"Palindrome" - читать интересную книгу автора (Woods Stuart)

CHAPTER 6

Liz climbed the broad steps of the inn and stopped on the front porch. A young couple was lounging in a swing at one end of the veranda, her head on his shoulder. Liz felt a moment of longing, even envy. She reflected that it was the first emotion besides rage that she could remember for the past couple of months. She entered the house and found it quiet. To her right, she discovered a small room with a bar, deserted. A sign said MIX YOUR OWN, so she did, pouring herself a small bourbon. She wandered out of the bar, exploring. A library next door held many volumes, most of them dusty and old. She walked back down the hallway and found a large sitting room, dominated by a full-length portrait of a beautiful young woman and filled with odd objects and bric-a-brac. On the opposite wall, facing the picture of the young woman, was a portrait of a rakishly handsome man of about thirty, wearing riding clothes, a plaited crop in his hand. On a windowsill nearby was the skull of a loggerhead turtle, as big as a football. She tried to imagine the size of the whole turtle and failed. She browsed further around the room, and, with a shock, stopped in front of a framed photograph.

It was obviously old; the print was faded and yellowing. It was of a man, tall, blond, and slender; he stood in a light surf, firing a rifle toward the sea; he wore only a loincloth,and a knife hung from his belt. She had the irrational feeling that she had taken the photograph less than an hour before.

"That's my father," said a voice behind her, making her jump. She turned to find Germaine, a drink in her hand. She sipped the drink and smiled; revealing large, square, white teeth. "That was taken in the early fifties by my mother. They were both killed in nineteen sixty, taking off from the airstrip in an old Stearman biplane. A wire strut snapped and they lost a wing. We never knew which one of them was flying-they were both pilots."

Liz stared, speechless, at the photograph. "But-" she began to say.

"This is my grandmother, when she was nineteen," Germaine interrupted. "She died before I was born." She turned and nodded at the opposite wall.

"That's Grandpapa, when he was in his late twenties. I'm sorry, were you about to say something?"

Liz shook her head. "No," she said, feeling foolish.

"This is my favorite room in the house," Germaine said.

"It's full of family things-pictures, portraits, stuff my brothers and I collected when we were children. We found the turtle skull on the beach."

"It's huge," Liz said.

"After dinner, when it's dark, we'll take a drive and see if we can find a loggerhead or two laying their eggs."

Liz turned to ask about the turtles, then froze. Standing in the doorway was the man in the photograph, the man on the beach with the rifle. Germaine, who was still talking, stopped and looked at her, then turned and followed her gaze. She smiled broadly. "Look who's here!"

She crossed the room, and he met her halfway. They embraced. "Hello, baby brother!" Germaine said.

"Hey, big Germaine," the man replied, hugging her and laughing.

Well, thought Liz, at least she can see him, too; he must be real.

"Come here and meet somebody," Germaine called to Liz. Liz walked over.

The man stuck out a hand. "I'm Hamish Drummond," he said, smiling, revealing what were obviously the family teeth, big and white against his tanned skin. His blond hair was neatly combed-not like that afternoon-and he seemed so… clean, Liz thought.

"I'm Liz Barwick," she said.

"Hi, Liz," he replied, still holding the handshake. "You down for the week?"

"She's down for longer than that," Germaine said. "Ray Ferguson sent her to do that book of photographs on the island he's been promising us."

"I'm glad to hear it," Hamish said, finally releasing her hand.

"I'm looking forward to getting started," Liz said, finding it impossible to take her eyes off him. He was not quite handsome; he was closer to beautiful. "It's a lovely island."

"It is that," he said.

"You haven't got a drink," Germaine said, tugging him toward the bar.

Liz followed them and found two couples there, drinking. "This is my cousin, Jimmy Weathers, and his wife, Martha," Germaine said, introducing a short, balding man and a plump, pretty woman. "This is Liz Barwick, who's down here photographing things."

"We saw Grandpapa this afternoon," Jimmy said. "You seen him yet, Hamish?"

"No, I only got in this afternoon. I'll see him tomorrow."

Another couple entered the bar, then another, and the conversation turned to the island, its wildlife, and its beauty. "I nearly hit a buck this afternoon," Liz said.

"You nearly hit Buck?" Jimmy asked.

"A buck, not Buck, Jimmy," Germaine pitched in.

"Pity you missed him, then," Jimmy said. "We could have had some of Germaine's venison for dinner."

Liz found a moment to turn to Hamish Drummond. "I saw you up at Stafford Beach this afternoon."

Hamish turned and looked at her, puzzled, then his eyes narrowed. "Did you? Did you really?" he said, more to himself than to her.

At dinner in the basement dining room, Liz found herself seated between Germaine and Hamish at a large table with half a dozen other people. As the remnants of a pate were taken away and fat trout were served, the talk turned to work. "What do you do?" a man across the table asked Hamish.

"Financial consulting."

"Who consults you?"

"Right now, a merchant bank in London. Everybody's getting ready for the big move in the Common Market in 'ninety-two. What do you do?"

"I'm a psychiatrist," the man said. "So is Ann my wife. We practice in Savannah." Hamish nodded, as if he had little interest in the subject.

"I develop resort property," Jimmy said, as if it were his turn.

"Well," the doctor said, "I hope you never get your hands on this place."

Hamish smiled slightly. "I wish I'd said that."

"Now, you'd be surprised what enlightened development could do for this island," Jimmy said. "Make it available for a lot more people to enjoy. It would have to be done right, of course. Elegantly."

"Like Hilton Head?" the doctor said.

"Beautiful development, Hilton Head," Jimmy said, looking dreamy about it, missing the sarcasm.

"Wall-to-wall development," Germaine chipped in. The table fell silent.

Liz turned to the psychiatrist. "What sort of practice do you and your wife have, Doctor?" She really didn't want to know; she had seen enough of psychiatrists over the past few weeks, but she felt the need for a change of subject.

"Well," the man said, "I was teaching at Duke University Medical School, and I retired last year. We moved to Savannah, and we both felt the need for some activity, so we started a part-time practice."

"We're working on a book, too," the man's wife said.

"A book on psychiatry?" Germaine asked.

"Not exactly," the man replied.

"We're conducting a major study on identical twins, and the results will form a book on the subject."

"Hamish has a twin," Jimmy chimed in. "You ought to study those boys."

There was something malicious in his tone. Hamish suddenly stood up. "Excuse me, please."

He left the table. There was a silence in his wake, and, again, Liz tried to keep the conversation going. "Are twins particularly interesting to study?" she asked the doctor.

The doctor smiled. "Fascinating. Identical twins have the closest of all human relationships-closer than mother and child. They enjoy a high degree of empathy, often are telepathic, know what each other is thinking. Sometimes during our work, I've had the eerie feeling that a pair of twins were the same person-or, rather, different halves of the same person."

"Is that just because they grow up together, spend so much time together? Or do you read something more into it?" Liz asked, interested.

"Something more, though I'm not quite sure what. We've studied twins who were separated shortly after birth, who didn't even know they had a twin, and there were remarkable similarities in how they had lived their lives, the choices they had made-even though they were brought up in families that were very different. I've interviewed one such pair who seemed to choose the same brands of clothes and even had identical haircuts. They both had had a fantasy twin for as long as they could remember, played with him, talked with him. Neither was much surprised when he discovered that he had an actual"

"Boy, that's spooky," Jimmy's wife, Martha, said.

"That's not exactly a psychiatric term," the doctor said, "but it's properly descriptive."

"Do twins always get along with each other?" Martha asked.

"Always," the doctor said, "at least in our study. Their mothers seem to regard them as one person, so they don't have to compete for her affection. In fact, generally speaking, they don't compete with each other over anything; instead, they seem to form a unit and compete with others, as one person."

"I've always wondered why their mothers dress them alike," Martha said. "Couldn't that warp them in some way? Screw up their individuality?"

"Some twins we've talked to resisted dressing alike as children," Anna Hamilton said, "while others chose to do so. Some of them go on dressing alike for all their lives. Twins have a bond that lasts until they die-in fact, a significant percentage choose not to marry, so that they can remain with each other, although this phenomenon seems more pronounced among females."

"Can a mother always tell her twins apart?" Liz asked.

"Usually, at least after infancy, but not always. It's very common for parents to put ID bracelets on twins so they can tell them apart. Usually, as they get older, enough differences develop that it gets to be easier. One child may have some minor injury and have a scar; one may gain more weight-something like that."

Germaine leaned close to Liz. "Did you notice that, when Hamish arrived tonight, I didn't introduce him, that he introduced himself? That's a habit I got into when Hamish and Keir were growing up-I was wrong so often." She turned to the doctor. "Twins are palindromic," she said.

"That's very good," the doctor agreed. "A palindrome is the perfect metaphor for identical twins."

"What's that?" Jimmy asked.

"That word?" Germaine spoke up. "A palindrome is a literary device-a word, or a sentence, or even a poem, that reads the same forward and backward. Exactly the same."

The group gathered around and watched. Some had flashlights, others used flash cameras, but the mother was not disturbed. The female loggerhead turtle lay over the hole she had dug with her flippers and dropped her eggs into it, dozens of them, each like a slippery Ping-Pong ball.

"We have an egg patrol," Germaine said to Liz. "We go down the beach, look for signs of a nest, then obliterate the signs. Otherwise the raccoons get at the eggs and eat them."

The loggerhead finished her work, pushed sand over the eggs, and, exhausted, began struggling back toward the sea. The moon lit the little band of watchers as they followed her painful progress across the beach. Then, finally, she reached the surf line and disappeared into the water. The group cheered.

Walking back to the Jeep, Liz fell into step with Germaine. Their bare feet left moonlit tracks on the damp sand. "Tell me, Germaine, why did Hamish excuse himself at dinner when Jimmy mentioned his twin?" Liz asked.

"Ah," said Germaine, "I'm afraid that Hamish and Keir might shake the good doctor's theories about the closeness of twins."

"Why?"

"Well, the boys were much the way he described when they were children, even as teenagers. Nobody could tell them apartwell, nobody but Grandpapa, anyway. They could fool me any time they wanted to. They were always together-always. If they were apart, they were nervous, unhappy. Once, I remember, Keir was ill with the flu when they were supposed to go to camp in the North Georgia Mountains, and Grandpapa forced Hamish to go without him. After he left, Keir couldn't sleep, wouldn't eat, wouldn't talk. A couple of days later, Grandpapa got a call from the director of the camp; Hamish had disappeared. He turned up that night. He had hitchhiked to St. Marys; he walked to the mouth of the river and swam across Cumberland Sound. At night. He was twelve."

"Jesus, he's lucky to be alive."

"I think if he had died in the attempt, Keir would have died, too."

"Did something happen to change the relationship?"

"Yes. The summer they were almost eighteen, when they were both about to go off to Princeton, something happened."

"What?"

"Nobody knows. But since that summer, it's more than twenty years ago, they haven't spoken to each other and haven't spoken about each other to anyone else."

They trudged along the beach in silence for a time. "What about Keir?" Liz asked finally. "Where is he?"

"Nobody knows," Germaine said. "He turns up, unannounced, from time to time-never when Hamish is here-and then he disappears. A friend of mine ran into him in Paris, last year. I haven't seen him for more than three years. I don't even know if he's alive. Except, I always had the feeling that if Keir died, Hamish would die, too, and vice versa. Even now, when they must… hate each other, I still feel that. I don't know why."

Driving back to the inn in the Jeep, both women were quiet.

Liz came into the bar for a nightcap, and, when she left to go back to the cottage, Hamish Drummond was sitting in one of the big swings on the veranda, an empty brandy snifter next to him, staring out into the darkness. Liz did not disturb his reverie. When she got back to Stafford Beach Cottage, the front door stood wide open.