Blackwood Farm - Anne Rice [123]
“We called her favorite nurse, Cindy, who said she’d come right over. Aunt Queen wasn’t really sick, but she often had Cindy to do her blood pressure and collect her bloodwork before trips abroad, and so Cindy was the loving person to whom we turned now.
“As for myself I was in a cold panic, the same cold panic that had been coming over me since Lynelle’s death, but I hadn’t reached the worst stage of it yet. I was still in the elation state that immediately follows the miracle of death, and, in my ignorant youth, I had a ‘take charge’ attitude.
“I went into Pops’ room and picked out his best Sunday suit, a good shirt, belt and a tie, and gave these to Clem to drive over to Ruby River City. I sent underwear too because I didn’t know if it was needed. And I had the strange idea that Pops might want his underwear.
“After Clem had left me, and I was standing alone in Pops’ room, Goblin appeared, and without a prompt he put his arms tight around me. He felt as real as I felt real. And I kissed his cheek, and I saw his tears. A rush of the most intimate love passed out of me into him.
“This was an extraordinary moment, a moment of confusion and contrition. And in the dark corners of my subconscious I knew it was a dangerous moment. But my heart was leading the band.
“ ‘Goblin, I loved Pops,’ I said. ‘You understand, you understand everything.’
“ ‘Patsy. Bad,’ he responded in the telepathic voice. I could feel his kisses on my cheek and my neck. For a split second, I felt his hand on my cock.
“I reached down and gently moved his hand away. But the damage had been done. I had to nail down hard on myself. Then I spoke to him:
“ ‘No, it’s not Patsy’s fault,’ I said out loud. ‘She was just being Patsy, that’s all. Now, you go and leave me alone now, Goblin. I have to go downstairs. I have to see to things.’
“He gave me a final hug and I was amazed at his strength. I could see nothing in him that appeared spectral or ephemeral. But he vanished as I had asked him to, and the baubles of the chandeliers moved as if he had evacuated the room at his departure.
“I stood staring at the chandelier. It hadn’t hit me yet that nobody alive inhabited this back bedroom anymore. But it was trying to hit me. Things were trying to get through. Goblin had been the image of my weeping soul. Oh, I had so misjudged Goblin, but who would ever understand?
“When I came down to the kitchen, Patsy was sitting at the table just staring at me and Big Ramona was on one of the stools by the stove just staring at her. Lolly was there too, all dressed up for a date, her copper skin and rippling yellow hair just gorgeous, and there was Jasmine in her apron in the far corner by the back door.
“I could hear Aunt Queen crying in her bedroom. Her nurse, Cindy, had arrived, and I could hear Cindy’s sympathetic tones as she tried to comfort her.
“Patsy’s eyes were glassy and hard and she was chewing a piece of gum that made her jaw look hard. She put a cigarette on her lip and snapped her lighter. She had her huge poofed-up stage hairstyle, and her lips were thickly made-up with frosted pink lipstick.
“ ‘So everybody’s going to want to know what we were talking about,’ she said. There was a little tremor in her voice, a note I’d never heard before, but I wasn’t sure anybody else heard it.
“ ‘Seymour says you wanted some money,’ Jasmine said.
“ ‘Yeah, I wanted money,’ said Patsy, in her hard voice, ‘and it’s not like he didn’t have it to give. He had it. Just wait till they read his will. He was loaded, and what did he ever do with it? But that’s not what set him off to cursing and shouting at me and then grabbing for his chest and throwing up and dying.’
“ ‘So what did?’ asked Jasmine.
“ ‘I told him I was sick,’ said Patsy. ‘I told him I was HIV-positive.’
“Silence. Then Big Ramona looked at me.
“ ‘What’s she talking about?’ she asked.
“ ‘AIDS, Ramona,’ I said. ‘She’s HIV-positive. It means she’s contracted the