Thales's Folly Read online

  "Valerian—good for sleeping," she told him. "Bring it with you, I'll show you to your room."

  She led him up narrow carpeted stairs to the second floor, and down the hall past closed doors. "Here," she said. "Miss Thale's room." She handed him a candle, lighted it for him, and was quite suddenly gone.

  His candle sent shadows up and down across the ceiling; he set it down on the old-fashioned oak stand and then sat on the bed to drink his tea. His impression of the room was one of ruffled white curtains at the windows, several ancient portraits, and a mirror on the wall and—oh, God, a chamber pot? Gilt-edged, no less.

  He could absorb no more; peeling off his clothes, he snuffed out the candle, pulled on his pajamas, and as he sank down into the bed he realized he'd not taken his sleeping pill.

  Got to get up, he told himself. . , have to . . , must get up. . , must. ., and was still mumbling when he fell asleep.

  Sunday

  3

  If you have Pennyroyale in great quantity, dry and cast it into corrupt water, it helpeth it much, neither will it hurt them that drink thereof. —John Gerard, The Herball, 1597

  When Andrew awoke it was daylight and Miss L’Hommedieu was standing over his bed and staring down at him. He blinked at her, astonished.

  She nodded. "I wanted to see what you looked like asleep. People are so interesting when asleep, don't you think?"

  "No I don't," he said indignantly. 'Are you going to watch me dress, too?"

  But she was already floating out of the room, or gave that impression because this morning she was gowned in trailing blue chiffon that gave every appearance of bearing her away inside of it. "I've waited breakfast for you," she called from the hall.

  He liked Miss L’Hommedieu, but he had little faith in the breakfast she was summoning him to. A glance out of the window assured him that the cacophony of birds outside indicated no crisis and that the sun was shining; he lingered a moment, captured by what he saw. No empty untilled field here: at the rear of the house the sun was shining down on a large and well-tended garden. Long mounded rows of earth, rich with leafy greens, stretched almost to the woods, with neat paths between each row, the far end shaded by a stand of knee-high corn, whose tassels shone like silk in the sun. As he buttoned up his shirt, he saw Leo emerge from somewhere below with a half-filled basket of ripe tomatoes. Passing the rows of lavish green he leaned over, picked a leaf, and chewing on it disappeared around the corner of the house. Andrew's years of summer camps had educated him about wells: there were two of them, with round cement lids encircled by bright flowers, and off to the left he could see a low circular stone wall that suggested a second, more sheltered garden. Standing at the window, he could already feel the heat of a July day; a hot walk lay ahead. He turned away and finished dressing.

  Once downstairs he found his pessimism about breakfast justified: he was provided with a small glass of tomato juice, two slices of thin toast, and a cup of raspberry-leaf tea. Even as he pursued with a finger the last crumb of toast he managed to chat amiably with Miss L'Hommedieu about the weather until she suddenly held up a hand and said, "Hush! Something's coming!"

  Something was indeed coming, and it sounded as if the house and the hills around them would be split asunder by the noise. Miss L’Hommedieu rose and went out to the porch with Andrew following. The noise grew shriller and more urgent, and then the cloud of dust that contained it swerved into the driveway and bounced toward them. As the dust cleared they saw a splendid chrome-and-scarlet motorcycle, and astride it a figure in goggles, black leather jacket, black trousers, and black boots.

  The engine was shut off and the figure spoke. "Mmmmcha Thale farm?"

  "This is the Thale farm," Andrew told him.

  Behind him the screen door opened, and Leo and Gussie tiptoed out. The figure on the motorcycle moved. One leg slid over the saddle, a hand swept back the Martian goggles, and with the helmet removed they saw his face, round and pudgy and oddly childlike, a sad contrast to his swashbuckling arrival.

  "S'wan of you Miss Gussie Pease?" he inquired, and ambled toward the porch, stopping with one booted foot on the step. "Mm looking for a job, muh name's Wally Blore."

  "Well!" said Gussie with feeling. "We're delighted to see you, Mr. Blore. Won't you come in and have a cup of tea? Tarragon will make the tea, we'd love to have you meet Tarragon, too."

  Andrew became aware of Miss L'Hommedieu elbowing him sharply in the ribs. "Should we be alarmed?" she whispered. 'Are we being invaded? Ask him if he speaks any English."

  He turned and smiled at her; he had not realized how fond of her he was becoming. "It's going to be all right," he told her. "Trust Gussie until I get back. I don't know why," he added reflectively, "but she can't marry Tarragon off in just one morning." He had a sudden vision of Blore encountering Tarragon and a premonition that he would whistle when ha met her. He turned away, and picking up his car keys strode angrily down the road to find rescue for the car.

  It was midafternoon before Andrew limped back to Thale's Folly, a little wiser in country mores and a little humbler. He had met the postmaster, whose name was Artemus and who was tending the grocery counter at the post office while his wife was at church.

  "Groceries! In a post office?" Andrew was surprised.

  "Wife's idea," confided Artemus. "Woods full of summer cottages and artists, saves them a trip to town and gives my wife pin money. All we had once along that wall"—he pointed to the shelves of groceries—"was a lot of WANTED pictures. Killers, all of them—very dispiriting. Wife's idea," he replied.

  "And a very good one, ' said Andrew, and at once bought six jelly doughnuts and consumed three of them while Artemus commiserated with him; it had been a long walk on two slices of toast and a cup of tea.

  "Trouble is," Artemus said, fixing him with a piercing eye, "it's Sunday and you're not going to get anyone from town to drive out on a Sunday. Manuel's got a tow truck; I'll give him a ring, he should be back from Mass by now."

  Manuel, it seemed, belonged to the garage—closed—that he'd passed yesterday.

  Calls were made; Manuel had just returned from Mass, he would need to change his clothes and rev up his tow truck— "probably have lunch, too," Artemus said—and be there inside of an hour.

  Haunted by his meager breakfast, Andrew considered what he might take back with him to Thale's Folly. Radio batteries, of course, for Leo. Bread they seemed already to have. "I'll take a dozen eggs," he told Artemus, and then realized that no electricity meant no refrigerator. "Make it six eggs," he said, and then, "No, damn it, make it a dozen." He tried to think of what they didn't grow in the garden; no use flaunting his money, and a long way to carry whatever he bought. "And ten of those chocolate bars, " he added, and thought, God I've been spoiled.

  Manuel, when he arrived, shook his head over Andrew's situation. "That's a killer of a road," he said. "Has potholes there big enough to bury a cow. Hop in."

  Andrew said good-bye to Artemus and obligingly climbed up into the tow truck.

  "You at the motel?" asked Manuel.

  Andrew hesitated before saying, "No. No, I kept walking, hoping for a house with a phone, and there was a house—"

  Manuel nodded. 'A house."

  "Yes. They put me up for the night. You know them?"

  Manuel only shrugged. "Heard tell."

  "Interesting group of people."

  This met with no response. "Here we are," Manuel said, and braked at the site of Andrew's disaster.

  The car was inspected, the pothole assessed, and the news was not good. "What you got," said Manuel, hands on hips and scowling, "is a hole in the muffler. You've also lost your tailpipe, and this tire's been torn up pretty bad."

  Andrew nodded.

  "Tailpipe and muffler I got," Manuel continued, "but this here tire—" He shook his head. "Have to order one from town. Take a day, maybe two."

  Andrew found himself relieved by this news and decided that his pleasure probably equaled the anger his fath
er would soon feel; he might not be concerned about Andrew, but definitely he would be concerned—no, he would be furious— about the company car. Because of this, once Manuel had hitched the Mercedes to his truck, Andrew rode back with him to the post office and left a message with his father's answering service. Only then did he begin his walk back again to Thale's Folly, which felt a long walk this time and gave him too much time to think. Once, an eternity ago, or so it felt, he had been considered brilliant to have had two well-received mystery novels published by the age of twenty-five. The fact that he could no longer write, was utterly blocked and was unable to summon even the slightest interest in it now did not preclude his thinking, observing, and living with words, so that as he walked up Thale Road he was as usual searching for words to describe Artemus: white hair worn long in the back—could he have come to Tottsville as a hippie when younger? Comfortable-looking man. Laid-back. Sleepy eyes. Striking black brows untouched by white. Manuel? Burly and broad-shouldered, shrewd eyes—would his bill be huge?— not a talker—large, capable hands.

  Mere note-taking, he thought bitterly; he couldn't even do as well as Miss L'Hommedieu. What did the dictionary say about trauma? A disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from

  mental or emotional stress or physical injury. Such helplessness— such estrangement—infuriated him, and since his anger so often led to depression, he was growing accustomed to hating himself. He was still hating himself when he turned into the driveway of Thale's Folly and Tarragon ran to meet him.

  "You've walked!" she cried happily. "No car? You're not leaving yet?"

  At once Andrew stopped hating himself, touched by her eagerness and her delight in seeing him. It occurred to him how different she was from girls he'd known: Jennifer, for instance, with her artificial bronze tan and bright carmine lipsticks, whose greeting would have been cool and guarded in comparison. Tarragon's bleached and shabby jeans and sweatshirt matched the blue of her eyes and the blue of the sky; and as for her cheekbones, a model would kill for them, he thought. "The car's at the garage," he said. "I can't leave. Manuel says it may take another day, probably two for repairs."

  "I'm so glad," she said, and they stood in the driveway smiling at each other.

  He said at last, awkwardly, "I've brought eggs. And batteries for Leo, too."

  "That's kind of you," she said. "What's even nicer is that there's not going to be a moon tonight—you can see how it's clouding over now—and Leo says you can go with us. It's dump night."

  Puzzled, he said, "Dump night? You mean like bingo night? What dump?"

  "The town dump. It's not far from here, and it's a wonderful place for treasure."

  He asked with interest, "And why is it necessary to go at the dark of the moon?"

  They began walking toward the house and he waited, braced. "Well, you see," she explained, "it's illegal."

  He nodded. "Of course—I don't know why I asked."

  "Hobe Elkins lives there in a shack, you see, and he's posted NO DUMP PICKING UNDER PENALTY OF FINES and NO TRESPASSING signs. Leo says tonight is perfect for it because there's a kerosene-burning space heater there. He saw it."

  Amused, Andrew said, "And what will you do with a kerosene space heater, whatever it is?"

  "Do with it? " She gave him an astonished glance. "Why, keep warm with it. If we shut off the upstairs next winter it will heat most of the downstairs."

  "Your furnace, I suppose ... ?"

  She nodded. "In February. The boiler cracked . . . Oh, do let's go in so you can tell Gussie about the eggs, she makes wonderful sorrel omelettes and she'll be so pleased, and Wally Blore left early for a motorcycle meet so you can have the mint tea Gussie made for him."

  Gussie's eyes brightened at being presented with a dozen eggs, and she promised a sorrel omelette. Leo's gratitude at sight of the batteries was so shyly touching that Andrew felt downright heroic. At once Leo headed upstairs for his radio, calling over his shoulder, "There may be news about the Pittsville bank robbery last week, I missed all the excitement about that." He sounded so gleeful that he left Andrew wondering, given Leo's anarchist approach to life, just where his sympathies might lie in the case of such a raid on a bank.

  Gussie's sorrel omelette was exquisite; Leo sadly reported no news of the robbery on the local radio station; and Miss L’Hommedieu, perhaps aware of the pervading excitement over dump night, had produced only a few lines of a story and announced that she preferred to complete it before sharing it.

  What no one had explained to Andrew was that Leo embraced such expeditions with the ardor of a military commander; Leo had unsuspected depths. It was nearly midnight when they crept from the house—crept, thought Andrew, being the only way to describe their exit—and he decided they resembled nothing so much as Halloweeners going out to trick-or-treat. Masquerades had always embarrassed Andrew, and he was embarrassed now, for Tarragon had pinned him into a dark blanket that was supposed to make him invisible. What was even more humiliating, Gussie had daubed his face with mud and he had been placed in charge of a homemade wagon in which they would carry off the loot: he felt like a commando wheeling a baby carriage. Leo had been right about no moon, but he had refused Andrew's flashlight—"on a mission like this?" said Leo in a shocked voice—and so they stumbled and tripped down the road in this moonless night until Leo abruptly halted them.

  "Dump's a quarter of a mile in," he whispered, pointing, and they left the road behind them to follow a narrow path through the woods. Halting them again he said, "Tarragon, you're reconnaissance, we get closer you check Hobe's position and movements. Andrew, you're to review the terrain for holes, booby traps and mines."

  "Mines?" said Andrew incredulously.

  "Enemy may have been alerted." Leo's voice was contemptuous.

  They moved forward again over what was extremely rough ground until the balmy night turned smoky and disagreeable and Andrew saw a flickering half-light through the trees up ahead. Their stealthy pace continued until the trees were behind them and they stood at the edge of the dump.

  Dante's hell, thought Andrew, for there were no visible flames but from the far corner of the clearing there emanated a weird red glow, as if a subterranean furnace had been banked for the night.

  "Tarragon?" whispered Leo.

  "Right," responded Tarragon, and left them to reconnoiter. A few minutes later she was back. "All quiet. He must be sound asleep."

  "My turn now?" asked Andrew dryly.

  "Roger. Stove over there," said Leo, pointing to a mountain of tins. "Hobe's shack is back of it. Signal with flares when safe for advance." He handed Andrew two kitchen matches.

  Andrew said indignantly, "I don't suppose we could just walk over and load the blasted thing on this baby carriage? Oh never mind," he added, and to appease Leo—he had never felt more ridiculous—he began an impressively cautious approach, zigging and zagging, stopping to listen and then zigzagging again.

  He nearly fell over the heater. He swore, regained his balance, and brought one of the kitchen matches from his pocket and lighted it by ripping it across the shutter of the stove.

  To his surprise the striking of the match across the stove precipitated a snakelike hissing noise and something zoomed past Andrew's ear to shoot skyward and light up the dump as if day had arrived. Stepping back in astonishment he tripped and fell and a tin can hit him squarely on the head. As he staggered to his feet a rocket discharged into the sky a nearly perfect red white and blue American flag that hung over him for a moment, blindingly brilliant until its stars melted into the night.

  'All right, buster," snarled the man standing over Andrew. "Into my shack. Move!"

  "What the devil," gasped Andrew. "Look here—"

  "Faster," growled the man, and he was actually waving a gun. A shocked Andrew moved with consummate speed, pushed and driven to the door of the shack; the door was slammed behind them, and Andrew shoved roughly against a wall in the corner. At once he slid to the floor to become as incons
picuous as possible because Hobe Elkins appeared to be a man demented. In the darkness it was difficult to guess what was happening but he could hear Elkins stamping around the room, kicking walls and shouting, "Take that, you bastard—and that Teach you to come here to my dump, teach you to stop trespassing, hit you again I will." More walls were kicked and thumped and then abruptly the shouting stopped and there was silence.

  "I think they've got it," Elkins whispered.

  "Got what?" asked Andrew weakly.

  "It's all right, they've got it," he said again. He struck a match, ran up the wick of a kerosene lamp and lighted it, and the sudden brightness showed a calm and smiling man. "It's all right, they're gone," he said, beaming at Andrew.

  Bewildered, Andrew nodded toward the door. "You mean you let them take that blasted heater?"

  Elkins chuckled. "You can't say I didn't give 'em a run for their money. You tripped a wire back there soon as you touched the heater. Took me darn near a day getting that rigged up." He gleefully slapped his thigh.

  Andrew sat up, staring. "You mean you don't mind their taking the heater?"

  "Mind! I've had it parked out there for a week where Leo could see it. Their furnace broke down last winter, you know, can't let 'em freeze to death." He glanced at Andrew and shook his head. "Beats me the way they just ran off and left you like this."

  "I'm expendable," Andrew said gloomily, "I'm over twenty."

  "Not to worry, they'll be back, it'll come to them I've beaten you up—give 'em something to talk about for weeks. It'll be an adventure for Leo, rescuing you. You imbibe, mister?"

  "Imbibe?" Andrew said cautiously. "I think I could use a little something. I don't want to complain but this evening has been a trifle hard on the nerves."

  "Got just the thing!" Elkins brought a jug from under his bed. "Don't often have someone to drink with . . . Blackberry brandy," he explained happily. "One hundred proof. Ought to know, made it myself."