William Styron: The Collected Novels: Lie Down in Darkness, Set This House on Fire, The Confessions of Nat Turner, and Sophie's Choice (35 page)

Virginia had been defeated but, who cared? They trooped back to the fraternity houses in twos or threes, in delirious quartets, or in automobiles that glided slowly homeward through the mournful dusk. A few sang songs; others kept on drinking, and those who fell were not left to lie there, but were carried away between two friends, in the spirit of brotherhood. At the fraternity houses the colored men had built great fires and here the boys stood noisily discussing the game, while the girls, slightly tired, their faces blushing deep red, held out their hands to the flames and sniffled a little, for some of them had caught colds. It was five o’clock, a breathing spell. In the KA house a tall lean young man, who had slept the sleep of death all during the game, wandered down stark-naked to inquire whether it was time for the kickoff yet, and fled amid shrieks and yells, vainly trying to clothe himself with a drapery. Before it was dark the Boynton twins, daughters of a prosperous Methodist tobacco farmer from Chatham, quietly expired in their chairs at exactly the same instant and were put to bed upstairs, while everyone marveled that they should carry out the sister act with such constancy. At five-thirty the bar was reopened, the squeezes which the boys gave the girls lingered longer, less hesitantly now, and the sound of laughter and teasing voices, mingled with the throbbing saxophones, whisky, light from the logs, inflamed each cheek with a subtle fire.

Peyton sat on the bar, her legs crossed, drinking bourbon and soda. “Dickie boy?” she said, and ran her fingers through his hair.

“Wassamatter?”

“I feel very decadent.”

“Why, honey?”

“I don’t find myself very interesting here.”

He touched her hair with his fingers. “You’re beautiful here, darling. You look like a million bucks.”

She stifled a yawn which brought a film of moisture to her eyes. “Money,” she said lazily, “that’s all you know.”

“Quit giving me a hard time,” he said, sighing. Two couples came up, spilling whisky and merriment. There were handshakes all around, toasts, and one of the boys, a pudgy Georgian named Ballard, kissed Peyton on the cheek. “Thank you, Alexander,” she said. He began a long story, mostly incoherent, but anyway, he cried, his grandpappy fit with Mosby in the Valley and if there were any bloody Yankees around he’d vivisect them alive, give him a poleax big enough.

“I love you, darling,” one girl said with a squeal, and Ballard hugged her, looking over her shoulder for approval.

“Don’t be so chauvinistic,” said Peyton, in a sophisticated voice, but there was a smile on her lips, and Dick hauled her down from the bar and they danced, very close, to a band playing “Stardust.”

“I want to go somewhere,” she said abstractedly.

“Where, honey?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Anywhere. Everybody’s so polluted here.”

“I know. Bunch of bums.”

“Oh, they’re wonderful,” she said, “all these guys. But I think everyone started out too soon today.”

“Yes.”

“And I like to drink, but——”

“But what?” he said.

“Nothing.”

“We could drive down to the farm, honey,” he said.

“Mmmmm-hh.”

“What do you mean—mmmm-hh?”

“I mean——”

“Don’t you like going down to the farm with Dickie boy?”

She pushed away from him a little, looking up into his eyes. “Oh, honey,
certainly
I do. It’s just that—well, I’ve told you. I love it down there. I
love
that old place, and your folks. I just love it all——” She was thinking it over. “Oh, Dick, I just don’t think it’s right to go down when your folks are away. Besides——”

“Besides what?” he demanded gently.

“It’s just that I don’t think it’s right.”

“Prissy,” he said. “How many drinks have
you
had today? I thought you were the Sweet Briar intellectual type with modern ideas.”

“Don’t be an ass,” she said mildly. “If I’d had many drinks today, I’d be asking you.”

“Do you love me?” he said.

“Mmm-m.”

He stopped her in the middle of a dip, holding her close, their lips nearly touching. Past them a girl with an unattractive pale face and large breasts was being led sobbing, complaining of insults and Virginia gentlemen, so-called, and hoarse rowdy laughter filled the room. They hardly noticed. “Do you love me?” he repeated intensely. She looked up, eyes wide with astonishment.

“There’s Daddy. Oh, he’s bleeding! He’s hurt!”

Having been lost, having left the game only to find himself wandering hopelessly down side streets, unpaved, dreary roads which he should have but hadn’t remembered after all his early years in Charlottesville, Loftis had been possessed by the belief that all this was only a dream: his search, Peyton, even his fear and agony, were all part of an impossible illusion. He had sobered somewhat, by an effort of will so strong, so unfamiliar, that it had frightened him. And lurching through the cold gray dusk beneath the windless trees—listening to the bells and car horns far-off, receding from him, the fatigued departing sounds of half-hearted cries and bells signaling the knowledge, that, incredibly, he was going in the wrong direction,
away
from Peyton,
away
from Maudie and Helen and the hospital, away from his colossal responsibilities—he had listened also to something being spoken in the air, and knew that it was his own voice muttering aloud. It came like a chant: I will be strong, I will be strong—above the noise of his feet scraping grittily across unfleshed fallen leaves and above the noise of the blood at his brain, pulsing a steady, somber, rhythmic voluntary, not of fear but of cowardice. His own cowardice had caught him unawares. Appalled him. And it was then, still murmuring, I will be strong, I will be strong, that he had turned about-face, as much as if he had heard a trumpet call, to strike out through the dusk back up the hill toward the KA house. He toiled uncertainly up the rutted road. This first part of the walk had taken a little over a half-hour, and perhaps, after all, it had been good for him. He had become more sober. At least he had regained a certain sensible balance, of reason if not of body. It was almost dark. He was in Niggertown. There was a variety of smells and all around him came a chorus of barkings while screen doors slammed and dark shapes came out to say, Hush, Tige, or Hush, Bo, for they knew, too, the dogs had sniffed a white man. Now no longer was he utterly lost. He felt calm, capable even, for the first time today in command of his senses, and although he was afraid for Maudie, still afraid, indeed, for them all, he forgave himself for the day’s lapse of conscience. Strange things had happened; he had had strange dreams. God, if You are there, forgive Your foolish son. … It was at that moment that he fell into the culvert.

He was stunned, hurt; the sky, gray with clouds, was strewn with galaxies of capering stars. With blood flowing from a gash on his temple, he felt himself on wet concrete, and smelled weeds somewhere. He looked up slowly, groping for broken bones. He had fallen four feet off the road, although why and how he couldn’t tell. Water trickled beneath him; there was a smell of weeds and sewage. Painfully and cautiously he picked himself up, holding on to some pipe, wet with scum, to steady himself. He pushed a handkerchief against his wound and moaned aloud, “Oh, Jesus, Jesus,” trembling all over, while a black face peered over the culvert and said, “What’s de matter, man?”

“I fell.”

“Come on up here, man.”

Strong arms offered him support, lifted him up: the man was a young, muscular Negro with a mean, mashed-in face and cheeks with scars pink and raw in the gathering darkness. “Hoo,” he said, “you got a slit for sure.” Loftis puffed as he dragged his feet over the edge of the culvert and stood erect, mopping the blood away.

“Do it hurt much?”

“No,” Loftis said. “Thanks.”

The Negro eased him down to a log. “Get you a portice and put on it,” he said, “make you a portice out of some pipe ashes and some whisky and put in some lard so it’ll keep de air out.”

“Yes,” Loftis said, “I will.”

“Is you all right? Want me carry you up to Main Street?”

“No, thanks,” Loftis said dizzily. “No, I’ll be all right.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. Yes. Thanks a lot.”

It got dark, the Negro was gone, and the blood became matted in his hair. Lights winked on. Orange fires appeared in the houses, and shadow shapes flickered at the doors. It was getting colder. He pulled himself up. A dog snarled at his feet and he kicked at it feebly, hating all dogs forever. Surely this was a punishment, but unconsciously, perhaps mercifully so, he somehow made his way back to the house, concerned solely with the matter of not bleeding to death. There he was snapped back to life by the cool hand of the boy who had greeted him at noon, the priggish voice: “Ah, good evening there, Brother Loftis!” Exquisite warmth enveloped him. He saw Peyton.

“Daddy, Daddy, what happened? You’re cut!” The music died; people turned and stared. Peyton took his arm and, with Dick Cartwright helping her, led him into a downstairs bedroom. He must have slept. Half an hour later he was bandaged, soothed, flat on his back in a bunk, and as his senses returned he heard Peyton say, somewhere far above him, that he was a perfect mess. She was sitting beside him on the bed. He turned his aching head and looked up at her. They were alone.

“Daddy, for heaven’s sake, what are you doing up here anyway, and so stinking?”

“I—I … much better now.”

“Does it hurt much?”

“Not much.” He smiled, reached for her hand.

“It’s not a bad cut, honey. Maybe you’d better go over to the hospital though and have them take a look at it. Bunny, just what on earth are you doing up here this week end?”

“I’m much soberer now,” he said irrelevantly.

“That’s not the point, Bunny——”

“I—I … Oh, hell.”

“Why didn’t you write me, darling? When did you get here? If I’d just known. Dick and I could have taken you to the game and——What on earth happened to you? Did you get into a fight?”

He rose up on his elbows. “No, baby, I just—I fell down. Baby, look here,” he said earnestly, “I don’t quite know how to say it. Something’s happened today. I don’t know. I don’t know
what.
I just——”

“Bunny, for God’s sake what are you trying to
convey
to me? I thought you were soberer.”

“I am,” he said. “Look, let me explain it. First there’s Maudie, you know she’s up here in the hospital. No, you don’t know, do you?”

“Maudie? Up here again?” Her face became pale. “What’s wrong with her, Bunny?”

“Wait a minute, baby; let me tell you.” He paused and sighed, probing with a finger at his bandage. She pulled his hand away. Then he told her. All. About Maudie. About leaving Helen, and the party at noon and about Pookie, the football game and Frances Brockenborough and his disaster at the culvert and the drinking, drinking, drinking, and through all this about his mad unhappy homesickness for her, her alone; didn’t she see: how she had fled him, persistently, impudently, and without any remorse, though of course (he smiled) she had really been unaware of it all the time. He held her hands tightly, grinning a little, asking her didn’t she see, how it had been a torture for him all day: this pursuit of something which he had finally despaired of ever attaining, like the impossible ripe carrot on a stick beyond the donkey’s nose; now here she was, he had found her, and wasn’t that fine? And with a gay lie, the old panic returning, he kept on grinning and forced himself to say that he was glad she had been pinned to such a swell boy, and he hoped it augured good things, real things, for the future.

“But, Daddy, what about Maudie? Why on earth did you leave Mother? Why didn’t you telephone over here instead? Oh, Daddy, honestly——”

“Yes, but, baby——” He hadn’t foreseen this sort of thing: her doubt, this look of subtle, mild reproof. Not even that. Perhaps he had expected too much. He had foreseen her as jolly, popping with enthusiasm, as she had been when he had visited her last summer in Washington: then, when they had been together, alone in restaurants, in his car, at the evening concert on the river, they had seemed breathlessly close, indissoluble, perfect. That was as he had last seen her. Now her face was cool and grave, reproachful. Trustfully he had made his confessional, told her everything—and look what had happened. He had even mentioned—in the oblique reference to Pookie—Dolly, thus putting on a conversational level a very adult and very tricky problem. She was no longer listening. He faltered, chewing on his words sourly and fatuously, like an old cow.

“Bunny, what about Maudie? We’ve got to go see her. Why didn’t you stay with Mother?”

“Baby——”

“No, not for her sake. I don’t give a damn about that. But just on account of Maudie. What prompted you to come out and get boiled to the eyes like this? Going to football games. When—when … Oh, Bunny, you’re a mess, a perfect mess!” She got up and began to pace about, running her hands through her hair. “This whole family’s nuts. Absolutely nuts!” She turned; tears were running down her face, tears not of sorrow but of anger and frustration and regret. “Why can’t you stay sober once, Bunny?”

“Baby——”

“I don’t give a damn about Mother——”

“Don’t say——”

“I will say it! I don’t
care
about her. I never have. But I’d think you’d have enough—oh, Bunny.” She ran to him and threw her arms around his neck. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, Bunny. For saying things like that. I love you. I just think you’re a jerk.” She sniffled against him, then drew back and dried her eyes. “Now come on,” she said. “We’ve got to go over and see Maudie.”

“All right, baby.” He arose stiffly, once with her to go anywhere at all, to Abaddon, or limbo, or the bottom of the sea. Peyton went out to tell Dick she’d be back later. In the chapter room, still dazed, Loftis wandered through a conga line of pledges, seniors with paddles, and with his bandage threw panic through a gallery of simpering girls. From the door Peyton called for him to hurry up, which he did, stumbling a little, and someone pressed on him the KA grip, splashing whisky down his sleeve. Outside, in the brisk cold air, he knew he’d sober shortly: what the hell, in spite of mad things to come, he had found his baby—wasn’t that enough?