Deep Water (33 page)

       "My goodness!" Vic said. "How'd you people get here? Fly?"

       "I picked them up so you wouldn't see the car when you came in," Melinda told him. She was wearing a very feminine and fetching black dress with black lace at the shoulders.

       "And you'll have to deliver us," Horace said. "That means I can drink all I want to tonight. We've already started, I'm afraid, but we'll brim the glasses again and drink your health."

       They all sang a chorus of "Happy Birthday, Dear Vic" to him with lifted glasses, and Roger barked all through it. Even Roger was sporting a red ribbon tied to the back of his collar. Then came the presents. Melinda handed him three tied-together boxes from Brooks Brothers, each of which contained a sweater—one a mustard-colored coat sweater, one blue and red, which was an Italian import, and the third a white tennis sweater with a red stripe. Vic adored good sweaters. He was touched to the point of feeling a lump in his throat that Melinda had given him three. Horace gave him an electric razor, with the remark that he had been trying to convert him for years from his straight-edged razor and that he thought the only way was to put an electric razor in his hands. Then from Trixie an ebony brush and a comb, and from Roger a woolen tie. Mary gave him a latest edition of a carpenter and woodworker's manual, a book Vic was never without, though he hadn't bought this edition.

       "I wonder if I should give him his other present now or after dinner?" Melinda asked the Mellers anxiously.

       The Mellers said to give it to him now, and Melinda went to her room and came back with a large box wrapped in gold paper. She set it down on the floor.

       "I wasn't sure how it works, so I had it at the back of my closet in the dark," she said.

       Horace laughed. He and Mary obviously knew what it was and watched him expectantly as he unwrapped it and opened the corrugated box inside.

       It was a Geiger counter complete with headphone, probe, and shoulder strap. There were even ore samples. Vic was speechless, delighted. He went to Melinda and put his arm around her.

       "Melinda—thanks," he said, and pressed his lips against her cheek.

       When he glanced at the Mellers, they were regarding him and Melinda with satisfied smiles, and Vic felt at once self-conscious and a little silly. Out of character, perhaps that was it. Because Melinda was out of character. She was acting, just as he had used to act, deliberately displaying an emotion or an attitude that was unlike the emotion or attitude he felt within himself. He and Melinda had essentially exchanged attitudes, Vic felt, since now he believed that his behavior was truer to what he really felt than he had allowed it to be in years, and that Melinda was pretending her good will.

       During the dinner—squabs, mashed potatoes, braised endives, and watercress salad—he tried to relax and really not to think, because he was groping in his mind for clues, for leads, as a man in a dark room that he has not been in before might grope for a light pull, knowing the light pull exists yet having no idea where. He was hoping that the aimless play of his brain might brush against the reason for Melinda's goodness. After De Lisle's death her decorum had been for the public, but this was for him. She was thoughtful and polite to him when there was nobody around to see her. But of course the public reaction to the second murder—it startled him a little that he called it "murder" in his thoughts now—had been different, too. There had been a great deal more suspicion of him in regard to De Lisle than to Cameron. He had had it lucky that Havermal had been such an unpopular fellow. Havermal's story of the romance and intended elopement of Melinda and Cameron, therefore, had been considered highly suspect or greatly exaggerated by the majority of people who had heard it. Vic had been impressed by the fact that Trixie had not come home with a single canard against him. The only thing she had brought home to tell him was that one of her classmates had said that her parents had said that people liked to pick on people who were different from other people. Trixie had not really grasped what she was saying, and Vic had had to think to make sense of her words himself, but it seemed to be the old story of the conforming majority against the nonconformer, in this case his nonconformance being his income, he supposed, his nonprofitable publishing business, his tolerance of his wife's affairs, his televisionless household, and perhaps even his superannuated car. Vic had given Trixie a talk then on persecuted minorities and individuals, with examples from history. Trixie was going to be a conformist par excellence after her childhood, Vic was sure, but he liked to think that he might have opened a small door in her mind about nonconformers. He had made the story of Galileo as interesting as he could.

       When the time came to drive the Mellers home, Melinda wanted to go, too. That had not happened in years.

       No one could have said the evening was not a success. The closest to it, Vic thought, had been the first birthday Melinda had celebrated in Little Wesley about nine years ago, when they had also invited the Mellers. But as he started out of the door into the garage with his sweaters and his Geiger counter he was struck by the contrast of his isolation now with his closeness to Melinda then, and he stopped, turned around, and went back into the living room.

       Melinda was in her bedroom, starting to remove her dress.

       "I wasn't sure I thanked you enough," Vic said. "It's the nicest birthday I can remember."

       "I think you thanked me," she said, smiling. "Do you mind unfastening this? I can't reach the middle part."

       He put everything down on her bed and unhooked the rest of the hooks and eyes that went down the middle of her back. "Who hooked you up?"

       "Trixie. She's asleep now. Would you like a nightcap?"

       A faint chill went up his spine. "No, thanks. I thought I'd go over and try my counter on that crazy conglomerate rock in my room."

       "What rock?"

       "I guess you haven't seen it. It's been there for months, though. In the corner by the filing cabinet." She looked as if she were about to say, "I want to go with you and look at it, too," and he hoped she wouldn't.

       She didn't. She looked from him down to the floor, then turned and began to pull her dress over her head.

       "So I'll say good night," Vic said, walking to the door. "Good night, Vic. And happy birthday"

       He tried the counter, following the directions in the instruction book. After a moment he heard a click, then another, then a longer pause, and three more. The rocks in the conglomeration were of varying ages, of course. He put the set away, feeling tired and a little troubled. As soon as he lay down in bed, he thought of the way Melinda had asked him if he wanted a nightcap—tentatively, as if she didn't know him. Or was that it? He felt an echo of the same unpleasant chill. It was fear, and why did he have it? Just what had he to be afraid of if he had had a nightcap with her in her room, sat on her bed, perhaps even slept in her bed? His mind shied away from further imaginings, and returned to the fear he had felt. He didn't know why Melinda was being so friendly That was part of it. He supposed it was the main part. He decided to proceed with even more caution—not be cold or unreceptive, just proceed with caution. Too often he had swallowed her bait and found himself wriggling on a hook. All he wanted was peace in the household, he reminded himself. Once there was real peace, a peace that could be trusted—Well, 'lie' could go on from there when he came to that.

       The following evening, with really no forethought about it, Vic had a nightcap with Melinda in her room. She had not asked him into her room, he had simply brought her highball in to her and sat down, on a chair. But once there, he was uncomfortable, and began talking to her about getting some new curtains for her room.

       "Oh, I don't care," Melinda said. "Curtains're awfully expensive, and after all who sees them?"

       "That's right, who sees them?—Well, you."

       "I never look at them." She was sitting in front of her dressing table, brushing her hair. "You know, Vic, I'm glad I didn't go away with Tony. I like you better," she said matter-of-factly. "You don't mind, do you?"

       "No-o."

       "Well, do you?" She smiled at him.

       He found her self-consciousness fascinating. "No."

       "I'm glad you behaved the way you did. About Charley, too." "What do you mean 'behaved'?"

       "Oh—you never really lost control, and yet they both knew you didn't like them and wished they'd disappear. Maybe Tony did just disappear. Go to another town, I mean." She waited.

       "Well, I'm glad you realize that," he said gently, after a moment. "You may hear from him some day—a note of apology. He's got a conscience."

       "A conscience? Do you think so?"

       "More than De Lisle had, anyway."

       "We'll never hear from him, will we?"

       "Not bloody likely. Poor guy."

       "They're both poor guys—compared to you." She was standing by her night table lamp now, working at one nail with an emery board.

       "What makes you suddenly think that?"

       "You think so, don't you?"

       "Yes. But you've never thought so, even when we were first married."

       "Oh, Vic, that's not true!"

       "I can remember right after we were married. You were happy and yet you weren't. You couldn't make up your mind if you'd made a mistake or if you couldn't do any better. So your eye started roving—long before you did."

       "I just stare at people," she said, with a shy smile.

       He smiled in return.

       "Aren't I staring at you lately?"

       "Yes. Why?"

       "I have my reasons."

       "I'll bet you have!" He laughed.

       She went wide-eyed, off balance. "Don't kid me, Vic."

       "Did Trixie tell you the joke she heard today? Two turtles were walking—"

       "And don't change the subject. For Christ's sake, I'm trying to be nice!" she yelled.

       He smiled, appreciatively. She sounded like herself again.

       "I just meant—I was trying to tell you that I admire you and that I like you. I like everything you do. Even your keeping snails. And I'm sorry for the way I've acted in the past."

       "That speech sounds as difficult as a grade school valediction." "Well, it isn't difficult. I made it—because I think I have quite a lot to make up for."

       "Melinda, what're you up to?"

       She came toward him. "Can't we try again, Vic?"

       "Of course," he said, smiling. "I've been trying all along." "I know." She touched his hair.

       He barely kept from flinching. He stared at the edge of the rug on the other side of the room. He loathed her touch. It was insulting, he felt, simply insulting, considering all that had happened. He was glad when she took her hand away.

       "Tomorrow's Saturday," she said. "Shall we make a picnic lunch and go out somewhere with Trixie?"

       "I'd like to, but I promised Horace to go to Wesley with him to pick out some building materials. He's building a shed. Isn't it getting a little cold for picnics?"

       "I don't think so."

       "What's the matter with Sunday?"

       "I think Trixie's doing something Sunday."

       "Oh. Well, maybe you and I can go on a picnic Sunday," he said pleasantly. "Good night, Melinda. Sleep well." He went out.

Chapter 26

Trixie was doing something on Sunday. A little boy named Georgie Tripp was having a party and Trixie was invited and wanted to go. Vic had to drive her there at one in the afternoon. Trixie had thought she knew how to get to where the Tripps lived—it was out of town on a country road, and she had been there before—but she got lost, and Vic had to go back to the house for the directions that Mrs. Tripp had given to Melinda by telephone that morning. When Vic got back to the house he found Melinda on the telephone talking to Don Wilson. Her back was to him as she stood at the telephone in her room, and for some reason, perhaps because he hadn't closed the car door, she hadn't heard him come back. He knew that from her intense voice as she said, "I don't know, Don. I can't tell you anything ... No." And then Vic's steps made a sound on the hall floor—he was not trying to walk quietly, was simply approaching slowly, though he was wearing his rubber-soled sports shoes—and Melinda turned and looked startled. Then she smiled into the telephone and said, "Well, that's all for now. Got to go. Good-bye."

       "I think I'd better take that paper with the directions, after all," Vic said. "Trixie got lost."

       Melinda picked up the paper from her night table and handed it to him. The frightened surprise was still on her face, and it reminded Vic a little of her expression when he fed her scrambled eggs late at night, except that now she was not drunk.

       "How's Don?" Vic asked, already turning to go out of the house.

       "Oh, all right, I suppose."

       "Well, see you in about half an hour," Vic said, smiling. "Maybe a little more."

       Vic was back from the Tripps' in thirty-five minutes and they started off almost at once.

       "Do you mind if we go to the quarry?" Melinda asked. "Why not, since we haven't got Trixie?"

       "That's right, why not?" he said agreeably. He spent the next few seconds reviewing the tones of her voice, trying to decide if she suspected anything about the quarry or not, got tired of it, and tired of the piddling mentality—his own, after all—that had prompted him to wonder if she suspected anything. What if she did? It wasn't going to ruffle him. He could see himself and Melinda in a few minutes, huddled by a windblown fire chewing chicken bones, cavemen without a roof. He chuckled.

       "What's the matter?" she asked.

       "Oh, nothing. I'm just happy, I guess."