The Great And Secret Show Part 41

He wondered, as he listened, if anyone in Palomo Grove would hear the report. The Jaff maybe; or }o-Beth. He hoped so. He hoped they heard, and understood what was coming their way. The town had seen some strange sights since his father's return from the rock, but nothing, surely, the equal of the wind he had in tow, or the living dust that danced on its back.

II.

It was hunger that drove William out from his home on Sat.u.r.day morning. He went reluctantly, like a man at an orgy suddenly aware that his bladder had to be emptied, and exiting with many a backward glance. But hunger, like the need to p.i.s.s, couldn't be ignored forever, and William had exhausted what few supplies his refrigerator had contained very quickly. Working as he did at the Mall he'd never stocked up on food, but taken a quarter of an hour every day to wander around the supermarket and pick up whatever got him salivating. But he'd not been shopping now for two days, and if he wasn't to starve to death in the lap of the tasty but inedible luxuries gathered behind the drawn blinds of his home he had to fetch himself something to eat. This was easier said than done. His mind was so wholly obsessed by the company he was keeping that the simple problem of making himself presentable for a public appearance and going down to the Mall became a major challenge.

Until recently, his life had been so very organized. The week's shirts were always washed and pressed on a Sunday, laid out on his dresser with the five bow ties selected from his hundred and eleven to complement the shade of the shirt; his kitchen could have been shot for an ad campaign, its surfaces always pristine; the sink smelled of lemon; the washing machine of his flower-scented fabric conditioner; his toilet bowl of pine.

But Babylon had taken control of his house. He'd last seen his best suit being worn by the notorious bis.e.xual Marcella St. John, while she straddled one of her girlfriends. His bow ties had been purloined for a compet.i.tion to see which of three erections could wear the most, a tournament won by Moses "The Hose" Jasper, who'd ended up sporting seventeen.

Rather than try and tidy up, or claim any of these belongings back, William decided to let the celebrants have their way. He rummaged in his bottom drawer and found a sweatshirt and jeans he'd not worn for several years, put them on, and wandered down to the Mall.

At about the time he was doing so Jo-Beth was waking with the worst hangover of her life. The worst, because the first.

Her memories of the previous night's events were uncertain. She remembered going to Lois's house, of course, and the guests, and Howie arriving, but how all of this had ended up she couldn't be sure. She got up feeling giddy and sick, and went to the bathroom. Momma, hearing her moving about, came upstairs and was waiting for her when she emerged.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"No," Jo-Beth freely admitted. "I feel terrible."

"You were drinking last night."

"Yes," she said. There was no purpose in denial.

"Where did you go?"

"To see Lois."

"There'd be no liquor in Lois's house," Momma said.

"There was last night. And a lot more besides."

"Don't lie to me, Jo-Beth."

"I'm not lying."

"Lois would never have that poison in the house."

"I think you should hear her tell it herself," Jo-Beth said, defying Momma's accusing looks. "I think we should both go down to the store and speak to her."

"I'm not leaving the house," Momma told her flatly.

"You went out into the yard the night before last. Today you can get in the car."

She spoke as she'd never spoken to Momma before, with a kind of rage in her tone which was in part response to Momma's calling her a liar, and in part against herself for not being able to think her way through the blur of the previous night. What had happened between Howie and herself? Had they argued? She thought so. They'd certainly parted on the street...but why? It was another reason to speak to Lois.

"I mean what I say, Momma," she said. "We're both of us going to go down to the Mall."

"No, I can't..." Momma said. "Really I can't. I feel so sick today."

"No you don't."

"Yes. My stomach..."

"No, Momma! Enough of that! You can't pretend to be sick for the rest of your life, just because you're afraid. I'm afraid too, Momma."

"It's good you're afraid."

"No it's not. It's what the Jaff wants. What he feeds on. The fear inside. I know that because I've seen it working and it's horrible."

"We can pray. Prayer-"

"-won't do us any good any longer. It didn't help the Pastor. It won't help us." She was raising her voice, which in turn made her head spin, but she knew this had to be said now before full sobriety returned, and with it, fear of offending.

"You always said it was dangerous outside," she went on, not liking to hurt Momma the way she surely was, but unable to stem the flow of feeling. "Well it is dangerous. Even more than you thought. But inside, Momma-" she jabbed at her chest, meaning her heart, meaning Howie and Tommy-Ray and the terror that she'd lost them both "-inside, it's worse. Even worse. To have things...dreams...just for a while...then have them taken away before you can get a hold of them properly."

"You're not making any sense, Jo-Beth," Momma said.

"Lois'll tell you," she replied. "I'm going to take you down to see Lois, and then you'll believe."

Howie sat at the window and let the sun dry the sweat on his skin. Its smell was as familiar to him as his own face in the mirror, more familiar, perhaps, because his face kept changing and the smell of sweat didn't. He needed the comfort of such familiarity now, with nothing certain in all the world but that nothing was certain. He could find no way through the tangle of feelings in his gut. What had seemed simple the day before, when he'd stood in the sun at the back of the house and kissed Jo-Beth, was no longer simple. Fletcher might be dead but he'd left a legacy here in the Grove, a legacy of dream-creatures which viewed him as some subst.i.tute for their lost creator. He couldn't be that. Even if they didn't share Fletcher's view of Jo-Beth, which after last night's confrontation they surely did, he still couldn't fulfill their expectations. He'd come here a desperado and become, albeit fleetingly, a lover. Now they wanted to make a general of him; wanted marching orders and battle plans. He could supply neither. Nor would Fletcher have been able to offer such direction. The army he'd created would have to elect a leader from its own ranks, or disperse.

He'd rehea.r.s.ed these arguments so often now he almost believed them; or rather, had almost convinced himself he wasn't a coward for wanting to believe them. But the trick hadn't worked. He came back and back to the same stark fact: that once, in the woods, Fletcher had warned him to make a choice between Jo-Beth and his destiny, and he'd flown in the face of that advice. The consequences of his desertion, whether direct or indirect was immaterial now, had been Fletcher's public death, a last, desperate attempt to seize some hope for the future. Now here was he, the unprodigal son, willfully turning his back on the product of that sacrifice.

And yet; and yet; always, and yet. If he sided with Fletcher's army then he became part of the war he and Jo-Beth had studiously attempted to remain untouched by. She would become one of the enemy, simply by birth.

What he wanted more than anything, ever in his life- more than the pubic hair he'd tried to will into growing at age eleven, more than the motorcycle he'd stolen at fourteen, more than his mother back from death for two minutes just so he could tell her how sorry he was for all the times he'd made her cry; more, at this moment, than Jo-Beth-was certainty. Just to be told which way was the right way, which act was the right act, and have the comfort that even if it turned out not to be the way or the act it was not his responsibility. But there was n.o.body to tell him. He had to think this out for himself. Sit in the sun and let the sweat dry on his skin, and work it out for himself.

The Mall was not as busy as it usually was on a Sat.u.r.day morning, but William nevertheless met half a dozen people he knew on his way to the supermarket. One was his a.s.sistant Valerie.

"Are you all right?" she wanted to know. "I've been calling your house. You never answer."

"I've been ill," he said.

"I didn't bother to open the office yesterday. What with all the trouble the night before. It was a real mess. Roger went down, you know, when the alarms started?"

"Roger?"

She stared at him. "Yes, Roger."

"Oh yes," William said, not knowing whether this was Valerie's husband, brother or dog, and not much caring.

"He's been ill too," she said.

"I think you should take a few days off," William suggested.

"That would be nice. A lot of people are going away at the moment, have you noticed? Just taking off. We won't lose much business."

He made some polite remark about how she should treat herself to a rest, and parted from her.

The muzak in the market reminded him of what he'd left at home: it sounded so much like the soundtracks of some of his early movies, a wash of nondescript melodies bearing no relation to the scenes they accompanied. The memory hurried him up and down the long aisles, filling his basket more by instinct than planning. He didn't bother to cater for his guests. They only fed on each other.

He wasn't the only shopper in the store ignoring practical purchases (household cleaners, detergents and the like) in favor of quick-fix items and junk foods. Distracted as he was he noticed others doing just as he was doing, indiscriminately filling up their carts and baskets with trash, as though new rea.s.surances had supplanted the rituals of cooking and eating. He saw on the purchasers' faces (faces he'd known by name once, but could only half remember now) the same secretive look he'd known had been on his own face all his life. They were going about their shopping pretending there was nothing different about this particular Sat.u.r.day, but everything was different now. They all had secrets; or almost all. And those that didn't were either leaving town, like Valerie, or pretending not to notice, which was, in its way, another secret.

As he reached the checkout, adding two fistfuls of Hershey bars to his basketload, he saw a face he hadn't set eyes on in many a long year: Joyce McGuire. She came in with her daughter, Jo-Beth, arm-in-arm. If he had ever seen them together it must have been before Jo-Beth grew to be a woman. Now, side by side, the similarities in their faces was enough to take his breath away. He stared, unable to prevent himself from remembering the day at the lake and the way Joyce had looked as she'd stripped down. Did the daughter look that way now, beneath her loose clothes, he wondered; small dark nipples, long, tanned thighs?

He realized suddenly that he was not the only customer looking towards the McGuire women; practically everyone was doing the same. Nor could he doubt that similar thoughts were in every head: that here, in the flesh, was one of the first clues to the apocalypse that was stealing up over the Grove. Eighteen years ago Joyce McGuire had given birth in circ.u.mstances that had then seemed merely scandalous. Now she stepped back into the public eye at the very time the most ludicrous rumors surrounding the League of Virgins seemed to be being proved true. There were presences walking the Grove (or lurking beneath it) which had power over lesser beings. Their influence had made flesh children in the body of Joyce McGuire. Was it perhaps that same influence that had made his dreams? They too were flesh from mind.

He looked back at Joyce, and understood something about himself he'd never grasped before: that he and the woman (beholder and beheld) were forever and intimately a.s.sociated. The realization lasted a moment only: it was too difficult to grasp for any longer. But it made him put down his basket and press his way past the line waiting at the checkout, then walk straight towards Joyce McGuire. She saw him coming, and a look of fear crossed her face. He smiled at her. She tried to back away but her daughter had hold of her hand.

"It's all right, Momma," he heard her say.

"Yes-" he said, extending his own hand to Joyce. "Yes, it is. Really it is. I'm...so pleased to see you."

The sincere emotion, simply stated, seemed to mellow her anxiety; the frown softened. She even began to smile.

"William Witt," he said, putting his hand in hers. "You probably don't remember me, but..."

"I remember you," she said.

"I'm glad."

"See, Momma?" Jo-Beth said. "This isn't so bad."

"I haven't seen you in the Grove for such a long time," William said.

"I've been...unwell," Joyce said.

"And now?"

She declined to answer at first. Then she said: "I think I'm getting better."

"That's good to hear."

As he spoke the sound of sobbing came to them from one of the aisles. Jo-Beth noticed it more than any of the other customers: a strange tension between her mother and Mr. Witt (whom she'd seen most every morning of her working life, but never dressed in so disheveled a fashion) had claimed their attention utterly, and everyone else in the line seemed to be making a studied attempt not to notice. She let go of Momma's arm and went to investigate, tracing the sound of the weeping from aisle to aisle until she found its source. Ruth Gilford, who was the receptionist at the offices of Momma's doctor, and was familiar to Jo-Beth, was standing in front of a selection of cereals, a box of one brand in her left hand and of another in her right, tears pouring down her cheeks. The cart at her side was heaped high with more boxes of cereal, as though she'd simply taken one of each as she'd wheeled her way along the aisle. "Mrs. Gilford?" Jo-Beth ventured.

The woman didn't stop sobbing, but tried to speak through her tears, which resulted in a watery and at times incoherent monologue.

"...don't know what he wants..." she seemed to be saying. "...after all this time...don't know what he wants..."

"Can I help?" Jo-Beth said. "Do you want me to take you home?"

The word home made Ruth look around at Jo-Beth, attempting to focus on her through the tears.

"...I don't know what he wants..." she said again.

"Who?" Jo-Beth said.

"...all these years...and he's got something hiding from me..."

"Your husband?"

"...I said nothing, hut I knew...I always knew...he loved somebody else...and now he's got her in the house..."

The tears redoubled. Jo-Beth went to her, and very gently claimed the packets of cereal from her hands, putting them back on the shelves. With her talismans gone, Ruth Gil-ford took fierce hold of Jo-Beth.

"...help me..." she said.

"Of course."

"I don't want to go home. He's got somebody there."

"All right. Not if you don't want to."

She started to coax the woman away from the cereal display. Once out of their influence, her anguish diminished somewhat.

"You're Jo-Beth, aren't you?" she managed.

"That's right."

"Will you take me to my car...I don't think I can get there on my own."

"We're going, you'll be fine," Jo-Beth rea.s.sured her, moving to Ruth's right-hand side so as to protect her from the gaze of those waiting in line if they chose to stare. She doubted they would. Ruth Gilford's collapse was too tender a sight for them to look straight at; it would remind them all too forcibly of what secrets they themselves were barely holding in check.

Momma was at the door, with William Witt. Jo-Beth decided to forsake introductions, which Ruth was in no state to respond to anyway, and just tell Momma she'd meet her at the bookstore, which had still been closed when they'd arrived. For the first time in her life, Lois was late opening up. But it was Momma who took the initiative.

"Mr. Witt will bring me home, Jo-Beth," she said. "Don't worry about me."

Jo-Beth glanced at Witt, who had the look of a man almost mesmerized.

"Are you sure?" she said. It had never occurred to her before but perhaps the ever unctuous Mr. Witt was the type Momma had been warning her about all these years. The deep, silent type whose secrets were always the most depraved. But Momma was insistent; almost casual in the way she waved Jo-Beth off.

Crazy, Jo-Beth thought as she escorted Ruth to the car, the whole world's gone crazy. People changing at a moment's notice, as though the way they'd been all these years was just a pretense: Momma sick, Mr. Witt neat, Ruth Gilford in charge. Were they just reinventing themselves, or was this the way they'd always been?

As they got to the car Ruth Gilford was taken over by another, even more desperate, bout of crying, and tried to return to the supermarket, insistent that she couldn't go back home without cereal. Jo-Beth gently persuaded her otherwise, and volunteered to drive home with her, an invitation which was gratefully accepted.

Jo-Beth's thoughts returned to Momma as she drove Ruth home, but they were literally overtaken, as a convoy of four black stretch limos purred past and turned up the Hill, their presence so utterly alien they might just have driven in from another dimension.

Visitors, she thought. As if there weren't enough.

III.