Читать книгу My Absolute Darling: The Sunday Times bestseller - Gabriel Tallent, Gabriel Tallent - Страница 12

TURTLE AWAKES WITH A START, HEART POUNDING, AND WAITS, listening, eyes gummy from her dehydration, her mouth leathery. Someone has kicked the center pole away and the tarp hangs down cupped and half full of water, sunken leaves forming a black circle of detritus at the bottom. She waits, breathing, wondering what woke her, if Martin is standing outside, beside this stump, with his auto shotgun. Slowly, silently she draws the Sig Sauer and touches it to her cheek, the steel almost warm from the captured heat of the sleeping quilt. She can hear her own labored breath. She thinks, calm down, but she cannot calm down and she begins to breathe harder, and she thinks, this is bad, this is very bad.

Something strikes the water and Turtle jerks, watches a fist-sized object comet through the water toward her, touch the tarp, and float away. She waits, the gun held against her face in two shaking hands. It is a pinecone, probably a bishop pinecone. This is what woke her: the cones splashing into the pool and striking the tarp. She takes a deep breath, and then startles as a second cone strikes the water and plunges down, slowing as it comes toward her. It touches the tarp, and then floats up and away. Ripples expand across the surface. Their shadows lave across the boys, the sleeping bags, the backpacks, the mess of this little hovel. She thinks, I love everything of theirs because it is theirs, and I like how crowded we are here with things, the riot and disorder, everything damp and warm, and she thinks, I love it. She pushes her feet down against the wet nylon of Jacob’s sleeping bag. She lies, her muscles loosening, and when she can, she holsters the gun and waits with her hands on her throat, looking up at the pool. She wants to draw the gun and cannot bear to lie there without it, and she puts her hand on the grip and touches the uncocked hammer and she thinks, leave it, leave it, and she takes her hand away and lies listening to the water above and to the forest beyond.

She thinks, for a moment, I was sure it was him and the only thing I didn’t know was how far he would go, and how angry he would be. She thinks, he has always been able to surprise me. When she is calm again she climbs out, slithering awkwardly through a gap between the tarp and the stump. She sits on the stump’s crown, barefoot, jeans sodden and cleaving to her thighs, drinking from the tarp water.

She drops off the stump and sits on a log covered in translucent mushrooms shaped like deformed ears. She draws her knife and begins cleaning thorns and slivers from her callused feet. Around her, wild ginger grows among the redwood roots, its leaves dark green and heart-shaped, its purple flowers, with their open throats and liver-colored tusks, deeply buried in the foliage. She puts her fist against her forehead. If something happens to them, she thinks, what are you doing, Turtle? You are forgetting who you are and you are thinking that you can be someone else, and you will get yourself hurt and you will get Martin hurt, and god help you, you will get these boys hurt and that is the worst of it, but somehow you cannot care so much for the risk they are taking, being with you. It seems worth the risk and that shows that you aren’t thinking clearly, because it isn’t worth the risk, not for them, not if you put the question to them, and not if you could explain how far your daddy might go. She thinks, I know that he came after me and the only question is if he could find me out here, and I bet he could, but I don’t know. She thinks, I can’t seem to get that answer straight, because sometimes I think of him, and it seems to me he could do anything. He could, she thinks, hurt these boys. She knows that and she thinks, don’t think of it.

She thinks, it is light enough now. I could make it back and it wouldn’t even be hard, except—what are you giving up on, if you do that? She thinks, you know exactly what you’re giving up on, and the question is, what are you willing to risk? When it comes down to it, she thinks, I am willing to risk a great deal. I am willing to risk these boys and it’s just for myself and it’s nothing to them, they don’t even know, and I won’t even tell them. She thinks, if they find out, they find out, and I will take that risk because I am a bitch.

Before long, Jacob crawls out and climbs with difficulty down the stump’s side. He sits beside her and looks at her feet, which are small, with painfully high arches. They look lathed almost, or worked, articulated tendons and bones without any softness. Her callus is contoured like a streambed and grained like a fingerprint. Jacob watches for a moment. She is glad to see him, and she is particularly glad to see him because of the risks she is taking to make it possible. He doesn’t know what he is involved in and it makes the moment of sitting on the log, beside him, important to her.

He says, “Well, that’s strangely attractive.” He nods to where she is digging into the callus with the knifepoint. His voice is guileless but full of humor, and she smiles despite herself. She does not know if he is making fun of her or if he is making fun of himself, and then, immediately after her smile, she understands.

She stiffens, stooped over her feet with knife in hand, tightening her jaw, acutely aware of her bitch face and ugly skin. Her whiteness is ugly and uneven, she knows, a freckled semitransparent whiteness so that her boobs, pathetically small and milkily untanned, are almost blue. She feels girded with imperfection and wants to play along with Jacob’s teasing, as if her repulsiveness is a prank she’s played on herself. She smiles her lopsided half smile, and smiling, wants to smash to pieces, because she has told herself not to play along when someone is cruel to her, but this boy has so unraveled her that she cannot stick to her intentions.

He has a way of watching her that makes her feel as if she is the most important thing in the world. She stoops there, thinking, slit, slit, slit, that unlovely slot lodged between her legs, unfinished by inattention or design, opening into her own peculiarity, its aperture and its sign, and she understands it now; the slit is illiterate—that word undresses her of all that she has knotted and buckled up about herself; she feels collapsed—every bitter, sluttish part of her collapsed and made identical to that horrible clam.

He says, “Where to next, Mowgli?”

“You want my help?” Still looking at him, willing to let it go, but unwilling to go without dignity. She is asking for something, and he gives her all of it in his expression alone, which is open and generous and sorry.

“Yes. Very much.”

“No poison oak rashes yet,” she observes.

“It’s gonna be bad,” he says.

“Yeah,” she says, “I can help.”

He says, “So, it’s none of my business—”

“Yes?”

“But I couldn’t help notice, just now, that you have a gun.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” he says.

She leans and spits into the duff. “Because I can.”

“Well, that’s true,” he says, “but are you—do you think that you might need to shoot someone?”

“It’s a precaution,” she says.

“Is it, though?” he says. “Owning a gun, you are nine times more likely to be shot by a family member than by an intruder.”

She cracks a knuckle, unimpressed.

“I’m sorry,” he says, softening. “I’m not challenging you, or criticizing—not at all—I just want to hear your perspective. That’s all. I don’t really think that you’re gonna be shot by a family member.”

Before she can answer, Brett groans and stirs, then peeks his head out from under the tarp.

They break camp. Jacob unknots each line and holds the raveling ends over a lighter, turning the nylon between thumb and forefinger to form a bulb of black. They shake the tarp out, and then she and Brett fold it together until they have a long rectangle. Jacob rolls the bundles on his thighs. Turtle parcels them with half hitches and lashes them to the backpack. Then she stands in the stump and throws down their things to them, and they load all this into the backpacks.

They follow the north bank of the river, eating focaccia and hunks of cheese, following broad avenues among the trees where the trickling runoff sorts the rust-colored needles into ripples.

Soon they come to a winding paved road, the asphalt seamed with tar where the cracks have been patched. She thinks, the hell, I’m just delaying the moment, but the moment will come, and then we will see, and he will be fair with me, or he will be unfair, and if he is fair, then it will be hard. They reach a large engraved redwood burl that reads RIVENDELL SPRINGS AHEAD. They have seen no cars and no other people. The world is theirs alone.

Brett says, “I think my mom does massage therapy here.”

“You mean, she’s there right now?” Jacob says.

“Probably. Most days. If she got called in.”

“Would she give us a ride?”

“Sure.”

They follow the turnoff to a parking lot with sprays of fairy wands in large blue and gold clay pots and a high redwood gate. A dozen run-down cars. Brett opens a Ford Explorer with a key from the gas cap and they stash their bags. A dream catcher hangs from the rearview mirror, the center console is filled with oils, sunscreens, hand salves, beeswax lip balms. Unopened bills clutter the dash. Jacob pulls off his muddy T-shirt and balls it up and throws it into the passenger footwell before pulling on a clean Humboldt T-shirt.

Turtle says, “I’m gonna leave you here.” She looks back over the forest and she knows it’s time.

“But you can’t go,” Brett says.

“Why?”

“What if we open that gate,” Jacob says, “and they’re all zombies?”

“What?”

“If we’re forced to wander the postapocalyptic wastes of Northern California, we want you to be the reticent, shotgun-toting queen of our fellowship.”

“I think she’d have to have a chain saw for melee,” Brett says.

“For zombies,” Turtle says, “I’d like a .308, but if we really had to hoof it, you could talk me down to 5.56.”

“But seriously, what about a chain saw?” Brett says.

“You’d throw your chain,” Turtle says.

“A samurai sword.”

“If you’re saying zombies,” Turtle says, “I’d take a tomahawk, sure. Use all the weight you’d spend on pistol ammo for more 5.56.”

“A shotgun,” Jacob says.

“Can’t carry enough ammo. For every shotshell you can carry, you could carry three or four rifle shells. Plus, shotguns reload slowly.”

Jacob says, “Couldn’t you get an auto shotgun with a magazine, like they have for rifles?”

“Sure,” Turtle says, “but rifle shells are metal-jacketed and do well in magazines. Shotshells deform under pressure and jam if stored in mags. Plus, auto shotguns are finicky. When you’ve got to shoot a lot, carry a lot, and scavenge for ammo, 5.56 is king.”

“See, we’ll never make it without you. Come on with us,” Jacob says. “Please?”

“Please?”

She’s grinning. “You’d make it.”

“Not without you we wouldn’t.”

“She’s coming,” Brett says, “look at her.”

“I’ll come.”

At the gate, they pull the bell cord and the three of them stand together, arguing about how to arm themselves for the coming apocalypse, Turtle barefoot, jeans rolled up to her knees and laden with drying mud. A shirtless man in hemp trousers opens the door, his chest tattooed with a Buddha over crashing waves, his hair in cigar-thick dreadlocks down to his waist.

“Hey, brother,” he says to Brett. “Looks like the weather caught you by surprise.”

“Hey, Bodhi—yeah, the weather surprised us some.”

“Looking for your mom?”

“Hoping for a ride.”

“Who’s this?”

“My buddy Jacob, and this is Turtle, the future shotgun-toting, chain-saw-wielding queen of postapocalyptic America.”

“Is she really?” Bodhi says with some interest. “Well, Jacob, Turtle. Come on in.” He leads them through a meadow and among large glass pyramids into a redwood forest with moss-hung cabins and redwood barrel-style tubs of steaming water. There is a mineral scent in the air from a hot spring somewhere. They pass a group of naked women, Jacob acutely embarrassed, looking up at the shingle roofs, into the trees, anywhere. They pass another barrel-style tub where three old men bask naked, smoking a blown-glass bong.

They follow Bodhi to a cottage, the eaves hung with witch’s hair, moss growing between the shingles, and they go into a warm interior with a woodstove in one corner. A naked woman sits cross-legged on a wooden pedestal, eating cherry tomatoes from a lacquered wooden bowl. Jacob’s eyes goggle in surprise. The woman is olive-skinned, with wiry black hair bundled in hemp cords, her face pretty and open, her nipples big, the areolas soft brown and goose-bumpy, her belly somewhere between soft and firm, the skin healthy looking but worn. Her pussy has two little interior pieces of flesh hanging out. Turtle’s own pussy is as trim and compact as an anemone bunkered down to wait out the tide.

Brett says, “Guys, this is my mom, Caroline. Mom, could you—” and the woman says, “Julia Alveston?”

Both Brett and Jacob turn toward Turtle in surprise.

Turtle says, “What?”

Brett says, “Mom—could you—could you put on some pants?”

Caroline says, “Oh, girlie. I haven’t seen you since you were this high.” She holds out a hand three feet above the ground. “Your mom, Helena, was my best friend, and boy—I tell you—she was a—well.”

Turtle feels an immediate revulsion. She thinks, don’t you talk about my mother, you cunt, you stranger.

Brett’s mom now turns to look at the boys. “Tell me what’s happened,” she says.

Brett says, “Mom, could you—”

“Of course,” she says, rising and pulling on hemp drawstring pants while the boys take turns explaining.

Jacob says, “She just sort of showed up.”

“She was just out in the dark, no flashlight, no backpack, no shoes, nothing, getting along just fine, like she could see in the dark.”

“In the pouring rain, pitch-black.”

“You should see her feet. Calluses—it’s insane.”

“She just walks everywhere barefoot.”

“She doesn’t feel cold.”

“Or pain.”

“Only justice.”

“We think she might be a ninja.”

“She denies this.”

“But of course, she’d have to deny it.”

“If she said yes, she was a ninja, we’d know she wasn’t.”

“I wouldn’t describe the ninja theory as definitive, but it’s a live possibility.”

“Anyway, she led us out of the valley of the shadow.”

“She can see in the dark.”

“She can walk across water.”

“She has her own pace. She just stops and she looks and she stands there looking and you’re all, like, ‘What are you looking at?’ but she just keeps looking and you’re like, ‘Um, aren’t you bored yet?’ But that’s because she’s a Zen master.”

“She’s very patient.”

“Her conversational pace isn’t what you’d call usual.”

“I’m right here,” Turtle says.

“She’s thoughtful, but there’s something more and stranger than that.”

“It’s less thoughtful than watchful.”

“Yeah—yeah! Watchful. You ask her a question and she just, like, watches you and you’re like … ‘Ummmm?’ and if you wait long enough she comes out with an answer.”

“She can tie knots, she can find her way in the forest.”

“The animals speak to her and tell her their secrets.”

When they are done, Caroline says, “Well, boys. That’s very evocative.” Then she turns to Turtle. “How is your father these days?”

“He’s good,” Turtle says.

“Is he working hard?”

“Not too hard,” Turtle says.

“Is he dating?” Caroline asks. “I bet he is.”

“No,” Turtle says.

“No?” Caroline says. “He was always the kind of guy, had to have a woman in his life.” She smiles. “A real charmer, your father.”

“No, there’re no women in his life,” Turtle says, a little menacingly.

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that; must get lonely up on that hill.”

“I don’t know,” Turtle says. “There’s Grandpa, and there’s the orchard, and the creek; and then, he has his poker buddies.”

“Well,” Caroline says, “people change. But your father was one of the handsomest men I ever knew. Still is, I bet.”

“Mom,” Brett says in exasperation, “that’s gross.”

“He was quite a looker,” Caroline says, “and an intelligent man. I always thought he would do something.”

“He hasn’t done anything,” Turtle says.

“He’s raised you, and what a strong-looking girl you’ve come up to be,” Caroline says. “Though, I have to say, you look about half wild.”

Turtle says nothing to that.

Caroline says, “So, Julia, they met up with you a couple miles from here?”

Turtle nods.

“It sounds like it was pretty much in the middle of nowhere.”

“I was on a walk,” Turtle says.

“Starting where?”

“What?” Turtle cups her hand around her ear and leans forward.

“Where’d you start out?”

“At my house.”

“You walked here from Buckhorn?” Caroline says.

“Yes, that’s right,” Turtle says, “came up out of Slaughterhouse Gulch, through the airport, and then above the banks of the Albion, sort of past people’s backyards.”

“Well, sweetheart, you look roughed-up enough for it, that’s for sure. That must be miles and miles. With no water? No food?”

Turtle chews, opening her jaw and closing it. She looks at the floor.

Caroline says, “Sweetheart, I’m just worried about you. What were you doing out there in the middle of the night? How far is that from your home, do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Turtle says.

“Brett,” Caroline says, “why don’t you take Jacob out and show him the glass pyramids.”

The boys exchange looks, and Brett jerks his head in a come on gesture and they both leave. Turtle stands in the middle of the floor, wringing her hands together and looking at the base of Caroline’s pedestal.

“Did you know,” Caroline says, “I was almost your godmother?”

Turtle cracks a knuckle, looks up at Caroline, and can almost remember her from a dim past. She senses a need to go carefully here and to protect her own small life on Buckhorn Hill.

“Your mother and I used to tear up the town together, and I tell you, we did our fair share of tramping around in these woods, when we were a little older than you, and it was all kissing boys and dropping acid. After school we used to go down to the headlands, and there was this cypress on the bluffs between Big River and Portuguese Beach. We’d hang our feet over the bluffs and look down at the little hidden coves and out at the islands and we’d talk and talk and talk.”

Turtle is silent. She thinks, this bitch. This bitch.

“You have any good girlfriends in school?”

“No.”

“Nobody?”

“No.”

“How are you liking it?”

“Fine.”

“But there are women in your life, I hope?”

Turtle says nothing.

“And Martin? I bet he’s a wonder, helping you.”

“Yeah. He is.”

“He could explain anything, if he wanted.”

“Yeah.”

“He has a way with words, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, he does.”

“He was the most imaginative person I ever met. Goddess, he could read! And talk! Can’t he?”

“Yes.” Turtle smiles.

“He’s a good guy,” Caroline says, “but when he’s angry, he sure can hit hard, can’t he?”

Turtle runs her tongue along her teeth. She says, “What?” She thinks, you bitch, you whore. It is the kind of trick people play with kids, they try and get you to answer a lot of questions and then they ask you a question about your family. Turtle’s seen it before. Women are always cunts in the end. No matter how they start up. Always some axe to grind.

Caroline sits cross-legged on her stool and watches Turtle with serene attentiveness, and Turtle thinks, you bitch. You fucking whore. I knew it would come and it came.

“Well,” Caroline says, seeing her error, backpedaling, “he used to have a temper on him.”

Turtle stands there.

“I remember, when we were just kids—just—well, goddess, he had a temper. That’s all I’m saying, just that sometimes he had a temper on him. So, how is he these days?” Caroline asks.

“I’ve got to go.” Turtle turns.

“Wait,” Caroline says.

Turtle strips all emotion out of her face but not quite out of her posture, and she thinks, look at me. She thinks, look at me. You know that I take this seriously. Look at me. If you ever try and take him away, you will see.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Julia, sweetheart, I’m just wondering how things are at home. I can’t tell you how often I’ve thought of you over these years. How many times I thought I saw you at Corners of the Mouth, or waiting in front of the post office, or walking through Heider Field. And could never be sure, because, of course, I didn’t know you. And now that you’re here—well, of course it’s you. You look just like your mom.”

Turtle says, “My daddy would never.”

“I know, sweetheart, I’m just curious,” Caroline says. “You know, I was so close to your mother, I’m allowed to worry a little bit. You and I, we’d know each other if she was still alive, and you and Brett would’ve grown up like brother and sister, but instead, I don’t know you at all. I can’t help thinking that it’s a weird turn of fate, you know, that she left us and you grew up not even knowing me. And good goddess, girl, you need some women in your life!”

Turtle stares at Caroline, thinking, I have never known a woman I liked, and I will grow up to be nothing like you or like Anna; I will grow up to be forthright and hard and dangerous, not a subtle, smiling, trick-playing cunt like you.

“Oh,” Caroline says, “sweetheart. Let me drive you home. I’d like to talk to Marty. It’s been ages.”

“I don’t know,” Turtle says.

“Oh, honey, I can’t let you walk all those miles back home. I just can’t. If you’d rather, I’ll call your father and he can come pick you up, but it’s an hour out of his way, and I’d much rather just take you home myself.”

Turtle thinks, I will be in the car with this woman, and her thinking her things about Martin. But she wants to see how Caroline talks to him. She wants to be there, she half wants to know what Caroline thinks, and half she doesn’t.