Peyton Place Page 11

  “Oh-h-h.” The sound came from Allison in a whisper of joy as she bent to look at the small furry creatures which Joey displayed with pride. “Oh, how lovely they are, Joey. Are they yours?”

  “Naw,” said Joey. “They're Pa's, same as the big ones.”

  “Will he let you keep these for pets?”

  “Naw. He's gonna raise ’em big like the others, then he can slaughter ’em and sell ’em for chops and legs of lamb and like that.”

  Allison's face went white. “Oh, that's terrible!” she said. “Don't you think that he'd let you keep these little ones if you asked him? Maybe you could raise them yourself and later you could sell the wool from them.”

  “Are you nuts?” asked Joey, not facetiously but in a serious tone, as if he really wanted to know. “Folks around here don't raise sheep for wool, they raise ’em for meat. Where do you suppose your Ma gets lamb chops, if it ain't from animals?”

  Allison swallowed. She thought of the tender chops which Constance sometimes cooked and served from a platter decorated with parsley.

  “Aren't you freezing, Joey?” she asked, to change the subject.

  She huddled herself down in her warm coat and dug her fingers into the soft lamb's wool.

  “Naw. I'm used to it,” said Joey, wiping his nose. “My feet's tough.”

  But just the same, he shivered and Allison saw the duck bumps on his thin arms. She had a sudden, embarrassing urge to take Joey and pull him close to her, to hide him under her coat and warm him with her body.

  “What's Selena doing?” she asked, not looking at Joey.

  “Making a pot of coffee for Pa, I guess. He just came in from the woods before you got here.”

  “Oh? Isn't your mother home?”

  “Naw. Today's Saturday. She goes down to Harrington's to wax the floors on Saturday.”

  “Oh, yes. I'd forgotten,” said Allison. “Well, I guess I'll go out front to wait for Selena.”

  “Come on out back,” said Joey. “I'll show you my lizard.”

  “All right.”

  They walked out of the sheep pen and Joey led the way toward the rear of the house.

  “I keep him in a box up on the window ledge,” said Joey. “Here, stand up on this crate and you can see right into the box. I got holes punched in it so's he can breathe.”

  Allison stood up on the wooden crate which Joey upended and peered into the box that had holes punched in it. When she raised her eyes for a moment, she looked right into the Cross kitchen.

  So this is what the inside of a shack looks like, thought Allison, fascinated. Her eyes took in the unmade cots and the sagging double bed and the dirty dishes which seemed to be strewn from one end of the room to the other. She saw a garbage can in one corner which had not been emptied for a long time, and on the floor next to it was an empty can that had once held tomatoes and one that had contained beans. Lucas was sitting at a table that was covered with a streaked oil cloth so old and filthy that the pattern in it was no longer discernible, and Selena was filling a coffeepot from a pail of water, with a long-handled dipper. Allison thought of the houses in town that Nellie Cross kept spotless, and she remembered the food she had eaten in various homes that had been cooked by Selena's mother.

  “Reckon you're gettin’ to be quite a gal, makin’ coffee for your old pa,” said Lucas.

  Allison could hear every word through the thin walls as clearly as if she had been in the same room. She knew that she should get down from the packing crate and stop eavesdropping, but she was held still by something in Lucas’ face, a sly and evil something that held her motionless, just as a horror movie holds a frightened child to his theater seat in spite of his fear.

  Lucas Cross was a big man with a chest like a barrel and a disconcertingly square-shaped head. His lank hair lay in strings on his broad skull, and when he smiled his whole forehead moved grotesquely.

  “Yep,” said Lucas. “Quite a gal. How old're you now?”

  “Fourteen, Pa,” said Selena.

  “Yep. Quite a gal.”

  “That's sure some lizard, ain't it?” asked Joey, happy that Allison was so fascinated with his pet.

  “Yes,” said Allison, and Joey smiled and bent to pick up a stone.

  He threw it toward the pine trees beyond the clearing, then bent to pick up another.

  Lucas got up from the table and went to a shelf over the sink. Allison wondered what in the world the Crosses had a sink for, when they had neither running water nor sewerage. Lucas took a bottle from the shelf and held it to his lips while Allison watched. The brown liquid flowed in an unbroken stream down Lucas’ throat, and he did not stop swallowing until the bottle was empty. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and tossed the bottle over his shoulder into a far corner of the shack.

  “We got a trash can, Pa,” said Selena disapprovingly. “There's no need to go throwing stuff all over the place.”

  “Well, well, well,” said Lucas. “Miss High and Mighty herself! You gettin’ fancy ideas from your little prune-faced friend Allison MacKenzie?”

  “No, Pa,” said Selena. “I just don't see that there's any call for throwing things on the floor when there's a trash can right beside you. It wouldn't do any harm to take that garbage out and bury it, either.”

  Lucas grabbed Selena's arm. “Listen, you,” he snarled. “Don't you be tryin’ to tell your pa what to do.”

  Selena stood very still and looked down at the hand on her arm. Her dark, gypsy eyes seemed to grow darker and to narrow slightly.

  “Take your hand off me, Pa,” she said at last, so softly that Allison could barely hear the words.

  Lucas Cross slapped his stepdaughter a stunning blow on the side of the head. Selena staggered halfway across the room and fell heavily to the floor, while outside, Allison grabbed onto the window ledge to keep from falling off the crate on which she stood.

  “Oh, Joey,” she whispered frantically. “What shall we do?”

  But Joey had run to the edge of the trees and was busily tossing pine cones at a squirrel.

  Allison knew she should stop looking in the window, but she literally could not move. She had never seen a man strike anyone in her life, and she was held now by a terrible fear.

  Selena got up from the floor, and the coffeepot which she had not dropped when she fell now flew across the room in a direct line with Lucas’ head.

  “Oh, no, no, Selena,” whispered Allison. “Hell kill you,” and she was puzzled that Selena did not look up at the window, for Allison thought she had screamed her words.

  The coffeepot sailed past Lucas’ head and crashed against the wall behind him.

  “You little bitch,” he shouted. “You goddamn little bitch. I'll teach you!”

  He held Selena with one hand and slapped her face. Back and forth, back and forth went his big hand. Selena fought with all her strength. She kicked and tried to get close enough to Lucas to sink her teeth into him.

  “You bastard!” she yelled.

  “Reg'lar dirty-mouthed little bitch,” said Lucas. “Just like your old lady. I'll teach you, same's I taught her! Don't do no good to be decent to you. If it wasn't for me you'da starved to death, just like your old lady. I been decent to you just as if you was my own. Kept a roof over your head and food in your belly.”

  Back and forth, back and forth went his enormous hand, striking another blow with every word he spoke.

  At last Selena managed to tear herself away from him. She drew back her fist and slammed it into Lucas’ mouth as hard as she could, and the man yelped with rage. He wiped the trickle of blood from his chin and looked stupidly at the red stain on his fingers. He cursed unintelligibly, and his face was a terrible, congested purple. Allison waited hysterically for his next move.

  “You goddamn’ sonofabitch,” roared Lucas, beside himself. “You goddamn whorin’ little slut!”

  He grabbed at Selena and when she wrenched away from his grasp, he was left holding the entire front of the girl
's blouse. Selena backed away from Lucas, her breasts naked and heaving in the light of the room's unshaded electric bulb, her shoulders still covered ridiculously by the sleeves of the faded cotton blouse.

  Why the ends of hers are brown, thought Allison foolishly. And she does not wear a brassière all the time, like she told me!

  Lucas dropped his hands and stared at Selena. Slowly, he began to walk toward her while she, just as slowly, began to move backward. She kept moving until her buttocks hit the black sink, and she never took her eyes from Lucas’ face.

  “Yep,” said Lucas, “you're gettin’ to be quite a gal, honey.”

  Slowly, he raised his two grimy hands, and his forehead moved when he smiled his grotesque smile.

  Selena's scream ripped the stillness with a sound like tearing fabric, and from behind Allison there came another scream. It was Joey, running frantically toward the door of the shack. He almost fell through the door, and still he screamed.

  “Don't you dare put your hands on Selena! I'll kill you if you put your hands on Selena.”

  The little boy stood in front of his sister, and like a horse swishing his tail, Lucas Cross swept him away. The child lay still on the floor of the shack, and Lucas said, “Yep. Gettin’ to be quite a gal, ain't you, honey.”

  Allison fell off the packing crate and lay on the cold ground. Her whole body was wet with perspiration and the world seemed to undulate over her and around her. She panted with the effort to fight off the blackness that threatened her from every side, but she had to give way to the nausea that fought its way out of her throat.

  ♦ 14 ♦

  Now it was winter and the town lay frozen under a low, gray sky that held no visible sun. The children, clad in bright snow suits although there was still no snow, hurried on their way to school, eager now to reach the comfortable, steam-heated buildings that awaited them at the end of Maple Street. The wooden benches in front of the courthouse were deserted; the old men who had kept them filled all summer had long since moved into the chairs around the stove in Tuttle's Grocery Store. Everyone waited for the snows which had been threatening to arrive since before Thanksgiving, but the ground was still bare in this first week of January.

  “The cold'd snap if we got some snow,” said one of the old men in Tuttle's.

  “Sure looks like we'd get some today.”

  “Nope. It's too cold to snow.”

  “That's foolishness,” said Clayton Frazier. He lit his pipe and stared into the bowl until he was satisfied with its glow. “Snow's in Siberia all the time, and the thermometer falls to sixty below over there. “Tain't never too cold to snow.”

  “That don't make no difference. This ain't Siberia. It's too cold to snow in Peyton Place.”

  “No, ’tain't,” said Clayton Frazier.

  “Them fellers still down in the cellar?” asked the man who was so sure that it would not snow that he declined to discuss the matter further with Clayton Frazier.

  This was the big topic of conversation in Peyton Place and had been since before Christmas. It had become so familiar that there was no longer any need for anyone to ask, “What fellers?” or “What cellar?”

  On the first of December, Kenny Stearns, Lucas Cross and five other men had disappeared into Kenny's cellar where Kenny stored the twelve barrels of cider which he had made early in the fall. They had been armed with several cases of beer and as many bottles of liquor as they could carry, and they had remained in the cellar ever since. The men had fastened a strong, double bolt attachment to the inside of the door and so far the efforts of any outsider to penetrate this barricade had been futile.

  “I seen one of the school kids headed over that way yesterday with a bagful of groceries,” said one of the old men, putting his feet up on the warm stove in Tuttle's. “Ast ’im what he was doin’, and he told me Kenny'd sent ’im for food.”

  “How'd the kid get into the cellar?”

  “Didn't. Told me Kenny handed the money out through the cellar window and took in the groceries the same way.”

  “The kid see anything?”

  “Nope. Said Kenny's got this black curtain fastened to the inside of the window so's nobody can see in, and he said Kenny no more than opened the window a slit to pass out the money and take in the stuff.”

  “What do you suppose made them fellers go down there and stay all this time?”

  “Dunno. There's some say that Kenny promised the next time he caught Ginny runnin’ out he was gonna go on a drunk like nobody ever seen. Reckon this is it.”

  “Reckon so. Them fellers been down in that cellar goin’ on six weeks now.”

  “Wonder if they run out of booze yet. Twelve barrels of hard cider don't go too damn far. Not with seven of ’em drinkin’.”

  “Dunno. Somebody said they seen Lucas over to White River one night, late. Drunk as a lord he was, with a beard a foot long. Mebbe he sneaks out at night and goes over to White River to get more drink.”

  “Six weeks. Jesus! I'll bet a nickel they don't even have any beer left, let alone hard stuff.”

  “Can't understand why Buck McCracken don't put a stop to it, though.”

  “Reckon the sheriff's ashamed, that's why. His own brother is down in the cellar with Kenny and them.”

  “Wish I could be a fly on the wall down there, by God. Must be goin's on in that cellar that'd make a man's blood run cold.”

  “You'd think the cold would freeze ’em out.”

  “Naw. Ginny told me Kenny's got an old Franklin stove down there, and he'd got in his cord wood long before him and the fellers went down to stay. Ginny said she had to move out because she couldn't get down to get wood for the stoves up in the house.”

  The men laughed. “Reckon Ginny don't need no wood fire to keep her warm!”

  “Wonder what Ginny's doin’ for company these cold nights. With all her boy friends down in that cellar, she must be gettin’ a trifle lonesome.”

  “Not Ginny Stearns,” said Clayton Frazier. “Not by a long shot.”

  Several men snickered. “How do you know, Clayton? You been takin’ up where the others left off?”

  Before Clayton could answer, a group of school children came trooping into the store and the men ceased talking. The youngsters crowded around Tuttle's penny candy counter, and the men around the stove smoked silently, waiting. When the children had spent their pennies and one lone boy had bought a loaf of bread, the men rustled themselves and prepared to talk again.

  “Wa'nt that the Page kid? The one that bought the bread?”

  “Yep. Never seen a kid with such a pinched-lookin’ face. Don't know what it is exactly. He's better dressed than most kids and his mother's comfortably fixed. Yet, that kid has the look of a starvin’ orphan.”

  “It's his age,” said Clayton Frazier. “Growin’ pains.”

  “Mebbe. He's growed fast in the last year. Could be that's what makes him so pale lookin’.”

  “Nope,” disagreed Clayton, “that ain't it. He's just got one of them dead fish skins, like his mother. His father wa'nt ever too ruddy himself.”

  “Poor old Oakleigh Page. Reckon he's better off in his grave than he was alive with all them wimmin fightin’ over him all the time.”

  “Yep,” the men agreed. “’Twa'nt no life for a man.”

  “Oh, I dunno,” said Clayton Frazier. “Seems to me like Oakleigh Page ast for all his troubles.”

  “Ain't nobody asks for trouble.”

  “Oakleigh did,” said Clayton.

  The argument began. Oakleigh Page was forgotten once his name had served to start the words flying. The men in Tuttle's began to enumerate the people in town who had—or had not—asked for their troubles. Clayton Frazier's old eyes gleamed. This was the part of each day that he lived for; when his disagreeableness finally provoked a lively discussion. The old man tilted his chair back and balanced himself on its two rear legs. He relit his pipe and wished fleetingly that Doc Swain had more time to hang around. A man didn't hav
e to work hardly at all to get The Doc going, while it sometimes took a considerable while to get the men in Tuttle's riled up.

  “Don't make no difference what none of you say,” said Clayton. “There's folks that just plain beg for trouble. Like Oakleigh Page.”

  ♦ 15 ♦

  Little Norman Page hurried down Elm Street and turned into Depot Street. When he passed the house on the corner of Depot and Elm, he kept his eyes on the ground. In that house lived his two half sisters Caroline and Charlotte Page, and Norman's mother had told him that these two women were evil, and to be avoided like mad dogs. It had always puzzled Norman that he should have two such old ladies for sisters, even half sisters. They were really old, as old as his mother.

  The Page Girls, as the town called them, were well over forty, both big boned with thick, white skins and white hair and both unmarried. As Norman walked past the house, a curtain in the front room window quivered, but neither a hand nor a figure was to be seen.

  “There goes Evelyn's boy,” said Caroline Page to her sister.

  Charlotte came to the window and saw Norman hurrying down the street.

  “Little bastard,” she said viciously.

  “No,” sighed Caroline. “And that's the pity of it all. Better if he were a bastard than what he is.”

  “He'll always be a bastard as far as I'm concerned,” said Charlotte. “The bastard son of a whoring woman.”

  The two sisters bit off these words as crisply as if they had been chewing celery, and the fact that these same words in print would have been an occasion for book banning and of shocked consultation with the church did not bother them at all, for they had the excuse of righteous indignation on their side.