The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers [53]
‘Motherogod!’
‘You don’t understand. A child with talent can’t be treated like ordinary kids. That’s one reason I want to get Baby out of this common neighborhood. I can’t let her start to talk vulgar like these brats around her or run wild like they do.’
‘I know the kids on this block,’ Biff said. ‘They’re all right.’
Those Kelly kids across the street--the Crane boy--.
‘You know good and well that none of them are up to Baby’s level.’
Lucile set the last wave in Baby’s hair. She pinched the kid’s little cheeks to put more color in them. Then she lifted her down from the table. For the funeral Baby had on a little white dress with white shoes and white socks and even small white gloves. There was a certain way Baby always held her head when people looked at her, and it was turned that way now.
They sat for a while in the small, hot kitchenette without saying anything. Then Lucile began to cry. ‘It’s not like we was ever very close as sisters. We had our differences and we didn’t see much of each other. Maybe it was because I was so much younger. But there’s something about your own blood kin, and when anything like this happens--’ Biff clucked soothingly.
‘I know how you two were,’ she said. It wasn’t all just roses with you and she. But maybe that sort of makes it worse for you now.’
Biff caught Baby under the arms and swung her up to his shoulder. The kid was getting heavier. He held her carefully as he stepped into the living-room. Baby felt warm and close on his shoulder, and her little silk skirt was white against the dark cloth of his coat. She grasped one of his ears very tight with her little hand.
‘Unca Biff! Watch me do the split.’
Gently he set Baby on her feet again. She curved both arms above her head and her feet slid slowly in opposite directions on the yellow waxed floor. In a moment she was seated with one leg stretched straight in front of her and one behind. She posed with her arms held at a fancy angle, looking sideways at the wall with a sad expression.
She scrambled up again. ‘Watch me do a handspring. Watch me do a--’
‘Honey, be a little quieter,’ Lucile said. She sat down beside Biff on the plush sofa. ‘Don’t she remind you a little of him--something about her eyes and face?’
‘Hell, no. I can’t see the slightest resemblance between Baby and Leroy Wilson.’
Lucile looked too thin and worn out for her age. Maybe it was the black dress and because she had been crying. ‘After all, we got to admit he’s Baby’s father,’ she said.
‘Can’t you ever forget about that man?’
‘I don’t know. I guess I always been a fool about two things. And that’s Leroy and Baby.’
Bill’s new growth of beard was blue against the pale skin of his face and his voice sounded tired. ‘Don’t you ever just think a thing through and find out what’s happened and what ought to come from that? Don’t you ever use logic--if these are the given facts this ought to be the result?’
‘Not about him, I guess.’
Biff spoke in a weary manner and his eyes were almost closed.
‘You married this certain party when you were seventeen, and afterward there was just one racket between you after another.
You divorced him. Then two years later you married him a second time. And now he’s gone off again and you don’t know where he is. It seems like those facts would show you one thing--you two are not suited to each other. And that’s aside from the more personal side--the sort of man this certain party happens to be anyway.’
‘God knows I been realizing all along he’s a heel. I just hope he won’t ever knock on that door again.’
‘Look, Baby,’ Biff said quickly. He laced his fingers and held up his hands. ‘This is the church and this is the steeple. Open the door and here are God’s people.’
Lucile shook her head. ‘You don’t have to bother about Baby. I tell her everything. She knows about the whole mess from A to Z.’
‘Then if he comes back you’ll let him stay here and sponge on you just as long as he pleases--like it was before?’
‘Yeah. I guess I would. Every time the doorbell or the phone rings, every time anybody steps up on the porch, something in the back of my mind thinks about that man.