The coffee being ready, the two of them began to drink. Neither man spoke for a time.
“What sort of vermin trap does your company make?” Gill asked, presently.
“It’s not a passive type,” McConchie said. “Being homeostatic, that is, self-instructing, it follows for instance a rat— or a cat or dog—dawn into the network of burrows such as now underlie Berkeley … it pursues one rat after another, killing one and going on to the next—until it runs out of fuel or by chance a rat manages to destroy it. There are a few brilliant rats—you know, mutations that are higher on the evolutionary scale—that know how to lame a Hardy Homeostatic Vermin Trap. But not many can.”
“Impressive,” Gill murmured.
“Now, our proposed cigarette-rolling machine—”
“My friend,” Gill said, “I like you but—here’s the problem. I don’t have any money to buy your machine and I don’t have anything to trade you. And I don’t intend to let anyone enter my business as a partner. So what does that leave?” He smiled. “I have to continue as I am.”
“Wait,” McConchie said instantly. “There must be a solution. Maybe we could lease you a Hardy cigarette-rolling machine in exchange for x-number of cigarettes, your special deluxe Gold Label variety, of course, delivered each week for x-number of weeks.” His face glowed with animation. “The Hardy Corporation for instance could became sole licensed distributors of your cigarette; we could represent you everywhere, develop a systematic network of outlets up and down Northern California instead of the haphazard system you now appear to employ. What do you say to that?”
“Hmmmm,” Gill said. “I must admit it does sound interesting. I admit that distribution has not been my cup of tea … I’ve thought off and on for several years about the need of getting an organization going, especially with my factory being located in a rural spot, as it is. I’ve even thought about moving into the city, but the napping and vandalism is too great there. And I don’t want to move back to the city; this is my home, here.”
He did not say anything about Bonny Keller. That was his real reason for remaining in West Marin; his affair with her had ended years ago but he was more in love with her now than ever. He had watched her go from man to man, becoming more dissatisfied with each of them, and Gill believed in his own heart that someday he would get her back. And Bonny was the mother of his daughter; he was well aware that Edie Keller was his child.
“You’re sure,” he said suddenly, “that you didn’t come up here to steal the formula for my cigarettes?”
McConchie laughed.
“You laugh,” Gill said, “but you don’t answer.”
“No, that’s not why I’m here,” the Negro said. “We’re in the business of making electronic machines, not cigarettes.” But, it seemed to Gill, he had an evasive look on his face, and his voice was too full of confidence, too nonchalant. All at once Gill felt uneasy.
Or is it the rural mentality? he asked himself. The isolation getting the better of me; suspicion of all newcomers … of anything strange.
I had better be careful, though, he decided. I must not get carried away just because this man recalls for me the good old pre-war days. I must inspect this machine with great suspicion. After all, I could have gotten Hoppy to design and build such a machine; he seems quite capable in that direction. I could have done all these things proposed to me entirely by myself.
Perhaps I am lonely, he thought. That might be it; I am lonely for city people and their manner of thought. The country gets me down—Point Reyes with its News & Views filled up with mediocre gossip, and mimeographed!
“Since you’re just up from the city,” he said aloud, “I might as well ask you—is there any interesting national or international news, of late, that I might not have heard? We do get the satellite, but I’m frankly tired of disc jockey talk and music. And those endless readings.”
They both laughed. “I know what you mean,” McConchie said, sipping his coffee and nodding. “Well, let’s see. I understand that an attempt is being made to produce an automobile again, somewhere around the ruins of Detroit. It’s mostly made of plywood but it does run on kerosene.”
“I don’t know where they’re going to get the kerosene,” Gill said. “Before they build a car they better get a few refineries operating again. And repair a few major roads.”
“Oh, something else. The Government plans to reopen one of the routes across the Rockies sometime this year. For the first time since the war.”
“That’s great news,” Gill said, pleased. “I didn’t know that.”
“And the telephone companies—”
“Wait,” Gill said, rising. “How about a little brandy in your coffee? How long has it been since you’ve had a coffee royal?”
“Years,” Stuart McConchie said.
“This is Gill’s Five Star. My own. From the Sonoma Valley.” He poured from the squat bottle into McConchie’s cup.
“Here’s something else that might interest you.” McConchie reached into his coat pocket and brought out something flat and folded. He opened it up, spread it out, and Gill saw an envelope.
“What is it?” Picking it up, Gill examined it without seeing anything unusual. An ordinary envelope with an address, a canceled stamp … and then he understood, and he could scarcely credit his senses. Mail service. A letter from New York.
“That’s right,” McConchie said. “Delivered to my boss, Mr. Hardy. All the way from the East Coast; it only took four weeks. The Government in Cheyenne, the military people; they’re responsible. It’s done partly by blimp, partly by truck, partly by horse. The last stage is on foot,”
“Good lord,” Gill said. And he poured some Gill’s Five Star into his coffee, too.
XII
“It was Hoppy who killed the glasses man from Bolinas,” Bill said to his sister. “And he plans to kill someone later on, too, and then I can’t tell but after that it’s something more like that, again.”
His sister had been playing Rock, Scissors, Paper with three other children; now she stopped, jumped to her feet and quickly ran to the edge of the school grounds, where she would be alone and could talk to Bill. “How do you know that?” she asked, excited.
“Because I talked to Mr. Blaine,” Bill said. “He’s down below now, and there’s others coming. I’d like to come out and hurt Hoppy; Mr. Blaine says I should. Ask Doctor Stockstill again if I can’t be born.” Her brother’s voice was plaintive. “If I could be born even for just a little while—”
“Maybe I could hurt him,” Edie said thoughtfully. “Ask Mr. Blaine what I ought to do. I’m sort of afraid of Hoppy.”
“I could do imitations that would kill him,” Bill said, “if I only could get out. I have some swell ones. You should hear Hoppy’s father; I do that real good. Want to hear?” In a low, grown-up man’s voice he said, “I see where Kennedy proposes another one of those tax cuts of his. If he thinks he can fix up the economy that way he’s crazier than I think he is, and that’s damn crazy.”
“Do me,” Edie said. “Imitate me.”
“How can I?” Bill said. “You’re not dead yet.”
Edie said, “What’s it like to be dead? I’m going to be someday so I want to know.”
“It’s funny. You’re down in a hole looking up. And you’re all flat like—well, like you’re empty. And, you know what? Then after a while you come back. You blow away and where you get blown away to is back again! Did you know that? I mean, back where you are right now. All fat and alive.”
“No,” Edie said. “I didn’t know that.” She felt bored; she wanted to hear more about how Hoppy had killed Mr. Blaine. After a point the dead people down below weren’t very interesting because they never did anything, they just waited around. Some of them, like Mr. Blaine, thought all the time about killing and others just mooned like vegetables—Bill had told her many times because he was so interested. He thought it mattered.
Bill said, “Listen, Edie, let’s try the animal
experiment again; okay? You catch some little animal and hold it against your belly and I’ll try again and see if I can get outside and in it. Okay?”
“We tried it,” she said practically.
“Let’s try again! Get something real small. What are those things that—you know. Have shells and make slime.”
“Slugs.”
“No.”
“Snails.”
“Yes, that’s it. Get a snail and put it as close to me as you can. Get it right up to my head where it can hear me and I can hear it back. Will you do that?” Ominously, Bill said, “If you don’t, I’m going to go to sleep for a whole year.” He was silent, then.
“Go to sleep, then,” Edie said. “I don’t care. I have a lot of other people to talk to and you don’t.”
“I’ll die, then, and you won’t be able to stand that, because then you’ll have to carry a dead thing around forever inside you, or—I tell you what I’ll do; I know what I’ll do. If you don’t get an animal and hold it up near me I’ll grow big and pretty soon I’ll be so big that you’ll pop like an old—you know.”
“Bag,” Edie said.
“Yes. And that way I’ll get out.”
“You’ll get out,” she agreed, “but you’ll just roll around and die yourself; you won’t be able to live.”
“I hate you,” Bill said.
“I hate you more,” Edie said. “I hated you first, a long time ago when I first found out about you.”
“All right for you,” Bill said morosely. “See if I care. I’m rubber and you’re glue.”
Edie said nothing; she walked back to the girls and entered once more the game of Rock, Scissors, Paper. It was much more interesting than anything her brother had to say; he knew so little, did nothing, saw nothing, down there inside her.
But it was interesting, that part about Hoppy squeezing Mr. Blaine’s neck. She wondered who Hoppy was going to squeeze next, and if she should tell her mother or the policeman Mr. Colvig.
Bill spoke up suddenly. “Can I play, too?”
Glancing about, Edie made sure that none of the other girls had heard him. “Can my brother play?” she asked.
“You don’t have any brother,” Wilma Stone said, with contempt.
“He’s made-up,” Rose Quinn reminded her. “So it’s okay if he plays.” To Edie she said, “He can play.”
“One, two, three,” the girls said, each extending then one hand with all fingers, none or two displayed.
“Bill goes scissors,” Edie said. “So he beats you, Wilma, because scissors cuts paper, and you get to hit him, Rose, because rock crushes scissors, and he’s tied with me.”
“How do I hit him?” Rose said.
Pondering, Edie said, “Hit me very lightly here.” She indicated her side, just above the belt of her skirt. “Just with the side of your hand, and be careful because he’s delicate.”
Rose, with care, rapped her there. Within her Bill said, “Okay, I’ll get her back the next time.”
Across the playground came Edie’s father, the principal of the school, and with him walked Mr. Barnes, the new teacher. They paused briefly by the three girls, smiling.
“Bill’s playing, too,” Edie said to her father. “He just got hit.”
George Keller laughed. To Mr. Barnes he said, “That’s what comes of being imaginary; you always get hit.”
“How’s Bill going to hit me?” Wilma said apprehensively; she drew away and glanced up at the principal and teacher. “He’s going to hit me,” she explained. “Don’t do it hard,” she said, speaking in the general direction of Edie. “Okay?”
“He can’t hit hard,” Edie said, “even when he wants to.” Across from her Wilma gave a little jump. “See?” Edie said. “That’s all he can do, even when he tries as hard as he can.”
“He didn’t hit me,” Wilma said. “He just scared me. He doesn’t have very good aim.”
“That’s because he can’t see,” Edie said. “Maybe I better hit you for him; that’s more fair.” She leaned forward and swiftly rapped Wilma on the wrist. “Now let’s do it again. One, two, three.”
“Why can’t he see, Edie?” Mr. Barnes asked.
“Because,” she said, “he has no eyes.”
To her father, Mr. Barnes said, “Well, it’s a reasonable enough answer.” They both laughed and then strolled on.
Inside Edie her brother said, “If you got a snail I could be it for a while and I could maybe crawl around and see. Snails can see, can’t they? You told me once they have eyes on sticks.”
“Stalks,” Edie corrected.
“Please,” Bill said.
She thought, I know what I’ll do; I’ll hold a worm against me, and when he gets into it he’ll be just like he is—a worm can’t see or do anything but dig, and won’t he be surprised.
“All right,” she said, again springing up. “I’ll get an animal and do that. Wait a minute until I find one; I have to find it first so be patient.”
“Gee, thanks a lot,” Bill said, in a voice laden with nervousness and yearning. “I’ll do something back for you; on my word of honor.”
“What can you do for me?” Edie said, searching about in the grass at the edge of the school yard for a worm; she had seen many of them, since the rains of the previous night. “What can a thing like you do for anybody?” She searched avidly, stirring the grass with eager, swift fingers.
Her brother did not answer; she felt his mute sorrow and to herself she snickered.
“Looking for something you lost?” a man’s voice said from above her. She peeped up; it was Mr. Barnes, standing there smiling down.
“I’m looking for a worm,” she said shyly.
“What an unsqueamish girl,” he said.
“Who are you talking to?” Bill said, in confusion. “Who’s that?”
“Mr. Barnes,” she said, explaining.
“Yes?” Mr. Barnes said.
“I was talking to my brother, not you,” Edie said. “He asked who it was. He’s the new teacher,” she explained to Bill.
Bill said, “I see; I understand him, he’s close so I can get him. He knows Mama.”
“Our Mama?” Edie said, surprised.
“Yes,” Bill said, in a puzzled voice. “I don’t understand but he knows her and he sees her, all the time, when nobody is looking. He and she—” He broke off. “It’s awful and bad. It’s—” He choked. “I can’t say it.”
Edie stared at her teacher open-mouthed.
“There,” Bill said hopefully. “Didn’t I do something back for you? I told you something secret you never would have known. Isn’t that something?”
“Yes,” Edie said slowly, nodding in a daze. “I guess so.”
To Bonny, Hal Barnes said, “I saw your daughter today. And I got the distinct impression that she knows about us.”
“Oh Christ, how could she?” Bonny said. “It’s impossible.” She reached out and turned up the fat-lamp. The living room assumed a much more substantial quality as the chairs and a table and pictures became visible. “And anyhow it doesn’t matter; she wouldn’t care.”
To himself, Barnes thought, But she could tell George.
Thinking about Bonny’s husband made him peer past the window shade and out onto the moonlit road. No one stirred; the road was deserted and only foliage, rolling hillsides and the flat farm land below, were to be seen. A peaceful, pastoral sight, he thought. George, being the principal of the school, was at the PTA meeting and would not be home for several hours. Edie, of course, was in bed; it was eight o’clock.
And Bill he thought. Where is Bill, as Edie calls him? Roaming about the house, somewhere, spying on us? He felt uncomfortable and he moved away from the woman beside him on the couch.
“What’s the matter?” Bonny said alertly. “Hear something?”
“No. But—” He gestured.
Bonny reached out, took hold of him and drew him down to her. “My god, you’re cowardly. Didn’t the war teach you anything about
life?”
“It taught me,” he said, “to value my existence and not to throw it away; it taught me to play it safe.”
Groaning, Bonny sat up; she rearranged her clothes, buttoned her blouse back up. What a contrast this man was to Andrew Gill, who always made love to her right out in the open, in broad daylight, along the oak-lined roads of West Marin, where anyone and anything might go past. He had seized her each time as he had the first time—yanking her into it, not gabbling or quaking or mumbling … maybe I ought to go back to him, she thought.
Maybe, she thought, I ought to leave them all, Barnes and George and that nutty daughter of mine; I ought to go live with Gill openly, defy the community and be happy for a change.
“Well, if we’re not going to make love,” she said, “then let’s go down to the Foresters’ Hall and listen to the satellite.”
“Are you serious?” Barnes said.
“Of course.” She went to the closet to get her coat.
“Then all you want,” he said slowly, “is to make love; that’s all you care about in a relationship.”
“What do you care about? Talking?”
He looked at her in a melancholy way, but he did not answer.
“You fruit,” she said, shaking her head. “You poor fruit. Why did you come to West Marin in the first place? Just to teach little kids and stroll around picking mushrooms?” She was overcome with disgust.
“My experience today on the playground—” Barnes began.
“You had no experience,” she interrupted. “It was just your goddam guilty conscience catching up with you. Let’s go; I want to hear Dangerfield. At least when he talks it’s fun to listen.” She put on her coat, walked quickly to the front door and opened it.
“Will Edie be all right?” Barnes asked as they started down the path.
“Sure,” she said, unable at the moment to care. Let her burn up, she said to herself. Gloomily, she plodded down the road, hands thrust deep in her coat pockets; Barnes trailed along behind her, trying to keep up with her strides.