A Stir of Echoes (10 page)

  "Oh, my God." She would have fallen if I hadn't caught her. I led her into the hall, bracing her with my arm, turning out the light in Richard's room as we left.

  "It's all right," I said, "it's all right, Anne."

  Her face was like wax.
"What if we hadn't come back?"
she whispered.

  "We did come back," I said. "That's all that matters."

  "Oh, Tom, Tom." She began shaking in my arms.

  "It's all right," I told her.

  I held her for several minutes. Then I said, "I better take her home."

  "What?" She raised her head.

  "The girl. She lives too far away to walk."

  Anne swallowed, her lips trembling. "I'm calling the police," she said.

  "No, no, no," I said, "it wouldn't do any good."

  "Tom, this could happen again!" Anne said, looking terrified. "She'll try to kidnap someone else's child!"

  "No, she won't," I said. "She's been sitting for Elsie all this time and never tried it. I don't know why she tried it tonight but I'm sure it won't happen again."

  Anne shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "I don't know."

  I tried to get her into bed but she wouldn't go. As I left the house she was standing in Richard's room, looking down at him.

  Dorothy wasn't in the back yard. I went out to the street and looked toward the boulevard. Up on the next block I saw her walking erratically. I got into the car and followed her.

  She kept stumbling from the aura of one street lamp to the next, obviously blinded by grief, unable to tell which way she was going. I cruised behind her until I saw her heavy body pitch forward onto a lawn and lie there, twitching. I stopped the car and got out. When I reached her she was pulling up grass with her hands and teeth and sobbing like an animal.

  She made a retching sound as I helped her up. In the light from a nearby lamp, her dark eyes stared dazedly at me.

  "No," she said. "No. No. No."

  "Come on, Dorothy."

  She started to fight me suddenly, whining, her lips wrenched back, saliva running between her clenched teeth and her jaw. I had to slap her before she went limp and allowed herself to be led to the car.

  As I pulled away from the curb she started to cry again, shaking with deep sobs, her hands pressed across her face. At first I thought the noise she was making was only the sound of grief. Then I realized she was trying to talk-and, although I couldn't hear the words, I knew what it was she was saying.

  "No, I'm not taking you to the police," I said. "And I'm not telling your father. But I'd get help, Dorothy. I mean it. And I don't want to see you in our neighbourhood after tonight."

  I was sorry I'd said the last but it came out automatically.

  The rest of the way she sobbed and kept making those sounds of animal grief. I studiedly avoided her mind. When we reached her house, she pushed open the door and stumbled up the path. I pulled the door shut and made a fast U-turn. At that moment I didn't care what happened to her. I never wanted to see her again.

  When I got home Anne was sitting on the living room sofa, still wearing her topcoat.

  "Is he all right?" I asked.

  "Yes. I took his things off. He's all right."

  I noticed how pale her face was and realized that I hadn't been protecting her from anything; a woman has her own kind of knowing. I sat down next to her and put my arm around her.

  "It's all over, Anne," I said.

  It broke in her. She gasped and pressed her face against me. I felt her trembling.

  "It's all right," I tried to comfort her.

  After a while she calmed down and drew her head up. She looked at me with an expression I couldn't have fathomed just by looking at. Yet I knew what she was feeling-awe, withdrawal, anxiety.

  "You knew, didn't you?" she said, quietly.

  "Yes," I said, "I knew."

  Her eyes shut. "Then it hasn't gone," she said. "It's still with us."

  "Can you regret that now?" I asked. "If it had gone, we'd still be at The Lighthouse, thinking everything was-"

  "Don't-" She pressed a hand over her eyes and began to cry softly. This time there was more relief than sorrow.

  A broken laugh emptied from me unexpectedly. Anne looked up in disturbed surprise. "What is it?" she asked.

  I shook my head and felt tears welling into my eyes.

  " 'Real reliable,' " I said.

TEN

  THERE WAS NO DREAM THAT NIGHT.

  It wasn't needed; Anne and I both knew that what Phil had started was still very much with us.

  We spoke of it the next morning. Richard was still asleep. He'd woken up the night before when we'd taken off his pajamas again to reassure ourselves that nothing was wrong with him. He was making up for the lost sleep now. Anne and I sat drinking coffee in the kitchen before I went to work.

  "Are you going to a doctor now?" she asked.

  "Why?"

  I saw how she attempted to hide the movement at her throat by sipping some coffee.

  "Well… is it something you want?" she finally asked.

  "It's not as if I asked for it," I said.

  "That's not the point," she said.

  "Well…" I stirred my coffee idly. "It's also not as if I were sick. You admit yourself it probably made all the difference last night."

  She hesitated. Then she said, "Yes, I admit it. That doesn't change the rest of it, though."

  "The rest?"

  "You know what I mean."

  I knew. It was with me even then; the taut pressuring at my skull, the queasy unsettledness in my stomach, the fearful memory of the woman, the dread of things unknown which might become known.

  "All right, I know," I said. "I still can't believe it's a-a
harmful
faculty."

  "What if you start reading my mind?" she asked. "You already have, a little. What if it becomes- wholesale?"

  "I don't-"

  "How would you like it if you were-
exposed
to me; naked to my mind?"

  "Honey, I'm not trying to-to probe at you. You know that. The few little things I've picked up were inconsequential."

  "Like last night?" she asked.

  "We're talking about you, honey," I said.

  "All right," she said and I sensed that she was almost nervous in my presence; it was a weird feeling. "All right. But if you can pick up those other things you can pick up what I think too."

  I tried to joke but it was a mistake.

  "What's the matter," I said, "do you have something to hide? Maybe a-"

  "Everyone has something to hide!" she burst out. "And if they couldn't hide it, the world would be in a lot worse mess than it is."

  At first I felt only stunned. I stared at her, taking the fallible course of wondering if there was something hidden behind her words. Then I knew that there wasn't, that she was right. Everyone has to have a secret place in his mind. Otherwise relationships would be impossible.

  "All right," I said, "you're right. But I think I'd have to concentrate before I could-read your mind or anything."

  "Did you concentrate on these other things?" she challenged.

  "They were different. They were feelings, not-"

  "Won't you admit anything?" she asked.

  "Honey, this-power, whatever it is, may have saved our baby's life last night. I'm not anxious to kick it aside just like that."

  "You'd rather torment me with it, is that it!"

  "Torment you?"

  She looked into her coffee and I could tell from the taut, fitful way in which she breathed how upset she was. I knew in other ways too.

  "All right," she said. "All right."

  "Oh… come on, Anne," I said. "Stop making me feel guilty for this thing. Is it my fault? It was your idiot brother who started it off."

  I'd meant-with that unfortunate misconstruing of the male-that it should be a sort of joke. It didn't come out that way. Certainly she didn't take it that way.

  She pretended not to take it at all. "Then you're not going to a doctor?"

  "What in God's name could a doctor do?" I asked, angry at my own fallible defences. "I'm not sick!"

  Anne got up and put her cup and saucer in the sink. She stood looking out the window bleakly. He
is
sick. I knew that was what she was thinking.

  "I'm not-sick," I said, adding the final word so she'd think I was just repeating myself, not answering her thought.

  She turned to face me. Her expression was very grim.

  "Tell me that tonight," she said, "when you wake up shuddering."

  As I drove up to the house late that afternoon I saw Elsie watering her lawn. She was wearing tight yellow shorts and a yellow sweater several sizes too small for her.

  As I got out of the Ford she was just setting down her sprinkler on the small, rectangular patch of grass between our driveways. She straightened up, put her hands on her hips and took a deep, calculating breath. Her sweater, had it been wood, would have creaked.

  "There," she said. "That should do it."

  "Without a doubt," I said, nodding, and pulled up the garage door. Already I felt that trickling of intrusion in my mind again. I pressed my teeth together and turned back to the car.

  "Hey, what happened last night?" Elsie asked. "I called Dorothy today and her father said she's not baby-sitting any more. What'd you do-hypnotize her?" A twisted thread of thought from her mind told me what she half-imagined I'd done. I felt my stomach churning.

  "You got me," I said, blandly. "Nothing happened."

  "Oh?" She sounded disappointed.

  I got into the car and drove it into the garage. As I got out and slammed the door I saw her standing out there, hands still pressed to her hips, shoulders designedly back, waiting. I started to walk toward the back garage door, then realized that would be too overt a rebuff and, with a sigh, I went back out the front way and reached up to lower the overhead door.

  "I'm having some friends over tomorrow night," Elsie said. "Why don't you and Anne drop by? Might be fun."

  "We'd like to, Elsie," I said, "but we're having dinner at her mother's house tomorrow night."

  "Oh? That's a long drive." Anne's mother lived in Santa Barbara.

  "I know," I said, mentally kicking myself for picking such a poor lie. The door banged down. "We don't see her very often, though." Oh, well, I thought, we can always eat out and go to a drive-in movie.

  Elsie ran smoothing hands over her shorts.

  "You sure you didn't hypnotize Dorothy and tell her not to sit for me any more?" she asked. There was a mince to her voice too; the kind she had in her walk.

  "No, that's Phil's department," I said, turning away. "Say hello to Ron for me. Sorry about tomorrow night."

  She didn't answer. She must have been aware of the fact that I was avoiding conversation. There was no help for that. I just couldn't take much exposure to her mind.

  When I opened the front door, Richard came running out of the kitchen. "Daddy!" he cried.

  As I swept my son into my arms I felt a burst of love from him. He kissed my cheek and tightened his small arms around my neck. Inchoate, wordless affection seemed to pour into me; love beyond words, beyond expression, a surging of trust and need and unquestioning devotion. Sometimes I think the whole experience-with all its hideous points-was worth it for that brief moment.

  "Hello, baby," I murmured. "How are you?"

  "Hi," he said. "How you?"

  I pressed my face against his warm neck. Then Anne came out of the kitchen and the sensation dwindled. I walked over to her and kissed her. It wasn't returned.

  "Hello," I said.

  "Hello, Tom," she answered, quietly. That sense of withdrawal was still in her. I kissed her again and put my arm around her. She tried to smile but it was strained.

  "I went to a doctor today," I said.

  For a second there was a leaping of hope in her mind but then it funnelled off. She looked at me bleakly.
And?
The word touched my mind.

  "And?" she asked.

  I swallowed, smiled. "Nothing," I said, trying to make it sound like consolation. "I'm in perfect physical shape."

  "I see." Quiet; subdued.

  "Honey, I did what you asked."

  Her lips pressed together. "I'm sorry," she said, "I can't help it."

  After she'd gone into the kitchen, I sat down with Richard for a few minutes and talked to him. Presently, I put him down and went to wash up for supper.

  "The girl left her glasses here last night," was the first thing Anne said at supper.

  "Oh? Well…" I made a disconcerted sound. "I really don't think I'd care to take them back. Maybe we can mail them."

  "I threw them out," she said flatly and I felt a momentary burst of that protective hatred that had been in her the night before. I decided then that I'd have to concentrate on not anticipating her words. Her thoughts were coming too clearly now, too easily.

  "Did you give Elizabeth her comb?" I asked.

  Anne shook her head. "No. I forgot."

  "Oh."

  Silence a while. Then, as if it were the usual thing, I turned to Richard with a smile.

  "Did you baby?" I asked. "What was she-"

  Anne's fork crashed down on her plate.

"Tom, he didn't say anything."
Her voice was so restrained it shook.

  I stared at her a long time before looking down at my food.

  "Mama?" Richard asked. "What, mama?"

  "Eat your food, Richard," she said quietly.

  We ate in silence for a few minutes.

  "Oh, I… forgot to tell you," I said finally, "I'm not working tomorrow. I don't have to."

  Anne picked up her coffee cup without looking at me.

  "That's nice," she said.

  I jolted up with a rasping cry, my body alive with apprehension.

  Everything had suddenly been torn away; my life was only this moment of sudden waking and staring toward the living room where the woman was, waiting for me.