Black Water Page 8

  Kelly, though so hungry she was lightheaded, shaky, found it difficult to eat. She raised her fork to her mouth, then lowered it again. Though there were numerous others among Buffy's guests who would have liked to speak with The Senator, The Senator insisted upon focusing his attention upon Kelly Kelleher; as if, as in the most improbable of fairy tales, the man had made this impromptu trip to Grayling Island expressly to see her.

  Heat stung pleasurably in Kelly Kelleher's cheeks. It crossed her mind that Carl Spader would be most impressed, yes and frankly jealous, to hear about this meeting.

  The Senator winced as a string of firecrackers exploded next door.

  Kelly thought, He fears being shot— assassination.

  What a novelty, to be so public a figure one fears being assassinated!

  The Senator said, "I really don't like the Fourth of July, I guess. Since I was a little boy I've associated it with the turning point of summer. Half through, and now moving toward fall." He spoke with a curious bemused melancholy air, wiping his mouth. There was catsup on his napkin like smears of lipstick.

  Kelly said, "You must have to do a lot of official things, on holidays, don't you?—most of the time? Give speeches, accept awards—"

  The Senator shrugged indifferently. "It's a lonely life, hearing your own voice in your ears so much."

  "Lonely!" Kelly laughed.

  But The Senator was saying, speaking quickly as if confiding in her, and not wanting her to interrupt, "It makes me angry sometimes, it's a visceral thing—how you come to despise your own words in your ears not because they aren't genuine, but because they are; because you've said them so many times, your 'principles,' your 'ideals'—and so damned little in the world has changed because of them." He paused, taking a large swallow of his drink. The tension in his jaws did in fact suggest anger. "You hate yourself for your putative 'celebrity': for the very reason others adore you."

  And this too flattered Kelly Kelleher enormously for it seemed, didn't it, that, in speaking of such things, of such others, The Senator was excluding Kelly Kelleher from censure.

  He was separated from his wife, his children were grown—her age, at least. Where was the harm?

  She was explaining to her parents that they had only kissed, a single time. Where was the harm?

  G----- had given her an infection of the genital-urinary tract but it was not one of the serious infections, it was not one of the unspeakable infections, it had disappeared months ago thanks to an antibiotic regimen. Where was the harm?

  That morning, she'd bathed luxuriously in a peppermint-green sudsy water, carbonated bath tablets, "ActiBath," which Buffy had insisted she try.

  They'd driven to town, to Grayling Harbor on the western side of the island, to stock up for the party. Harbor Liquor, The Fish Mart, Tina Maria Gourmet Foods, La Boulangerie. In front of La Boulangerie a shiny new Ford jeep was parked and on its rear bumper was the sticker THERE ARE NO POCKETS IN A SHROUD.

  Distractedly, Buffy told Kelly as they were emerging from one or another of the stores, laden with expensive purchases, "Y'know—I don't know anyone who has died of AIDS since January first. I just realized."

  Driving back to the cottage Buffy mentioned casually that Ray Annick had invited The Senator up for the party. But it wasn't the first time Ray had invited the man—"I don't expect him, really. I don't."

  "Here? He's invited here?" Kelly asked.

  "Yes, but I'd die if he showed up."

  Also for the carbonated bubble-bath Buffy had pressed upon Kelly a new Spirit Music CD, "Dolphin Dreams." The sound was a soothing blend of dolphin song and choral voices, for the reduction of stress; but Kelly had not played it.

  They'd missed the 7:30 P.M. ferry but they were not going to miss the 8:20 P.M. ferry. The Senator seemed annoyed, impatient. Staring at his watch, which was a digital watch, the numerals flashing like nerve tics. During their final hour at the party The Senator's mood shifted. He was not so coherent in his speech as he'd been, nor so fluent with repartee; he regarded Kelly Kelleher with that look familiar to her yet indefinable—a masculine proprietary look, edged with anxiety, indignation.

  As they were leaving The Senator asked Kelly did she want one for the road, and Kelly said no, and The Senator said, would she take one for him, please?—apart from his own, that is, which he was carrying. At first Kelly thought he might be joking, but he wasn't: he had a newly freshened vodka-and-tonic in hand, and he wanted Kelly to bring a second. Kelly hesitated, but only for a moment.

  Buffy caught up with Kelly in the driveway, squeezed her hand, whispered in her ear, "Call me, sweetie! Anytime tomorrow."

  Meaning that it had not happened yet for there stood Buffy in the driveway staring after them her hand raised in a wan farewell.

  IT HAD NOT HAPPENED YET, SHE SAW HERSELF DEFIantly running in her little white anklet socks on the prickly carpet toes twitchy and wriggly and someone tall swooping up behind her seizing her beneath the arms tight and secure gripping her beneath the armpits holding her safe Who's this! who's this! little angel-bee 'Lizabeth!

  That was so. She'd come that way. That was the way she had come.

  She saw that. There was no mistake. Yet at the same time she was explaining to a gathering of people, elders, whose faces were indistinct through the cracked windshield that it was not what they thought he had not abandoned her, he'd gone to get help for her, that man whose name she could not recall, nor could she summon back his face though she was certain she would recognize it when she saw it, he had gone to get help to call an ambulance that was where he'd gone, he had not abandoned her to die in the black water.

  He had not kicked her, he had not fled from her. He had not forgotten her.

  Absurd pink-polished nails, now broken, torn. But she would fight.

  A blood-flecked froth in her nostrils, her eyes rolling back in her head but she would fight.

  ... had not abandoned her kicking free of the doomed car swimming desperate to save his life to shore there lying exhausted vomiting the filthy water which no power on earth could induce him to return to, rising at last (after how long, he could not have said: a half-hour? an hour?) to flee on foot limping ignominiously one shoe on, one shoe off a singsong curse his enemies might one day chant if he could not prevent it, limping and stumbling back along the marshland road in terror of being discovered by a passing motorist back to the highway two miles away shivering convulsively his breath in panicked gasps What can I do! What can I do! God instruct me what can I do! the shrill mad cries of the insects and a nightmare sea of mosquitoes whining circling his head stinging his flesh that was so tender, swollen, his bruised forehead, his nose he believed must be broken striking with such force against the steering wheel, and at the highway he crouched panting like a dog crouched in hiding in the tall rushes waiting for traffic to clear so he could run limping across the road to an outdoor telephone booth in the parking lot of Post Beer & Wine dry-mouthed and numb in the protraction of visceral panic, the dreamlike protraction of a horror so unspeakable and so unacceptable it could not be contemplated but only fled, The Senator fleeing on foot one shoe on, one shoe off disheveled as a drunk and if anyone saw him? recognized him? photographed him? and if God Who had so long favored him now withdrew His favor? and if this ignominy was the end? limping gasping for breath covered in filthy black muck the end? and if he would not be redeemed one day exalted above his enemies and admirers alike? and if never nominated by his party after all, and if never elected president of the United States after all? and if cast down in derision in shame and the mockery of his enemies? for politics is in its essence as Adams had said the systematic organization of hatreds: either you were organized or you were not: the terror of it washing over him, sick, sick in his guts, swaying like a drunk running across the highway though now fully sober and he would remain sober he believed, he vowed, for the rest of his life and it would be a good life if only God would favor him now in this hour of anguish If You would have mercy now wincing
and doubled over wracked with sudden pain in his bowels as somewhere close by in a municipal park sparkling rockets shot into the night sky gaily explosive and lurid in pinwheel colors RED WHITE and BLUE and there trailed in the rockets' wake ooohs! and ahhhs! of childlike admiration, a dog's sudden hysterical yipping and a young man's furious yell "Shut it!" so it was not gunshot but simply noise of no consequence and he had a coin in his stiff fingers like a magical talisman, wallet snug in his pocket and money in wallet intact, in fact hardly dampened it seemed, he was able to speak calmly requesting directorial assistance calling the residence of St. John, Derry Road, gratified that he could remember the name and there on the eighth ring a woman answered and in the background a din of party voices so she had to ask him to repeat himself, with whom did he want to speak?—telling her, this stranger who was a lifeline to him as a mere straw would be to a man submerged in water just covering his head in a slightly thickened, lowered voice of no discernible accent Ray Annick please, this is Gerald

  Ferguson calling Ray Annick please and the woman went away and the din of voices and laughter increased and finally Ray was on the line edgy, apprehensive, "Yeah? Gerry? What is it?" knowing it must be trouble, for Ferguson was no friend but a legal associate who would never have called Ray Annick at such a time unless it was trouble, and The Senator said in his own voice faltering, desperate, "Ray, it isn't Ferguson, it's me," and Ray said dumbly, "You?" and The Senator said, "It's me and I'm in bad trouble, there was an accident," and Ray asked, with the faint falling air of a man reaching out to support himself, "What? What accident?" and The Senator said, his voice now rising, "I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do: that girl— she's dead," banging his already bruised forehead against the filthy Plexiglas wall of the telephone booth, so there was an instant's shocked silence and then Ray said, "Dead-----!" more an inhalation of breath than an expletive, and then he said, quickly, "Don't tell me over the phone! Just tell me where you are and I'll come get you," and The Senator was sobbing now, furious and incredulous and aggrieved, "The girl was drunk, and she got emotional, she grabbed at the wheel and the car swerved off the road and they'll say manslaughter, they'll get me for-----" and Ray interrupted, now angrily, with authority, "Don't! Stop! Just tell me where you are for Christ's sake, and I'll come get you." And so The Senator did.

  The digital numerals of his Rolex still flashing: 9:55 P.M.

  But none of this Kelly Kelleher knew or could know for it seemed to her that in fact the accident had not happened yet—for there was the shiny black Toyota only now turning off the highway onto the desolate rutted road, the bright romantic moon above, something low and jazzy on the radio and, yes, she knew this was a mistake, probably a mistake, yes probably they were lost... but lost was their intention.

  As the black water filled her lungs, and she died.

  No: at the last possible moment coughing and choking she strained to lift her torso higher, to raise her head higher straining so that the small muscles stood out from the sinews and bone of her left arm as her fingers gripped what she no longer quite understood was the steering wheel but knew it was a device to save her for there was the bubble floating above shrunken now from its original size but it was there and she was all right hugging a startled Buffy St. John hard, hard, vowing she loved her like a sister and was sorry she had so deliberately shut herself off from Buffy these past two or three years telling her it was an accident, no one to blame.

  And, yet, had it happened...? The car speeding skidding along the road that seemed to have no houses, no traffic only swampy land stretching for miles everywhere the spiky brown rushes, the swaying tall grasses, stunted pines, so many strangely lifeless trees—treetrunks— and the harsh percussive rhythm of the insects' cries in their mating as if sensing how time accelerated, how the moon would shortly topple from the sky turned upside down and Kelly saw without registering she saw (for she and The Senator were talking) in a shallow ditch beside the road a broken dinette table, the front wheel of an English racing bicycle, the headless naked body of a flesh-pink doll... looking away from the doll not wanting to see the hole between the shoulders like a bizarre mutilated vagina where the head had been wrenched off.

  You're an American girl you love your life.

  You love your life, you believe you have chosen it.

  She was drowning, but she was not going to drown. She was strong, she meant to put up a damned good fight.

  And there was his anxious face floating on the other side of the windshield as again, after she'd come to think he had abandoned her, he was diving for her, tugging at the door so violently the entire car rocked, and how tall he was, how warmly bronze his tanned skin, taller than nearly any man Kelly had ever seen, his wide white smile filled with teeth, those frizzy-wiry hairs on his arms and his arms were solid, muscular, his right wrist as he'd mentioned perceptibly thicker than his left from squash, decades of a fierce commitment to squash, and she touched the expensive white-gold digital watch on the wrist noting its tightness, the band pinching the flesh. Bemused it seemed by his state-of-the-art Rolex he said something about subsequent generations having a new concept of time seeing numerals flash and wink and fly by in contrast to the past where you looked at the face of a clock and saw the circular route of the hours as a measurable space to be traveled if only forward.

  And his strong fingers crushing hers. Kelly is it?—Kelly?

  That day that morning she'd been jogging on the beach amid the dunes, wind in her hair and the sun blazing white and in the frothy surf were sandpipers with prominently spotted breasts and long thin beaks and those delicate legs teetering pecking in the wet sand and she'd smiled at them, their curious scurrying movements, the oblivion of their concentration, feeling her heart swell I want to live, I want to live forever!

  She was bargaining yes all right she would trade her right leg, even both her legs if they thought it necessary, the emergency rescue team, yes amputate, all right please go ahead, please just do it she would sign the release later, she promised not to sue.

  Artie Kelleher was the one!—for that was his character, "litigious" as the family teased him, but Kelly would explain the circumstances, Kelly would take the blame.

  She was swallowing the black water in quick small mouthfuls reasoning that if she swallowed it quickly enough she would be simply drinking it, she would be all right.

  What was that?—for her?—staring in blinking astonishment and elation at what Grandma had sewed her, a dress in white pucker-cotton printed with tiny strawberries, she would wear it with her new black patent-leather shoes and the white cotton anklet socks trimmed in pink.

  You love the life you've lived because it is yours. Because that is the way you have come.

  She saw them watching her closely, she had to hide her tears, not wanting them to be upset. Not wanting them to know.

  Grandma, Mommy, Daddy—I love you.

  Yet strange to her, not altogether pleasant, that they were so young. She had not remembered them so young.

  It was risky it was the adventure of her young life very likely yes probably a mistake but she'd leaned forward on her bare straining toes taking the kiss as if it were her due, for she was the one, she and none other, supplanting all the others, the young women who would have taken that kiss, from him, from that man whose name she had forgotten, in just that way.

  She wasn't in love but she would love him, if that would save her.

  She'd never loved any man, she was a good girl but she would love that man if that would save her.

  The black water was splashing into her mouth, into her nostrils, there was no avoiding it, filling her lungs, and her heart was beating in quick erratic lurches laboring to supply oxygen to her fainting brain where she saw so vividly jagged needles rising like stalagmites—what did it mean? Laughing ruefully to think how many kisses she'd had tasting of beer? wine? whiskey? cigarettes? marijuana?

  You love the life you've lived, there is no other.

  You love the l
ife you've lived, you're an American girl. You believe you have chosen it.

  And yet: he was diving into the black water, diving to the car, his fingers outspread on the cracked windshield and his hair lifting in tendrils, Kelly?—Kelly?—she saw him mute and astonished and how many minutes, hours, had passed, how long had she been in this place she could not know for time would not move forward in this snug black corner trapped in the twisted metal in the clamp that held her fast. But she saw him!—there he was!—suddenly above her and swimming down to wrench open the door at last, the very door that had trapped her, and her heart swelled with joy and gratitude dangerously close to bursting as her eyes too strained from their sockets she lifted her arms to him, giving herself up to him so his strong fingers could close about her wrists and haul her up out of the black water at last! at last! rising together soaring suddenly so very easily weightless to the surface of the water and she slipped free of his hands like a defiant child eager to swim by herself now she was free kick-paddling with enormous relief her numbed legs restored to her as after a bad dream and with strong rhythmic strokes of her arms in the Australian crawl she'd been taught at school she bore herself triumphantly to the air above at last! at last! her dilated eyes seeing the splendid night sky restored to her again as if it had never been gone and the moon gigantic so shrewdly she thought If I can see it, I am still alive and that simple realization filled her with a great serene happiness seeing too Mommy and Daddy waiting amid the tall grasses though she was puzzled that now they were not young in fact but old, older than she knew, their faces haggard with grief staring in horror as if they had never seen her before in their lives, Kelly, little 'Lizabeth, as if they did not recognize her running there squealing in expectation in joy in her little white anklet socks raising her arms to be lifted high kicking in the air as the black water filled her lungs, and she died.