That Camden Summer Page 21

  He was hatless, smoking a cigar and smirking as he turned off his engine and got out—all the while keeping an eye on her.

  ‘‘Well, what have we here . . . a damsel in distress?’’

  She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and answered, ‘‘Not at all. I’m just refilling my gas tank.’’

  ‘‘Well, allow me, Mrs. Jewett,’’ he said, handing her his cigar. ‘‘Here, hold that, will you?’’

  He’d left his suit jacket behind and was dressed in a white shirt with a high, round collar, gray pin-striped trousers and wide black suspenders. Even in the heat of late day his collar and tie were cinched tight. Though the starch beneath his suspenders had wilted, it was apparent his shirt had been fresh that morning. Elfred had a penchant for neatness. Neat on the outside, sleazy on the inside, she thought, studying his white shirt-back as he picked up the gas can.

  ‘‘That’s kind of you, Elfred, but I really could have done it myself.’’

  ‘‘Nonsense. What kind of cad would pass a stranded woman so far from town without offering a hand?’’ He

  removed the wooden plug from the Valvoline can and jockeyed himself into position to pour while she stood waving his cigar smoke away. The air was so motionless she could find little breeze to help, and no matter which way she turned, the smoke seemed to follow. As Elfred poured, she studied the seam down the rear of his trousers. She looked away, prompted by a wave of dislike. The stillness, the remoteness seemed magnified by the unchanging song of the katydids and the oppressive heat.

  Finally she asked, ‘‘What are you doing clear out here?’’

  ‘‘Looking at the Mullens’ place. She’s decided to sell rather than run it by herself. What are you doing?’’

  ‘‘I had a case up there. . . .’’ She motioned. ‘‘A new mother with a six-week-old baby. Checked her over and gave her some instruction on infant care. There’s a lot of ignorance everywhere. It kills a lot of children needlessly, especially newborns.’’

  He half-glanced over his shoulder, then back down at the gurgling gasoline.

  ‘‘I haven’t seen you since the Memorial Day picnic.’’

  ‘‘I’ve been busy, running all over the county.’’

  He quit pouring and backed out of the front seat with the can. ‘‘You know, I didn’t like how you treated me that day.’’ He put the wooden plug in the can and tamped it once with a cupped palm. ‘‘You put a mark on my face that I had trouble explaining to Grace.’’

  Roberta scrabbled through her mind for something to say while he stored the can in the backseat, then sauntered toward her, wiping his hands on a white linen hanky. Shuffling to a stop before her, he stored the hanky in a rear pocket, then reached her way. She took one quick step backward.

  ‘‘You’re a little jumpy, Birdy,’’ he said, reclaiming his cigar with an insidious grin. ‘‘Aren’t you?’’

  ‘‘I’d better get going. The girls are expecting me at five.’’

  ‘‘Not so fast there.’’ His hand lashed out and grabbed her arm. ‘‘Don’t I get any thanks for helping you out?’’

  She pulled back, but he hung on. ‘‘Thank you, Elfred. Now may I go?’’

  ‘‘That’s not much of a thanks, Roberta. I was thinking of something a little more personal.’’

  Elfred could put more lecherousness into a grin than anyone she’d ever known.

  ‘‘Let me go, Elfred.’’ She tried to pry at his fingers, but he threw his other arm around her and spread his legs, hauling her up hard against him, his moustache an inch from her lips.

  ‘‘Let you go? And what if I don’t?’’ He grinned wolfishly, his face so close she could smell the cigar on his breath, the gasoline on his hands. ‘‘What if I find out for myself just what’s so precious under those skirts that you save it all for Farley? What if I do that, huh, Birdy?’’

  She wedged an arm between them and pushed. ‘‘Let me go.’’

  ‘‘Not this time, Birdy. This time nobody’s here to stop me.’’ He lowered his face but she whipped hers aside.

  ‘‘Elfred, please . . . don’t!’’

  ‘‘Show me, Birdy . . . come on.’’

  ‘‘Elfred, I said don’t!’’ Her rising panic seemed to add to his fire.

  ‘‘Come on, Roberta, don’t be so stingy.’’ The struggle intensified. So did her fear.

  ‘‘Stop it, Elfred!’’ He hauled one way, she strained the other, and their combat stirred up dust on the road.

  ‘‘All that hot stuff you been holdin’ at arm’s length . . .’’ She tried to knee him, but her skirts hampered her attempt, and he was cagey with his moves, keeping to one side or too close. ‘‘Don’t tell me you don’t like this. . . . I heard about divorced women. . . . They like it any way they can get it, isn’t that right, Birdy?’’

  ‘‘Let me go!’’

  He grabbed her hair, yanked her head back and kissed her, thrusting his tongue against her locked lips. Her white cap fell to the road. Her skull felt as if it were being ripped from her temples. The smell of cigar smoke filled her nostrils while continuing to rise from behind her as he grappled for control. She kept pushing at his chest while his mouth bruised her lips—pushing! pushing!—until he finally lost purchase and his hand slipped along her back. When he shifted for a new grip, her chance came. One hard shove, and she tripped him, spinning, breaking free, running.

  She took five steps before he brought her down on one hip, screaming, against the running board of the car. The loose seat fell, and her shoulder struck metal. She slid to an angle, half on the gravel, half on the seat. Pain ripped through her hip and her right shoulder.

  ‘‘Ow!’’ she cried. ‘‘My arm! Elfred . . . my arm!’’

  It was wrenched beneath her as he flung her over with surprisingly little difficulty.

  ‘‘Turn over here, damn it!’’ He straddled her thighs while she fought him as best she could.

  ‘‘Elfred, please . . . don’t . . . please . . . Elfred, my arm . . .’’

  Her left arm was free. She struck him with her fist, so hard he yelped, rocked to one side, and she got free. Up she scuttled, but her dusty uniform and apron were tangled in his trouser legs and he grabbed a fistful of her skirt. She towed him two feet along the gravel before he hauled her backward and sent her sprawling.

  Over on her back.

  Right where she’d been.

  Pinned by the neck by one of his strong hands while he loomed above her, enraged now, and bruised.

  ‘‘Goddamnit, Birdy! I’m gettin’ mighty tired of this! You’re gonna put out, and you’re gonna do it now!’’ The coal of his cigar came up close beneath her chin. She screamed and pedaled wildly, but the gravel scraped away beneath her heels. He held her by the throat, his teeth clenched, his hair fallen on his forehead, his face vicious. A scarlet bulge was blossoming near his eye.

  ‘‘You’re gonna stop fighting, Roberta. Got that?’’

  Her terrified eyes answered.

  ‘‘Now I don’t wanna burn you, Birdy, but I will!’’

  Her nails dug uselessly at his hand, scratching her own throat instead.

  I can’t breathe, she tried to say, but could not.

  His face grew scarlet and trembled as his wrath built. He tightened his grip and shook her some, rapping her head against the gravel. ‘‘I’ll teach you to treat me like shit! You think you’re too goddamn good for me, don’t you, Birdy? Well, I got women all over this county can’t wait to pull their pants down for me. So why not you, huh? What’s so goddamn exclusive about Birdy Jewett?’’

  She lay moon-eyed, gripping his wrist, the gravel grinding into her neck and head.

  I can’t breathe, she mouthed.

  Finally he released her throat just enough to give her breath, and moved the cigar away. His expression turned feral and he spoke through crimped lips. ‘‘Now you’re gonna do it, Birdy.’’ He glanced at his lap. ‘‘Go ahead.’’

  ‘‘You’ll have to kill me first,’�
� she whispered raspily.

  ‘‘No, I won’t.’’ His cigar returned . . . closer this time. So did his face, wreathed by the fetid smoke.

  ‘‘Don’t make me burn you, Birdy. I didn’t intend to do that, but you got to learn to do what a man says, then he’ll let you off easy. Now do it. Unbutton me.’’

  She strained to lift her chin free of the heat. Unable. Eyes wild with fear.

  ‘‘Don’t underestimate me, Roberta. That’s been your trouble—you’ve always underestimated me. Now, you’re gonna do it, Birdy. Go ahead.’’

  ‘‘Please, Elfred . . .’’ Tears leaked down her temples and made wet patches on the dusty gravel.

  ‘‘Do it.’’ He touched her with the cigar and she screamed.

  And unbuttoned his trousers.

  ‘‘Now yours.’’ Her eyes were shut in humiliation, but she felt him raise up and shrug off his suspenders, transferring the cigar to the other hand. The rest was easy, even though she refused to aid him further. A knee to her stomach, a flip of her skirts, a yank at her waist- band, a tug on his own drawers . . . and at last he flung the cigar into the weeds. She bucked then, and tried to throw him off and scratch his face, but it was useless. He pinned her wrists above her head, grinding gravel into them as he got between her knees and forced them wide with his own.

  She felt the hot tears seep from between her quivering eyelids as her brother-in-law defiled her. She endured it by placing herself beyond what was happening . . . beyond his bestiality and grunting . . . and the smell of his cigar smoke . . . and of gasoline . . . and of sweat on his skin . . . beyond the pain of the rocks grinding into her from below . . . and the ignominy of being entered against her will, of being treated like a disposable nonentity, less than human. She withdrew into the singing of the katydids, and the promise of cool water, and the chirping of birds and the sounds of her children’s voices on the front porch in the evening twilight, marveling at fireflies and reading James Russell Lowell’s ‘‘The Vision of Sir Launfal.’’

  And what is so rare as a day in June?

  Then, if ever, come perfect days . . .

  When it was over and Elfred withdrew, sitting back on her legs, she flung an arm over her eyes and remained motionless.

  He fumbled with a handkerchief and his shirttails, then his weight shifted. Bracing a hand on her belly, he boosted himself up, forcing her breath to escape in a grunt.

  ‘‘That damn gravel is hard on the knees,’’ he said as it crunched beneath his shoes.

  With her eyes still covered, she threw down her skirt and willed herself to remain inert until he was gone. How easy it would be to kill him right where he stood. Had she a gun she would quite willfully point it at his head and pull the trigger, feeling no remorse whatsoever.

  Reptiles like Elfred deserved to be slaughtered.

  ‘‘Come on, Birdy, you better get up.’’

  She felt his hand on her arm.

  ‘‘Don’t touch me,’’ she said, jerking free of his detestable touch, her eyes still covered. She spoke in a dead calm. ‘‘You touch me again and I swear I’ll murder you, Elfred. Not now, but soon. I’ll find some weapon, some knife, or one of my syringes with the right kind of drugs in it, or some rat poison, or maybe the foot feed on my car will conveniently stick when you’re crossing the same street I’m driving on, or whatever it takes, but I’ll murder you, Elfred, if you ever in your life again lay one finger on me.’’

  She didn’t need to shout or dramatize. The certainty in her voice made Elfred move slower, halfway through raising his suspenders.

  ‘‘Look, Birdy, it wouldn’t have had to be so rough if you’d have given in weeks ago. I tried it nice and persuasive with you, but you just wouldn’t listen.’’

  ‘‘Is that how you rationalize the crime you’ve just committed?’’ She refused to move her arm and look at him. ‘‘If I get pregnant out of this, you can forget about me jeopardizing my own life by getting it cut out by some midwife. But your bastard will show up in a basket on your doorstep, Elfred, with a note telling Grace and the girls why it’s there. Now get away from me. Get your despicable, perspiring, bloated body away from this place before I get in my motorcar and run you down where you stand.’’

  When he left, she was still lying in the road where he’d raped her, her arm still across her eyes.

  Twelve

  Only when he’d driven off did she roll to her side, coil tightly and hug her belly. More tears came, and a fierce trembling over her entire body, but she resisted succumbing to total dysfunction. I can’t, I can’t, she thought, keeping some narrow corridor of her mind open to reason, drawing upon an inner strength that deemed control necessary for survival. The delayed shock rattled her body, riveting her head against the sharks’-teeth gravel, but she wept quietly, letting the tears roll onto the stones, which darkened like tea stains beneath her temple. Get up. Go for help. She heard the inner voice but, rising, she would have buckled, so instead she lay waiting out the shakes. It felt as if she were watching someone else rattling away here in the middle of this remote track, looking on from the edge of the ditch while the victim of the afternoon’s violence curled on her side with her arms lashed hard around her belly and tears leaking from her eyes. Meanwhile, the katydids went on caroling, and a covey of goldfinches fluttered into a patch of purple thistle, chattering companionably. She was aware of them subliminally, and of the stems of some puny chickory weeds poking up against the horizon, and of the horizon itself—brilliant green meeting brilliant blue, while uncaring nature forged on with its summer schedule and left a ravaged woman to gather her forces in the road.

  Time passed . . . five minutes or ten . . . she knew not which, before the voice got through.

  Get up. Go for help.

  She hauled herself upright and sat braced with one hand, appalled at her body’s inability to be controlled by will. It continued to tremble as if enfeebled, and no amount of reasoning would restore her calm. She stared numbly at her dusty skirts, at her left shoe where the roadbed had scraped away the shiny white toe and left bare leather. Some crows flapped over, calling loudly. Her head hurt.

  I need a bath . . . please . . . somebody, help me get his slime off my body.

  She pushed to her feet and rose unsteadily, the gravel embedded in her palms like gems in a mounting of flesh. Pieces of it fell as she lifted her skirts and pulled up her underclothes, holding the buttonless waistband of her pantaloons in place. She shuffled to the car, leaving behind her white cap and one mother-of-pearl button among the heel scrapes in the road. The front seat was lying where it had fallen, beside the running board. She wrestled it into the Ford, then set the levers, cranked the machine and drove down off Howe Hill onto Hope Road, along the Megunticook River beside Washington Street and eventually through town to Belmont Street.

  The voice in her head told her where she must go. She didn’t want her children to see her in this condition, nor her mother—and going to Grace’s was out of the question—but why inflict her troubles on Gabriel Farley,

  a man who didn’t want to be bothered? Sheer self-preservation drove her to his door, her thoughts scarcely thoughts, but mindless instinct to seek refuge.

  Lifting her knuckles to his screen door, she heard the voice chanting again: Let him be home . . . let him be home . . . Somewhere in her distant perceptions she detected the smell of meat roasting and coffee brewing, but suppertime and its humdrum routine were unrelated to this day.

  She knocked and he came, holding a dishtowel he’d been using as a pot holder, appearing in the doorway above her like Saint Michael the archangel disguised in blue chambray and khaki.

  ‘‘Roberta?’’

  ‘‘Gabriel . . . I . . .’’

  ‘‘Roberta, what’s wrong?’’

  ‘‘I didn’t know where else to come.’’

  ‘‘What happened?’’ He moved swiftly around the screen door, his eyebrows beetling in concern, as he cast aside the dishtowel.

  ‘‘
The girls are home . . . and . . . and . . . the girls are home . . . and . . . I don’t want them . . . the girls . . . oh, Gabriel . . .’’

  ‘‘What happened?’’ He gripped her arms and felt her shuddering deep within.

  ‘‘I’m sorry to be such a nuisance.’’ She acted peculiar, foggy, like a sleepwalker.

  ‘‘You’re not a nuisance, Roberta. Now tell me what happened.’’

  She stared at his throat for some time, as if unable to make sense of her presence here, then turned her head with mechanical smoothness and studied the white siding beside his back door.

  Almost dispassionately, she told him, ‘‘Elfred raped me.’’

  ‘‘Oh, Jesus,’’ he whispered as her knees gave, and he plucked her up into his arms and carried her inside.

  His kitchen walls whizzed past as she objected, ‘‘Is Isobel here? Isobel can’t see me. Gabe, stop.’’

  He hurried through his house, up the stairs, around the corner into a bedroom and laid her on a soft bed.

  ‘‘That sonofabitch,’’ he said, filling her range of vision as he braced his hands beside her shoulders. ‘‘He raped you?’’

  ‘‘I tried to stop him, but it was no use. He was so strong, Gabe, and I . . . I . . .’’ A sob interrupted.

  ‘‘Where did it happen?’’

  ‘‘Out on Howe H-Hill.’’ She swallowed and controlled her sobs. ‘‘My car ran out of gas and he stopped to h-help me fill it, and then he . . . he . . .’’ She tried not to cry, but the memory jumped up and replayed in her mind, and with it came the shakes again. She flung an arm over her eyes and felt Gabriel touch her dirty sleeve.

  He saw flagrant evidence—the gravel ground into her wrist, her dirty clothes, the purple bruises on her throat.

  ‘‘Did he do this?’’

  From behind her arm she said, ‘‘I didn’t do anything to encourage him, Gabriel . . . honest . . . you’ve got to believe me.’’