Part 22 (1/2)
It came out because you do do love him Fred, don't you? love him Fred, don't you?
”I do not.”
You do. Admit it. You love him. It's okay. It's nothing to be ashamed about.
”I don't. I just said it because-” Fred paused. He didn't know why he'd said it.
He'll be really p.i.s.sed off about you killing the dog, you know.
”I didn't kill the dog.”
He'll see the gla.s.s on the patio.
”I'll clean it up in the morning.”
To hide the evidence of you killing the dog?
”He's not dead.”
Prove it.
Fred got up from his chair and limped down the stairs and to the side door of the condo. He opened the door and called the dog. Rusty didn't appear. He waited a few minutes, trying to focus in the darkness, looking for any movement, and then went into Winston's kitchen and fetched a tin of food. He brought it back to the door and opened it slowly, making sure the dog would hear the familiar sound of the can's lid popping. But the dog didn't bounce out from anywhere. Fred left the tin of food by the door and went back upstairs.
I told you. The dog is dead.
”Well, you're wrong. You're wrong about a lot of things.”
What things?
”Everything.”
Like what, Fred? What am I wrong about?
Fred turned the office television off with the remote and limped to his bedroom.
Tell me! What am I wrong about?
”That girl, for one. You said she was too young, and she's not. You're always saying I'm a queer, and I'm not. You're wrong all the time!”
Not about the dog.
”Whatever. Just shut up and let me sleep, will you?”
Fred slept soundly and didn't worry about Rusty once. When he woke up the next morning at five, he'd even forgotten about his injury until he saw a huge stain in the bed where his foot had been-a wide circle of brown dried blood. He examined the carpet and saw that he'd bled there too, and left footprints to and from the bathroom during the night. ”G.o.d d.a.m.n it!” he said, propping himself up and pulling his sopping foot onto his other leg.
Fred stripped the bed of its creamy cotton sheets. He tried to remember the trick his mother taught him. Was it cold water or hot water? Baking soda or lemon juice? He dropped the sheet at the bedroom door and removed the now-brown washcloth from his foot. The bleeding had pretty much stopped, but the wound had become a swollen, gaping hole overnight and Fred worried, again, that it might be infected. He searched the bathroom for something strong and found Listerine. Before he poured it over his foot, he took a long swig from the bottle.
”G.o.d d.a.m.n IT!” Fred screamed as his foot recoiled from the shock. If it stings this badly, it must be working, If it stings this badly, it must be working, he thought as he fought back tears. he thought as he fought back tears.
While David went to fetch Seanie, Emer went to her cabin and tidied herself. She brushed her hair and applied a dot of perfume oil to her neck, her armpits, and her knickers. She worried.
”What if he hates me as this murderous woman?” she asked herself, and then tried to remember the girl she was when they last saw each other. A simple girl. An orphan girl. An owned girl. She felt better once she rationalized things-surely Seanie had some bad history under his belt by now, too. Perhaps worse than killing many men and plundering Spanish s.h.i.+ps.
David was having trouble thinking about the plan to sink the Spanish fleet. He was too busy rowing between large boats to retrieve Seanie Carroll from the Virginia Virginia and feeling replaced. He tried not to feel too sorry for himself, but it wasn't working. Even though he knew that Emer never returned his feelings, he loved her more than he'd ever thought he could love a woman. Now he would have to give her up-after all his efforts to impress her! After all his work to a.s.semble the fleet! How unlucky could he get? and feeling replaced. He tried not to feel too sorry for himself, but it wasn't working. Even though he knew that Emer never returned his feelings, he loved her more than he'd ever thought he could love a woman. Now he would have to give her up-after all his efforts to impress her! After all his work to a.s.semble the fleet! How unlucky could he get?
Things got worse once Seanie climbed into the rowboat. David grunted and smirked-the closest to a welcoming smile he could manage-and Seanie looked pained and impatient. The two rowed violently back to the Vera Cruz Vera Cruz, not a word between them.
David reluctantly showed him to Emer's cabin and knocked. Emer called out for them to come in. She got up from her bed and hugged Seanie tightly, then held him at arm's length and looked at him, then hugged him again. Seanie grinned and laughed loudly, shook his head in disbelief, and blinked back tears.
”Seanie, this is David, my first mate and best friend. David, this is Seanie Carroll, the man I once told you about.” The two men shook hands and nodded to each other. David left as soon as he could.
Seanie sat in the armchair next to Emer's bunk and stared at her in the lamplight, smiling. She found herself crying, and then embracing him again, weak and sad as much as relieved and happy. She'd left her cape hanging on its hook and tried not to seem like the monster she'd become, tried to seem like a Connacht woman, or like someone who might have just thrown grain to the hens or washed the clothes in the river.
”How in the world did you land here?” she asked in rusty Gaelic.
Seanie laughed. ”I was meant to be looking for you,” he said. ”In Paris.”
”You were in Paris?”
”Well, no. The boat never went to Paris. I wanted to find you and bring you home, Emer. As it was, the boat I found was going to Barbados. I had very little English,” he explained. Every time he looked at her, he shook his head and sighed. He held her right hand in his left and squeezed it with each sigh. ”I worked three years on the plantations there before I finally got work as a marine on board a supply fluyte.”
Emer thought of all the marines she'd killed on board supply fluytes. Eyeb.a.l.l.s of such men stared at her from her embroidered cape. ”That's dangerous work,” she said.
”Not half as dangerous as being a feared legend of the sea, I'd say.” He motioned toward her foot.
Emer didn't want to tell him about her missing toes. ”Oh. I guess I have a long story too.”
Seanie had stared at her long enough. He'd watched her face make familiar expressions in the yellow glow as her eyes sparkled at him. Something told him to kiss her, then, and he did. It was a long kiss. It was a mature kiss-how parents kiss-how grandparents kiss. He moved onto the bed and twisted to face her, and held her so tightly she was uncomfortable. Uncomfortable, but didn't care-just as she didn't care all those nights in the Connacht cave, when her arm went numb beneath her from lying on his chest.
They lay down to face each other. Seanie propped his head up and Emer cuddled into her pillow. ”And what's your long story, then? How did my sweet Irish girl turn into a frightful pirate?”
Emer smiled. ”I'm not that d.a.m.ned, am I?”
”It's not so bad, to be feared out here.”
”Well, it is if you're just a nice Irish girl like me.” She giggled. ”Oh, I don't know! Where do I begin, Seanie? Paris? The horrible man who my uncle sold me to? I never had the chance to see him twice, I ran so fast. After a year begging the city streets in snow, I took the boat to Tortuga. They needed women to breed.”
She s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably and looked away from Seanie's stare. ”No different from Paris, really,” she added. ”I ran so fast, and then ended up here. And now it's the b.l.o.o.d.y Spanish. Have you heard the stories of how they torture the natives? What they do to their slaves? Worse than anything we've we've seen, and how can that be? I tell you, it will be quite a day when I sink the whole b.l.o.o.d.y fleet to the bottom of the sea! Quite a day!” seen, and how can that be? I tell you, it will be quite a day when I sink the whole b.l.o.o.d.y fleet to the bottom of the sea! Quite a day!”
Seanie kissed her again, for her enthusiasm. He remembered the day she first spoke to him, how excited she was and how her eyes beamed with the same zeal. Funny how things change, he thought. Funny how the same childish eyes could be so brutal, those eyes that once burned with marriage dreams-funny how now, although they pictured something completely different, those eyes somehow seemed just as sweet.
Emer remembered her foot and pointed. ”That, I got in prison. It's only because I've spent the last year in a dark cell that I look so like a ghost. I lost two toes. Just gone. Now I've only three there and a limp for life. I'm lucky I didn't die, though, or so the doctor tells me.”
”I really can't believe it's you,” Seanie said.