Whipple's Castle (12 page)

“Honest to God I don't remember!” Susie said clearly.

“Gordon would do that. I know him,” Wood said.

“I loved him.”

“So you dropped your pants,” Sam Davis said.

Susie raised her disorganized face and shouted,
“Drunk!
He gave me a Coke, but it was mostly rum! I never—”

“I think that's the truth,” Wood said.

They sat quietly, hearing only the click of the old woman's knitting needles and an occasional sniffle from Susie.

“At least she ain't knocked up,” Sam Davis said.

“I had my period last week.” Susie got up, her face averted, and went to the sink. She stood there, holding a wet dishcloth to her face for a minute. “They hurt me too. I was sore for a long time.”

“Maybe they ought to go to jail,” Wood said.

Sam Davis shrugged. “Oh, shit,” he said. “You want a glass of cider?” Without waiting for Wood's answer he got a jug from beneath the sink. The dark woman, holding her blanket together with her elbows, got up and silently brought them two tumblers.

“Gordon Ward's in the Army now, anyways,” Sam Davis said. “There ain't nothing much to do about it.” He poured the light cider. “Listen. Why'd you come here tonight? What business is it of yours?”

“When I called I thought you were beating her up.”

“No, I never.”

“He never beat me,” Susie said. “Even when he found out, he never beat me.”

“How'd you get the nerve to come over here?”

“I wanted to do what was right,” Wood said.

Sam Davis shook his head. “Well, you're a wonder,” he said.

They drank from the big tumblers of cider. Wood felt it immediately, and drank slowly, but Sam Davis drank his in three or four gulps.

“I got to hit the hay,” he said suddenly. “I'm glad to of met you, Wood. So I'll say good night. There's more cider in the jug if you want some.” He turned to go, and the woman in the gray blanket got up to follow him. Wood never did see her face clearly. At the door Sam Davis turned and said, “Say hello to your Pa for me.” Then the two of them were gone. Wood was astonished by this sudden disappearance, but Susie didn't seem to find it strange at all.

He sat across the table from her, under the bright overhead light, and she smiled at him. Her face was still puffy from the crying, and plain without lipstick. Her eyes were a deep, dull blue. She looked as though she had been beaten up, and she looked even younger than seventeen.

“Now you know,” she said.

“You loved Gordon?”

“I used to. I don't any more.” She looked down at the table, at her hands. “I love you.”

He was shocked by these unanswerable words.

“I loved you for a long time before I loved Gordon,” she said seriously. “The only reason I loved Gordon was I gave up on you. You never seemed to notice me. You always went out with that snooty Lois Potter. Do you love her, Wood?”

“I like Lois.”

“But you don't love her? You don't? Really?”

“I don't know,” he said, and she looked worried and unhappy.

“Don't love her, Wood! Please don't. She's not nice. She's pretty, but she's not nice. She's very selfish, did you know that? She's got a wonderful figure, I know. She's not fat like me…Do you think I'm fat? I'm not, really, I'm just bigger than her. I've got a lot to offer, I mean. I got as good marks in school as her too.”

He didn't say anything, and she looked at him for a long time, her face as open as the moon. This woman. This girl; he felt her wanting him, a heavy, complicated force in her, convoluted and hot—all below that white face that hid nothing. But he could not understand why this need was so intense; what did he, or any man, have that was needed so badly? Looking deep into her face, he felt that what she wanted must be more than the electric shock, quickly gone, of an orgasm, even as he had experienced them in the deep inside-out thrill of wet dreams. But what was the right thing to do for this girl?

“I love you,” she said, nervous and soft. “I'll do anything for you. Anything. I love you so much I hurt.”

“Susie—” he said.

“I don't care if you don't love me. I'll do anything you want me to.”

“I've got to go, Susie.” He got up and went to the door, and she followed him, now seeming shy, in her bare feet and red toenails. He opened the inner door and turned to say goodbye, but turned into her arms. She had moved so skillfully; it seemed a woman's knowledge. She was all up against him, and kissed him on the mouth. Her breath was sweet, and she smelled like blankets and pajamas, the moist warmth of sleeping children. Her eyes were shut, and he gently disengaged himself and went away.

The next night at supper, just after everyone had prepared his potatoes for gravy, Horace found his plate in his lap. It was right side up, and somehow neither his potatoes nor his carrots had spilled. For a while he sat there with the warm plate in his hands. No one seemed to have noticed that the plate had disappeared from the table, and he tried to figure out how to get it back on the table without anyone noticing. He knew this was impossible.

His father was looking at him. “Horace,” he said, the white fat of his cheeks still, the dark eyes half closed, “are you going to eat out of your lap?”

Horace shook his head; his ears were hot.

“Then why don't you—carefully, with extreme care—lift your plate out of your lap and place it on the table?”

“Horace needs glasses,” his mother said quickly. “He can't see the blackboard unless he sits in the front row.”

Horace put his plate back on the table.

“I don't want to watch him pour the gravy,” his father said.

“I've got to squint all the time,” Horace said, grateful to his mother.

“Well, did you make him an appointment?”

“Yes,” his mother said. “At the clinic in Northlee.”

“It just happened this year,” Horace said. “I can't see the little branches on the trees any more.”

“He found an old pair of spectacles in the attic,” his mother said quickly.

“And I could see the little branches! I could see every little branch!”

In a drawer of the old highboy—the one in the attic hall that led to Kate's tower—he'd found the leather box. Inside was a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, their lenses as small as nickels. When he looked through them it felt as though his eyes were clamped in a vise, and he looked out one of the round hall windows to see each little tree branch, each shovel cut, each evergreen needle upon the snow. The world outside cut into his brain like little needles and knives.

“Well,” his father said. “Maybe that's the trouble-”

“Let's eat supper,” his mother said.

Horace tried to eat, but the potatoes tasted like paper. The gravy had no taste at all, and his arms felt huge and weak. He was afraid to put his hands over the table. He was thirsty, but didn't dare pick up his water glass. Everyone else seemed to be in a kind of shade—not of shadow, but of focus, and only he was bright and clear, with all his shameful faults exposed to them, like an animal in a cage.

They ate in silence, except for the clink of silverware on plates. Kate went to the kitchen and returned. He felt that he might fall out of his chair. Why not? He would just fall over sideways and crack his head on Wood's chair and crumple to the floor. Let them pick him up with a shovel.

Then his father looked at Wood and mentioned her name. He hadn't been listening until he heard her name. Susie Davis.

“What did old Sam do?”

“Nothing much,” Wood said.

“That I find hard to believe.”

“We talked it over. Susie told us what happened.”

“Susie told you and her old man
exactly
what happened?” Horace watched his father's face grow long, and his mouth fall open.

“It wasn't her fault. Gordon Ward got her drunk and she never knew what was going on.”

“Am I supposed to hear this?” Kate said.

“Oh, come off it,” David said. “Listen to the little innocent.”

“I
am
innocent,” Kate said.

“As if you don't know exactly what happened,” David said.

“Well, I'm not sure!” Kate said, getting angry.

“Shut up!” Horace's father shouted.

“Hush, Harvey,” his mother said.

“I don't know why he didn't prefer charges against all of them,” Wood said.

“I'll tell you why.” Horace recognized his father's mean voice, the one used for conspiracies, the same voice he used when speaking about President Roosevelt, or the war. “Name off those little hotshots and you've named the sons of a lot of people Sam Davis owes his shirt to. Get it? Gordon's father could foreclose on Sam's farm tomorrow. Get it? I happen to know he's five months late on his payments. Someday you'll find out how the world works, sonny boy!” His father seemed triumphant, happy in this knowledge.

Wood didn't answer for a while, though his father sat staring at him, savoring his triumph.

“You don't have to tell me how filthy rotten the world is,” Wood finally said. “I just don't think it's so funny. And I don't have to be that way myself.”

“Hah! High and mighty! Oh, boy! Wait'll you get kissed by reality! You'll find yourself crawling around in the filth with the rest of them!”

Horace heard his own voice shouting, “Wood is good!”

“Wood the Good!” his father said, laughing. “Wood the Good! Hah! Hah! Hah! Wood the Sanctimonious!”

Wood looked steadily across the table, and at that moment Horace dropped a piece of carrot from his fork into his water glass. How did his glass get that close to his plate? The piece of carrot sank to the bottom of the glass, and butter scummed the water. If he drank all the water maybe he could drink the piece of carrot out

Wood said, “Just because everybody else is cruel and dishonest, do I have to be?”

“Yes!”

“No!” Wood said. “At least I don't have to act that way. Even if I do feel that way, I keep it inside.”

“I hope you kept something inside your pants last night, anyway,” his father said, and laughed even louder.

“
Harvey!”
his mother said. “That's enough!”

“What did he mean?” Kate said.

“I'll tell you later,” David said.

“You'll be
quiet!”
his mother said.

They had stewed prunes for dessert. Stewed prunes always made Horace nervous, because of the pits; but the argument, or whatever it was, simmered down, and they made it through dinner. Afterwards he followed Wood up to his room, and knocked on Wood's door.

“Come in, Horace,” Wood's deep voice called.

Horace opened the big door. He couldn't explain why it always seemed heavier and warmer than his own. The warmth seemed to come from the air of this whole portion of the hall—Wood's territory. Inside Wood's room the light was golden and warm.

“Come in, Horace,” Wood said again. “Sit down.” He pointed to the leather armchair, and Horace sat down into it gratefully. As its thick arms surrounded him it seemed to him that for the first time that day his stomach and all his inner parts began to calm down and to work again, as they ought to. He sighed with pleasure. If only he could just stay here, out of Wood's way. He wouldn't say anything, or bother Wood at all…

“What's on your mind, Horace?” Wood sat at his desk, and began to fill a pipe.

“I…”

“Yes?”

“I like your room better than mine.”

“They're exactly the same.”

“No, they're not. Mine's…” He was going to say “evil,” but didn't say it. “Mine's cold. I don't know.”

“Horace,” Wood said in a kindly voice. He seemed huge, a huge force. Horace thought of Atlas, from a picture of Radio City, the great constant strength of the wide shoulders. Not really straining, because the face was calm, and would last for eternity. “Horace, I'm going in the Army in a few weeks. Do you want to have my room then? We can trade.”

“Yes!” Horace said. But Wood wouldn't be here then.
“In a few weeks?”
he said.
“Weeks?”

“Probably. Maybe even sooner.”

But
what will I do then?
Horace almost asked. Tears came to his eyes, and he wiped them off quickly.

“David and Kate and Mother and…Dad will be here,” Wood said.

“I don't want you to go away.”

“I've got to. That's all there is to it,” Wood said, and even though Horace trusted Wood's affection, he heard Wood's desire to go.

“You want to go,” he said accusingly.

“In a way, I do. I don't want to leave you, though. But Horace,” Wood went on reasonably, “you've got to get along by yourself. You know that, don't you?”

“Yes. No. I know that. But I can't feel it. I don't believe it. What'll we do without you? What if David goes to Dexter-Benham next year, like Mother says?”

“You'll have to tend the furnace and mow the lawn, and shovel the driveways, and…change the storm windows.” Horace saw his hesitation at the storm windows. “You'll be a year older…”

“I'm afraid of the cellar,” Horace said, ashamed to say it but afraid not to say it—he had to get it on the record. “I can't go down there alone. I'm scared of it.”

“There's nothing down there to be scared of.”

“Everybody says things like thatl But it doesn't help!” He felt like a fool to have shouted, and now he was crying. He didn't have a handkerchief, and the backs of his hands were all wet and snotty. Wood went out of his blurry sight for a moment and came back with a clean, folded handkerchief. “I don't know…” Horace tried to say. His voice roared in his ears, but he knew it was not loud in the room. “I don't know what's wrong with me! What's the matter with me?”