Snowstorms in a Hot Climate (12 page)

And so to the fourth day. Midmorning and the wood on the deck was already too hot for bare feet. We had been up a long time thanks to a phone call which had woken us on the edge of dawn, and which rang and rang until Elly stumbled downstairs, only to find the noise stopping just as she lifted the receiver. We drank coffee as the sun came up, and by nine-thirty we were cooking, Elly already two shades darker than on her arrival, staked out in the sun like a strip of salt beef curing for winter, while Marla, our fair-skinned sultana, perspired pleasurably under her parasol.

The talk had meandered through mutual friends and enemies and had progressed on to teaching and the glories of Anglo-Saxon history. Elly, as always, remained unconvinced. Like most people (like Lenny), she thinks it strange that I should find such warmth and satisfaction in the cold, dark world of pre-Norman Britain. We had sat through the same history
lessons at the age of thirteen, but what had fired me had frozen her. And many others. People do not seem to understand the delights of an age when myth, religion, and reality fed into one another; when a Christian culture could absorb pagan gods and goblins, and when it produced art so beautiful that medieval monks later believed it to have been the work of angels. But then to each her secret garden. And if mine remains a private passion and one that I cannot always communicate to my yearly flock, maybe that is all to the good. I simply help to keep the academic population culled. The world has enough Anglo-Saxon historians, anyway. They are, after all, of limited use.

And so we passed on to other things. In a spot near the edge of the deck, I caught sight of a lizard petrified in the heat, his head half turned toward me, chin thrust outward, lidless eyes immobile. We attempted to stare each other out. I weakened first, blinking only to discover he had disappeared without seeming to move. I turned back to find Elly watching me.

“You know you look good, Marla,” she said softly. “Getting older suits you.”

“I know. I’m like wine. Give me another thirty years, and I’ll be irresistible. Cheeky but pretentious.”

“Seriously, I mean it. I always knew that’s how it would be. Don’t you remember me telling you?”

“Constantly.”

“Cynic,” she said fondly. “My God, it all seems so long ago. Do you ever think about those days?”

“Yes,” I said, this time truthfully.

“When we were young and easy under the apple blossom.”

“Boughs,” I corrected. “Third-form poetry competition. You’d just had a brace fitted, and you couldn’t say your s’s properly.”

“Pedant.” She laughed. “Boy, what recall. What else do you remember?”

“The school play when you caught measles just before the first night. The day we played truant to watch a partial eclipse of the sun. And the time you stole a bottle of sherry from the staff dining room.”

She whooped with pleasure. “Yeah, I remember that one. Fourth-year speech day. You’d won that book for history composition. What was it? It had a red cover—”

“W. Harrison Ainsworth.
The Tower of London.
”

“That was it. And while everyone was singing the school hymn I slipped out, grabbed the bottle, and stashed it at the back of one of the kilns in the pottery studio. We drank it after school. Got out of our skulls. We must have been all of fourteen. We swore undying love to each other, never to be interrupted by such gross invaders as ‘men.’ ” She smiled wistfully. “I suppose every generation of fourteen-year-olds discovers their own women’s movement in the equivalent of some art room binge … until, that is, the boys come along.”

I took pity on her. “So, sixteen years later we’re still here, aren’t we? Drinking companions always survive.”

She nodded but didn’t look at me. “I suppose I was afraid that you’d be shocked,” she added after a while.

“Why should I?” I said evenly. “It was a cheap brand, and anyway, I’ve always been suspicious of traditional morality.”

“I wasn’t talking about the sherry.”

“I know,” I said softly. “Neither was I. Remember, you’re talking to one of the original National Health junkies here. Mogadon Marla—big girl, big dosage.”

She shook her head. “That’s different.”

I thought about it. “Maybe. But I’m still not shocked.”

Sunshine and friendship. We sat quietly enjoying the warmth.

“It never worried me at first, you know. I used to think he was simply performing a service for people willing to pay for it.

Why should smuggling cocaine be any more immoral than selling cars? Drugs were just the sweeties that the adults wouldn’t let us have. One of the rules they made to keep control.” She frowned. “Maybe I just ate too many.”

“You had a choice.”

“Oooh, you sound like Lenny.”

“It’s true. You didn’t have to take it. Any more than the rest of America does. It’s like seat belts. People don’t like being told what’s good for them. America is a grown-up country. I don’t see why you should have to take on the guilt for her greed for pleasure.”

“Even when that greed fucks up other countries?”

“What does that mean?”

“Oh, come on, Marla. You know what the cocaine trade has done for most of South America. The rich have got richer and everyone else has been fucked over.”

“So?”

“So, it’s immoral.”

“So is all manner of exploitation. How would Lenny defend himself?”

“You want the long or the short version?” She took an exaggerated breath. “In brief, he would say that he pays a good price for his merchandise, that some of that money goes to those who need it, and that his reward is simply commensurate with the risks he takes. America has been mugging her southern namesake economically for centuries. The only real reason this cause is holier than thou is because the government dares not legalize it, and therefore can’t get its hands on any of the profits.” She shrugged. “He’s right, of course. I told you, it’s a very traditional business. A perfect example of aggressive capitalism.”

“And that’s why you think you should leave him? Because of his politics. Everything would be fine if he became a social worker, is that it?”

She put up a hand in mock defeat. “All right, I know, I’m only using it as an excuse. You always were good at cutting through the bullshit, Marla. I bet you scare the hell out of your students.”

“Absolutely,” I said, allowing her to change the subject. “It’s a reign of terror.”

“Yeah, well it was always like that. Christ, you even used to intimidate your own teachers. Don’t look so surprised. You must have known that. You always seemed more adult than they were; sitting there fourth row from the front, eyes fixed on them, chalking up mental scores for their performance. It was one of the best things about being your friend. It bought me protection from them.”

“I think we must have gone to different schools,” I said mildly. “I don’t remember any of this.”

“Aaah, well. That’s because you were so caught up in your own anxieties. But it’s true. I spent most of my adolescence basking in the received glory of your brain. I kept hoping some of it would rub off on me. That I would become more brilliant, more silent, more original. And then, of course, my father would love me instead of ignoring me. I tell you, you were my idol, my excitement, my passage to adulthood.”

It was like being told a fairy story that you knew by heart with the role of the heroes and villains suddenly changed around. Could the truth really be so multilayered? I should know. After all, history is just other people’s view of events. The living, presumably, see it all quite differently. As I had. Part of me didn’t want to dig back that far, blow the dust off that particular trunk of memories and start unpacking all the pain and confusion.

“Don’t worry,” she said gently. “I know it didn’t feel like that for you. But things have gotten better. Little by little. And you’ve changed, you know. Even since we last saw each other. I don’t
know if I can describe it, but you’re more relaxed somehow, as if you’ve got a better hold on the world. It’s quite a transformation, Marla. Maybe it comes from teaching.”

“And maybe it comes from having to fend for myself without you,” I said quietly, not looking at her but feeling a pulse of electricity pass between us.

She met me head-on. “In which case I was right to leave. We couldn’t have lived the rest of our lives in each other’s pockets. We both knew that. You were better off without me. I just reminded you of the past. Look at you now. You’ve come through, even if you don’t like to admit it. In some ways you’ve done better than me.”

If it was true it didn’t hurt less. For either of us.

“I missed you, too, you know,” she said with sudden ferocity. “It wasn’t all one-way.”

I studied a crack in the grain of the deck. “I know that.”

Four, five, six heartbeats. The silence was alive between us. It could have taken us anywhere. Her choice.

“What about men, Marla? Extramural activities. Give me a progress report. Are you still chewing them up and spitting them out?”

I had been waiting for the question. A head count for the last two years revealed a visiting academic from Finland and someone I had met at a concert. I selected and embroidered. “You’d have been proud of me. There was one who lingered for almost a month.”

“What happened?”

“He went back to his wife in Helsinki.”

“How did you feel?”

“I had a lot of work to do.”

“Coward,” she said, but with great affection.

“Well, you know me. All cats are gray in the dark.”

“Oh, Marla, sometimes you don’t even tell the truth to yourself,
you do know that, don’t you? Maybe if just once you cast off from the side of the pool, you’d discover that you could swim.”

“Maybe.”

“I tell you—Shit,” she muttered angrily, sitting up and reaching for her T-shirt. “We’ve got company.”

I glanced behind me to see J.T., tree-trunk body encased in checked shirt, wicker basket in hand, standing on the edge of the deck looking for all the world like a renegade extra from
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
. Such was the perfection of his catwalk that neither of us had heard him. I was glad we had been talking quietly. Glad also for the excuse to stop. Elly scrambled to her feet. I stayed where I was.

“Fresh vegetables,” he mumbled, crossing over and putting the basket on the table. He stood for a second, as if poised for a fast retreat. Except this time he didn’t leave: this time, quite out of character, he accepted Elly’s automatic offer of refreshment and followed her across to the chair next to mine. He lowered his bulk into it while she sped indoors to raid the fridge.

We sat for a few moments judging each other’s commitment to silence. For such a big man, he imposed surprisingly little of himself on an atmosphere—not at all like Lenny arriving on the scene. On the other hand, he didn’t seem ill at ease. In fact, close to, his stillness felt more like a deliberate strategy than shyness, almost as if he had made a conscious decision to be this withdrawn. On a desert island we might not have talked for years. For Elly’s sake I offered up a few clichés.

“It’s a beautiful view. You must enjoy living here.”

He said nothing, not even the habitual grunt. I was counting to ten before graduating on to the weather when he looked straight at me, the sunlight on his glasses obscuring his eyes. “Is she OK?”

I was impressed by the way I contained my surprise. “Yes,” I said. “She is.”

“How about her and Lenny?”

I took time with that one, picking my way to the right words. “There are still problems. Areas of conflict.”

Behind us came the sounds of glasses and bottles clinking, a fridge door closing. He looked out over the canyon, squinting into the sun. “You should see it when the mist comes in.” He was addressing the ocean. “Rolls right up in the middle of the night. Thick as cotton balls. Sometimes you can’t even see where the deck ends. Lasts for days.” He sniffed. “Is she going to leave him?”

This time I was shocked by the question. Or maybe it was just the number of words, like hearing a monk breaking a vow of silence. Shocked, but also fascinated. “Why? Do you think she should?”

He looked at me sharply, and there was anger in the movement, as if I had said something self-evidently stupid. But now was not the time to explain. The screen door was already opening, and we could both hear her coming toward us, tray in hand. He returned to his study of the horizon.

After which he didn’t stay long. The beer took him no time at all, and he gave the impression of being a man who had suddenly remembered an urgent appointment. Elly did most of the talking. Pleasantries. Half of me listened; the other half worked at lasering through those pebble wedges to the eyes behind. They gave nothing away. It was becoming a habit, these snatched conversations with cocaine men. First Lenny amid potted palms, now J.T. by a canyon. Whispers in cloisters. The equivalent of a professional tic. Did it really come with the job? Had he taught Lenny or had Lenny tutored him? Maybe I should ask. There was no reason why he should have the monopoly on curiosity.

He must have heard the thought forming, because he picked that instant to make his getaway, squashing his beer can in one hand and delivering a monosyllabic speech of farewell before padding off into the high noon sunshine. We watched him go.

“Strange,” murmured Elly. “He didn’t say anything. I wonder what he wanted.”

“Hungry for human contact, I expect. He asked how you were.”

“Did he?” She frowned. “I should have talked to him, gone round to see him. But what would I have said? ‘I’m sorry I didn’t take your advice. You were right.’ I can’t imagine the conversation. You know, it’s funny, but I think he makes me shy. Me, old blabbermouth. Can you believe it?”

“Maybe he holds a torch for you.”

“J.T.? Never.” She laughed. “He’s impenetrable. I don’t think he needs people at all. All his loyalties go to his lettuces.”

“So he knows nothing. How come Lenny doesn’t tell him?”

“How come stones don’t talk? I told you, their camaraderie is professional. It doesn’t extend to emotional confessions. Real men don’t eat humble pie, remember? Come on, let’s get out of the frying pan.”