head. Vivian mumbled and pushed herself up a few inches, moaned, and sank back.
“Finney, call the ambulance,” Els said. “Eulia, bring a blanket.” She felt for Vivian’s pulse, which was steady but weak. Vivian’s right arm was caught beneath her. Els didn’t dare move her. “Can you talk, Vivian? Where does it hurt?”
“Hurts . . . to . . . breathe,” Vivian said, her eyes pinched shut.
Finney hobbled down the steps and knelt next to Vivian. “They comin’,” he said. Eulia slid a pillow under Vivian’s cheek and spread the blanket over her. Finney took Vivian’s hand. “My Beauty,” he whispered. “I just a weak old fool.”
Vivian opened her eyes. “Husband,” she said. “Don’t take blame for the rain.”
Eulia, her shin bleeding, sat on the bottom step rocking Peanut, who refused to be consoled. Finney squeezed Vivian’s hand and stroked her cheek. Els paced the court, unable to comfort herself.
When the ambulance finally swung into the drive, Els was amazed at how small it was, how spare of flashing lights.
The attendants examined Vivian with tender respect, and she yelped when they gently rolled her over. Finney watched their every move.
“Miss Els, meet Hamilton and Marcus,” Vivian said in a hoarse whisper. “Students of mine at one time. Boys, I hate to be such a trouble.”
“That what you get for tryin’ out for the Olympic wheelchair slalom, Miss Viv,” Hamilton said.
Vivian laughed, then moaned. “I was so happy, I thought I could fly,” she whispered.
The attendants loaded Vivian’s stretcher into the ambulance and Finney climbed in with her. He promised a full report before they shut the doors and sped off.
After the siren faded, Els darted a glance at Eulia. “This is all my stupid, bloody fault.”
“This is Jack’s fault,” Eulia said.
“How the hell d’ya figure that?” Els said. “Tempting her with Jack’s library was my idea.”
“We all just dancin’ ’round to his music,” Eulia said. “He must want something real bad, he got to knock Mamma down to get it.”
CHAPTER 25
Late the next afternoon, Finney appeared in the court with his fish bucket.
“Come cool off in here and tell me everything,” Els called to him from the kitchen.
He stepped inside and wiped his brow. “Viv crack two ribs and break her wrist,” he said. “Doc say rest got to heal her now. He suggest she go mend by her muddah, who got a big house in Gingerland, but Viv say she won’t never go there.”
“They fell out?”
“Nod to each other at church.” He dropped into the chair she offered. “Sometimes not even that. All ’cause a’ me.”
“Tea or beer?”
“Tea’s fine.”
“No drinking before sundown?”
“No drinkin’,” he said. “Cyan be dull-witted if Viv need something.”
She poured a glass for each of them and pushed the sugar bowl toward him. He dumped a heaping spoonful of the local brown sugar into his glass, where it formed a sludge at the bottom, and stirred until he seemed embarrassed by the clinking and took a sip.
“Doan keep sugar at home,” he said. “Not fair to tempt Viv.”
“You’ve given up a lot for her,” she said, and felt a twinge of longing for a love powerful enough to cause willing sacrifice.
“Viv been suffering on account a’ my romance impulse ever since we meet,” he said.
Els pulled a packet of Peek Freans biscuits from a tin, shook them onto a plate, and settled into her chair. “Tell me,” she said. “I could use a tale of impulsive romance.”
He took a jam tot. He told her he’d met Vivian on Anguilla, where he grew up fishing and building and racing boats and where she’d gotten a teaching job in The Valley after university. “Her girlfriends bring her to the Easter Monday races. She look like a tigress dressed up as a schoolmarm. I sweet her up a little and make her promise to come to a bashment after the races if we win,” he said. “We take second, but she go with me, anyway. Next thing you know, she pregnant with our son Tibby and we get married. Her mudda hate me the minute she rasp her eyes over me, and everything I do since only make it worse. I too black, too ignorant, too poor, too radical.”
“Politically?”
“Dyed into the bone secessionist,” he said, and took another biscuit. He explained that Britain had once lumped Anguilla into a territory with St. Kitts and Nevis, where St. Kitts made the rules and got most of the goods and kept Anguilla in such poverty that it still lacked paved roads