'We won't go into that,' James told the wallpaper.
'We don't go into nothing. Getting so the only safe topic around here is the weather. Well, I was saying. Just a cross of white roses, she wanted. No lilies. And you know what they sent? You know what?'
He waited. The silence stretched on and on. James's arm, pressed beneath his body, began to go to sleep, but he didn't switch positions for fear of breaking the silence. He wiggled his fingers gently, without making a sound.
'Well, they sent lilies,' Ansel said finally. 'I thought you would have guessed. If you'd been there, I wouldn't have to be telling you all this. But I called you. I called you on the phone and said, "James," I said, "will you kindly come to Mama's funeral?" I called you long distance and person-to-person, Caraway to Larksville. But you never answered me. Just hung up the telephone, neat and quiet. If I was the persistent type, I'd be asking still. I'd ask it today: "James, will you kindly come to Mama's funeral?" Because you never have answered, never once, not once in all these years. I'll ask it now. James, will you kindly -'
'No, I won't,' said James.
Across the room there was a little intake of breath, quick and sharp, and over behind the Potters' wall the measured pacing suddenly began again, with the weighted bathrobe sighing behind it. Ansel lay down on his bed.
'There's two kinds of sin,' he said after a minute. His voice was directed toward the ceiling now, and sounded dreamy. 'There's general sin and there's private sin. General sin there's commandments against, or laws, or rules. Private sin's an individual matter. It's hurting somebody, personally. You hear me? Listen close now; this is essential. What I chose was a general sin, that they'll be a long time forgiving. I did all that drinking, and ran around with that girl that everyone knew was no good. But what you chose was a private sin, that they'll never forgive. They got hurt personally by it – you forever running away, and telling them finally what you thought of them and leaving home altogether. Then not coming to the funeral. Think they'll forgive that? No, sir. Me they will cry over in church and finally forgive, someday. But not you. I'm a very wise man, every so often.'
James didn't say anything. Ansel raised himself up on one elbow to look over at him, but he stayed within his hood of sheets. 'James?' Ansel said.
'What?'
'You don't care what I say, do you?'
'Yes, 'James said.
'Don't it bother you sometimes? Don't you ever think about it? Here we are. You walked off from them without a backward wave of your hand, and I got thrown out like an old paper bag. Don't it -'
'Got what? James asked.
'What?'
'You got what?'
'Got thrown out, I said, like an old -'
'You never got thrown out,' said James.
'I did. Daddy said I was an alcoholic; he said I was-'
'He never said that.'
'Well, almost he did. He said, "Leave this house," he said. "You and your drinking and that girl in red pedal pushers, I never want to see you again." That's what he told me.'
James raised himself slightly from beneath the hood of the sheet. He peered across the dark room toward Ansel and said, 'Don't you give me that, Ansel.'
'What?'
'You left. You left, I left. Tell it that way.'
'Well, what difference does it make? Who cares?'
'I care,' said James. 'Do I make excuses for leaving? Run out on him or don't run, but don't make it easy on yourself; don't tell me he kicked you out.'
'Well,' Ansel said after a minute, 'I was drinking all that-'
'You don't even like the taste of it,' said James.
'I do too.'
James lay back down and pulled his sheet closer over him, and Ansel's voice rose louder. 'It was a wonderful taste,' he said. And then, 'Well, maybe he didn't exactly throw me out, but anyhow-'
Up on the tin roof, rain began. It started very gently, pattering in little sharp exclamation points that left spaces for Ansel's voice. 'James?' Ansel said
'Hmm.'
'There's one thing I don't get, James. It was you they liked best. The others weren't nothing special, and I was so runny-nosed. I had a runny nose from the moment I was born, I think, and pinkish eyes. One time I heard Daddy say, "Well, if there's ever a prize for sheer sniveliness given, he'll take it," and Mama said, "Hush now. Maybe he'll grow out of it." They didn't think I heard, but I did.'
'They didn't mean that,' said James.
'You know they did. But you they liked; why did you leave? Why didn't you come to the funeral? I said, "Daddy," I said, "you want I should ask James to Mama's funeral?" "Which James is that?" he asks. "James your son," I tell him. And he says, "Oh. Oh, why, anything you want to, Ansel." This was when I was still home and they had hopes I would change my ways; they let me do some things I wanted. I called and said, "James, will you kindly come to Mama's funeral?" Then he asked what happened. "Ansel," he said, "did you invite that person you had mentioned previously?" And I said no, figuring it was better that way. Daddy said, "He wouldn't have come. He was born that way," he said, "lacking our religion. There was no sense asking him."'
The rain grew louder. Now it was one steady booming against the sheets of tin, and all of Ansel that could be heard was his words; the quality of his voice was drowned out.
'I'm going back there sometime,' he was saying. 'They'll forget, and I'll go back. I crave a religious atmosphere.' He lay back down and James nodded to himself, thinking maybe he would be sleepy now. 'Churches here are somewhat lacking, I think,' Ansel went on. 'Quiet-like. At home it was better. Mrs Crowley spoke in tongues. There was things that bound you there. A red glass on the windowsill in the choir loft, with something brown rising above it like the head of a beer. I think now it was wax, and the glass was a sort of candle. But before I thought it was a sort of brown fungus, some kind of mold just growing and growing. Do you remember, James?' He waited a minute. 'James?' he said, and now his voice rose even above the roaring of the rain.
'No, I don't, James said.
'Sometimes I think your mind is just a clean, clean slate, James.'
'I keep it that way,' said James.
'You do. I bet when I go back you won't even miss me. I'll go and bring presents. A natural-bristle hairbrush for each sister and a table game for Claude, and a French briar pipe for Daddy. Flowers for the grave and a set of them new, unbreakable dishes to go in the kitchen. A conch shell with the crucifixion inside to make up for that one you dropped, and a crane-necked reading lamp…'
The rain roared on, and James listened to that with all his mind. He thought it was the best sound he had heard all day. The heavy feeling was beginning to fade away, and the rain was lulling him to sleep.
'… a new swing,' Ansel was saying, 'though none of us would use it now, I reckon. Before, it was a tyre we swung on. It was all right and it went high enough, but there wasn't no Comfortable way to sit in it. Inside it, your legs got pinched. Straddled above it, you'd be dizzy in no time what with all that spinning. "Stop!" you'd say, and cling like a monkey on a palm tree while everybody laughed…'
8
On Tuesday morning, Mr Pike was the second person awake. He arrived in the kitchen wearing his work clothes and carrying a nylon mesh cap, and when he sat down at the table he sat heavily, stamping his boots together in front of him and scraping the chair across the linoleum. 'I'm picking tobacco today,' he told Joan. Joan was at the stove, peering into the glass knob on top of the percolator to see what colour the coffee was. When her uncle made his announcement she said nothing, because she was thinking of other things, but then she turned and saw him looking at her expectantly.