The Keepers of the House (23 page)

“Let’s stop a minute,” I said.

“If you won’t freeze in that wet dress.”

“Just a minute.”

I got out (with the whiskey inside me I found I could move lightly), and walked a little away from the car into the stiff sharp grass of the bald and looked around. There wasn’t even a wind. I looked at it all, at the ridiculous blotchy lights of the town, at the few moon-faded stars in the sky, and at the magnificent dark heavy slopes of trees. The moonlight was bright and blue and the color of mold on their tops. Just touching them, just brushing them. Underneath their lightened branches the night looked immense, and soft, and as deep as could be. As deep as the water in which I had sunk. I looked at the grass at my feet, at the stubbly grass, at the scattered stones, at the sprinkle of gravel. Each of these things had a shadow, sharp, distinct, a shadow trailing behind.

It was so clear, it was so bright, and the alcohol was singing in my ears, a steady clear humming. … There’d never been a night like that, there’d never been such a clear clear night. And silent. Not a night bird, not a wind. It was a night for eyes. Brightness, undisturbed.

It would never seem like that again. I went back to the car, wet skirt dragging between my legs. “I think I would like another drink.”

“Wait a minute.” He kissed me. And that was like the night, too, hard and clear. I could hear him breathing, I could feel his heart beating under the wet cotton of his shirt. My hand slipped up his arm and my fingers found a tear in the cloth near the shoulder.

“It’s ripped,” I said.

“I know.”

Through the tear I tasted his skin with my tongue. It was faintly salty and faintly metallic, like some oysters. It must have been the lake water which was drying on him. And the moon was shining right in the car window, right straight into my eyes.

In a bit we had another drink and stretched out on the front seat, and it was as quiet as if we weren’t there, just the thump of an arm or leg hitting the steering wheel now and then, hardly enough to disturb the night. And the moon still shone in one window and straight out the other, passing uninterrupted right over our heads. Like a river, but flowing across on top of us. And I found that it wasn’t so hard to lose your virginity, nor painful either. I hadn’t been told about that, I hadn’t been taught about that, but then I hadn’t even been taught to swim.

There’s only one night like that—ever—where you’re filled with wonder and excitement for no other reason but the earth is beautiful and mysterious and your body is young and strong.

I can remember him, now, remember just exactly how he looked, though that was over fifteen years ago, and he died in Korea a couple of years later.

That night none of us knew. He took me home and I slipped inside without being seen. I didn’t even notice if my roommate was back. I stripped off my clothes, tearing them because they were still damp and sticking to my body. I fell asleep naked on top the bed. In the morning I put my ruined dress into a paper bag and dropped it into the garbage.

I didn’t see too much of Tom after that—we hadn’t really been friends before. It just sort of happened that we found ourselves together. It was the night and the time and the peculiar quality of things. It wasn’t anything personal. It would have been the same with any man.

He did take me to a couple of football games and the big fraternity parties that followed them, but we never were alone again. And then we just sort of forgot.

It happens like that and it’s not the less precious. It’s the thing you value and not the man. It happened that way with me.

I had no trouble at college. I passed my classes and went to my parties, drank the forbidden bourbon, and held my breath during the drunken rides home. Once we were chased by the state police (we had a trunkful of whiskey that time; we were bringing it from the next county for a party) but we outran them. I had no trouble, until early in my final year. Then I got expelled—because of a wedding. The bride was from New Orleans, though she was in college with us. The groom was a jockey she met when she was home for Thanksgiving vacation. One Tuesday morning, nine of us—two cars full—drove with her to the nearest town in Mississippi. He met us there, a tiny leathery man who said nothing. It didn’t seem possible that he had been married three times before. But when the clerk asked him, he produced copies of three separate divorce statements—it was really true.

Now, in those days you could get married in ten minutes; they even rushed out to meet you and be assured of your business. So we all crowded, giggling and pushing, into the office to hear the ceremony. Then we drank their health in champagne—we had brought four bottles neatly packed in ice. They got into his big white Cadillac convertible and drove away, waving. We finished the champagne and drove slowly back to the campus, feeling daring and romantic. None of us had ever been to an elopement before.

And then the trouble started. Her family nearly went out of their minds. They were Catholic—and very serious about it—so the whole thing was a horrible sin. They tried to get to the girl, but she was of age and had gone off to a Florida track somewhere and she didn’t even bother to write after that first wire with the news of her marriage.

All of us were shipped back home. I called and told Margaret I was coming. I didn’t say why and she didn’t ask. She didn’t have to. She knew that she would find out.

Of course my grandfather was waiting on the porch when I drove up. He didn’t bother getting out of his chair. He let me walk up the steps toward him. “What did you do?” he said.

“You could say hello.”

“I reckon I’m more interested in finding out what happened.”

“Well,” I said airily, “I went to a wedding.”

When I finished, he got to his feet, and walked inside. I followed him. “Go take a bath or change your dress or something,” he said, “I got to start telephoning.”

“For what?”

“To get you back in, Miss Jackass.”

“Maybe I don’t want to go back. You think of that?”

I had started up the stairs when he called out to me: “You say her people’s Catholic?”

“Yessir.”

He chuckled, not happily. “That’s going to be some help to you in a state that’s mostly Baptist.”

He stomped off to the phone. I changed and went out. I took one of the horses (there only were three; they belonged to me) and went for a ride until it was too late and too cold and I had to come back. I heard the phone ringing as I walked up from the barn, and went in the kitchen door.

Margaret said: “Mud on your shoes.”

“I forgot.” I went back and cleaned them on the boot scraper that was in the shape of two friendly rabbits with perky ears.

“You hungry?” Margaret asked.

“No.”

“Didn’t have lunch?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Soup,” she said. “Take some.”

She was sitting by the kitchen table. She’d been waiting for me.

“Is he here?”

She smiled. “Where else he going?”

“On the phone?”

“Since you flounced out the house.”

“Well, I got reason to flounce,” I told her. “The old bastards at school …”

“He don’t like you talking like that,” she said quietly.

“Okay. Okay.” I went and looked into the soup pot.

“Abby.” I jumped. She almost never called me by name. “You ought called to him this morning, not just leave a message with me.”

“I didn’t want to talk to him. I couldn’t think of a damn thing to say.”

“You hurt his feelings.”

“Well, they hurt mine.”

She chuckled. “Maybe you better stay out here with me, till the both of you quiet down some.”

I took the ladle and stirred the soup, not answering.

“He been on the phone all day,” Margaret said. “He’ll fix it for you.”

There was a pride and satisfaction in her tone that I hadn’t heard before. “I don’t want it fixed.”

“Keep out his way tonight, child,” she said. “And take youself some soup. All that temper’s nothing but empty insides.”

I had supper with Margaret, while my grandfather stayed by the telephone in the living room. In a little while she brought him a sandwich and sat there to keep him company. Since there was nothing for me to do, I went to bed and read.

I don’t know who he called exactly. I didn’t even realize he knew that many people. He was always so quiet and reserved, never talked about himself or his business with me. As for me, I was used to that manner of his, and I didn’t mind it at all—after all, there are lots of southern men who treat their ladies that way. It’s quite pleasant, really. But still, I couldn’t help being shocked when this kind slow-moving grandfather of mine became somebody else. I’d never seen this side before; there hadn’t been any reason for him to show it. Until then I had no idea of his influence and the extent of it. I had absolutely no idea of what he could do.

He called a great many people, I know. I only answered once, and that was the following morning. I happened to be passing the phone when it rang, so I picked it up: it was the governor’s office calling.

And it all blew over. The next week, I went back. My grandfather drove up with me. “What about the others,” I asked him, “will they get back?”

“They got to fight their own battles, honey.”

“But it was my idea,” I said. “I can’t go back without them.”

“Child,” he said, “you going to get nowhere carrying the world. This whole thing is crooked as a cedar tree with a honeysuckle vine. But you got back, so forget it.”

I was furious with him, and I sulked all the long drive. When we got there, my grandfather said abruptly: “Let’s us go calling on the president.”

I didn’t believe him. “You’re kidding.”

“His brother’s done some lawyering work for me.”

“Not like this,” I said. “I’ve got to change my dress.”

He grinned, and it wasn’t pleasant either. “If you’d said a word to me on the way up, I might have had it cross my memory. … But I’d just as soon they saw the wicked woman in bobby socks.”

I almost died, of course, and after the president we went calling at the dean’s house. Both of them were expecting us, and they had their wives there. It seemed some sort of state visit. My grandfather instantly became old-fashioned and formal. He even referred to me as Miss Abigail. He was as courtly as a planter out of a novel.

When we left, he told me to drive him to the hotel. All the way he chuckled softly to himself—I don’t know that he was pleased, but he was mighty satisfied.

The only thing he said to me was: “Stop by the cab stand.” He got out and went over to talk to the two drivers who were waiting there. One of them got inside his cab and drove off, and my grandfather came back.

“Gone for a spare tire and some more gas,” he said. “He’s driving me back.”

“All that way?” I said. “That’s expensive.”

He stared at me hard for a moment, and then he chuckled. “Guess I plain better not tell you how much getting you back in school cost me. But seeing I managed that; I reckon I can afford the cab. I’m an old man and I want to go home. I’ll be there something past midnight.”

“You miss Margaret,” I said.

His bright blue eyes went cold as I’ve ever seen them. His face got set and hard, and almost grey.

“I’m sorry,” I said hastily. “I was being funny.”

“You’re a child,” he said, “and like your mother you have very little sense.” He got out of the car as if he couldn’t stand sitting next to me any more, and he let his eyes wander up and down the street.

I got out too, and ran around the car, because I didn’t want him to think whatever it was that he was thinking. In the couple of seconds it took me to get there, he found somebody he knew. He was shaking hands with a stocky young man who had the shortest crew cut I had ever seen. His black hair was like a bruise on his skull.

“John Tolliver,” my grandfather said casually, his elaborate manner of the afternoon was completely gone, “my granddaughter.”

He had bright blue eyes, startling blue, and long black lashes.

“What are you doing here?” my grandfather demanded.

“Law school, sir,” he said.

My grandfather nodded as if that was just what he expected. He turned to me. “Knew his father and his grandfather for that matter, and cousins I can’t keep count of.”

“Yes, sir,” John Tolliver said.

“His father’s the district judge out there.” The way he said it made it seem like the end of the world. “Matter of fact, got so many out there they call it Tolliver Nation.” He waved his hand at me and I noticed suddenly how creased and knotted and old it was. “Get my granddaughter to tell you how she was thrown out of school.”

He flicked his finger against my face and got into his cab and drove off.

John Tolliver said: “What about that?”

“It wasn’t very much fun.”

“I’d like to hear about it,” he said, and his smile was white and perfect. “How about tonight?”

“I didn’t even expect to be here,” I told him, “so I haven’t got a thing to do, but don’t you have a date?”

There was just a little flash before he said: “No. I don’t.”

So he did have one. But he had taken my grandfather’s words as an order. I didn’t think any more about it, beyond the little shiver of satisfaction at cutting into somebody else’s date.

He didn’t have a car, so I drove him to the sorority house and he carried my suitcase inside. “I’ll be back for you in half an hour.”

I raced upstairs and watched from the front-hall window. He went directly to the corner pay phone. I hurried through a shower and looked again. He was still there, he had opened the door for air. I knew that he was canceling his date I wondered who she was.

My roommate sat on her bed and smoked while I dressed. “I didn’t even expect to see you again,” she said, “and now you not only turn up, but you’ve got a gorgeous man in tow. What goes on?”

“He’s a friend of my grandfather’s,” I said.

She made a face.

“You know,” I said, “that’s really true.”

“Where’s he from?”

“Out there.”

“What?”

“That’s all my grandfather said.”

“Hell,” she said, “he’s not all that good-looking.”