The Hard Blue Sky (28 page)

Inky still hadn’t moved. Something was wrong. And he was trying to understand, drunkenly. And then he noticed the other shadow, just down the path a little. Or maybe he heard the very faint click of the switch-blade knife.

He was too drunk. And fighting with a knife wasn’t one of the things he wanted to do sober. So he didn’t move.

The girl in the orange dress was keeping very still. You could hear her heavy breathing. You could tell she loved a fight.

Inky tried to stop his head swinging, tried to hold it still so he could see better. He used both hands finally, propped them one on each side of his chin.

The man had taken a step out into the white crushed-shell path. You couldn’t see the knife, but he’d be holding it low.

The woman began carefully pulling her dress off the thorns.

“Jesus,” Inky said softly.

“Who you looking for?” the shadow said.

Inky rubbed at his eyes, and shuffled his feet on the ground, trying to be sure of his balance. For a second the red neon of the beer signs caught and reflected something. Button, Inky told himself. Or the blade.

He rubbed furiously at his eyes, trying to clear his head. He moved his shoulders: they felt stiff.

The woman still hadn’t got her dress free. She was half bent over, twisted to one side, and she was working gently at each one. Calmly, as if she’d been out for a walk on a Saturday noonday.

“Son of a bitch,” Inky whispered.

The man came out into the center of the path. A step or two closer. He wasn’t hurrying, but he was coming.

And then there was somebody calling him. “Inky … Inky … ” A soft little call. “Inky …” For a second he was not sure. He cocked his head, listening.

When the girl turned up at his side, he did not recognize her in the dark. “I been looking for you,” she said.

He opened his mouth to answer and then closed it again.

She glanced up the path, as if seeing for the first time. “George?”

“What you come busting in for?”

“Whose busting?” She giggled. “I got as much right here as you,” she said. “I got a right to meet my date, no?”

“What you coming here for?”

She just giggled. Inky went back to rubbing his eyes.

“Everybody real loaded,” she said. And she slipped her arm into Inky’s. “So dark you can’t see much. …”

She turned him around, and they crossed in front of the Rendezvous and began to walk up the beach. “Let’s go over to my porch,” she said loudly.

They felt the other eyes following them down the beach. Inky stumbled in the sand. The girl laughed. “You real drunk. …”

They walked down the beach, almost half a mile. Inky felt the soft sound of the surf in one ear, and in the other the soft murmuring sound of the land life.

They turned inland. “This whole island’s full of the god-damn paths.”

“Sort of,” she said.

They crossed under some twisted oak trees and were starting across a little meadow.

“Wait a minute,” Inky said, “now wait a minute.”

There was some kind of small flower underfoot. You could see them faintly in the dark.

“Wait a minute,” he said. And he squinted at her face. “Be god damned,” he said. “Annie.”

“Let’s go,” she said.

“Thanks, kid.” He would not move. “That was a real fine job.”

“You know the way back to the boat?”

“Which boat?”

“Yours.”

“Thought you said we were heading for your house.”

She giggled nervously. “I was just talking,” she gestured, “for them.”

“Why not?”

“Well,” she said, and paused for a minute, “my papa wouldn’t like that.”

“He’s got a new wife,” Inky said, “he won’t notice.”

You could feel her stiffen in the dark as the hurt got to her. She began to walk away.

He stumbled after her. “Sorry, honey,” he said. “I’m drunk or I wouldn’t say that.”

She stopped but didn’t answer.

“Show me the way back to the boat,” he said.

H
IS ARM THROUGH HERS
was heavy and sometimes it seemed she was dragging him along. Now and then she had to stop for breath. He didn’t say a word the whole time.

Once she said: “Watch where you step.” And he didn’t even seem to hear her.

They passed the Arcenaux store where a little light was still burning by the back door. Philomene always left that for Julius so he wouldn’t trip when he came in.

Annie looked at the light when they went plodding past, the little glow behind the drawn shade. Philomene, now, Annie thought, she was a patient wife. What did they have to say, she wondered, on the nights when Julius stayed home.

Inky tripped again.

“That was a root,” she said. “Pick up your feet.”

They came to the wharf and there was the bay black and still with little points of stars reflecting, and the outlines of the luggers. And one tall mast.

“Come on,” Annie said, “we’re almost there.”

Their feet were like hammers on the boards. They must be waking everybody on this side of the island, Annie thought, and she tried to move slower.

A couple of cats, who had been prowling around on a lugger, jumped over the side and scooted away between their legs.

“What the hell was that?” Inky said.

“Nothing. Cats.”

If he fell in, Annie thought, what would happen? And she held on to his arm a little tighter.

We’d both drown … she thought. He wouldn’t let go, and we’d both drown and in the morning, they’d find us, and they wonder what we were doing to fall in. …

And because she’d had a couple of drinks too, and the whole world was shimmering and sad, she began to cry. Not sob, but cry. The tears were pouring down her face. Then, quick as they began, they stopped.

“Can you get aboard?”

He stepped slowly and carefully over the lifelines. “Can’t go falling in the water.”

He’d been thinking that too. Or maybe he could tell what she was thinking. … “No,” she said.

She followed him on the deck. “Can you manage?”

He sat down for a moment on the carriage roof. “Don’t worry, honey, I made it a lot drunker than this.”

“I’ll go light the lamp.” The matches were by the stove, and the lamp right above. The light and the recent tears hurt her eyes and she stepped back. It was just a little pool of light—just a kerosene lamp—and she could stand on the edge of it.

“You can come on now,” she said.

He swung himself down the hatch, not bothering with the little ladder.

“You did that the hard way.”

“Never bother with ladders, honey,” he said; “they really trip you.”

He was leaning against the little icebox and fingering it as if he had never seen it before. Suddenly he tapped it sharply. “Let’s have a drink.”

“I had enough,” Annie said.

He didn’t seem to hear. He got two paper cups from a holder on the wall, found a bottle in one of the cabinets and poured a couple of drinks. “Even got ice.” He got a couple of cubes and dropped them in.

“We so fucking fancy,” he said and hesitated, looking around. “How come?” He pointed unsteadily to the lamp. “We got electricity.”

“Didn’t know where the main switch was,” she admitted.

“Knew I wouldn’t leave it on, huh?” Inky grinned. “Smart girl, smart like a schoolteacher …”

“This is lots of light,” Annie said.

“Sure … but it’s there, right there, under the ladder, see?”

“It’s a nice boat,” Annie said, “but I got to go home.”

She wanted to leave, but the passageway was narrow and he was standing in the middle. She could have pushed by, he didn’t seem in any mood to stop her, but all of a sudden she didn’t want to touch him.

“Sit down,” he said.

There were two bunks, one on each side. She hesitated for just a minute. She felt strange sitting on a bed. … There’s nowhere else, she told herself.

He handed her the cup, and then sat down on the opposite bunk. She felt relieved, and, way down, a little disappointed.

He did not say anything. There was just the very small sound of the almost still water against the hull. And a couple of night birds.

The lamp smoked for an instant, then cleared. The cubes of ice bumped against the paper cup she held in her hand. And the silence bothered her. She could feel herself breathing it in. Almost like being under water, and drowning.

She said, because she had to find something to say: “You really been drinking.”

And then she was sorry, and wondered if he was going to be offended. He was slow in answering and she tried to think of an apology.

“I been drunker,” he said.

“Nearly got yourself cut up.” She sipped and looked at him over the rim of the cup.

“Son of a bitch,” he said softly.

She watched him, sitting under the kerosene lamp, the yellow light making a kind of halo.

“Tell me about your boyfriends,” he said suddenly.

She frowned. And had a little flutter of panic. “You asked me that before.”

“Tell me about the rest of it.”

“I can’t do that,” Annie said.

“Answer my questions?”

“Maybe.”

“Start with that tall thin fellow, the one tonight.”

“Perique?”

“Yea.”

She laughed and her fear relaxed a little. “Oh, him …”

“He’s your boyfriend?”

“In a way.” She felt better now, now that she’d had time to think. She could remember now and tell him, tell him carefully so that there wouldn’t be any contradictions. She had thought it all out, long ago, all about the different ones who had been her lovers. She could close her eyes now and see some of them, she had imagined them so clearly. She could remember how they had kissed her even … but that was as far as she could feel. Even her daydreams had ended here. Had left her irritated.

“What way?”

“Huh?”

“You heard me,” Inky said. “Don’t be a sneaky little bitch.”

“Well,” she said and stared up at the carefully polished beams of the ceiling, “I didn’t go to bed with him.”

She watched Inky carefully. Her answer had surprised him. His face showed it. She felt better, more confident.

“He’s a nice boy,” she said, “but I just didn’t feel that way about him.”

“You got to feel that way?”

She said: “Don’t you?”

“Sometimes,” he said.

“And sometimes not?”

“Finish your drink,” he said. “Don’t make me waste it.”

She took another small sip.

“Too strong?”

“Hell no,” she said.

“Where’d you learn words like that?”

“Nowhere.” It was hot in the cabin. She wondered how he could sleep here.

“In a convent?”

“Maybe,” she said. He would live in this cabin, not the forward one—she was almost sure of that. But there wasn’t a sign of him anywhere—not a jacket nor a cap, not a paper nor a book. The cabin was clear and spotless, like a picture advertisement for a boat.

“Tell me what it was like, in the convent.”

“Sort of dull,” she said.

“How many of the sisters made passes at you?”

“Well …” she did not quite understand. She was afraid to say yes and she did not want to admit a no.

Then she understood. “No,” she said quickly. “Course not.”

She began to wish she had stayed home, that she’d stayed home and not started the evening at all. Whenever she looked back now, she’d have to remember the unpleasantness. It was this business of remembering that annoyed her.

The evening had changed and there was a bad taste in her mouth.

“Didn’t want to hurt your feelings,” Inky said, “I was just asking about what I’d heard.”

“You know some funny people,” she said. She sounded peevish though she hadn’t meant to, and she was sorry.

“Forget it,” Inky said.

The first thing she knew she was crying was the little splash of a tear on her hand. She looked at it in surprise. “What sort of night is it?” She went and looked out the hatch, and wiped her eyes while her back was turned.

“Come on,” he said. “Tell me more about your boyfriends.”

“Well,” she said. And she turned her memory back on the big gray stone building, with its stained-glass windows in the long halls, and the little red glasses of vigil lights in all the corners, and the smell of furniture polish so strong in closed rooms you could hardly breathe. And Beatriz, lovely and old for her age, moving down the corridors with a slow step and a soft wiggle of her behind that no amount of nuns’ scoldings could change. Beatriz, with her heavy-lashed eyes, that she mascaraed secretly every morning.

“No,” she said, “it wasn’t me.”

But the more she thought the more she remembered: the dark wine-red color of Beatriz’s robe gliding down the black linoleum-floored hall. And the ring Beatriz had pinned to her bra. And the lights of the car flickering through the leaves and the trunks for just a second before they switched off.

And looking back, she
was
Beatriz. She could feel her lips form the characteristic half-smile, sleepy and alert all at once. And when she turned away from the open hatch, she had the slow walk and the soft little wiggle.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Annie said and her voice had taken on a very faint accent.

“Why not?”

She sat down on the bunk and her fingers touched the left bra strap, the way Beatriz did.

“It was sad,” she said, “and I don’t want to remember it.” She felt so confident now.

“What happened?” Inky frowned in the effort to see her more clearly. “He go off with somebody else?”

“Please. …” She hissed her s’s just slightly and looked away in disgust.

“Why didn’t you keep him?”

“There are some things—” she hesitated just a little, “beyond help.” That sounded good so she repeated the phrase: “Beyond help.”

“Why?” He was pouring himself another drink. “He leave town or something?”

She was fingering the little clasp on the strap; it could have been a ring. “He left—in a way.”

“You sound like he died.”

She was a little surprised: the idea had not occurred to her. She stood up and peered out the little porthole, and she lifted her chin the way Beatriz would have done.

Of course he had died: he was killed in a car crash.

She was crying now, really meaning it now. But still she held her chin up.