The Carousel (38 page)

“Only that we can’t let the vigilantes run things.”

“For God’s sake, you weren’t a vigilante! It was an accident!”

“We’re going in circles, Dan, and I am so tired.”

He stood and looked down to where she lay. “Yes,” he said, “you look like hell. I’m going to take you and the girls with Nanny to some warm place where you can lie in the sun, rest, and put some weight on.”

“You’ve said that more than once, poor darling. But the sun can’t take this trouble away. I have to tell, Dan, just as Amanda eventually had to.”

“That was entirely different.”

“Not really. It’s just that things swell up inside you until there’s no room for them, and then they burst out.”

“We’ve had this talk so many times before and we never get anywhere. Will you let Ian talk to you? After all, it was—he was—Ian’s father. Maybe you’ll listen to him.”

“Please darling, as you said, we’ve had this talk so many times. It’s no use. I’m going to turn myself in on Monday.”

He clapped his hand to his forehead. “My God, I think I’m mad.” He walked away, turned about to look at her, walked away again, and came back. “Not Monday. You’ve got to see a lawyer first. That’s common sense and I demand it. I happen to
know that Larson’s coming home from a vacation on Wednesday. We’ll see him then. Do you promise you’ll wait till then?”

She did not want to cry. Through sheer effort she kept the tears from starting. “Yes, but I’m not going there to have him try to talk me out of it.”

“Don’t I wish,” Dan said grimly.

Of course no lawyer of any repute would talk her out of it. She knew that. But he would guide her, and then the Fates, such as they were, would do the rest.

Since early morning Clive had been at the hospital and now the afternoon was coming to a close. In a little anteroom next to his doctor’s office, a private waiting room for privileged patients, he supposed, he sat flipping through magazines. The pain in his back was so severe that, in spite of all his shifting of positions, it was almost unbearable. So he stood up and that was just as bad. The pain had been spreading into his thighs, growing in small increments, day after day for—how many days? Ten? Eleven? He had lost count. The pain was blinding him.

Someone said, “Dr. Day will see you now.”

He went in. The doctor was studying a little pile of papers. When he looked up, his expression was readable. Doctors’ expressions always were; there was the cheerful glint in the eye that said “Everything’s negative,” and then there was the expression, slightly puzzled, that said “I have bad
news and I’m trying to figure out how best to break it.”

“Well,” Clive said, “it’s no good, is it?”

“There’s always—” the doctor began, but Clive interrupted.

“Forgive me for being impolite today. It’s a bad day and my father’s birthday and I know I’m dying, so please say it quickly. I’m ready for it.”

The doctor made the gesture with upturned palms and lifted shoulders that expresses inevitable failure.

“I’m so sorry, Clive. Damn, it’s the hardest thing.… Okay, here it is. The X ray, bone scans, MRI, all the stuff shows that it’s spread. It’s everywhere, bone, kidneys, liver, all over.”

“I see.”

“We tried. Damn, you seemed to be making such good progress after we took out your lung. Real progress all winter. Now this comes along.” Again, he made the gesture. “Like wildfire, a forest fire that you can’t put out.”

Clive held his head up. “How long?”

He hadn’t till now been conscious of a clock in the room. Suddenly, it was very loud. Tick. Tick.

“Anytime,” the doctor said.

Clive struggled out of the chair and found a few words. “Thank you for everything. You did everything that could be done.”

“Where’re you going, Clive?”

“Home. Where else? I want to be home.”

“I meant, how are you getting there?”

“My wife is driving. She’s been here all day waiting in the lobby.”

The other man seemed to be striving for something to say and do. He got up and held the door open, shook Clive’s hand, and shook his own head, saying, “Waiting all day, that’s a patient wife, do you want me to go down and talk to her, perhaps I can—”

“No, no. It isn’t necessary, but thank you all the same.”

Then Clive hurried into his overcoat, and in all his pain ran down the stairs.

After he had briefly told Roxanne what he had learned, after he had heard the customary indrawn breath and the expected response,
Oh, but doctors have been wrong, my aunt was told nine years ago that she only had six months
, he asked for quiet.

“You mean well, but that’s all nonsense and you know it is,” he said quietly.

“When—when did he say it would—”

“Anytime.”

He knew she was hoping it wouldn’t happen now in the car or some other place right in front of her. He could hardly find fault with her for that. He would feel the same natural dread if he were in her place.

All he wanted right now was to get home and take something for the pain. Yet, there was also a part of him that wanted to prolong the ride; it might very well be his last.
Never.
It was an extraordinary word when you had to apply it to
yourself. And he looked avidly out at the sky, heavy with wintery clouds, at the wind, so fierce that you could imagine you actually saw it battering the trees, and at a dead deer lying on the side of the road; in a winter such as this one had been, there were many such deaths. But in May, in sixty days from now, would come the good time, new leaves and then myriad chirpings of returning birds; then the mare, scenting the spring, would break into a canter.

“I know you don’t feel like talking, but I thought if there’s anything you especially want to eat, I can stop at the store. It will only take a second.”

She reached over to press his hand, and held it. When he glanced at her in response, he saw the glint of her tears.

“Thank you, let’s just get home.” He was moved beyond words. She was so very, very kind to him; never in all his life had he felt so cared for, so guarded, so cherished. Noiselessly, she moved about the house, gave him food and drink, took books down from the shelves for him and replaced them, put music on the player and replaced the discs; when he needed nothing, she went quietly up to the room that she now occupied, and let him alone.

Once she had asked him whether he wanted to hear the full story about her and Ian, but he had not wanted to. He had no wish to make more vivid the mental images that were so graphic, too searing and too humiliating. They were no longer
important anyway. Yes, he thought wistfully, one’s own imminent death does most “wonderfully concentrate the mind.”

When they reached home, the house was dark except for the kitchen light that had been left on for the benefit of Angel, who now came rushing to be picked up.

“Go sit on your chair in the den,” Roxanne directed. “It’ll be easier on your back than sitting at the table. I’ll bring dinner on a tray.”

She was taking charge, which was what people naturally seemed to do in the presence of imminent death. He found himself, as he obeyed, analyzing her probable emotions, and concluded that they were a mingling of natural fear and true compassion. And he could see her, on the night after his funeral, standing alone in this large house, probably holding the little pug to her chest, and remembering the day she moved in when it all belonged to her.

When she had set the tray down and turned to go back to the kitchen where she ate alone, he asked her to bring her food in and join him.

“It’s time we spoke,” he said.

She answered eagerly, “I’ve been wanting to ever since that night. I want to. I really need to tell you everything.”

“I don’t want to hear everything. I don’t want the details.”

“All right, no details. Let me just say it was rotten, what happened. But
you
should understand how when somebody falls for somebody it just—”

He stopped her.
You should understand.
She had put emphasis on the “you.” But to speak of “falling for” when it had been so—so glorious, a total transformation of self, a new life, a new
personal
! What did she know of that? She had never been inside his, Clive’s, skin. It wasn’t in her to know!

And yet perhaps it was. Perhaps it was a case of not having the vocabulary to express herself.

At any rate, there were practical things to be taken care of.

“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “I meant—what do you plan to do after I die?”

“I’m going away. I certainly can’t stay here.”

“Who’s going? You and Ian?”

“No! That’s all over. You must believe me.”

“I see. What about the child?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t talked about it.”

Her head was bent, her profile outlined in the lamplight. Pure Greek, he thought, a classic head.

And he said abruptly, “You will take no money from him. I am leaving enough for you. As far as the world knows, the child is mine. Don’t punish it before it is even born by attaching a scandal to its name, and don’t hurt Happy.”

“Oh, no, I would never do that. She’s been a friend to me. She’s the kind of woman—she’s old-fashioned, not like me. What I mean is, in her position, if that happened to me, I would take the bastard for all he’s worth, all I could get, and kick him out. But she—it would break her up if she knew, and what good would it do me? I said that
once to Michelle. We were talking about Ian and me—”

“Don’t tell me. As long as I know you will keep your word, that’s enough.”

“I will keep it. I’m thinking, I’ll go to Florida and be with Michelle. That is, if—”

“If there’s money for her to stay on in school? There will be. Why should I punish Michelle either? She’s a nice kid. As long as she’s doing well, let her stay there and make a life for herself.”

Roxanne was crying. “I don’t know, I don’t know what to think! You’re so good! I never knew there could be people like you. I wish I could help you, do something for you. I’d go to China, Africa, anywhere—”

“You can do this. Go to the telephone, call Dan and Sally, then call Happy and Ian.”

“Ian?”

“Yes, yes, Ian. I want them all here at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. It’s very important. They must come, all of them. And after that, call my lawyer, Timothy Larson, and tell him I need him here, too. The number’s in my book.”

The medicine had begun to take effect, so that the pain merely nagged and could be borne. He looked around the room, at the muted reds and blues in old rugs, at his books, the horse paintings and the photograph of his mare, who perhaps would not even recognize him anymore. He hoped she would find a good home, for she and all his possessions would surely be dispersed. Or
maybe they might keep the mare until Tina grew old enough to ride her.

“Mr. Larson’s away and will be back Wednesday,” Roxanne reported.

“Then tell them to send a partner. I don’t care who it is.”

When she returned, he saw that she was very uneasy, and he said gently, “You look so scared, poor girl. But there’s no need for you to worry, I promise you.”

“If you say so. But I wish I understood what it’s all about.”

“You will,” he said.

They were all sitting in a semicircle facing Clive. There was a certain drama in the situation, with him presiding, totally in charge, while all of them had to wait for him. The only persons there who did not seem distressed were Happy and Mr. Jardiner, the lawyer.

Ian kept playing with his little gold penknife; he was sitting close to Happy, while Roxanne was at the opposite end of the semicircle. Maybe it was true, then, that they were finished? She had said so, and he wanted so much to believe her. It did seem that way, though, for they were being very careful not to look at each other. Appearances, however, were deceiving. Indeed.

Sally and Dan both looked worn and haggard, as if they had not slept for weeks. He wondered what might be the trouble. They were two people
who didn’t deserve trouble, though that was not the way the world worked. Indeed.

“I asked you to come, Mr. Jardiner, because I want a responsible witness to what I am going to say.”

Mr. Jardiner, who was very young, probably just out of law school, nodded with appropriate gravity.

“There are two more people coming. In fact, I see the car now. Will you open the door please, Roxanne?”

Two men with the stride and posture of authority entered and took their seats. Clive made the introductions.

“Detectives Murray and Huber from homicide, Mr. Jardiner, my lawyer. The rest of us have met before.”

It seemed as if the entire semicircle had leaned forward, about to topple or at least to reach for their toes. It was very nearly enjoyable to watch the play as, like a puppet master, he pulled the strings.

Huber began, “Do you have a clue?”

“No, I have the solution,” Clive said.

Alarm traveled from one to the other, all the eyes widened, Ian stopped fidgeting with the penknife, and Dan grasped Sally’s hand.

“As the family members know, I am a sick man. My remaining lifetime can be counted in days. In this condition, a person has some very serious thoughts.” He paused. Let them wait. He would tell it in his own fashion. “It came to me
that at some time in the future, even years from now, some poor vagrant who breaks into a house may be seized as a suspect in the murder of my father. It’s possible. That sort of thing has happened.” He looked toward the detectives. “Isn’t that true?”

Huber acknowledged the possibility. “But not likely,” he added.

“Even so, I’ve asked you here to set a record straight. I am the person who shot Oliver Grey to death. I and only I.”

There was a long, anguished collective gasp. Happy gave a sharp cry, Ian stood up and sat down again, and Dan started to say something, but was prevented by Detective Huber, who held his hand up in a stop signal.

“Yes,” Clive resumed, “I was crazy, mad, hysterical, whatever you want to call it. I had intended to kill my brother. Things had happened … yes, things. It doesn’t matter.” He paused, gave a kind of gasp, and continued in a voice so exhausted that the others strained to hear.