’

‘Yes it is. But
now I’m asking you.’

‘Well, sir,
Le Reposoir
isn’t open to the public.
It’s more of a dining club than a restaurant. The way I understand it, you have
to make a special appointment before they’ll let you in there.’

‘I see. But can
you tell me where it is?’

The deputy
looked uncomfortable. ‘The people who run
Le
Reposoir
are not too keen on unexpected visitors, sir. A couple of times
they’ve called us out to take away trespassers.’

‘I’ll deal with
that when I get there, deputy. All I want to know from you is where it is.’

‘Sir – believe
me – it doesn’t have too good a reputation. I don’t know how you got to hear
about it, but the people round here don’t speak too well about it. If I were
you, I’d take a raincheck. Billy’s is probably the best place to eat in Alien’s
Corners, if it’s good country food you’re looking for. My cousin works in the
kitchen, and that kitchen’s so clean, you wouldn’t mind them taking out your
appendix.’

Charlie said,
‘You still haven’t given me any idea where to find
Le Reposoir
.’

The deputy
pushed his sunglasses back on to his nose. ‘I’m sorry sir, I’m not sure that I
should.

We do our best
to divert people away from
Le Reposoir
,
tell you the truth.’

Til make a deal
with you,’ Charlie suggested. ‘You tell me where
Le Reposoir
is, and I’ll move my car.’

The deputy
didn’t look at all happy about that. ‘Let me tell you something, sir, Mr
Musette isn’t going to like it any.’

‘Mr Musette?
Who’s he?’

‘
He
kind of runs
Le
Reposoir
, him and Mrs Musette. Well – I believe they run it, anyway. I
never saw anybody else up there, excepting some tall fellow who was working in
the garden.’

A Jeep sped
noisly around the green, and the deputy glanced around with undisguised anxiety
in case it was the president of the savings bank, returning from lunch to find
that his sacred parking space had been usurped by a stranger.

‘Come on,’ said
Charlie. ‘A deal’s a deal. And what do we have at stake here?
The sheriff’s five per cent mortgage?’

The deputy
said, ‘All I can tell you is the name Musette. You can look it up in the
telephone book.’

‘Come on,’ said
Charlie. ‘You can tell me approximately where it is, can’t you?’

The deputy
looked over at Christopher Prescott, as if he were seeking approval. Charlie
was sure that he saw Prescott almost imperceptibly shake his head, but he
couldn’t be certain about it.

‘You’d better
call Mr Musette first,’ the deputy repeated. If you try to go up there
uninvited, well

- the next
thing I know he’s going to be yelling down the horn at me, telling me to come
up and get you because you’ve been trespassing. Mr Musette has a real obsession
with trespassers.’

Martin said,
‘Come on, Dad, we won’t have any time left for bowling.’

‘Bowling?’
asked the deputy. ‘You won’t be able to do any bowling around here. Nearest
lanes are in Hartford. There used to be a bowl, sure, down by the railroad
depot, but they closed it nine months back.
Too many old
folks in Alien’s Corners to make a bowl pay.
No
youngsters any more.’

‘I was here
last year,’ said Charlie, in surprise. ‘I can remember that bowl being packed
out with kids.’

‘Times change,’
Christopher Prescott intervened. His voice was as dry as the wind in the
leaves.

‘Lot of young
couples decided that Alien’s Corners wasn’t the place they wanted their kids to
grow up in. Too quiet, you see, and nothing in the way of opportunity,
excepting if a kid wanted to be a horse doctor or a country lawyer. Then, of
course, there were the disappearances, all those kids going missing.’

‘Including the
Foss girl?’ asked Charlie.

‘That’s right,’
said Christopher Prescott.’ First young David Unsworth disappeared; then Ivy
Foss; then Geraldine Im-manelli.
Then six or seven more.
Some of the parents began to get scared. Those who lived in town moved out of
town. Some of them even went back to the city.

Those who lived
outside of town didn’t allow their children into the Corners any more. So the
bowling alley died from what you might diagnose as a loss of young blood.’