Gwen, in Green

The island itself was a long one. In past years the Ferrier family had summered in a cottage on Big Hill Beach, a sprawling resort community which occupied the southern end of the island. Thus, George was familiar with the locality and had spent some of his boyhood exploring the creeks of the marshes in a small boat, trudging through the undeveloped woodlands at the northern end, digging for pirate gold, and doing all the other things young boys do when left to their own devices in an outdoor setting with plenty of salt water.

Upon graduation, George brought Gwen to Big Hill, covered her with musty-­smelling sheets in the family cot­tage, and did what she’d come to believe he liked doing best. They had been married just over two years and he had a job lined up in Winston with the family firm. During the month spent on the beach, he escorted her to the places of his boyhood, including the point at the northern end.

She questioned the sudden transition from resort development to woodlands. George had coaxed a rusting jeep into operation, and they pushed through little-­traveled logging roads to the point. There she saw the foundation ruins of what must have been a huge house. It had obviously burned down. Charred pieces of wood stuck up in exposed sandy spots.

“Old boy from New Jersey owns the whole end of the island,” George said. “This was his house. It burned before I was old enough to take advantage.”

“Of what?” she asked innocently.

George grinned lewdly. “They still talk about her. She was much younger. A real hot one. They still talk, some of the old boys, about how all they had to do was sneak through the woods, whistle, and she’d come out.”

“All men,” Gwen said, “are horrible.”

“Honey, it always takes two.”

She didn’t want to discuss it.

“Didn’t make any difference what age or how many. There was a little gazebo down by the clear pond. That’s where they’d go, with the old boy up in the house playing with his stamp collection or something.”

“George,” she said. “Please.”

The clear pond was an oddity. It was ovate, had the bright green color of the water holes left after a massive strip-­mining operation for phosphates, held no life other than plant life, and owned its own grisly tradition. Once it had been a favorite spot for swimming, until a young couple, after the house had burned, had driven their car to the site and swam nude. Their car was discovered a full day later and their bodies a few hours after that, nude, close together, the girl’s arms still locked around the boy, her hair streaming upward in the clear, green water, her eyes wide, wild.

Gwen refused on their honeymoon, after their gradua­tion, to go into the water. George stripped, ran into the water, blew and puffed and swam the hundred-­yard length of the pond, yelled, “The water’s great, honey,” and came out dripping to laugh at her.

“What I want,” he said, brushing clinging drops from his skin so that he could dry in the hot sun, “is to own this point, every acre of it. Then I’ll build a house with the bedroom out on pilings or cantilevered out over the pond. There’ll be a little balcony outside the bedroom and each morning I’ll just walk out, fall into the water and then I’ll never have to take a bath, except in the winter time when the pond freezes over.”

At the time, neither of them dreamed that his talk was more than idle chatter.

Death and a good insurance man made it possible. Back in Winston-­Salem, George went to work with his father. His fresh degree in electrical engineering made it possible for him to pass the F.C.C. test for a First Class Radio-­telephone ticket. With this piece of paper from the federal government, he was allowed to repair licensed com­munications equipment, adding a new dimension to his father’s business. In a time when citizen’s band radio was becoming a fad, George was kept busy, but he took time to learn the other aspects of the business, and when he’d been there a year he was made a full partner. His draw, plus end-­of-­the-­year bonuses, made life comfortable for them, but they were not rich until a small commercial airliner crashed coming into a Virginia mountain town, killing, along with a dozen others, George’s mother and father. There was partnership insurance, mortgage in­surance, life insurance, two rather hefty travel policies purchased at a vending machine before the elder Ferriers left for their holiday in New York, and a couple of gimmick accident policies which also paid off. George, at twenty-­seven, found himself the sole owner of a thriving television and appliance store and, after taxes, holding cash which, when the proceeds of the sale of the store were added, came to just over three hundred thousand dollars.