Banshee

Chapter Eight

Dru’s report card for the fall semester was sent to her mother by registered mail, not brought home by Dru herself. This was unusual enough. The contents of the enclosed letter were even more unusual:

Vicki read the letter twice and glanced briefly and reluctantly at the report card. Then she called her husband, John Campbell, at the Museum of Natural History where he worked and told him to come home immediately because something terrible had happened.

John arrived within ten minutes, expecting to find the house in flames, flooded by a broken water pipe, or at least burglarized. Instead he found Vicki sitting at the bar in the lanai drinking a gin and tonic.

He said, “Well?”

“Dru got a C-minus in social studies.”

“I am staggered. Appalled. Stunned. Now do you mind if I go back to work? I was in the middle of a meeting.”

“By all means go back to your meeting. But I bet if Dru were your own daughter you wouldn’t object to spending some of your time on her problems.”

“Dru isn’t my own flesh and blood but I consider her my daughter.”

“Then take a look at this.” Vicki spread the report card and the letter from the teacher on the bar. “Nothing higher than a C except in science and that was the silkworm project you helped her with. And read what that bitchy woman has to say about Dru’s behavior. I haven’t noticed any change in her at all.”

“I have.”

“Then why didn’t you say so?”

“I’m saying so now.” John put on his reading glasses and studied the report card carefully. “What’s all the commotion about? This isn’t so bad.”

“She used to be an all-A student.”

“So this semester she isn’t. Maybe she won’t be again for some time: Give her a chance to recover. The kid’s had a real shaking up. Annamay was her best friend as well as her cousin.”

“This may sound silly to you because you’re a man and you wouldn’t understand. But I wonder if Dru has suddenly realized she’s not pretty. It’s a terrible disadvantage to a girl not to be pretty.”

“How would you know?”

She looked at him suspiciously. “I suppose that was intended as a compliment. Well, I’m not in the mood for compliments. I want to be serious… Next summer we can start having her overbite corrected and eventually something can be done about her nose. But she has those big ears like Gerald and she’s going to be too tall.”

“Gerald’s big ears didn’t prevent you from marrying him,” John said. “Why did you marry him, by the way?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Will you be saying that about me someday?”

“Maybe, unless you start taking me seriously. Dru’s slipping grades may not be a catastrophe to you. But she simply has to be bright if she’s not pretty. What a shame she didn’t take after my side of the family.”

“You should have thought of that when you were rolling in the hay with Mr. Big Ears.”

“That was vulgar and uncalled for.”

“You asked for it. You know I don’t like to hear references to Gerald or any other of your previous liaisons or whatever you call them.”

“Lovers.”

“Okay, lovers.”

“Gerald had a perfectly beautiful build, if you want the truth.”

“Spare me a description of his build, ears or any other part of his anatomy, and let’s get back to the subject. You dragged me out of an important meeting in order to discuss Dru’s problems. So discuss. All you’ve managed to suggest so far is that it’s a shame she didn’t take after your side of the family.”

“Well, it is a shame, dammit. Annamay looked so much like Kay and me and Dru had to take after—”

“I know, I know. Mr. Big Ears.”

“Even Gerald acknowledges the resemblance and he never notices anything unless it’s right under his nose. He wears glasses. Poor Dru, maybe she’ll have to wear glasses as she gets older. That would be the final straw.”

“I wear glasses.”

“Only to read with. Gerald wears them to see everything, mostly women. Maybe that’s why he prefers big women, they’re easier to see.”

“If Big Ears had so many faults I don’t understand how he could have snagged a perfect jewel like you.”

“Now you’re getting nasty.”

“No, no. Just curious. How did he?”

“He lied a lot.”

“And?”

“I believed him. I’ve always been gullible. I believe everything a person tells me, and it’s such a shock when I’m let down, especially by my own daughter.”

“What does that mean?”

“Dru has been lying to me lately. Nothing too serious, not yet anyway. But it worries me. She told me the other day she was going over to Heather Park’s house after school. I happened to meet Heather and her aunt at the Carlton Plaza that afternoon and Dru wasn’t with them. She’s becoming secretive. A ten-year-old should have no secrets from her mother.”

“That depends on the ten-year-old,” John said. “And the mother.”

“Annamay was so different. Open, direct. You always knew what she was thinking.”

“Annamay is dead. Dru is alive. Comparing the two girls is pointless and destructive. Stop doing it.”

“Is that an order?”

“You got it.”

She looked ready to cry, then thought better of it and made herself another drink instead. She didn’t offer him one. “All right, you’re so clever, Johnny, you handle things. She’ll be home in a few minutes. Talk to her.”

“Maybe I will,” John said. “Or maybe I’ll let her talk to me.”

“That sounds cool and sweet and reasonable, so try it. Let her talk. The silence will be deafening. She doesn’t communicate anymore.”

“She might need a new communicatee. I offer my services.”

“What she very likely needs is professional help. I’m thinking of setting up an appointment with that new kiddie shrink Sarah Fitzroy takes all her kids to.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“She’s too young to start the shrink routine. Lay off her, Vicki. She’s going through a phase called growing up.”

“She’s growing away, not up. And whether she’ll be sent to a shrink or not will have to be my decision. She’s my daughter.”

“She’s mine too, and I like her the way she is, without the services of a shrink, plastic surgeon or orthodontist.”

He waited for her on the south patio which was sheltered from the wind by a six-foot fence of redwood half-rounds. The fence had been built by Vicki’s first husband and it was the only reference she ever made to him. (“That damn fence is beginning to list. Wilbur said it would last forever.” “Don’t blame Wilbur,” John said. “The trunk of the elephant’s-foot yucca is pressing against the fence. It will have to be replaced eventually.”)

John glanced now at the fence and saw that it was listing another two or three degrees. Replacing it would be an expensive project because the cost of redwood half-rounds had risen astronomically.

He sat down on the glider and began rocking back and forth until the movement made him a little dizzy. In spite of his confident manner in front of Vicki he felt uneasy, not sure how to approach the problem of Dru’s report card. He’d had considerable experience with children of all ages but it was in a professional way. Children were mostly on their best behavior when they were taking part in field trips to the museum itself or to the beaches to observe tide pools or the sloughs to observe sea- and shorebirds. His first close contact with a child was with Dru when he married her mother. She was only nine years old at the time but she treated him like an equal and he found himself treating her the same way. Serious opinions were exchanged, especially at breakfast which they took turns making because Vicki liked to sleep late and the cook didn’t arrive until eleven. They were, John believed, friends.

It was nearly three o’clock when he heard the school bus shriek to a stop at the end of the driveway and unload more of its wild cargo.

She didn’t look wild. She wore the neat school uniform, dark green jumper with matching sweater and white blouse, and her long brown hair was tied back with a green ribbon. She was carrying a backpack on her shoulder and a striped orange kitten in her arms.

“Hi,” John said.

“Hi.”

“Who’s your friend?”

“A cat.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Girl, I think. It’s hard to tell with kittens. Do you think you could tell?”

“I can try.”

The kitten, not without protest, changed hands.

“It’s a boy,” John said. “And he’s hungry. Better get some milk out of the refrigerator and add a little warm water.”

It didn’t seem the proper way to begin a discussion of report cards but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He held the kitten against his shoulder until Dru returned with a bowl of milk. They both watched as the kitten lapped at the milk with his tiny pink tongue.

“He’s very cute,” Dru said. “Don’t you think?”

“Very. But you shouldn’t pick up strays.”

“I didn’t. I won him, fair and square.”

“Where?”

“At school.”

“Do they hold raffles there these days?”

“No. Kristy Dougherty’s mother brought them to school in a basket and she offered them to the students who thought of the cleverest names. So I suggested Marmalady and I won first choice. Now I can’t use it being as he’s not a lady. Would you like me to call him John after you?”

“Maybe you’d better not name him at all until you make certain he’s going to be staying.”

“He’s got to stay. He’s mine. I won him.”

“What if your mother—?”

“She can’t take him away from me. He’s mine. I won him fair and square.”

What wasn’t fair and square, in John’s opinion, was Mrs. Dougherty’s method of getting rid of a litter of kittens, but this was hardly the time for a discussion of ethics. Dru was crouched protectively over the kitten while it continued to drink.

“Dru, listen a minute.”

“I won him fair and square,” she repeated. “If he can’t stay I won’t either. I’ll run away like Annamay and everyone will think I’m dead and have a funeral for me and they’ll all be crying and I’ll be laughing.”

“Is this what you really think, that Annamay is alive somewhere and laughing?”

She gave no indication that she had heard the question.

“You went to her funeral, Dru. You saw Annamay’s coffin.”

“Maybe she wasn’t in it. There were just a bunch of bones. One of the girls at school said they could have been animal bones.”

“They weren’t animal bones, they were Annamay’s.”

“No one ever proved it. They didn’t have her name printed on them and there were no distinguished marks.”

“There were no distinguishing marks, no. But the coroner’s jury—”

“They were only people. People make mistakes all the time.”

He knelt on the flagstones beside her and began stroking her hair the way she was stroking the kitten. “Listen to me, Dru. It would be nice to think that Annamay is alive somewhere but it simply isn’t so.”

“One of the girls in Bible study said that only very good people die young. Annamay wasn’t that good. She just wasn’t that good.”

“You’re going to be hearing many things throughout your life. You’ll have to decide what’s reasonable and what isn’t. I have no doubt you can do it. You’re a bright girl.”

“No one else thinks so.”

“Everyone thinks so.”

“No, they don’t. I got a bad report card this semester. I know because when they were handing out the reports on Wednesday only two of us didn’t get ours, me and Mary Jo, and Mary Jo is the class ass.”

“I have your report card in my pocket,” John said. “Want to see it?”

She shook her head.

“Oh, come on, have a look. It’s not so bad. I’ve seen worse. In fact, I’ve had worse.”

“Not really.”

“Scout’s honor. Now let’s sit down at the table, you and I and the marmalade man, and study the report card and see what’s the matter.”

“What’s the matter is the teacher doesn’t like me.”

“That could be a factor but probably not a very big one.”

“If the good die young she’s going to live forever,” Dru said. “The kids all call her Dragon Lady.”

“What do you call her?”

“In front of her or behind her?”

“In front of her will do for starters.”

“Isabelle.”

“You address her as Isabelle?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I like to see her face get all red. It’s very interesting. The red begins at the neck and climbs up until even the tip of her nose is as pink as a bunny’s.”

“Oh Lord,” John said. “Holy cats.”

“It’s a good clean scientific experiment, I think.”

“Obviously Miss Thomson doesn’t agree.”

“She has no sense of humor.”

“I’m losing mine in a hurry. Come on.” He helped her to her feet and they sat down at the round glass table with the report card and the kitten in front of them.

“You’re an excellent reader,” John said. “Why the C in English?”

“Isabelle—”

“Miss Thomson.”

“Miss Thomson wants me to read what she wants me to read and I want to read what I want to read.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to take Miss Thomson’s side on that one. It’s her job to educate the students, not vice versa.”

“A little vice versa doesn’t hurt.”

“Not every teacher appreciates vice versas, Miss Thomson being one of them. And frankly, I’m beginning to have considerable sympathy for the woman.”

“Grown-ups always take each other’s side.”

“Look at the facts, Dru. You haven’t done the required reading and you’ve been behaving toward the teachers in an insolent manner. Is that a fair statement?”

“It’s true but it’s not fair because it doesn’t include how funny she looks when her face gets red, and also how she has no sense of humor.”

“It includes your being a pain in the neck in class. You’ve been deliberately causing trouble, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess because it’s fun.”

“For a girl who’s having fun you don’t appear very happy.”

“What does everyone expect me to do, go around laughing all the time and getting A’s on my report card and looking like a movie star?”

“I don’t expect—”

“Mom does. She expects me to be even perfecter than Annamay.” She took the ribbon out of her hair and tied it around the kitten’s neck. He was too drowsy to protest and went to sleep in the crook of her arm. “If she doesn’t let me keep him I’m going to tell on her. There are plenty of things you don’t know.”

“And don’t want to hear.”

“Like how she was so disappointed when I was born that she had herself fixed so she wouldn’t have any more children.”

“That’s not the reason she did it. What gave you that idea?”

“I figured it out.”

“You figured wrong. The doctors advised her against any more pregnancies.”

“Oh bull. She just didn’t want any more like me. Well, I don’t care. Little brothers and sisters are a nuisance anyway. I’d rather have a cat.” She pressed her cheek against the kitten’s head. “Do you suppose when he wakes up and finds himself wearing a ribbon he’ll feel silly?”

“More likely he’ll be frightened.”

“And maybe run away?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll take it right off.” She removed the ribbon so gently the kitten barely stirred. “You like him too, don’t you, John?”

“Oh yes. Very much.”

“Then it’s you and me against her if she says no. And two yeses count more than one no. That’s simple arithmetic. So we win. Say it, John. We win. Please.”

“It won’t do much good to say it. We’ve got to try a little psychology. How about telling her you won a horse? Then she might be quite happy to settle for a kitten.”

“That’s awfully clever.”

“Thank you.”

“A grown-up horse or a pony?”

“A grown-up might have greater shock value.”

She let out a small giggle, then immediately became sober again. “John, do you think a person’s true character shows in her face?”

“No.”

“It could be true anyway. And if it is, which do you suppose causes which? Is the character there first and then you get your face from that? Or is your face first and that causes your character?”

“Physical features are inherited. Character is also inherited but is more subject to environmental influences. That’s my opinion.”

Dru thought this over carefully, then closed her eyes. “What color are my eyes?”

“Is this a new game?”

“What color?”

“Blue,” he said. “Blue-ish.”

“They’re green. Ugly mean green with brown specks in them. Also they’re small.”

“No, they’re not.”

“I have small mean green eyes,” Dru said grimly. “Now what if you met two girls and one of them had big blue eyes and the other had small ugly greens, which one would you want for a daughter?”

“The heck with both of them. I pick you.”

“Not really.”

“Scout’s honor. Gaze into my small ugly browns and see if I’m telling the truth.”

“You can be terribly silly sometimes. You don’t have brown eyes. They’re blue.”

“That’s to fool people so they won’t suspect I have an ugly brown character.”

“You don’t have an ugly brown character either.”

“Sure I do. Brown with a spot of black here and there, traces of purple, a few patches of gray. Boy, am I a mess.”

She looked at him severely. “I think you should treat me more like an adult.”

“Okay, Miss Adult. Here’s your report card. Take it and study it. And this semester cut out the smartassing and get down to business.”

Vicki had come out of the house and was crossing the patio, her heels making peevish little taps on the flagstones. She was obviously perturbed because she didn’t even notice the kitten, or at least pretended she didn’t.

“Mr. Hyatt, Howard’s father, is here and wants to see Dru. I’m not sure what he has in mind but it might be connected with Annamay’s palace.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” Dru said.

“Tell him that.”

“He won’t believe me.”

“Go and talk to him anyway, dammit. I can’t have him parked outside the front door for the rest of the day.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Go. You hear me?”

The kitten, disturbed by the noise, woke up and meowed. Dru quickly transferred him to John’s arms, whispered, “Two against one,” and ran around the side of the house.

Mr. Hyatt’s dignified black Cadillac was parked in the semicircular driveway and Mr. Hyatt was standing beside it polishing the rear-view mirror with his handkerchief. When he saw Dru coming toward him he put the handkerchief back in his pocket and acknowledged the child’s presence with a courteous little nod of his head.

Neither of them spoke for a long time. Then Dru said, “I won a cat.”

“That’s nice. It’s always pleasant to win something, especially a cat.”

“Right now it’s only a kitten. But someday it will be a cat.”

“All the better. You will have the joy of watching it grow up. Watching young creatures grow up has been one of the greatest pleasures of my life.” There was another silence, this one broken by the old man. “Annamay didn’t make it.”

“Mr. Hyatt—”

“What a pity. She would have become a lovely woman and borne beautiful children.”

“Not necessarily,” Dru said. “My mother used to be a lovely woman and she had me. A lot depends on the man.”

“Annamay might one day have married a real prince and lived in a real palace.”

“No, sir. She was going to marry Ben and he’s just an architect and lives in a crummy apartment down by the harbor, my mother says.”

“Annamay marry Ben? Dear me, no. He would never have waited for her. He’s quite ready for matrimony right now.”

“I know. He’s got women stashed all over town.”

“He does?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who told you that?”

“My mother.”

“Then it’s probably correct.”

“Probably. She gets the dirt on everyone.”

“I see.” He stared up at the sky, blinked, wiped his eyes on the same handkerchief he’d used to clean the car’s rearview mirror. “And do you also admire Ben?”

“Oh sure. He’s like an uncle. I’ve had a whole string of uncles and Ben is more fun than any of them.” Dru paused, frowning. “Do you know what a funny uncle is?”

“I don’t believe I’ve heard the expression, no.”

“My friend Connie at school has one but she won’t talk about it. She just squizzles up her mouth and rolls her eyes. She always has tons of money to spend. She’s fourteen and goes steady and keeps a bottle of booze in her locker.”

“Booze?”

“Vodka.”

“Perhaps she simply fills an empty vodka bottle with water and keeps it in her locker to show off.”

“No. I tried some. It burned my throat. I’ll be going steady myself pretty soon. I like a boy called Kevin. He’s twelve and plays soccer and intends to be a mountain climber. He practices by climbing trees.”

“Do you like to climb trees also?”

Her face reddened and she crossed her arms on her chest as if to defend herself against an attack. “No. It makes you dizzy looking down.” She closed her eyes to such narrow slits that she could barely see Mr. Hyatt’s polished boots and the stain on her skirt where the kitten had dribbled milk. “I hate looking down from high places. Annamay and me, we never climbed trees, ever… I’d like to go now and look after my cat.”

“In a minute,” Mr. Hyatt said quietly. “Why are you nervous, Dru?”

“My cat needs me. And I hate thinking of looking down.”

“Then look up. There’s a bird in the oak tree over there, quite a large bird with beautiful blue feathers. What do you suppose it is?”

“I don’t suppose. I know what it is. A scrub jay. John tells me all about birds.” She sounded weary. “In addition to all the things I have to learn in school John makes me memorize birds and trees and flowers and rocks. Probably stars are next.”

“Stars will be good for you. You always have to look up for stars.”

Dru looked up, seeing only a watery sun half-hidden in a cloud bank. “There aren’t any stars.”

“There will be later.”

“Not tonight. It’s too foggy.”

“They will be there even if you don’t see them.”

“What’s the use of that, I’d like to know.”

For reasons he didn’t understand, she seemed to need comforting and he attempted to put a soothing hand on her shoulder, but she ducked out of reach. “I’ve got to go now and tend to my cat.”

“Let me touch you, child. I mean you no harm.”

“I’m not supposed to be touched by strangers.”

“Strangers? Why, I’m Annamay’s grandfather and you are her cousin and her very best friend.”

“Best. Not very best.”

“You shared each other’s secrets,” he said. “Didn’t you?”

“I guess so. Some.”

“And she showed you where there was a key to the palace door?”

“Yes, because I often left things inside and had to go back and get them and sometimes she wouldn’t be there to let me in.”

“And did you inform other people about the key?”

“No, sir. But she probably did. She was such a baby. She couldn’t keep secrets to herself, she always had to blab. She even told Kevin I loved him and he got shy and wouldn’t even look at me for ages.”

Again the old man wiped his eyes on the soiled handkerchief. “It was a mistake, that palace. Having a place of their own permits children to get into trouble. They need supervision.”

“We didn’t get into trouble. We didn’t do anything bad there.”

“It was a mistake. I gave Howard and Kay my opinion at the very beginning, but they were carried away by Ben’s ideas. He was so enthusiastic about it he was like a child himself. He built that palace for him, not for Annamay.”

“You can’t blame the palace for everything.”

“Children cannot handle such freedoms. They do things that—”

“She didn’t die in the palace,” Dru said roughly. “She isn’t even dead. She got up and walked away and she’s hiding somewhere, laughing at you grown-ups for burying a bunch of old animal bones.”

“Do you think she’ll be coming back?”

“Eventually. When she feels like it.”

“You believe that, Dru?”

“I said it, didn’t I?”

“But do you believe it?”

“It’s true. I don’t care what anyone else thinks, it’s true.”

A pair of tears squeezed out of his eyes and crawled down the crevices of his face. “You are deluded, Dru. You are a sick little girl.”

“And you’re a crazy old man.”

“Please don’t scream like that.”

“You’re a crazy old man. And I’m going to tell everyone you wanted me to take off my clothes and you offered to give me money. Only I wouldn’t take it because I don’t do bad things.”

“You wouldn’t tell such cruel lies.”

“Why not? You’re just a crazy old man and I hate you. I hate all of you.”

He watched her run up the front steps and into the house. Then he got back behind the wheel of his car and sat there motionless for a long time. His tears had turned to stone, leaving a terrible ache inside his eyes.

“She didn’t die… She got up and walked away and she’s hiding somewhere, laughing at you grown-ups for burying a bunch of old animal bones.”