Part 17 (1/2)
”Okay. The animal is asking you to sit down and the animal will buy you a c.o.ke. Maybe you can stop emoting and make sense. What are you kids taking lately? It has warped your little head.”
She hesitated and then sat on the edge of the yellow couch. ”Thank you, I don't want a c.o.ke. And I don't take anything. Aside from getting a little woozy on wine a couple of times. You sit down too. Are you ready for a name?”
”I'm Travis McGee.”
”I know that! Oh, don't I know that. I've made a study of your life and times, Mr. McGee. I can't think of anything more pathetic than an aging boat b.u.m-beach b.u.m who won't or can't admit it or face it. You are a figure of fun, Mr. McGee. Your dear friends around here are misfits or burnouts, and I don't think there's one of them who gives a d.a.m.n about you. You're a womanizer, and you make a living off squalid little adventures of one kind or another. You have that dumb-looking truck and this dumb-looking houseboat and n.o.body who cares if you live or die.”
”Kid, you've got a good delivery and a pretty fair vocabulary.”
”Stop patronizing me!”
”What's with the multicolored cats, kid?”
”My name is Jean Killian.” It was almost shouted, like some kind of war cry.
And then I knew she had reminded me of someone. I felt the tears behind my eyes. I got up and walked over toward her and she got up, tall, to face me. In a rusty, shaky old voice I said, ”You're her kid sister.”
Eyes so pale in her sun-dark face they looked like the silver of old rare coins, stared into mine. The strength of her emotions had narrowed her eyes. I could not remember anyone ever looking at me with such venomous concentration. There was hate in there. Contempt. But she spoke softly.
”No, you stupid jerk. I'm Puss's daughter. And, G.o.d help me, I'm your b.a.s.t.a.r.d child. Look at me! People around here have asked me if I'm related to you. To him? I said. h.e.l.l no!”
I really looked at her. The shoulders and the long arms. The level mouth, shape of the jaw, the high cheekbones, texture of the hair, with my coa.r.s.eness and Puss's auburn.
”That's... what the cats were all about?”
”If you had any kind of conscience at all, Father dear, it would have hit you. Puss. p.u.s.s.ycat. But she didn't even mean enough to you so you'd get the connection.” She sat down again and put her hands over her face. ”A rotten pointless idea.”
”Why should I have a bad conscience about Puss?”
”Perhaps for men like you it is standard procedure. But I think it is cruel and wicked for a man to live with a woman and then, when she becomes ill and pregnant, he kicks her off his dumb houseboat and looks for a new lady.”
”Puss told you that?”
”My mother lived just long enough to have me, and she died the day afterward. Her sister brought me up. Her sister, my Aunt Velma, told me all about you and where and how you live, and I've been planning this for three years. I wanted to make you feel so guilty you'd kill yourself. But you d-didn't even know what the c-cats meant.”
”How old are you?”
”Seventeen in April. What's that got to do with anything?”
I moved over to the chair by the built-in desk, put my foot up on it, rested my forearms on my knee and studied her. She sat on the yellow couch, out on the edge of it, fists clenched, returning my inspection, meeting my gaze, showing me her contempt, her hate.
”I had the feeling there was something wrong with Puss. But I never realized she was sick.”
”Or pregnant. Sure. You just never realized.”
”Do you want me to try to tell you a little bit about this, kid, or do you want to step on everything I say?”
”There's nothing you can say.”
”Do you want to know how I met her?”
”Not particularly Mr. McGee.”
I sighed. ”Kid, I just wish you...”
”Stop calling me kid!”
”Okay. Jean, then. I was running on the beach one morning. Puss had stepped on a sea urchin in shallow water. She came hobbling and hopping ash.o.r.e, in obvious trouble. Okay, so I got the spines out and brought her over here and got her heel fixed up. She was... a lot of fun.”
”Lots of fun, huh? A great sport, huh?”
”Merry is the word. A big random redhead who believed the world was mad. A loving person. Her mind and her speech went off at funny tangents. It made some people irritable. Not me.”
”Oh, no. Certainly not you!”
”Kid. Jean. I am talking about your mother and you never got to know her. Maybe you want to know a little bit about her.”
”Not from you!”
”She was with me for a few months. She stayed aboard this houseboat with me. I was involved in something at the time. A friend of mine had been killed. Tush Bannon. Some people wanted his land. In the process of finding out who killed him and why, some other people got killed and got badly hurt. Puss was especially good with Janine, Tush's widow. Sometimes she would... go off somewhere inside herself, out of touch. It seemed odd. Meyer-he's my best friend-”
”I know.”
”He noticed it too. We talked about it and we decided it was probably something about her divorce.”
”What divorce? She was never divorced.”
”So I found out.”
She stood up. ”What's the point of all this? You'd lie to me. You lied to her. You'd lie to anybody, wouldn't you? After I watched you walk by me on the beach, I knew you're my father. I was hoping you weren't. I can't make you sorry because you haven't got any conscience at all. And that is giving me some pretty wonderful thoughts about my heredity, Dad. Sorry I went to all the trouble. You aren't even worth that much. You are so smooth and plausible, you make me sick. You worked a scam on her, but it won't work on me.”
”Hate is poison, Jean.”
”It nourishes me.”
”I have a farewell letter from your mother.”
”So?”
”Do you hate her so much you don't even want to read it?”
”I never said I hated her!”
”What is your opinion of her?”
”Okay, I guess she wasn't very smart about people. Why should I tell you my opinion of her?”