Double Delight Page 14

  Terence nearly passed out. Hanging onto consciousness as to the string of a kite lurching ever higher into the sky.

  He shut both his eyes and lay unmoving as Ava-Rose gently washed his face, and dabbed at bloodstains on his clothes. He felt a bristling masculine presence, which would be the elderly white-bearded patriarch Cap’n-Uncle Riff, whom he’d seen in the Mill Hill Tavern that day, and heard the man’s voice close over his head—“Give him some of this, dear. It will set the man up well.” There was a powerful smell of alcoholic spirits, and the touch of a glass against Terence’s lips, and a taste of whiskey. Terence sipped some, and swallowed. Liquid flame ran down his throat and up into his nasal cavities. He tried to whisper “Thank you” but choked instead.

  Ava-Rose whispered, “Oh, but should we give him painkillers, too? I have some Percodans right here—”

  “Perks?” the boy asked. “Where’d you get ’em, Ava-Rose?”

  “I had them, smartie.”

  The deep baritone voice of the elder intoned, solemnly, “Perhaps just one, eh?”

  A glass of cold water was brought to Terence, and a capsule was nudged against his lips. He did not think of resisting, though he would have to drive back to Queenston soon, and such a drug might make him drowsy.

  Holly Mae Loomis whispered, “He’s a good patient, isn’t he?”

  Ava-Rose said, warmly, “He’s a good kind courageous man—I’ll never forget how he risked his life for me.”

  Terence protested, “But, surely, anyone in my place—”

  They had moved away from him, to let him rest. Terence felt coolness on his face, from an opened window; he did not open his good eye, yet seemed to be gazing into night.

  Elsewhere in the house, a bird chattered, whistled, and shrieked as if in complaint of so much attention being paid to Terence—this would be Darling, the West African gray parrot. Closer, yet at a distance, girls’ voices were petulant and wondering—“Hey, why can’t we come in? Who’s lying down there?” (These would be the pretty young girls whom Terence had seen sunbathing on the roof: the girls who’d teased him so.) Buster the dog, recognizing Terence, had ceased his barking, and lay now beside the divan, his heavy, warm head on Terence’s knees. Terence groped to pet him, and Buster licked his fingers lovingly. “Good dog!” Terence whispered. The interior of his mouth was coated with something like cotton batting that made even whispering difficult.

  Not quite out of earshot, the Renfrews were hurriedly conferring. Terence felt like an eavesdropper—but had he any choice?

  The elder Renfrews, with Chick joining in, chided Ava-Rose for being too trusting in the matter of Eldrick Gill; and Ava-Rose, her voice husky and quavering, acknowledged that, yes, she’d made a mistake—“But, between faith and doubt in our fellow man, The Church bids us choose faith. And I had to attend to my business.”

  Cap’n-Uncle Riff said, “Speak to me not of ‘The Church.’ The Church of the Holy Apocalypse is not my church, child.”

  “Nor mine neither,” Holly Mae Loomis said, with a snort. “And this Eldrick Gill, who’s done time in Rahway—who in her right mind would have faith in him? Why, he ain’t half as good-looking, even, as T.W.! Anybody’d think, Ava-Rose, after T.W. almost killed you, you’d have more sense about men.”

  Ava-Rose began to protest, faintly, but Chick interrupted. He spoke in a bemused adolescent drawl, yet Terence was struck by the boy’s intelligence. “Ava-Rose is so far from evil, herself, she can’t see it in anybody else. She feels sorry for anybody who’s in love with her—or say they are.”

  Ava-Rose laughed sadly, embarrassed. “Oh I do feel sort of to blame for causing evil—I guess.”

  The others laughed in derision. Cap’n-Uncle Riff said, in a lowered voice, moving as if to stand with his back to the visitor lying on their divan, “Look here! Ava-Rose is aware now, but what’s to be done? Eldrick Gill surely has a gun, and we do not. He has been to this house and may come again. Unless we flee the premises, and—”

  Holly Mae interrupted fiercely, “Oh no, oh no, not me. I do not flee. I do not abandon my home to a marauding beast who would put it to the torch—not me.”

  “Nor me neither!” Chick said loudly, in disgust.

  Ava-Rose said, “If only the police—”

  Again the others laughed in derision. Their voices grew fainter, as if they were moving away; or Terence were growing drowsier, unable to hold onto consciousness. He did not want to sleep, though sleep, an easing away from his aching body, was deliciously inviting. The sweet-natured dog, whose name, at the moment, Terence could not have recalled, but whose coarse, wiry fur was perceptibly different to his fingertips than Tuffi’s had been, snuggled closer, with a human-sounding sigh like a groan of sheer comfort.

  Nearly out of earshot, there came the teenaged Chick’s defiant voice, “We ain’t gonna let him kill us—hell, he’s gonna get his, you wait,” and Ava-Rose cried, “Oh Chick, honey, no. That’s a wrongful thing to utter,” and Holly Mae said, “I say it’s a rightful thing,” and Cap’n-Uncle Riff said, his brave words fading even as Terence strained to hear them, “I say we must defend ourselves—somehow. Or—”

  A pit opened at the bottom of Terence Greene’s skull, and he tumbled through.

  “Dr. Greene?—Ter-ence? Excuse me—”

  Gentle fingers stroked his cheek, and removed the cold compress from his left eye. Terence woke, with a start. One instant obliterated in darkness, the other fully awake, like a match struck into flame.

  His left eye was not so swollen as he’d feared but its vision was blurred, as if he were looking through a veil; the vision in his right eye appeared to be normal, but what he saw—a young woman’s beautiful face, amber-green eyes, heated skin, a tiny white scar on her chin like a vertical dimple—was wonderful to him. And how lovely, her scratchy contralto voice, her quaint pronunciation of his name—“Ter-ence”—with both syllables equally stressed.

  So I have not dreamt you, then.

  Ava-Rose Renfrew leaned above him, smiling hesitantly. “Your eye doesn’t look bad at all, only a bit bruised. I think the ice helped.”

  Terence too was smiling, or trying to. How dazed, how happy he felt! He said, “Thanks to you.” As if to impress the admiring young woman, who gazed at him with rapt, shining eyes, Terence got to his feet; declared that, yes, he did feel much better—“Like Lazarus rising from the dead.” He’d meant the remark as a joke of some sort, an allusion to the fact (of which, in his male vanity, he was keenly aware) that he looked ghastly. But, as a joke, it fell quite flat; Ava-Rose Renfrew was clearly not in a mood for levity. She clutched both Terence’s hands in hers, in a gesture of singular intimacy—a spontaneous response that cut through the surface of a disheveled man’s banter, and spoke to something deeper in him, as, Terence was to think later, his very wife Phyllis would not have done—and cried, breathless, “Oh! Dr. Greene! Don’t say such a thing! He might have killed you, if you’d been alone somewhere without witnesses.”

  Terence’s smile turned lopsided, then faded. Of course, Ava-Rose was right. Why did he play the fool, at such a time?

  As he stood to his full height, a wave of faintness seemed to rise with him. A pulse beat in his left eye and he could breathe only through his mouth; he touched his nose gingerly, and wondered if it had broken. His clothes were blood-splattered—how on earth would he explain himself to his family?

  Phyllis, his daughters, the house at 7 Juniper Way—all came flooding back to him. And the conference in New Haven he’d so uncharacteristically missed. How would he explain?

  As if reading Terence’s thoughts, Ava-Rose said, in a childlike conspiratorial tone, “You’ll have to say you were in an accident—a minor accident with your car, won’t you, Terence! You don’t want to involve the police, you know. They’re not reliable—they say they will protect you, if you’re a witness to a criminal act, or a victim; then they don’t. The Trenton police told my family, ‘We can’t give you twenty-four-hour-a-day surveillance f
orever just ’cause somebody says he wants to kill you.’”

  Terence said quickly, “I understand.”

  “Well, I hope you really don’t—fully.”

  It was a startling, rather touching answer. Terence looked at the beautiful young woman with the fair, glinting, springy hair and the exotic jewelry—long dangling silver-and-turquoise earrings, several necklaces, many bracelets and rings—and the wide-set clear eyes so fixed upon him thinking How can I leave you, now I’ve found you even as Ava-Rose Renfrew, who was, for all her air of romance, a practical-minded woman, slid an arm through his and led him to the rear of the house. “You’d best get back home, your family will be missing you. Your wife.” Ava-Rose tapped at the plain gold wedding band Terence wore on his left hand. Terence murmured, as if reproved, “My wife, yes.”

  The other Renfrews seemed to have retreated, out of tact. From a distant part of the house came a sound of voices, music, a television set—a parrot’s shrilly uttered expletives. There were smells of cooking, something warm, yeasty, spicy, mouth-watering. Through a doorway Terence caught a glimpse of an old-fashioned kitchen with cupboards to the ceiling, antiquated stove and sink, aged dotted swiss curtains on the windows; he saw, with a rush of hunger he wouldn’t have believed he had, a large crusty and whorled loaf of grainy brown bread, newly baked, on a counter. Oh! won’t you feed me! please! Saying ruefully, “I’ve interrupted your dinner, haven’t I! Your delicious family dinner.”

  Ava-Rose laughed, tugging at Terence’s arm as if in affectionate reproof. “Dr. Greene, if we are to be friends, you must not utter ‘words that seem not what they say, and say not what they seem.’ I interrupted Auntie’s dinner preparation, and a meal is nothing, is it?—when a man has saved another’s life.”

  Ava-Rose had so distinct a way of speaking, such a curious habit of enunciating certain vowels, Terence wondered if she had a very slight speech impediment; or if her native language were not English. He gazed at her, blinking. “I—I’m not sure that I saved your life, Ava-Rose. I—”

  “Why, of course you did, Dr. Greene! In any case, you would have.” Ava-Rose drew a deep, passionate breath. “As a daughter of the Faith of the Millennium, who sees intentions as deeds, and who takes all things as seriously as if the world is to end at midnight—I will never forget your sacrifice.”

  Terence laughed, embarrassed. His head was mildly spinning. She is looking at me with eyes of love—isn’t she? “A daughter of—?”

  “I’ll tell you of my faith, which is a newly found faith, here in Trenton, though with houses of worship throughout the world, next time we meet,” Ava-Rose said sweetly. “Now, I’m a bit worried for you—isn’t your family awaiting you, Dr. Greene?”

  How Terence Greene would have liked to protest In fact, no: No one is awaiting me tonight. But he knew the words would sound hollow and unconvincing. He said, so sweetly rebuked, “Why, yes. Of course.”

  Before leaving the Renfrew house, Terence used a bathroom, more a washroom, off the kitchen. The facilities were more primitive than any he’d seen since his boyhood in rural Shaheen, New York; he felt a moment’s repugnance for anyone who could live in such a house. Not only was the plumbing very old—the toilet bowl and sink permanently stained—but the walls were grimy, the linoleum floor worn through, and there was a plastic strip over the single small window, where part of the pane was broken. Couldn’t they afford to replace the glass?—or didn’t they care?

  Or were they a family who transcended material things?

  Outside, Ava-Rose led Terence to his car, shivering. An autumnal chill was rising from the earth and there was a gathering wind from the west, off the river. The sun had long since set; it was night; filmy clouds were blown across the face of the moon, so that shadows moved in the Renfrews’ overgrown yard. Terence’s nerves were strung tight and now he did want to leave before something further happened.

  Trying not to wince with pain, he climbed gingerly into his car; put the key in the ignition and started the motor. What relief that the BMW started so immediately, its powerful engine leaping into life. Terence had halfway worried that—well, something might have happened to the expensive car in this shabby West Trenton neighborhood.

  Ava-Rose too seemed relieved. She smiled, and gave him her hand in farewell. The wind stirred her hair and her long earrings glittered against her cheeks.

  She spoke quickly, quietly, glancing nervously back over her shoulder as if fearing someone might be watching. (Was someone watching? The wind in the trees, the wind in the tall grasses.) “Dr. Greene, I sense our destinies are linked!—I will never forget you. And Auntie told me about you offering to help us get a lawyer—what kindness! Auntie Holly has had such a hard life, and has suffered so from that back injury, and not one person among the ‘powers of the secular’ in Trenton has cared in the slightest. You’ve given us all such hope.”

  Was it true? Terence had rolled down his car window and was leaning to it, gazing up at Ava-Rose Renfrew with an expression of such yearning, he knew he should be embarrassed. His bruised eye leaked tears, which was more embarrassing still. Yet he could hardly help himself. Don’t send me away, Ava-Rose—I love you.

  He said, “You called me ‘Terence’ before, Ava-Rose—I hope you will again?”

  Shy as a young girl, blushing, Ava-Rose bit her lower lip. For there was no mistaking this stranger’s interest now.

  “‘Ter-ence.’”

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  They were still holding hands. Impulsively, as if overcome by emotion, yet in the most innocent of ways, Ava-Rose brought Terence’s hand to her lips—to kiss.

  With which gesture, Terence Greene’s life was changed forever.

  For here is what happened, as Terence would subsequently determine, in the weeks and months to follow that September evening.

  In all the years of his life, to follow.

  Eldrick Gill, after punching and kicking Terence in the parking lot, went to get drunk; and, drunk and deeply embittered, for what private reason obsessed with Ava-Rose Renfrew, he’d been unable to keep away from the Renfrews’ house where—how many times?—he’d been a visitor. Shrewdly, he hadn’t driven his motorcycle along Holyoak Street, where he would have been seen by neighborhood residents; he took the back route, driving up from the River Road, Route 29, on the unimproved access road that led to the landfill-dump a quarter-mile beyond the cul-de-sac of Holyoak, and behind the Renfrews’ property.

  There, he’d left his 1988 Harley-Davidson. Partly hidden in underbrush. Where, later that night, Cap’n-Uncle Riff Renfrew and fifteen-year-old Chick Renfrew would discover it after a brief search, preparatory to rolling it down to the Delaware River, and into the river. To sink without a trace.

  Like the lifeless bloodied body of Eldrick Gill himself, weighted with debris from the landfill. Later that night.

  Eldrick Gill, thirty-four years old, resident of 2822 Sixteenth Street, Trenton; intermittently employed construction worker, truck driver, gas station attendant; with a criminal record of several arrests for burglary, drug dealing, assault and battery, and a single conviction resulting in three years (for assault) at Rahway State Prison. His body never to be found since, in life, he was not to be much missed.

  But Eldrick Gill could not have anticipated such a fate for himself, meaning to do injury—to kill?—making his way, on foot, by stealth, to the rear of the Renfrews’ house, at approximately 7:30 P.M. He saw that the Renfrews had a visitor—very likely, he recognized the BMW in the driveway as belonging to the well-dressed middle-aged stranger he’d attacked at the Chimney Point Shopping Center—and so he waited, amid the bushes and tall grasses, to see what developed. He’d had six quick ales in a tavern on State Street, yet might have believed himself clear-minded, cunning. He wanted revenge but he hadn’t known what he would do to Ava-Rose Renfrew, who had betrayed him, or to any of her family; he hadn’t known whether he would do anything at all.

  After some minutes of waiting he saw Ava-Rose
and the tall stranger leave the house at the rear. He saw the man, with a stooping, wincing walk, get into his fancy silver car; saw Ava-Rose take the man’s hand in hers; saw her suddenly lift the hand, and kiss it—and in that instant, Eldrick Gill lost control.

  Rushing at the woman, cursing—“Cunt! Liar! Murderer! You!”

  How swiftly and terribly it happened, and how clumsily: Eldrick Gill struck Ava-Rose Renfrew a vicious chopping blow, aiming for her neck, to break it, but striking her shoulder instead. She cried out only faintly, falling like a shot to the ground. There was an outcry from the back door of the house, where the white-bearded Cap’n-Uncle Riff and his great-nephew Chick were watching—there was a dog’s wild barking—and the man behind the wheel of the BMW, wholly astonished, cried out too.

  “Stop! Wait! What are you—”

  Eldrick Gill panicked and turned to run—stumbling and swaying back along the lane—as, behind him, there were furious cries from the old man and the boy, directed at Terence. “Get him! Go after him! Don’t let him get away!”

  So Terence, confused, but eager to obey, pressed down hard on the accelerator and the car leapt forward.

  The lane was weedy, bumpy—the car so bucked, bounced, jolted, Terence had to grip the wheel tight with both hands to keep from pitching forward. In the lurching headlights, the fleeing man turned, with a look of fury, incredulity, and terror—his opaque eyes shining like a cat’s, the very bristles of his unshaven jaw, dark against his pasty face, illuminated—as, seemingly of its own volition, primed for the kill, the BMW struck him, and ran over him.

  There was a short, anguished scream—Eldrick Gill, or Terence Greene, Terence himself did not know.