Ironweed - William Kennedy [39]
“Mrs. Daugherty?” Francis called out, and he leaped down from the tree. “Are you all right?”
“I’m going downtown, Francis.” she said.
“Shouldn’t you put something on? Some clothes?”
“Clothes?” she said. She looked down at her naked self and then cocked her head and widened her eyes into quizzical rigidity.
“Mrs. Daugherty.” Francis said, but she gave no response, nor did she move. From the piazza railing that he was building, Francis lifted a piece of forest-green canvas he would eventually install as an awning on a side window, and wrapped the naked woman in it, picking her up in his arms then, and carrying her into her house. He sat her on the sofa in the back parlor and, as the canvas slid slowly away from her shoulders, he searched the house for a garment and found a housecoat hanging behind the pantry door. He stood her up and shoved her arms into the housecoat, tied its belt at her waist, covering her body fully, and undid the chin ribbon that held her hat. Then he sat her down again on the sofa.
He found a bottle of Scotch whiskey in a cabinet and poured her an inch in a goblet from the china closet, held it to her lips, and cajoled her into tasting it. Whiskey is magic and will cure all your troubles. Katrina sipped it and smiled and said, “Thank you, Francis. You are very thoughtful,” her eyes no longer wide, the glaze gone from them, her rigidity banished, and the softness of her face and body restored.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked her.
“I’m fine, fine indeed. And how are you, Francis?”
“Do you want me to go and get your husband?”
“My husband? My husband is in New York City, and rather difficult to reach, I’m afraid. What did you want with my husband?”
“Someone in your family you’d like me to get, maybe? You seem to be having some kind of spell.”
“Spell? What do you mean, spell?”
“Outside. In the back.”
“The back?”
“You came out without any clothes on, and then you went stiff.”
“Now really, Francis, do you think you should be so familiar?”
“I put that housecoat on you. I carried you indoors.”
“You carried me?”
“Wrapped in canvas. That there.” And he pointed to the canvas on the floor in front of the sofa. Katrina stared at the canvas, put her hand inside the fold of her housecoat, and felt her naked breast. In her face, when she again looked up at him, Francis saw lunar majesty, a chilling fusion of beauty and desolation. At the far end of the front parlor, observing all from behind a chair, Francis saw also the forehead and eyes of Katrina Daugherty’s nine-year old son, Martin.
o o o
A month passed, and on a day when Francis was doing finishing work on the doors of the Daugherty carriage barn, Katrina called out to him from the back porch and beckoned him into the house, then to the back parlor, where she sat again on the same sofa, wearing a long yellow afternoon frock with a soft collar. She looked like a sunbeam to Francis as she motioned him into a chair across from the sofa.
“May I make you some tea, Francis?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Would you care for one of my husband’s cigars?”
“No, ma’am. I don’t use ‘em.”
“Have you none of the minor vices? Do you perhaps drink whiskey?”
“I’ve had a bit but the most I drink of is ale.”
“Do you think I’m mad, Francis?”
“Mad? How do you mean that?”
“Mad. Mad as the Red Queen. Peculiar. Crazy, if you like. Do you think Katrina is crazy?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Not even after my spell?”
“I just took it as a spell. A spell don’t have to be crazy.”
“Of course you’re correct, Francis. I am not crazy. With whom have you talked about that day’s happenings?”
“No one, ma’am.”
“No one? Not even your family?”
“No, ma’am, no one.”
“I sensed you hadn’t. May I ask why?”
Francis dropped his eyes, spoke to his lap. “Could be, people wouldn’t understand. Might figure it the wrong way.”
“How wrong?”
“Might figure they was some goin’s on. People with no clothes isn’t what you’d call reg’lar business.”
“You mean people would make something up? Conjure an imaginary relationship between us?”
“Might be they would. Most times they don’t need that much to start their yappin