Part 35 (1/2)
”Nope. I never dream now.”
”Everybody dreams.”
”Then I don't allow myself to remember them,” Hotchkiss said. ”So...are you with me?”
”With you on what?”
”The descent.”
”You really want to do it? I thought it was virtually impossible to get down there.”
”So, we die trying,” Hotchkiss said.
”I've got a story to write.”
”Let me tell you, my friend,” Hotchkiss said. ”That's where the story is. The only story. Right beneath our feet.”
”I should warn you...I'm claustrophobic.”
”We'll soon sweat that out of you,” Hotchkiss replied, with a smile Grillo thought might have been a jot more rea.s.suring.
II.
Though Howie had valiantly fought off sleep through most of the afternoon, by early evening he could barely keep his eyes open. When he told Jo-Beth he wanted to return to the hotel Momma intervened, telling him she'd feel much comforted if he remained in the house. She made up the spare room (he'd spent the previous night on the sofa) and he retired to it. His body had taken a considerable beating in the last few days. His hand was still badly bruised, and his back, though the punctures- inflicted by the terata were not deep, still ached. None of which kept him from sleep for more than a few moments.
Jo-Beth prepared food for Momma-salad for Momma, as ever-and herself, going through the familiar domestic processes as though nothing in the world had changed since a week ago, and for short s.p.a.ces of time, involved in her labors, forgetting the horrors. Then a look on her mother's face, or the sight of the s.h.i.+ny new lock on the back door, brought the memories back. She could no longer put them into any kind of order: there was just humiliation and pain upon further humiliation and further pain. Leering through it all the Jaff; near to her, too near to her, coming so close on occasion to persuading her to his vision the way he'd persuaded Tommy-Ray. Of all her fears the one that distressed her the most was that she might actually have been capable of joining the enemy. When he'd explained to her how he wanted reasons rather than feelings, she'd understood. Even been moved to sympathy. And that teasing talk of the Art, and the island he wanted to show her...
”Jo-Beth?”
”Momma?”
”Are you all right?”
”Yes. Of course. Yes.”
”What were you thinking of? The expression on your face...”
”Just...about last night.”
”You should put it out of your head.”
”Maybe I'll drive over to see Lois; talk with her for a while? Would you mind?”
”No. I'll be fine here. Howard's with me.”
”Then I'll go.”
Of all her friends in the Grove none represented the normality from which her life had departed as perfectly as Lois. For all her moral strictures she had a strong and simple faith in what was good. In essence, she wanted the world a peaceful place, where children raised in love could in their turn raise children. She knew evil too. It was any force mounted against that vision. The terrorist, the anarchist, the lunatic. Now Jo-Beth knew that such human forces had allies on a more rarefied plane of being. One of those was her father. It was never more important that she sought the company of those whose definition of good was unshakable.
She heard noise and laughter from Lois's house as she got out of the car; which was welcome after the hours of fear and unease she'd spent. She knocked on the door. The raucousness continued unabated. It sounded to be quite a crowd.
”Lois? ” she called, but such was the level of hilarity from within both calls and knocks went unheard, so she rapped on the window, again calling. The drapes were drawn aside and Lois's quizzical face appeared, mouthing Jo-Beth's name. The room behind her was full of people. She was at the door ten seconds later, with an expression on her face so unusual Jo-Beth almost failed to recognize her: a smile of welcome. Behind her every light in the house seemed to be burning; a dazzling wash of light that spilled on to the step.
”Surprise,” said Lois.
”Yes, I just thought I'd call round. But you've...got company.”
”Sort of,” Lois replied. ”It's a little difficult just at the moment.”
She cast a glance back into the house. It seemed to be a costume party she was flinging. A man dressed in a full cowboy outfit sauntered up the stairs, spurs glinting, past another in full military garb. Crossing the hall, arm in arm with a woman in black, was a guest who'd come as a surgeon, of all things, his face masked. That Lois should have planned such a jamboree without mentioning it to Jo-Beth was odd enough; Lord knows they had spare time enough at the store to chat. But that she was throwing it at all-staid, reliable Lois-was doubly odd.
”I don't suppose it matters,” Lois was saying. ”You're a friend after all. You should be a part of it, right?”
A part of what was the question on Jo-Beth's lips, but she had no time to ask it before she was drawn inside by Lois, who took her arm with proprietorial force, and the door was shut hard behind her.
”Isn't it wonderful?” Lois said. She was positively glowing. ”Have you had the people come to see you?”
”People.”
”The Visitors.”
Jo-Beth merely nodded, which was sufficient to set Lois bubbling in a new direction. ”Next door, the Kritzlers had Visitors from Masquerade-you know, that series about the sisters?”
”The TV show?”
”Of course the TV show. And my Mel...well, you know how much he loves the old westerns .
None of this made much, if any, sense but Jo-Beth let Lois race on, for fear that asking a question out of turn might mark her as uninitiated, and she'd be denied any further confessions.
”Me? I'm the luckiest one,” Lois burbled. ”So, so lucky. All the people from Day by Day came over. The whole family. Alan, Virginia, Benny, Jayne. They even brought Morgan. Imagine.”
”Where did they come from, Lois?”
”They just appeared in the kitchen,” came the answer. ”And of course they've been telling me all the gossip about the family-”
Only the store obsessed Lois as much as Day by Day, the story of America's favorite family. She would regularly sit and tell Jo-Beth every detail of the previous night's episode as though it were part of her own life. Now it seemed the delusion had taken hold of her. She was talking about the Pattersons as though they were actually guests in her house.
”They're every bit as sweet as I knew they'd be,” she was saying, ”though I didn't think they'd mix with the people from Masquerade. You know, with the Pattersons being so ordinary; that's what I love about them. They're so...”
”Lois. Stop this.”
”What's wrong?” she said.
”You tell me.”
”Nothing's wrong. Everything's wonderful. The Visitors are here and I couldn't be happier.”
She smiled at a man in a pale blue jacket who waved a welcome.