Palindrome (6 page)

"Some twins we've talked to resisted dressing alike as children," Anna Hamilton said, "while others chose to do so. Some of them go on dressing alike for all their lives. Twins have a bond that lasts until they die—in fact, a significant percentage choose not to marry, so that they can remain with each other, although this phenomenon seems more pronounced among females."

"Can a mother always tell her twins apart?" Liz asked.

"Usually, at least after infancy, but not always. It's very common for parents to put ID bracelets on twins so they can tell them apart. Usually, as they get older, enough differences develop that it gets to be easier. One child may have some minor injury and have a scar; one may gain more weight—something like that."

Germaine leaned close to Liz. "Did you notice that, when Hamish arrived tonight, I didn't introduce him, that he introduced himself? That's a habit I got into when Hamish and Keir were growing up—I was wrong so often." She turned to the doctor. "Twins are palindromic," she said.

"That's very good," the doctor agreed. "A palindrome is the perfect metaphor for identical twins."

"What's that?" Jimmy asked.

"That word?" Germaine spoke up. "A palindrome is a literary device—a word, or a sentence, or even a poem, that reads the same forward and backward. Exactly the same."

***

The group gathered around and watched. Some had flashlights, others used flash cameras, but the mother was not disturbed. The female loggerhead turtle lay over the hole she had dug with her flippers and dropped her eggs into it, dozens of them, each like a slippery Ping-Pong ball.

"We have an egg patrol," Germaine said to Liz. "We go down the beach, look for signs of a nest, then obliterate the signs. Otherwise the raccoons get at the eggs and eat them."

The loggerhead finished her work, pushed sand over the eggs, and, exhausted, began struggling back toward the sea. The moon lit the little band of watchers as they followed her painful progress across the beach. Then, finally, she reached the surf line and disappeared into the water. The group cheered.

Walking back to the Jeep, Liz fell into step with Germaine. Their bare feet left moonlit tracks on the damp sand. "Tell me, Germaine, why did Hamish excuse himself at dinner when Jimmy mentioned his twin?" Liz asked.

"Ah," said Germaine, "I'm afraid that Hamish and Keir might shake the good doctor's theories about the closeness of twins."

"Why?"

"Well, the boys were much the way he described when they were children, even as teenagers. Nobody could tell them apartwell, nobody but Grandpapa, anyway. They could fool me any time they wanted to. They were always together—always. If they were apart, they were nervous, unhappy. Once, I remember, Keir was ill with the flu when they were supposed to go to camp in the North Georgia Mountains, and Grandpapa forced Hamish to go without him. After he left, Keir couldn't sleep, wouldn't eat, wouldn't talk. A couple of days later, Grandpapa got a call from the director of the camp; Hamish had disappeared. He turned up that night. He had hitchhiked to St. Marys; he walked to the mouth of the river and swam across Cumberland Sound. At night. He was twelve."

"Jesus, he's lucky to be alive."

"I think if he had died in the attempt, Keir would have died, too."

"Did something happen to change the relationship?"

"Yes. The summer they were almost eighteen, when they were both about to go off to Princeton, something happened."

"What?"

"Nobody knows. But since that summer, it's more than twenty years ago, they haven't spoken to each other and haven't spoken about each other to anyone else."

They trudged along the beach in silence for a time. "What about Keir?" Liz asked finally. "Where is he?"

"Nobody knows," Germaine said. "He turns up, unannounced, from time to time—never when Hamish is here—and then he disappears. A friend of mine ran into him in Paris, last year. I haven't seen him for more than three years. I don't even know if he's alive. Except, I always had the feeling that if Keir died, Hamish would die, too, and vice versa. Even now, when they must... hate each other, I still feel that. I don't know why."

Driving back to the inn in the Jeep, both women were quiet.

Liz came into the bar for a nightcap, and, when she left to go back to the cottage, Hamish Drummond was sitting in one of the big swings on the veranda, an empty brandy snifter next to him, staring out into the darkness. Liz did not disturb his reverie. When she got back to Stafford Beach Cottage, the front door stood wide open.

CHAPTER 7

Angus Drummond walked slowly down the front steps of Dungeness, the enormous house that had been his home since the day he had been born there, ninety-one years before. He walked slowly, as he did most things these days. He lengthened his stride now, along the front of the old house, ignoring the peeling paint and dry-rotted windowsills. Dungeness, in Angus's mind, was as fresh and whole as the day his ancestor, old Aldred Drummond, had finished building it in 1820.

A brown-skinned boy in his midteens approached, leading a fine-looking horse. "You be riding today, Mr. Angus?" the boy asked.

Angus found an apple in his pocket and fed it to the gelding, stroking his soft nose.

"Not today, James," he replied. "I think I'll take the jeep." It was a conversation they conducted each morning, never varying, each reciting his lines from a script they both knew would not change. Angus had last ridden some six years before.

James would exercise the animal, keep him sweet for that day when Angus might reply, "Yes, James, saddle the gelding. I feel like a ride today." The boy led the horse away, and Angus strode toward his World War Il-era jeep. He hoisted his backside into the metal seat, then, grasping his trousers legs, hauled his long legs under the steering wheel. The jeep started first try. Angus placed his panama hat on the floor, settled his steel-rimmed sunglasses on his prominent nose, and pointed the vehicle toward the sea. The jeep's transmission had only three gears, and he kept it in second as the road led into the dunes. He wound through the mountains of sand and grass, then emerged onto the open beach. Cumberland Island has eighteen miles of broad beach, and there seemed to be no one on it that morning but Angus Drummond. He liked it that way. The wind was out of the southeast, as it often was, and, as he drove north, the jeep's speed made the day seem nearly windless. Angus saluted the two shrimp boats fishing barely a hundred yards off the beach and got a wave back from men on both. A pair of brown pelicans kept pace with the jeep, skimming the water near its edge, hunting breakfast. Angus took some satisfaction in seeing them; a few years back they had been an endangered species. Now hundreds of them flocked on the island, where he protected them from their only enemy: Man. From his perch in the jeep, Angus spotted the tracks of deer, wild horses, raccoons, and a dozen different birds in the damp sand at the edge of the dunes. There were few people on his island, but he was not short of company. In the distance ahead he saw a black speck.

He watched it as it grew larger, his prescription sunglasses bringing the image sharp. There were two people—no, one and some sort of apparatus. He slowed the jeep and pulled up next to a young woman standing beside a large camera on a tripod. Liz smiled at the old man in the jeep, the wind mussing his thick, gray hair. "Mister Angus Drummond, I presume," she said.

He regarded her with suspicion. "You have me at a disadvantage, Miss, ah, Mrs.-"

"Ms.," she interrupted. "Elizabeth Barwick."

"Miz Barwick," he said. "Before I welcome you to my island I'll ask what you are doing on it."

"I am photographing it," Liz replied. "I hope in such a way that no one who sees the book I make from the photographs will ever forget how beautiful a place it is."

"Ah, um ... "' Angus muttered, put off balance by the flattery.

"I'm a guest of the Fergusons," she said, nodding toward Stafford Beach Cottage. "Mr. Ferguson is my publisher."

"Ah, yes," Angus said. "He's not a bad sort. Doesn't come down here often." Liz wondered whether Drummond's favorable assessment of Ray Ferguson was connected with the infrequency of his visits.

"I arrived yesterday, so I haven't had a chance to see much of the island, but I couldn't resist the morning light. I had to get a shot of the beach."

"Well," he said, "I guess I'd better show you around a bit. Get in." Liz folded the tripod and tucked it into the rear of the jeep, releasing the 4 X 5 field camera and nestling it in her lap. "I'm all yours, Mr. Drummond," she said.

Angus released the clutch pedal, and the jeep lurched forward. Liz sat back and enjoyed the morning. The jeep rolled north along the beach, and the sun beat down on them. "Where are you from?" Angus asked, and by the time they had come to the end of the beach, he knew everything about her that she was willing to tell him.

Angus slowed the jeep as they approached a band of water that lay ahead.

Before them on the sand rested a flock of brown pelicans that Liz quickly estimated at five hundred. "Do you mind if I take a photograph?" she asked.

"Don't be long," he said. "You've a lot of island to see."

She had the camera set up and her shot made in five minutes. "Thank you," she said, climbing back into the jeep. Angus pointed at the land on the other side of the water.

"That's Little Cumberland Island; I don't own that. An oversight of my ancestors. Don't ever try to swim across there. It's not far, but the current is strong." He put the jeep into gear and swung around.

A moment later, he was following a faint track through the dunes, headed toward the interior of the island. They drove along quietly, Angus occasionally pointing out some place of interest. They passed black workmen running an old road scraper and doing other maintenance jobs.

Shortly, they pulled to a stop among a group of deserted-looking wooden houses.

"The old slave settlement," Angus said. "I built some more modern houses at Dungeness a long time ago for the workmen and their families, but I never pulled down the old slave settlement." He nodded at an elderly black man who was coming out of a tiny church. "And here comes its only resident." He raised his voice. "Good morning, Buck," he called. "Come over here and meet somebody."

The old man shuffled across the few yards that separated them. "Hey, Mist' Angus," he said.

"How you doing'?"

"Pretty good. Buck, this is Miz Barwick. She's staying down to Stafford Beach. Miz Barwickthis is Buck Moses, who worked for my daddy and me for most of the past century. Buck is our only officially retired citizen. I still work."

Liz remembered having seen him in his truck. "Hello, Mr. Moses," she said.

"Now, you call me Buck, just like everybody else," the old man said, with a toothless grin.

"Buck is the only man alive who knows more about this island than I do," Angus said. "He taught me what I know, but he kept a few secrets to himself, didn't you, Buck?"

"Now, Mist' Angus, you know I can't hide nothing from you. You see right through me."

"That's a laugh." Angus snorted. "Well, Buck, we've got some territory to cover. We'll be on our way." With a wave, he drove on.

"How old is he?" Liz asked.

"Nobody knows; not even Buck," Angus replied. "I'm ninety-one my last birthday, and the first time I remember Buck he must have been twelve or thirteen. That'd make him at least a hundred and five, but he might be older. He was my best friend when I was a boy; taught me everything. My son, too, and my grandsons. My daddy spent most of his time in New York, so I didn't see much of him. Buck took up the slack. Then, when my boy was killed in that plane crash in 'sixty, old Buck was right there with the twins, too. I expect Buck believes he owns Cumberland Island, and in a way I suppose he's right. He's going to outlive me, I know it."

Angus drove on in silence for a while, then pulled off the road and drove along a track for a way, ducking tree branches. Finally, he stopped and waved an arm. "Lake Whitney," he said. Liz saw a lake nearly covered with water lilies. As she watched, a doe waded into the water on the other side, a hundred and fifty yards away. "We're downwind," Angus said. "Go ahead and take your picture."

Liz quietly got set up and had the deer framed when a commotion broke out in the water on the other side of the lake. She snatched her head from under the black cloth, away from the upside-down image, and looked.

The deer was screaming, thrashing about in the water. Then it went down and disappeared, while the water continued to churn.

"Well, I'll be a son of a bitch," Angus said, wonderingly, almost to himself.

"What happened?" Liz asked weakly, too stunned to move.

"It's Goliath," Angus said. "Miz Barwick, you're a lucky girl. You could live on this island for nearly a hundred years, like I have, and not see a thing like that."

"Who's Goliath?" Liz asked.

"He's the biggest alligator I ever saw, and the last time I saw him was a good fifteen years ago. He was a twelve-footer then; God knows how big he is now."

Liz stood, looking at the spot where the doe had disappeared. The water was glassy smooth again. She suddenly realized that she had not pressed the shutter release.

"Let's get going," Angus said.

"The poor deer," Liz said, climbing into the jeep.

"Gators got to eat, too," Angus said with a shrug. He got the jeep going again and pointed it away from the lake. "See you don't take any swims in Lake Whitney, nor any place around it. Gators can walk, too."

They were on what passed for a main road now. Angus swung around a sharp bend and drove down a straight stretch. They passed through a gate and came to a flat lawn.

Ahead of them sat a gracefully designed Palladian mansion, gleaming white in the sun, framed by giant live oaks. Angus stopped the jeep.

"That's Plum Orchard," he said. "I built it for my boy, Evan, after the last war."

"It's beautiful," Liz said. "Who lives there now?"

"Nobody," Angus said, swinging the jeep around. "I keep a roof on it, keep it painted. I wouldn't want to see it fall down. Maybe one of my grandsons will come back and live in it one day. I'll be gone by then." For a moment the old man looked stricken; then he looked up and paid attention to his driving. For the remainder of their drive they talked about the island and its history and how Angus Drummond had shaped it. It seemed to Liz that, in a couple of hours, they had covered more ground than most new acquaintances did in weeks. They warmed to each other.