Jack (Gilead #4)(3)

“Yes,” she said. “Good evening.” There were tears in her voice.

So he said, “Jack Boughton.”

She laughed, tears in her laughter. “Of course. I mean, I thought I recognized you. It’s so dark I couldn’t be sure. Looking into the dark makes it darker. Harder to see anything. I didn’t realize they locked the gates. I just didn’t think of it.”

“Yes. It depends where you’re standing, how dark it is. It’s relative. My eyes are adjusted to it. So I guess that makes light relative, doesn’t it.” Embarrassing. He meant to sound intelligent, since he hadn’t shaved that morning and his tie was rolled up in his pocket.

She nodded, and looked down the road ahead of her, still deciding.

How had he recognized her? He had spent actual months noticing women who were in any way like her, until he thought he had lost the memory of her in all that seeming resemblance. A coat like hers, a hat like hers. Sometimes the sound of a voice made him think he might see her if he turned. A bad idea. Her laughing meant she must be with someone. She might not want to show that she knew him. He would walk on, a little slower than the crowd, with the thought that as she passed she would speak to him if she wanted to, ignore him if she wanted to. Once or twice he stopped to look in a store window to let her reflection go by, and there were only the usual strangers, that endless stream of them. Cautious as he was, sometimes women took his notice as a familiarity they did not welcome. A useful reminder. A look like that would smart, he thought, coming from her. Still, all this waiting, if that’s what it was, helped him stay sober and usually reminded him to shave. It might really be her, sometime, and if he tipped his hat, shaven and sober, she would be more likely to smile.

But there she was, in the cemetery, of all places, and at night, and ready to be a little glad to see him. “Yes,” he said, “I’ve noticed that. About darkness.” Join me in it, even things up. I am the Prince of Darkness. He couldn’t say that. It was a joke he made to himself. He would walk down to where she was, in the lamplight. No. Any policeman who came by might take it into his head to say the word “solicitation,” since he was disreputable and she was black. Since they were together at night in the cemetery. Better to keep his distance. And he knew he always looked better from a distance, even a little gentlemanly. He had his jacket on. His tie was in his pocket. He said, “You really shouldn’t be here,” a ridiculous thing to say, since there she was. Then, as if by way of explanation, “There are some pretty strange people here at night.” When there he was among the tombstones himself, taking a little comfort from the fact that she could not see him well, to notice the difference between whatever she thought of him in her moment of apparent relief and how he actually was. Not what he actually was, his first thought. Spending a night in a cemetery, weather permitting, was no crime, nothing that should be taken to define him. It was illegal, but there was no harm in it. Generally speaking. Sometimes he rented his room at the boardinghouse to another fellow for a few days if money was tight.

He said, “I’ll look after you, if you’d like. Keep an eye on you, I mean. Until they open the gates.” He would watch out for her, of course, whatever she said. It would seem like lurking if he didn’t ask. Then she would leave, and he would follow, and she would probably know he was following her and try to run away from him, or hide in the tombstones, or stop and plead with him, maybe offer him her purse. Humiliating in every case. Catastrophic if a cop happened along.

“It was so stupid of me not to realize they would lock those gates. So stupid.” She sat down on a bench in the lamplight with her back to him, which struck him as possibly trusting. “I’d be grateful for the company, Mr. Boughton,” she said softly.

That was pleasant enough. “Happy to oblige.” He came a few steps down the hill, keeping his distance from her, putting himself in her sight if she turned just a little, and sat down on the mound of a grave. “I’m not here normally,” he said. “At this hour.”

“I just came here to see it. People kept telling me how beautiful it is.”

“It is pretty fine, I guess. As cemeteries go.”

He would try to talk with her. What was there to say? She had been holding flowers in her hand. They were beside her on the bench. “Who are the flowers for?”

“Oh, they’re for Mrs. Clark. All wilted now.”

“Half the people in here are Mrs. Clark. Or Mr. Clark. Most of the people in this town. William Clark, father of nations.”

“I know. That would be my excuse for wandering around if anybody asked. I’d be trying to find the right Mrs. Clark. I’d say my mother used to work for her. She was such a kind lady. We still miss her.”

“Clever. Except that the Clarks are pretty well huddled together. You find one, you’ve found them all. I could show you where. For future reference.” Complete nonsense.

“No need. It was just something I made up.” She shook her head. “I’m going to embarrass my family. My father always said it’s a baited trap. Don’t go near it. And here I am.”

“A baited trap.”

She shrugged. “Anywhere you’re not supposed to be.”

He shouldn’t have asked. She was talking to herself more than to him, and he knew it. Murmuring, almost. The crickets were louder. She reminded him of every one of his sisters in that prim coat that made her back look so narrow, her shoulders so small and square. He thought he had seen his sister hang her head that way, one of them. All of them. No, he was elsewhere at the time. But he could imagine them, standing close, saying nothing. No need to speak. No mention of his name.