The Woman Next Door (24 page)

The scream!
"Yes, Mommy."

"You have almost frightened her to death this time. You realize that, don't you?"

"Yes. I'm sorry."

"Right now she's down in the parlor trying to catch her breath. I think she'll be okay, no thanks to you." She paused, conjured up a look of authority mixed liberally with pity. "You know what this means, don't you?"

He nodded.

"Don't you?"

"Yes."

"I just want you to know that the more you act up, the longer you behave like a little animal, the longer you'll stay here."

He touched his forehead again, looked at his fingers. The bleeding had stopped.

Marilyn stepped toward him; he flinched.

"Yes, Mommy."

Marilyn grinned. "That's a good boy." She moved closer, held her arms out. "Hug me," she cooed.

He stepped forward without hesitation, found himself enveloped in her arms, squeezed to her big, hard breasts. He cringed at the smell of lilac perfume mixed with her nervous perspiration.

"I love you, my Greg," he heard.

T
he absence of pain confused him. He felt only a small itching sensation at his groin, inside, just above his testicles. And he was lightheaded. He knew that if he stood, he would fall. It was, he realized, the hunger working on him.

"Hello," he whispered. "My name is Brett Courtney," and felt a broad smile spread across his face. He saw himself smiling in his mind's eye and recognized the face. Names and dates and places that were a part of his life nudged at him, shouted at him, flooded back into his consciousness. He closed his eyes tightly, suddenly dizzy and nauseous: The return of identity had overwhelmed him, because with it had come the damning and awful knowledge that this was his attic he was dying in, and it was
his wife
who had put him here.

He saw that it was night. A dull, creamy light, from the city itself, had invaded the attic, though not its farthest corners. And though it was cold here, that light had a comforting, dreamlike quality.
At this moment you are safe
, it told him. Because Marilyn was frightened of the attic even in daylight, he could not imagine that at night she did more than hurry past its door—especially now that her husband's body lay beyond it. If in fact she was convinced that he was dead. And that was something he could not know.

At any rate, there would come a time—perhaps soon, perhaps the following day—that she would want to rid her house of him. And if she found him still alive. . . .

I
t had been over a week and there were distasteful realities to face. Marilyn had known it would come to this. Time was not about to stop for her. And time brought decay with it, and decay brought—

She thought, suddenly, that she had done few foolish things in her life. She had rarely had to answer to anyone, except once as a teenager and once to Brett, a couple years after Greg was born.

("Listen, Brett, you want another kid, you conceive it.
I
do not want to become pregnant again. I've discovered what pain is, and it doesn't appeal to me."

"But, Marilyn, we've discussed this.")

Asshole! Wanting to populate the world with little carbon copies of himself.

She thought she could smell him already. Rationally, she knew she probably couldn't, because the attic was cold and dry, and decay didn't happen very quickly in cold, dry places.

She plunged her hands deep into the pockets of her housedress, made tight fists, let her hands relax, flexed her fingers.

She had been standing near the front windows. It was midmorning, and a sparse snowfall had started. It wouldn't last long, she knew. In an hour or so the sun would come out, and the couple feet of snow on the ground would begin to melt. Spring was close, she thought; it was going to come early this year.

The phone rang. She jumped at the sound, crossed the large room quickly. It rang again. "Christ!" She snatched up the receiver:

"Yes?"

"Mrs. Courtney?"

"Yes. Who's calling?"

"This is Shirley Wise at the Middle School. I'm calling about your son, Greg."

"Yes?"

"I'd like to know when we can look forward to seeing him again."

Marilyn sensed the woman's forced good humor and was annoyed by it. "That's hard to say, Mrs. Wise."

"
Ms
. Wise."

"
Ms
. Wise. It really is hard to say, because this sickness of his is not at all predictable and—"

"Is he under a doctor's care, Mrs. Courtney?"

"Of course he's under a doctor's care!"

"I was only inquiring, Mrs. Courtney. His classmates do miss him, and we all wish him well."

"Is that all, Ms. Wise?"

"Yes, thank you. Oh, by the way, we'll be sending some work home to him, if you don't mind, if you think he's up to it."

"I'd rather you didn't do that, Ms. Wise. I'd rather he was allowed to rest."

"Oh, yes, of course. Please keep us informed, Mrs. Courtney."

"I'll do that, Ms. Wise."

Marilyn hung up. She tapped her foot against the rug, folded her arms over her breasts. She frowned.

Problems
, she thought.
Always problems.

T
he itch was on the inside of her left wrist. A nervous itch; if she ignored it, it would go away. She scratched the wrist, at first lightly. The itch persisted. "Damn!" She scratched harder, became aware that she could feel the itch beneath her nails, as if it were inside, on the bone, taunting her. "Damn it to hell!" She went through the skin; a tiny bead of blood appeared.

The itch vanished. She smiled, relieved, and watched the bead grow, become a drop. She held the wrist up so that the blood could run. "Good," she said, and sucked delicately at it.

The flow of blood soon stopped.

She pulled the attic door open.

The stench moved over her like syrup. Her breathing stopped in reaction to it. She slammed the door shut, leaned with her back against it, her arms wide, as if to hold it closed, as if the stench were a physical thing.

The itch settled in her right wrist. She threw herself away from the door and down the hallway to her bedroom.

She sat trembling on the edge of the bed, her nails working hard at her wrist, trying in vain to destroy the itch there.

S
he opened the armoire door slowly, carefully. There were treasures here, a life here. She lifted out one photograph, then another, and set them in the box beside her on the floor. Again she reached into the armoire, picked out some more photographs—a dozen of them—put them in the box. Eventually, the box was filled. She put her hands on the flaps to close it and saw Brett's face looking up at her, here and there wearing a photographic smile, all his teeth straight and white. She grinned back at him and closed the box.
The past is the past
, she thought.
Why leave its props lying around cluttering things up?

She carried the box to the back door, opened it, crossed to the garage, went around the side of it to the back, where the garbage cans were. She searched until she
found an
empty one, then dumped the photographs in. She smiled hugely. The sound of metal hitting metal and glass breaking pleased her. She wished it could continue for longer than just a few moments.

G
reg said, "She's throwing something away." He turned from the window. "She's throwing something away," he repeated.

"Yeah," said Little Rat. He was seated on the floor, his back against the bed's long side, his hands behind his head, his legs outstretched. "I know she is."

Greg turned back to the window. "She's coming back now. I wonder what she threw away."

"I
know
what she threw away," Little Rat said, and he grinned a big, wide, gloating grin. "But I
ain't
gonna tell
ya
."

"Why aren't
ya
?"

"'Cause
ya
wouldn't know what I was talking about, that's why."

"Sure I would."

Little Rat seemed to think about that a moment. Then: "Okay, what if I told
ya
it was the past she threw away? What would
ya
say about that?"

Greg didn't know what to say about it. As far as he was concerned, it was dumb, because it was impossible to throw the past away. The past wasn't real, and only real things got thrown into trash cans.

Greg laughed. Little Rat had told him a joke, and though he didn't get it, he wasn't about to let Little Rat know.

Little Rat was suddenly standing. Greg's false laughter died instantly. Sometimes Little Rat scared him. "I'm sorry," Greg said.

Little Rat glared at him. Greg hated it when Little Rat glared; he looked so angry, so round-eyed, so hollow. Like a marionette.

The look softened. "I got to be going," he said. He turned and started for the door.

"When you
comin
' back?" Greg called.

Little Rat made no reply. He put his hand on the doorknob, turned it, opened the door, and left the room. The door slammed shut after him.

Greg's mouth dropped open. He ran to the door. He tried the knob. The door was locked.

B
rett was certain of everything now except the one thing that could save him—a way out. And mobility. He cursed himself for not knowing the layout of the attic better than he did. After fifteen years in this house, he thought he knew every room, every corner. But the house was still strange to him. He knew only those rooms he used daily. And he had used the attic only a few times, to store old furniture and boxes of miscellaneous things. He thought of
himself
, suddenly, as a miscellaneous thing, a thing that had outlived its usefulness. It was the way Marilyn thought of him, he realized.

Christ, how had this happened to him? How, after sixteen years could he have failed to see her for what she was? And did he
know
what she was, or was he only guessing? The word
psychopathic
was very convenient, but it meant nothing, really. It was a label, and it solved none of his problems; it only magnified them.

His most important task, he knew, was to attempt movement, because if he was unable to move, he was dead: Either she would end it for him, or he would die, slowly, agonizingly, of thirst or hunger. And if he could move, then he had to find a way out. Down the main stairway would probably be suicide, and he couldn't go out the window, of course.

"Stack those boxes up over there, Brett. We'll never use that stairwell, anyway."

Brett replayed the words mentally.
What boxes?
he wondered.
What stairwell? Were there
two
attic exits?

He felt a migraine starting.
No,
goddamnit
, not now!
He saw the migraine as a kind of ragtag, malevolent hobo come to pick at his brains and take away whatever sense was left in them. He watched the hobo lean over him, watched the hobo reach for him, grinning as if satisfied. He turned his head violently away from those hands. And saw the boxes that Marilyn had been talking about years ago. And knew where the stairwell was. He tried reaching for it, like a drowning man for a thrown oar. But his arms lay heavy and stiff and immobile at his sides. Only his fingers moved slightly.

And the grinning hobo was upon him.

T
he whole dream was coming apart. Christine didn't know why it should: It was only a small dream, and, at the beginning, not even hers but Tim's.
A home of our own
. She remembered thinking—how long ago?—that it was a foolish dream and hoping Tim would forget it. And she remembered seeing this little house for the first time, remembered wanting it as she had never before wanted anything.

A very small dream—small and mundane, like wanting a new dryer.
A home of our own
. It no longer meant anything. It was lost in that other thing, that other—Christ, what was it? A thing like anger, or rage, and so tenacious, tenacious as a leech. A part of her, yes—she knew it was part of her, like a cancer would be part of her.

She didn't want to believe she could be dying. She fought the belief. She told herself she was tired from overwork, tired from the adjustment to her new lifestyle, tired from trying to be all that Tim wanted her to be. But these were lies. She knew they were lies. Her last piece of work was the painting done during the winter's worst blizzard, two months ago. That painting scared her now. She had shut it up in a closet. And Cornhill, and the house, demanded no burdensome adjustment. The people here were neither overly friendly nor overly aloof; they were very much like the people she and Tim had left behind when they moved here.