Nothing That Meets the Eye (53 page)

This was a weak moment, George realized. He stood up, again thought of a cigarette and refused it to himself. Coffee, yes, and another swat at Polyfax. Be strong. George went to his kitchen to warm up the coffeepot.

His counterpart stood with back to the sink, dressed just as George was now in dark gray trousers, house slippers, the blue cashmere sweater. “Be strong. Ha-ha. You're your same old self.” The apparition was smoking a cigarette, exciting both envy and shame in George.

“Out of my sight!” George said, and swung his right arm in a backhanded blow that would have caught the vision in the side of the head, if it had been solid.

The apparition ducked and laughed boyishly.

Had George touched something, even faintly? He was not sure.

“I see you're in a foul mood. Happy day to you!” said George's likeness, and strolled out of the kitchen.

George took an aggressive step toward the retreating figure, hands stretched out in the manner of a subway guard about to shove a last passenger into a crowded train. George felt nothing against his hands, and when he blinked, he saw nothing.

But the figure did not appear again that day, and by ten
P.M.
, George was feeling better, even cheerful. He had gone over Polyfax, watched a little TV, listened to a Beethoven concerto on his record player as he defrosted his refrigerator and cleaned its interior. Nothing but an illusion, that duplicate of himself! George lay on his back now on his long sofa, thinking, daydreaming. It occurred to him, however, that all life was an illusion—of progress, of achievement, a fact obscured by absurd and constant movement—meeting appointments and deadlines, all the silly business of what the human race called “work.” George had achieved—what? A respected business reputation and money. Money in the bank and in investments, which Liz had declined to share when they divorced. She had accepted some maintenance at first, and had given even that up when she married a year ago. He and Liz owned a cottage on Montauk Point which they had seldom used, but now Liz said it might be “his and hers” together, since they could always find out when either of them wanted to use it, and not conflict. George had been there only once since their divorce, and then merely to collect a few books and records and personal items. Money, yes, to do what with? His son was doing well, and didn't need his money. George Jr. was a lawyer, too. By the time he went to bed, George had thought himself into a vague depression. But at least the vision did not come back, even when George smoked his twelfth cigarette in bed.

Palmer was dying, there was no doubt an envelope among his letters addressed in Liz's handwriting. He opened it as he waited for his bus down Fifth Avenue. Liz invited him to dinner tonight, Monday, and gave him Ed's office number (which George had somewhere) so he could arrange to meet Ed for the drive up.

. . . I know you don't like making quick decisions, so I thought I'd write you, and you should get it Sat. or Monday morning anyway. Please try to come, as Ed's son Willie is here for a few days recovering from broken ankle he got playing basketball. He is eighteen now. I think you methim once. . . .

George put this out of his mind, or at least half out of his mind. He had to concentrate on Polyfax that day. George intended to telephone Ed just before three
P.M.
and decline politely, but the thought that his image, the apparition, might reproach him for cowardice kept intruding during the morning Polyfax conference. If the vision returned, mightn't he throw it at George that he hadn't had the guts, the civility to accept a dinner invitation from his former wife and her husband, who were really quite kind without overdoing their friendliness?

George rang Ed at two forty-five that afternoon and accepted with pleasure.

“Oh, good! Liz'll be pleased,” said Ed with the usual smile in his voice. “Can you meet me at my garage, then, Forty-ninth and Sixth? Kammer's, it's called.”

George said he would. He had met Ed at the garage once before. When George left his office, he walked two blocks north in order to buy a bouquet of multicolored carnations from a little old lady who was usually on a certain corner with her pushcart, weather permitting.

“How're you, sir?” said the old lady, all bundled up in sweaters and cape as usual.

George gave her double the price of the flowers. Many a time he had bought a bouquet on the way to see Harrietta, after phoning Liz to tell her he would be working an hour or so late.

By seven that evening, Ed and George with his bouquet were walking up the stone steps to the Tuttle house, which had four gables and a chimney now smoking against the darkening sky. Ed and George had conversed pleasantly during the thirty-five-minute drive. Ed's son Willie, his only child, was doing well at Columbia, but was a bit reckless, Ed thought, hence the basketball accident.

“Hello, George! So happy you could come! Ed phoned and told me.” Liz kissed George on the cheek, pressed his hand. “Oh, thank you. Aren't these lovely!” she said, taking the bouquet. She wore a brown satin dress, and her ample breasts bulged against it. Her brown hair looked fluffy and shining, as if she had just been to the hairdresser's. She radiated happiness as she led George into the living room, one hand extended behind her, but not really reaching for George's. “You remember Willie, don't you, George?”

George did. Now Willie sat with plastered foot extended toward the fire, and said politely, “Evening, sir. Can't stand up so well because of this. But I will,” he added, pushing himself up on the arms of the upholstered chair.

“Don't bother yourself, Willie! How are you—otherwise?” George shook the tall boy's hand, smiling, and steadied Willie until he had sat down again.

“Quite well, thank you, sir.”

Liz served drinks, Manhattans for her and Ed, scotch and water for George. He smoked a cigarette. The conversation was easy, with a few laughs. George was conscious of the heavy Tuttle furniture, a bit rustic, no doubt already installed before Liz's advent. Her touch was probably the plain dark yellow drapes at the windows. George leaned forward to pick up his drink, then he looked at Liz, who was talking. Standing just to Liz's left was the specter—himself—now with slightly mocking smile, nodding his head as if to say, “Stupid ass, I suppose you think the evening's going fine?”

A few drops of George's drink spilled on the waxed coffee table, and George at once whipped out his pocket handkerchief.

The gesture snapped Ed out of his happy trance, and he said, “Oh, that's nothing, George!”

George looked at Liz, and past her, and saw that the vision was not there now. Also he had not heard the voice, only imagined the words. He was sure of that. It was all bound to be something inside his own head—like buzzing ears.

“Something the matter, George?” asked Liz.

“Not at all,” said George. “Just clumsy today.”

“Busy day,” said Liz, inviting him to say more on the subject if he chose.

“I don't want to talk about business,” said George with a smile. “It's the month of May. We might talk about vacations—something pleasant.” He glanced at Willie. College kids always took an interest in ­vacations.

They did talk about vacations. The Montauk house, which Liz and Ed said they'd like for the third week in June, if George didn't want it then. George said he did not want it then. Then Venice: Liz and Ed and Willie were taking a boat from Naples which cruised to Sicily first. . . .

George half listened. Dinner. George feared the reappearance of the vision, wondered too if Liz sensed something odd about him tonight, because she knew him so well. They adjourned to the living room for coffee and brandy. Willie walked with two short crutches. The dessert had been Liz's homemade chocolate cake topped with ice cream.

“You're looking well, George,” Liz said as he was leaving with Ed for the train station. Ed had offered to drive George to Manhattan, but George wouldn't hear of it. “Keep well, dear. We'll see you again soon, I hope.”

Was Liz trying to make him feel better? George thought he looked all right, but he knew he had not been in the best of form.

Less than an hour later, George was home in his apartment, alone. Or was he alone? He seemed to be. But how long would it last?

It lasted almost a week. George had made no special resolutions to himself by way of keeping the specter at bay, and indeed wouldn't have known what kind to make. On Saturday around noon, just as George got home with a cart full of groceries that he hoped would last the coming week, he saw his own figure, again leaning against the kitchen sink rim, and dressed in old green corduroys, tweed jacket, desert boots, just as George was then. George blinked, his body went rigid, but he began to unpack his purchases as if the vision were not there. George neatly set the new sack of coffee at the back of a shelf, causing him to pass within inches of the standing figure.

Don't you say good morning?

George thought he had heard that. George did not reply. Seeing a new bottle of Haig on a shelf, George took it down and gave the top a twist. Irritation made George say out loud, “I suppose you'll . . . chide me if I take a drink?”

“No, no, might do the same myself. Have done many a time.”

The bottle chattered twice against the rim of the glass as George poured. He was not deranged enough to offer the specter a drink, but would not have been surprised if the bottle had moved from the table and a glass had been reached from the drainboard. This did not happen.

“Ha-ha,” said the specter mirthlessly.

George left the kitchen with his drink in hand. Ha-ha. Well, hadn't he often laughed at himself in the same manner? For taking a drink at noon when he had intended not to take one before six
P.M.
? And why take that so seriously? Neither Liz nor any doctor had ever told him he drank too much. Was it that he had nothing else to worry about?

Half-finished drink in hand, George frowned at the kitchen door, from which nothing emerged. He had something to worry about, all right.

That afternoon, George called his doctor, after three calls got Dr. Pallantz in person, and asked him the name of a reliable psychiatrist. The doctor gave him two names, recommended the first more highly, then inquired if anything was the matter.

“I'd rather not say just—I'm quite all right physically, I believe,” George went on, glancing toward the kitchen. “Just thought I'd have a talk with a psychiatrist for an hour. Always less than an hour, I know.” Here George gave a chuckle, which he hated.

That same afternoon, George succeeded in arranging a half hour visit with Dr. Kublick at six-thirty
P.M.
the coming Monday. George had mentioned Dr. Pallantz's name, and it had plainly carried weight. George was heartened to find that the weekend brought no further intrusions from the specter. This strengthened George's belief—the only logical thing to believe—that the trouble was due to some kind of lack of confidence in himself, and perhaps the mere appointment with a psychiatrist had done the trick.

On Monday at six-thirty
P.M.
, George told all. It was amazing how much a man could tell in hardly ten minutes. All about his father and mother in Chicago (hardware store owners, and they had wished to see George go to a good school and enjoy a better life than theirs), George's marriage with Liz and the breakup. And of course George had begun with the strange visions which had started a couple of weeks ago, the last of which had been Saturday noon. That, specifically, was why George had come, he told the psychiatrist.

“I'm wondering if it's some kind of schizophrenia in myself,” George added, as the doctor pondered, chin in hand, but with a pleasant, even entertained expression on his face.

Dr. Kublick looked about forty-five, was rather tall, and wore a brown suit with no sign of a crease in the trousers. Through black-rimmed glasses he kept steady eyes on George, and he made no notes. “Schizophrenia . . .” he said finally. “An old catchall. Are you sleeping well lately?”

“As usual. Like a top. I've always slept well.”

“No dizziness in the morning? No feeling of faintness?” And at George's shake of the head, “Do you drink much?”

“Three or four a day. Scotch and water.—I honestly don't think that's it.” As the half hour grew shorter, George felt that he had to hurry for an answer, for a bit of help. He repeated, “The reality of that red dressing gown was amazing to me. I could have touched it. That's the way I felt, anyway.”

“Yet you said when you did swing at the . . . thing backhand, you didn't feel anything.” The doctor was smiling in a friendly, reassuring way.

“I said I thought I didn't. But I saw the thing duck.” And the voice. “And the voice,” George continued. “Like my voice. I must admit I heard that. I seemed to hear it. I know it's an illusion, but I'm not the kind of man to have illusions,” George said forcefully, and oddly his strong voice made the vision more real to him than before. Didn't the shrink believe him? George was telling the truth!

The doctor said calmly, “All this could be due to tension. Had a lot of strain in your office lately?”

Polyfax. That was a big job, but not one with tension, not even a tough deadline attached to it. “No.” George said.

“Do you feel guilty—about anything?”

The clock on Dr. Kublick's wall jumped another five minutes. How vulgar, George thought, to have a five-minute-jumping clock in an office where time was geared to money, but thoughts and dreams were not, not even geared to time. Or was the clock, even beholdable by a patient who might be lying on the leather sofa to George's right, considered by Dr. Kublick to be somehow an asset to the patient? Something to bring him or her back to reality? Dr. Kublick had just asked him a big question, impossible to answer in a few words. Didn't everyone feel guilty about something or several things? Would it be normal to feel not guilty about anything? “I think I have the usual amount of guilt feelings. I wouldn't call them serious—or obsessive.”