The Day it Rained Forever (19 page)

‘Miss Fremwell,' he managed to say, at last.

‘Yes?' She looked at him as if she didn't quite see him.

‘Miss Naomi, I don't suppose you ever really noticed me, lately.'

She waited. He went on.

‘I've been noticing you. Fact is, well, I might as well put it right out on the line and get it over with. We been sitting out here on the porch for quite a few months. I mean we've known each other a long time. Sure, you're good fifteen years younger than me, but would there be anything wrong with our getting engaged, do you think?'

‘Thank you very much, Mr Lemon,' she said quickly. She was very polite. ‘But –'

‘Oh, I know,' he said, edging forward with the words. ‘I know! It's my head, it's always this darn thing up here on my head!'

She looked at his turned-away profile in the uncertain light.

‘Why, no, Mr Lemon, I don't think I would say that, I don't think that's it at all. I have wondered a bit about it, certainly, but I don't think it's an interference in any way. A friend of mine, a very dear friend, married a man once, I recall, who had a wooden leg. She told me she didn't even know he had it, after a while.'

‘It's always this darn hole,' cried Mr Lemon bitterly. He took out his plug of tobacco, looked at it as if he might bite it, decided not to and put it away. He formed a couple of fists and stared at them bleakly as if they were big rocks. ‘Well, I'll tell you all about it, Miss Naomi. I'll tell you how it happened.'

‘You don't have to if you don't want.'

‘I was married once. Miss Naomi. Yes, I was, darn it. And one day my wife she just took hold of a hammer and hit me right on the head!'

Miss Fremwell gasped. It was as if she had been struck herself.

Mr Lemon brought one clenching fist down through the warm air.

‘Yes, ma'am, she hit me straight-on with that hammer, she did. I tell you, the world blew up on me. Everything fell down on me. It was like the house coming down in one heap. That one little hammer buried me,
buried
me! The pain? I can't tell you!'

Miss Fremwell turned in on herself. She shut her eyes and thought, biting her lips. Then she said, ‘Oh, poor Mr Lemon.'

‘She did it so calm,' said Mr Lemon, puzzled. ‘She just stood over me where I lay on the couch and it was a Tuesday afternoon about two o'clock and she said, “Andrew, wake up!” and I opened my eyes and looked at her is all and then she hit me with that hammer. Oh, Lord.'

‘But why?' asked Miss Fremwell.

‘For no reason, no reason at all. Oh, what an ornery woman.'

‘But why should she do a thing like that?' said Miss Fremwell.

‘I told you: for no reason.'

‘She was crazy?'

‘Must have been. Oh, yes, she
must
of been.'

‘Did you prosecute her?'

‘Well, no, I didn't. After all, she didn't know what she was doing.'

‘Did it knock you out?'

Mr Lemon paused and there it was again, so clear, so tall, in his mind, the old thought of it. Seeing it there, he put it in words.

‘No, I remember just standing up, I stood up and I said to her, "What'd you do?" and I stumbled towards her. There was a mirror. I saw the hole in my head, deep, and blood coming out. It made an Indian of me. She just stood there, my wife did. And at last she screamed three kinds of horror and dropped that hammer on the floor and ran out the door.'

‘Did you faint then?'

‘No. I didn't faint. I got out on the street some way and I mumbled to somebody I needed a doctor. I got on a bus, mind you, a bus! And paid my fare! And said to leave me by some doctor's house downtown. Everybody screamed, I tell you. I got sort of weak then, and next thing I knew the doctor was working on my head, had it cleaned out like a new thimble, like a bunghole in a barrel….'

He reached up and touched that spot now, fingers hovering over it as a delicate tongue hovers over the vacated area where once grew a fine tooth.

‘A neat job. The doctor kept staring at me, too, as if he expected me to fall down dead any minute.'

‘How long did you stay in the hospital?'

‘Two days. Then I was up and around, feeling no better, no worse. By that time my wife had picked up and skedaddled.'

‘Oh, my goodness, my goodness,' said Miss Fremwell, recovering her breath. ‘My heart's going like an eggbeater. I can hear and feel and see it all, Mr Lemon. Why, why, oh,
why
did she do it?'

‘I already told you, for no reason I could see. She was just took with a notion, I guess.'

‘But there must have been an argument – ?'

Blood drummed in Mr Lemon's cheeks. He felt that place up there on his head glow like a fiery crater. ‘There wasn't no argument. I was just sitting, peaceful as you please. I like to sit, my shoes off, my shirt unbuttoned, afternoons.'

‘Did you – did you know any other women?'

‘No, never, none!'

‘You didn't – drink?'

‘Just a nip once in a while, you know how it is.'

‘Did you gamble?'

‘No, no, no!'

‘But a hole punched in your head like that, Mr Lemon, my land, my land! All over nothing?'

‘You women are all alike. You see something and right off you expect the worst. I tell you there was no reason. She just fancied hammers.'

‘What did she say before she hit you?'

‘Just "Wake up, Andrew".'

‘No, before that.'

‘Nothing. Not for half an hour or an hour, anyway. Oh, she said something about wanting to go shopping for something or other, but I said it was too hot. I'd better lie down, I didn't feel so good. She didn't appreciate how I felt. She must have got mad and thought about it for an hour and grabbed that hammer and come in and gone kermash. I think the weather got her, too.'

Miss Fremwell sat back thoughtfully in the lattice shadow, her brows moving slowly up and then slowly down.

‘How long were you married to her?'

‘A year. I remember we got married in July and in July it was I got sick.'

‘Sick?'

‘I wasn't a well man. I worked in a garage. Then I got these backaches so I couldn't work and had to lie down afternoons. Ellie, she worked in the First National Bank.'

‘I see,' said Miss FremwelL

‘What?'

‘Nothing,' she said.

‘I'm an easy man to get on with. I don't talk too much. I'm easy-going and relaxed. I don't waste money. I'm economical. Even Ellie had to admit that. I don't argue. Why, sometimes Ellie would jaw at me and jaw at me, like bouncing a ball hard on a house, but me not bouncing back. I just sat. I took it easy. What's the use of always stirring around and talking, right?'

Miss Fremwell looked over at Mr Lemon's brow in the moonlight. Her lips moved but he could not hear what she said.

Suddenly, she straightened up and took a deep breath and blinked around surprised to see the world out beyond the porch lattice. The sounds of traffic came in to the porch now, as if they had been tuned up, they had been so quiet for a time. Miss Fremwell took a deep breath and let it out.

‘As you yourself say, Mr Lemon, nobody ever got anywhere arguing.'

‘Right!' he said. ‘I'm easy-going, I tell you –'

But Miss Fremwell's eyes were lidded now and her mouth was strange. He sensed this and tapered off.

A night wind blew fluttering her light summer dress and the sleeves of his shirt.

‘It's late,' said Miss Fremwell.

‘Only nine o'clock!'

‘I have to get up early tomorrow.'

‘But you haven't answered my question yet. Miss Fremwell.'

‘Question?' She blinked. ‘Oh, the question. Yes.' She rose from the wicker seat. She hunted around in the dark for the screen doorknob. ‘Oh now, Mr Lemon, let me think it over.'

‘That's fair enough,' he said. ‘No use arguing, is there?'

The screen door closed. He heard her find her way down the dark warm hall. He breathed shallowly, feeling of the third eye in his head, the eye that saw nothing.

He felt a vague unhappiness shift around inside his chest like an illness brought on by too much talking. And then he thought of the fresh white gift-box waiting with its lid on in his room. He quickened. Opening the screen door he walked down the silent hall and went into his room. Inside, he slipped and almost fell on a slick copy of
True Romance Tales
. He switched on the light, excitedly, smiling, fumbled the box open and lifted the toupee from the tissues. He stood before the bright mirror and followed directions with the spirit gum and tapes, and tucked it here and stuck it there and shifted it again and combed it neat. Then he opened the door and walked along the hall to knock for Miss Fremwell.

‘Miss Naomi?' he called, smiling.

The light under her door clicked out at the sound of his voice.

He stared at the dark keyhole with disbelief.

‘Oh, Miss Naomi?' he said again, quickly.

Nothing happened in the room. It was dark. After a moment he tried the knob, experimentally. The knob rattled. He heard Miss Fremwell sigh. He heard her say something. Again, the words were lost. Her small feet tapped to the door. The light came on.

‘Yes?' she said, behind the panel.

‘Look, Miss Naomi,' he entreated. ‘Open the door. Look.'

The bolt of the door snapped back. She jerked the door open about an inch. One of her eyes looked at him sharply.

‘Look,' he announced proudly, adjusting the toupee so it very definitely covered the sunken crater. He imagined he saw himself in her bureau mirror and was pleased. ‘Look here, Miss Fremwell!'

She opened the door a bit wider and looked. Then she slammed the door and locked it. From behind the thin panelling, her voice was toneless.

‘I can still see the hole, Mr Lemon,' she said.

Y
OU
don't want death and you don't expect death. Something goes wrong, your rocket tilts in space, a planetoid jumps up, blackness, movement, hands over the eyes, a violent pulling back of available powers in the forejets, the crash.

The darkness. In the darkness, the senseless pain. In the pain, the nightmare.

He was not unconscious.

Your name
? asked hidden voices. Sale, he replied in whirling nausea.
Leonard Sale. Occupation
? cried the voices.
Space man
! he cried, alone in the night.
Welcome
, said the voices.
Welcome, welcome
. They faded.

He stood up in the wreckage of his ship. It lay like a folded, tattered garment around him.

The sun rose and it was morning.

Sale prised himself out of the small airlock and stood breathing heavily. Luck. Sheer luck. His suit was intact; his oxygen breathable. A few minutes' checking showed him he had two months' supply of oxygen and food. Fine! And this – he prowled through the wreckage. Miracle of miracles! The radio was intact.

He shuttered out the message on the sending key.
CRASHED ON PLANETOID
787.
SALE. HELP. SALE. HELP
.

Minutes passed; the reply came:
HELLO, SALE, THIS IS
ADDAMS IN MARSPORT. SENDING RESCUE SHIP LOGARITHM. WILL ARRIVE PLANETOID 787 SIX DAYS. HANG ON.

Sale did a little dance.

It was simple as that. One crashed. One had food. One radioed for help. Help came.
Voilà
! he shouted.

The sun rose and was warm. He felt no sense of mortality. Six days would be no time at all. He would eat, he would read, he would sleep. He glanced at his surroundings. No dangerous animals; a tolerable oxygen supply. What more could one ask? Beans and bacon, was the answer. He touched the machinery in his helmet that popped food into his mouth.

After breakfast he smoked a cigarette slowly, deeply, blowing out through the special helmet tube. He nodded contentedly. What a life! Not a scratch on him. Luck, sheer luck!

His head nodded. Sleep, he thought.

Good idea. Forty winks. Plenty of time to sleep, take it easy. Six whole long, luxurious days of idling and philosophizing. Sleep.

He stretched himself out, tucked his arm under his head, and shut his eyes.

Insanity came in to take him. The voices whispered.

Sleep, yes, sleep
, said the voices.
Ah, sleep, sleep
.

He opened his eyes. The voices stopped. Everything was normal. He shrugged. He shut his eyes casually, fitfully. He settled his long body.

Eeeeeeeeeeee, sang the voices far away.

Ahhhhhhhhh, sang the voices.

Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep
, sang the voices.

Die, die, die, die, die
, sang the voices.

Oooooooooooo, cried the voices.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, a bee ran through his brain.

He sat up. He shook his head. He blinked at the crashed ship. Hard metal. He felt the solid rock under his fingers. He saw the real sun warming the blue sky.

Let's try sleeping on our back, he thought. He adjusted himself, lying back down. His watch ticked on his wrist. The blood burned in his veins.

Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep
, sang the voices.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, sang the voices.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, sang the voices.

Die, die, die, die, die. Sleep, sleep, die, sleep, die, sleep, die! Oohhh. Ahhhh. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee
!

Blood tapped in his ears. The sound of the wind rising.

Mine, mine
, said a voice.
Mine, mine, he's mine; he's mine
!

No mine, mine
, said another voice.
No, mine, mine, he's mine
!

No, ours, ours
, sang ten voices.
Ours, ours, he's ours
!

His fingers twitched. His jaws spasmed. His eyelids jerked.

At last, at last
, sang a high voice.
Now, now. The long time, the waiting. Over, over
, sang the high voice.
Over, over at last
!