High Tide at Noon (5 page)

His breath quickened. “You're a sweet kid,” he said, his voice blurred. “A damn sweet kid. Let's sit down.”

There was some furniture left in the almost-empty house, and they sat down on an old cot. Joanna was dreamily glad she'd come. The afternoon in the orchard seemed years ago. She hadn't known then it would be like this. . . . She leaned against Simon and he put his face in her hair, and kissed the back of her neck. It sent little feathers of delight along her skin. Without thinking at all, she put her hand on his face, wondering vaguely at the fiery heat of it, and drew his head down.

“Oh, my God!” he whispered, and his arms tightened.

“Your heart's beating hard,” she said with a soft little chuckle.

“How's yours?” His voice thickened as his hand slipped over her breast. Hardly breathing, she lay in the circle of his arm, her mouth trembling and eager for his kiss. It came, hard and urgent, no longer gentle. And with it he moved so that she felt herself leaning backwards against an arm that lowered her very slowly, very gently, very steadily. She yielded with no thought of resistance.

“That's right,” he whispered.

It might have been his voice that broke the spell. But all at once the sweet languor was gone; even its memory didn't exist. Joanna was wide awake and trembling with cold and fear in an empty house, a dark house. She put her hands against his chest and pushed.

“What's the matter?” he muttered. “Don't be afraid of me, sweetheart.”

“Let me up,” she breathed. It was as if she had walked in her sleep and had awakened to terror and struggle in darkness. “Please, I want to go home, I don't want to stay here!”

She fought against the arms that held her while the soft voice cajoled and pleaded. “What are you scared of, Jo? I won't hurt you. I swear you'll be all right, you won't get into trouble or anything!” He talked rapidly, with growing incoherence, words tumbling over words. She knew he was frantic, and her terror grew. “Look, Jo, if you're my girl you'll have everything, all the money I make, silk stockings, candy, a watch, anything—
Jo!
”

He smothered her gasps with his lips and she fought him with all her wild young strength, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough until, to her own huge surprise, she burst into tears.

“Oh, Christ,” said Simon, and let her go. “So you're goin' to pull the salt-water business on me, are ye?” He was no longer afire, but coldly furious. “I'll give you five minutes to get the hell over it, and then you'll listen to reason. I don't let anybody fool with me, lady. Sooner or later, they pay up.”

He sat on the cot, smoking a cigarette. In the dimness his face was a thin devilish mask. Joanna stood shivering in the middle of the room, trying to calm herself. Through the window she saw the light in the clubhouse, a yellow glimmer through the moving spruce branches. It was the loveliest thing in the world, that light. If she were there now, she'd never ask for anything else in her life . . .

Her lightning dash took Simon by surprise, but not for long. When she flung herself across the room, Simon was off the cot; when she reached the bottom step, he was at the top. His voice tore at the darkness. “Come back here, damn you!”

She ran headlong through the uncut grass that was a wet tangle around her feet. Those feet were sure and swift, and they needed to be, with another pair thudding behind them. One misstep, one stumble to bring her to her knees in the uneven path—don't think of that! she warned herself. Escape was the thing.

Somehow she reached the clubhouse porch, and he stopped out in the dark lane. She went into the poolroom, making herself move slowly as if there were no reason for hurry, stifling her aching breath. She was thankful for the shadow outside the boundaries of the table, and for the intentness with which the boys played. Owen was making a shot, and Hugo looked on. It was Nils who looked up at her and nodded. He had come after she left; he knew, then, that she hadn't gone to see his sister. She stood against the door and felt her body burn with shame under his level blue glance.

“Kristi gone to bed?” Owen said over his shoulder. “Time you went home, it's way after nine.”

“I'll wait for you,” she said.

“You will like hell! I don't want the old man on my neck for keeping you out. He doesn't think much of you being on my coattails all the time, anyway.”

He turned back to the table and the game went on. Joanna felt wave after wave of nausea assault her stomach. The shadows in the lane were thick, and it didn't do to madden a man as she'd maddened Simon tonight.
Sooner or later they pay up
, he'd said. She'd heard enough about him around the shore. . . . But I didn't know how it would be! she thought wildly. I didn't know that was the way you felt! She sat down on a bench against the wall, her sweaty fingers clamped on the rough edge.

Nils leaned over the table, his hair silver-blond in the light. His cue moved like a serpent striking, and Hugo whistled softly. “Not bad,” Owen conceded. Nils grinned, and put his cue in the rack.

“Come on, Jo, I'll walk you home.”

“Cripes almighty, hasn't she gone
yet?
” Owen scowled at her. “What's eating you? Scared of the dark?”

“Look,” said Nils in easy good humor. “Everybody's scared of something. My grampa's afraid of the fairies, and I've seen you lay back your ears at three lights in a room. And girls don't like rammin' around alone in the dark. I thought you knew all about women, Cap'n Owen.”

They went out, Joanna torn between relief and shame. But the relief won out, for the lane was filled with an almost impenetrable darkness, and there were rustling sounds under the trees. They turned at the end of Gunnar's spruces, and as they passed the well, Nils said casually, “What do you want to fool around with that low-life bastard for?”

“What do you mean?” Something leaped in her with shamed terror.

“Simon Bird. He was there in the trees—lit out for home when he saw me.”

“I don't fool around with him!”

“Then what are you scared of? O. K., Jo. I know you don't fool around with him. I'd have heard it around the shore before this. But you thought you'd tinker with a little fire. Is that it?”

“
No!
” To her horror, tears shook her voice. “I hate him! He's like a devil!”

“Well, don't tell the whole Island, darlin' mine,” said Nils mildly. His arm was snug and solid around her shoulders. “I'm damn glad you found out what he is. You know, kid, I'd hate like hell to hear your name come out of that mouth of his down around the shore some day. I'd feel like grinding his face so hard into the beach rocks he'd look like a dead cod the gulls'd been at. Not to mention what your brothers'd do to him.” He chuckled. “They'd likely warm your jacket, too.”

Disgust made her shaky and sick. She remembered Hugo and Owen and the others and the things they talked about. The words were different sometimes, but they all added up to the same sum. A girl was easy, or she wasn't easy. . . . “She was rarin' to go, and then she froze up on me, the little bitch!” they said. . . . She remembered countless afternoons of talk, the inevitable comment on almost every girl or woman who walked by the beach. But she'd been safe; she was Joanna Bennett, who thought a lot of herself and looked at those others with the fierce intolerant scorn of her youth.

“Nils, he can't say anything about me,” she said swiftly.

His arm tightened. “That's good. Look, kid.” His words were slow, and endlessly kind, as they always were for her. “It's natural for you to want a man of your own. But you're no slut, like some of 'em around here. My cousin Thea and them . . . You don't have to do everything they do. And at least you can get you a man who knows how to keep his mouth shut.”

They had reached the gate now, and the circle of his arm was friendly and warm and comforting, not at all like Simon Bird's arm. “Look, Nils,” she said with a little chuckle. “Did you ever think how funny it is? Lots of people on the Island think we go around together. You know—that sweetheart stuff.”

“Crazy as hell, aren't they?” said Nils. “Well, I guess you'll be all right now. It's only about three looks and a holler to the house.”

“Hauling tomorrow?” She leaned on the gate and looked up at him in the starlight. She saw the glimmer of his teeth when he smiled.

“Sure. Want to come?”

“Oh,
yes!
Golly, Nils—thanks for everything.” You were lucky, having a chum like Nils. He was so steady and unsurprised. He was so good. It made you feel warm and very rich just to see him there. But you didn't say things like that to your chums. Joanna said again, “Thanks for everything, Nils.”

“Any time,” said Nils.

I
N THE MORNING LIGHT
, the evening before might never have happened. To Joanna, kneeling by her window, the delicately cool, bright air stroking her skin, it was like one of those dreams of vague horror that she used to have when she was small. It was something that had happened to another girl, not in this world where the day was as naive, as smiling, as blue-eyed as a baby. A drift of buttercups spilled across the meadow, each bright and shining head dancing in the wind. The Indian paintbrush blazed with new fire close to the prodigal snow of a half-million daisies. The swallows were sleek blue shadows skimming across the grass, and the more intrepid of them rose high to dart in circles around the gulls that floated over Schoolhouse Cove. The young crows shrieked from the woods.

There were jewels everywhere. There were jewels in the sea, stretching limitlessly to the east and the south, to the Camden mountains and the faint blue line of mainland in the north and west. There was a jewel clinging brilliantly to each twig, to each blade of grass and flower in the meadow. The smoke from Uncle Nate's chimney, far across Schoolhouse Cove, rose straight and blue. Somewhere a dog barked, an engine started up in the harbor, and from over behind Goose Cove Ledge came the drone of hauling gear and the frenzied clamor of startled gulls. The Island was up and at work.

A whistle rose faintly and tunefully to her ears. She saw Stevie coming through the gate, carrying the milk can. He was a thin straight little boy in overalls, with a coppery skin and a black forelock. Winnie, the collie-spaniel, bounded through the tall grass like a swimmer breasting the waves, and her ears flopped merrily over her head, her tail was a gay plume. Joanna smiled and began to dress. The kitchen was empty except for Donna, already fixing the dinner vegetables, and Stevie, eating his breakfast. Stephen and the older boys had gone to the shore. Mark, who came between Joanna and Stevie in age, was weeding the vegetable garden over by the woods.

Donna glanced smilingly at Joanna's dungarees. “No dress this morning?”

“I'm going hauling with Nils.” On an impulse she bent to kiss her mother's cheek. Mother, you'll never have to worry about me, she thought, remembering the night before.

She heaped a plate with fish hash and poured milk from the pitcher, feeling as if she could eat the world. Stevie watched her from the other end of the table. His eyelashes were very long, at eleven he was terribly ashamed of them.

“Is Nils your fella?” he asked interestedly.

“Don't talk so foolish!”

“Well, Mark said—”

“Mark says a lot more besides his prayers,” said his mother. “Joanna what about your work? Will Nils wait for you?”

“Sure he will!” She leaped toward the stairs like a gazelle. Hers was the chamber work, the beds to make, the rooms to tidy. She did a large part of the washing each week, when she was home from school in the summer; she did most of the ironing. Her arms were as strong as a boy's for splitting kindling or lugging water if none of the brothers happened to be around.

Donna's clear pallor and erect slenderness, that made her so distinctive a figure among her vigorous, dark-eyed family, were the direct signs of her fragility. Sometimes Joanna, in a surge of fierce protective love, wanted to take over the whole burden of the household. But somehow Donna had arranged it so the girl had a part of the freedom that meant so much to her. For to be on the water and around the boats was as necessary to Joanna as the air she breathed.

This morning she raced through her work, her mind leaping ahead to the beach where Nils was probably waiting patiently. She hoped his grandfather hadn't taken it into his tyrannical old head to come down and sniff, and ask him what kind of lobstering was that, to sit on the beach on a fine day and smoke. Gunnar had learned discipline on sailing ships and he never let his sons and grandsons forget it.

Her premonition was right. When she came over the brow of the beach, the old man stood by Nils' double-ender; Nils stood beside him, one foot on the gunwale, his strong-featured face impassive under the broad visor of his cap. Joanna hesitated, seeing Gunnar pound one fist into the other palm; then with a tilt of her chin she went down the beach toward them.

They heard the beach stones rattle under her sneakers and turned. Gunnar was past seventy, but there was not a thread of white in his thick brown hair; he was stalwart and erect in overalls and flannel shirt. His cheeks were like russet apples and his eyes were bright blue, crinkled at the corners; he looked like a jolly Kris Kringle. Joanna hated him.

“Hello, Mr. Sorensen,” she said civilly.

“Ha, Yo.” His gnarled brown hand took Joanna's chin. “You look more like your grandfadder all the time. Same eyes, same mouth, same chin. He vass hard, yust like steel.” He pinched Joanna's chin and beamed at her. “Not much like your fadder, huh?”

Joanna jerked her chin free. “Will you please not say anything about my father?”

“Ha!” Gunnar sniffed, and the twinkle grew. “Impertinence, is it? If you vass mine—”