Destiny (47 page)

The nuns knew what had happened. When they realized, Cassie said, their faces went pale and shut, but they took Violet in just the same. The first transfusion seemed to work. When Helene and Cassie got there that evening, her mother was conscious. There was a crucifix above her bed, and an IV in her arm, and a woman at the end of the ward who kept groaning. Helene looked down into her mother's face. Her skin looked white and papery, stretched very tight across the bones. Her hands rested on cool white starched sheets; air-conditioning whispered; outside, the rain fell.

"This is a very nice place, Cassie," she said. "They have a garden. One of the nuns told me. They let you sit out there, you know. When you're better."

It was the last thing Helene heard her say. They gave her a second transfusion during the night. She died fifteen minutes before Cassie and Helene got there the next morning. The sister who told them had a soft calm voice. She sounded as if she were praying. After a while, she stood up; the beads of her rosary glittered against the black of her skirt. Her mother was ready now, she said. Helene could see her.

They drew the cotton curtains around the bed, and the sister stood back, but did not leave her. Helene looked down at her mother. The IV had been removed, the bed tidied. Her mother's hands were crossed on her chest, and her eyes were closed. Her features looked sharp and peaked. She didn't look like her mother at all, Helene thought. When she bent, finally, and rested her lips against her mother's forehead, her skin was dry and cold. She didn't know what to do after that. There seemed nothing to stay for—her mother was not here—but she didn't like to leave either.

After a while, the sister sighed, and took her by the arm, and led her away. She gave her a neatly labeled shopping bag with her mother's clothes, and the zip-up carryall she had taken with her into Montgomery. Helene opened it when she got back to Cassie's. Inside there was a freshly laundered handkerchief, some clean underclothes, a comb, and a small notebook with nothing written in it. The underclothes were neatly folded

DESTINY • 291

around something hard and square. When Helene opened them up, she found the old box of Joy, which her mother used to perfume her things, since, in Alabama, even the notions departments had never heard of lavender sachets.

Her mother died on the Sunday morning; the funeral was the following Wednesday, and Cassie and Helene were the oaly mourners. Cassie paid for two big wreaths, fashioned from mauve immortelles, one in the shape of a circle, the other a heart. Helene knew her mother would have hated them. All the way back from the Orangeburg cemetery, Cassie fretted.

"They should've been violets," she said over and over. "I know she would have liked that. I had to settle for the color, that's all. They last well —that's a comfort. But they should have been violets. I just wished they'd had some of those."

That evening she tried to make Helene eat, and Helene tried, too, because she knew Cassie was being kind, and she didn't want to hurt her feelings. She managed a little of Cassie's fried chicken, but every mouthful choked her. At last Cassie quietly took the plates away. When she came back into the room her face was flushed, and she had a manila envelope in her hand. She put it down on the table, then she sat down opposite Helene. She looked awkward, and fidgety.

"We got to talk this through, honey," she said at last. "We got to. You ain't cried. You ain't said one single solitary thing nearly. We got to talk it through."

She hesitated, and when Helene said nothing, she burst out, "Honey, you can't stay in Orangeburg, not now. You got to go someplace else, some place real far from here. Your mother, she had a sister in England. She used to tell me about her, and the house where they grew up and all. I figure you ought to go to her. She's your own flesh and blood. I figure— when she knows about your mother—she'll be glad to take you in. Your daddy now—" she stopped—"I thought about him too. But Violet never wanted nothing from him. Told me once she didn't know if he was ahve or dead and didn't care either. And I know for sure he never lifted one finger to find you all, or help you, and Violet wouldn't go to him, no matter when things were hard. But her sister ... I think Violet would have wanted that. She talked about England so much. Not so much of late, it's true. But in the old days. When she first came to work with me. If she could speak now, Helene, I reckon that's what she'd say."

She paused, the color rising in her cheeks. Then she pushed the manila envelope across the table.

"Five hundred dollars. Take it, honey. It's yours."

Helene stared at the envelope; slowly she raised her head. Cassie nodded and smiled.

292 • SALLY BEAUMAN

"I kept it by me. Kept it for a rainy day, as the saying goes." She shrugged. "Then I thought—what the hell am I keepin' it for? I ain't as young as I was; I got no kids of my own; the business is doing fine now. I don't need it. You do." She leaned across the table. "Honey, I checked. You got enough there to get a train and a plane. A ticket out, and a bit left over to help you get started in England. I wish it was more, that's all. I was real fond of your mama, Helene. I reckon I owed her a lot, helpin' me get started with the business the way she did. And it hurts my heart to think of all the things went wrong for her. So you take it now, you hear me? You take it, or I'll start gettin' mad. . . ."

Helene rested her hand on the envelope. She kept it there a moment, then slowly she slid it back across the table.

"Cassie," she began slowly. "Cassie—I can't. I'm grateful to you—more grateful than I could ever say. But I can't take this. It wouldn't be right. And anyway . . . you must know, Cassie. You saw. I can't go. Not now."

Cassie's mouth tightened. "You mean that Tanner business—that what you mean?"

"I know who did it." Helene's voice was steady. "I know why they killed Billy. And I know who. I'm not going. Not until I've said what I know."

There was a silence. Cassie suddenly looked terribly tired. She leaned her face on her hands, and when she straightened up, her voice was sharp with anger.

"Don't folks ever learn? I took you for a lot of things, Helene Craig, but I never took you for a fool until now. You got a head on your shoulders, girl—you use it." She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. "Okay, you got something to tell. You tell me. You saw them, did you? Saw their faces? Saw the gun in their hands? Saw the gun go oflF?"

"No—not exactly . . ." Helene looked at her in confusion. "But they did it to stop Billy talking, to stop him giving evidence about the other night. I know that! You know it—everyone in Orangeburg knows it! You saw Billy when he came out of the police station—you must have seen the car following him."

"I saw the Calvert Cadillac. Saw the folks in the car. Saw it drive off down Main Street." Cassie's mouth snapped shut. "Couldn't say if it was following you and Billy or not. It was just drivin'—that's all I saw."

"Well, it's not all / saw. ..." Helene's voice rose in indignation. "I saw them all talking—up by the gas station. Ned Calvert. Merv Peters. Eddie Haines. Two others. One of them had a hunting rifle. They followed us down the road, nearly to the trailer park. Then Eddie Haines shouted out that Billy just lost himself his job. Then they drove off. ..."

"It ain't a crime firing a man. Not as I know of. Not in this state.

DESTINY • 293

Shooting's a crime. Sometimes . . ." She sighed, and her voice softened. "Helene, honey, can't you see what I'm sayin' to you? You go down to the station, they'll laugh in your face. You got no evidence, honey. None at all."

"I haven't?" Helene looked at her uncertainly.

"Honey, if you'd seen them do it, you know what'd happen? The same thing happened to Billy, that's all." She gave a bitter smile. "You'd find the whole machinery of justice just run out of gas. Its wheels'd turn so slow you wouldn't believe it. And then you'd end up the way Billy did. Dead. Hit by an automobile. Drowned swimming in the river. How long you lived in this place, honey? How come you don't know things hke that?" She stopped, her fingers resting on the manila envelope. Slowly she pushed it back across the table.

"You think Billy Tanner'd want you to get hurt any more than your mama would? When it'll do no good. When it won't change one thing? When you didn't see enough, and if you had, you'd never make it to a court to say so? Billy was no fool, 'spite of what folks said 'round here. When he went down to that station he knew—knew he was puttin' a noose right around his neck. That was his choice, honey, don't you see? You ain't got a choice, not unless you're figurin' on dyin' along with Billy. So you take that money and you go. First thing. Soon as you can. There's a train in the morning. ..." She pushed the envelope under Helene's hand.

"Think of it as a loan, honey. Think of it any ways you like. But take it. Take it for me, okay? I've seen enough hate and enough killin'." Helene slowly picked up the envelope. She raised her eyes to Cassie's face.

"It was Ned Calvert," she said slowly. "Maybe he didn't hold the gun himself, but he was involved. He killed Billy. And he killed my mother."

She saw Cassie's eyes widen as she took in Helene's words. Then slowly her face composed itself again. She rested her hands on the table and levered herself tiredly to her feet. She turned away.

"I hear a lot of talk when I'm workin'," she said quietly. "Women's talk. I heard a lot of talk about Ned Calvert. I heard talk about your mama. I even heard talk about you—and sometimes it was all three together. I don't want to hear no more. It makes me so weary, my bones start to ache. I thought Ned Calvert was one smart sonuvabitch the first time I laid eyes on him, and if ever a man had it comin' to him, he's that man. But nothin's going to touch him, honey, you got to understand that—leastways, not in Orangeburg, it ain't. Forget him. Put him right out of your mind. Take the money. . . ." She turned around and looked at Helene's face, her eyes apprehensive, as if what she saw there alarmed her.

"He'll die, honey," she said. "One of these days, he'll just up and die.

294 • SALLY BEAUMAN

Then he'll face his Maker. There's justice in the next world if there ain't in this. Sooner or later—it comes to us all. You'll see. . . ."

There was a silence. The girl didn't believe her, Cassie could see that; at the mention of divine justice, her lips curled. She sat looking down at the manila envelope. Then, after a few minutes, her fingers closed over it. She picked it up off the table, and with a sudden odd passionate gesture, pressed it against her heart.

"I'll take it. Thank you, Cassie. I'll do as you say."

She looked away, and then quickly, with an awkward grace, she got up and hugged Cassie tightly. She pressed her face into Cassie's bony shoulders.

"You've been so kind," she said. "So kind. I'll never forget that, Cassie. I'll pay this back one day. I promise."

Cassie patted her shoulder; she dropped a quick kiss on Helene's hair. Then she tilted Helene's chin up, and looked down into her face with a troubled frown. The beautiful blue-gray eyes met hers, then slid away.

Cassie stepped back. What she saw in Helene's face frightened her. She saw affection for herself, gratitude—sure. But she also saw something else, something the girl was trying to hide.

Hate.

Such a beautiful face. Such a young girl. And such hate.

Cassie went into the kitchen to fix some coffee, and Helene sat alone in the shabby sitting room. She shut her eyes and let the loathing loose. It swept up through her body, a current of astonishing power.

He'll pay, she thought. He'll pay.

She slipped her finger under the flap of the envelope, lifted it exultantly above her head, and shook it. All Cassie's carefully saved dollar bills cascaded over her head and fluttered to the ground.

Not in the next world, she thought. In this.

When Cassie came back with the coffee, Helene was sitting at the table quietly. The fat manila envelope was on the table in front of her. She smiled at Cassie, that astonishing smile she had always had, which could hght up a whole room. Cassie sighed, and sat down.

Such a beautiful kid, she thought. That queer intense look had gone now; the blue eyes that met hers were no longer cold, they were open and frank. Cassie relaxed. She'd been upset, that was all, and that was natural enough after what she'd been through. But she was young, she'd get over it. Why, she looked better already. Extraordinary—the kid looked almost happy now.

DESTINY • 295

"We'll send your aunt a wire in the morning," she said. "Tell her what happened. Tell her you're comin' home."

"Home?" She looked puzzled for a moment, then she nodded quickly. "Oh, yes. Of course. Fine, Cassie."

No more argument. That was a relief. The girl was going to be practical, and that always helped.

Cassie sighed, and began to pour the coffee. It was going to be all right, she thought. It was going to be all right.

That night, Helene went to bed on the fold-out couch in Cassie's small living room. She lay there quietly, hstening to the sounds of Cassie moving about in her bedroom next door; the creak of floorboards, then the sigh of springs as she climbed into bed.

The band of light beneath the door disappeared, and Helene lay in the dark. Her face felt stiff with the tears she had not cried, and her body ached. She could feel the grief, not just in her mind, which was where she expected it to be, but in her body too—a dull sick ache lodged in her stomach and around her heart. She had never seen death before, and now its images flared in her mind: the quickness of it, the finality of it. She saw Billy, lying in the grass by the roadside; she saw her mother, hands neatly folded across her breast. She'd read once that people who had died looked tranquil, as if they slept. It wasn't true, she thought. They looked dead; you looked at them, and you knew—they'd gone; they were never coming back.

The images made the pain tighten in her chest, and she tried to force them away, but she couldn't control her mind that way. Back they came, vivid as lightning, and after a while, quite suddenly, she began to cry.