The Woman Next Door Page 12

  "It's nothing," Tim said. "If we wash it right away—"

  "No. Forget it. Just get me a wet paper towel." He started for the kitchen.

  "Tim," she called, "how long was I asleep?"

  "Not long. A half-hour, I guess." And he wondered why he'd lied. What difference was there, really, between a half-hour and an hour? So, she'd fallen asleep for an hour. Her work tired her.

  He wet the paper towel, went back to the living room. "Here you go," he said. Christine said nothing.

  "Christine?" Still nothing. He went around to the front of the chair. "Honey?"

  She was asleep.

  Brett lay face down on the faded linoleum. He had caught glimpses, as he fell, of an old refrigerator, and a small stove (the name Welbilt flashed through his memory, and he remembered thinking that it was not the inspiration of genius).

  "Andrea?" he whispered.

  He focused on a worn pattern of random blue and green flecks in the linoleum. God, that's tacky, he thought.

  "Andrea?" he said again.

  He became aware of numbness in his hands and feet. He moved his head a little. His right hand was palm down on the linoleum under his shoulder. That surprised him. He had supposed that his arm was extended, the back of his hand against the floor near the top of his thigh.

  He saw the snow piling up around him, felt the wind against the back of his neck, against his cheek. "Hello?" he said, and wondered immediately if he had actually said it. "Hello? Help me, please." He listened to himself. Suddenly pitied himself.

  And then it all came together for him: This house had been abandoned. Nothing but spiders and birds and mice lived in it. It waited for the wreckers or time to deliver it.

  "Christ . . . oh, Christ!"

  COUPLE FOUND DEAD OF EXPOSURE.

  He made a weak fist, lifted it, let it drop. "Damn it to hell!"

  COUPLE FOUND DEAD OF EXPOSURE.

  It had happened nine or ten years earlier—the scandal of the winter. He remembered discussing it with Marilyn, remembered editorializing angrily about the awful insensitivity of the fuel-oil supplier in shutting the old couple off during the coldest month of the year, remembered thinking that Marilyn hadn't seemed to fare very much: "It's not really any of our concern, is it, Brett?"

  "Goddamnit! Goddamnit!"

  And the old couple's name had been Ferraro. Joseph and Marie Ferraro. In their eighties.

  Dead of exposure.

  In this house.

  Ten years ago.

  "Andrea?"

  Get the fuck hold of yourself, Brett!

  With great effort, he pushed himself up on all fours. He turned his head, saw white beyond the kitchen door, nothing else.

  "The worst storm of the decade," they'd say. "Came at us right out of Canada." And the news story would read: "Brett Courtney, prosperous 39-year-old insulation contractor, was found dead early yesterday, the victim of exposure. . . ."

  He scrambled to his feet and lunged against the door. It slammed shut, and he crumpled with his back to it, his feet and legs alive with pain. He closed his eyes. "Help me," he murmured. "Help me."

  "I'm here, Brett."

  He opened his eyes, saw the snow piled around him, the stove, the refrigerator.

  "In the living room, darling."

  He saw a wisp of dark hair appear in the kitchen doorway. "Andrea?" he said.

  "In the living room, darling. It's cold. Come get a fire started."

  He put his hands on his thighs; he could feel nothing. "Andrea, I can't."

  "But you can, my darling. Believe me. You can. I'm cold, too. Come get a fire started."

  He squeezed his thighs; some feeling had returned to them. He reached up, grabbed the doorknob. "Yes," he said. He pulled himself to a standing position, gasped at the pain, and, like a drunk, stumbled across the kitchen, through an adjoining hallway, and into what had once been the living room. He stopped, leaned against the archway. "Andrea?"

  "I'm here, darling."

  He looked toward the source of her voice.

  She sat half in darkness in an old overstuffed chair in a far corner of the room. He could see the bottom of her suede coat, her green dress, her calves and feet, the backs of her hands where they rested on the arms of the chair.

  "Andrea, darling—"

  "The fireplace, Brett."

  She pointed. He looked. The fireplace was large and functional; there were beer cans strewn around it, some pieces of waxed paper, a discarded paperback novel.

  "Andrea, I don't understand—"

  "Hunters use this house from time to time, Brett. They make sure the fireplace is in working order." "But the firewood—"

  "You can use this chair." She stood, stepped away from the chair. "It won't be hard to break apart, Brett. It's very old, and the stuffing will catch easily."

  "But—"

  He saw her point again. He looked.

  "There," she said, "near that book."

  He took a deep breath. The numbness was returning. A long sleep seemed quite appealing.

  "Near that book," he heard, and was aware that the voice was insistent.

  He lurched toward the fireplace, stopped, stood unsteadily over the book, stared at it a moment without comprehension. And saw the box of kitchen matches.

  Seconds later he was face down on the floor.

  The movements of Christine's hand and arm were quick, almost furious.

  "What's that?" Tim asked.

  The white paint she was using now had obliterated the still life she'd been working on. The not-yet-dry greens and yellows of the still life blended with the long, slanting strokes of white to produce an effect of vast and frenzied confusion.

  "It's a snowstorm, of course," Christine told him. "Any fool can see that."

  "Then, I must be a fool," Tim said (She's just tired), "because I can see that it's a snowstorm."

  "Don't patronize me, Tim."

  She put the brush down, picked up another, dipped it into some brown paint. She transferred it to the canvas, worked at it a moment.

  "Who's that?"

  "It's a man."

  "Oh?"

  "Yes. He's lost in the storm."

  "Will he find his way out of it?"

  "I asked you not to patronize me, Tim. I don't know if he'll find his way out of it. It's up to him."

  Tim nodded out the window. "Is that the storm you're painting?"

  Tim studied the painting a moment longer. "It looks good," he told her. "It looks very good."

  "I can feel it," she said. "You've got to feel it to paint it."

  Tim said nothing. The painting wasn't merely good; it was a kind of cold and harsh reality all its own. It disturbed him. It made his pulse quicken, made him dizzy. And afraid.

  Brett's first awareness was of warmth against his closed lids—a slightly pulsating, prickly warmth. "Andrea. . . ." He barely heard his own voice. "Andrea?"

  He opened his eyes. The chair had been sacrificed. The fire was dazzling.

  At the periphery of his vision, he saw a pile of clothes. He turned his head slightly; they were his clothes—his coat, his shoes, his pants, even his underwear. "What the—?"

  "It's okay, fella." A man's voice. "You're gonna be okay. Good thing I spotted your car down there."

  Brett turned his head further, saw the old lined face, the friendly gray eyes. "Who are you?"

  "Name's Peters, Matt Peters. I'm the deputy sheriff round here, Mr. Courtney."

  "How'd you—?"

  "Had to take those wet clothes off ya, so I checked your ID while I was at it. Few more minutes, you woulda bought the farm for sure, so I figured if there was anyone to notify. I'd have to know who you was." He nodded toward the window. "Musta been all of twenty degrees in here; it's about zero out there. Never seen a blizzard like this, not in all my sixty-three years. Got my jeep stuck halfway up that accursed driveway." He paused briefly, then said, "Ya mind tellin' me what you was doin' here?"

  "I thought . . . a friend
of mine lived here. A woman."

  "No woman here when I got here, Mr. Courtney. And only your tracks, what was left of 'em."

  Brett accepted the man's words without question: He wouldn't understand; he couldn't.

  "Thank you," Brett said.

  "Wasn't nothin'. Just doin' my job, is all."

  "Thank you," Brett repeated. And added, "Thank you for more than I can say."

  Chapter 23

  Sonny Norton had never before felt a pain like the pain that was pushing through him now. It had started in his head, just a whisper of pain, as if some small insect were trying to burrow into his scalp. It had quickly escalated, vaulted into his neck and shoulders, then into his chest and legs, as if some great invisible animal was on him, pushing him to the sidewalk, trying to suffocate him. He groaned, tore at his shirt, his ears, his hands. He fell to his knees, groaned louder, longer.

  And the pain was gone. He continued groaning, though only in memory of the pain. He looked about. Marilyn Courtney's house was to his left, Christine Bennet's to his right.

  The insect started burrowing into his scalp again. He stood jerkily, panic overcoming him, and stumbled away.

  Chapter 24

  Brett mixed himself another scotch and water, sipped it. "Something for you?" he said.

  "No," Marilyn answered. "Just get on with it."

  Brett looked quizzically at her. "What does that mean?"

  "You've got something you want to talk about. It's been obvious ever since you got home. Jesus, Brett, you think I don't know you after sixteen years? You're predictable; you have routines. Like drinking. You do your drinking after supper. I've never seen you pour a drink at this hour—it's not even time for lunch. There have been other things, too. For instance, you've been talking in your sleep. And you said a name."

  Brett stiffened. "A name?"

  "Yes. I don't know whose name, but it certainly wasn't mine."

  "Well, I don't have any—"

  "So, I have to assume that you've got something on your mind. Am I right or wrong?"

  Brett hesitated. So, the time had come—sooner than he'd hoped. He'd hoped for a week or two, for time enough to sort things out in his own mind, time enough to somehow ease Marilyn into it, though he had never had any idea how.

  "And I know," Marilyn added, "that you didn't go up to the cottage just to get it ready for the summer. You don't do things like that, Brett."

  And Brett realized that "time enough" was a rationalization, his cowardice coming back. Time and distance and warmth were weakening him.

  "Brett, I'm waiting."

  "You're right, Marilyn." A moment after the words escaped him, he wanted desperately to call them back. "You're right," he repeated, because he wanted even more desperately to be certain she heard the words.

  She grinned—the same malicious grin he had seen two weeks earlier, only now it had an added dimension: Gee, this might be entertaining. "Go on, Brett." She crossed her legs as if making herself comfortable. "Who is she?"

  "Her name doesn't matter."

  A look of quick and very intense pain flashed across Marilyn's face. Her grin vanished. "It matters, Brett!" She spat the words. "It matters to me."

  He downed the rest of his drink. "Andrea," he said. "That's her name—Andrea."

  Marilyn's grin reappeared. "Yes, continue."

  "And you could say . . . that I loved her."

  Silence. Stiff, cold silence. And that damned grin.

  Brett poured himself another scotch, stared at it blankly a moment, then dumped it into the ice bucket. "It all started about a month ago." He waited for her to interrupt, but she said nothing. He looked quizzically at her—her silence was beginning to unnerve him —and continued: "We never talked about divorce or marriage or anything like that." He noted the uneasy tone in his voice, noted that it was on the verge of a whine; Jesus, if she'd just stop grinning. "We loved each other, Marilyn; it's as simple as that. We loved each other. Totally." And a simple, hard truth struck him: He had been using the past tense to describe his relationship with Andrea, as if, having come magically into his life, she had magically gone out of it, forever. "And you know, the beautiful thing, Marilyn, the really beautiful thing is, we never said it. We didn't have to say it; we lived it every time we were together." And it struck him, too, that this truth—that Andrea had come into his life, had helped him to change it, and now was gone from it—did not really sadden him, because, he thought wryly, the beautiful and impossible fantasy that Andrea was could hardly last very long. He closed his eyes briefly, suddenly aware that he had stumbled into yet another truth, but one that was far more complex, one that his logic told him wasn't at all possible. "And that feeling Andrea and I had, Marilyn—that love is so obvious it doesn't need to be said—is something I've never experienced before."

  Marilyn stood abruptly. She was still grinning. Brett could see that her hands were clenched into fists, her knuckles white. He thought, My God, what have I been saying?

  "I'm sorry, Marilyn, forgive me, I didn't mean—"

  She turned and left the room. Brett listened as she went up the stairs to their bedroom. Listened as she closed the door. Locked it.

  And listened in disbelief to the long, catlike scream that caromed off the inner walls of the house.

  Dear Tim,

  I feel tired. I've never felt this tired before. I wish I could compare it to something you'd recognize. I wish I could say I feel as if I've just run ten miles.

  A comparison does come to mind. I hope you understand it. First, you must know that this tiredness I feel is not a physical thing. Going to sleep for twenty-four hours would have no effect on it. Nor is it a mental exhaustion. I think it's mostly an emotional weariness, as if I've been waiting a long, long time for some very momentous thing to happen to me. Like waiting and waiting for an important letter to arrive, only much more protracted than that. And I don't know when this thing will happen, or why, or even what it is, only that it will happen and that my life will be changed by it. And so I feel in a constant state of transition, as if I'm being taken somewhere by someone for some reason, and though in time I will know all the why's, they are being hidden from me now.

  I doubt that I'll give you this letter.

  Christine

  Brett cringed, remembering his words. He knew now precisely what "twisting the knife" meant. He'd not only twisted it; he'd shoved it in up to his wrist and run it around inside her for a while. Small wonder her reaction.

  And yet it had been such an inhuman scream—not just a scream of agony, but grotesque agony, as if she'd been exploding from the inside, and slowly, slowly. As if, in those long, terrible seconds, he was hearing some abominable creature that had crept into the room with her, put its vile hands over her mouth, and screamed for her.

  He shuddered and cursed his imagination.

  The important thing was, the marriage was over. At last. And that meant readjustment.

  He would let her keep the house, of course. It was hers, really. She had decorated it, she had seen to its renovation—the hiring of plumbers and electricians, carpenters and groundsmen—and she so reveled in the product of her labors. And if she were forced to move to some other house, an ordinary house with twelve-by-twelve-foot rooms and coffin like closets, her claustrophobia would soon overwhelm her.

  The queen and her castle. Let her have the house. Greg, however, was another matter entirely.

  He thought, suddenly, that he should have locked the door to this room. Should have closed it, anyway. He sat up in the bed. He felt unaccountably thankful for the yellow night-light in the hallway. He knew instantly, and with a tinge of regret, why he was thankful: Marilyn frightened him. Her grin frightened him, and her silence. He felt comforted that he was in a room on the opposite side of the house from her. He thought that when he actually moved out, his damned migraines would finally go away.

  He lay down again. Marilyn was no threat to him. She was a threat to herself, perhaps. But not to
him.

  In his entire fifteen years in the house, Brett had never slept in this part of it. There were three bedrooms, all off the same long hallway, which were reserved for the occasional overnight guest, usually one of Marilyn's relatives. (Brett's relatives rarely visited! His brother, Lou, had come closest to explaining why: "It's a very nice house, Brett, but the atmosphere's a little stiff, isn't it?" Brett knew what he meant. Marilyn was a big part of the atmosphere of the house.) And because he'd never slept here, he was unaccustomed to the noises the house made on this side. On the other side, a brisk wind could cause the window casings to groan dramatically, and, on particularly humid nights, the house made strange, random, cricket like noises (it had something to do with the expansion of the wood beneath the new metal siding on the house's back wall, he supposed). The toilet adjoining their bedroom made its own noises, too—persistent, low gurgling noises. ("You got a hell of a lot of plumbing in this house," the plumber explained. "Sure you're going to get some noise from it, sure.")

  Brett listened. The rasping sounds seemed to be coming from the end of the hallway, near what Marilyn called the Red Room (because the motif was predominantly, and loudly, red).

  "Marilyn?" be called.

  Silence.

  He decided in the next moment that if she was on her way to this room, the old floor would shout her approach. He imagined her moving slowly, stealthily down the hallway, some kind of weapon in hand, keeping her weight on the extreme right or left side and away from the middle, because that's where the boards creaked loudest, of course. The image made him chuckle nervously.

  "Marilyn?" he said again, surprising himself. He swung his feet to the floor.

  He heard the rasping sounds again, closer, near the second bedroom.

  He stood, moved on tiptoe to the door, stuck his head out, squinted down the hallway.

  "Daddy?"

  It was Greg.

  "Tim, I wrote you, a letter."

  Tim rolled to his shoulder. "Oh? When can I see it?"

  "I put it in the garbage disposal."