Beach Music (53 page)

“Choose your poison,” he said to me.

“A Bombay Gin martini. Straight up. With a twist,” I said.

“And you, mademoiselle?” the doctor asked Leah.

“Lemonade, please, Doctor Jim,” she said.

Lucy walked in from the garden and came over to kiss both of us. Her kisses were indifferent, given so casually as to appear thoughtless. She smelled like wild sage and earth.

“The usual, dear?” Dr. Pitts said, from the antique bar where he hovered over a row of cut-glass decanters. “Love Potion Number Nine?”

“Sounds divine, darling,” Lucy said, winking at Leah. “You think it’s time to feed the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Leah?”

Leah checked the grandfather clock at the end of the room and said, “Yes, look.”

Sitting down opposite me, Lucy began singing a country song from her vast repertoire. This time she chose Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line.”

She had a deep, good voice and she loved to show it off. Dr. Pitts smiled with affection as she sang and he mixed.

There was a slight movement beneath a chair at the far end of the long sitting room and another near the drapery along the windows facing south. It took less than a minute for the four box turtles that Lucy kept as pets in the house to begin their slow stately walks away from their secret hiding places. Their appearance seemed enchanted to Leah no matter how often she had witnessed Lucy’s singing invitation to them to join the rest of the family for cocktails. Their shells were etched and delicate, porcelains made from foxfire and chocolate. They looked like pond flowers moving across the room. When all had arrived, surrounded her feet, and looked up at her with that ethereal patience that seems to be the hallmark of cold-blooded animals, Lucy passed two bowls over to Leah and watched as her granddaughter fed the turtles raw hamburger and lettuce. The turtles were mannerly and each waited its turn. When they finished, they turned and moved with liturgical grace back to
the underworld of the house as Dr. Pitts timed their exits to his appearance with the drinks.

“I tried to sing rock and roll to them once, Leah,” Lucy said, taking her vodka tonic from her husband, their eyes meeting quickly.

“It’ll put hair on your chest,” Dr. Pitts said, moving from Lucy to Leah, who took her lemonade with thanks.

“But the turtles didn’t budge with rock and roll,” Lucy swore. “Then I tried Christmas carols. Nothing. Because of Doctor Jim, I sang the Navy hymn. No turtles. Then I sang ‘The Wabash Cannonball’ and those turtles came out of the gates like racehorses. These are pure country turtles and they respond to country rhythms. Nothing else moves them.”

“It’s true, Leah,” Dr. Pitts said. “I’m the chief witness for the defense. Wouldn’t mind signing an affidavit to that effect. A man’s got his word and that’s the most precious thing, don’t you know?”

He handed me my martini and like all ex-military men that I had ever met Dr. Pitts fixed a perfect one.

“Here’s blood in your eye,” Dr. Pitts toasted, lifting his glass, “and fire in your belly.”

I had noticed in my time home that most of what Dr. Pitts had to say was either ritualistic or purely social in nature. He was gentlemanly enough to know he was required to speak on occasion, but sensible enough to know that his best strategy during cocktail hour was his deference to his wife. He liked to say of himself that he was a man of few surprises, but what he meant was that he thought of himself as boring.

“Finally, there’s going to be some activity around here,” Lucy said to Leah. “Not a thing of consequence has happened since you arrived on the island. But that’s all about to change.”

“What’s going to happen, Grandma?” Leah said, walking over and sitting in her grandmother’s lap. I watched as my mother’s fingers ran easily through Leah’s black hair.

“Big doin’s.” Lucy said, “Ginny Penn’s coming home from the hospital tomorrow. All my boys’ll be here for the weekend.”

“John Hardin too?” Leah asked.

“I got a phone call from John Hardin today,” Lucy said. “He
was in marvelous spirits. He’s getting out of the hospital and is coming down to Waterford Sunday to be with all of us.” Then she turned to me. “John Hardin wants to show Leah his tree house. I’d like to go when you do. I hear it’s just marvelous what he’s done.”

“Is John Hardin really okay, Mama?” I said. “The last time I saw him he was holding the whole town at bay at gunpoint, and he seemed a bit overwrought to me.”

“You’ve always been insensitive to John Hardin,” Lucy said. “You’ve never taken the time to see the world as he sees it.”

“If I could see the world as he sees it, I’d be handcuffed to the same cot at the state hospital, Mother dear.”

“Sometimes your humor is in execrable taste, son.”

“That wasn’t humor, Mother.”

“What’s wrong with John Hardin?” Leah asked.

“He’s got headaches,” Lucy said.

“He’s got bats in his head,” I said.

It was almost seven and there was still light in the western horizon. As we looked out to the sea a wind lifted off the crests of the incoming waves creating a dialogue between the palms and bearing an iodine taste. The ocean air was heavy and sacred to Lucy, who had come to know what life felt like when it was lived in completely. Her senses blazed like five Lenten candles when she stared out into that portion of the ocean that extended beyond their land. I knew she believed the salt air and saltwater could save her.

The raccoons had already gathered in her backyard garden, clamoring loudly and jockeying for position. In their rowdy banditry, they looked like a pack of miscast hounds with their arched backs and clownish faces. But they were formidable animals. The back door slammed and Leah came out with the bag of dried cat food and the leftovers that Lucy had designated for that night’s feeding. For five minutes, the raccoons chattered and hissed and chased each other until the food was finished and the animals slipped out of the backyard and into the line of trees of an empty lot. When they disappeared it was like the memory of smoke that had gone.

“When I first came to the low country, your great-grandfather told me something I’ve never forgotten.”

“Grandpa Silas?” Leah asked.

“He was my first teacher down here. He shared everything he knew about these islands.”

“He wants to teach me how to shoot a deer,” Leah said. “But Daddy says Great-grandpa’s got better things to teach me.”

“Silas told me
this
the first day I met him,” Lucy said. “He told me that when the white man first came to these islands, a squirrel could climb a tree on this beach, head west, and not have to touch the ground until it reached the Mississippi River. That’s how thick the forests used to be in this country.”

“What about the marsh?” Leah asked. “How could the squirrels get across the marsh?”

“Smart girl,” Lucy said. “Never take anything at face value.”

Dr. Pitts and I had watched the evening feeding from a picture window in the den. There was an odd imbalance between us, as if the generation that separated us was a river of such treachery that no harbor pilot could promise safe steerage through its wreck-filled channels. I could tell that my mother’s husband desperately wanted me to like him and his inarticulate efforts at small talk were the doctor’s way of bridging the gap between us.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Dr. Pitts said.

“She certainly is,” I agreed and it took me a moment to realize that the doctor was not talking about Leah.

“She’s interested in everything. Got the raw enthusiasm of a girl. Never seen anything to match it. Her energy level is off the charts. I, for one, can’t keep up with her. You’re damn lucky to have such a mother. Quite a girl. Quite a girl.”

I knew that Dr. Pitts was rambling because he was uncomfortable with me. No matter how hard I tried I could not think of a single thing to say to put the doctor at ease. I let my mind drift through a series of safe subjects—fishing, golf, gardening, inflation, taxes—but nothing rose up spontaneously to break the silence between us. The effort left me exhausted, but no words took flight.

“Your brothers, Jack? Do they talk about me? Do they like me? Any information you could give on this subject would be much appreciated. Also treated with strictest confidentiality.”

“All of us know you love our mother, Doctor,” I said. “We’re very grateful to you.”

“So they’re not resentful of my taking command, so to speak,” the doctor said as both of us fixed our eyes on the women in our lives.

“Dad’s an alcoholic, Doctor,” I said. “I think that beneath the lake of booze he’s consumed since the early sixties, there’s a fairly decent man there. But I think he’d’ve been better off if he’d started drinking gasoline instead of bourbon. It would’ve killed him faster and we’d’ve hated him less.”

“Your father called today,” Dr. Pitts said. “Again, I’m afraid.”

“Why’s he calling here?”

“He gets a little tight, then calls to harass your poor mother,” he said. “I guess I should step in and put an end to it, but she says she can handle it. She needs all her strength, you know. It doesn’t do her much good to spread it around too thinly. Especially on nonsense.”

“I don’t understand leukemia,” I said. “Mom seems healthier than she’s ever been. She walks five miles a day after she wakes up. Her coloring’s back. Can she beat this thing?”

“Anything’s possible. The body’s a funny thing. It’s so full of surprises that it makes conventional wisdom seem silly.”

“So you think Mom might beat it?” I asked, and I realized that this was the first time I had dared to have any hope at all.

“I prefer to think that your mother’ll live forever,” Dr. Pitts said, choosing his words carefully. “I simply don’t think I could live without her. I have great hope for her because I’ve got no choice.”

“What kind of leukemia does Mom have?”

“The worst,” he said.

“Is her doctor any good?” I asked.

“It doesn’t make any difference how good he is,” Dr. Pitts said, clearing his throat uneasily.

Dr. Pitts walked off to refresh the drinks and I noticed a slight misstriding as though my stepfather were trying to conceal a limp. Taking our drinks out, we joined Lucy’s attendance to the warming springtime air. Plovers had begun to arrive from South America, rumoring the green tumult that would follow them.

We sat on the deck listening to the sea come in at its own pace. The waves moved, rhythmically and as if ordained, like the sands of a
moon-brightened hourglass. It was so peaceful and orderly and I looked fondly at my mother, who had always longed for such rituals of domestic tranquillity. The theatrics of pure normality moved her enormously.

Lucy was the first to see him coming. She did not give a sign that anything was amiss, but stood up and smoothed out the wrinkles of her dress with her hands.

“Jim, darling,” she said. “Could you run me quick back to T. T. Bones before the store closes? I forgot to buy the pasta and the bread for dinner.”

“Of course,” Dr. Pitts said, setting down his drink. “You entertain our guests.”

“Let me and Leah ride with you,” Lucy said and I saw her worried glance down the beach. I looked in the direction she was looking and understood everything without a word passing between us.

“Could you pick up a jar of Hellmann’s mayonnaise for me, Mama?” I said.

“I’ll be more than happy to,” she said. “Please start the water for the pasta.”

I looked at the figure of the man drawing nearer and said, “I’ll do that right now. Leah, pick up a dessert that looks good for your lunch.”

As they went through the house, I walked down the steps that led to the beach. The tide was coming in by inches as I watched my father drawing near, holding on to a pint bottle as though it were filled to the brim with semiprecious stones. His gait was unsteady as he headed directly toward the house and found me blocking his path. We took each other’s measure in the half-light of dusk.

“Taking up body surfing?” I asked. “Or just out speed walking to lose weight?”

“I need to speak with your mother,” Johnson Hagood said to me without affection. “I need to inquire about the state of her health.”

“Her health’s lousy,” I said. “She’s dying. Now beat it, Dad. You scare Mom every time you do this.”

He looked up toward the house, then back at me. “I haven’t been drinking,” he said, lifting the almost full bottle. “I brought this for show.”

“Sure.”

“My children have all turned, like rabid dogs, against me.”

“Not soon enough,” I said.

“You haven’t brought your daughter to see me yet,” he said in a wounded, self-pitying voice. “I guess you two’ve gotten too big for your britches living in Europe and being entertained by royalty.”

“Yeh, we’re in one Hapsburg palace after another,” I said, shaking my head sadly. “We’ve been to see you twice, Dad. You were comatose both times.”

“I’ve been under a lot of pressure lately,” Johnson Hagood said, checking the level of bourbon against the half-lit sky.

“What kind?”

“To quit drinking,” he said without irony, but I laughed out loud. “You’ve always hated me, Jack. You were always the leader of those who conspired against me.”

“Not always,” I corrected him. “For a couple of years, I just pitied you. But hatred came easily after that.”

“You take Leah to see Shyla’s parents every day. The Foxes treated you worse than I ever did.”

“The Foxes tried to take my child away from me,” I said. “You tried to take my childhood. The Foxes failed. You succeeded.”

My father looked past me toward the house where he thought Lucy was watching the scene. He screamed out to her, “Lucy! Lucy! Flag of Truce. I need to talk to you.”

“You’re going to embarrass her in front of all her neighbors.”

“That’s always been her weak spot.” My father chuckled. “She actually cares what her neighbors think. It’s given me great tactical advantage over the years. Look, get out of my way. There’s a doctor on Hilton Head who can cure your mother. He uses that medicine made out of apricot pits that you can only buy in Mexico.”

“Yeh,” I said. “Nobody dies of cancer in Mexico. Mom’s already got a doctor. He’ll do just as good a job killing her as anyone else.”