The Gravedigger's Daughter Part 42

"But why not, Hazel? You are here, and he knows I have guests. It's perfectly natural. He opened the house for us, he'll want to know if there is anything he can do for you or Zack."

But Hazel did not want to meet the caretaker.

Running away upstairs when McAlster's pickup approached the house.

Gallagher was amused. Gallagher was trying not to be annoyed.

He loved Hazel Jones! He did respect her. Except her quick bright laughter grated against his nerves, sometimes. When her eyes were frightened, and her mouth persisted in smiling. Her way of speaking airily and lightly and yet evasively like an actress reciting lines in which she can't believe.

Gallagher understood: she'd been wounded in some way. Whoever was the father of the child had wounded her, surely. She was uneasy in situations that threatened to expose her. It was a wonder she hadn't worn white gloves, pillbox hat, high-heeled shoes to Grindstone Island. Gallagher vowed to win her trust, that he might set about correcting her: for Hazel Jones's imagination was primitive.

His Albany relatives would see through her awkward poise, at once. Gallagher dreaded the prospect.

His father! But Gallagher would not think of his father, in terms of Hazel Jones. He was determined that they would never meet.

Yet it was ironic, that he should fall in love with a woman who, in her soul, was more a Gallagher than he was. More conventional in her beliefs, her "morality." What is good, what is bad. What is proper, what is not-proper. Hazel hid from the caretaker because she could not bear it, that a stranger might suppose she was Gallagher's mistress, spending Easter weekend with him.

Other women whom Gallagher had brought to stay with him on Grindstone Island hadn't been so self-conscious. These were women of a certain degree of education, experience. An employee like McAlster had no existence for them. Nor would they have cared what he thought of them, not for a moment.

Not that McAlster wasn't the most tactful of men. All Gallagher employees, on Grindstone Island or on the mainland, were tactful. They were hardly likely to ask their employers awkward questions, or in fact any questions at all. McAlster had known Chet Gallagher's wife Veronica for six or seven years always politely calling her "Mrs. Gallagher" and several summers ago when there apparently ceased to be a "Mrs. Chet Gallagher," McAlster had certainly known not to inquire after her.

When McAlster drove away in his pickup truck, Gallagher called teasingly up the stairs: "Haz-el! Hazel Jones! Coast's clear."

They went outside. They hiked down to the river, to the Gallaghers' dock.

In the bright sunshine the river was starkly beautiful, a deep cobalt-blue, not so rough as usual. The wind had dropped, the temperature was 43 F. Everywhere snow was melting, there was a frenzy of melting, dripping. Gallagher wore dark gla.s.ses to shield his eyes against the sun clattering like castanets inside his skull.

Am I hungover? I am not.

A manic little tune, of castanets. Fortunately, Hazel could not hear it.

How striking the view of the St. Lawrence, from the Gallaghers' thirty-foot dock! Gallagher, who had not been out on the dock since the previous summer, and certainly would not be there now except for his guest, pointed out the lighthouse at Malin Head Bay, several miles to the east; in the other direction, a smaller lighthouse at Gananoque, in Ontario.

Hearing himself say, who had not sailed in twelve years, "In the summer, maybe we can sail here. You and I and Zack. Would you like that, Hazel?"

Hazel said yes she would like that.

It was like Hazel to revert to her usual mood. As soon as she'd come downstairs, the issue of the caretaker was forgotten. There could be no protracted hardness or opposition in Hazel, always her moods were melting, quicksilver. Gallagher had never met so intensely feminine a woman, she was fascinating to him. Yet she would not make love with him, she held herself at a little distance from him, uneasy.

He couldn't resist teasing her. She was shielding her eyes against the sun-glare, looking out. "He did ask after my guests. The caretaker. Asking if your rooms were all right and I told him yes, I thought so."

Quickly Hazel said yes their rooms were fine. She was not to be baited by Gallagher. She asked if Mr. McEnnis would be coming back the next day.

Gallagher corrected her: "'McAlster.' His name is 'McAlster.' His people emigrated from Glasgow when he was two years old, he's lived on Grindstone Island for more than sixty years. No, he won't be coming back tomorrow."

They were hiking along the river's edge. Hazel would have descended a treacherous rocky path to the beach, where broken slabs of ice glittered in the sun like enormous teeth, and where storm debris lay in tangled heaps amid sand hardened like concrete, but Gallagher restrained her, alarmed. "Hazel, no. You'll turn an ankle."

They'd hiked more than a half-mile along the river and had some distance to retrace, uphill. From this perspective the Gallagher property appeared immense.

Zack had preferred to remain indoors practicing piano. Because of Easter weekend his Sat.u.r.day lesson had been postponed until Tuesday after school. Hazel had told Gallagher that Zack had been outdoors for a while, earlier that morning; she spoke apologetically, as if the child's lack of interest in the outdoors would annoy Gallagher.

Not at all! Gallagher was on the boy's side. He intended always to be on the boy's side. His own father had not much interest in his youngest son except to be "disappointed" at crucial times, and Gallagher did not intend to model himself after that father. I will make both of you need me and then you will love me.

Gallagher was surprised, Hazel Jones turned out to be so much more robust than he'd expected. She was hiking uphill with less effort than he, scarcely short of breath. She was sure-footed, eager. She exuded an air of happiness, well-being. The mid-April thaw was exhilarating to her, the great flaring sun did not overwhelm her but seemed to draw her forward.

Gallagher had wanted to talk with her. He must talk with her, alone. But she eased away from him, as if impatient. Slipping and sliding in the melting snow, that didn't vex her but made her laugh. Nor did she seem to mind that evergreen boughs were dripping onto her head. She was sure-footed and exuberant as a young animal that has been penned up. Gallagher sweated inside his clothes, began to fall behind. d.a.m.ned if he would call out to the woman, to wait for him. His heart beat hard in his chest.

You love me. You must love me.

Why don't you love me!

Hazel was charmingly dressed for their hike. She wore a windbreaker and a girl's rubber boots and on her head was a fawn-colored fedora she'd found in a closet at the lodge. Gallagher was forced to recall how when he touched Hazel, in their tender, intimate moments, when he kissed her, she went very still; like a captive animal that does not resist, yet remains slightly stiff, vigilant. You would not guess that the woman's body was so young, supple and tremulous with life. Behind her clothes the female body, hot-skinned.

Overhead, hawks were circling. Always there were wide-winged sparrow hawks on Grindstone Island, along the river's edge. They swooped to their prey in open areas, it was rare for a hawk to penetrate the pine woods. Now their swift shadows pa.s.sed over the snow-stubbled gra.s.s and over Hazel's figure, several hawks cruising so low that Gallagher could see the sharp outlines of their beaks.

Hazel, too, noticed the hawks, glancing up uneasily. She began to walk faster as if to elude them.

d.a.m.n! Gallagher saw that she was ascending a trail, the rutty remains of a trail, leading farther uphill; Gallagher had intended that they take another fork and return to the lodge, he'd had enough of hiking for one day. But Hazel hiked on, oblivious of her companion. The hill they were climbing was a small mountain, densely wooded, with a jagged, uneven surface, sharp diagonal outcroppings of shale ridged with ice; for sunshine came only in sporadic patches here, the interior of the pine woods was shaded, chill. The summit of the hill was impa.s.sable, Gallagher recalled. He had not hiked this d.a.m.ned trail in twenty-five years.

"Hazel! Let's turn back."

But Hazel plunged ahead, unheeding. Gallagher had no choice but to follow.

He'd bought a house for her and the child in Watertown. A handsome red-brick colonial with two separate entrances, overlooking a Watertown park. But Hazel would not step inside.

In her soul, a shopgirl. An usherette. Shrinking in shame from the judgment of a hired caretaker.

A mistake, loving Hazel Jones. It would be a terrible mistake to marry her.

Gallagher wasn't accustomed to such physical stamina in any female. On Grindstone Island, it was rare for females to hike this mountain. His former wife would have laughed at him if he'd suggested such a hike in the melting snow. Gallagher had come to a.s.sociate females with smoky bars, c.o.c.ktail lounges, dimly lighted expensive restaurants. At least, females he found s.e.xually desirable. And there was Hazel in her windbreaker and man's hat, hiking a steep hill without a backward glance. Other female guests at Grindstone Island, strolling with Gallagher on his family property, had stayed close beside him, attentive to his conversation.

Another peculiar thing: Hazel was the only visitor to the lodge in Gallagher's memory, female or male, who had not commented on the display of photographs. Guests were always exclaiming at the "known" faces amid the Gallaghers and their friends, looking so thoroughly at home. Some of the individuals pictured with the Gallaghers were wealthy, influential men whose faces Hazel would not have recognized, but there were numerous public figures: Wendell Wilkie, Thomas E. Dewey, Robert Taft, Harold Sta.s.sen, John Bricker and Earl Warren, Dewey's vice-presidential running mates in 1944 and 1948. And there were Republican state congressmen, senators. It was Gallagher's habit to speak disdainfully of his father's political friends, but Hazel had not given him the opportunity for she'd said nothing.

She was ignorant of politics, Gallagher supposed. She had not been educated, hadn't graduated from high school. She knew little of the world of men, action, history. Though she read the occasional newspaper columns Gallagher wrote, she did not offer any criticism or commentary. She knows so little. She will protect me.

At last, Hazel had stopped hiking. She was waiting for Gallagher where the trail ended in a snarl of underbrush, in the pine woods. When he joined her, out of breath, sweating, she pointed at a scattering of feathers on the ground, amid pine needles and glistening ice-rivulets. The feathers were no more than two or three inches long, powdery-gray, very soft and fine. There were small bones, particles of flesh still attached. Gallagher identified the remains of an owl's prey. "There are owls everywhere in these woods. We heard them last night. Screech owls."

"And owls kill other birds? Smaller birds?" The question was naive, wondering. Hazel spoke with a pained expression, almost a grimace.

"Well, owls are predators, darling. They must kill something."

"Predators have no choice, have they?"

"Not unless they want to starve. And eventually, as they age, they do starve, and other predators eat them."

Gallagher spoke lightly, to deflect Hazel's somber tone. Like most women she wished to exaggerate the significance of small deaths.

Hazel's cheeks were flushed from the climb, her eyes were widened and alert, glistening with moisture. She appeared feverish, still excited. There was something heated and s.e.xual about her. Almost, Gallagher shrank from her.

He was taller than Hazel Jones by several inches. He might have gripped her shoulders, and kissed her, hard. Yet he shrank from her, his eyes behind the dark gla.s.ses tremulous.

d.a.m.n: he was sweating, yet shivering. At this height the air was cold enough, thin gusts of wind from the river struck his exposed face like knife blades. Gallagher felt a stab of childish resentment, here was a woman failing to protect a man from getting sick.

He pulled at her arm, and led her back down the trail. She came at once, docile.

"'The owl of Minerva soars only at dusk.'"

Hazel spoke in her strange, vague, wondering voice as if another spoke through her. Gallagher glanced at her, surprised.

"Why do you say that, Hazel? Those words?"

But Hazel seemed not to know, why.

Gallagher said, "It's a melancholy observation. It's the German philosopher Hegel's remark and it seems to mean that wisdom comes to us only too late."

"'The owl of Minerva.' But who is Minerva?"

"The Roman G.o.ddess of wisdom."

"Some long-ago time, we're talking of?"

"A very long time ago, Hazel."

Afterward Gallagher would recall this curious exchange. He would have liked to ask Hazel whom she was echoing, who'd made this remark in her hearing, except he knew that she would become evasive and manage not to answer his question. Her manner was naive and girlish and somehow he did not trust it, not completely.

"Why is it, do you think, 'the owl of Minerva soars only at dusk'? Must it always be so?"

"Hazel, I have no idea. It's really just a remark."

She was so d.a.m.ned literal-minded! Gallagher would have to be careful what he told Hazel, especially if she became his wife. She would believe him without question.

They left the densely wooded area and were descending the hill in the direction of the lodge. Here in the open sunshine Gallagher would have been blinded without his dark gla.s.ses. A smell of skunk lifted teasingly to their nostrils, faint at first and then stronger. It might have been emanating from a stand of birch trees, or from one of the guest cabins. At a distance the smell of skunk can be half-pleasurable but it is not so pleasurable at close range. That inky-cobwebby odor that can turn nauseating if you blunder too close.

Families of skunks sometimes hibernated beneath the outbuildings. The warm weather would have roused them.

"Skunks have to live somewhere. Just like us."

Hazel spoke playfully. Gallagher laughed. He was liking Hazel Jones again now that she wasn't leading him up the d.a.m.ned mountain to a heart attack.

Gallagher tried the doors of several cabins until he found one that wasn't locked. Inside, the air was cold and very still. Like an indrawn breath it seemed to Gallagher who was feeling unaccountably excited.

The cabin was made of weatherized logs, built above a small glittering stream. Nearby were birch trees whose trunks were blindingly white in the sunshine. The interior of the cabin was partly shaded and partly blinding. There was a faint but pungent odor here of skunk. There were twin beds, new-looking mattresses loosely covered with sheets, and pillows without pillowcases. On the floor was a hook rug. Standing inside the cabin, with Hazel Jones, Gallagher felt a rush of emotion so powerful it left him weak. He had an urgent impulse to talk to her, to explain himself. He had not talked very seriously with her since coming to the island and their time together was rapidly running out. Tomorrow he would have to drive his little family back to Watertown, their individual lives would resume. He had bought a beautiful house for Hazel and the child but they had not yet come to live with him.

No child. He had no child. If you have lost your way it is best to have no child.

It was then that Gallagher began to speak haphazardly. He heard himself tell Hazel Jones how as a boy he'd camped in the woods on summer nights, alone. Not with his brothers but alone. He had a "pup" tent with mosquito netting. The guest cabins hadn't been built yet. Noises in the woods had frightened him, he'd hardly slept at all, but the experiences had been profound, somehow. He wondered if all profound experiences occur when you're alone, and frightened.

It was like wartime in a way, sleeping outdoors, in tents. Except in wartime you are so exhausted you have no trouble sleeping.

He told Hazel that his father had built most of the cabins after the war. Thaddeus had expanded the lodge, bought more land along the river. In fact, the Gallaghers owned property elsewhere in the Thousand Islands which was being developed, very profitably. Thaddeus Gallagher had made money during wartime and he'd made a lot more money, after: tax laws highly favorable to the Gallagher Media Group had been pa.s.sed by the Republican-dominated New York State Legislature in the early 1950s.

( Why was Gallagher telling this to Hazel Jones? Did he want to impress her? Did he want her to know that he was a rich man's son, yet innocent of acquiring riches, himself? Hazel could have no way of knowing if Gallagher shared in any of his family money or ifjust maybe!he'd been disinherited.) Hazel had never asked Gallagher about his family, no more than she would have asked him about his former marriage. Hazel Jones was not one to ask personal questions. Yet now she asked him, with a startling bluntness, if he'd been in the war?

"The war? Oh, Hazel."

Gallagher's wartime experience was not a subject he spoke of easily. His brash swaggering jocular manner could not accommodate it. His eyes s.n.a.t.c.hed at Hazel Jones's eyes, that were so glistening, intense. Just inside the cabin door they stood close together yet not touching. They were very aware of each other. In this small s.p.a.ce their intimacy was unnerving to Gallagher.

"Did you see the death camps?"

"No."

"You didn't see the death camps?"

"I was in northern Italy. I was hospitalized there."

"There were no death camps in Italy?"

It seemed to be a question. Gallagher was uncertain how to answer. While he'd been overseas, at first in France and then in the Italian countryside north of Brescia, he had known nothing about the infamous n.a.z.i death camps. He had not really known much about his own experience. Twenty-three days after landing in Europe he'd been struck by shrapnel in his back, knees. Around his neck he'd worn a collar thick as a horse collar and he'd gotten very sick with infections, and later with morphine. He understood that he'd witnessed ugly things but he had no access to them, directly. It was as if a scrim had grown across his vision, like a membrane.

Now Hazel Jones was regarding him with a curious avid hunger. Gallagher could smell the fever-heat of the woman's body, that was new to him, very arousing.

"Why did the n.a.z.is want to kill so many people? What does it mean, some people are 'unclean''impure''life unworthy life'?"

"Hazel, the n.a.z.is were madmen. It doesn't matter what they meant."

"The n.a.z.is were madmen?"

Again it seemed to be a question. Hazel spoke with a peculiar vehemence, as if Gallagher had said something meant to be funny.

"Certainly. They were madmen, and murderers."

"But when Jews came to the United States, the ships carrying them were turned away. The Americans didn't want them, no more than the n.a.z.is wanted them."

"Hazel, no. I don't think so."

"You don't think so?"

"No. I don't."

Gallagher had removed his dark gla.s.ses. He fumbled to slip them into his jacket pocket, but they slipped from his fingers to the floor. He was startled and somewhat repelled by Hazel's intensity, her voice that was strident, uncanny. This was not Hazel Jones's melodic female voice but another's, Gallagher had never heard before.

"No, Hazel. I'm sure that wasn't the case, what you're saying."

"It wasn't?"

"It was a diplomatic issue. If we're talking about the same thing."

Gallagher spoke uncertainly. He wasn't sure of his information, the subject was vague to him, distasteful. He was trying to remember but could not. His breathing was coming quickly as if he were still hiking uphill.