So we stumbled out of the bar with ringing ears and got into the Bentley. We rolled the big old car cautiously and slowly down the streaming road for a mile. Saw the motel up ahead. A long, low old place, like something out of a movie. I pulled into the lot and went into the office. Roused the night
guy at the desk. Gave him the money and arranged an early morning call. Got the key and went back out to the car. I pulled it around to our cabin and we went in. It was a decent, anonymous place. Could have been anywhere in America. But it felt warm and snug with the rain pattering on the roof. And it had a big bed.
I didn’t want Roscoe to catch a chill. She ought to get out of that damp shirt. That’s what I told her. She giggled at me. Said she hadn’t realized I had medical qualifications. I told her we’d been taught enough for basic emergencies.
`Is this a basic emergency?’ she giggled.
`It will be soon,’ I laughed. `If you don’t take that shirt off.’
So she did take it off. Then I was all over her. She was so beautiful, so provocative. She was ready for anything.
Afterwards we lay in an exhausted tangle and talked. About who we were, about what we’d done. About who we wanted to be and what we wanted to do. She told me about her family. It was a bad luck story stretching back generations. They sounded like decent people, farmers, people who had nearly made it but never did. People who had struggled through the hard times before chemicals, before machinery, hostages to the power of nature. Some old ancestor had nearly made it big, but he lost his best land when Mayor Teale’s greatgrandfather built the railroad. Then some mortgages were called in and the grudge rolled on down the years so that now she loved Margrave but hated to see Teale walking around like he owned it, which he did, and which Teales always had.
I talked to her about Joe. I told her things I’d never told anybody else. All the stuff I’d kept to
myself. All about my feelings for him and why I felt driven to do something about his death. And how I was happy to do it. We went through a lot of personal stuff. Talked for a long time and fell asleep in each other’s arms.
Seemed like more or less straight away the guy was banging on the door with the early morning call. Tuesday. We got up and staggered around. The early sun was struggling against a damp dawn. Within five minutes we were back in the Bentley rolling east. The rising sun was blinding in the dewy screen.
Slowly we woke up. We crossed the state line back into Georgia. Crossed the river in Franklin. Settled into a fast cruise through the empty farming country. The fields were hidden under a floating quilt of morning mist. It hung over the red earth like steam. The sun climbed up and set about burning it off.
Neither of us spoke. We wanted to preserve the quiet intimate cocoon as long as possible. Arriving back in Margrave was going to burst the bubble soon enough. So I guided the big stately car down the country roads and hoped. Hoped there’d be plenty more nights like that one. And quiet mornings like this one. Roscoe was curled up on the big hide chair beside me. Lost in thought. She looked very content. I hoped she was.
We blasted past Warburton again. The prison floated like an alien city on the carpet of low mist. We passed the little copse I’d seen from the prison bus. Passed the rows of bushes invisible in the fields. Reached the junction and turned south onto the county road. Past Eno’s diner and the station house and the fire house. Down onto Main Street.
We turned left at the statue of the man who took good land for the railroad. Down the slope to Roscoe’s place. I parked at the kerb and we got out, yawning and stretching. We grinned briefly at each other. We’d had fun. We walked hand in hand down the driveway.