The Watchman (24 page)

Who is it? called the girl softly, frightened.

Jill, it's me. Jason.

Jason! Whatever in the world are you doing down there? Have you any notion how late it is?

I had to see you, he said in a sort of whispering shout, above the river wind.

Jason, my father'll be howle directly, she gasped.

I don't care! he said, exultant in that moving, chilled dark. I love you. I had to see you. Put on something. Come down for a minute.

Jason, it's freezing out! she said. I'll catch my death.

Yet now something in her as thrilled as he; something in her already deliciously decided.

It's awful important, he said. Something I've got to ask you. Now, Jill, tonight. It won't wait. There's no time.

Jason, this is crazy! she cried softly back, then paused. What is it you want to ask me?

I can't ask it with you up there and me down here, he laughed. It's the kind of asking that's just not right for shouts.

Tell me, she said, as close to pleading as he had ever heard her. Oh, Jason, now I won't be able to sit still even if I don't come down! Oh, wait. Only a minute though. Wait

And scarcely before her silhouette was gone from the window he was racing round to the door stoop, waiting the wait she had ordered: a centuried minute, breathing the essence of the jasmine now ghostly in the cold touch of hinted winter and smelling in it that evocation of Jill: scent of hair, flesh-scent and the always fresh-lavendered sweetness of her clean and shabby clothes: she had her mother's old coat on over her foot-length nightdress when she opened the door. And in the dim hallway's shine he saw, beneath her scolding frown, the pride, the flustered, pleased glow of the wonderful waiting for words which could not wait. Her lips were cold till their softness was pressed in and then his own mouth felt their warmth.

Now, she said. You can't have any more kissing till you tell me!

Yet still he held her close against him, as if he could not feel her close enough, silent for a moment in the fancy that all the things he could imagine to tell her would flow through the fabrics between them, into her breasts, her thighs, all her inquisitive, wise flesh, so that the words could wait, or never be needed at all.

Now what's this midnight secret? she pleaded.

I want to take you away with me, he whispered in the hollow of her throat.

Jason, what? she gasped. What did you say?

I said I want you to run away with me, he cried softly, hugging her and .swinging her bare feet off the threshold and into the air.

Jason, put me down. Oh, Jason, you don't know what you're saying, she gasped, her great, dark eyes wide in the moon-silver of her face.

Oh, yes I do, my love! he laughed, swinging her ankles dangling round him in full circle and putting her toes back again on the wooden stoop. Tonight. Now. On the midnight bus. I love you, my Jill! You'll pack a trunk—the things you'U need. We'll take your little dog along—wrap her in a little shawl. Then you must write a note to your father—

Oh, no, Jason, she cried, struggling away. Oh, let me think, at least. You're saying it all too fast.

It's happened to me fast, too! he whispered, feeling with his lips for her mouth again in the dark. Everything came clear to my mind tonight. Things came to me—things we'll talk about someday. But none of them matters now. Jill is all that matters now—Jill with me. Oh, listen to me, honey, and don't keep pulling back.

She shook her head, not negatively, but as if trying to clear away some obscurement between her thoughts and his.

Jason, I need to think—to think—my brain's aching and rattling with all this: so much, so quick, she whispered, touching her closed lids lightly with a thumb and finger tip.

She gave a little gasp that was half pleasure, half sob.

No boy, she said, ever asked me that before. To—marry him!

I know, he cried softly. Oh, I knew that because I wanted that to be.

Jason, this is all too racing fast, she mumbled. I feel so dizzy. My legs are like water. Jason, why can't we talk about it some more—later: not tonight.

For reasons, he said. Reasons you wouldn't argue with me for.

What reasons, Jason? she said, a little gravely.

Oh, just say for the reasons that make me love you, he lied lovingly. Those are the best reasons after all.

Jason, tonight? Oh, Jason, I don't think—No, Jase, I couldn't tonight. Oh, it's all too quick!

You love me, don't you? he whispered casually, in a sudden squeeze of terror.

She stared at him carefully, slowly, her gaze feasting upon his face in the shadow of leaves and all the dying flowers.

Yes, she said. I love you, Jason Hunnicutt, I do love you.

More than anyone before? he asked. More than Cole?

Her face was bright and tinted with the breathless excitement of a child at the prospect of a new game.

Yes. I love you, Jason, she went on. More oh much more than ever I loved him! Because never could I fancy Cole asking me that—to go away with him. To marry. And as much as the times when I wanted more than anything to run away forever from something here that's dark and sad and dangerous I could never think of that with Cole.

Then you will? he whispered, squeezing her hands till they ached.

No—yes. Oh, Jason, I can't think it out straight! she gasped. There's something here that holds me. And, for the life of me, I can't even remember what that thing is. Tell me what it is that keeps me here, Jason? Who, Jason?

Nothing, he said. No one. There's no one to keep you here. There's everything to make you want to run away with me.

Yes, Jason, you're what I want to run away with. But, Jason, what is it I've wanted to run away froml she went on. Oh, you can't know the times it's come over me—only flickers of it: they never last long enough for me even to remember—a terrible wanting to run. To find someone to lead me away from something—from someone here.

Isn't being in love reason enough to go with me? he said.

Yes—no, she said. Yes. Btit no, too. Oh, Jason, you're making me think too fast. It's coming all checkered, all broken in my mind—pieces of thoughts, not whole ones. Wait, Jason, let me think. Oh, wait.

You're shaking, he said. You mustn't shake, darling.

It's so cold, she said. I'm so scared.

Do you want my jacket round your shoulders, over your coat? he asked gently.

Your jacket wouldn't warm my scaredness, she sighed.

Oh, there should be rooms in the world for talks like this, he sighed. Rooms just for that. People shouldn't have to talk about such important things as this out-of-doors. In the wind and nothing but the cold moon of a fall night to keep them warm.

Listen, she said suddenly. If you promise me something—I have an idea. But you'll have to promise first.

Anything, he said.

Well, you can come upstairs with me, she said. And we can talk in my room. But you'll have to promise to leave in five minutes.

Well, he said. Sure. But there's your father to keep in mind.

Are you afraid, Jason? she said.

No, he said. Not any more. No.

Then will you promise? she cried softly. Five minutes, Jason. Not a second longer. Promise? Don't you want to come?

Yes, he said. I promise, Jill.

Then come, she breathed, and grasping his hand in her fingers drew him after her up the shafts of lamplight that fell in black and yellow zigzag down the scooped and narrow stairway.

She said: No boy has ever stood where you stand now,

Jason Hunnicutt, beside my dresser—by my picture of her. Look at her, Jason. Here. Isn't my Mama beautiful?

She was very beautiful, he said, taking the peeling chrome frame in his fingers.

Not was, Jason. Is! she cried. Look at her face there, Jason. Then look at mine. Can't you see it? There's not a shade, not a hair of difference. Even that dress she's wearing—why, it's yonder in my clothespress now. Do you want me to put it on for you?

I love you like you look, he said. Don't change how you look now. Yes, I can see. Like the picture. Like her.

Not like her. I am her, she said. In every way that really counts. Jason, that's the only way we can keep people from being dead. By being them. But then I was always Mama. Even before. Daddy says that.

Jill, we've only a few minutes.

Five, she laughed. You promised.

And she knelt and scooped up her little white dog: fat and foohsh with sleep, long silky hair round its face and feet; it had roused itself from its corner cushion and come waggling to her toes, shaking its face and yawning, trying to be awake enough to make a decent show of pleasant welcome.

Jill, think about it now, he said. Oh, please say you will.

Isn't she pretty? Isn't she beautiful—my BamBam? Jill murmured, hiding her lips in the little dog's silky neck. My beautiful BamBam.

Jill, he said quietly. Won't you tell me now? Yes? Say yes?

Tell you what, Jason? she whispered. Yes to what?

The thing I asked you down there on the steps, he said.

She looked at him strangely, put the little dog down, stood a moment, a baffled frown on her wide, smooth brow. She looked at him again and then shook her head a little and sat down suddenly, sideways, on the edge of the bed, staring at the flowered squares of the quilt.

Mama made this, she said absently. Pieces of her oldest dresses—dresses she wore when she and Daddy were first married. So old—so beautiful and old. Aren't they beautiful, Jason?

He sighed, nodded, sittmg miserable on the edge of the rocker by the dresser.

Jason, what did you ask me? she said then. Everything's gone so fast in my mind tonight—torn pictures, colored paper faces. I can hardly think. Jason, do you know you're the first boy who's ever been in this room since I've lived

here? Can you imagine it? Cole always wanted to come up here. But I put an end to that. Because I knew good and well why he wanted to be up here with me alone. It's such a shame about Cole—he was so good, so kind. He was someone I could have loved nearly as much as 1 love you if it hadn't been for that other him. Why did he have to be that way? His hands always wanting to stroke me Uke I was some kind of cat. Jason, do you know I was always fighting with him, pushing his hands away? Sometimes he was like a crazy person.

Jill, there's only a few minutes, he said.

Oh, no, she cried with a gentle laugh. There's forever, Jason.

Only minutes for me, he said. You said that. You made me promise. Minutes to ask you again what I asked you down there.

She stared at him, still dreaming out her puzzle, smiling a little with her face tilted to one side.

What was it you asked me, Jason?

Jill, I asked you to come away with me, he said. Tonight. On the midnight bus.

Yes, she said. Oh yes, I remember now. You want to take me away from all the dark, evU danger that's here among us. Isn't that what you want to take me away from, Jason?

Jill, I want you to come with me because I love you, he said. Not because of anything else.

Yes, I know, she said. But the other reason is strong, Jason! You feel it, don't you, Jason—like a dark, heavy cloud—a mist with fear and death inside it. A fog with sudden, jarring flashes inside it and someone being dead beside you when it's over. Don't you, Jason? Sometimes I see it— daytimes when I'm not even sleeping I dream, Jason—and I want to run away. Sometimes I can't stand it for the wanting of someone to take me away from that cloud dream—and the face that's always there inside it.

I know, he said. It will all go away when we're alone somewhere together. No more bad dreams then, Jill.

And the terrible thing, she went on, heedless of anything he said. The terrible thing about that face is that it's someone I love very much. And it's—well, it's just purely laughable: thinking that face would ever do me harm.

You don't know him, he said. Not like I've come to know him tonight.

Him, Jason? she murmured, looking up at his eyes again. Who?

You know who, he said. Your father.

Oh, no, she said. It's not his face I almost see. It's hers — Mama's face. And that's—it's silly, Jason. Mama, who'd never hurt a hving creature. Not me surely—and surely not someone I loved. No, Jason. Not beautiful Jane Nancy, my lovely mother. She never harmed a Uving soul! Oh, Jason, I have the most awful headache. It's like the one I got the night poor Cole died.

Maybe I spoiled everything, he said, by asking you so quick. Jill, I couldn't wait. I love you so much. It has to be tonight.

I know, she said, lying back on the bed and touching her forehead gently with the knuckles of her hand. It's very sweet. It's very beautiful of you, Jason, to want to take me away. Oh, Jason, I feel like dying every time I imagine something happening to you.

Nothing's going to happen to me, he said.

It might, Jason, she said in a voice so soft that he could scarcely hear and the little dog BamBam whimpered suddenly and stepped down from her cushion and, standing a moment looking at Jill, wagging her tail uneasily, went then to the bedside and looked up at her, making little gasps: a queer, choked whimpering.

Sometimes I have these pictures in my head, she went on. Of you being dead. And then—and then I see her face, Jason: Mama's face. Oh, it's too horrible. Because it couldn't be Mama—so gentle. Look at me, Jason. Look at my face and see how Mama's face is a face that could never hurt anyone. Is it, Jason?

No, he said. Jill, you know what I think about you.

Not me, Jason, she said abruptly and with a kind of oblique sternness. I'm talking about Mama's face.

He glanced over at the face of the paper woman, blurred and drowned in its fading suns, amid the, even originally, improbable colors of fiesta cheapness, arm raised and vaporising into her extinct lover.

No, it's not that kind of face, he said.

Oh, Jason, I'm cold—cold, she cried softly, covering her eyes with her fingers. My head aches and I'm cold. And it's fear that makes the cold, Jason. If only I could run away. Maybe someday Daddy would forgive me—maybe he would. But even if he didn't—I wouldn't care. Not if someone could

take me away from that face—the cloud and the dream I see. That dream when I'm wide awake. Horrible—horrible! Jill, that's why I'm pleading, he said suddenly, rising and going to her side at the bed's edge. To take you away tonight. I think, she said. Yes, I think I could. Daddy would be so sorely hurt. Btit I think I could. Jason, I really do.