“Is she really your mother?” asked Ronny when the woman had served them and gone out of the room again.
“No of course not!” Eddie was shocked. The little man laughed. Eddie turned and looked towards the back of the shop as though its proprietress had given him an insult. “My mother was a beauty.”
“Everyone’s was,” said the little man.
“Well you did call her Ma.” Ronny spoke reasonably.
The little man laughed again and this time they all saw that he had no teeth. “That’s just so as not to call her something worse.”
Eddie turned to him. “Come on, Flo!” He winked at the others and explained: “Ma’s coffee needs a little help.”
Flo obediently drew a flask out of his hip pocket and poured liberal quantities in his and Eddie’s coffee. He looked doubtfully across the table.
“Go on,” said Eddie. “It’s medicine, ain’t it? She’s caught a cold.” Flo poured some of the liquor in the other two cups.
“Well, here’s to you.” Eddie lifted his cup and everyone followed him as though mesmerized by his soft, tenor voice whose accent was like a dim memory. The lukewarm liquid seemed to make a path in June’s body and along that path all chill and trembling stopped. Eddie reached out and patted her on the arm. “There,” he said, “you just drink that up.” His tough, thick hand stretched from his sleeve so that one could see on the inside of his wrist a blue and red Christ on a cross, and above that, the four card symbols: spade, heart, club, and diamond.
“You’re tattooed,” said Ronny, almost with awe.
“Sure. I got many more,” said Eddie, and immediately unbuttoned his shirt to display a chest covered with designs. A full-rigged ship showed among his black hairs as though sailing through a forest, while beneath it a woman turned her profile with a padlock on her lips. Still lower a many-petaled rose wound its stem around his navel. These were Eddie’s diary; the records of his sentiments and misdeeds, pricked out upon his skin with India ink. Encouraged by Ronny’s admiring attention, Eddie now removed his shirt altogether.
Flo said: “I used to be a real tattoo artist on the other side. Here they got machines.”
Eddie rippled his muscles; a woman on his arm danced with her hips and a butterfly flew. His thick, uneven lips, scorched by the salt wind, smiled. His face softened. “You’re nice kids,” he remarked.
“She’s not a kid,” said Ronny, pointing at June.
“All women are kids in America,” stated Flo.
Eddie looked hastily at June. “Don’t get rough, Flo,” he said.
But June was not listening. She had been profoundly and secretly thrilled by the tattooing on Eddie’s body. The images transferred themselves from his skin to stamp her mind. The liquor liberated her fancy. Her eyes gleamed and the drops of rain that fell from her hair were like pure round pearls on her skin. Beside her she felt the palpitating little body of Ronny with his bare thigh stirring against her leg. She turned to him suddenly: “Why don’t you try, Ronny? I dare you!”
Ronny leaped to his feet, upsetting the remains of his coffee. A wave of emotion contracted the muscles of his cheeks. He looked at June with a sort of passion. “It’s needles in the skin!” he said in his shrill voice.
“Yes,” agreed June.
Ronny leaned across and plucked Flo’s sleeve. “Can you do it, Mr. Flo?”
Flo smiled. It was as though he had been leading up to this all along, pulling at their nerves, guiding their reactions. “Sure I can. I’m an artist like I said.”
Eddie smiled too. He had taken several raw swigs from Flo’s flask which by now was cradled in his lap. “You’re a funny kid,” he said, not to Ronny but to June. “You’ve got all the makings, haven’t you?” His eyes, reddened by sun and wind, concentrated themselves. June did not want to meet them, but her own vision was a little hazy so that she could not quite control its direction. ‘He’s ugly,’ she thought as one repeats a charm or a prayer.
For a moment all four of them were silent and during the pause they realized that they were no longer the only people in the shop. Two clamdiggers in hip boots and sou’-westers were drinking coffee in another booth and at the counter some girls were ordering sundaes. June, hearing their noisy chatter, stared at them curiously. They were about her own age with brilliant, painted lips and permanent waves which split the ends of their hair. With every move they aimed uncertain weapons at the men in the room. Feeling June’s eyes, they turned with one accord and stared back. Then, with derisive giggles, they wheeled around again to their sundaes.
June was very embarrassed. “Well,” she said in a quarrelsome manner to Ronny, “are you or aren’t you?”
“I am,” said Ronny. He had grown quite still. All the vibrations of his body were suspended. “Mr. Flo is going to tattoo me,” he continued slowly and almost with languor, “aren’t you, Mr. Flo?”
“Sure,” agreed Flo. “We have to go next door to the barber’s, that’s all. I got my needles there.”
CHAPTER NINE
The afternoon of the scout meeting decided Stevens to write to Ronny’s mother.
“Dear Mrs. Villars:” he wrote.
“I am addressing you in some perplexity and after much hesitation.
Please come and see your son.
That is as near the point as I can get. He is not ill. I simply feel he needs you.”
Here Stevens got stuck. How to continue? He tried to conjure up a picture of Mrs. Villars whom he had, after all, never met, but an image of his own mother, faded yet determined, rose in its stead. Ronny’s mother could in no way resemble it. He gathered she was rather young. That she was smart he was certain, perhaps racy. Did she love her son, that she had abandoned him in that mouldering boathouse? His own mother would never have done so.
Then, like one of those recollections which are merged with dreams, a past wish came back to Stevens; the wish to be free of his mother for a week. Dream or reality, he had been a boy then. Now he was a man and free of her forever. He sighed and a sense of oppression made his forehead ache. All the resolution which had made him write was gone. To stimulate himself he re-pictured Ronny as he had been that afternoon; Ronny, pale and sodden beneath the rain, clutching his breast as though his heart were ill, as though it would leap out of his bosom if he did not hold it in. The boy’s hair had been streaming over his brow like dark water, and his teeth set visibly between his lips. He and June had both come walking down Main Street after Stevens had searched everywhere and when he was on the point of calling Mrs. Grey about their disappearance.
And how furtive June had looked! Her face had been exposed, almost thrust out; offered like a mask to hide those cruel, girl’s thoughts behind it. Stevens had struggled to keep down the rage that shook him. He had not asked where they had been and it was only after dropping June on the hill that he had said to Ronny, trying to sound casual:
“Too bad you didn’t come to the meeting. It was lots of fun.”
Against the window of the car Ronny’s profile was a pure, unbroken line. He barely moved his lips in answer. “I had fun too,” he said.
Once again Stevens took up his pen. “There is really nothing more that I can say in a letter except that I hope you will come soon and that you will communicate with me if and when you do.”
He examined his page. The thick paper from Lucy Philmore’s gift shop looked impressive, his script impersonal and correct. ‘Should I have typed it?’ wondered the tutor. A business letter should be typed of course, but was this a business letter? Was it not rather an appeal, a cry for help? He thought of the scout meeting. Without Ronny it had fallen completely flat. He had been unable to keep the children interested because he had been on pins and needles. The two hours had seemed like two years. Later Stevens told himself that his feelings had been those of pure anxiety. He was responsible after all for the welfare of his charges. Yet at the same time a reasonable voice had demanded: “Why?” Surely in this country town children might come and go through the streets alone. What was it then?
As soon as the meeting ended, Stevens had gone out into the street where some feverish thought had led his steps to the gift shop. Once there, however, he hardly knew how to begin. Lucy’s eyes had lighted and she had made him welcome with the special hospitality that was her asset.
