Tenderly he took Mr Sansom’s hand and put it against his cheek and held it there until there was warmth between them; he kissed the dry fingers, and the wedding ring whose gold had been meant to encircle them both. «I’m leaving, Father,» he said, and it was, in a sense, the first time he’d acknowledged their blood; slowly he rose up and pressed his palms on either side of Mr Sansom’s face and brought their lips together: «My only father,» he whispered, turning, and, descending the stairs, he said it again, but this time all to himself.
He set the bottle of sherry on the hall-tree in the chamber, and, hidden by a curtain, peered into the parlor; neither Amy nor Randolph had heard him come down the stairs: she was sitting on the pianola stool, studiously working an ivory fan, tiresomely tapping her foot, and Randolph, bored to limpness, was staring at the archway where Joel was scheduled presently to present himself. He was gone now, and running toward the mailbox, Idabel, outside. The road was like a river to float upon, and it was as if a roman-candle, ignited by the sudden breath of freedom, had zoomed him away in a wake of star-sparks.
«Run!» he cried, reaching Idabel, for to stop before the Landing stood forever out of sight was an idea unendurable, and she was racing before him, her hair pulling back in windy stiffness: as the road humped into a hill it was as though she mounted the sky on a moon-leaning ladder; beyond the hill they came to a standstill, panting, tossing their heads. «Was they chasing us?» asked Idabel, petals from her hair-rose shedding in the air, and he said: «Nobody will catch us now never.»
Staying to the road, even when they passed close by her house, they walked with Henry between them: roses, strewn from the wreath about the dog’s neck, soaked the colors of a stony moon, and Idabel said she was hungry enough to eat a rose, «or grass and toadstools.» Well, he said, well, when they reached town he’d splurge and treat her to a barbecue at R. V. Lacey’s Princely Place. And they talked of the night he’d first come along this road and heard her in the distance singing with her sister.
His eyes nailed down with stars, an old wagon had carried him over a ledge of sleep, a wintry slumber dispelled in the exhilaration of recent waking: meantime, there had taken place a dream, from whose design, unraveling now swifter than memory could reweave it, only Idabel remained, all else and others having dimmed-out as shadows do in dark.
«I remember,» she said, «and I thought you was a mess just like Florabel; to be honest to God, I never did much change-mind till today.» Seeming then ashamed, she scampered down the road-bank, and scooped up drinks of water from a thread of creek which trickled there; abruptly she straightened, and, with a finger to her lips, motioned for Joel to join her. «Hear it?» she whispered. Behind the foliage, a bull-toned voice, and another, this like a guitar, blended as raindrops caress to sound a same rhythm; an intricate wind of rustling murmurs, small laughter followed sighs not sad and silences deeper than space.
Moss cushioned their footsteps as they moved through the leafy thickness, and came to pause at the edge of an opening: two Negroes, caught in a filmy skein of moon and fern, lay unclothed and enfolded, the man’s caramel-colored body braceleted with his darker lover’s arms, legs, his lips nuzzling her nipples: oo-we, oo-we, sweet Simon, she sighed, love shivering her voice, love rolling through her like thunder; easy, Simon, sweet Simon, easy honey, she crooned, and tensed then, her arms lifting as if to embrace the moon; her lover sank across her, and there together, limbs akimbo, they made on the bloom of moss a black fallen star.
Idabel retreated with splashful, rowdy haste, and Joel, trying to keep up, went shh! shh!, thinking how wrong to frighten the lovers, and wishing, too, that she’d waited longer, for watching them it had been as if his heart were beating all over his body, and all undefined whisperings had gathered into one yearning roar: he knew now, and it was not a giggle or a sudden white-hot word; only two people with each other in withness, and it was as though a tide had receded leaving him dry on a beach white as bone, and it was good at last to have come from so grey so cold a sea. He wanted to walk with Idabel’s hand in his, but she had them doubled like knots, and when he spoke to her she looked at him mean and angry and scared; it was as if their positions of the afternoon had somehow reversed: she’d been the hero under the mill, but now he had no weapon with which to defend her, and even if this were not true he wouldn’t have known what it was she wanted killed.
A whirl of ferris-wheel lights revolved in the distance; rockets rose, burst, fell over Noon City like showering rainbows; gawky kids and their elders, all beautiful in their Sunday summer finest, traipsed back and forth with reflections of the carnival starring their eyes; a young Negro watched sadly from the isolation of the jail, and a rhinestone colored girl, red-silk stockings flashing; on her legs, swished by shouting lewdly up at him. On the porch of the cracked ancient house old people recalled traveling-shows in other years, and little boys, going behind hedges to pee, lingered to laugh and pinch each other. Ice-cream cones slipped from grimy fingers, crackerjack spilt and so did tears, but nobody was unhappy, nobody thought of chores beyond the moment.
Hiya, Idabel — Watcha say, Idabel? but not a soul spoke to him, he was no part of them, they did not know him; only R. V. Lacey remembered. «Look, babylove!» she said, when they appeared in the door of her Princely Place, and those assembled there, beribboned sassy-faced town-tarts and rednecked farmboys with cow-dumb eyes, paused in their jukebox shuffling; one girl advanced to tickle him under the chin. «Where’d you find this, Idabel? He’s cute.»
«Mind your own business, punk,» Idabel said, seating herself at the counter.
Miss Roberta Lacey wagged her finger. «Idabel Thompkins, I warned you time and again, none of that gangster talk in my establishment. Furthermore, I have many times put into words the fact that you are not to set foot inside my place, acting as you do like Baby Face Floyd, and dressing as you do in no proper way befitting a young lady: now skidaddle, and take that filthy hound with you.»
«Please, Miss Roberta,» said Joel, «Idabel’s awful hungry.»
«Then she oughta be home learning to fix a man his vittels (laughter); besides which this here’s a grown-folks café (applause). Romeo, remind me to put up a sign to that effect. Whatismore, Idabel, your daddy has been round here inquirin as to your whereabouts, and it is my serious opinion he means to burn up that saucy little butt of yours (laughter).»
Idabel leveled a slant-eyed look at the proprietress, then, as though this seemed to her the most expressive retort, she spit on the floor, shoved her hands in her pockets and swaggered out. Joel started to follow, but R. V. Lacey clamped a hand on his shoulder. «Babylove,» she said, toying with the long black hair extending from her chin-wart, «Angelboy, you’re keeping kinda peculiar company. Idabel’s daddy said she’s done broke her pretty sweet little sister’s nose, and knocked out most her teeth.» Grinning, scratching under her armpits like a baboon, she added, «Now don’t go saying Roberta’s a hard woman; she’s soft on you,» and handed him a bag of salted peanuts. «No charge.»
Idabel told him what he could do with those old Roberta goobers, but she relented, to be sure, and devoured the sack solo. She let him take her arm, and they descended on the gala beehive acre where the traveling-show buzzed. The merry-go-round, a sorry battered toy, turned to a jingling sound of bells, and colored folks, who were not allowed to ride, stood clustered at a distance getting more fun from its magical whirl than those astride saddles. Idabel shelled out 35¢ at the dart-throw game, all in order to win a pair of dark glasses like the ones Joel had broken, and what a ruckus she raised when the strawhat man tried to palm off a walking cane! You bet she got those specs, but, being too large for her, they kept sliding down her nose.
At the 10¢ Tent they saw a four-legged chicken (stuffed), and the two-headed baby floating in a glass tank like a green octopus: Idabel studied it a long while, and when she turned away her eyes were moist: «Poor little baby,» she said, «poor little thing.» The Duck Boy cheered her up; he sure was a comedy all right, quack-quack-quacking, making dopey faces and flapping his hands, the fingers of which were webbed together; at one point he opened his shirt to reveal a white feathery chest.
Joel preferred Miss Wisteria, a darling little girl, he thought, and so did Idabel; they did not quite believe she was a midget, though Miss Wisteria herself claimed to be twenty-five years old, and just back from a grand tour of Europe where she’d appeared before all the crowned heads: her own sweet little gold head sported a twinkling crown; she wore elegant silver slippers
