There are always fresh flowers in the sunroom, but by noon yesterday all I could smell was the noxious aroma of the dead man's cooked flesh. The sound of the power mower on the lawn down below had been replaced by the hollow plink of dripping water as it seeped slowly through the tunnel's curved roof. The trip was on. I had travelled back to 1932, in soul and mind, if not body.
I skipped lunch, wrote until four o'clock or so, and when I finally put my pencil down, my hand was aching. I walked slowly down to the end of the second-floor corridor. There's a window there that looks out on the employee parking lot. Brad Dolan, the orderly who reminds me of Percy - and the one who is altogether too curious about where I go and what I do on my walks - drives an old Chevrolet with a bumper sticker that says I HAVE SEEN GOD AND HIS NAME IS NEWT. It was gone; Brad's shift was over and he'd taken himself off to whatever garden spot he calls home. I envision an Airstream trailer with Hustler gatefolds Scotch-taped to the walls and Dixie Beer cans in the corners.
I went out through the kitchen, where dinner preparations were getting started. 'What you got in that bag, Mr. Edgecombe?' Norton asked me.
'It's an empty bottle,' I said. 'I've discovered the Fountain of Youth down there in the woods. I pop down every afternoon about this time and draw a little. I drink it at bedtime. Good stuff, I can tell you.'
'May be keepin you young,' said George, the other cook, 'but it ain't doin shit for your looks - '
We all had a laugh at that, and I went out. I found myself looking around for Dolan even though his car was gone, called myself a chump for letting him get so far under my skin, and crossed the croquet course. Beyond it is a scraggy little putting green that looks ever so much nicer in the Georgia Pines brochures, and beyond that is a path that winds into the little copse of woods east of the nursing home. There are a couple of old sheds along this path, neither of them used for anything these days. At the second, which stands close to the high stone wall between the Georgia Pines grounds and Georgia Highway 47, I went in and stayed for a little while.
I ate a good dinner that night, watched a little TV, and went to bed early. On many nights I'll wake up and creep back down to the TV room, where I watch old movies on the American Movie Channel. Not last night, though; last night I slept like a stone, and with none of the dreams that have so haunted me since I started my adventures in literature. All that writing must have worn me out; I'm not as young as I used to be, you know.
When I woke and saw that the patch of sun which usually lies on the floor at six in the morning had made it all the way up to the foot of my bed, I hit the deck in a hurry, so alarmed I hardly noticed the arthritic flare of pain in my hips and knees and ankles. I dressed as fast as I could, then hurried down the hall to the window that overlooks the employees' parking lot, hoping the slot where Dolan parks his old Chevrolet would still be empty. Sometimes he's as much as half an hour late -
No such luck. The car was there, gleaming rustily in the morning sun. Because Mr. Brad Dolan has something to arrive on time for these days, doesn't he? Yes. Old Paulie Edgecombe goes somewhere in the early mornings, old Paulie Edgecombe is up to something, and Mr. Brad Dolan intends to find out what it is. What do you do down there, Paulie? Tell me. He would likely be watching for me already. It would be smart to stay right where I was... except I couldn't.
'Paul?'
I turned around so fast I almost fell down. It was my friend Elaine Connelly. Her eyes widened and she put out her hands, as if to catch me. Lucky for her I caught my balance; Elaine's arthritis is terrible, and I probably would have broken her in two like a dry stick if I'd fallen into her arms. Romance doesn't die when you pass into the strange country that lies beyond eighty, but you can forget the Gone with the Wind crap.
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I didn't mean to startle you.'
'That's all right,' I said, and gave her a feeble smile. 'It's a better wake-up than a faceful of cold water. I should hire you to do it every morning.'
'You were looking for his car, weren't you? Dolan's car.'
There was no sense kidding her about it, so I nodded. 'I wish I could be sure he's over in the west wing. I'd like to slip out for a little while, but I don't want him to see me.'
She smiled - a ghost of the teasing imp's smile she must have had as a girl. 'Nosy bastard, isn't he?'
'Yes.'
'He's not in the west wing, either. I've already been down to breakfast, sleepyhead, and I can tell you where he is, because I peeked. He's in the kitchen.'
I looked at her, dismayed. I had known Dolan was curious, but not how curious.
'Can you put your morning walk off?' Elaine asked.
I thought about it. 'I could, I suppose, but... '
'You shouldn't.'
'No. I shouldn't.'
Now, I thought, she'll ask me where I go, what I have to do down in those woods that's so damned important.
But she didn't. Instead she gave me that imp's smile again. It looked strange and absolutely wonderful on her too-gaunt, pain-haunted face. 'Do you know Mr. Howland?' she asked.
'Sure,' I said, although I didn't see him much; he was in the west wing, which at Georgia Pines was almost like a neighboring country. 'Why?'