999_ Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense - Al Sarrantonio [229]
Anyway it was a grand feast with pineapples and native beer, and my rum, and lots of pork. It was nearly morning by the time we got back here, where Mary was asleep with Mark and Adam.
Which was a very good thing, since it gave us a chance to swim and otherwise freshen up. By the time they woke up, Langi had prepared a fruit tray for breakfast and woven the orchids, and I had picked them for her and made coffee. Little boys, in my experience, are generally cranky in the morning (could it be because we do not allow them coffee?) but Adam and Mark were sufficiently overwhelmed by the presence of a brown lady giant and a live skeleton that conversation was possible. They are fraternal twins, and I think they really are mine; certainly they look very much like I did at their age. The wind had begun to rise, but we thought nothing of it.
“Were you surprised to see me?” Mary was older than I remembered, and had the beginnings of a double chin.
“Delighted. But Pops told me you’d gone to Uganda, and you were on your way here.”
“To the end of the earth.” (She smiled, and my heart leaped.) “I never realized the end would be as pretty as this.”
I told her that in another generation the beach would be lined with condos.
“Then let’s be glad that we’re in this one.” She turned to the boys. “You have to take in everything as long as we’re here. You’ll never get another chance like this.”
I said, “Which will be a long time, I hope.”
“You mean that you and …?”
“Langitokoua.” I shook my head. (Here it was, and all my lies had melted away.) “Was I ever honest with you, Mary?”
“Certainly. Often.”
“I wasn’t, and you know it. So do I. I’ve got no right to expect you to believe me now. But I’m going to tell you, and myself, God’s own truth. It’s in remission now. Langi and I were able to go to a banquet last night, and eat, and talk to people, and enjoy ourselves. But when it’s bad, it’s horrible. I’m too sick to do anything but shake and sweat and moan, and I see things that aren’t there. I—”
Mary interrupted me, trying to be kind. “You don’t look as sick as I expected.”
“I know how I look. My mirror tells me every morning while I shave. I look like death in a microwave oven, and that’s not very far from the truth. It’s liable to kill me this year. If it doesn’t, I’ll probably get attacks on and off for the rest of my life, which is apt to be short.”
There was a silence that Langi filled by asking whether the boys wanted some coconut milk. They said they did, and she got my heletay and showed them how to open a green coconut with one chop. Mary and I stopped talking to watch her, and that’s when I heard the surf. It was the first time that the sound of waves hitting the beach had ever reached as far inland as my bungalow.
Mary said, “I rented a Range Rover at the airport.” It was the tone she used when she had to bring up something she really did not want to bring up.
“I know. I saw it.”
“It’s fifty dollars a day, Bad, plus mileage. I won’t be able to keep it long.”
I said, “I understand.”
“We tried to phone. I had hoped you would be well enough to come for us, or send someone.”
I said I would have had to borrow Rob’s jeep if I had gotten her call.
“I wouldn’t have known where you were, but we met a native, a very handsome man who says he knows you. He came along to show us the way.” (At that point, the boys’ expressions told me something was seriously wrong.) “He wouldn’t take any money for it. Was I