The Theban Mysteries (22 page)

“What will you drink, Mrs. Banister?” Reed asked.

“Oh, just a glass of cold water, if you have it. I don’t drink. Always feel good enough without it, I guess.”

“One of the things I like about New York,” Reed said, “is that people feel they have to apologize for not drinking.” He poured the glass of water and handed it to her.

Kate took up her tale. “I got most of the story out of Angelica and Patrick this afternoon, by means I’m not entirely happy to think about. But while they came through with the truth—I’m pretty certain it’s the truth, and, anyway, it can be checked—about everything through the death of that unfortunate woman, their story was pure fantasy from then on. Patrick had to pretend he knew how to steal a car, when he knew exactly as much about it as I did, having read the same journalism. They wanted to protect you, you see. I’m afraid I’m hopelessly old-fashioned and admire that.”

“I’m glad you do. People just don’t realize how beautiful these young people are. They seem to prefer some status-happy youth in the proper clothes with one foot in the suburbs and the other in a prestigious college. Of course, the Jablons are a special problem, and then there is this terrible war. I’m glad they called me when they needed help. It was I who thought of the school; that’s what bothers me. I remembered about Patrick, as soon as I got to the Rextons’, and I thought, Aha, let the dogs scare someone else to death. And it would have worked, you know, if that beastly man hadn’t been so damn pig-headed about his nasty animals.”

“
Or
if guard dogs were trained to stop for dead bodies. Unlike us, you know, dogs can tell, immediately and indisputably.”

“I call that sinister. Well, it was a jolly good plan all the same, particularly since we thought of it on the spur of the moment.”

“At least you had Patrick to help you, which must have …”

“To help me what?”

“Get her on the motorcycle and all. Didn’t he?”

Mrs. Banister sipped her water. “Oh, I see,” she said. “You assumed it had to be Patrick who helped. An interesting example of socially bred female humility.”

“You don’t mean it was Angelica?”

“No, I don’t. After all, she
was
their mother, inadequate and destructive as she may have been, and handling dead bodies is disturbing under ideal circumstances, if there are ideal circumstances for handling dead bodies, even if she isn’t one’s mother. It was Irene who helped me.”

“Irene!”

“Certainly. She said that these days there must be no more Ismenes.”

Kate stared at her. “You,” Kate said to Reed, “have not seen Irene. Though I can’t imagine why I think that has anything to do with it. After all, her parents …”

“One must
never
characterize people,” Mrs. Banister said, bouncing up to get herself another glass of water (“I drink twelve a day,” she said. “It keeps the system flushed out”); she waved Reed away as he rose to help her. “I am capable of pouring a glass of water, thank you. Elizabeth and Angelica and Patrick and Freemond went home; the Jablons dropped Elizabeth
and Freemond on the way. Irene and I carried down the body after they had gone. I thought, least involved, soonest mended. Of course, we had to keep a look-out, but only till we got out of the building. I’d parked the motorcycle right outside it—it was fortunately not a night when Andrew needed it, since it would have been more uphill work on the bicycle, though we would have managed, have no fear of that—and we slid her onto the pillion and I got on front and started it. Irene sat in the back, and we held her up between us. Fortunately, I had two extra helmets, which I always carry, so we weren’t stopped for that, and the helmet helped to disguise the fact that she wasn’t exactly holding her head up. I’m sure it’s the only time the poor woman ever rode on a motorcycle; I understand she was phobic.” Mrs. Banister paused to sip her water, while Kate and Reed avoided each other’s eyes.

“I had her arms tied around my waist with my raincoat belt, and Irene held her up.
Fortunately
, when we got to the school there was no one about—there never are people on that street, but I knew there was a meeting and thought the parents might be leaving. Thank God we were early enough, and we wheeled her inside, right on the motorcycle, and hid her on the dolly with the dust cloth, the canvas thing, over her. To tell you the truth, I thought we might have to drag her down to the lower floor, but when I got back from parking the motorcycle, the chauffeurs had started to arrive, and the watchman was out there talking with them. Have you read
Men in Groups
by Lionel Tiger, a wildly malechauvinist book?”

Kate and Reed shook their heads.

“You ought to. Clearly O’Hara is only happy in the
company of men and couldn’t resist the chauffeurs; lucky for us, anyway. I trundled her right across the lobby, under the canvas, of course—I’d made Irene go out and wait for me in a drugstore on the corner, by the way, I didn’t need her any more—and I just popped into the elevator, drove to the third floor, popped her out onto the art-room floor, where I
thought
the dogs couldn’t help noticing her.”

“That was fortunate, or Mr. O’Hara might not have found her in the morning,” Reed said. “You dropped her right across from the alarm.”

“I realized that, later. The room was easiest because it had a slightly wider doorway. Then I took the dolly back down.”

“Why? Wouldn’t it have been easier to leave it?” Kate asked.

“Certainly it would have been
easier
, but I didn’t want anyone to associate her with the dolly. She was supposed to have come in under her own power, so to speak. I didn’t want them to think of the dolly at all, so the best thing was to return it to its place. O’Hara was still being a man in a happy male group and I hurried out of the building with scarcely a glance from him. Doubtless he thought to himself, A mother who walked down, do her good, and sneered, if he saw me at all, which I doubt; his back was to me. I ran round and picked up the motorcycle, gathered up Irene, and off we went. I dropped her home, and found, when I got back, that Andrew was still shut up in his studio, working, and that I’d got hungry from all the extra wear and tear on the tissue, so I had an apple and nut salad. Anything else you want to know? Thirsty business, explaining.” She quaffed her water.

Kate and Reed were speechless. Reed began slowly to grin. Kate glared at him.

“There is still the problem of telling the school. Miss Tyringham, at any rate,” she said.

“Yes,” Mrs. Banister agreed. “No doubt I will be bounced.”

“Well, from her point of view, of course, it does seem that you didn’t have the good of the school at heart in quite the way the Theban expects from its faculty.”

“Probably I don’t,” Mrs. Banister said frankly. “It’s rather too structured a school for my tastes, anyhow. You don’t think she’ll try to interfere with my finding work elsewhere?”

“Oh, no, I think that’s most unlikely. I’m not even sure she won’t want you back. When I asked her about her attitude toward a faculty member involved …”

“Did you suspect me?”

“Not of providing transport, no. I had come to expect it was at the encounter group that whatever happened happened, but, frankly, I assumed you had been there. Angelica said you hadn’t been with such transparent truthfulness that I dismissed it. But what she said was that you hadn’t been included in the group for the evening. She didn’t say you didn’t come later.”

“One had to rally round. Well, I’m giving up the motorcycle.”

“Are you?”

“Andrew and I have agreed; starting next spring it will be only bicycles and shanks’ mare. Less pollution, less noise, less hurry, and good for the muscles and general health. Thank you for your honesty,” Mrs. Banister said, bouncing into the hall and seizing her helmet.

“Thank you,” Kate and Reed said, shaking hands as though, Reed said to Kate when she had gone, the visit had been for the purpose of closing a mutually beneficial deal.

“But it was,” Kate said. She walked to the phone to tell Miss Tyringham that she would have a good deal to report in the morning. Eight o’clock at the Theban? Yes, Kate guessed she could make it.

“You might as well give me the song program for the shower now,” Kate said. “I’ll be joining you.”

April sobbed and flirted its way into May. The Theban, a century old, endured. Miss Tyringham talked slightly less of retiring to her cottage in England. Julia spoke as though the curriculum might soon achieve revision. The
Antigone
seminar argued its way into many wider questions. Mr. Jablon sent Kate a short, noncommittal, unemotional acknowledgment of her efforts.

Up on the roof, Lily and Rose slept away the days.