Millie nodded, and Vee sang in French.
When she was through, Millie lifted her voice in her clear soprano, as easily and joyously as a bird. Everybody had sung at least reasonably well; n.o.body flatted, or swooped, or sang nasally, but Millie"s voice was extraordinary, and we were mesmerized. She sang with a complete lack of self-consciousness.
I had thought I had the tears well under control. But the pure effortlessness of Millie"s singing made me choke up, and tears slipped down my cheeks. I got up quietly and went to one of the open arches and stood looking at moonlight making a wide path on the sea, then jumped down from the high sill to the sand below, walking along until I came to an ancient-looking tree shadowing the remnants of a wall. I stepped into its darkness and sobbed.
An arm came around my shoulders, and I was drawn to a lean, masculine body, smelling a musky, pungent smell. It was Omio.
"I"m sorry-I"m sorry-" I gasped.
"It is all right. Lo, many of us have brought wounds with us, and Millie"s singing opened them and brought healing tears. Do you have a handkerchief?"
Omio"s presence stilled the storm of tears. I dug in my pocket and found a tattered piece of Kleenex. "I"m sorry-"
"It is all right. Norine has provided punch and macaroons, and we"d better go back before we are missed."
225.
When we got back to the cloister, everybody was drinking punch from tiny paper cups and munching macaroons.
n.o.body mentioned my absence.
Krhis asked, "You like to sing, Polly? Does your family enjoy it?"
"We love it. We used to sing more when we were all littler and had less homework, but when there are nine people in a family, singing is something everybody can do."
Norine said, "You have a nice voice, Polly. While we are working in the office tomorrow, we can do some singing as well."
Vee announced that she was going for a swim, and did anybody want to come?
"Sorry," Frank said. "The walk"s a bit much for my inanimate leg."
"Not tonight for me, Vee," Krhis said. "Now you will find other swimming partners. But I beg all of you, and ask you to emphasize it to the delegates, do not go alone. There are strong tides and undertows. But the water is refreshing, and the walk at night will not be too hot."
Only Omio and I wanted to go. I was used to all kinds of undertows, and I felt sticky, and the idea of a swim at night in the Mediterranean was enticing. It had grown dark while we were singing, the sudden, subtropical dark I was used to on Benne Seed. Vee said, "Krhis is right that we should stick together. Polly and I live next door to each other, at the far end of the dormitory building.
Let"s meet just outside, at the laundry umbrella, and I"ll show you the way."
Omio told us that he was on the second floor, and he"d be ready in two minutes.
"Make it ten," Vee said.
It didn"t take me more than a couple of minutes to 226 get into my suit, so I went out the back door of the building and walked toward the laundry umbrella, which was like an empty tree, with one pair of bathing trunks (probably Krhis"s) hanging like a single leaf.
When everybody arrived, it would fill up.
As I stepped toward it, my foot slid out of my thong and I stepped on a pebble.
A sudden pain shot up my leg.
Just as the sharpness of a broken sh.e.l.l sliced into my foot, as I was running away from Beau Allaire.
I did not see Max in the morning after Ursula bound my cut foot and made me spend the night at Beau Allaire.
I woke around five, dressed, and slipped out of the house. But I no longer wanted to go home.
It was cool, before the sun was up; little webs of dew sparkled on the gra.s.s, which was kept green by constant sprinkling. I walked slowly down the drive because my cut foot hurt, and because the crushed sh.e.l.ls crunched noisily.
Ursula, I knew, got up early, so I walked carefully, as though that would keep her from looking out a window and seeing me. I was fleetingly grateful that her window, like Max"s, faced the ocean, and not the front of the house with the gardens and the long curving drive. And even if Nettie and Ovid were already in the kitchen, that, too, faced the water.
The drive wound around until the house was no longer visible. It seemed miles until I got to the road with its smoother surface. I turned and headed toward Mulletville and the causeway. How was I ever going to make it with my cut foot?
Periodically I stopped and sat at the side of the road until I had the energy to move on.
227.
I did not want anybody in Mulletville to see me, but only the fishermen would be up, and they wouldn"t care.
The development people would all still be in bed.
I heard a car behind me and stepped to the side of the road. The car slowed down and someone called out, "Hey, hon, want a ride? Look as if you could use one."
It was a boy from Mulletville who went to Cowpertown High, called Straw because of his sun-bleached hair and his stubby, almost-white lashes. He went with a rough crowd, kids who smoked and drank a lot. Why on earth was he up and out so early? He was older than I was; I think he"d had to repeat a couple of years.
I"d never had much to do with him, and didn"t want to see him now, and I hoped he wouldn"t recognize me. But he did.
"Hey, aren"t you Kate"s sister?"
"Kate"s my cousin," I said.
"So what"s your name, Kate"s cousin?"
"Polly."
"Where you coming from?"
"I"m going," I said. "To Cowpertown."
"Y"are?" He lit a cigarette and dangled it in the corner of his mouth.
"To the M. A. Horne Hospital. I cut my foot, and I have a friend there who"s an intern. He"ll fix it for me."
"You sure looked hagged out. Hop in. I"ll drive you into Cowpertown, as faras LeNoir Street, and maybe you can get another hitch from there. I have a Sat.u.r.day job at Diceman"s Diner, so I can"t take you any further. I"ll be sacked if I"m not there in time for the breakfast crowd."
So that"s why he was up. I got in beside him. I had no choice. I hoped he"d go on enjoying the sound of his own voice. He was, I was pretty sure, one of the guys who"d 228.
killed the tortoise. But I needed the ride into Cowper- town. I"d never make it on foot.
"Kate sure is pretty," he said.
After a pause, I agreed. "Yah."
"You don"t look like her." He flicked ashes out the window.
"We can"t all be that lucky," I said.
He looked at me instead of the road. "Hey, how"d you cut your foot?" He glanced down. The cut had broken open, and blood was seeping through the bandage. It probably looked a lot worse than it was.
"On a sh.e.l.l," I said, "a broken sh.e.l.l."
"Why, you poor little thing." He took his hand off the steering wheel and patted my thigh. "Hurt much?"
"Some." I"d just as soon he kept his hands on the wheel and his attention on the road.
"I got a good first-aid kit. Want me to fix it up for you?"
"No, thanks. My friend at the hospital will take care of it."
His hand reached for my thigh again, rhythmically patting. I stood it as long as I could, then pulled away.
"What"s the matter?" His hand came down hard, and I winced.
"I told you. My foot hurts."
"Why don"t you let me make it feel better?" He tossed his cigarette out the window.
"It"s my foot that hurts, not my thigh."
"You don"t like Straw, hunh?"
I remembered his face, full of l.u.s.t for killing, as he battered the tortoise.
No, I didn"t like him. "I don"t know you very well."
"Well, now," he drawled, "maybe Kate"s right after all."
"About what?" I should have kept my mouth shut.
229 /.
"You."
If I knew one thing, it was that Kate hadn"t talked to Straw about me. He"d never been one of her dates. He"d never come home with her for dinner. He wasn"t her type. But he came from Mulletville, and he dated Mulletville girls. I pushed away from him as far as possible.
"So what"s Kate"s cousin doing at this end of the island?"
I didn"t answer.
"You"ve been at Beau Allaire, haven"t you?"
I looked down at the blood drying rustily on Ursula"s bandage.
"We know all about those dames at Beau Allaire, and what they do. You"ve been with them. You"re like the way they are, and that"s why you don"t like me."
"Let me out," I said.
He jammed on the brake, throwing me forward. "You really want to get out?"
"Yes." "Don"t have an attack. I"ll get you to LeNoir Street." He stepped on the gas pedal, and his hand came at me again, and I pulled away. "What"s the matter, honey? You really don"t like Straw?"
What arrogance. This guy thought every girl in school was after him.
"You like dames, is that it? Can"t make it with a guy?"
I shut my eyes, clamped my lips closed. He kept his foot on the gas pedal.
The car rocked as he whizzed around a curve with a screech of tires. I didn"t care if it turned over.
I opened my eyes as I felt the car slow down and we drove through the outskirts of Cowpertown, then onto LeNoir Street with its post office and banks and stores. Again he slammed on the brakes. "Here we are."
"Thanks."
230.
"I feel real sorry for Kate. She"s a nice girl. Norm-"
I opened the door and jumped out, and the pain shot sharply from my foot through my body into my head, sending yellow flashes across my eyes.
Straw drove off with another rubber-smelling screech.
I was still a long way from M. A. Horne, which was at the farther end of LeNoir Street, a good three or four miles, too far to walk on a bleeding foot. I stumbled along, not knowing what to do, until I saw a phone booth.
I would call Renny.
I was jerked back into the present as I heard a sliding of sand and stones. Omio came leaping down from the top of the hill, wearing bathing trunks and a short terry jacket.
I couldn"t stand Straw"s hands on me, but I had liked Omio"s arms around me as I.
cried under the old tree.
The door opened, and Omio greeted Vee by handing her a flashlight. "You may need it to warn drivers of our presence."
"Thanks, Omio, what a good idea. Half the drivers here are crazy and drive these windy roads as though they were the Los Angeles Freeway. And cars drive English-fashion, on the left, when they"re not in the middle of the road, so we"ll walk on the right."
She led us along the path which ran below the balconies of the dorm, and there was the tree I had fled to, and now that my eyes were not blinded by tears I could see how beautiful it was. "What is it?"
"A fig sycamore. I don"t know how old it is, but hun- 231.
dreds of years. It"s the most beautiful tree I"ve ever seen, and I keep trying to write poems about it, but thus far they elude me."