Black Diamond Read online

  But perhaps there wasn’t any explanation.

  * * *

  Alma was in the middle of taking the sixth graders through the scrubland behind the science lab, when a senior named Muriel started to shout her name from the paintshop steps. The girls and boys had their notebooks out to write down descriptions of insects and plants; a boy called Roger had even brought a magnifying glass with him, although he and his friends were using it to look into each other’s noses and ears; before being warned, they’d tried to light a fire with it.

  Alma appointed a bossy girl to look after things. She hurried to Muriel, who said that there was a phone call from her father. She ran.

  Elton told her that Bess had had a heart attack and had been taken to the hospital: she’d had another, minor one when she arrived there. He wanted Alma to come home. He also wanted to know if she had Bruce’s telephone number, because it didn’t seem to be anywhere in the house. She told him that she was coming straight away and that she’d call Bruce for him.

  She found Rose, who began to organize the taxi, the packing and the money, so that there would be no need for Alma to waste time by going back to her room.

  She telephoned Bruce. He answered, but she didn’t recognize his voice. ‘I’ d like to speak to Mr Manson,’ she said. That was the name he’d chosen for his locked mailbox.

  ‘How did you get this number?’ he asked. He hadn’t recognized her, either. He sounded furious.

  ‘Bud,’ she said, ‘it’s Sissy. It’s an emergency.’ She told him about Bess and Elton. She said that he’d be able to get home before she could, even if she caught a flight.

  ‘I can’t,’ he told her.

  ‘You’ve got to.’

  ‘I just can’t, Alma. You go, and hold the fort for me.’

  ‘She may die.’

  ‘If she does, there’s nothing I can do about it by being there.’

  ‘She’s had two heart attacks.’

  ‘I’ve got to go now,’ he said. ‘Call me when you get there. Goodbye.’ He hung up.

  She telephoned the airport. There were cancellations because of fog; what flights there were had been delayed. She wouldn’t be able to fly direct in any case: all the seats were booked. She’d have to take a bus and try to catch a plane farther along the line. At least she’d be on her way, heading east.

  Rose put her into a cab and told her not to worry: the library would be all right, the school would hold her salary. ‘We’ll be thinking of you,’ she said.

  The moment Alma was on the bus, she took a pill to calm herself down. It didn’t work; it didn’t even get rid of the headache she had, but after an hour she fell asleep. She dreamt that she had a quarrel with Bruce. He was sitting next to her in the bus, telling her that she had to make excuses for him because that was her job. She started to cry with hopelessness and vexation. She told him it was bad enough that he didn’t love her, but to force her to lie to somebody he ought to love, was worse. He said, ‘You’ve got to,’ and she answered, ‘I can’t.’ Then he told her, as if in punishment, ‘I’ve got to go now,’ and he disappeared. At that moment the bus swung sideways, crashed and turned over. The windows changed into partly emptied spaces of white granules, like cracked sheets of ice. People screamed and coughed. A thick, dark smoke began to fill the tangled interior, pouring past her and out of the lacy, fragmented windows. Someone tried to climb over her. She hit and kicked, struggling to get ahead, until at last she pulled herself through and fell on to the road. She still had her coat and shoulderbag clutched in one hand.

  She ran along the road. All she could think of was that she had to get to the hospital and now she was late. It was like those dreams where you thought you were either going to miss something important, or else you wouldn’t be able to stop something terrible from happening: you were afraid, all the time, that you wouldn’t get there soon enough.

  The roadway was in confusion; cars were stopping and traffic was building up. She saw a police car and ran to it. The driver honked the horn at her. He almost drove into her. Both men inside screwed down their windows and started to shout at her, to get out of the way. She yelled back at them, saying that she had to get to the airport because her mother was in the hospital. ‘You’re blocking the road,’ the driver told her. She said that if they didn’t get her to the airport, she was never, never going to buy another ticket to the policemen’s ball and, besides, she’d taken down the number on their license plate. The one in the passenger seat said, ‘I guess you’d better get in, otherwise Murphy here won’t have anybody to dance with this year.’ He opened the door. She got in. The driver said, ‘Christ Jesus, Frank.’ His friend told him, ‘Have a heart.’ He explained to her that they had to stay at the scene of the accident, but they’d call another car for her and it would take her to the airport.

  She waited. Then she was in the car; and right after that, at the airport. She stood at the counter. Once again, people tried to get in her way. Some of them kept asking her if she was all right. She told everybody about having to get to the hospital. Finally they let her have the boarding pass. The next thing was a scene where she was standing in front of a mirror. Her blouse was ripped and covered in blood and her face was streaked with dirt. Near the hairline, on a level with her ear, she had a small cut that had bled copiously. A woman in a uniform put a bandage over the cut and cleaned the rest of her face. Alma kept jerking away. ‘I have to get to my mother,’ she said. She looked into the mirror, where she saw herself getting into the bus that was driving out to the plane. Bruce was still sitting next to her. ‘Look,’ he said. Right in front of them a plane turned sideways and hit the wing of another plane. Not again, she thought. The bus swerved and braked. The driver backed up. He drove out on to the grass and stopped. Alma could see ambulances going past. Bruce said again, ‘I have to go now.’ She asked, ‘Why?’ ‘They’re coming to take me away,’ he told her. When she looked, he was gone, just like the other time. She turned back and peered at the window. She was in the plane. The man next to her said, ‘You’re not very talkative.’ She closed her eyes. The man said, ‘Not very friendly, are you?’

  *

  When she landed, she telephoned the hospital. The nurse who answered went and got Elton for her. He said to hurry. She went to the head of the line at the cab rank and said she was sorry, but she had to get to the hospital to see her mother. She was crying. The people who were getting into the next taxi stood back to let her go first, but the ones behind them didn’t like having to wait. They began to quarrel. Alma got in. As the driver started up, two of the quarrelling people called something after her.

  Elton was waiting at the front doors of the hospital. He gave her a hug. At that moment she realized that she wasn’t dreaming. She’d been awake ever since the bus had crashed: that was what had woken her up.

  ‘This way,’ he said. He led her to an elevator and afterwards out into a long corridor. A nurse came towards them. She took Alma by the arm.

  They turned off to the left and straight into Bess’s room. Alma went up to the side of the bed. She leaned down and touched her mother’s face. Bess turned her head on the pillow; she opened her eyes. ‘Hi, Alma, honey,’ she said. She swallowed twice.

  ‘I came as fast as I could.’

  ‘It sure is nice to see you,’ Bess said. Her voice wasn’t much above a whisper. Alma touched her face again.

  Bess sighed. ‘Did Bruce come with you?’ she asked.

  ‘He’ll be coming from Kentucky. I was still in California.’

  ‘That’s right. I forgot. I’m all mixed up.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  A nurse came from behind one of the screens and murmured, ‘Not too long.’

  Alma said, ‘I guess they want you to rest a little.’

  ‘Where’s Bruce?’

  ‘He’ll be here soon,’ Elton said.

  ‘I couldn’t get hold of him,’ Alma said. ‘I’ll try again, just as soon as I can get to a phone.’

 
Bess smiled groggily. They’ve probably given her a lot of drugs, Alma thought. Because she’s in such pain.

  ‘Maybe you could phone from here,’ Elton said.

  Alma asked the nurse if she could make a long-distance call. She told her parents, ‘I’ll be right back.’

  Bruce must have been waiting by the phone because he answered before she expected it, saying, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Bruce, it’s Alma.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Home. At the hospital.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Not good. You’ve got to come.’

  ‘I can’t, Alma. I can’t explain, but I can’t come.’

  ‘I came. My bus crashed on the highway and I had to climb over dead bodies to get out, but I did it. This is more important than whatever you’re doing. Bruce, if you don’t come home now, I’ll never forgive you. I mean it. She’s asking for you.’

  He said again that he couldn’t. He hung up. She’d forgive him: she’d have to.

  She went back along the corridor. Bess had died while she was out of the room. Elton was sitting with his head down on the body, his arms out.

  *

  Another dream last night, that I was traveling. Then I arrived at a hotel somewhere in Europe where the people were French-speaking. It might have been Belgium, Switzerland or France. The hotel was a large, fine old place in a spa town. I signed my name in the register at the reception desk, but after I’d done it, the clerk behind the counter said, ‘And now, will you sign your real name?’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ And he turned the register around to me again, saying, ‘We need your real name.’ I looked at the name I’d written, and realized that it was an alias because I was an espionage agent, working on a case, and it was very important that I shouldn’t give my right name. I said, ‘I lost it at the train station when my wallet was stolen, but I should be able to let you have it in a couple of days.’ The answer appeared to satisfy him.

  *

  After Alma came home from the hospital with Elton, she made some sandwiches and the two of them watched the news on television. There were pictures of the bus crash she’d been in and the aircraft accident she’d only just missed.

  ‘That was my bus,’ she said.

  ‘Which?’

  ‘That one there.’

  ‘Eight people died.’

  ‘That’s how I got the cut in front of my ear. And that plane crash: I wasn’t in it, but we were right near where it was. We drove by it.’ She tried to recall scenes from the past day but she couldn’t get them in sequence. She sat still, her eyes staring ahead until the program was over.

  ‘I think maybe you ought to get some rest,’ Elton suggested.

  ‘Just as soon as I make a couple of phone calls.’

  She telephoned California. Tom answered. He sounded pleased to hear her. He called Rose to the phone.

  Rose said, ‘We were so worried. There was that bus wreck, nearly everybody dead, and then a crash at the airport, too. The boys were going crazy. They kept saying that even if you’d missed one, you might have been in the other one.’

  Alma told her that she’d been in the bus; and that she’d seen the accident at the airport. She was all right. But her mother had died, so she was going to stay on for a while. She didn’t know for how long. It might be a week. Or longer.

  She phoned Bruce one more time.

  As soon as he picked up the phone, he asked, ‘What’s happened?’

  When she told him that Bess was dead, he said he was sorry. She gave him the date Elton had set for the funeral.

  He said, ‘I won’t be coming.’

  ‘You’d better.’

  ‘How would that help her?’

  ‘It would help us. It would specially help Daddy.’

  ‘He’ll be all right. He’s got you there.’

  ‘Why did you give me your number, if it wasn’t for something like this? What could be worse than this?’

  ‘Jesus, Alma, don’t fold up on me now. I gave it to you so you could tell me what was going on.’

  ‘Well, I’m telling you. Come on home.’

  ‘No, I can’t,’ he said, and hung up again.

  After that, she went to pieces. She cried for four minutes without stopping, and then collapsed on the front hall floor. Elton got Dr Mason over straight away; he told him about Bess’s death, the bus crash, everything. Dr Mason said it was possible that Alma was suffering from delayed shock, but as far as he could tell at the moment, she was actually just asleep.

  They carried her up to her room, took off her shoes and put a blanket over her. Elton asked the doctor to stay and have a drink. Dr Mason looked at his watch and said: Yes, sure, there was time for a beer. They sat and talked for twenty minutes or so.

  *

  I dreamt that I was getting married to Alma. We were standing in front of the preacher and he said, ‘Do you, Bruce,’ and so on. And I said, ‘I don’t have to. We’re already married.’ And then I remembered that we’d been married for about two years. Alma said, ‘That’s right. We’re just doing it to get the piece of paper.’ We went through the ceremony and, at the end, a man in an usher’s uniform came out of a back room and handed Alma a piece of paper that was just that: a tiny, little torn scrap about an inch long. But she seemed very happy with it. She put it down the front of her dress to keep it safe.

  *

  Alma slept for fifteen hours. When she woke up, she remembered seeing blood and smoke, hearing children screaming. She saw the faces of the people she’d hit and kicked in order to get out of the bus first. In order to get to the mother who wasn’t her true mother, she’d been willing to kill innocent people, who were in the same trouble she was in. And when she’d managed to fight her way home, she’d found out that her mother was only really interested in seeing Bruce.

  But that was the way it had always been. She shouldn’t be disappointed or surprised any longer. She should accept things. She closed her eyes, but didn’t sleep. She was busy thinking. She thought and thought, and couldn’t remember what she was supposed to be thinking about. After a while she got up and went downstairs.

  Elton met her at the foot of the stairs. He didn’t want to talk about the future, or even about the past. He had a cousin who could come visit him; and Bess had a widowed sister-in-law. There were other cousins, too.

  ‘I’ll stay as long as you like,’ she offered. ‘It’s only a job. I told them a week, just to let them know I’d be away.’

  ‘A week is fine.’

  ‘I don’t have to go back to California at all.’

  ‘I appreciate it, Alma. But I’d like to be alone for a while. To get things straight in my mind. Do some thinking.’

  ‘Who’s going to cook for you?’

  ‘Oh, I can handle that. Maybe if you could do some of the packing up – clothes, and that kind of thing.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It’s hit me pretty hard,’ he said.

  *

  I was in the hospital and Alma was with me. She was holding my hand. I’d just had one operation, but they were going to do a second one.

  I said, ‘I miss my fiddle. I’d like to hear somebody right now, playing “Hearts and Flowers” as I go down the drain.’

  Alma said, ‘You aren’t going to get out of things so easy.’

  I said, ‘I’m dying.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ she told me. ‘Modern medicine is pretty good. You’ve got plenty of years left.’

  ‘Jesus, I hope not,’ I said.

  They wheeled me away, into the operating theater. Blood filled my lungs, my throat, my mouth. The doctor looked down at me and said, ‘It’s the tide of history.’

  The nurse standing next to him asked, ‘Is it twenty to, or twenty past? They go out with the tide, like ships. The moon causes it. It sets the cycle of blood in women. It controls conception, birth, madness and death. It’s the heavenly body of lunatics. How can we hope to rule the world when the most important
influences in our lives are faceless, nameless, hidden?’

  The doctor said, ‘There’s no way to stop the bleeding.’

  I wanted to see Alma. ‘Where is she?’ I asked them. ‘I want Alma.’ But nobody could hear me.

  *

  On the plane to California Alma wrote three letters. The first was to Merle. The second was to the state police, to thank the two officers who had helped her. She’d found their names, with the number of their patrol car, in the notebook she carried in her shoulderbag. She still had no memory of writing down anything during her journey to the hospital. In a p.s. she said that she’d been asleep when the bus accident had happened, and that she’d been in shock when she saw the plane crash at the airport, but if they wanted to ask her any questions about what she remembered, they could find her at the school where she worked.

  The third letter was supposed to be for Bruce, but she couldn’t finish the first sentence. After a while she came to the conclusion that it would be no use trying to say anything; she was too angry. She thought: What was so important that you couldn’t come to your own mother’s funeral? What have you done to your father by staying away? And what have you done to yourself? There’s no way you can get back that time and do it over. That was your time and you refused it.

  She slept. She ate part of the airline meal. When the lights were turned down, she got out her pad of paper again. She wrote to Bruce. She described to him the crash she’d been in. She said that it could have been some other kind of disaster – not a catastrophe that threatened physical danger and death, but an emotional calamity. It might not have had to harm her in any way, simply to make her think. The way I feel, she wrote, is that I’ve survived and that it isn’t worthwhile or right to hang on to petty things. I don’t think you should nurse a sense of injury and vengeance against these other people. It can’t be good for you to be tormenting yourself so. It’s hurting you much more than you’ll ever be able to hurt them. Let it go. Let people live their own lives and forget what you think they did to you. I won’t say anything else about not coming home for the funeral, except that it’s important for people to participate in death when it’s a death in the family. Dad and I are very sad and grieving, but that’s part of it. She’s with us and she’s gone. But what’s happening in your heart? You know I love you. We all love you. Why don’t you love anybody back? Couldn’t you go home and stay with Dad for a while? And then come to California – or I can come to you. I feel like we could lose each other.