The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,147

attitude or tone. “What is necessary is that you contact your attorney immediately, and that you put me in touch with this person as there are pressing matters regarding your property which must be discussed.”

“Oh, but I want to come,” Rowan said, without hesitation. Her voice was thick. “I want to come now. I want to see my mother before she’s buried.” Damn the paper, and this unspeakable woman, whoever she was.

“That’s scarcely appropriate,” said the woman wearily.

“I insist,” said Rowan. “I don’t wish to trouble you but I want to see my mother before she’s buried. No one there need know who I am. I simply want to come.”

“It would be a useless journey. Surely Ellie would not have wanted this. Ellis assured me that—”

“Elite’s dead!” Rowan whispered, her voice scraping bottom in her effort to control it. She was shaking all over. “Look, it means something to me to see my mother. Ellie and Graham are both gone, as I told you. I … ” She could not say it. It sounded too self-pitying and too intimate to confess that she was alone.

“I must insist,” said the woman in the same tired, worn-out feelingless voice, “that you remain exactly where you are.”

“Why?” Rowan asked. “What does it matter to you if I come? I told you, no one needs to know who I am.”

“There isn’t going to be a public wake or funeral,” said the woman. “It doesn’t matter who knows or doesn’t know. Your mother will be buried as soon as it can be arranged. I have asked that it be done tomorrow afternoon. I am trying to save you grief with my recommendations. But if you will not listen, then do what you feel you must do.”

“I’m coming,” Rowan said. “What time tomorrow afternoon?”

“Your mother will be buried through Lonigan and Sons on Magazine Street. The Requiem Mass will be at St. Mary’s Assumption Church on Josephine Street. And the services will take place just as soon as I can arrange for them. It is pointless for you to come two thousand miles—”

“I want to see my mother. I ask you please to wait until I can get there.”

“That is absolutely out of the question,” said the woman with a slight touch of anger or impatience. “I advise you to leave immediately, if you are determined to come. And please don’t expect to spend the night under this roof. I have no means of properly receiving you. The house is yours, of course, and I shall vacate it as soon as possible if that is your wish. But I ask that you remain in a hotel until I can conveniently do so. Again, I have no means of making you comfortable here.”

Carefully, in the same tired manner, the woman gave Rowan the address.

“You said First Street?” Rowan asked. It was the street that Michael had described to her, she was sure of it. “This was my mother’s house?” she asked.

“I’ve been awake all night,” said the woman, her words slow, spiritless. “If you’re coming, then everything can be explained to you when you arrive.”

Rowan was about to ask another question when, to her astonishment, the woman rang off.

She was so angry that for a moment she did not feel her hurt. Then the hurt overshadowed everything. “Who in the hell are you?” she whispered, the tears rising, but not flowing. “And why in the world would you speak this way to me!” She slammed down the phone, her teeth biting into her lip, and folded her arms. “God, what an awful, awful woman,” she whispered.

But this was no time for crying or wishing for Michael. Quickly, she took out her handkerchief, blew her nose and wiped her eyes, and then reached for the pad and pen on the kitchen counter, and she jotted down the information the woman had given her.

First Street, she thought, looking at it after she’d written it. Probably no more than coincidence. And Lonigan and Sons, the words Ellie had mentioned in her delirium when she had rambled on about her childhood and home. Quickly she called New Orleans information, then the funeral home.

It was a Mr. Jerry Lonigan who answered.

“My name is Dr. Rowan Mayfair, I’m calling from California about a funeral.”

“Yes, Dr. Mayfair,” he said in a most agreeable voice that reminded her of Michael at once. “I know who you are. I have your mother here now.”

Thank God, no subterfuge, no need for false explanations. Yet she couldn’t help