Boys and Girls Together: A Novel Page 4

  “Aw, nuts.”

  “He saw you following him. You scared him, Kirkaby. He says you were hiding behind trees. Is that what you were doing?”

  “No.” Nobody spots the Whizzer. Walt looked down at his blue pants. “I’m wearing a green suit, Sergeant Quinlan. A green suit with a green tie and maybe he just claims he’s selling that thing. Maybe—”

  “The case is closed, Kirkaby.”

  “He looks an awful lot like that picture of Big Nose Tim Connery they got hanging in the post office. It’s a really fantastic resemblance.”

  “I’m sure it is. But will you let us try to keep crime out of the area, Kirkaby? After all, it’s our job.”

  “I’m just trying to help, that’s all.”

  “I know you are. Goodbye, Kirkaby.”

  Walt hung up the phone, thanked the lady of the house and trudged on out the door, his hands shoved deep in his pants pockets. He paused a moment in front of 274 South Elm. He shoved his glasses up snug against the bridge of his nose with his left thumb. Then he began retracing his steps to the corner of Oak and Archer, where he’d left his bicycle. You couldn’t follow crooks on a bicycle. It was a pretty day, so he started singing. “A wand’ring minstrel I, a thing of shreds and paaaa-tches, of baaaaa-lads, songs and snaaaaaatches, and dreeeeee-meeee luh-ulll-a-bies.” He loved Gilbert and Sullivan and knew all of Trial by Jury by heart, plus most of The Mikado and The Gondoliers. “My ca-ta-log is long ...” Some kids were playing marbles up ahead of him. He was a terrific marble player, the best in the world when he wanted to be, so he reached into his hip pocket for his favorite shooter, a cat’s-eye, worth eight agates any day. Fatso Moran had offered him eight agates for it, but no soap. Nobody got the Whizzer’s cat’s-eye. “How about me playing?” he said to the kids. “You’re too good, Kirkaby,” one of them said—which was victory enough, Walt decided, so he muttered “Chickens” and moved on. How about that? Everybody knew you didn’t mess with the Whizzer at big pot. He broke into a run then, because if he was ever going to break the four-minute mile he had to stay in shape. Ladies and gentlemen, they’re entering the last lap and Gundar Hagg has the lead and it looks like it’s another victory for Gundar the Wonder—But wait! Somebody’s moving up. Just a moment, ladies and gentlemen, while I consult my program. It’s—it’s the Whizzer, ladies and gentlemen, Whizzer Kirkaby and look at him fly. It’s fantastic! Broken leg and all and he’s gaining on Hagg. Hagg looks like he’s standing still. Here he comes. Here comes the Whizzer. Will you look at him flyyyyy ...

  Walt reached his bicycle and paused until he got his breath. Then he took a running start, vaulting onto the seat, pedaling hard. He took off his right hand, steadied himself, then slowly removed his left, sitting back on the seat, curving off Archer Street, heading for home. “I am the monarch of the sea; the ruler of the queen’s nay-vee. Whose praise Great Britain loudly chants and so do his sisters and his cousins and his aunts ...” He stopped singing when he got to Linden Lane, pedaling in silence along the tree-shaded pavement. When he reached the end of the lane he rode slower. “You’ve just got to learn to slow down on that bicycle, Walt, or you’ll hurt yourself.” That was what his mother always said because she didn’t know he was the greatest bicycle rider of all time although once he had almost told her. At the end of the lane stood the great stone posts, and Walt experienced, as he always did, a flash of acute embarrassment because of the wooden signs that read PRIVATE DRIVEWAY. NO TRESPASSERS. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. They had always been there, those signs nailed to the great stone posts, and once, at Christmas, Walt had asked that they be taken away but P.T. thought he was just trying to be funny. Walt pedaled for a while along the paved driveway until the house came into view. The house would have embarrassed him except that nobody could see it from the street because of all the shrubbery and trees. He stopped the bicycle and got off, wheeling it into the garage, parking it in the corner of the garage next to the limousine. The limousine he classed with the wooden signs. Brushing his hair with his hands, he cursed his curls good, then straightened his pants. Presentable, hopefully, he walked in the back door, through the kitchen and the butler’s pantry and the dining room to the front hall.

  The hated Arnold was waiting for him.

  “Mother died,” Arnold said.

  “She did not.” Since he refused to believe in the possibility of death, how could she have died? Besides, Arnold had told him and Arnold was a liar. Besides, he had kissed his pale mother on the cheek that morning and she was breathing then.

  “She died.”

  “She did not either.” God, how he loathed his brother, his three-years-older and twice-as-big brother, his handsome, picky, graceful, strong, sniveling, popular, “Walt, why can’t you be more like Arnold?” brother.

  “Dammit, dammit.”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “You don’t care!” Arnold screamed, because he didn’t care, not remotely, and the thought that it would show made him wet with fear. So he screamed it again, louder, straining his throat: “You don’t care!”

  “Boys.” Maudie standing black at the top of the stairs. Walt glanced up at her face and was forced backward two steps, stunned by the knowledge of death. “Boys.”

  Walt glanced back at his brother, who was crying now. “I care,” he said. More than care. I loved her. I did. If I love her, why don’t I cry? He stared at his brother’s tears, and suddenly their transparency was clear to his good, quick mind. But his face always betrayed his thoughts, always, so before he could say, “You don’t fool me, Arnold, you don’t fool me with those tears, you got an onion in your hand, Arnold, huh?” the thought was on his face and perhaps Arnold saw it because in three great steps he was on top of Walt, slashing out with his thick hands, bruising Walt’s face, drawing blood, splintering Walt’s glasses on the expensive parquet floor.

  Walt had retreated at the realization of death, but he took no backward steps on his brother’s account. Rather he stood firm throughout the onslaught, ignoring Maudie’s high yells, the blurring of his vision, the sharp, surprising taste of blood. He stood firm, and when his brother had spent his anxious fury, before his brother could turn his false tears to the papered wall, Walt slipped it in good.

  “You’re a shit, you know that, Arnold?”

  “All right, cut it, Walt.” Big P.T. standing beside Maudie on the landing. “You too, Arnold.”

  “Yessir,” Arnold said. “He just gets to me sometimes.”

  “Wipe your face, Walt. Go to your room.”

  Walt mounted the stairs, smiling at black Maudie, nodding to big P.T., moving past them in silence. When he reached his door he paused, then crept forward again until he reached the room where his mother had breathed that morning. He got inside quick enough but it took a while before he was able to travel to her side; he had to think about it first as he leaned, eyes wide, his back against the door. Finally he moved, eyes on the floor, to the bed edge. A chair was placed close alongside, so, eyes still on the floor, he sat, surprised at the sudden numbness invading his body. He looked at his mother and she looked like his mother except she was dead. Frail and dead. He was the only frail one left now. Before there had been two frail ones; now there was one. Before there had been someone to cling to; two frail ones are never as frail as one. Before there had been quiet support, and that was needed for survival in this great rough house. Walt looked at the thing on the bed (she was that, that only now, a thing, just a thing, like any other thing, useless, dreamless, without animation) and he almost thought, I love you so, but that was wasteful since you chose to leave me, but he killed the thought ruthlessly before it developed fully, so only the first part filled his mind. I love you so ... I love you so ...

  He left her when Maudie called that it was time for dinner, first washing the blood from his face before going downstairs not to eat.

  By midnight he knew he was falling asleep and he cursed himself for his weakness because he planned to stay up all night (it se
emed the least you could do the day your mother died). Ten, tired and funny-looking, Walt drowsed, aware that the day had been an important day and not just because of what she had done. His awareness was sound. He did not know that he would be sent away to school now, that the tight knots of Missouri—it’s my home, Missouri’s my home—would never be quite so tight ever. He did not know that his mother’s will made him nine-tenths a millionaire, but if he had been told, the news would only have conjured up black signs on stone gates, so he might have nodded but he never would have smiled. Nor, most immediately painful, did he dream that the Whizzer was dying—no ... not you, Whizzer ... never you—but it was true.

  What was important was a simple thought that entered him forever sometime that night, a thought which later was to cause him such pain, such pain. Try as he would—and he did try, and mightily—the thought would not vacate his mind; nothing, not even medical reports which proved that the gluttonous cancer had eaten her frail body to pieces, would shake it free. It would not go. He had loved his mother, and maybe, just maybe, just possibly, if only he had been there, there, near her, near her to help fight that final onslaught—two frail ones are never as frail as one—then perhaps she wouldn’t have died.

  Ten, tired and funny-looking, Walt slept.

  P. T. Kirkaby was worth considerably less than a million dollars when he married Emily Stahr Harding, who was worth a million dollars and considerably more. But P.T. (he was that even when he was poor, and who wouldn’t be with a name like Phineas Thaxter?) had prospects as blazing as the air on his wedding day—the social event of a typically inhuman pre-air-conditioning St. Louis summer—so no one thought once to whisper that Emily’s money was a factor in the love match. And it was not a factor. P.T. was aware of her wealth, of course, and its existence caused him no pain, but he was correctly confident that in not too many years she would be the poorer member of the family. If he had a motive in addition to what he hopefully assumed was his undying devotion (and he did) (and who doesn’t?) it was simply the cliché of social position. Her father was a Harding, her grandfather a Stahr, while his father was an organ grinder (yes, with a monkey) and his grandfather a nameless Union soldier who stopped off in St. Louis one night on his way north after the Civil War.

  They met on a spring afternoon at the St. Louis Country Club, the year before P.T. became a member. He was playing golf with Joe Manchester, who was shortly to become his partner for a while, and even though he had lost, P.T. was in fine humor; he never minded losing at golf because it was such a stupid game. Who the hell cared about putting the ball onto the green into the cup? Distance off the tee was what interested him, and though his score was much higher, he had outdriven Manchester on every hole. After they finished the eighteenth, they started back to the men’s locker room and on the way they passed a woman dressed in white. Manchester stopped to talk; P.T. waited, watching.

  She was a small woman—no, she wasn’t, when you looked at her carefully; she just seemed small. Thin, but the legs looked strong. P.T. liked that—good strong legs. He could never understand the lure of the bosom or the butt. Her face was not a pretty face, but it didn’t miss by much. Probably the nose was the spoiler—it was too small—because the eyes were good and blue and he found no complaint with the wide mouth.

  “Miss Harding, Mr. Kirkaby.”

  “Miss Harding.” He smiled at her.

  “How do you do, Mr. Kirkaby.” She looked up at him.

  P.T. knew that look, so he broadened his smile. He was handsome, and he knew that, too. They stared at each other until she had to break it, almost jerking her head toward Manchester. Manchester must have suspected something, because he coughed unnecessarily—nobody has to clear his throat that many times—and took a step away toward the locker room. P.T. continued staring at her, sadistically, though he did not know the word, fully aware that the one place in the world she could not look was back at him. He was tempted to ask her for dinner that evening but he resisted; they didn’t do that kind of thing, the rich, and he was almost one of them now. Manchester said goodbye and she echoed it. P.T. nodded and moved a step ahead of Manchester, walking toward the locker room. Abruptly P.T. turned, calling out to the retreating white figure.

  “Miss Harding.”

  She turned, shading her eyes from the sun, waiting. P.T. crossed to her, tempted to stop halfway, tempted to make her cross to him, because he knew she would, and quickly, but he decided not to. Although he usually struck at the throat there were times when he enjoyed subduing more slowly, and this seemed like one of those times. When he reached her he took an extra half step so that he was right on top of her, and it pleased him vaguely that she held her ground.

  “Dinner tonight, Miss Harding?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m busy this evening.”

  “Some other time then.” He started to turn away, but her hand touched his arm.

  P.T. waited.

  She fidgeted.

  “What?”

  “I had to say that.”

  “Come again?”

  “That I was busy. I had to say it.”

  “Why?”

  “It wasn’t proper of you. To ask me like that. I had to put you in your place.”

  P.T. laughed. “O.K. I’m in my place. Now what about dinner tonight?”

  “You really should give me more time to—”

  “Going once. Going twice.”

  “Yes. Please. I would love to.”

  “Seven o’clock,” P.T. said, and this time he did turn.

  “Don’t you want to know where I live?”

  P.T. laughed again. The Harding house was as famous as any in St. Louis—thirty-five rooms, so they said, piled in the center of six green acres along Kingshighway. “Don’t you worry,” P.T. told her. “I’ll find you.”

  And, promptly at seven—he had never been late in his life—he pulled his new Packard into her driveway. She was ready for him and, after fencing with her father—not that it mattered but they liked each other; they both went for the throat—P.T. took her to dinner.

  They dined at the Chase Hotel. She ordered lobster and against his judgment, he did the same. She badgered him into it. “Oh, you’ll love the lobster here. It comes straight from the shores of Maine in New England. Take the lobster. Please, Mr. Kirkaby. Please.” Reluctantly, he submitted, but with vague fears; he had never ordered lobster or chicken in a restaurant before. While waiting for their food they danced some. Dancing bored P.T., but she liked it and was adept, cool, elegant, in his arms. Finally the lobster came and they sat down. She picked up a red claw and deftly dug out the rich white meat, chattering on all the while about what a fine dancer he was for such a big man. He watched her gut the claw and then, emboldened, commenced his own attack. Alas. His hands were too powerful and he cracked the claw with ease, sending splinters of red shell onto the floor, the tablecloth, her plate. Hurriedly P.T. sipped some water, then forked his vegetables into his mouth. She was eating the tail of the lobster now and he watched her carefully, searing the sharp hand movements into his brain. When he was sure he knew how, he began again. Alas. Again the red splinters scattered. P.T. covered his face with his napkin, staring down at his plate. He thought he heard her laughing and when he could bring himself to look at her he saw that she was laughing, and hard, tears streaming from her eyes.

  “What’re you laughing at?” P.T. managed, though he might just as easily have hit her a good one.

  “You eating lobster.”

  The honesty of her reply embarrassed him still further, so for a while all he could say was “Oh.”

  “It really is funny,” she assured him.

  “It is, huh?” He watched her a moment. “I never would have ordered the damn thing except you insisted.”

  “I know that. That’s why I insisted. Of course, it was an outside chance at best, that you might not be familiar with the niceties of lobster demolition, but I had to take it.”

  “I don’t like being laughed at,”
P.T. said.

  “Neither do I, Mr. Kirkaby.”

  “P.T.”

  “P.T.”

  “I never laughed at you.”

  “Oh, come now. When we met, and you just looked at me. You were laughing then. And when you asked me to dinner you were practically standing behind me, you were so close. And that was cause for laughter too. Wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Yes or no?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right.” They looked at each other across the table and he was surprised by the brightness in her eyes. “We’re all trying to survive, aren’t we, P.T.? You do it your way, I’ll do it mine. Don’t you mock me. I won’t mock you. Fair?” Then, without waiting for a reply, she smiled and reached out to take his hand. “You poor man, you must be famished. Order yourself a steak.”

  P.T. held her hand and laughed and snapped his strong fingers clear and loud and three waiters scurried out, converging around him, nodding while he ordered a sirloin. When the steak came, P.T. released Emily’s hand. But not before.

  At ten-thirty he drove her home, walking her up the great stone steps to the great stone house. Thirty-five rooms. He believed it now.

  “I enjoyed myself,” P.T. said.

  “I’m glad.”

  “You too?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Goddam right.”

  She flushed at that, opening the front door, moving inside, turning. “Then I did.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Yes.” She hesitated in the doorway.

  “Tomorrow night?”

  “Was there ever any doubt?” she said, smiling her sweet smile, closing the door behind her.

  P.T. cackled as he hurried down the steps to his Packard. He gunned the motor in farewell, then drove by memory to East St. Louis, parking on a side street. He didn’t bother locking his car; he was known in East St. Louis and nobody was going to tamper with it—nobody had yet and nobody was about to. P.T. walked quickly up the street. As he moved along people called to him, “Hiya, P.T.” and he winked back at them or nodded, as the fancy took him. He paused outside Randy’s for just a moment, feeling an unaccustomed twinge of what he did not know was guilt. Then he went inside. Randy goosed him, bellowing her laughter as he swore. His favorite girl was busy, and, impatient, he did not wait for her but took another, another nameless one with no chest but with good strong legs and a supple body, and when they were upstairs behind the locked door she moaned entirely to his satisfaction.