be the fault of her few sips of rum. She swirled her slivers of ice, trying to pin down what made him so ephemeral.
“Your death,” she said. “What was it like?”
“Falling,” he said. “No, being pulled head over heels, arms wheeling, down the drain. I was standing there on the wall, daring the storm and thinking about jumping, and then a gust of wind hit me from behind, and my feet went out from under me and the wave grabbed me and I thought, Oh shit, I’m going to be ground to a pulp on those rocks. Vain to the last gasp, I imagined what a disgusting corpse I’d make. Luckily, the sea decided to keep me.” He looked at the slowly turning ceiling fan. “I always wondered where the fish went in a big storm. I called out for them and they were all around me, squirming like salmon against the current, bumping me with their bellies, slapping me with their tails. An enormous grouper sped by in the murk, looking surprised, and said, ‘Mon, this is far out,’ and then my clothes dragged me down and the water was the color of slate and there was froth everywhere. When I stopped trying to swim it got easier, and I just rolled and rolled and rolled.”
A cock crowed in the distance and another challenged it.
“And that was it,” she whispered.
“The end of Jack as we knew him.”
The case clock scrabbled into action, and they looked away from each other until it finished its nine bongs.
“I have dreams where the water is dark and all I can see is faint gray light way far above me,” she said. “My arms are pinned, my clothing is pulling me down. I wake up in a panting sweat. Do you think I’m imagining my death?”
“How would I know?” he said. “I certainly never imagined mine. I imagined a funeral, witnessed Tom Sawyer style, where I could hear all the sweet and sappy things people would say about me and see all the weeping women try to throw themselves into the grave. But the moment of death, no.” He stepped closer, haggard in the lamplight. “Whatever you imagine won’t be what happens anyway.”
“Were you planning suicide?”
“Who isn’t?” he said. “We all have to go sometime. Better at fifty and in reasonable shape than drooling and peeing in your pants. You wouldn’t be nearly so receptive if I appeared with a walker.”
“What’s changed to make you so fragile tonight?” she asked.
“That has more to do with you than with me, sweet. I was bound to lose my charm sooner or later. Story of my life with women.” He backed into the shadows near the kitchen stairs.
Susie took a step after him and let out three tentative barks. Els reached for her collar and when she looked up, Jack had disappeared.
CHAPTER 35
Els and Eulia huddled at the domino table, Els scribbling columns of figures and drawing arrows and boxes to answer Eulia’s questions. The air seemed to be stockpiling moisture in preparation for hurling another September storm their way. Genevra was in the kitchen with the radio turned low, but now and again preaching or a hymn drifted to their ears.
Finney lumbered across the court carrying his bucket. “Boat payment due yesterday,” he said. “Wha’appen nobody here?”
“Eulia and I decided we can only serve three nights a week,” Els said. “At least until the Resort reopens.”
“That new road mess gotta be keeping people away too,” Finney said. “You wanna get here from Oualie today you gotta walk.”
The road project’s path of destruction inched daily closer to Jack’s, shaving front lawns to leave houses almost teetering at the curb, removing hairpin curves at the ghauts, and creating straightaways that would invite even worse speeding. Protective of what had so charmed her about Nevis, Els was ambivalent about the government’s “improvements.”
“Maybe I’ll sue the government for business disruption,” she said, thinking of how the construction must be enriching Eugene and what pleasure he might take in sending a layer of dust over everything at the pub.
Finney pulled US bills from his shorts pocket and flattened them on the table. “Double installment. Now the Maid really mine.”
Els weighted the bills with her glass. The hundred dollars was significant money to Finney, but a drop in the sea of her debt. “When we first inked this little business relationship, I thought I’d see you only when the payments were due. Now you’re practically family.”