He was very unhappy and could think of nothing to lighten his depression. ‘Until Mother came it was all right,’ he reflected, ‘or if it wasn’t, nothing showed, and if things don’t show—’ But Ronny veered away from subjects like this. His mind nibbled at their edges and refused the core. He reached for his shorts and took from one of their pockets his handiwork of the night before. It was Shalimar’s leg ring on which he had carved his initials. For Ronny meant to let the bird go. In the morning light his workmanship looked shallow and crude and Ronny gave a contemptuous smile. How much better Flo had done! He examined his tattooed heart. Did it look bigger? Was it only imagination when he fancied it swollen, or was it really filled with his true heart’s juice? It bombed out and hid June’s name beneath the nipple.
Ronny rose and dressed himself, pulling on his shorts over naked loins. He did not bother to wash and merely ran his hand through his tousled hair which was flaked with salt. Going downstairs, he met Mary with a tray for Grace. She gave him her timid, half plaintive smile for which she never expected a return.
“Do you want to bring the tray up to your mother?” This was a small sacrifice on Mary’s part, but she need not have worried.
“No, I must go and feed Gambol,” said Ronny, pulling the bow of her apron so that it came undone. In this trick Mary was perhaps the only one who found enjoyment although she said: “Oh Ronny!”
“Why don’t you say, ‘Oh master Ronny!’ ” said the boy. “That’s the way you’ve been acting since mother came.”
Mary did not know how to answer this and passed on in silence, her apron hanging from its yolk.
Ronny was about to leave the house when he heard his mother calling him: “Ronny. Ronny I want you.”
Turning reluctantly, he mounted the stairs, stopping at the doorway of his mother’s room. There Mary, having put down the tray, was retying her apron.
“I have a letter from Jim Walsh,” said Grace gaily. “He’s coming tomorrow for sure and I’ve decided we must have a Fourth of July party to celebrate. Do you think you can manage the supplies, Mary dear?”
Mary smiled nervously and immediately began pleating her apron.
As though she had assented, Grace went on: “Lots of scotch and gin.” She held out her hand to her son. “Come and sit beside me, Ronny, while I have breakfast.”
He came and perched at the foot of the bed, looking very impermanent. Mary left.
“Did you have a good time last night?” Grace asked, smiling with lips that were already rouged.
“I knew you wanted to talk about it,” said Ronny. His high voice gave a sort of hysterical humour to the words.
Grace laughed. “You’re such an amusing monkey,” she said. “I can’t wait for you to grow up.”
“I can,” said Ronny. “I don’t care if I ever do.”
“Don’t you want to be a man and go to parties with me? I’ll be so proud of my son. All the other women will be jealous.”
Grace could see them now in her fancy. How Ronny would set her off with his dark skin and hair! They would be more like brother and sister than parent and child. No, she frowned, brother and sister was not quite right. Queen and courtier? That was better, although too dignified. Lady and amorous page? Ronny should appreciate that. She said aloud: “You’ll be like my handsome page.”
“Knights don’t act the same way as pages,” said Ronny, as though speaking to the window.
But Grace continued her reflections undisturbed by his reply. Not only women would be jealous. Men too would cast dark looks upon this handsome child for jealousy of her. Then one of those little chills came over Grace. How fast the years sped by! If only they could move for Ronny and stand still for her. But they wouldn’t; not even for Grace, the youngest woman in all the world. At least that was how she had seen herself until recently. Now, she thought, shrugging her shoulders at the chill, even June Grey could make her stretch her claws.
“June is certainly a rather—odd—choice of yours, Ronny,” Grace said aloud. “But I suppose there wasn’t any other in this dreary place, my poor baby.” As Ronny made no reply to this she lost her temper and asked: “Have you noticed she smells?”
“Yes, she does,” said Ronny. “She smells of the sea and I like that much better than any old perfume.”
At once Grace was all softness. Her blue eyes swam out at him filled with contrition. “Darling! Sweetest! I forget you’re only a little boy. It’s my silly way of treating you like an equal. You see I feel we’re the same age, and soon we really will be. I mean, to all intents and purposes.”
“But you think I won’t ever be the same age as June,” said Ronny shrewdly. His mother’s words, or else his own reply now made him blush. His cheeks took on a dusky bloom.
“That’s different,” retorted Grace, and looking at him she felt a stir of some emotion that might have been love. “You see, we think,” she said, trying to be honest, “that is James Stevens and I think that June takes an unhealthy interest in you. She’s a girl, a woman really, and you are still only a boy. It’s as if she wanted you to play the part of a man to her.”
Ronny did not comment. His mother’s words meant nothing new to him. He had known all such things already and perhaps more than Grace would ever understand.
“Roddy dear,” asked Grace, vaguely regretting the whole conversation, “are you fond of James?”
“Oh, Mr. Stevens is all right,” said Ronny.
“I know he’s very fond of you.” Despite herself the words once uttered took on their own inflection. Grace bit her lip.
“I must go to Gambol,” muttered Ronny uneasily.
Outside in the yard the oyster shells had been ground as fine as flour. They caressed Ronny’s bare feet, softer than sand, as soft as silk. Jeremy was washing his car, using a brush and liquid soap with a pleasant smell. He paid no attention to Ronny nor Ronny to him, but they were a comfort to each other. Ronny was reluctant to leave the yard for the stable where all was quiet and a sort of waiting hush was over everything. The chaff hung in the air disturbed by every breath and a musty beam of light fell across Shalimar’s stall with its wooden block. The bird could not see this beam of light; its head was covered by the hood and it perched quietly with puffed feathers. Ronny held the falcon hooded while he snapped the ankle ring on its leg. Then he unhooded it and watched the eye on his side of the beak come to life. At first the pupil covered everything, but gradually as Ronny watched, the black lens contracted, the cruel gold of the iris took possession like a consuming flame.
Ronny drew in his breath. He no longer dared address his bird directly, so now he spoke of him, softly in the chanting voice children sometimes use when they are alone with animals. “Shalimar is so beautiful!” he murmured, stroking the ruffled feathers. “Soon he will fly away and live alone on the top of mountains. He will not mind his ring. Sometimes he will sharpen his beak on it and remember that we knew each other.”
There was no answer in the stable. The falcon’s iris grew larger as the bird glared into the sunlight. Ronny brought it almost to the back door of the stable before it opened its powerful wings and flew away. For a while Ronny watched it mounting into the sky, circling above the peninsula and the morning sea.
Ronny entered the stable once more and spoke boldly to Gambol over the break in his voice: “I suppose you are hungry.” He took a pitchfork and began to clean the stall. The sharp smell of ammonia breathed into his fasting body made Ronny dizzy. The blood receded from his temples and he felt that instead of going back into his cardiac veins it ran into his tattooed heart like a traitor.
“Oh Gambol, did you ever speak?” he cried.
The horse munched at his grain contentedly and tore it sideways as though his teeth were a mill stone.
Now the false heart throbbed on Ronny’s breast. He really had to put down his head between his knees to keep from fainting.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Morning on the Greys’ hilltop was a king ascending his throne; a king surrounded by minions. First, in lieu of trumpets, the dawn breeze blew. Then a mist slowly permeated the air until the dusk gleamed like lead. Afterwards, crying harshly, a horde of crows flew over the peninsula, pursuing an owl. The owl flew slowly, hindered by his torn and bloody feathers and by the dawn which blinded his soft eyes. Other birds now broke into song and a heavy, red sun fought sluggishly up the sky.
June woke up reluctantly. Although she could not recall doing anything really foolish the night before, a guilt as though of some awkward memory sullied the new day. Dressed, she went down to her grandmother’s room. Mrs. Grey had her cap awry on her wispy gray head and June repressed a laugh.
