High Tide at Noon (21 page)

“I'm not taking that kind of a turn, thanks!” she flared at him. “I hope I think enough of myself and the family, even if nobody else does!”

She went out, slamming the door behind her, and walked up toward the gate. The fog was cool and kind against her hot face. As she went back along the path, through the dripping woods, she thought about Leah Foster, who with her thin, slow smile and thick-lidded eyes had driven a man to kill himself; Leah Foster, who watched the boys as if their youth and vitality, their loud young voices, their big free gestures and supple bodies, were food and she starving. Joanna had seen that look, just as she had seen Hugo grow too thin, too jerky, too hollow under the cheekbones.

How long would it be before Owen began to look like that?

Joanna spoke aloud, and the wet wind pressed the words back on her mouth. “I'll have to do it myself,” she said. “Alone.”

The chance came sooner than she expected. For in the afternoon the wind changed again, and the fog scaled off, to show a blue and shining day, all the more radiant for having been thoroughly drenched.

The men went out to haul in midafternoon, and after supper there was a baseball game at the harbor, in the big grassy field where the village well was. When Joanna finished her dishes, she went down to watch the fun. As she came along by the fish houses the game had already begun, in the radiant ruddy light just before sunset. Shadows were long on the grass, voices rang in the clear, cool air.

Some of the girls sat on the granite outcroppings under Gunnar Sorensen's spruces. Kristi called to Joanna, and she waved back, but she didn't join them. For Ned Foster's boat was not at the mooring—he hadn't come back yet from hauling. And Leah must be alone, expecting him at any moment.

Joanna felt curiously calm, as calm and as cold as the shining harbor. The game was on the other side of the Binnacle, but as she waited for Leah Foster to answer her knock, she could hear Owen's shout. She pictured him leaping upward for the ball, his eyes alight and unclouded. They'd be stormy enough if they saw her now.

Leah Foster opened the door, smiling, her voice soft and crystal­clear. “Isn't this nice, Joanna! Come in!”

As always she gave the impression of having been just scrubbed, starched, and ironed. Her brown hair was as smooth as silk floss, her skin pale and clear, her tailored print dress smelled faintly of lavender.

She led the way into the sitting room, as incredibly neat as herself. Joanna didn't like it. It's because I don't like her, she thought uneasily. It's not the room's fault. It's not really bad, but it feels that way.

She didn't sit down at Leah's invitation. “What I've come for shouldn't take long,” she said.

“I can't imagine what it is,” said Leah. Her eyes were very bright. Joanna fought the weakening panic that threatened her.

“It's about Owen.”

“Owen? Why, what do you mean, dear?” The smile deepened, the eyes—were they gray or green or palely blue?—took on a sheen like a cat's eyes, Joanna thought. Rage came instead of panic, warming her and sending a new glisten into her own eyes.

“You know what I mean,” she said steadily. “Owen was here last night. And it wasn't the first time, was it?”

Leah's voice was light and precise. “I imagine that's Owen's business.”

“He's my brother. That makes it my business, if he has anything to do with you.”

“You'd better go,” said Leah, smiling from beneath thick white lids. “You're acting like a rude little girl.”

“Little girls can make a lot of trouble. They tell things.” She felt a small surge of triumph as the lids lowered and the smile dimmed.

“What is there to tell, Joanna dear?”

“Enough. My father owns this house, Leah. If he ordered you out, there's not another place for you on the Island. And Ned would be mad because he likes it here. I heard him say he likes it better than any other place he's ever lived in. He'd probably ask my father why he had to go.”

Leah forgot to smile. “You'd never dare to go to your father with a story about your brother!”

“Wouldn't I?” said Joanna softly. From her height she looked down at Leah with scornful black eyes. “I wouldn't stop at anything to get you out of here, Leah.” She looked out at the harbor; in the clear pale light that follows sunset, Ned Foster was rowing ashore. She smiled a little. “I wouldn't stop at anything. Is it true, Leah, that Ned brought you here because it was the last place he could find where they'd let him come—with you?”

“Get out!” Leah whispered. “Get out before I kill you. If your brother comes here again—or any of your precious clan—I'll not even open the door to them. Now
get out
.”

Joanna paused in the doorway to look at the drawn face beneath the smooth bands of hair. “If you tell Owen,” she said tranquilly, “that I came here, I'll go to my father—or Ned.”

They both heard Ned's whistle. It seemed to Joanna that Leah was holding herself straight by a superhuman effort. Her eyes blazed darkly in the sockets. In spite of her triumph, Joanna felt a pang of pity. It was true then. Leah Foster was afraid of her husband.

Afraid of this little man coming up the path whistling. As Joanna passed him, he tipped his old felt hat and smiled vaguely at her. He looked as if he had been carved from some thin weathered bough of old wood. There was a grayness in his eyes, his hair, his voice.

Going around the house was like going into a different world. She took a long deep breath of cool air in this world where boys ran and yelled and swore happily at each other, two beloved mongrels yelping at their heels, and girls giggled on the knoll under the spruces. She had to pass Owen to reach them, and he threw out his foot to trip her.

“What deviltry have you been up to?” he demanded. For a moment black eyes laughed into black eyes, then he gave her a rough good-natured shove and spun around to shout encouragement at Maurice.

Not until she sat down by Kristi did she contemplate what she had done. If Owen ever found out—but he wouldn't find out. Not as long as Leah was afraid of Ned.

T
HERE WAS A WEEK WHEN
J
OANNA
felt as though she were walking a tightrope. A week in which the men hauled their traps and planted their gardens, the woman washed and sewed and called on each other, the children filed in and out of the small white schoolhouse above the cove, and Joanna waited, fearfully and yet with defiance, for Owen's wrath to strike.

But it didn't strike. Leah had kept her word; she hadn't told him. Apparently she had given him no excuse or reason whatever for shutting him out, for sometimes Joanna, watching him covertly when he was silent at the table, seemed to see a furious bewilderment in his face. Once, walking to the store with him on boat day, she caught his bitter sidewise glance at the Binnacle. It was almost too quick to notice, but Joanna saw it.

Owen had his black moods that week, but Owen had always had his black moods. If sometimes they came thick and fast, the family left him severely alone. They rarely spoke to him about it. He'll be over it in no time, Joanna thought. Already it seemed to her that he glowered less.

And then, at noon on a breathless shimmering day, she knew it would take more than time to get him over it. It started so very innocently, with Philip tipping back in his chair, laughing, as Owen stopped halfway across the room to wrap his arm around his mother's waist.

“My favorite blonde,” he said, and Joanna felt a little wave of pleasure, because for the moment he looked keen and kind and gay.

“Don't let him fool you, lady,” Philip said, smiling. “He's butterin' up to you for a purpose.”

“You can catch more flies with molasses than you can with vinegar,” Stephen murmured absently to his pipe.

“Can't a man show a little honest affection without a lot of chew from you stump-jumpers?” Owen demanded, tightening his arm around Donna's slim waist.

“As long as it's honest,” Philip drawled. “Nothing wrong with hugging up another man's wife . . . so long as it's your mother.”

A whiteness sprang out sharply around Owen's mouth, and his eyes were narrow and shining slits. In one swift motion he let Donna go and reached for Philip, caught him by the shoulder, and pulled him up from his chair.

“For God's sake, Owen!” said Philip, laughing. It was Stephen who saw the virulent twist of Owen's mouth and caught his arm as it drew back and tensed to strike. It was Stephen's voice that rapped out sharply, “You young devil. Get to your room, or get out of doors!”

Owen stood motionless, his dark face darker with passion, his head lowered like a bull. Philip was slightly pale. “Wait a minute, Father. He was fooling.”

“I was like hell,” said Owen thickly. “I'd have killed you. I will, too, if I hear another god dam word.”

Philip went even paler. He seemed suddenly taller than Owen, and his face was set in deep lines. “I'm always glad to oblige,” he said quietly. “You won't hear anything else, Owen.
Anything
.”

He picked up his cap and left. Owen flung off his father's hand and went out of the kitchen, out of the house. They saw him. go around the corner of the shop toward the point. Donna Bennett looked at her husband.

“Stephen—”

“I don't know, Donna,” he said heavily. “I don't know.” He took up the water pails and went out.

The house settled into early-afternoon silence, and Joanna, when her work was finished, slipped out through the back door. She wished achingly that she could tell someone. She had been so sure she had done right, and yet she felt so terribly young, so terribly lost. At fifteen she had thought she was a woman, and now at nineteen she felt like a bewildered child.

She was responsible for this, for Philip not speaking to Owen, and Owen going deeper and deeper into his own blackness. It would have been heaven to talk about it to someone. Nils, perhaps. But she had lost even that, and besides, this was Bennett business. She and Alec were friends, but even Alec mustn't know. She could only wait, and hope for the thing that would miraculously wipe the slate clean again.

David Sorensen was unloading driftwood from a dory in Goose Cove. Joanna walked down the slope toward him; the white beach stones were dazzling to the eyes in spite of the thick spruce woods that marched along above them, all cool green gloom and the voices of the birds who thronged the trees in May, little tuneful birds unafraid of gull and crow and hawk.

The May sun blazed in a brilliant unblemished sky, it drew a hot white glare from the beach. But the cove was a small, tranquil blue loop.

David worked swiftly, taking the crocus sacks from the dory; he must carry them across the meadow and through the alder swamp. H is yellow hair was bright in the sunshine, and his slender, yet strong body was stripped to the waist and shining with sweat.

And marked with something else . . . Joanna saw it in a brief instant, before he noticed her and reached quickly for his shirt—the long, pinkish strips laid unevenly about his shoulders, vivid on the boy's white skin. They must have been even more vivid when they were new. She wondered if David cried when his grandfather whipped him, and felt anger coming over her like a slow sickness. This was a worse ugliness than Owen swearing at Philip in the kitchen. David was so skinny and young, long-necked and big-footed like a pup. He seemed younger than Stevie, who was fourteen to David's fifteen.

“Hello, David,” she said.

David grinned at her. “Hi, Jo. Hot, ain't it?”

“Uh-huh. What's the weather going to do?”

“Not so good.” He squinted bright blue eyes at the sky and shook his head. “Today's a reg'lar weather-breeder.” He pointed out at the place where sky and sea melted together in a shimmering mist. Above it the towers of the Rock light swam like a mirage. “That means storm.”

“That's encouraging,” said Joanna dryly. She walked down to the dory, and David hastily buttoned his faded blue shirt, leaving the tails outside his dungarees. Now all the scars were hidden.

“Jinx Pete, I was lucky today,” he said eagerly. “Look.” The bottom of the dory showed a rich harvest; three buoys picked up on one of the west-side beaches, a good oil can, two short but substantial pine planks. Joanna looked admiring and David went on with enthusiasm, “Nils will give me a quarter apiece for the buoys, and Sigurd wants an oil can. He'll pay me too. And my father'll buy the planks.”

“Golly, you'll be in the money.”

David's eyes were aglow. “Yep! I've got a lot saved up. I made me a bank—” He gave her a quick sidewise glance and went back to work.

Gunnar doesn't know about the bank, Joanna thought, and David's taking no chances. She sat on the gunwale of the dory while he worked. Above them the house stood against the sky. Three gulls sat on the ridgepole and brooded in silence, their plumage achingly white against the blue; a fourth, perched uncertainly near them, was gray-brown and awkward, an extremely adolescent gull.

The meadow drowsed; there was no sound anywhere. The young boy and Joanna might have been alone in a hot bright world. At last David swung a sack over his sholder. “Well, I better start mavin',” he said shyly.

“You've got to carry that stuff home, and then row the dory around the Eastern End?”

He nodded and started up the beach. “Look,” said Joanna. “You've been working all day—I'll row the dory around. I haven't taken a good long trip for ages.”

“Gosh,
no!
” His eyes widened. “I mean, it's too long for a girl.”

You mean your grandfather would light into you if he thought you'd got out of any work, Joanna said silently. Aloud she said, “O.K., David. You're the boss.”

When he had gone across the meadow she walked around the cove and into the cool gloom of the woods. She sat down on a fallen tree beside the path, hearing the small noises of birds around her and watching the glimmer of blue between the tree trunks. A hawk flew past her on soundless wings; he was intent and deadly in his silence, and though Joanna had seen hawks all her life, she felt herself shuddering.