Provinces of Night by William Gay

Author:William Gay [Gay, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780385499286
Amazon: 0385499280
Publisher: Anchor
Published: 2002-04-08T16:00:00+00:00

Where’ve you been? Mrs. Halfacre asked.

We walked uptown, the girl said.

Town’s closed.

It’s closed but it’s still there, the girl said, as if that was that.

Fleming sat in the armchair in the corner of the room. Albright and Mrs. Halfacre were on the couch. There was nowhere else to sit and Raven Lee poured Fleming half a glass of wine and gave it to him and settled herself on the arm of his chair.

Mrs. Halfacre seemed to have lost all the playful friendliness she’d exhibited earlier. She looked drunk, not like a raucous drunk or a happy-go-lucky drunk but a mean drunk, a drunk who is looking for trouble and knowing just where it’s hidden. Every time Fleming glanced up she’d be watching him. Mean little eyes in the thickening flesh of her face.

What’s happened to him? she finally asked.

He kept falling down, Raven Lee said. He’s about the clumsiest boy I ever came across.

Albright bore evidence of what Fleming had feared. He seemed to be profoundly drunk. He’d spilled wine all down his front and he was holding a guitar in his lap like something he’d found somewhere and couldn’t fathom the use of. He sat watching the tall radio cabinet with a fixed intensity as if he saw through the speaker cloth to where wires and condensers and tubes magically reconstructed images of folk picking guitars, sawing on fiddles, hawking barn paint.

I guess you know you’ve got blood all over the tail of that dress, Mrs. Halfacre said. It won’t come out. I reckon you think dresses like that are just give away.

The girl didn’t even reply.

Fleming was looking at Albright with a wary disgust, already dreading the long ride home. Something had changed during his absence, the very atmosphere had altered. Perhaps some shift in the magnetic field. Perhaps she’d asked Albright for more money, the twenty Fleming had given him was all he had. Spending the night here no longer seemed an option to be considered.

You know who he is, don’t you? the woman suddenly asked.

A curl like a comma, like a question mark, had fallen over Raven Lee’s eyes. She raked it away with a hand. Of course I know who he is.

He’s a Bloodworth and I won’t have one in the house after the way that cousin of his done.

What’s this about? Fleming asked.

Never you mind what it’s about, Mrs. Halfacre said.

Don’t pay her any mind, the girl said. She’s drunk.

Fleming laid a hand gently on the girl’s back. He could feel the bone knobs of her vertebrae through the thin cloth of her dress. Then he dropped the hand and set the wine down and arose.

It’s time to go, he said.

Albright turned. He laid the guitar in Mrs. Halfacre’s lap. She jerked it up and tossed it into a corner. What? Albright asked.

It’s time to go.

It’s early yet.

It’s time to go.

They went out into the yard. Moonlight through the branches made the yard black and silver, light and shadow, the clotted ivy was black as jet.

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