River of the Brokenhearted (14 page)

“What do you mean—”

“I mean, when will you pay me some of what you owe me?”

“What do you mean,” Elias said, trying to sound stern. “I’ve already paid you”

“I mean, it’s what Father Carmichael said to me. This is not the real life—this is the pretend life. The real life is inside us. That means something to me—as you know—and no one can stop the real life with the pretend life.”

“You are not making sense,” Elias said, bullying him to be quiet.

“Everything has become the pretend life!”

Elias again gave a sharp retort. “I just handed you forty dollars. If you think that it is the pretend life, hand it back!”

“So—forty dollars is nothing,” Leon said.

“I said that night means nothing—it will never be found out, ever ever ever.”

“You told me that before.”

“Well, it’s true, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”

And Winch, who was now dying of tuberculosis, thinking this was true and must be true said nothing more. And Elias went back home, still wearing his brother’s boots for penance.

It was his brother who had started all of this. He couldn’t stop and turn around now without walking all the way to Leningrad to find him. And he didn’t want to do that yet. Someday maybe, but not yet. He had to make his name before then, to make it all worthwhile.

Why did he have to keep the meetings with Rebecca a secret from Putsy if there was nothing going on? Keeping something from someone was the one way to assure you were doing ill. Did he care for Putsy? Of course—he liked to tell other men that she had transformed his life. There were hard times everywhere and men were out of work. He should be satisfied with a beautiful wife and a large house.

But he met Rebecca and kissed Rebecca—and Rebecca knew it—at sixteen years of age.

So he decided this, our Mr. Elias. He decided, and he could prove it, that he did not tell Putsy of the meeting with Rebecca simply because he did not want Rebecca fired over it. If Putsy got angry she would tell Janie. He could not do that to the young girl. And he believed he did not want to hurt Putsy’s feelings, or ruin her fragile trust. This was closer to the truth. But the real truth—the real subject of his thought—was that he would not be satisfied until he went to bed with Rebecca Druken, now or ten years from now did not matter a damn to him.

He wouldn’t be at ease until he betrayed Putsy. This is what was going on and this is what both he and Rebecca knew. He could not stand that Rebecca was willing to do this against her own sister—she was talking as if she was in Putsy’s place already—but he could not stop himself.

He was wary of Rebecca’s certainty that anything she wanted she could have. For it was he, Joey Elias, who had taught her that. And now, it was simply that she wanted him.

——

Elias did not know that Rebecca waited by the cliffs until he went home. Then, spying Leon Winch, she told him she was the only one able to keep him safe. Not Joey Elias, or anyone else. Only her. But if it happened that the police blamed someone else, she could come forward with something secret that would prove his complicity in the old man’s murder.

“What do you want?” He scowled.

“I want twenty of your forty, each time you get it.”

She was handed the twenty. Grumbling, scared and confused, Leon Winch went back to his corner. Rebecca made her way, in the late-night filthy dark, to Janie’s house, acrimonious beauty on her face.

THREE

As young as she was, Rebecca had her own interests in mind. After Janie hired her, not a thing went by in the house that Joey Elias did not know verbatim the next afternoon. Most of it was just laughable gossip. Some things, however, were more to Elias’s liking. One was the story Rebecca liked to tell the kids that there was gold in the well, that the Drukens owned this gold but the McLearys thought they did. That gold had been hidden in this well had been a rumour for years, and Rebecca would tell the kids that she would one day get this gold and share it with them—if they did not tell things on her.

Elias was amused by this, by the idea of teasing Janie’s kids—or her kind—just a little, for all the cheap things Janie had done to him.

“What’s Miles like?” he would ask.

“Oh, he’s a spoiled brat, just as you’d expect. Georgina is more to my liking.”

“Really?”

“Well, as much as you might like a King,” she said.

Elias nodded at this. “But Miles is different?” he asked.

“Oh, so proper. I don’t like Miles!”

Then he told Rebecca to take a small bit of goldlike dust that he had and put it on her boots after she came back from the well and show it to Miles and to put some on Miles’s boots as well. He told her to act like a fairy godmother and tell them the Mother Goose tale. It was done just to accredit the rumour and to have a bit of fun, and mesmerize the children with a good story.

Nothing else was intended. Except this: he had made a fool of old Jim in his day, and something about Miles rankled him. So if Miles got to the well—which he, Elias, now owned—maybe he could get some kids to put tar on Miles’s nice pants. Maybe the Conroy boy who followed him about, or the Waltling boy whose dad owed him money, they and a few more so Miles would not get away. Even in this there would have to be more than one. That’s the only way Joey dealt with things.

“Tar up his knickers,” Elias said. This is how tormented he had been by Janie King, and the ruin of his theatre. The tar on the boy’s pants came as a complete afterthought. But Rebecca turned to him and said, “Oh, that would be too too awful.”

But both of them knew that in the moment, in the display of their features, this would not be too awful at all, but extravagant fun, for they were born in poverty, and wasn’t he rich? And if he was, then what was wrong with it?

However, Rebecca said this would only be done, as long as she could have a favour too.

“And what favour?” Elias asked. “Whatever it is you can have.”

“I want to come here and sit in Putsy’s place at the table tonight, and I want you to serve me. And when she comes in for supper I want you to ignore her.”

“Come on,” Elias said, “what are you after? I’m just doing this as a joke. You don’t need a favour like that.”

“That’s what I want,” Rebecca said. “It’s not so important.”

“If it’s not so important, why do you want it?” Elias said, knowing how upset Putsy would be.

“I want it because it is not important. It is not important that you took me to Fredericton either.”

She started to walk away, so he grabbed her by the shoulder and hugged her. The complete idiosyncratic falseness of his hug was felt by both.

He then tried to be stern. He had taken her to Fredericton because she had demanded it as payment the night she had gone to the Regent. And also because he had not wanted to leave her alone with the knowledge of Jimmy McLeary’s demise. But both of them pretended that he took her there because he was being fatherly and affectionate.

“You wouldn’t say anything, would you?” he asked her now. It was a question asked as an afterthought, expecting an answer that was filled with appropriate assurances.

She stunned him with, “Only a clue here and there.”

“What do you mean?” he stammered, his face frozen, suddenly helpless.

“Oh, everyone leaves little clues,” she said sorrowfully, yet with a great mischief in her eyes, like a scorned lover. Then she whispered almost fiercely: “We can’t help it, can we? Here and there—sometimes I leave a little clue right in front of Janie, just to see if she’ll catch it. She never does.”

So at sixteen she had a tremendous power over him. He saw it at this moment in her blazing eyes and the somewhat peevish mouth, and her long red hair. Never before had he been in this position. And though he twisted and turned there seemed to be no way out of it except to trust her. Unless he himself could say that the death of old Jim was immoral, and take the consequences for it. Barring that, he was not in control. Nor had he ever been in control since the days he carried his brother on his back. And he was beginning, just beginning to realize this. Her breasts were freckled, as well, except near the nipples—he knew this first-hand, though he had promised and had sworn to Putsy that he hadn’t touched her.

He did not know what to do, except play games and have her on his side in these games. And this was the principal reason my father, Miles King, became their scapegoat that summer.

“You wouldn’t tell anything on me,” he said, looking at her sharply.

She only smiled and shook her head. “Silly,” she said and hugged him.

When Putsy came home, supper was ready, and Rebecca was sitting in her place, and Elias was serving her. He did not look in Putsy’s direction.

At first Putsy did not mind, but suddenly the jigsaw puzzle that had come from Fredericton, her friend’s letter, the lie, and the sitting in her place informed her of Rebecca’s intent. Nebulous and yet completely obvious, if not obvious to Rebecca herself. And the talk at the dinner table about the King children, and Miles peeing the bed because of bad nerves, bothered her. She did not like the idea of tormenting him or Georgina.

“What’s wrong with you?” Elias said.

“Rebecca is in my place,” she exclaimed, smiling slightly in fear at the silliness of her remark.

Elias began to laugh. And so did Rebecca. It was the teasing that was worse than anything, for the laughter seemed to say that this was not important, while their very teasing seemed to make it so.

Putsy left the table, and went to her room. When Elias looked at Rebecca she simply shrugged and took a mouthful of her dinner, reached across the table for a piece of bread.

Putsy lay on her bed with her hands behind her head, staring at the canopy and crying silently. She was crying because shortly after she had received the letter, she had gone to Elias, and asked him if Rebecca had gone to Fredericton with him.

“She is my little sister—please leave her alone. I wanted to take care of her—and now—I mean, I got her a job with Janie—you see, and—”

What this did was make Elias completely indifferent to her. It seemed now that he didn’t even care if she knew he was with Rebecca.

And all silly Putsy Druken could do now was cry. Cry and think of Walter and how she had treated him.

Rebecca’s easy and offhand tormenting of Miles went on another little while. She reported that Janie became so angry with his laughable talk about the gold in the well that she sent him from the table. Miles would talk to Georgina about how they would find this gold. He’d warned her never to go to the well on her own.

“You haven’t mentioned anything about this, Rebecca, have you?” Janie asked. “That old rumour almost drove my daddy crazy. I think he spent half of his life worried about the goddamn gold that didn’t exist.”

“I may have said there was a rumour, Mrs. King, but everyone knows there is a rumour. Maybe—I beg your pardon—it was Mr. McLeary himself who told Miles.”

“Well, whoever told the children, I have not told them, and I don’t want it talked about. You know how susceptible children are to rumours,” Janie said.

That was true, they were. And Rebecca informed Elias of Janie’s demand, but by this time Elias had a much more narrow focus. And he told Rebecca in dribs and drabs what this focus was. It was perfectly obvious to him that the Kings were greedy children, and it was perfectly obvious that he was teaching them a lesson, and it was perfectly obvious that he was right to do so. It was also obvious that others he told were amused by it. It was obvious that they should be, because there was nothing wrong in it. After all, these were not ordinary children, these were the King children. So why wouldn’t it be obvious? It was obvious that Janie so spoiled them they had no friends. It was obvious that little Miles loved flowers just like his father—and no man would love flowers, as Elias and his cronies said. It was perfectly obvious to Rebecca and Joey Elias that they were doing this as a kind of future investment for the town—teaching that little snot Miles King not to be greedy. This was bound to be a benefit when Miles came to adulthood. Perhaps he wouldn’t be as greedy as Janie and cause so much trouble. For Elias it all came down to Janie’s greed.

Janie did not know how Miles got the goldlike dust on his bed but she knew it wasn’t from the well. And all of this time, Elias was laughing his head off over it. Each time Rebecca reported on the progress, he would howl with laughter.

Thinking every day that this would be the day he would find the bags of gold in the bucket he lowered, Miles would sneak down to the well to peer in. And one day he came back to the house with his pants covered with tar. I heard even here my father had fought back—that in fact unless he was protecting Georgina he never ever ran; perhaps, as he was wont to say, he was far too stupid to run. He begged Rebecca not to tell, and begged her to hide his pants, which Janie had just bought. He told her that five boys had grabbed him and painted tar on them. But this to Rebecca seemed like a lame excuse.

“Why would you blame other children for what you did?” she said. “That’s what always happens—the rich snots blame us for what they did.”

And since this was true in other cases Rebecca knew about, and with other families, she now decided it did not matter that much if it was true in this particular case.

“I know you don’t like me, Rebecca, but I’m not telling you a lie.”

“What right do you have to say that I do not like you?” Rebecca said.

“I know you think I am spoiled and maybe I am. But if you don’t tell, I will—give you a stamp from my collection—I promise.”

He looked hopelessly at her.

“Of course he is spoiled” Elias said, when she related this tidbit of information. “He has always been spoiled. His father dying did not do a bit of good to make him less spoiled, for he is Janie’s boy. And that’s the problem—he is a boy being brought up by a woman. Don’t you agree, Rebecca?”

“I agree,” she said. “But what are we to do with him?”

“What are we to do with him—what are we to do? That’s the problem. If he was my son—well, if he was my son he wouldn’t be anything like Miles King. But since he is Miles King, a kind of whatchamacallit—spoiled brat that he is, something has to be done. And I tell you why, Rebecca.”

“Why?”

“Because if we do not cure Miles now, we will have a hell of a time with him when he gets older and he starts to run things. Teach him to respect us now, and there might be hope. But he don’t respect, does he?”

“No, he don’t,” Rebecca said. “He don’t respect nothing.”

“How is she—the little girl? Is she spoiled too?”

“She’s a dear. Sometimes I rile her and she gets mad at Miles, and I like that. No—if I was to have a little girl, it would be her.”

“Really?”

“She’s a King but at least she is more daring then fancy-pants.”

“Well, we can always deal with fancy-pants. Just leave his tarred-up pants where Janie will find them. He’ll catch it after that.”

And it seemed, once they started on this course, that this was done in fun and amusement and for the benefit of Miles King, who was terrified to show the tar on his pants to his mom, who worked hard day and night. Miles King would be taught something, like little lord Fautenroy—or whoever he was—as Elias maintained.

But then the pants were found by Janie, and she demanded an explanation.

“I hid them there, ma’am,” Rebecca said, so quickly that she backed up toward the stove in surprise after she had said it.

“Why?” Janie demanded.

“Because I didn’t want you to be angry with the boy,” Rebecca said, “and I was going to take them out and clean them—”

“You can’t clean them. It’s impossible. Tell Miles to come here.”

“Please don’t be too hard on him.”

“Just tell him to get in here.”

By this time Rebecca was doing what excited her—tormenting the young boy who the more she tormented became even more a symbol of her own family’s despair, of Druken backwater despair, and coming down to Elias on her day off to let him know.

To her it did not matter if Putsy found out she had slept with Elias. In fact, as much as she pretended the opposite, this was exactly what she wanted. Besides, Putsy wasn’t as pretty or as bright as she was. Putsy had also lost three front teeth. Rebecca forgot that Putsy had lost her teeth protecting her as a child from her father’s swats.

For as long as she could go on doing what Elias told her, making him happy, and startling him with how brazen she could be (and she continued to be more and more brazen), then the terrible sadness in her life, a sadness she had felt since a child, would be kept silent, muted and at bay.

But one day she came down to Elias’s house, and saw Putsy on her knees, begging Elias to leave Rebecca alone. It was startling to see Putsy so weak. Elias walked around her, and Putsy, crying, tried to grab on to his leg.

“Leave me alone,” Elias said.

Putsy looked up and saw Rebecca.

“Rebecca, you haven’t—have you? Promise me that you haven’t,” Putsy said, bawling.

Rebecca looked over at Elias, gave the same slight start she had given when telling Janie of the pants, and backed up to the door.