Part 5 (1/2)
”I think you'd get more out of her alone. When there's two people or more she wants to be entertaining. She reacts too much. She talks better to one. My G.o.d, boy, those are some pictures! A year and a half ago? I guess she was bad off then, but it would take a trained man to see it. Now anybody can see it.”
”What's the best att.i.tude toward her, Stan?”
”Just natural, friendly. If she says nutty things, just steer her back to what you want to talk about. Don't look shocked and don't laugh. We're used to Nancy around here, and every drunk in the world has heard everything there is to hear. Treat her as if she was... a bright, sweet, imaginative child.”
”Where is she?”
He took me over to the office and pointed. ”Go around the dining hall and the path to the beach starts on the other side of it. I saw her heading that way about twenty minutes or so ago.”
I heard her before I saw her. It was a narrow beach, more sh.e.l.l than sand. It was a lovely contralto voice, very rich and full, singing, with maximum feeling, that cigarette commercial about filter, flavor, flip-top box. She was sitting on a palm log about a hundred feet up the bright beach from where the path exited.
As I walked toward her, she heard my steps crunching the sh.e.l.l, stopped singing, turned and stared at me, and then stood up and came toward me with a warm and lovely smile of welcome, teeth very white in her sundarkened face. ”h.e.l.lo there!” she said. ”I'm Nancy. Are you one of the new ones?”
She wore pale blue Bermudas, and a man's white s.h.i.+rt with the tails knotted around her waist. Her dark hair was in braids. She was tall and lithe, and her eyes were a dark clear blue.
After a mental hesitation, I realized she made me think of Jane in the very oldest Tarzan movies. She was barefoot, unwincing on the sh.e.l.ls.
”I'm just visiting. My name is Trav.”
”Are you visiting Jackie? She doesn't throw up as much. Maybe she can go home. Just to visit.”
”As a matter of fact, I'm here to visit you.”
All the warmth and light went out of her face. ”He just sends people. Tell him I don't give a d.a.m.n. Not now. Not ever. Screw him. Tell him that.”
”n.o.body sent me. I just know some people who know you. I was down this way. So I stopped in. That's all, Nancy.”
”What people?”
”Carl Abelle. Vance and Patty M'Gruder.” Scowling, she turned away from me and went back and sat on the log. I followed and stood near her.
She squinted up at me. ”I know that Carl. A strong back and a weak mind, believe me. He had that stupid idea. The perfect o.r.g.a.s.m. Can you imagine? Maybe he thought it worked me up. d.a.m.ned coward. Too scared to light a fire in that line shack. My G.o.d it was always cold in there, way up on that ridge, with Auntie thinking I was on the slopes all day. He stole a key from the office. Fifty dollars a day she was paying him for personal instruction. We'd pile everything on that bunk. What was he trying to get? Tell me that? You either come or you don't. Right? And I almost always do, no matter how quick they are the first time. Last week or last year I was trying to remember Carl's name. My G.o.d, he was beautiful on skis. When we'd leave that cabin he'd push me down in the snow and rub snow on my face to get me all pink and outdoorsy-looking, and then guide me down the slopes, all the way to the lodge, half stoned on that brandy, like dreaming and floating. But he said some real dumb things. What was I then? He probably told you. Nineteen? I guess so. I'm remembering better. You ask Stan. He'll tell you. But what good is it? I mean some of the things you remember. Sit by me. But please, I don't want to talk about those puke M'Gruders. I don't have to, do I?”
”No.”
”What have you got there?”
”Some pictures.”
”May I see them, please?”
She held them in her lap. She looked at them slowly and solemnly, one by one. I watched her face carefully. She sorted one onto the top. She stroked a thumb along the line of Sonny's back. ”Burned, burned, burned,” she said softly.
”Sunburned?”
”Oh no. He hit a wall. It was his supercharged Merc with special cams and like that. I wore the big red hat so he could spot me, and I sat on the wall by the pits that day. We towed that car all over everywhere, and it burned him up in Georgia. It bounced and bounced.” She stroked her thigh. ”Sonny liked me in wh.o.r.e clothes. He bought them all. Tight short skirts and tight bright sweaters, and he said I had to swing it when I walked. Proud as a rooster, and mean as a snake, Sonny was.”
She ran her thumb across his image on the photograph. ”This one right here. Sonny Catton. He took me along when the party p.o.o.ped out. I was with him maybe two weeks, and he kept beating me up, for taking another drink, or somebody making a pa.s.s at me, or sometimes just from remembering things from the party. Like this picture here, me with this one. What was his name? Ca.s.s? Ca.s.s something. He drew funny pictures of people. He gave me one of me and I lost it. You know, I've lost every single G.o.ddam thing I ever owned? I got sick of him hammering on me and I went home and what do you know, my fa-fa-f-f... the man who married my mother, he had pictures like this. He said tell my friends it was no sale. They could publish them in the Chronicle. Boy, what a smack across the face he gave me! His face was like a stone. I guess it bugged him to see pictures of his wife laying people. Wife! Did you hear that! I'm his d-d-daugh-daughter. Made it!”
My skin had the cold quivers, just below the nape of my neck. ”What did you do then, Nancy?”
”Are you another doctor? For a thousand years I've been up to my hips in doctors. I was a woman when I was fourteen, and when I got caught doing it, that was when they sent me to the first one, and I could tell he would have liked it too, if he could get up the nerve. He used to get sweaty and clean his gla.s.ses and walk around. They all make a big thing out of stuttering when I try to say... ef aye tee aitch ee are. Are you going to give me tests?”
”My name is Trav. I'm not a doctor.”
”Trav. Trav, why did he tell you to bring me these pictures? They aren't even the same. There were more of me. Hey, you know who this was? This one with no face? A very famous movie star. Lysa Dean! Honestly, I'm not kidding. She's just a little thing, but so gorgeous.”
”Who took the pictures?”
”How should I know? I didn't know anybody took any pictures until I walked into his study and he had them. He gave me money and I caught up with Sonny again. I was with him a long time. Months, I guess. All over. Wherever he raced. I remember the day he died and the next thing I remember is in the hospital in Mexico City. Somebody had to take me down there, but who? I couldn't have wandered down there, could I? Somebody dumped me in the hospital parking lot in the middle of the night, I found out later. I had bronchial pneumonia and two broken fingers. I was hallucinating and I had a dose of clap. When I could tell them who I was, they wired... him. As soon as I could be moved, he sent people to bring me back and put me in... Shady Rest? Refuge Mountain? One of those c.r.a.ppy names. How do you expect me to remember. I can't even remember being brought here!”
”How did your father get those pictures anyhow?”
”How do I know? He thought I knew all about it. He thought it was friends of mine, and we cooked it up to get money out of him.”
”This is a pretty good place to be, Nancy”
”I guess so. I guess I like it. Sometimes I get very very nervous. After that I get sad. I'm sad a long time. I hum sad songs all day without making a single sound.”
”Did anybody at that house party say anything about pictures of Lysa Dean?”
She turned toward me with an exasperated look. ”You know, you get to be a terrible bore about those pictures. No. n.o.body said anything. I didn't see a camera. Let's drop it, shall we?”
I put the pictures away. ”Why are you mad at the M'Gruders?”
”I don't want to talk about it.”
”Then we won't.”
”You know, you are terribly nice, Trav ” She smiled at me, all abeam with innocence. She put her hand on mine.
”Thank you. You're a nice girl.”
”I'm a s.l.u.t, darling. I'm a drunk and a s.l.u.t. May I ask you a very personal question?”
”Of course.”
”Why don't we go over in the bushes a minute, sweetheart?” She tugged at my hand quickly and strongly, trying to press it against herself. I yanked my hand away. ”It keeps me from getting nervous,” she said. ”Please, honey. Please, please, please.”
I stood up quickly and she jumped up to try to press herself against me. I held her off with my hands on her shoulders. She dipped her head sharply to the side and licked my hand. I shook her. ”Nancy! Nancy! Cut it out!”
She shuddered, smiled sadly, backed away. ”It never makes any difference to a man. Why should you care one way or the other?”
”I have to get back. It was nice to visit with you.”
”Thank you,” she said politely. ”Come and see me again.” She squared her shoulders like a child about to recite. ”When you get back there, tell my f-f... tell him I am being a good girl. Tell him that... I am getting good marks.”
”Of course.”