Greased Samba

Questionnaire received. “I think you sent this to find out why Sug passed away, had the bruises, smelled odd.” The answers to these and other questions about life in retirement villages‚ gathering madness, and the deadly “greased samba” are provided in an extraordinary story by John Deck, a native Californian, graduate of San Francisco State College, and currently on leave from the English department of the University of Puerto Rico.

by John Deck

Doc BOB: Questionnaire received and read through once. I’ll answer, I think. Not likely to fool around with the “impressions” of Winifred Farms you ask for down near the bottom. I don’t believe what you say. I think you sent this to find out why Sug passed away, had the bruises, smelled odd. That’s what you’re after, only you aren’t man enough to come out straight and ask for it. I can’t write small enough to get even “short answers” on your form sheet.

May never tell you, finish and not send. Or never finish.

My permanent address is here, with my daughter, and you already have the number. Three people in the house. Husband, about forty-five, and daughter, forty-two, and me. Granddaughter comes by all the time. She’s pregnant, wants guidance, calls me Gram. But I’m with just the two, Will and Sue, and I have a room to myself, and run of the house.

Health fine. Bruises — I had plenty — are all gone. Smell — I smelled‚ too — remains, I think, because my daughter is sniffing around. You must have spilled all the beans you could, Doc Bob, but you couldn’t explain anything. Hips hurt sometimes, pains in the lower back region, but they were hurting worse at Winifred Farms‚ and I got by. Eyes water. Television makes them water. Not the shows, the light. Tired sometimes more than others. Health good.

“Mental attitude” sharp. Can remember whatever is necessary when it’s necessary. Can cut out the rest if I want. Sharp‚ but sometimes down. Sug, of course, bothers me. Had to happen. We knew it would, both of us. Forty-six years, three months‚ seven days (a week). Don’t have to think of that, though. I can stop it, anytime, say no to myself and the wheels lock. My secret of success right there. Think what you want to think.

Trying to keep the answers short. Suppose you want brief answers so we won’t wear out. So you won’t be responsible.

Next question is stupid: We came to Winifred Farms because we had to. Just like you used to say, after the “hard part” you deserve a long vacation. I can see you clearly, sitting at your desk, in your shorts and sandals, your head shining, telling us about the “long vacation,” when we first became interested.

I had the money for it. I could afford Winifred Farms. I could have afforded better places. I own three shoe stores, in the Bellflower-Norwalk area, and it’s an inexpensive line, competing with Karl and Gallenkamp‚ and I’m doing fine. My son-in-law‚ Will, is. He took over.

I liked the looks of the place. The strung-out cottages, and the orchards. I liked your helper, Hemley, and old Dick Watson, who was Volunteer Host to Sug and I. It was quiet. We could have gone to France or Egypt. Sug‚ when she found out about our great-grandchild, wanted to be around for the birth.

Cottages. Cottage seventeen was fine. I want to be exact, whether it takes a long answer or not. I didn’t like the padding in the shower. I didn’t like, at first, the handrailing in the hallway.

That railing is a little loose now, by the way. The new occupants ought to be told that.

I didn’t like the exposure much. If you get up early you like the light to come right into the house. There, I had to go outside. I used to watch it start some mornings under the trees. Sug slept late. I sat out on the porch, watched it. First thing I knew the trunks lit up. You’d see one, then four‚ then a dozen thin trunks, and then you could make out the leaves at the top, the shape of the tree at the top. All right there, day after day. But it was too cold in the winter. The cottages ought to have been built facing the other way. For the exposure.

General comments on recreation and entertainment. Hell‚ if you remember me and Sug — Sugar and Hank‚ they called us, in case you have forgotten — you know we loved the games. We won every prize we ever tried for: the three-legged jello-in-a-spoon race, and the two-couple egg-in-aspoon relay, with Ike and Mary Fellers. Ike and I won all the men’s three-legged races. Somewhere I’ve got a dozen Polaroid snapshots of Sug and I and the others that they put in the crepe paper wreath on the bulletin board. The Victors. Smiling, holding up our cups of victory punch.

I GOT a little tired there yesterday, so I quit and went to find the pictures. Found them.

All evening I thought about this form. Just like you to send something like this months after. Lot I’d forgot. It’s coming back — probably too much for the short answers.

Going back to recreation and entertainment. I enjoyed the rock hunts. First entertainment at Winifred Farms. Liked it three times, three hunts‚ then I didn’t like it. “Rock Hunt Today. Don’t forget rock hats and rock bags!” I asked Hemley about the bulletin. He said: “Hank, it’s just that a bunch of us go up into the hills behind Santa Ana and look at rocks.” I asked if he thought Sug and I would enjoy that. He said: “Might find it interesting, Hank. Might not. Gets you out in the air.” No selling, just straight answers from Hemley. You got yourself a good helper.

I guess this is an impression‚ out of place on the form, but what I thought of last night when I was resting was standing out on the side of that hill when it was getting dusk in the valley. I thought of the wind blowing, curling the brims of our straw hats, and tugging at the women’s skirts, and blowing away the voices.

Scattered — Hemley turned us loose — those that could walk all right, and we’d stand about ten yards apart. Stoop over, fill the bags with rocks‚ then pull them out one by one‚ dropping them. I never knew there was such a variety of rocks. Weights all different, sizes different. And the colors, the veins of color, the patterns.

You’d hear Mary Fellers call: “Ike, looky here. A green one.”

The wind ripped up the words. They came out: “I look ear. Green.” Like that. From all over. The voices, croaking, and all the words torn.

“Found one think gold.”

“Green cat eye.”

“Hank quartz.”

Hat brims shuddering, rough edges curving down almost into our eyes, and the wind sharp enough to make your eyes water‚ and the women’s skirts blowing. The hems flapping. Shadows short against the scrub brush and the stones. There was always sun‚ but down in the valley along the floor of the valley, it was dusk. It got gray. Night coming up out of the ground. Like smoke coming up.

“Found think gold.”

“Green eye.”

“Hank.”

Voices chopped right off as the words came out.

Pick up a rock, warm in your hand, hold it and weigh it and squint to see the colors, the grain, the shape. Drop it. Take another rock.

I STOPPED. Tired. Granddaughter came by. Puffing. Stands with her legs apart, belly so heavy it pulls her spine forward. Wears a cheap flat heel without any arch support. Not as pretty as her mother. Who’s not as pretty as her mother was. Well, you wouldn’t know, never saw Sug when she looked like she did.

Well, the rock hunts at the beginning, until I got to finding the same rocks‚ on the third trip‚ and the racing‚ and the Along Nature’s Frails trips, and the picnic. Even the Annual Winifred Farms Luau. The one we went to. The idea seemed fine.

I never like a game where you have to sit down to participate. Never went to a book discussion. Never talked politics because I know what’s right. Croquet? As Dick Watson used to say: “Croquet, OK.” For most of my life you couldn’t catch me on a dance door.

That’s true, too. Maybe ten times I danced with Sug while we were married, in forty-six years. And then, just at the end, we were dancing fools.

If you’re surprised you should be. That’s the secret. I may tell it.

Shuffleboard — old Dick Watson ruined that for me.

You and Hemley never knew about that game that Dick played and how he cared about it or you would have had more sense than to treat him the way you did. Now that’s how I feel. I knew him. I used to sneak a cigar with him now and then. You didn’t know him, if you want my opinion. Blood pressure’s one thing, just one thing. You can ask a man to piss in a bottle, or do any other damned awful business you want, to get to know something about him, but you won’t know it all.

I figure when you read this you’ll start scratching your knees and smiling. And a little more sweat will spring out on your skull‚ coming out of the pores, where the hair should be. Not that it’s any fault of yours. Men get bald. Although, you’ll admit, yours is a very special case. You always reminded us of someone else who is bald — someone famous.

The reason that Dick Watson got so mad at the shuffleboard game that day was that he was the best player, by a long shot, of all those amateurs at Winifred Farms. Only Bill Dawkins and Ike ever beat him, and they might win a game out of every five. Old Dick showed everybody how. That particular morning he lost three games in a row. He was nervous, he said later‚ because it was a tournament and he wanted his name right back up there, on the top of the list. He liked having his name there.

That’s why he called the court a son of a bitch. And broke his stick.

Then you came in from your damned gardening, with your shorts on and khaki shirt with the sleeves cut off. And them damned sandals. Your toes dirty‚ looking like potatoes just dug up. And you start making up to everyone but going after Dick.

“Before you play again, Dick‚ I think you ought to weigh those markers and watch the courts getting waxed. Supervise the waxing.”

I remember the way you turned around and winked at everybody. You wrinkled your forehead‚ raising eyebrows you don’t have.

I’ll tell you what I think, Doc Bob. I think your advice killed Dick Watson. He never played shuffleboard again, never went to the recreation hall again‚ because he couldn’t weigh the markers‚ couldn’t go and watch the waxing. Hell, you knew he wouldn’t. From then on he watched television and came over to my place for a cigar in the evenings. Clara Watson had a broken hip, you remember. Do you remember us at all? And she was a little silly. Had every reason to be and was.

Yes, we smoked cigars.

He quit the rock hunts when I did. He couldn’t get in on the sports because of his feet. He never liked the Along Nature’s Trails trips. The longer bus rides bothered his kidneys. You must have records.

It was you that insisted we keep “occupied.” He couldn’t bring himself to weighing the markers. He quit. And it wasn’t too long afterward that he passed on.

I want to stop here and say something for the last time. When I got stuck in the bus toilet, that had nothing to do with Dick. And the reason I didn’t yell was that I didn’t want to scare Sug. When Hemley noticed I was gone for a long time, he came and tapped at the door, and I answered him calmly. I don’t know why I should have yelled.

You should have those doors made so you can unlock them from the outside. And not have to take them off if someone gets stuck. We were on our way to San Juan Capistrano, and they had to stop the bus and unhinge the door to get me out. This upset Sug and everybody.

I didn’t like being stuck in there. But I didn’t get stuck because of Dick Watson, and I couldn’t pull the bolt back, and I saw no reason to scream. That’s it. And down here where you say “evaluation of staff” I’d say you ought to go on back to medical school and find out that it is wrong to hint to a woman of advanced years that her husband is grieving the loss of a friend so much he’s shutting himself up in bus toilets.

Your hints started us going to the dances, and that is the reason she died, in part, because we thought — you thought — we’d better be more social.

I won’t say I’m holding you responsible.

I’m quitting now. I get angry thinking about this. I’m not tired. I shouldn’t get so angry. I’m sweating. Like your bald head.

MISSED two days. Worn out yesterday. Slept‚ read a little, decided not to finish this. Then I couldn’t sleep last night. Kept seeing you at your desk, reading this, eating home-grown fruit. You’re well set up now, but you’ll get fat sooner or later. That fruit, you can’t eat even that all the time‚ without getting fat. Keeps you regular you said. Didn’t keep you regular as far as your hair’s concerned, did it?

You got my feelings about the “community and social organizations” except for the square dancing.

I didn’t like that. I hate that slippery stepping, and the music, and the callers. Only tried it once.

But what I may as well tell you about organization that I forgot to mention above is the way you handle the passing on of people of Winifred Farms. It is a disgrace, and I despised it. That is, when I found out old Dick Watson had passed on that night, I found it out the next morning, and I was going out to participate in some kind of a leaf study, and there was the sign on the bulletin board saying he was dead. And the memorial services were to commence almost immediately.

I had a sports shirt on and a pair of blue yachting sneakers — deck wear, we call it — and I had to go in right then and pray, standing on the shuffleboard court. Old Dick’s mortal remains were already on the way to Pomona. Clara gone too.

I’m sure you’re right. Memorial services are bad enough‚ when you get caught in one where you hardly knew the party, and the sooner they’re done the better. But Dick and I were close. He hated cigars, called them “stinkers,” and came over to Seventeen for one almost every evening. Half the time he couldn’t take more than about a quarter before he had to throw it out. He kept coming.

Teal-blue deck wear. T see the idea. But there wras Willis Townsend, whom Dick hated, praying for his “safe passage.” And all of it over then. Amen, and it done.

Sug missed it. I went back, told her Dick was dead, told her I’d been to the services, and heard that Clara had been sent off. She couldn’t believe it. She asked me to repeat all. I did. She asked if I thought Clara had known that Dick was sick, if she’d spent his last hours at his side. I said I didn’t know. I still don’t.

But you get it all done so fast — and I can see why — that it scared Sug. What if one of us got sick suddenly? Would the other know? Scared me, too.

TODAY I’ll tell you about the square dances, and the other dances, and let’s see if you can keep smiling and raise what should be eyebrows and wink.

They’ve got a name for you at Winifred Farms. I won’t tell it.

I’ll tell you something else that’ll open your eyes. Make you put aside your apple for a minute or two.

We went to one lesson and got in with that slickstepping crowd that look like the senior citizens you see on television. You see the lights shining on their eyeglass frames and their grins. They keep their teeth clenched and keep grinning, everyone panting like heat-struck dogs‚ so when you’re close you hear wind whistling through dentures. And spit crackling and spattering on their stretched lips. They get this kind of skating step, specially the men, and they paw at the ground, and come scooting down the middle while everybody claps and grins and winks at each other in the next formation.

I’ll admit we made fools of ourselves that first night, when they were trying that reel and that bunch tried to show us how to do-si-do, where you come down between the two ranks of people. I saw one man come down backwards and cross in front of his partner and skip up to the end of the line, and he never looked over his shoulder. And I was just mad enough to try it without looking. All right‚ not looking because I didn’t want to be outdone.

And I did hear Sug call out “Hank” when we were three quarters of the way down. So I looked back, but when I moved to the right, she moved to her left.

Bang. We crashed.

Fell right over on our hands and knees. Both of us lost our glasses (but they didn’t break, either pair). And I looked around at her, and she looked around at me.

Everybody else was whooping around, trying to get us up‚ but we, Sug and I‚ just stayed there, on our hands and knees, and looked at each other, after we found our glasses, and then‚ by God, we started laughing. Weren’t hurt, not a bit, and not a bit scared, and not ashamed, even though everybody began to bray when they discovered we were all right.

I said back there I was mad. All right, I was mad because of the can in the bus and the way you got rid of Dick when I had on a Hawaiian shirt and deck wear. And the skatey-footed step the experts used.

I was mad! Hell, yes. So we went to the dancing lesson and fell down — I knocked my wife down. But something happened. It didn’t hurt. Hitting each other didn’t hurt.

You couldn’t understand that. You saw us winning the three-legged races‚ keeping the jello in the spoon, our two old inside knees tied together with a scarf. And how we counted to ourselves‚ paced ourselves, and pulled ahead of Willis and Lily and the others. You saw us when Will and Sue came over, or my granddaughter, and the women would come up the walk carrying packages, sometimes balancing them on the unborn baby, and they wouldn’t even let me take a sack. You saw what you thought was mooning over Dick’s passing on. Or getting into the bus before the pig was served at the luau. because we said we were tired. We were tired. Only you don’t have even a suspicion of why we were tired.

You’re better off with a specimen, baldy.

Two days after we hit and fell‚ in the afternoon‚ while The Jolson Story was playing, I heard a funny noise from the kitchen. It was a quiet part in the movie; I think A1 was telling his old dancing partner he wanted him to be his manager. I was watching, Sug was supposed to be washing dishes. I heard her slippers tapping on the linoleum. I walked in there. Here she came‚ back to me, skipping down the length of the kitchen between the sink and the stove. I started clapping.

“You try,” she said.

“No room,” I said.

Carpet in the living room. Bedroom too small. Hallway then. That’s where we tried.

We danced in the hall that first time, tried it about three times, and got tired. We went in to sit down, take a breather. I said I figured with a few more practice sessions we’d be as good as any of them slick-footed dancers. She said she agreed‚ she guessed. Then I said I didn’t care much if we never went back, because that first fall, just when my glasses were gone, and I thought I’d hurt her, hitting her so hard, and then all of the grinners came around and tried to haul us up, that fall had bothered me, and I figured when we laughed and got them to laughing we had sort of made ourselves out to be the comedians.

She stopped me: “You didn’t hurt me, Hank.”

Well, I said, I was afraid I had. And then she said she was afraid she’d hurt me, because she was a little heavy, and moving fast. I said I didn’t think she was heavy, and that it was my old bones that were dangerous.

“They never were dangerous, Hank,” she said.

I won’t tell you what she looked like. I won’t tell you what that reminded me of‚ the way she looked‚ then, looking right in my eye saying my old bones had never hurt her.

You wouldn’t know. You never were like I was. I don’t know if you ever had a hair on your head. Would you have any idea what it would be, in the middle of the afternoon, with A1 singing “Rosie‚ You Are My Posie,” a song I first heard when I was a grown man, not a kid, and to be dancing?

What we did, then, was get up and try one more dance down the hallway. It was late enough so you couldn’t see well. The halls are poorly lighted, anyway, because of the poor exposure. One more dance, backwards, starting with the clickety-clickety click. Down we came. Hearing the slippers tap and slide, getting louder, heard each other breathing‚ louder, tried to guide by the dark wall, the rail‚ but couldn’t.

Wham!

Both of us slid forward. We didn’t fall. We caught the rail! That safety rail in cottage seventeen. It’s weak.

Because we caught ourselves when we started to fall. And with the other hand‚ held onto our glasses. But the next time we put our glasses down.

The next time was only a minute later when we decided to try again without hitting but hit again anyway.

Wham!

There. That’s why the bruises. A couple more times. That was it. The smell was a kind of ointment I bought and had delivered from a druggist. It was a grease. I put it on the rail.

One night we danced too late‚ and I got so tired I fell asleep. It was after the luau. She passed on while I was sleeping.

That’s all. That’s why I left. That’s why she passed on. I haven’t got any other comments. No, I wouldn’t think of returning.

I DON’T know why I’m afraid to tell the truth. Sug wouldn’t be. I’ll tell you why, and you’ll spit out apple seeds into your palm‚ and put them in the empty ashtray, and rub your hairless knees and think, and smile, raising what should have been eyebrows and batting what should be eyelashes‚ and then you’ll nod and think you got it all. Figure it out. Piss in a bottle. Only you’ll be wrong.

We danced every day for about a week, until we could hardly walk. We hit. On purpose? We turned the lights out when it was day or waited until night and neither one of us said anything at all—couldn’t — only one or the other would get over there‚ at one end of the hall, facing the other way, and start tapping heels and then he’d hear the other set of heels start clicking and wait, until finally one or the other set of heels went click. Then down we’d go. Wham!

Right back‚ start again. Click. And the clicking and breathing getting louder‚ then: Wham!

Until one or the other couldn’t hold on to the rail or just had to leave, walk out of the room, go in somewhere‚ sit down, hips and hind ends (at least mine) aching. Some mornings I didn’t get out of bed. Couldn’t. Or she couldn’t. Whoever could brought the food.

A week. And one day, when it was me in bed, and she just barely out, she said: “How bad are you hurt?” It was the first time we said anything‚ I guess. Because we couldn’t talk about it. I won’t say why. I can’t.

I had some pretty big old bruises. In fact my backside was covered. Hers was too, she said. And one hip was in bad shape.

She’d brought in a tray with prune juice and toast and Sanka. She had on a robe. Her hair was still mussed up. She wasn’t wearing glasses. She looked pretty worn out. She said she didn’t want to go see Doc Bob — you — about the hip because then he’d see the bruises. So, she said, she reckoned we’d better quit. For a while, she said. Until we saw if the hip healed. No more dancing.

We didn’t talk about it because we were ashamed. If that’s what you’re thinking. But if you got sense enough just try to imagine what two senior citizens like myself and Sug would say, if we decided to talk, about what we were doing. And remember we didn’t hate it.

Remember she said until we saw if the hip healed or not.

It never healed. Hurt her that last month like nothing you could dream of, Mr. Glean. That’s who you remind me of, only he has eyelashes and brows. Mr. Clean. Both of us used to call you Mr. Clean. In fact, a hell of a lot of the people call you that. A lot. Ike and Mary do. Dawson. They whisper it: “Here comes Mr. Clean.” What are you going to do about it? Kick them out? They pay your way. You can’t.

Waiting, Mr. Clean, until the hip healed, but it didn’t heal. And we began to get worried, thinking she’d have to go see you. I suggested she go out‚ to another doctor, and have an X ray made. We were going to, in fact, right after the Annual Winifred Farms Luau.

MR. CLEAN, I almost quit but didn’t.

I suppose you’re thinking the hula dancer did it. No. It was getting in the bus‚ and having so much trouble lowering ourselves in the seat, and then my having to go to the can again‚ while we were traveling‚ and her saying: Careful. And then looking sorry after she said it.

And then, when we were down at the beach, and the pig wasn’t quite done, and all the others were waiting around there at the tables with their paper plates and silverware in their hands, and some of them with napkins tucked down in their shirts‚ and the lot repeating: “Boy, there’s a pig I’ll eat.” “There’s a pig for you.” “I could eat her all.” On and on. Laughing, nervous‚ hungry, sniffing the smoke off the meat. Sug said we ought to take a walk down the beach. We did‚ and it was hard getting up out of those picnic tables, out from behind the stationary benches, hard walking down that sandy incline. We crossed to the wet sand, but by the time we got there‚ her shoes were full.

I said I’d empty them. I started to stoop down. I knew right away I’d have trouble. My whole lower back region ached. And from the picnic tables you could hear everybody laughing. I suppose someone else, probably Willis Townsend‚ had just said that he could eat the whole pig by himself. I looked up, toward the rise, where they were.

“I could walk down a ways,” Sug said. “Because you’ll have to take the shoe off. I can’t.”

So we walked down, out of earshot, out of view. I fell down on my knees. Just dropped. And she put one hand on my head for the balance, and lifted each foot.

She put a lot of weight on me. A couple of times she almost fell, but she caught herself. It pained her to stand on one foot. And I had trouble getting the laces undone, because of the light off the sand — made my eyes water. And there was sand in her anklets. I had to take them off. She wore a wool athletic sock.

It was the first time I’d seen her feet in years. They felt cold when I brushed them off.

She had to help me up, pull on me, and she had terrible pains. So we went back to the bus, got right in the bus, sat down together, and someone — one of the Hawaiian boys — brought us our paper plates. We never saw the hula-hula dancing at all. We sat and talked. We didn’t talk about dancing at all. We talked about the great-grandchild‚ and whether Sue and Will ought to buy a house, the one I’m living in, and what the food tasted like. We didn’t mention anything about the sand, or dancing. But I knew, when we pulled away that evening, when it was all over‚ and everybody got on the bus with them leis around their necks, and all of them fell asleep with their chins half-buried in flowers‚ I knew that we’d dance that night.

We did. Not right away. We turned on the television when we got home, and both of us were dog-tired. There was one of those Mexican programs on from over in east L.A. And someone was demonstrating the samba, a dance where the dancers don’t touch, but just kind of rock back and forth, and move their arms slowly, and sometimes pass behind one another. Maybe you know it. I doubt that.

Sug said: “There’s a dance. We could try that.” And she tried. It was just rocking, you bend your shoulders forward, and you bend them back, and you move your arms. By the time she got started, the demonstration was over, the music finished.

I said: “That’s a hip dance, too, Sug. That’ll hurt.”

“Hurting right now,” she said‚ and kept on rocking. “You don’t have to bend so much.”

So I tried. Without music it was easier, because you could set your own pace. We rocked back and forth, and got damned tired.

She started to pass by me, rocking in and out, slowly, like that. And we just sort of touched. Hip bones. I’ve thought this over so many times. When we just brushed she groaned, just a little, whimpered.

My idea about the grease. Get the grease, cover our clothes with it, then we’d slide. I wanted to dance. She wouldn’t stop. We rubbed the grease over the outside of our clothes standing side by side at the kitchen table. Then we started again. Just one slight brush. “Oh!” she whispered.

Then another, light. I grunted.

Want to quit?

No.

Ungh.

They got harder. Before long they were just as hard as ever. Before long we quit moving our arms. We quit swaying. We just circled each other, stepping back when we were facing, and with our glasses off‚ so we couldn’t see, and then coming in, hard.

Wham.

Wham!

I had to quit. Now, I’ll go quickly. Sometime along the way I fell down and slept on the floor and I guess she just kept circling until whatever it was‚ a vein, broke open in her brain and killed her. Killed her.

The grease was cold cream and Crisco, a combination, since we didn’t have much of either. That’s the source of the smell. Now you understand. What we did, and we — Sug and I — killed her, I don’t mind. She didn’t either. I’m going to send this to you. I don’t care.

I suppose you think that’s funny when a senior citizen whose wife is dead — who helped kill his wife — says he doesn’t care. Doesn’t care if he woke up one morning on the sofa in cottage seventeen and found his Sug dead in the living room, on the floor, smeared with Crisco and cold cream, bruised.

Go out and pick yourself an apricot‚ Doc Bob, and sit back under a tree and get your hairless head to working. Figure it out why we danced the greased samba. You’ll never know. Mr. Clean. And I don’t care if I do ruin their little joke. They’ll find another one.

You’ll never know any more than I’ve told you, and you won’t get any more out of me.

That’s it. And no‚ I don’t want to return to Winifred Farms, and won’t. Never.