Black Diamond (31 page)

He took her into the bar and introduced her to a gnomelike old bartender whose name was Perkins. He and Perkins talked about the hotel, the staff and old clients, while Sandra gazed around the room, taking in the immensely high ceiling, the marble floors, the thick, flower-patterned rugs, the old furniture that was solid but elegant.

‘Nice?’ Roy asked her.

She nodded. Already she liked the things he liked.

They had two of Perkins’ secret-recipe cocktails. Sandra would have liked a third, or even more. She’d have liked to sit there for hours. But Roy looked at his watch. It was time to go.

They caught a cab to the theater and arrived in time to look through the program. ‘I haven’t been to see a play in years,’ she said.

‘At the last play I went to, I was surrounded by people who kept whispering to each other all the time.’

‘That’s because of television. It gets to be automatic.’

‘I was ready to start hitting them over the head.’

‘They wouldn’t have noticed. They’re those people who turn on the machine and talk over it all day long.’

The light dimmed slowly. The chattering of the audience gave way to a hush. As the house lights went out altogether, the curtain rose on a scene set in a psychoanalyst’s office. The analyst was pretending to listen to a patient, yet all the while he was doing everything in his power to prevent a woman, hidden behind his chair, from stepping out and revealing herself. She was trying to leave the office. And she was also attempting to put on the rest of her clothes. The patient talked about how he thought that his wife might be seeing another man.

The next scene was set in the office of a female analyst. She had once been married to the first analyst and now she was taking notes while she listened to one of her patients.

Each new scene allowed the audience to see that the characters who confessed their infidelities or doubts were giving
information 
to the very people who were involved in their betrayal. Not only that: after the initial misunderstandings had been shown, they were followed by variations; the characters who appeared to be the conscious manipulators of the first scenes became the unwitting victims of those that followed. And after the second act the pace quickened: people were rushing through doors and dashing behind sofas so fast that every person on stage was suffering from at least four mistaken ideas. But it all worked out in the end: by the time the final curtain came down, all the couples – even the two analysts – were reunited, and everything was serene and reasonable, with only a slight loose end announcing that perhaps a gentle tweak at the plot could start the whole mix-up all over again.

Sandra and Roy turned to smile at each other while they applauded. Before the last curtain call he took her hand and led her out of her seat to follow the couple next to him, who were heading down the center aisle.

They were out on the street, with their coats on, and climbing into a taxi before the main crowd had left the auditorium. And soon they were sitting at a table for two, in a restaurant where the lighting was only slightly dimmed and the waiters and the other customers were lively enough to make the place fun.

They talked about the play: how delightful it had been and how cleverly it managed to string the audience along from one point to the next. The action had been like clockwork – like one of those watches where you could look in and see the wheels going around. Cause and effect had been so clearly demonstrated: you began to think that if only you could pin down the sources of your own mistakes and confusions, they too would be explained and, consequently, solved.

They ate and drank and looked into each other’s eyes. He told her stories about where he’d grown up. She talked – because he asked her – about Aunt Marion and then about the rest of her relatives: her attractive, pig-headed sister, her maddening and sometimes unkind, yet irresistible mother, her adorable,
absent-minded
father, who was the peacemaker of the family.

All at once she realized that she’d had a lot to drink. She didn’t
want to spoil things; she put her glass down. ‘This is a nice place,’ she said.

‘Yes, it’s not bad. At least the food’s all right. And you can see what you’re eating. And nobody’s playing a piano right in your ear.’

‘Is Eric out in a costume tonight?’

‘He said he didn’t want to. He said he’d decided that
Halloween
was for the younger kids.’

‘I always loved it. I was very upset when it all stopped. Who’s with him?’

‘Somebody named Karen.’

‘Not the one who gives him a bath?’

‘He told you about that?’

‘She didn’t sound like a very good babysitter.’

‘No, but she’s a great cook. That’s what I hired her for. Her name’s Debbie.’

‘Oh. He didn’t say she worked for you. I got the idea that she came in from outside.’

‘That’s Ricky. He’ll take something that’s basically true, extract the part that made the impression on him and rework it so that it’s completely different. Something’s there that’s similar to what was in the actual event, but even if you dig for it, the emphasis is all wrong.’

‘I sort of figured that out while he was talking to me. But I think most people do all that anyway, don’t you? I do it. To make myself more interesting, or to impress. Most of the time I’m not really aware of doing it.’

‘He’s fully aware of what he’s doing, I can tell you that. Don’t ever underestimate his intelligence.’

‘He needs some friends,’ she said. She cleared her throat and added, ‘At least, that’s the way it seemed to me.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Because he needed to talk.’

‘I don’t think it’s because the other kids avoid him. But I don’t know what comes first: he’s standoffish with them. And a snob. They call him names. And then he says something back, full of five-syllable words they can’t find in the dictionary because they
don’t know how to spell them. That’s how the business with Schizo began: because he used the term “schizophrenic” in class. It was one of the words he was showing off with; he’d even named his pet hamster Schizo, because of the way it ran around. The hamster – that was horrible. Of course he didn’t mean to do it. And it taught him something he’ll always remember, but still – I’ll never forget that moment when he came screaming down the stairs, all covered in blood.’

‘What happened?’

‘Oh, he … he’s so smart, you know. It’s hard to remember that sometimes he just doesn’t see things any idiot can
understand
.’

‘What happened?’ she said again.

‘He cut it open, to see what was inside.’

‘Oh, no.’ She put down her fork.

‘I don’t think the blood bothered him at all. It was when the hamster started to squeak. Then he was terrified.’

She put a hand over her face. She couldn’t get rid of the picture; Eric and his hamster: cutting it open with a razor blade, or something less grown-up – a pair of scissors, maybe.

‘He was so upset about it that he cried for hours. We held a funeral for it and everything. Buried it in a shoebox, underneath a lilac bush in the back yard. I was just beginning to believe that he’d recovered, when he started to talk about how some people were vegetarians because they thought it was wrong to kill animals. I worked for days on explaining the difference between a domestic pet and an animal bred for consumption.’

‘Is there a difference?’

‘Of course there is. That’s why farmers eat the animals their neighbors sell, and let them buy the ones they’ve raised. It’s the emotion you invest in them.’

‘It isn’t the act of killing?’

‘You’re not a vegetarian.’

‘No. But if I had to kill the animals, I would be. So would a lot of people.’

‘Not me.’

‘And Eric? Ricky?’

‘I think he’d agree with you. On the other hand, if it were for something like medical research, I have a feeling he’d be able to kill anything or anybody without giving a thought to how much it hurt. He’s good at putting things in different compartments. That’s another reason why I have such a hard time keeping up with him. He’s always got something new.’

‘Well, he’s still growing.’ She changed the subject back to the play. They had coffee and a liqueur.

It was still fairly warm outside, in spite of the late hour and the time of year. They walked back to the hotel. As he started the car he said, ‘I’ve always wanted to check in here for the night sometime, just for fun.’ He looked at her as he said it.

‘I can see why,’ she said quickly, brushing aside the suggestion he’d put in front of her. She knew it was intended and he knew that she knew, but she had to act as if she hadn’t seen what he’d meant. The whole thing was ridiculous but they were supposed to follow a prescribed set of moves in the correct order, otherwise the result would be like a painting-by-number game where no one had obeyed the instructions. Unlike her meeting with Eric, there was a particular, formulated method according to which this encounter was meant to proceed, and to finish.

‘It’s a great hotel,’ she said. ‘It’s one of those places you know you’ll want to go back to.’

At the street entrance of the building she lived in he said, ‘I’ll see you to your door.’

At the door he kissed her. It wasn’t an ordinary kiss. She was ready to give him everything right then, but she’d never said yes on the first date, not even when she’d been a little drunk. She pulled away. He whispered, ‘No?’

‘It isn’t that I don’t want to,’ she said.

‘Can I see you tomorrow? Same time, same place?’

‘All right. Yes,’ she said.

She closed the door slowly. If they went out the next night and came back to the apartment afterwards … She suddenly thought: It was going to take her all night to clean the place up.

She put the books and papers into neat stacks, dragged the second table back to where it was supposed to be and hid the
laundrybags behind the bathroom door. She was dusting the top shelf of the bookcase when the downstairs doorbell rang.

She picked up the receiver of the entryphone and said hello. There was no answer. She said hello again. A man’s voice, not easy to recognize, said, ‘I forgot something.’ It was Bert. It had to be, even though it didn’t sound like his voice.

‘It’s late,’ she said. ‘Phone me tomorrow. Goodnight.’ She hung up. She put the chain on the door.

The bell went again. She ignored it. She went back to cleaning the apartment. The bell rang steadily, and insistently, for nearly a minute; then there was silence. She finished everything but the vacuuming, working fast, and got ready for bed. Before she turned in for the night she took out the phone book and telephoned the twenty-four-hour locksmiths. She asked them to come change a lock for her at six in the morning.

She dropped into bed. It seemed to her afterwards that she had many dark and fragmented dreams but she couldn’t remember any of them. She felt that the alarm had rung just a little before it was quite fair. When the locksmith arrived she was already dressed and drinking coffee.

He didn’t tell her his name. Over the entryphone he just said, ‘Locksmith,’ and at her door he told her, ‘From Lockett’s Locks.’

She offered him a cup of coffee; he said that that was okay, it wouldn’t take long. ‘Been burgled?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Well, that’s something, anyways.’

‘Um.’

‘Lost your keys?’

‘No, I lent a set to somebody. And now it sort of makes me nervous.’

‘Better be safe,’ he told her.

‘Right. I guess most of your work is for people who’ve had their keys stolen.’

‘All kinds of reasons. Divorce – we get a lot of that. And some people change their keys every time they get the workmen in to fix something. It’s a never-ending job. Twenty-four hours, like the ad says.’ When he’d finished, he gave her two keys.

She put one of the keys in the bottom desk drawer and the other on her keychain. She threw the old key into the waste-basket, so that she wouldn’t mix it up with one of the others.

Twenty minutes after the locksmith had left, Bert was outside the door. He’d persuaded, or tricked, some other tenant into buzzing the street door for him. He was trying to work the lock with his old key.

She stepped up to the door, put the chain back on and said, ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s me.’

She opened the door as far as the chain allowed. She said, ‘Go away, Bert. I’ve had the lock changed.’

‘Who was that guy?’ he asked.

‘What guy?’

‘I saw you go out with him last night. You know. The one with the incredible car.’

‘What do you want, Bert?’

‘I want to talk to you. Is he in there? Come on, Sandra. Open up.’

‘Nobody’s here, Bert. Will you please go away?’

‘I’m not going anywhere till you let me in.’

‘No. I won’t. And why should I? If you don’t let me close this door, I’ll phone the police. I mean it.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘All right.’ He took his foot away. ‘What the hell? What do you think I’m going to do to you? If there wasn’t anybody here last night, why wouldn’t you let me in?’

‘If I’d let you in, I’d never have been able to get you to go away again.’

‘Oh, I’d have gone. I’m not one of those violent types. You know me.’

‘I know how much you weigh. And I could just see you flopping down on the couch and talking at me for six hours about how I should have second thoughts. If you didn’t want to leave, I wouldn’t be able to throw you out.’

‘Oh, come on.’

‘I’ve got to go,’ she told him. She closed the door.

She had time to do the vacuuming, wash two pairs of tights and get a load of laundry hung up over the bathtub before she went to work.

There was a note on her desk to say that she was supposed to get in touch with Bert as soon as she got in. She didn’t. Fifteen minutes later, when she was about to go to her first meeting, his secretary called. Sandra was ready with an excuse, but he came in on the line before she could get it out.

‘You can’t keep this up,’ he told her. ‘I’ve got work to do. I’ll see you for lunch.’

‘I don’t want lunch,’ she said. ‘I’m out for dinner tonight.’ He’d already hung up.