The Self-Enchanted (4 page)

M
r. Carson was tying up his boots. He dressed by the stove in the kitchen, which was kept banked all night, and he made his own breakfast. He preferred things that way and besides, in his opinion, Sally was not the sort of girl to be gotten up at six.

It was now already seven. Yawning and scratching, he went over and warmed his hands at the stove, shut off the damper, added wood, and put a tin of water on to boil. When he had finished washing he began to dress.

He dressed awkwardly, but with precision. When he was done he gave a grunt and went over to the sink to wash his hands. Then he fried some bacon and eggs, put some bread to sizzle in the bacon fat, and sat down to his breakfast. He did not quite know what to make of things, and he did not understand his daughter. But he did know she was a dreamer, and that filled him with alarm. He sat there, eating and waiting for her to come down. At a quarter past seven the door opened and she came in.

“Look at the early bird,” he said.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“That’s your new dress, isn’t it?” he asked. She had always been a tomboy, and he didn’t think she was any
the worse off for that, but she had filled out a lot in the last couple of years. “Aren’t you cold?”

“It will warm up. How’s the work going?” It was clear that she did not want to discuss the dress, and that amused him. She was as stubborn as he was, when she chose to be, and he liked his people stubborn.

“There’s a lot left,” he said. He finished his coffee while he looked at her. “I guess I should ask Mr. Barocco to come and see us again,” he said. “He hasn’t been round lately.”

“He was here last night.”

“He must have missed me,” he said. He looked at his daughter and winked, but she did not blush. “He’s a nice guy, if you like them like that,” he went on. “Only he doesn’t know what he’s doing. All the same, you can’t help liking him even if he does know how to make you like him.”

“He doesn’t know how to make me like him.”

Mr. Carson ignored this and went on finishing his breakfast. When he had done, he gave a sniff and wiped his nose. “I gotta go,” he said. “Why don’t you come up noon and pay a visit to your dad?”

“I have to go to the store.”

“Mr, Barocco will be up at the site, I expect.”

Sally exploded. “I shan’t go until I’m asked,” she said.

Mr. Carson glanced at her with amusement. “I asked you, honey,” he said. “But I guess that isn’t what you mean.” He went out and shut the door behind him.

After he had gone Sally had breakfast, washed the dishes, and went up to her room. She closed the door,
drew down the blinds, opened the closet, on the inside of which there was a full-length mirror, and examined herself critically. She closed her eyes, trying to visualize Christopher, but could not do so. He was one of those people, real enough when you are with them, who are hard to remember. She shook her head. The whole thing was impossible.

Half an hour later she was walking along the road. It was three miles up the valley to the store, but the sun was cheerful, and she was glad she had worn the dress. She passed the first dip in the road, going by the entrance to Christopher’s place, and at the second came in view of the village.

Mrs. Grimes ran the general store. She was a bulky woman who always wore faded dresses and who smelled of stale milk. When Sally came in Mrs. Grimes, the fat dripping over her immensely tight shoes, lumbered to the counter. “Well,” she said, “I thought you were too grand to see us now.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“I saw your father in town last night,” Mrs. Grimes told her. “He was drunk.” She stood with her hands on the counter, the pudgy little fingers turned under to hide dirty nails. She hunched herself up to see if there was a car waiting outside for Sally.

“We ain’t seen Mr. Barocco down here,” she went on. “Rich men like that don’t pay nobody no mind. Funny how a man like that would strike up with your pa.”

“He likes Dad,” said Sally shortly.

“Still, it doesn’t do to stir up talk,” said Mrs. Grimes. “Mrs. Bowditch says he was up at your place last night, by the looks of the car.”

Sally turned to her. “Have you any lemons?” she asked.

Mrs. Grimes looked displeased. “Sure, if you want to pay for them. Going to make a pie?”

“Maybe,” said Sally. When at last she could get away she stepped outside with relief, a basket on her arm, and looked down the road. Mrs. Grimes always made her feel dirty, and she was glad to get the village out of sight. After a while she heard a car behind her and hurried on, hoping that it was not Christopher.

He passed her, and she had an instant to see him
without
his knowing that he was being watched. She saw the fineness of his coat, and the hairs that sprouted up out of his open shirt collar like black wires. He was frowning and looked angry, but when he realized it was she he drew up ahead and waited for her. By the time she reached him he was smiling.

“Hello,” he said. “Get in.” He leaned over, holding the door open.

“Dad will miss you,” she said.

“I’m afraid I’m not his best workman. Do you suppose he’s mad at me?”

“Why should he be?”

“I don’t know. Mr. Bolton is. So are a lot of people.”

All too soon they reached the farm, but he would not come in with her.

“I have to see what Mr. Bolton’s up to,” he said, and his voice had an edge in it. “I’ll take you up there some time, if you like.” Before she had time to answer he had waved his hand and driven off. She wondered why he was so anxious to get away, for she had not seen him look so uncomfortable before.

She was still puzzling over it when her father came
home. He was alone, and limped into the room, looking tired and perplexed.

“How was your day?” he asked.

“I shopped at Mrs. Grimes’. She talked my ear off. And I saw Barocco.”

“So did I.” Mr. Carson paused in the process of pulling off his boots. “He’s mad to get his house finished. But he isn’t exactly nice about it.”

“I thought you liked him,” she said.

Mr. Carson pulled off his other boot. “He’s a devil inside him that won’t let him go,” he said shortly.

“What would a man like that have to worry about?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Mr. Carson got up, holding his boots in one hand, and looked at his daughter. “I like you the way you are,” he said. “I wouldn’t want you changed.”

“Why on earth should I change?”

Sam looked scornful. “Because you want to,” he said, and there wasn’t any answer to that. There were times when she didn’t like her father.

C
hristopher had been away for a week; her father had the sulks; and Sally felt ill at ease. The mountains seemed to hem her in; the people seemed to upset her; and she had never wanted to get away from a place so much. It was not the way she usually felt, and she refused to admit to herself why she felt so.

She had the rattletrap pick-up her father owned and so went towards the northern exit from the valley. Beyond it she stopped at the lake where Christopher docked his plane. The lake had steep walls, it was deep, and the shore was naked except where, at the end nearest to her, there was a thinly forested spit. Open spaces did not frighten her and it was a place she was fond of. She stopped on the spit, under the trees, which smelled old. The light hit the lake in such a way that it was impossible to see anything but a sparkling mirror.

She was sitting on a rock, feeling cold and forlorn, when she saw a silver speck indistinct against the blue sky and heard the motors of a plane, far away and lost in the aura of the sun. As she watched it, it circled over the lake, its wings wobbling, like a dead-eyed moth, its silver sides furry with reflections. It landed and was swallowed
up on the water, looking no more significant than a minnow.

Projecting from the promontory was a wharf which creaked with the turn of the water under its boards. She ran down the wharf to the plane. Christopher threw her a rope and she caught it.
It was sticky in her hands as she looped it around the capstan.

“What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded. He jumped down on to the dock. “Does anyone else know I’m hack?”

“No.”

“You didn’t know I was coming?”

She was perplexed. She couldn’t see how it
mattered. “Of course not. I often come here. I like it.”

“It’s an odd place for a woman to like.”

“Why?” she asked. Behind him she saw the door of the plane still open and waggling like a broken wing. But he laughed at the tone of her voice. Evidently he was in a good humour. She was encouraged. “I’d like to fly,” she said. “I see the red and green lights going overhead and I think, these are very important people, going somewhere very secret and grand. You’ve no idea what it’s like to be shut up in this valley and to lie in bed and hear the planes go over. I’ve never even been to San Francisco, except when I was a child.”

“San Francisco is a nice town,” he said softly. He looked almost amused, and that made her indignant. She was too young to be laughed at.

“You can say that. You’ve been to New York and Baltimore and Montreal and you can say, ‘it’s a nice town’, because you have been there.”

“I much prefer the valley.”

“That’s because you don’t have to stay in it. You’ll live up there on your cliff and go away when you want to.” She walked up and down the wharf, rubbing her arms against the cold.

“And what would you like to do?” he asked.

She looked at him doubtfully. “I’d like to be free,” she said. “I’d like to be big and hard to touch and do what I pleased.”

This seemed to startle him. He looked at her closely. “You could always get a job in San Francisco.”

“What could I do?” she asked bitterly.

“Nothing, probably, but you’re not exactly ugly. I could get you a job, if you wanted one.”

“But that wouldn’t be free,” she said.

He glanced at her curiously. “No,” he agreed. He seemed thoughtful. “No. I guess it wouldn’t be.” He started to walk along the pier as though to get away from her, so she followed as meekly as she could. “Does your father know you feel this way?”

“Dad wouldn’t care. He can do what he pleases here, and that’s all he wants. Somewhere else he couldn’t.”

“I think”, said Christopher, “that you are very
unusual
.”

“But you don’t like me.”

“What on earth gave you that idea?”

She stole a glance at him out of the corners of her eyes, because she could not remember how he looked. “I don’t think you like anybody,” she told him. “I think you hate everybody. I don’t know why.”

“And do you like everybody?” he asked sarcastically. “Or am I a special case?”

She blushed. Besides, she was out of breath trying to
keep up with him. They halted in the copse, before the car.

“Since you’re here,” he said, “you can drive me home.” He did not seem annoyed.

“I’ve been trying to make up my mind,” she said. “I think you like to fascinate people just to get your own way.”

“Can you think of a better reason to fascinate them?”

“No,” she agreed slowly. “I suppose not.” She paused, getting into the car, and he got in meekly beside her,
unaccustomed
to being driven by a woman. She looked at the valley with something close to revulsion.

“It must be wonderful to do as you please,” she sighed.

“What on earth makes you think I do as I please?” He sounded angry.

“You do, though,” she said. He laughed and that upset her. “You make me cross,” she told him. “You make me talk and then you treat me like a child. No wonder they hate you in the valley.”

“What?” He was genuinely startled.

“Well, they do. They hate everybody and everything that isn’t like them.”

“Sometimes it’s useful to be hated,” said Christopher softly. “You just have to know how to make use of hate, that’s all.”

“But you’re strong. I’m not.”

Christopher looked at her speculatively and then glanced away. Sally did not like the look. “I talk too much,” she said. She felt frightened.

“There’s no such thing as talking too much. There’s just talking to the wrong people.” Christopher seemed
sad. She saw the valley through the windshield and
suddenly
, as a surprise even to herself, she began to cry.

“My God,” said Christopher.

“I can’t help it,” she wailed. “I’m so damn fed up.”

He sat uncomfortable and far over to his side of the car. At last he gave her his handkerchief. It was large, of coarse linen, with a heavy monogram that scraped her nose, but she was glad of it, and looked at him out of the edges of it, sideways.

“I’m so ashamed,” she said.

“There’s no reason why you should be.”

“But you won’t talk to me any more now. You’ll be afraid,” she sobbed.

“Stop that!” he snapped, sitting upright. “Drive me home.” His voice was hard and crisp and obediently she stopped.

When she dropped him at his gate he got out with obvious relief. She watched him go and did not think that she would ever see him again. She started up the car and rather than go to the farm, drove back to the lake. Until evening she sat there, brooding.

S
he had no one to talk to, but the men did.

It was a gusty day. The wind rose through the pylons of the house and fell whistling into space. Across from the house could be seen a cleft in the cliffs, with beyond it the concrete dam belonging to the local power company, and beyond that, the blue mysterious heart of the mountains themselves. It was not the top of the world, but it was a shelf placed just below the top. From the other side of the house one saw the desert, with its volcanic cones, and in the distance, over the dusty waters of Mono Lake, the coast of Nevada, a thin line of desolation backed by indistinct peaks. Nearer to the valley ran the Reno-Los Angeles highway.

Christopher stood in what were to be his own halls, on a bright green terazzo floor. It was noon, so the house had the haunted desertion of a place from which people have only recently gone. Curt found him sheltering in what would be the fireplace of the library, gazing into those granite heights where even in summer the storms never ceased.

“How did you get in from the lake?”

“The Carson girl drove me to the farm and I got a car from there. She was down at the lake.” Christopher stopped
looking
into the mountains and twitched his fingers irritably. He glanced sharply at Curt. In the sunlight Curt blinked
like some vegetable kind of man with sprouting eyes

“She’s very ambitious,” he said.

“Why do you say that? What ambitions would a girl in a place like this have?” Christopher caught himself up. “You don’t like her.”

“Is that what she told you?”

“As a matter of fact she said you didn’t. She said I didn’t either. She’s a shrewd girl.”

“That’s what she wants you to think.” Curt was acid.

Christopher shrugged. “She’s intelligent and
ambitious
. I don’t think she’d stop at anything to get her way, if she ever really woke up.”

“I scarcely call that admirable.”

Christopher stared at him coolly, pulled two ways. “Perhaps you don’t. I do.”

“I doubt if she’s met a rich man before.” Curt looked at him slowly, too angry to notice the danger signals. But Christopher only walked away, and Curt had the
impression
that he was thinking less of Sally than of
someone
else. But he also noticed that Christopher, from then on, seemed to ignore Sam Carson.

For his part, Sam noticed the same thing, and knew that others would notice it. It was important to him that they should not. He looked at Christopher’s well-tailored back and wondered why the men were afraid of it. He had his own opinion of Christopher, and it was not a flattering one. Besides, there was his daughter.

Behind him he heard the rasping of a crosscut saw whining monotonously through young wood. He got up, went to the outhouse, and found Bill Sykes there. He nodded curtly. Sykes was the nephew of Mrs. Grimes and no friend of his. They had had a fight over a strip
of pasture that ran out into Mr. Carson’s meadow.

“I see the boss doesn’t chew the fat with you any more,” said Sykes. Carson did not bother to answer. “I wonder why.” Sykes chuckled, and Carson went out and urinated under a tree. When he returned to work he was in a temper. The more he thought about Sykes, the madder he got. He left his tools where they were and strode down the causeway. Sykes was under it, and asked him if he was quitting that soon. Dimly Carson saw Christopher in the work-shed, talking to Mr. Bolton, but he went straight on past the parked trucks and trudged down the road. He heard footsteps behind him, but he did not slow down. Breathing noisily, he clumped down the hill. Even when Christopher called to him he did not answer. Christopher caught up.

“You could wait,” he panted. “If you want to quit, I’ll drive you home.” Sam strode right on. “I don’t blame you for quitting. It’s a filthy day,” said
Christopher
, trying to keep up.

Sam stopped and turned on him. “I don’t want a ride,” he said, “and if I did, I wouldn’t ask for it. I never asked anybody for anything, and I shan’t start now.”

“What’s eating you?”

“Nothing’s eating me. I got tired and I’m going home.”

“I’ll tell Bolton to give you a full day.”

“I’m not asking any favours and I’m not taking none.”

“For Christ’s sake, Sam, I thought we were friends,” said Christopher.

“You can’t play with me, and you can’t play with my daughter either,” said Sam, and strode right on, his hands shoved into his pockets, full of the heavy tantrum of a selfish man.

“What your daughter does is her own affair.”
Christopher
walked beside him, enjoying himself.

“I didn’t ask you to shove your snout into my affairs,” said Sam. “I am asking you to stop.” He sounded hurt. “You wheedle like a woman,” he said. “You think you own the world, but you don’t own me. As far as I’m
concerned
, you’re a bastard like any other bastard, and I’ll thank you not to talk to me.”

“What the hell do I care about your daughter? If you choose to listen to a pack of swine, that’s your own affair.” Christopher sounded angry.

“I do my work and I do it
right,” said Sam.

“What the hell has that got to do with it?”

“You just remember that,” Sam said, nodding his head slowly, and punch-drunk with temper. Barocco looked at him coldly and walked back up the hill. Sam continued on down. He refused to look back. He had never looked back in his life. At the same time he had made a mistake, he knew it,
and he knew he was too old to make mistakes. “No bastard can say that to me,” he mumbled, and kicked a stone. What he was really wondering was what he would tell Sally, but when he got home she was out.

*

She had half-expected Christopher, and when he did not come, she had gone for a walk alone. She took the path to the obelisk, going across the meadow. The wind was unfriendly. The obelisk looked shabby and
pretentious
. Sam had had his own birth-date engraved on it, together with the other half to the extent of the century. She wondered, looking at it, if her mother had been loved, or if the monument was just another piece of Sam’s pride. She would never know. All she had of her
mother was a faded photograph of a lady in the costume of 1910, with puffed sleeves, a long neck, and big sad eyes.

She took the path she had taken with Christopher, but went beyond it to where a shelf of rock jutted out at an angle, forming a path invisible from below. It led to a ledge edged with a few stubborn trees and carpeted with needles. It had always been one of her hiding-places, and it was where she always took her troubles. Up there she could do anything she chose. It was one of the few places where she felt strong.

But she did not feel strong now. She would spend the rest of her life here, rooted and chained to these trees, these fields, these farms, with all around her the noise of the world, far off, like a glittering city
seen across a bay at night. Yet it would have taken so little to get her away.

It was cold, but she could not bring herself to leave for a long time. Far off, for it was late summer now, she heard a trickle of water, like life draining away. She took a last look at the valley below her and got up to go.

When she got back to the farm she found her father in the kitchen, humming to himself over an old newspaper. He wanted to know where she had been.

“I went for a walk.”

“Alone?” His eyes looked jealous.

“Yes.”

He glanced back at his paper. She turned to leave, but then she thought of something. “Did you have a fight with Barocco?” she asked.

“What if I did?” He folded his newspaper with the slow deliberateness that usually got him his own way.

“What about?” She asked only because she did not want to know.

“That’s my affair.” He was in his stockinged feet. She could see where his long underwear came down into his socks, bulging them into a bandage at the calf, and there was a hole in one toe.

“It wasn’t a very practical thing to do,” she said. “He could help you a lot.”

“I don’t need anybody’s help.”

“I do.”

“So,” he said. “Now we come to the truth of it.”

Sally bit her lip and looked around the kitchen. Her nerves were on edge and it looked mean to her. “I don’t want to live here all my life,” she said.

“No daughter of mine is going to leave me. Not without my permission she isn’t. Do you think a man like that would be bothered with someone like you? He’s crazy.”

“I suppose you’re sane?” she asked bitterly.

“He told me to go to the devil,” said Sam, brooding.

“You probably deserved it.” She stood staring at him, watching an uncut toenail through the hole in his sock. “Why don’t you go and make it up?” she asked. “It was probably your fault.”

“And have them laugh at me for having a tart for a daughter? I’m no such fool.”

Sally stood very still, and just stared at him. “Haven’t you any pride?” she asked at last.

“I am what I am,” he said heavily.

“I wouldn’t be proud of it.”

Sam looked at her, shaking like an engine, and in silence put on his boots. “I’m going to the village,” he said. “I don’t want to see you.”

Sally looked at his thick head on his thick neck and his little eyes that only saw what was in front of him. He
turned and went banging out of the house, leaving a heavy silence behind him that clogged the air like blue tobacco smoke. She went to her room and lay down on the bed. It was a long time before she got to sleep.

*

Christopher had it no easier. First Mrs. Grimes put his back up in the store. He went down there at about eight, and the store seemed deserted. He came to the counter and rapped on it. Nobody came.

“Is there anyone here?” he called. Mrs. Grimes was watching him from the back, but she did not move. She was waiting for him to call again, but he did not call again. Instead he went quickly behind the counter, took two packets of cigarettes and some matches and laid a dollar bill on the counter. Mrs. Grimes got up. The rocker flapped empty behind her and she stepped forward.

“Well, mister, what do you think you’re doing?” she asked. Mostly she wanted to get a close look at him.

“Since you didn’t choose to wait on me, I waited on myself.”

She lumbered over to the counter and picked up the dollar. “Round here folks usually like their change,” she said. “We ain’t showy.”

“If you’ve satisfied your curiosity and your tongue,” he said, “I’ll go. Good night.” He walked across the road and stood looking at the village shacks. Then he went into the nearest bar. All the workmen were there. The bartender noticed him right away and wiped a glass more slowly. Christopher ordered a scotch and water. The
bartender
shoved aside a bottle of vodka and reached for the scotch, eyeing Christopher. The room was crowded and smoky and stank of sweat. A short man in blue overalls
was working himself into a rage over a slot machine.

“Saturday night’s a big night,” said the bartender.

“It usually is,” said Christopher, still ruffled by Mrs. Grimes. He put his hand around his glass and found it was still warm from washing. He took a gulp of it and put it down.

“I understand you and Carson had a falling out,” said the bartender. He nodded towards the door, where
Carson
was just coming in. “Everybody does, sooner or later. He’s quite a character round here. I don’t envy that daughter of his.”

“What about her?” asked Christopher bluntly.

The bartender eyed him slyly. “Nothing about her,” he said. With a lubricious smile he busied himself with his dirty glasses.

Sam Carson stood blinking in the doorway and blowing on his hands. He did not fit into the room. He went to the bar and sat down several stools away from Barocco. Barocco nodded to him and then turned away, facing a calendar of a Petty girl on a bearskin rug. The room seemed to grow quiet. Irritated, Christopher put his drink down on a slot machine and turned to go.

Carson looked after Christopher, swallowed his own drink, pulled himself up as though he weighed a good deal more than he had expected himself to weigh, and lumbered out after him. He stood on the steps, and seeing Christopher ready to put his key in the car door, went over to the car. He did not like what he was doing, and his body showed his discomfiture. It was clumsier than ever.

“Good evening,” he said. His pride wouldn’t allow him to call Christopher by his last name, and he could not call him by his first, so he called him nothing.

Christopher seemed preoccupied. Obviously distracted, he turned and looked at Carson. “Hello, Sam,” he said at last. “Want a lift?”

“I don’t mind if I do,” said Sam, glad of the dark. In the car he sat bolt upright. “My daughter thinks perhaps I was hard on you,” he said. Christopher did not answer. “She sorta likes you, I guess. She doesn’t lead much of a life here, though she used to like it well enough.”

Christopher concentrated on the road and Carson was agonized. Turning his heavy head like an ox, he glanced at Barocco, but could see nothing. Christopher drew up before the farm and pulled the car to a stop. Sam got out. “Thanks for the lift,” he said.

Christopher stirred slightly. “Are you coming back on the job?” he asked.

“I might. My leg is bothering me some.”

Christopher smiled and stuck out his hand. Carson was surprised how easy it was for him to take it. “It’s cold,” he grunted. “Why don’t you come in for a nip?”

Christopher hesitated. “Okay,” he said, pursing his lips. “Thanks.”

Jubilant, Carson led the way into the kitchen. The lights had been left on. He rummaged around in the kitchen cupboards until he found a plump bottle, which he brought back to the table, getting two glasses to go with it. He poured clumsily, clanking the bottle against the rim of the glasses. He noticed Christopher glance at the door behind him, but said nothing. There was a long silence. The door behind them opened, and Sally stepped out, frowning, tying the belt of a blue robe around her waist. She did not look as though she had been asleep. When she saw Christopher she stopped short.