That Camden Summer (26 page)

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nature forged on with its summer schedule and left a ravaged woman to gather her forces in the road.

Time passed ... five minutes or ten ... she knew not which, before the voice got through. Get up. Go for help.

She hauled herself upright and sat braced with one hand, appalled at her body's inability to be controlled by will. It continued to tremble as if enfeebled, and no amount of reasoning would restore her calm. She stared numbly at her dusty skirts, at her left shoe where the roadbed had scraped away the shiny white toe and left bare leather. Some crows flapped over, calling loudly. Her head hurt.

1need a bath ... please ... somebody, help me get his slime off my body.

She pushed to her feet and rose unsteadily, the gravel embedded in her palms like gems in a mounting of flesh. Pieces of it fell as she lifted her skirts and pulled up her underclothes, holding the buttonless waistband of her pantaloons in place. She shuffled to the carl leaving behind her white cap and one mother-of-pearl button among the heel scrapes in the road. The front seat was lying where it had fallen, beside the running board. She wrestled it into the Ford, then set the levers, cranked the machine and drove down off Howe Hill onto Hope Road, along the Megunticook River beside Washington Street and eventually through town to Belmont Street.

The voice in her head told her where she must go. She didn't want her children to see her in

this condition, nor her mother - and going to Grace's was out of the question - but why inflict her troubles on Gabriel Farley, a man who didn't want to be bothered? Sheer selfpreservation drove her to his door, her thoughts scarcely thoughts, but mindless instinct to seek refuge.

Lifting her knuckles to his screen door, she heard the voice chanting again: Let him be home ... let him be home ... Somewhere in her distant perceptions she detected the smell of meat roasting and coffee brewing, but suppertime and its humdrum routine were unrelated to this day.

She knocked and he came, holding a dishtowel he'd been using as a pot holder- appearing in the doorway above her like Saint Michael the archangel disguised in blue chambray and khaki. "Roberta?"

"Gabriel ... I

"Roberta, what's wrong?"

"I didn't know where else to come."

"What happened?" He moved swiftly around the screen door, his eyebrows beetling in concern-, as he cast aside the dishtowel.

"The girls are home . . . and ... and ... the girls are home . . . and ... I don't want them

* the girls ... oh, Gabriel

"What happened?" He gripped her arms and felt her shuddering deep within.

"I'm sorry to be such a nuisance." She acted peculiar, foggy, like a sleepwalker.

"You're not a nuisance, Roberta. Now tell me what happened."

She stared at his throat for some time, as if unable to make sense of her presence here-, then turned her head with mechanical smoothness and studied the crazed white siding beside his back door.

Almost dispassionately-, she told him, "Elfred raped me. "

"Oh, Jesus," he whispered as her knees gave-, and he plucked her up into his arms and carried her inside.

His kitchen walls whizzed past as she objected, "Is Isobel here? Isobel can5t see me. Gabe, stop. "

He hurried through his house, up the stairs, around the corner into a bedroom and laid her on a soft bed.

"That sonofabitch," he said-, filling her range of vision as he braced his hands beside her shoulders. "He raped you?"

"I tried to stop him-, but it was no use. He was so strong, Gabe-, and I ... I A sob interrupted.

"Where did it happen?"

"Out on Howe H-Hill." She swallowed and controlled her sobs. "My car ran out of gas and he stopped to h-help me fill it, and then he ... he . . . " She tried not to cry-, but the memory jumped up and replayed in her mind, and with it came the shakes again. She flung an arm over her eyes and felt Gabriel touch her dirty sleeve.

He saw flagrant evidence - the gravel ground into her wrist, her dirty clothes, the purple bruises on her throat.

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"Did he do this?"

From behind her arm she said., "I didn't do anything to encourage him, Gabriel honest you've got to believe me."

"I believe you, Roberta." Touching a bruise on her throat5 he repeated., "Did he do this?" "I fought and I screamed, but he was stronger

than I thought and there was nothing I could do. First he held me down-, and when I wouldn't stop fighting he b-burned me with his c-cigar."

"Oh God . . He drew her up and gathered and rage her close while she wept, while pity , created a maelstrom of emotions within him. He clasped her to his breast, her forehead at his throat, his eyes closed, terrified to ask where she'd been burned. His heart was racing as he pictured the worst. But he forced himself to ask, "Where?"

She pulled back some and ran the edges of her dirty hands across her eyes. "Under my chin." Under her chin. Sweet Jesus. He'd kill that

goddamned sonofabitch. He took her shoulders and urged, "Lie down, Roberta. Let me see." When he saw the red-rimmed blister his rage

trebled. But he forced himself to think of her first and vengeance second.

"I've got to put something on that."

He moved to rise but she clutched his sleeve. "No., Gabe, please. Isobel will be coming home for supper and she can't find me here looking this way. I don't want my girls to find out."

He covered her hand with his own, squeezing hard. "Isobel's at your house. I'll call there and tell her to stay awhile. You rest and I'll be

right back." He rose from the bed, extending his hands to prolong his touch as he moved away. "I'll only be a minute, Roberta."

His hand slid away and she heard him hammer downstairs as if someone were after him with an axe. She closed her eyes and listened to the call bell ring as he summoned the operator-, thenhis voice, indistinct, as he gave the number. Of the conversation with Isobel, she heard only snatches. "Mrs. Jewett and I are talking ... would you ... yes ... our house you later Then nothing more.

She rested, with her hands at her sides, fanning them over the soothing nap of the bedspread that had probably been selected and washed and tucked beneath the pillows countless times by his wife. Odd, but the thought of that dead woman whom she had never known brought courage and strength to Roberta.

She sat up unsteadily and balanced herself with both hands3 looking down blearily at the spread. It was patchwork. The walls were papered in gray, spattered with yellow roses.

He found her that way, sitting up looking somewhat stronger.

"I brought some boric acid and pineoline, but You should see a doctor."

"No," she said with surprising vehemence. "No doctor! It'll be all over town and my girls will hear about it. If I wanted that, I would have gone straight home."

"But you're hurt, Roberta, scraped up and burned."

"The burn is nothing." She took the tin from

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his hands and tried to open it, but her shaky hands couldn't manage. "It'll heal up in a week, and the real hurt is much deeper than any doctor can cure.,,

He retrieved the tin, opened it and said, "Lie back. I'll do it."

She did as ordered, lifting her chin while he? dusted the burn with boric acid, then dabbed it with pineoline jelly. She winced, and he did too, hating that he had to hurt her after all she'd already been hurt. "I'm sorry," he said, but she set her jaw and tolerated his ministrations with remarkable stoicism.

When she heard the cap go back on the pineoline her eyes opened and met his. He rose from the side of the bed and she sat up, too, swinging her legs over the edge and raising one dirty hand to her hair. He stood before her, out of his element, uncertain, but realizing she was still in no condition to get to her feet and walk out of here.

"You're sure about the doctor?" She nodded, her eyes downcast. "Then what do you want me to do?"

"A bath," she said quietly to her knees. "I'd like a bath."

Her answer jolted him with unwanted images and a keener realization of the sordidness remaining, even after the act was over.

"Of course," he said, turning to the dresser. She studied the blue chambray on his back as he moved away and opened a drawer.

"I'm so much trouble to you," she said. "Yes, you are. But not in the way you

think. Not today." He selected something then moved on to a highboy, followed by her eyes. Momentarily he returned to the bed and laid some clothing beside Roberta. "These are some things of Caroline's. She was a lot thinner than you-, but that's a dress she wore while she carried Isobel, so it should do. I'll bring up some water."

He went off, leaving her with his wife's precious3 untouchable clothing. She picked up the garments.) overcome by his generosity and how far he'd come during this eventful summer, from where he'd been when they first met. She held the dress by the shoulders and it cascaded over her knees, an umbrella of violet-sprigged muslin with two small permanent stains on the front yoke. The stains - evidence of a real life, in the real world - released Roberta's tears once more. She put her face into Caroline Farley's maternity dress and silently told her, I love your husband. I don't want to-, but I do, and he doesn't want to love me either, but I believe he does. You see, I'm nothing like you, and it scares him, and he fights his feelings for me because he thinks he's being disloyal to you. I know perfectly well that if he ever breaks down and tells me-, it'll never be like it was with you. But he's a good man, and you were lucky. Thank you for letting me borrow your clothes.

Gabe stopped in the doorway) holding a dishpan of hot water, with a towel slung over his shoulder. Roberta raised her face from Caroline's dress-, which she held bunched up

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in both hands. There was a prayerfulness to her pose that caught at his heart.

"Water was still warm in the reservoir." He entered and set the dishpan in the center of a hooked rug. "Brought you some soap and a washcloth and towel, too." He laid them on a nearby chair, then turned to find her watching him, her hands fallen to her lap in the folds of the sprigged muslin.

"Thank you, Gabriel," she said.

"When you're dressed, call me and I'll carry the dishpan out."

"I will. You're very thoughtful."

After an awkward pause, he moved once again, then stopped abruptly.

"You sure you can stand up okay?"

She did, to show him. "You see? I'll be fine. "

"Okay then, take your time." He gestured with lifted palms. "There's no hurry."

She sent him a weak smile and he headed for the door.

"Gabriel, there's one more thing I need to ask you to do for me."

He spun in place. "Anything."

"It's an indelicate matter, but I don't see any other way than to ask. You see ... I don't want his baby. If there should accidentally be one, I don't want it. Do you understand what I mean?"

He colored and shifted his weight, dropping his eyes to the rug. "Guess I do."

"Could you mix up some of that boric acid in a quart of warm water and bring me my bag

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from the motorcar? There)s something in there I can use."

He cleared his throat, still unable to meet her eyes. "Of course. Be right back."

The bedroom door was closed when he returned with the things she had requested. "I'll leave it out here5 Roberta," he called, tipping his head toward the door.

"Thank you, Gabriel," she said from inside his room.

"Listen, I've got to leave for a while. Will you be all right for a little bit?"

"I'll be fine."

He shifted his weight to his other hip, roughed up the hair behind his right ear and decided that

- indelicate subject or not - he could be just as brave as she.

"Commode's under the bed-, Roberta. Feel free to use it. "

Beyond his bedroom door, all was silence. He pictured her standing on the other side and wondered what she'd use, then felt like a damned pervert for giving in to curiosity at a time like this. But hell, he'd been married to Caroline for eight years, had lived with her through a wedding night, a pregnancy and a birthing without running up against anything this earthy. He felt as hot-faced as the time he'd seen the fat lady at the carnival who couldn't close her legs. But this was no time for dissembling. Roberta had been raped, and reality needed facing. Remarkable-, how she faced whatever life handed out to her and turned the stronger for it.

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He put a palm on the door frame and told her, "You wait here for me. Don't walk home, understand?"

"I won't. But Gabriel? Where are you going?" "To my shop," he lied. "Quick stop, then I'll be right back."

"Wait! Gabriel, could I ask you one more favor, since you're going out anyway?" "Anything."

"My nurse's cap I must have left it up there on the road where it happened. I don't want anyone to find it, and I need it for tomorrow morning. Would you mind driving up and getting it for me?"

"Just tell me where."

"At the bottom of Howe Hill where it meets Hope Road. There's a T in the road."

"I know where it is. Take me about twenty minutes. You be okay?"

"I'll be just fine ... and thanks a lot, Gabriel.

"All right, then ... I'll be back."

He made plenty of noise clomping down the stairs so she'd know he was gone and had total privacy.

Outside, he didn't think twice about taking her car. It was parked out front, and when he cranked it he was concentrating on Elfred with so much rage he nearly lifted the front tires off the ground. He motored straight to Elfred's house, gripping the wheel and scowling, feeling his pulse elevate with each passing block until his adrenaline was pumping sweet vengeance through his bloodstream. An eye for an eye

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isn't good enough, he decided. In Elfred's case we'll go maybe twenty to one.

The Spears' front door was open and voices came from the rear of the home. It was postsuppertime for most families-, and Elfred's was probably just finishing up the meal.

Gabe pounded on the screen with the edge of a fist and shouted-, "Elfred, get out here! I want to talk to you! "