Green Eyes

  ‘I can deal with it.’ He linked arms with her, and they walked toward the house at a ceremonial pace. His skin was irritated to a glow each time her hip brushed him.

  ‘Was Dr Magnusson bothering you again?’

  ‘Yeah. He says he’s being discharged May the fourth.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Donnell stepped on a pebble, teetered, but she steadied him. ‘Where’s he going to end up?’ he asked. ‘He can’t take care of himself.’

  ‘A home for the elderly, I suppose,’ she said. ‘I’ll find out from Laura if you like.’

  Her smile was sweet, open, and he smiled back. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He started to tell her of his promise to Magnusson, but thought better of it, and told her instead about Richmond having to kill a cop.

  Toward the end of April, Jocundra dreamed that Donnell came into her room one night while she was asleep. Within the logic of the dream, a very vivid dream, she was not surprised to see him because she knew - just as in reality - that he often waked before her and would sometimes become lonely and ask her to fix breakfast. This time, however, he did not wake her, merely sat beside the bed. The moon was down, and he was visible by the flickers in his eyes: jagged bursts of green lightning sharply incised upon the darkness, yet so tiny and short lived they seemed far away, as if she were watching a storm at the extreme edge of her horizon. After a minute he reached out and rested his fingers briefly on the inside of her elbow, jerking them back when a static charge crackled between them. He sat motionless for a few seconds, and she thought he was holding his breath, expecting her to wake; at last he stretched out his hand again and brushed his fingertips across the nipple of her left breast, teasing it erect beneath her nightgown, sending shivery electricities down into the flesh as if he were conducting the charges within his eyes. Then he cupped her breast, a treasuring touch, and the weight of his hand set a pulse throbbing between her legs.

  She had another dream immediately afterward, something about clowns and chasing around a subdivision, but she most remembered the one about Donnell. It disturbed her because she was not certain it had been a dream, and because it brought to mind a talk she had had with Laura Petit several days before. Donnell had requested a morning alone to begin a new project - a story, he said -and so Jocundra had picked out a magazine and gone onto the grounds. Laura had accosted her in the parking lot, saying she needed a friendly ear, and they had walked down to the stone bench near the gatehouse.

  ‘I’m losin’ touch with Hilmer,’ said Laura. ‘He wants to be alone all the time.’ Strands of hair escaped from her barrette, there were shadows around her eyes, and her lipstick was smeary.

  Jocundra was inclined to sympathy, but she couldn’t help being somewhat pleased to learn that Laura was not impervious to human affliction. ‘He’s just involved with his work,’ she advised. ‘At this stage you have to expect it.’ ‘

  ‘He’s not workin’,’ said Laura bitterly. ‘He wanders! All day long. I can’t keep track of him. Edman says to let him have the run of the house, but I just don’t feel right about it, especially with the cameras breakin’ down so much.’ She gave Jocundra a dewy, piteous look and said, ‘I should be with him! He’s only got a week, and I know there’s somethin’ he’s hidin’.’

  Appalled by the depth of Laura’s self-interest, her lack of concern for Magnusson, Jocundra opened her magazine and made no reply.

  Suddenly animated, Laura pulled out a file from her pocket and began doing her nails. ‘Well,’ she said prissily, ‘I may not have totally succeeded with Hilmer, but I’ve done my job properly… not like that Audrey Beamon.’

  Jocundra was irritated. Audrey, though dull, was at least no aggravation. ‘What’s your problem with Audrey?’ she asked coldly.

  ‘It’s not my problem.’ Registering Jocundra’s displeasure, Laura assumed a haughty pose, head high, gazing toward the house: a proud belle watching the plantation burn. ‘If you don’t want to hear it, that’s fine! But I just think you should know who you’re associatin’ with.’

  ‘I know Audrey quite well.’

  ‘Really!’ Laura hmmphed in disbelief. ‘Well, then I’m sure you know she’s been doin’ it with Jack Richmond.’

  ‘Doing it?’ Jocundra laughed. ‘Do you mean sex?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Laura primly. ‘Can you imagine?’

  ‘No. One of the orderlies is telling you stories to get you excited.’

  ‘It wasn’t any orderly!’ squawked Laura. ‘It was Edman!’

  Jocundra looked up from her magazine, startled.

  ‘You can march right up there and ask him if you don’t believe me!’ Laura stood, hands on hips, frowning. ‘You remember when the cameras went out a whole day last week? Well, they didn’t go out… not for the whole day. Edman wanted to see what might happen if people didn’t know they were bein’ observed, and he got an eyeful of Audrey and Richmond!’