wouldn’t have doodlum-squat in the bank! On the day you were born I said to Lawton, ‘Lawton,’ I said, ‘ fertilizer is the wave of the future .’ And he listened to me then! Oh, back then, on the day you were born, he would still listen to what I had to say! He went out and bought a fertilizer company, and it has just rolled in . If it weren’t for that fertilizer company, he couldn’t run for Congress. Without that fertilizer company he couldn’t run to catch a bus!”
Breathing heavily, she jerked away and mopped her eyes with a tissue. When she spoke again to Luker, it was in a quieter, controlled voice. “Luker, this morning before I came over to the house Lawton told me that if I didn’t dry out he was gone file for a divorce directly after the election and it didn’t make a damn bit of difference if he won or lost, he wasn’t gone be saddled with a wife who could drink more than a barnful of Irishmen.”
“Would a divorce be so bad? If you got divorced from Lawton, you could live with Leigh and Dauphin. They’d love to have you. I think you should have filed for one yourself on the day Leigh became a Savage.”
“A divorce would kill me, Luker. I know you don’t get along with Lawton the best in the world, and I know you don’t love him the same way you love me . . .”
Luker laughed harshly.
“. . . but I love Lawton and I always have. I know he’s cheap, and I know he lies, and it was Marian Savage herself—never tell Dauphin this—who told me about this grass widow in Fairhope your father has been going to see since 1962 , and she’s got kinky red hair and a rear end you could lean a baseball team up against—”
“Barbara, you never told me about this!”
“Why should I? There was no reason for you to know.”
“Were you upset when you found out?”
“Of course! But I never said a word. But when it hurt most was when he started talking about a divorce—this morning wasn’t the first time he’s brought it up. Luker, listen, I’m gone give in to you, and I’m gone try this thing—”
She turned away for several moments, contemplating what difficulties lay before her. Then turning to her son, she cried: “Oh, God, get me a glass to hold. I got to curl my fingers around something!”
Luker slipped down from the enormous mahogany bed and stretched. “You’ll be all right,” he said off-handedly.
Chapter 9
On his way down from Mobile, Dauphin had picked up half a dozen lobsters, and these Odessa boiled for their dinner—with potatoes and cole slaw on the side. They all ate in the dining room of the Savage house, and Luker kindly forbore to complain to Big Barbara that her alcoholic infirmity would keep the rest of them from enjoying beer or wine with their dinners. The meal was not a happy one, for no one was entirely easy in his mind; but at least they were all hungry. It was only when they had finished their lobsters, and the cracking of the shells and the noise of the sweet lobster meat being sucked from the shattered carcasses no longer covered their silence, that speechlessness became oppressive.
Dauphin, ever dutiful, took it upon himself to rescue them. Scorning superficialities, he said to India without preface: “Luker told me that I shouldn’t have come out here to Beldame after Mama died, that I’d do better staying in Mobile—”
“Yes,” said India, not understanding why this remark should have been directed to her. “I know that’s what he said. But you don’t think so.”
“No, I don’t. Beldame is the place where I’ve been the happiest in my life. I’m twenty-nine years old and I’ve been coming to Beldame every summer since I was born. I’ve never wanted to go anywhere else. The summers I spent here with Luker, you just cain’t imagine how happy I was then—and how miserable I was when it was time to go back to Mobile! Luker wouldn’t speak to me when we got back home. We were best friends at Beldame, but in Mobile he wouldn’t
Breathing heavily, she jerked away and mopped her eyes with a tissue. When she spoke again to Luker, it was in a quieter, controlled voice. “Luker, this morning before I came over to the house Lawton told me that if I didn’t dry out he was gone file for a divorce directly after the election and it didn’t make a damn bit of difference if he won or lost, he wasn’t gone be saddled with a wife who could drink more than a barnful of Irishmen.”
“Would a divorce be so bad? If you got divorced from Lawton, you could live with Leigh and Dauphin. They’d love to have you. I think you should have filed for one yourself on the day Leigh became a Savage.”
“A divorce would kill me, Luker. I know you don’t get along with Lawton the best in the world, and I know you don’t love him the same way you love me . . .”
Luker laughed harshly.
“. . . but I love Lawton and I always have. I know he’s cheap, and I know he lies, and it was Marian Savage herself—never tell Dauphin this—who told me about this grass widow in Fairhope your father has been going to see since 1962 , and she’s got kinky red hair and a rear end you could lean a baseball team up against—”
“Barbara, you never told me about this!”
“Why should I? There was no reason for you to know.”
“Were you upset when you found out?”
“Of course! But I never said a word. But when it hurt most was when he started talking about a divorce—this morning wasn’t the first time he’s brought it up. Luker, listen, I’m gone give in to you, and I’m gone try this thing—”
She turned away for several moments, contemplating what difficulties lay before her. Then turning to her son, she cried: “Oh, God, get me a glass to hold. I got to curl my fingers around something!”
Luker slipped down from the enormous mahogany bed and stretched. “You’ll be all right,” he said off-handedly.
Chapter 9
On his way down from Mobile, Dauphin had picked up half a dozen lobsters, and these Odessa boiled for their dinner—with potatoes and cole slaw on the side. They all ate in the dining room of the Savage house, and Luker kindly forbore to complain to Big Barbara that her alcoholic infirmity would keep the rest of them from enjoying beer or wine with their dinners. The meal was not a happy one, for no one was entirely easy in his mind; but at least they were all hungry. It was only when they had finished their lobsters, and the cracking of the shells and the noise of the sweet lobster meat being sucked from the shattered carcasses no longer covered their silence, that speechlessness became oppressive.
Dauphin, ever dutiful, took it upon himself to rescue them. Scorning superficialities, he said to India without preface: “Luker told me that I shouldn’t have come out here to Beldame after Mama died, that I’d do better staying in Mobile—”
“Yes,” said India, not understanding why this remark should have been directed to her. “I know that’s what he said. But you don’t think so.”
“No, I don’t. Beldame is the place where I’ve been the happiest in my life. I’m twenty-nine years old and I’ve been coming to Beldame every summer since I was born. I’ve never wanted to go anywhere else. The summers I spent here with Luker, you just cain’t imagine how happy I was then—and how miserable I was when it was time to go back to Mobile! Luker wouldn’t speak to me when we got back home. We were best friends at Beldame, but in Mobile he wouldn’t
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