Wicked Angel (6 page)

When he was pleased with the world and his parents—he was always pleased with himself—no child could be more delightful or more intelligent, or more obliging. Kathy and Mark carefully taught him the difference between right and wrong, with parents’ devotion, and he would nod seriously. He understood the difference as clearly as they did. The only departure from their own knowledge was his utter disbelief that anything he desired was wrong, and that those who believed in “good” were sincere. When he finally did learn that they were sincere he was both astonished and contemptuous. He was wise enough to keep this to himself, though he laughed inwardly. He thought people extremely stupid, easy to deceive, absurdly easy to be cajoled.

Alice had permitted herself, a year ago, to be reconciled to Kathy, but she still avoided encountering Mark. Her love for him grew as she became nineteen, and then twenty. A few times, in desperation, she accepted the company and entertainment of other men, but was invariably heartsick afterwards. She lived a solitary life in her apartment, for the girl she had roomed with had married and left the City. Slow to make friends, Alice did not look for someone else to share the apartment. Mark had been invited to become a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and his photograph, showing his kind smile and vivid eyes in excellent detail, had appeared in the newspapers. Alice had cut out the photograph and framed it, and then had placed it in a special drawer out of anyone’s sight. But sometimes she slept with it under her pillow, and wept.

Mark was delighted that the sisters had been reconciled, though he saw Alice not more than half a dozen times a year. But he knew that she often visited Kathy. It seemed to him, when he entered his house, that he could detect if Alice had been there; a faint emanation of her personality remained behind, like a clean scent. Angelo did not mention his “dear Auntie Alicia” at any time. The hatred between the girl and the boy had increased in these years; they accepted it. Angelo knew all about Alice, and she would have been surprised to know that she was the only person in the world he respected, for he knew that only she was not deceived by him. But it was a hating, destructive respect, vengeful and waiting. He had no doubt that someday, somehow, in a way not yet emerging from the darkness of his distorted spirit, he would destroy her. No one dared be in his orbit who did not adore, worship, love, cherish and serve him.

Two days before they were all to leave for the customary four weeks at the cabin, Mark said to his wife, “Kathy, Bruce is almost seven. Like all boys, he should have a dog to care for, something his own for which he is responsible. It will be company for him, too.” He remembered the beloved Ruff of his own boyhood, who had been his companion, friend, playmate and guardian, and whom he had guarded in reciprocal love.

“Oh, animals are so germy, so dirty!” Kathy had protested. “You know how they soil things, and cover everything with hair, and track mud. What do you mean, ‘company,’ Mark? He has me—I mean us. He doesn’t want anything else,”

“Why don’t we ask him, and let him make up his own mind, Kathy?”

“I wish you wouldn’t call him Bruce,” said Kathy petulantly. “It’s such a rough name. Angel he’s always been to me, and Angel he always will be. All right, we’ll ask him. You can be so stubborn, Mark.”

To Kathy’s surprise and hurt, Angelo promptly declared he would like a dog. Mark would not acknowledge even to himself the immense surge of relief that filled him, or the reason for that relief. But he bought Angelo a loving and trustful young cocker spaniel of a honey color, with great brown eyes limpid as brook water. The boy shouted with pleasure, seized the dog and jumped high in the air, teeth and face gleaming, while Kathy smiled, filled with jealousy. When Angelo had become more calm, Mark talked to him seriously about the little creature.

“You see, son, Petti must rely upon you for everything. You must feed him, brush him, keep him out of danger, keep his water dish filled and clean. He is your charge, just as you are your mother’s and father’s charge. He will love you, and you must give him love in return, and train him not only to be your obedient dog but your friend. And no boy ever had a better friend than a dog.”

Angelo nodded soberly. “I know, Daddy,” he said, in his winning voice. “I’ll take good care of him.”

“I’ll help you,” said Kathy eagerly. “After all, it’s a big responsibility for a little fellow.”

“Bruce isn’t a little fellow any longer, Kathy,” said Mark, with some sternness. “He’ll be in second grade before you know it. In fact, he should be there now.”

“He knows enough to be in third grade!” exclaimed Kathy, her blue eyes sparkling with anger.

“So he does,” said Mark, and ruffled the dark red curls on Angelo’s head. Angelo endured caresses from his father with a strange stillness, and a curious glint in the hazel eyes so like Mark’s. It was impossible for Mark to know that his son despised him, that he amused Angelo with his sincerity, his simple, kindly ways, and his strictly honorable speech and motives.

“He should take an examination,” said Mark. “I wouldn’t want him to be with much older boys. I’m not in favor of the ‘age-group’ business, for people of the same age are often much older, and younger, than their ‘group.’ But Bruce never had any playmates, or close friends of his age, and older boys wouldn’t welcome him too much, if they were considerably older.”

Mark reached out to fondle Petti’s head; Angelo clutched the dog tightly and the small thing whined in discomfort. Mark brought this to Angelo’s attention, and the boy nodded obediently, and ran out of the house with his new charge. Kathy peered through the window and watched the two romp on the lawn, and her face was full of sentimentality. “I hope the dog won’t bite Angel,” she said, after a moment.

“Petti’s only a baby,” said Mark. He looked at Kathy’s profile, which was illuminated by the summer sunlight, and he thought that she was truly lovely, and, all at once, with a kind of sickness, he knew that he no longer loved her. Had he ever loved her? He could remember being charmed by her and her coaxing ways and her sweet smile, and her archness and eagerness to please him and all others. She had not only been a pretty girl, but a “good” one, in the sense that she had been a virgin at marriage. His had been a coarse world of men and war and harsh study; his mother had been a gentle and feeble little creature, very shy and quiet, and so neutral in dress and voice and manner that he had hardly considered her a woman. He had had no other female relatives. Kathy had seemed to him the quintessence of femaleness, the very soul of femininity, with her soft voice, her coy little gestures, the way she had of tilting her head like a trusting child, her musical giggle, and her floating dresses. When had he, Mark, stopped loving her—if he had ever loved her? When his son had been born, and he had become no longer husband and lover but only the means by which she sheltered, pampered and coddled Angelo in luxury and ease? Or, had he—sickened, and yes he was sickened—of her long before that, when he had detected acid in the sweetness, lies in the smooth voice, and hypocrisy and cheap sentimentality in her words? Sometimes Mark watched the beaming affection on the faces of her friends, wondering if they knew of the spitefulness of the remarks she made about them to him, and even to others. Watching her now, he recalled that never once had she spoken to him with kindness, compassion or sympathy for anyone; calamity in the lives of her friends, grief, loss of position touched her not at all, though she was effusive in her expressions of sorrow when among the afflicted. Were the legion of her admirers and devotees as stupid as he had once been, and were they so easily deceived?

Mark felt the dryness of despair in his mouth and throat as he watched Kathy preen and peek like a young girl; she followed the movements of her son and the dog with her big blue eyes. She made a murmurous sound in her throat of passionate love. Once she clapped her hands gaily. Then, smiling, she turned to look at Mark, and the smile abruptly disappeared, and her hand flew involuntarily to her lips.

“What is it, Mark?” she cried, with real alarm. “You look so—funny.”

She was very acute; what she had seen on her husband’s face had frightened her with its starkness, its cold penetration. She thought she had detected a fierce and bitter dislike. But that was nonsense! How could she believe that of Mark, who just worshiped her, who lived only for her and their son?

“Nothing,” replied Mark, turning away, and he made a gesture as if he were covering nakedness, and was ashamed. “I’m just tired out; the weather’s been too hot for me.”

He left the room and Kathy watched him go, thoughtfully, her eyes narrowed in reflection. She was too egotistical to doubt Mark’s affection for a moment, but there was an uneasy stirring in her. She sat down where she could watch Angelo and the dog, and began to think. Mark had been strange for a long time, she remembered now. Kind, yes—sometimes tender, yes; patient, considerate, generous as always. But he had begun to have odd silences. His lovemaking was infrequent, and had been for—how long was it? A year, two years, three years? She shook her head irritably. She got up to inspect her face and hair in the long mirror in the hall, and to scrutinize her figure. It was a little dusky here, and masked the faint lines on her thirty-seven-year-old face, and the light from the door created a fiery nimbus about her auburn curls. She had never liked her throat; even in her twenties it had been somewhat wizened in appearance, and the light here, dim as it was, did not hide the hard wrinkles on it and the coarse texture. She smoothed her hands lovingly over her breasts and waist, which still appeared young; when her palms encountered the heavy buttocks and massive thighs she hastily withdrew them. The harness about them was like armor.

Had Mark guessed that she was older than he, after all these years, and was there some young girl in his office who had suddenly attracted him? No, that was ridiculous. And it was unpleasant even to contemplate. She was his wife; how could he help but adore her as others adored her? Was she not prettier, more intelligent, more interested in community activities and worthy causes, than the other women she knew, and was she not the finest of housekeepers and cooks, and was not this house the best kept of any, and did she not devote herself to her family? What else could a man want?

The uneasiness left her, and she returned to the living-room window where she could watch her beautiful son and the scampering little dog.

Mark was in his room, completing his packing. But his movements were listless, and his despair had him at the throat like a worrying beast. What could he do? Must he live out his life with Kathy? Must there be no real joy and love for him? Must he endure, for endless years, the sticky syrup of that voice? Mark sat down wearily on the edge of his bed, and looked with empty eyes around the pretty “feminine” bedroom, with its light blue walls, its white lattices which were really not lattices at all but decoration only, its deep blue rug, its pale golden draperies, its chaise longue covered with pink silk, its ruffles and its scents. It was all as arch and foolish as Kathy, and as artificial. Mark rubbed his cheek with the knuckles of his right hand. What could he do? He was thirty-four; he might live for several decades, and always with Kathy. Unless, and now he sat up straight on the bed, he remained with her only until Bruce was about ten years older! But did not everyone say that a boy in his adolescence needed his father more than ever before? What would Kathy make of the boy, if she were alone with him? Mark’s heart yearned over his son, and the fear he had begun to feel several years ago was sharp in him. He faced that fear now, as he had refused to face it before. There was something wrong with Bruce, and he did not know what it was.

The latest maid, a kind, middle-aged woman, knocked on the door and said, “It’s me, Mamie, Mr. Saint. I brought you a drink. I thought you might need it; it’s so hot today.”

She entered, carrying a silver tray on which there was a tall frosted glass of gin and tonic embellished with slices of lemon. Mark took it from her, gratefully. He said, “Why haven’t you taken your Sunday afternoon off, Mamie?”

She regarded him with simple pity; the poor man looked so tired and drawn, and his right eyelid twitched. “Well, we’re going away in a couple of days, Mr. Saint, and there’s lots to do, and I have to help with the packing, and do my own, too.”

She was short and stout and had a motherly face. She was sixty years old, and homeless, and proud, and a widow. Kathy paid her but thirty dollars a week; she did not know that Mark gave Mamie an extra ten in order to keep her. She had been with the family only two months, but even this was longer than any other maid had remained.

“You work pretty hard here, Mamie,” said Mark, sipping at the drink. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate it, and my wife—”

She shrugged her plump shoulders. “Mr. Saint, I’ve worked hard since I was five years old. It ain’t nothing for me to work. I’ll be working until the day I die, I suppose. Work never killed anybody. Besides, Mrs. Saint works just as hard as me, around this house.” Her face changed a little.

“I hope you’ll stay with us, Mamie.”

Her deep-colored cheeks suddenly dimpled. “Don’t worry. I will. For a couple of more years, anyway, until I can get my Social Security.”

They laughed together, and then the telephone extension rang. Mark picked up the blue receiver and said, “Hello?” Mamie left the room and closed the door behind her.

The line hummed, and there was no reply. “Hello?” said Mark impatiently.

Then he heard Alice’s voice. “It’s Alice, Mark. I was just calling Kathy about something. Is she there?”

Mark heard the front door close, and then Kathy’s voice on the brilliant green lawn. “I just bought a dog for Bruce, and Kathy’s gone out to watch them play together. I’ll call her.”

There was a pause. Mark could hear the beating of his aroused heart. “Alice?” he said. “Allie?”

“I’m still here,” she said with a little, forced laugh. Then her voice became low and serious. “You say you’ve bought a dog for Bruce?”

“Yes. I thought it was time to get him one. Make him responsible for something besides himself. Every boy should have a dog. Don’t you agree?” His heart felt thick and fast and muffled in his chest, and the hand that gripped the receiver was sweating. What was the matter with him? he thought.