John D MacDonald – Travis McGee 10 The Girl In The Plain Brown Wrapper

“You’ll just make them worse by scratching, dear.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Say hello to Travis, dear.”

She stopped at the foot of the stairs and smiled at me, still scratching, and said, “Hello, Travis McGee! How are you? I had a very good nap today.”

“Good for you.”

“But I itch something awful. Biddy?”

“Yes, honey.”

“Is he here?” Her tone and expression were apprehensive.

“Tom went on a trip.”

“Can I have peanut butter sandwiches, Biddy, please?”

“But your diet, dear. You’re almost up to a hundred and fifty again.”

Her tone was wheedling, sympathy-seeking. “But I’m real tall, Biddy. And I’m starving. And I had a good nap and I itch something awful!”

“Well…”

“Please? He isn’t here anyway. He won’t know about it. You know something? Some son of a bitch must have kicked me or something. I’m so sore right–”

“Maureen!”

She stopped, gulped, looked humble. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Please try to speak nicely, dear.”

“You won’t tell him?”

Biddy took my glass and they went out into the kitchen. In a little while Maureen came walking in very slowly and carefully, carrying my fresh drink. I thanked her and she beamed at me. Somehow she had managed to get a little wad of peanut butter stuck on the end of her nose, possibly from licking the top off the jar. She went back. I heard them talking out there but could not hear the words, just the tone, and it was like a conversation between child and mother.

When they came back in, Maureen pulled a hassock over in front of the television set. Biddy plugged a set of earphones into a jack in the rear of the set and Maureen put them on eagerly and then was lost in the images and the sound, expression rapt, as she ate her sandwiches.

Biddy said, “She loves to watch things Tom can’t stand.”

“Does she remember running away last night?”

“No. It’s all gone now. Slate wiped clean.”

“She won’t say Tom’s name?”

“Sometimes she will. She’s so terribly anxious to please him, to have him approve of her. She just gets… all tightened up when he’s here. Really, he’s wonderfully kind and patient with her. But I guess that… a child-wife isn’t what a man of Tom’s intelligence can adjust to.”

“If you think of her just as a child, she’s a good child.”

“Oh, yes. She’s happy, or seems happy, and she likes to help, but she forgets how to do things.”

“It doesn’t seem consistent with suicide attempts, does it?”

She frowned. “No. But it’s more complex than that, Travis. There’s another kind of child involved, a sly and naughty child. And the times she’s tried, she’s gotten into the liquor and gotten drunk first. It’s almost as if alcohol creates some kind of awareness of self and her condition, removes some block or something. We keep it all locked up, of course, ever since the first time. But the tune she locked herself in the bathroom and cut her wrist, I’d forgotten and left a half quart of gin on the countertop with the bottles of mix. I just didn’t see it, somehow. And she sneaked it upstairs, I guess. Anyway, the empty bottle was under her bed. Then the time Tom found the noose, we know she got into something, but we don’t know what it was or how. Vanilla extract or shaving lotion or something. Maybe even rubbing alcohol. But of course she couldn’t remember. It’s quite late. Can I fix you something to eat?”

“I think I’ll be moving along, Biddy. Thanks.”

“I owe you, my friend. I was irritated you let me sleep so long. But I guess you knew better than I how badly I needed it. I was getting ragged around the edges. The very least I can do is feed you.”

“No thanks, I…”

She straightened, head tilted, listening, and then relaxed. “Sorry. I thought it was that damned phone again. I think something’s wrong with the line. For the last two or three months every once in a while it will give one ring or part of a ring and then stop, and there won’t be anybody there. Just the dial tone when you pick it up. Did you say you would stay?”

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