7
At night, when everyone was in bed, the house seemed to belong to one family instead of three. The separate sleeping-sounds mingled and penetrated through all the thin walls, and by now James could identify each sound exactly and where it came from. He knew Miss Faye's snore, as curlicued and lacy as she herself was, and the loud, honking sound that Mr Pike made. He knew Miss Lucy's rat-a-tat on the walls, first on Mr Pike's wall when the snoring grew too noisy and then on his own wall if he talked in his sleep. He thought it must be a thimble she tapped with. Because there was a big room's width between his end of the house and the Pikes' end, he wasn't sure of the softer sounds there – Simon's snoring, for instance, or Mrs Pike's. And he had always wondered if Joan snored. But he had heard Janie Rose's nightmares often enough. They came through loud and clear, drifting up from the open window of her tacked-on bedroom downstairs. "That's not something you should be doing,' she would say reasonably. And then, 'Daddy, would you come quick?' and the floundering thuds across the floor as Mr Pike began groping his way toward her voice in the dark. But if Simon talked in his sleep, he must have talked quietly. All James heard of him was in the morning, when they tried to wake him and he bellowed out, 'Oh, fine, I'll be right there! I already got my socks on. Ain't this some day?' -yet all the while sound asleep, and just trying to fool people. Sometimes Mr Pike shouted too. He would have too many beers on a Saturday night and throw all the pillows out the window. 'Ninety-nine point two per cent of all the people in the southern states die of smothering,' he would roar to the night, and then Miss Lucy would rap on the wall. Miss Lucy never slept at all; James was convinced of that. She spent her time policing the area. On nights when Ansel was restless, when he tossed around on his old wooden bed across the room from James (he wouldn't sleep in the other bedroom, for fear of waking alone and finding his feet numb), and when he kept calling, 'James, how long has the night been going on?' Miss Lucy would tap very gently and ask if Ansel wanted her hot water bottle. 'No, ma'am,' James always said, and Miss Lucy would go back to her quiet, patient pacing. Sometimes James had a great urge to go see what she was wearing. He pictured her in a twenty-pound quilted robe with lead weights at the bottom, like the ones sewn into curtains, because it dragged so loudly across the floor at every step she took. But once he had had a horrible nightmare, right after eating two pizzas. He had shouted out, 'My God!' and awakened shaking, with the terrible sound of his own shout still ringing in his ears. Then Miss Lucy had tapped and called, 'Why, it's going to be all right,' and the horror vanished. He had lain back down, feeling comforted and at home, and now it never annoyed him to hear Miss Lucy's bathrobe dragging.
In the Potters' bedroom the clock struck four, whirring and choking before each clang. James lay tensed, counting the strokes, although he already knew how many there would be. He had slept only in patches all night, and even in his dreams he was searching streets full of people for the thin stooped figure of his brother. In the last dream it had been a year ago – that time they had called from ten miles away to tell him Ansel had been run over, but neglected to add it was only a bicycle that had done it. After that he couldn't sleep at all. He thought of all the things that had happened to Ansel in the past, the really serious things, and all the things that might be happening to him tonight. When the clock had stopped whirring he found that he was frowning into the darkness so hard that the muscles of his forehead hurt. Then, as if that clock had been some sort of musical introduction, a faraway voice began singing outside:
There's sunshine on the mountains,
And spring has come again…
James sat up and pulled back the curtain. Outside it was pitch black, with a handful of small stars scattered like sand across the blue-black sky. The trees beyond the field were only hulking dark shapes, and not one light glimmered from the town behind them.
My true love said she'd meet me,
But forgot to tell me when.
He climbed out of bed and untwisted the legs of his pyjamas. At his bedroom wall there was one sharp tap, questioning (he had learned to read Miss Lucy's thimble language), and he called, 'It's all right, Miss Lucy.' She resumed her pacing again, with her robe trailing her footsteps like a murmuring companion. James shot out of his room, still buttoning his pyjama top, and went downstairs in the dark. The voice was nearer now.
I was walking down the track, Lord,
With a letter in my hand,
A-reading how she'd left me
For that sunny Jordan land.
The front door was open but the screen was hooked shut. James pushed the hook up, jabbing his finger, and swung the screen door open. Then he walked across the porch barefoot, with the cold rough grain of the wooden floorboards stinging the soles of his feet. Around his ankles the cuffs of his pyjamas fluttered and ballooned and nearly tripped him (they were Ansel's, and too long); he bent to roll them up. Then he descended the steps, scowling into the dark as he tried to see. He was halfway down the path before he stopped, more by sensing someone in front of him than by seeing him. Ahead of him was a long tall shape, swaying gently, smelling of bourbon. The voice was so close now that James could feel its breath.
Oh, there's sunshine on the hills, Lord,
And the grass is all of gold…
His reedy voice was piercing, but the thinness of it made it seem still far away. James stepped closer. 'Ansel,' he said.
My love has gone and left me,
And I'll cry until I'm old.
'Ansel,' James said again.
'I'm singing, please.'
'Come on in.'
He took Ansel by the arm. It was stone cold; he could feel the bone underneath. When he pulled Ansel toward the porch Ansel came, but lifelessly and with the shadow that was his face still averted. 'People keep asking you in nowadays,' he told the dark. 'They got a thing about it.'
'Careful,' said James. 'We're coming to the steps.'
'The Potters downright lock you in. Slide little bits of machinery around. You mind if I finish my song?'
'I certainly do.'
'I might just finish it anyway. Where you taking me, James?'
'In,' said James, and half lifted him up the first step. Ansel was as limp as a rag doll. His limpness made James realize suddenly how angry he was at Ansel, after all this worrying and waiting; instead of guiding him so carefully, he felt like giving him a good shove into the house and having done with it. 'Get on in,' he said, and took his hand away from Ansel's arm. Ansel gave him a deep lopsided bow and entered first.
'Certainly nice of you to ask me,' he told James. 'Certainly are a hospitable man.'
'If you're hungry, Ansel -'
'I'm starved.'
'Cook up some eggs,' said James, and began making his way across the dark living room toward the stairs. Behind him Ansel said, 'Hey, now -' but James paid no attention. The way he felt, he couldn't even make a cup of coffee for Ansel; he had been worrying for too long, and all he wanted now was sleep. Already he was unbuttoning the tops of his pyjamas, preparing to go back to his bed.
'Don't you have food waiting?' Ansel asked.
'Nope.'
'Don't you even care if I come back?'
'You know how to fry an egg.'
'Well, I'll be,' said Ansel, and sat down suddenly on something that creaked. 'I take it back, James. What's so hospitable about you?'
The stairs were narrow, and James kept stubbing his toes against them. He touched the wall to guide himself, feeling the ripples and bubbles of the wallpaper as he slid his fingers along it. Behind him Ansel said, 'You mad at me, James?' but James didn't answer. He could already hear the tapping sound that was coming from upstairs. Miss Lucy must be worried.