Thok-thok-thok.
Yes, Leo knew things... or intuited them. He hadn't wanted to go in Harold's house and had said something about Nadine... he couldn't remember exactly what... but Larry had recalled that discussion and had felt very uneasy when he heard that Nadine had moved in with Harold. It had been as if the boy was in a trance, as if -
( - thok-thok-thok - )
Larry watched the Ping-Pong ball bounce up and down, and suddenly he looked into Leo's face. The boy's eyes were dark and faraway. The sound of the lawnmower was a far-off, soporific drone. The daylight was smooth and warm. And Leo was in a trance again, as if he had read Larry's thought and simply responded to it.
Leo had gone to see the elephant.
Very casually Larry said: "Yes, I think they can make a baby. Dick can't be any more than fifty-five at the outside. Cary Grant made one when he was almost seventy, I believe."
"Who's Cary Grant?" Leo asked. The ball went up and down, up and down.
(Notorious. North by Northwest.)
"Don't you know?" he asked Leo.
"He was that actor," Leo said. "He was in Notorious. And Northwest."
(North by Northwest.)
"North by Northwest, I mean," Leo said in a tone of agreement. His eyes never left the Ping-Pong ball's bouncing course.
"That's right," he said. "How's Nadine-mom, Leo?"
"She calls me Joe. I'm Joe to her."
"Oh." A cold chill was weaving its slow way up Larry's back.
"It's bad now."
"Bad?"
"It's bad with both of them."
"Nadine and - "
(Harold?)
"Yes, him."
"They're not happy?"
"He's got them fooled. They think he wants them."
"He?"
"Him."
The word hung on the still summer air.
Thok-thok-thok.
"They're going to go west," Leo said.
"Jesus," Larry muttered. He was very cold now. The old fear swept him. Did he really want to hear any more of this? It was like watching a tomb door swing slowly open in a silent graveyard, seeing a hand emerge -
Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it, I don't want to know it.
"Nadine-mom wants to think it's your fault," Leo said. "She wants to think you drove her to Harold. But she waited on purpose. She waited until you loved Lucy-mom too much. She waited until she was sure. It's like he's rubbing away the part of her brain that knows right from wrong. Little by little he's rubbing that part away. And when it's gone she'll be as crazy as everyone else in the West. Crazier maybe."
"Leo - " Larry whispered, and Leo answered immediately:
"She calls me Joe. I'm Joe to her."
"Shall I call you Joe?" Larry asked doubtfully.
"No." There was a note of pleading in the boy's voice. "No, please don't."
"You miss your Nadine-mom, don't you, Leo?"
"She's dead," Leo said with chilling simplicity.
"Is that why you stayed out so late that night?"
"Yes."
"And why you wouldn't talk?"
"Yes."
"But you're talking now."
"I have you and Lucy-mom to talk to."
"Yes, of course - "
"But not for always!" the boy said fiercely. "Not for always, unless you talk to Frannie! Talk to Frannie! Talk to Frannie! "
"About Nadine?"
"No!"
"About what? About you?"
Leo's voice rose, became even shriller. "It's all written down! You know! Frannie knows! Talk to Frannie! "
"The committee - "
"Not the committee! The committee won't help you, it won't help anyone, the committee is the old way, he laughs at your committee because it's the old way and the old ways are his ways, you know, Frannie knows, if you talk together you can - "
Leo brought the ball down hard - THOK! - and it rose higher than his head and came down and rolled away. Larry watched it, his mouth dry, his heart thudding nastily in his chest.
"I dropped my ball," Leo said, and ran to get it.
Larry sat watching him.
Frannie, he thought.
The two of them sat on the edge of the bandshell stage, their feet dangling. It was an hour before dark, and a few people were walking through the park, some of them holding hands. The children's hour is also the lovers' hour, Fran thought disjointedly. Larry had just finished telling her everything Leo had said in his trance, and her mind was whirling with it.
"So what do you think?" Larry asked.
"I don't know what to think," she said softly, "except I don't like any of the things that have been happening. Visionary dreams. An old woman who's the voice of God for a while and then walks off into the wilderness. Now a little boy who seems to be a telepath. It's like life in a fairy tale. Sometimes I think the superflu left us alive but drove us all mad."
"He said I should talk to you. So I am."
She didn't reply.
"Well," Larry said, "if anything comes to you - "
"Written down," Frannie said softly. "He was right, that kid. It's the whole root of the problem, I think. If I hadn't been so stupid, so conceited, as to write it all down... oh goddam me!"