The Man Without a Face (9 page)

“Would he care?”

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“Yes. He can hardly wait to get me out of there in the mornings.”

“You mean he really dislikes you that much?”

There we went again. Same old question. “How the heck should I know?”

“Okay, okay. Keep your shirt on.” She got up. A lot of sand detached itself and fell onto the rug. “I don’t know why you have to get so het up.”

“Because I can’t see him letting me stay up there and study. But if I don’t Gloria will find out somehow sooner or later, because I use a lot of his books now. And then Mother’ll know and—”

“Ask him,” Meg said firmly. “What can you lose?”

I knew the answer to that without thinking. “Everything.” I paused. “You’re always asking if he likes me. Well, sometimes I think he does, and sometimes I don’t. But I sure don’t want to rock the boat trying to find out. And me ^asking him to let me study up there—which would be six hours in his house altogether—might be all he needs to say the deal is off.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know why. It’s just a hunch. Maybe because he’ll want to know why and if he finds out Mother doesn’t know I’m up there I’ve got a feeling he’ll blow the works. He’s the kind of guy who likes things shipshape and kosher.”

“He doesn’t know you haven’t told Mother you’re studying with him?”

“I don’t think so. I haven’t exactly said so, but he’s pretty sharp.”

I was silent. The old feeling of being painted into a comer was getting to me again.

“Cast yourself on his mercy,” Meg said dramatically.

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Do you have to be so corny?”

All right. What’s the alternative?”

She had me there.

I suppose I could have waited until the next morning to -eram the poetry anthology. But I wouldn’t have had any peace. I could hardly stay in my room all day, nor could I \eep watch on Gloria. I thought about hiding the book, but :Lie great question was, where? The house was a slung- together summer cottage with a minimum of everything, including storage space. With McLeod’s name in it I couldn’t lake any risk. So, along with another of his books, a history text (but without his name in it), I started the long climb up to his house.

When I got there I didn’t know quite what to do. Normally, if this were the morning, I’d just open the front door and walk in. But this wasn’t morning, which made me into something else—an uninvited visitor. I was sort of hoping he might not be there. I could then simply leave the books on the porch away from where they could get rained on. But sooner or later I’d have to tell him about the situation and leaving him to find the books he’d lent me without any explanation would give him plenty of time to wonder what I was doing back on his property and get mad about it.

So, I took the cautious approach and rang the bell.

In a minute McLeod opened the door. “What’s up?” He saw the books. “Such promptness! You could have brought them back tomorrow. There’s no charge for the first twenty- four hours.”

Funny man, I thought glumly.

“Something on your mind?”

I nodded.

“All right. Come in.”

We went into the library. The reading light was on above

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the big leather chair. Beside it there was a sort of a chest. On it were a plate and a glass that looked as if it had had milk in it and an empty cup and saucer. Usually anything that reminds me of food makes me hungry, especially since I hadn’t had lunch. But I was too nervous.

McLeod saw my glance. “Hungry?”

I shook my head. “No,” I croaked, and then cleared my throat.

McLeod stood with his back to the empty fireplace, feet slightly apart, hands behind his back. He looked about a foot taller than usual. I wished I had waited till morning.

“Well—out with it.”

I had planned a sort of explanatory preamble and groped after the first sentence as though it were the end of a ball of twine. Nothing came.

McLeod started to frown. I knew that look of old, so I closed my eyes and plunged. “Could I study up here— please? I mean the three hours after the coaching?”

I had expected his usual flat “no,” but he simply said, “Why?”

I had planned this, too, something about Mother having regular committee meetings or socials. But I knew right away it was no use. I took a breath. “Mother doesn’t know I’m coaching here with you. She doesn’t really want me to go to St. Matthew’s. Gloria saw your book today. If she opened it she’d see your name in it and she’d tell Mother.”

“Why doesn’t your mother want you to go to St. Matthew’s?” The question came sharply.

“It’s not St. Matthew’s, especially. It’s like I told you that first night—she doesn’t want me to go away.”

“And if you told her she’d stop you?”

“Yes. Maybe. I’m not sure. Not by herself. But Gloria

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would brainwash her. She’d give her a lot of good reasons why I shouldn’t.”

“You seem to have a persecution mania about her. Either that or she’s a little demented herself. Boys your age often have trouble with older sisters, but not like this. Why does she have such a vendetta against you?”

“I don’t know. Mother once said—”

“What?”

“Well, it sounds screwy, but because I was born. Something about me taking not only her attention off Gloria, but also my father’s.”

“That could be. Infant girls often have fixations about their fathers.”

“But he wasn’t her father.” The idea horrified me. “Besides, it doesn’t make any sense. She’s always so lousy about him. Calls him a dumb jock. She once even said—” “What?”

But this was one of the things I didn’t like to remember. I looked down and shook my head.

There was a silence. I could feel the air from the open window on my face and smell the sharp tang of the sea.

“All right,” McLeod said. “But for what it’s worth I think you’re making a mistake.”

“Why?”

“Not having it out with your mother.”

“She wouldn’t listen to me, I just told you. In the end she does what Gloria wants.”

“Maybe. You put an awful lot on other people—your mother won’t listen to you. Your sister hates you. Aren’t you anything but a puppet being worked on by other people? Are you quite sure you can’t get your mother to listen? Maybe you’ve talked yourself into that so you don’t have to confront her.”

“You mean I’m copping out?”

“Aren’t you?”

I was so angry I stammered. “Th-that’s not t-true.” “Then why don’t you talk to her?”

The old feeling of being backed into a comer was coming over me and I wanted out. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, and turned, making for the door. The heck with studying here. I’d find some other place.

“Charles.”

I went on, pretending I hadn’t heard.

“Charles! Come back here now or don’t come back tomorrow or any other morning.”

I stopped. After a minute I turned and went back because there was nothing else I could do. What on earth had made me think I could make McLeod do what I wanted? I stood in front of him, sullen, my eyes on the floor.

“Look at me.”

I looked up and stared at the mangled half of his face. “What are you afraid of?”

“I don’t know. Nothing.”

“Because whatever it is you’ll have to meet it sooner or later.” He added drily, “That could be called a universal law.” And then, “Is it about your father?”

It all came back to me at that moment, as fresh and yeasty as though it were yesterday. It was the day on the beach three years ago when Gloria had called my father a dumb jock, and started to say something about my not knowing the truth about him. This was during one of our nastier fights after she had kicked over my sand castle and I had flattened her in the sand and rubbed a lot of it in her hair. She was about to go on about my father when Barry shoved a towel over her head—to get the sand out, he said—and bore her off. Mother swore up and down she didn’t know

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%*at Gloria was talking about. So did Barry when ! asked me later. I believed them. I had to.

What is it?” McLeod asked.

Nothing.” I started to turn again, still hunting for the

exit.

McLeod reached out and took my shoulder. “You can study here. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Curiously, I had forgotten. I nodded. “Okay. Thanks.” “It’s all right. I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time.” He dropped his hand. “I’m not used to people any more.

I suppose I’ve grown surly and suspicious.” He added abruptly, “Have you eaten?”

“No.”

“Are you hungry?”

I suddenly discovered I was ravenous. I nodded. “Yes.” I was finishing off a huge meat and cheese sandwich when McLeod, who was drinking some more coffee and walking restlessly around the kitchen, said, “Are you sure there’s no reason—other than wanting you at home—that your mother doesn’t want you to go to St. Matthew’s? Is it financial?”

I swallowed the last bite and cleaned up a bit of mayonnaise with a piece of cnist. “No. It’s not financial. There’s some kind of fund that sends us all to school.” I put the crust in my mouth, chewed it and swallowed, and then remembered something. “Of course, there’s what The Hairball said. He’s not Mother’s husband any more, but maybe that’s part of it.”

“What did he say?” McLeod picked up my plate and glass and took them with his cup and saucer to the sink. I licked my fingers. “He seemed to think that all boarding schools were full of homos and if you weren’t that way when you got there you soon would be.”

8I

There was a silence. Then McLeod turned on the water and I got up and started to shove my chair in.

After a minute McLeod turned off the water. “That’s not true,” he said. “It can crop up anywhere, including public schools. Most boarding schools are extremely careful about that kind of thing.” He tore off a paper towel. “By the way. Do you have a current stepfather? I sometimes find them hard to keep up with.”

I grinned. “You and me. No. But there probably will be. Mother doesn’t like staying unmarried too long—” And it was then that Meg’s idea about McLeod’s being Mother’s next husband came swimming back, making me stop in midsentence. It didn’t seem such a crazy idea as when she mentioned it.

“That sounds like an unfinished sentence.”

“No. Not really. I just thought of something.”

He looked at me for a minute. “Is there a current candidate?”

Delighted he couldn’t see what was really going on in my mind, I said, “Only Barry Rumble Seat—but he’s always around.”

“Barry who?”

“Rumble Seat. His real name’s Rumbolt.”

McLeod had a funny look. Then he said, “How long have you known him?”

“I dunno—years, off and on.”

“Does he know you’re up here—that I’m coaching you?” “No. Of course not.”

McLeod went over and took a jacket off a hook near the back door.

“Do you know him?” I asked.

But I guess he didn’t hear, because the screen door had swung to behind him. He waved. “See you tomorrow.”

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CHAPTER 6

Meg was right. Staying up there after the actual coaching took off a lot of the strain and made everything easier. I’d 'cave the house shortly after seven, which was no sweat since I’m an early riser. McLeod would work with me till eleven. Then I’d have some milk and cookies and a sandwich and was usually eating those when I heard him ride past on Richard. At that point I’d have to remind myself why I was there and what I was doing and whose idea it was in the first place, because getting back to studying while I could still hear Richard’s hooves galloping back over the fields was almost more than I could bear. Sometimes McLeod wouldn’t return till nearly two, quitting time. Sometimes he’d come back sooner, walk in, and sit down with a book, all without saying a word. But if he was in the room it was almost like he wasn’t there. I mean, normally I have to be alone to concentrate, but he didn’t bother me. The first day when I got up to go out at two he said I’d better have something to eat, so we went out to the kitchen.

“There’s stuff in the refrigerator. Make yourself a sandwich.”

Usually after that we had sandwiches and milk or coffee. At first this happened only a couple of times a week. Other days I’d have a hot dog and a milkshake as soon as I got to the village. But then I got to staying up at McLeod’s three or four times a week, then every day. Sometimes I’d ask him questions about what I’d been working on, although I was afraid at first that he’d think I was trying to scrounge more coaching out of him, but he didn’t seem to. Then around two thirty or a quarter to three I’d wander down to

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the beach. Once or twice, when he was going to the village or back into the mainland, he drove me as far as the bridge.

The work got more interesting. What I really found I liked was history and next to that, math, which really rocked me. But it made me feel a lot better about the future, because Meg always said that with my math grades the whole system would have to go back to the Wright brothers before they’d let me in the Air Force Academy.

As the days went on I sometimes stayed later and later. One afternoon we got to talking in the kitchen. I found myself looking at the kitchen clock and it was five to five.

“It’s got to be wrong,” I said.

“What?”

“Your clock.”

He turned and looked at it. “No, it’s right, I wound it this morning.”

I stood up so fast I knocked my chair over. “I didn’t know it was s-so late.”

McLeod got up. “If you’re stricken because you took so much of my valuable time, don’t be. My time isn’t that sacred.”

That made me think of something. “Is it true that you—”

Why, I mentally kicked myself, when things were going well, did I always have to ask some question that wasn’t any of my business? If McLeod had made one thing clear above all others it was that he had a highly developed sense of privacy. It spread out like a moat around him. Every so often, like this afternoon, I would find myself inside it and then, instead of leaving well enough alone, I’d shove my whole leg in my mouth and start asking pointy little questions.