The Tides Page 5

  And it used to be they'd do that. He'd sit on the curb in the sun or the shade, depending on the season, and chug as much of his bottle as he could before they got there. They always poured out whatever was left, a sad little puddle disappearing down the gutter. But by then he could usually be pretty well flying, stumbling, singing

  'Stormy Weather' and at least he didn't have to walk the two blocks home.

  Things had changed. Lately he could tell from his end of the conversation that somebody at the nursing home was telling the liquor-store lady to treat him like any other customer. That new little broad, probably, that new little boss-lady with the round face and boobs no bigger than a handful and white-blonde hair; he'd known her before and he called her Princess. He felt sorry for the liquor-store lady, and he knew she hated to do it, but lately she'd been refusing to serve him if he got too rowdy, and twice she'd even called the cops, who'd put him in the slammer overnight and then next morning he'd had to get himself home, stone cold sober and slow on his feet, and that was a damn sight farther than two blocks. The new little boss-lady must have been talking to the cops about him, too. It took him so long to get home he was worried about his dog, but somebody else had fed and watered it and changed its papers, and Gordon didn't much like that, either. It was his dog. He'd always wanted a dog.

  He looked head-on at the sun, waited impassively for the pink haze to clear from his eyes. Not yet noon. He'd be damn near sober before he could risk another trip to the liquor store. The thought of being sober had always scared and sickened him, while he was married and had kids and then through the years in back wards and under flophouse beds and in various other forms of the loony bin.

  Gordon made himself laugh. Then, to give himself something to laugh at, he tilted sideways in his chair so the metal popped in and out with a pong . He laughed again. He stopped himself from falling with an unsteady hand on the concrete, and that struck him as funny, too, but it wouldn't much longer. He needed a drink. The puppy woke up and tried to scramble down, but Gordon wouldn't let it.

  For no reason apparent to anybody else, Bob growled, 'Fuckin' shit !' and hit the brick building with his fist. His knuckles split. The blood caught Petra's attention, and she muttered softly, the content unintelligible but with clear lascivious intent.

  'Easy,' Gordon said. 'Easy. You're scarin' my dog.'

  But the fat black-and-white puppy slept contentedly on his lap again, and he thought maybe he could wait a while longer to make the trip to the liquor store, or maybe he could take it with him. Its pink tongue came out of its mouth now and then to lick his hand, and when that happened Gordon held his breath. The puppy's tongue was almost exactly the same color as his palm. That struck him as practically a miracle. He couldn't remember ever loving anything as much as he loved this dog. He must have loved his wife, his boys. He knew rather than remembered that he had lived with them off and on for years, since he was sixteen and met Ava and got her pregnant till he'd left to work construction in Alaska nine, ten years later. He'd been a cabinetmaker, he'd paid the bills, he must have loved them, though they baffled him. He remembered fondly that they had always baffled him. He didn't think he'd ever understood one single thing any of them said or did. As long as they'd lived together, he had never allowed his wife to work. Wasn't right for a man to let his wife work.

  Ada, her name was, not Ava. His sons' names were murked by the wine. He hadn't thought of their names in a long time, which was fine, like the sun in his eyes. If it hurt, it didn't matter. He had the uneasy feeling that he might remember one or both of his boys' names any minute now.

  'Faye,' came into his mind. Gordon frowned. He was almost sure that wasn't anybody's name he knew.

  This dog of his didn't have a name. Gordon had tried Spot because of the circle on top of its head and Blackie because it was mostly black and Rex because that was a good dog's name but nothing had stuck. 'My Dog' was proper name enough the way he said it in his mind, and it never went far enough away to have to call.

  The puppy yawned without opening its eyes and stretched to its full tiny length, soft curved belly arching, front and back paws lolling on either side of Gordon's wide knee. Looking down at it, stroking a black ear with one brown forefinger, Gordon thought comfortably that there would never be any reason for him to move from this place, this creaking chair in the sunshine with his dog asleep in his lap.

  Bob Morley paced. He scowled and balled his fists and muttered under his breath. He'd spent the last sixteen years of his life in this hellhole. He thought it and said it like a badge. His first thirty years had been in places no different.

  All his life they'd said he was slow, and he knew it was true. Things came to him slowly — ideas, impressions, the sure knowledge that somebody was making fun of him — and then they left him slowly.

  He slammed his fist into the wrought-iron porch railing, making it hum, making his whole arm ache. Behind him Petra said something and he wanted to slam her, too, wanted to shut her up once and for all, wanted to take her in his arms.

  The woman was nuts, and a whore besides. He knew these things about her slowly, and they didn't matter any more than the sun in his face. He saw envy in the faces of the other men. No one had ever envied him before. She came when he called. She did things to him that nobody had ever done before, things he liked. It had taken him a while, but he was used to her now. Nobody else came when he called, nobody touched him but this crazy woman.

  Somebody touched him. Bob winced and looked down. His dick was bulging through the front of his pants, and he could see that nobody was touching him, but he could feel that somebody was.

  Rage filled his throat. Somebody was making a fool of him, but he couldn't quite tell how. He looked around for Petra. She was clear on the other end of the porch. Fingers stroked his dick until they slid off the tip of it, and then the sensation was gone but his dick was still hard.

  Ashamed of himself, Bob picked a pine bough for Petra. He made a point of cursing the needles, cursing her with her blouse open as she stuck the branch into her hair. She smiled.

  When Beatrice Quinn was hit by the red Volkswagen speeding off west Sixth Avenue down the Elm Street hill, she was on her way home again. The morning sun was directly in her eyes. She had been months getting her bearings. First she'd set her sights on the nurses' station and then on the big glass front doors, learning the way, counting the steps from her room and back. Often she would end up needing the admonishing young hands under her elbows, the indignity and relief of a wheelchair, and then she would stay in bed for days afterward, dozing and weeping, eating only when she remembered that she had to keep her strength up for going home. Her granddaughter Mary Alice visited her every Sunday.

  She had gone home at least twice before. Once in November, the worst winter in thirty years, and sometime during her first weekend the furnace had gone out. Mary Alice had found her wrapped in quilts in the rocking chair, with three old irons plugged in around her feet. Beatrice never did see what all the fuss was about. She had called a furnace company listed in the yellow pages and told them to come out first thing Monday morning; she was not about to pay double-time for them to work on a weekend. But then she did come down with the pneumonia and had to go back to The Tides, where they did take good care of her.

  The other time, right after Easter, she was home two weeks and then she fell down the basement steps. Mary Alice found her on the cement floor. Once they got her on her feet she was perfectly fine, nothing broken in the fall, and could just as well have stayed home. But Mary Alice worried; Beatrice let herself be talked into coming back to The Tides again so Mary Alice' wouldn't worry.

  It was all foolishness. She would do it right this time.

  'Your granddaughter's right! You're a crazy old woman!' bellowed Dexter McCord from his wheelchair in the middle of the hall. Dexter was hard-of-hearing, and sometimes he shouted. Beatrice was a little afraid of him, and she worried because he didn't take care of himself, didn't take care of hi
s sugar.

  'Where you off to, honey?' the young nurse asked absently.

  On her way out the side door, which wasn't fitted with an alarm and wouldn't be as likely to call attention as the front door would and besides, she didn't like going past those three who always sat out there; they were probably perfectly nice people, but they made her nervous — Beatrice stopped. The brown paper bags she hugged held all of her Tides possessions — sugar packets hoarded from the kitchen, bits of paper and string, flowers Dexter had brought her from the yard last summer. 'Just out for a walk,' she said sweetly, conversationally. 'Just out for my morning constitutional, don't you know.' This nurse hadn't been here long enough to remember her other trips home; Beatrice gambled that she wouldn't have read the chart enough to be suspicious.

  'Well, you be careful now.' The nurse, younger than her granddaughter Mary Alice, patted her shoulder and went off with her cartful of pills.

  The morning sun was directly in her eyes, and Beatrice never saw the speeding red Volkswagen. She never heard it, either, for she was saying a rosary. The rhythm of the rosary and Beatrice's determination to go home kept everything else out of her mind, including the gauzy whisper that tried but failed to penetrate.

  The driver saw her. The Volkswagen skidded from the top of the hill and was almost to a stop by the time it hit her, but still the impact was enough to send her sprawling. One of the sacks burst, and papers and flowers and several pairs of white cotton underwear fluttered across the neighbor's yard.

  The sounds of the accident didn't reach the shower room, where two aides were struggling to give Myra Larsen a shower. 'You'd think we were trying to kill her!' Abby shouted over the old woman's shrieks and the din of water against tiles. 'Why does she hate it so much?' Arthritic fingers tangled in Abby's hair and left red scratches across her cheek. 'Myra, cut it out! We just want to get you clean!' Myra Larsen had never taken a shower in her life, and the sound of the water against her flesh assaulted her.

  In a quiet room at the end of the hall, Viviana Pierce was trying her best to die. She and Mrs Quinn had sat companionably at the same table in the dining room, but she didn't know about the accident either.

  Viviana was more than ready to die. Some time ago she had put her teeth into a cup on her bedside stand and refused — gently — to eat or drink. She had tried it before, but always she had weakened. Ice cream or orange juice or a little homemade soup became just too tempting, and then she'd be back to eating again. This time she wouldn't weaken. Her family was with her. It was peaceful in her room. There was a nice breeze. In and out of her doorway, in and out of her window, a frothy pastel figure floated, but Viviana didn't invite it in, for, especially now, she knew who she was.

  In the sunny activity room, where a group was fixing toys for the children at the State Home and Training School, someone asked Colleen, the Activity Director, 'Where's Mrs Quinn? She knows all about these doll-clothes.'

  In the kitchen, steamy and much too small, Roslyn Curry, the head cook, distractedly peeled potatoes into a huge bucket and thought about the astonishing fact that she was in love with another woman.

  The car came to a stop a few hundred feet down the hill, and its occupants jumped out. 'Jesus Christ!' cried the driver. 'It's a little old lady!'

  'Probably from that place.' The passenger gestured toward The Tides. 'Why the hell don't they watch these people? They wouldn't be in a nursing home if they could take care of themselves.'

  'Is she hurt? How bad is she hurt?'

  'Don't move her.'

  'Here comes the ambulance.'

  The ambulance wailed down the Elm Street hill and two attendants leaped out with a stretcher between them. Rebecca stood helplessly among residents and staff at the curb, while inside the facility phones continued to ring and buzzers to buzz. Dexter McCord strained to see over the rosebushes and roared, 'I told you she was a senile old woman! I told you she was fixing to leave! I told you!'

  When the ambulance pulled away, Abby went to gather up the papers and underwear scattered into the depression where the lake used to be, though neither Abby nor Beatrice knew about the lake or its improbable tides. The sacks split, so she had to carry Beatrice's personal things exposed in her arms. Before long somebody came to get Dexter for dinner, pulling him backward in his chair without letting him know where they were going, so as not to get him upset.

  'She should have been restrained,' the Director of Nursing declared.

  Rebecca brushed tears out of her eyes and shook her head. 'I still don't think so, Diane.'

  'Then she should have been in a locked facility. We certainly can't take her back when she's discharged from the hospital. If she's ever discharged.'

  'That doesn't seem right,' Rebecca faltered, suddenly unsure of herself. 'She's been here a long time. Years. This is her home.'

  Someone inside the building called for Diane and she hurried away without saying anything else to Rebecca. Rebecca stood at the curb for a few more minutes, at loose ends, near tears, mind skittering. Then with a sigh she turned to go inside, too, back to the recalcitrant budget.

  Faye followed. Faye, who had never been pati ent, irritably biding her time.

  Chapter 4

  Faye had come back for Rebecca.

  After all this time, after Marshall had thought he could finally stop worrying that Faye would steal Becky, she was back, and Becky was in fully as much jeopardy as when she'd been a child. Old as he was, his mind not right, he was still her father and it was still up to him to save her.

  He meant to get up. He lost his balance and collapsed back into the chair. Panting, he sat there crooked for a while, one hand trapped awkwardly under him, and tried to decide what course of action would be advisable.

  It had actually happened only once before, when Rebecca was three years old. Marshall remembered it clearly, fiercely, and recurrently; he also remembered, though with less consistency, that his memory was often untrustworthy, but he knew this was not one of those times. He couldn't get himself straightened in the chair, and his hand twisted under his hip was starting to ache, but he sat there the way he was and remembered again:

  Walking in the woods with Becky. Wands of sunlight between trees; the trunks of trees long thin brown wands. Marshall kept a close eye on his little girl. She could trip and fall. She could eat something poisonous. She could wander off and get lost.For all his surreptitious searching of her face and manner - and, he knew, Billie's searching, Billie's stalwart resolve not to search - the child bore little specific resemblance to anybody. Sometimes she seemed light on her feet, sprite-like, like Faye, and when she was playful in a particular thoughtless way his heart would seize, but then there'd come a sudden glow of what he was sure was precocious awareness of others, and he'd think with relief how like Billie she was. If his daughter took after him, he wouldn't know it; he never encountered his recorded voice or photographed image without a rude little shock, and certainly he didn't have much feel for what sort of man he was. Indeed his time with Faye had convincingly demonstrated that he could be whatever he was expected to be, which was why it was so crucial for him to stay with someone like Billie, who expected him to be strong, steady, a reliable husband, a good father.

  Rebecca ran on ahead. He called to her; she answered. A squirrel chittered from a nearby branch, but he couldn't locate it to show her. She was at his side. 'There's a lady over there.'

  'A lady? Where?'

  'Over there.' She pointed. 'In a car. She said she'd give me a ride. Can I?'

  'No! Becky!' Marshall reached for her and slid out of the chair. His left wrist, numb from being bent under him, didn't support his weight, and he collapsed face down onto the cold tile.

  After a few minutes of considering the fact that he was on the floor in his room in a nursing home, where theoretically there were nurses to help him if he could let them know he needed help, Marshall turned his gaze and saw the call light button on its thick white cord clipped to the side of the bed. Proudly,
he knew immediately what it was and how to use it. It was, though, out of reach from this position; to prove it to himself, he stretched out his arm. The button was too high and about a foot beyond the tips of his fingers. He would have to move.

  He maneuvered until both palms were flat on the floor under his shoulders, and then pushed up. This lifted the top part of his torso a few inches off the floor, but his muscles trembled and gave out and he collapsed again. Perhaps he fell asleep. Some time later he tried again, and this time managed to get up onto his hands and knees and move cumbersomely forward. He could reach the call button now. He didn't quite remember why he needed to call someone, but the conviction that doing so was important had stayed with him, and he exerted all the force he could muster to depress the red button with his thumb. A light went on above the bed, and a beeping started.