“I’ll stay here until I’m ready to leave. Now get out.”
She stood, recapped the thermos bottle. “I said from the word go the idea was no good.” She seemed to be talking to herself as she looked around the room. “I love it here,” she said. “And it got awful empty, Paul. Very, very empty. No husky male to hear my woes. Then there was a husky male, a paying guest.”
“Donny?”
She turned, slat-eyed, “Oh! Of course. Al Wright, the poor man’s wailing wall. Donny heard my woes. He listened and listened and listened, until he knew just a little bit too much about what makes me tick, and then he started using his information and had himself a dandy time, and, incidentally, chalked up mission accomplished. A sort of real estate mission. Now, darling mine, I spread my woes all over. And I have more to spread around, truly.”
“Take them back to Harry.”
“In his little red car. Of course, dear. But Harry isn’t another Donny. Donny turned out to have teeth and claws and cold, cold eyes. And I couldn’t cope. Harry’s just a tourist. Donny is that thing they use to open a stuck window. A pry bar. And once the window is open, my sweet, there are burglars in the house. So I moved out of our house, and out of your life, neatly, sweetly, completely. I have new rules now for being a good girl, and today I’m being a good girl, indeed, but you are stubborn, and so the end of today is something I look forward to like going to the dentist.”
“You don’t make very much sense.”
“I could not love thee half as much loved I not Valerie more,” she said. She looked around the room. “I sure loved it.”
“You must have.”
“I loved me a little more, son. Walk me out.”
He went out with her, and she got into the little car. She looked up at him. “A kiss for the bride?”
He looked down into her eyes until she looked away. She bit her lip, started the motor, raced it hard, then ripped it into gear. The back end of the MG slewed as she horsed it up the sand road toward the highway. He stood there in back of the house, heard the change in motor noise as she got onto the highway and leveled out. There were places where he could see the road, and he saw the flash of red as the small car sped away. He turned back toward the house, hearing the fading snarl of the motor.
He heard the crash. It seemed to go on for a long time. He stood by the door, his hand touching the screen. He had the feeling that he had stood in this exact place in some other life and listened for that same sound that ended the motor noise, that ended a piece of his life.
His hand was lifted, touching the door to push it open. He saw a mosquito plant itself on the back of his hand. He watched its abdomen pulse and swell. He broke out of it then, turned and raced to his car, swung it around hard.
Just beyond Cove’s End, a trucker, spread-legged, waved him to a stop with a red rag. He pulled over onto the shoulder and jumped out and trotted up to where he could see a tractor-trailer slewed across the road, the back corner of the trailer canted down at a precarious angle. A crowd had gathered. People were still coming on the run. In the distance, a thin siren was growing.
A pale, well-dressed man was spreading a car robe over something on the shoulder of the highway. He wore the intent, serious expression of a man trying to put the bedspread on neatly. People watched him from a safe distance. They were swallowing, and a little boy nearby was throwing up. Paul hurried toward the man, and the man stepped away and blocked him and said, “Nothing to see. Nothing to see.”
“She’s dead,” Paul said.
“As a physician, sir, I should say she is extremely dead. As a tourist, I am happy to see her off the highway.”
Al Wright moved close to Paul, his broad face grayish around the mouth under the thick tan. “I just stepped out of my joint for a minute and heard her come through town, Paul. Crazy fool woman was going over eighty right through town. Drunk or crazy. Way down here I see her swerve right into that truck.” He paused and shook his head. “Cut in and jammed that little car right under it and hit the rear-left duals. They’ll have to torch-cut it out of there. She took off alone like a big bird, made a bank shot off the side of the trailer, and landed way over here.”
The highway patrolmen were climbing out of their sedan, taking over.
Al said, “Man, you look green! I’d think you’d seen enough people shot up lately so this shouldn’t get you.”
“It was Valerie,” Paul said tonelessly.
Al stared at him, jaw sagging. Paul could hear the hoarse excited voice of the trucker. “...so I think she’s by me, and bang. I don’t get much jar up there, but it puts the whole rig in a skid. Going eighty or ninety, she was.”
Paul walked over and heard one of the patrolmen say, “Joe, see if you can check identification.”
Paul said, “I can tell you what you want to know.”
“Who are you?”
Paul told him, and answered his questions about Valerie’s name, address, occupation. “How was she when she left your house? Drunk?”
“She’d been drinking.”
“To the best of your knowledge, she ever have any accident before, or get convicted of any traffic violation?”
“She got a speeding ticket about four years ago. She drove fast, but she was a good driver.”
“You say you don’t know the name of the guy owns the red wagon?”
“He was introduced to me as Harry. That’s all I know.”
“Michigan plates. We can check that. What’s the deal, mate? Why was she visiting you? You pretty chummy with her or something?”
“Is that part of the routine?”
“I just want to know, fella. Curiosity.”
“She divorced me a year ago while I was in Korea. I just got back the other day. I don’t know why she called on me today. I told her to get out.” The patrolman looked uneasy.
“I guess I got too nosy. Sorry.”
“It’s all right. Do you need me for anything else?”
“Mind looking at her in the presence of me and the other officer? Then we can make that an official identification.”
“I don’t mind.”
The crowd was herded back, and the patrolman knelt on one knee and lifted a corner of the car robe. He glanced down and glanced away quickly. He asked, “Is that the woman whose name and address you gave me?”
“It is.”
“Thanks. You made this a little easier, Rayder. Better go get yourself a shot.”
Traffic was moving again. Tow-car experts were studying the truck, scratching their heads, comparing ideas. An ambulance was backing into position. Paul backed his car deep onto the shoulder and drove back to the house. He got out, and he saw the marks of her sandal heels in the dirt. He went into the house and looked dully at the three lipsticked butts in the ashtray.
“A kiss for the bride?” An old routine from away back. A tired routine. So you didn’t send her off with a kiss. Which would either have made it easier to do or made it impossible to do.
He hoped it hadn’t hurt. She’d always had a terror of pain.
He stretched out on the bed. There was a familiar knothole in the bleached paneled wall. A little man with big ears and a grin. Valerie had discovered him. She said it was an indecent grin. A horrid little spectator. She had named him Arnold, and she said that while he was gone, Arnold would watch over her. Not such a good job there, Arnold. Now the divorce was pretty final. Pretty complete.
When the last of the sun was gone, the room grew dim. He heard the ting of the springs on the back screen door. He rolled quickly to his feet.