A Season in Purgatory (12 page)

“We better get back to the house. Don’t talk on the way. I don’t want to wake up Charlie in the chauffeur’s apartment over the garage.”

“What about Winifred? Do we just leave her?”

“Winifred? What about me? It’s too late for her. I’m the one we have to think about. It was her fault. The whole thing was her fault.”

We reentered the house through the kitchen door. We stood in the dark for a moment to see if the house was quiet. He placed the head of the bat down on the counter.

“Get a garbage bag from under the sink,” said Constant. He began to take his clothes off—shirt, trousers, undershort—and piled them into the garbage bag. Then he placed the bat in the same bag. Standing naked, he said, “You better take your clothes off too. Stuff everything in here. Shoes too.”

I did what he said. He tied up the bag and took it outside. I followed him. “I’ll put this in the trunk of Bridey’s car in the garage. We can get it out tomorrow. They might search my car. They won’t search hers.”

I was amazed at his calmness. He came back into the
kitchen. Suddenly a light went on. “Who’s there?” came a voice. “Who’s out there?”

“It’s me, Bridey. It’s Constant. No need for you to come out. I was just getting a glass of water. Go back to bed. It’s late. Sorry to disturb you.”

“What are you doing up at this hour, Constant?”

“Go back to sleep, Bridey.”

When the light went off, he signaled for me to follow him up the back stairs. He opened the door and looked out into the upstairs hall to see if his mother was up before making his way down to the room that we were sharing.

Inside, he said, “Take a shower. Quick. Use a brush on your fingernails in case there’s dirt from the woods. Then get back in bed and try to sleep until morning.”

He picked up the telephone and dialed. “Long distance? I’d like the number of Eloise Brazen. B-R-A-Z-E-N. It’s on Park Avenue in Manhattan. I’m not sure of the exact address. Somewhere in the Eighties.” He waited. “Thank you.” He dialed again.

“Hello?” I could hear the sound of a woman’s voice awakened from sleep.

“I would like to speak to Gerald Bradley.… I don’t have a wrong number, Miss Brazen. Please put my father on the telephone.
Now
.… I know it’s three o’clock in the morning. I am sorry to awaken you. Put my father on the telephone.… Pa, it’s Constant. Get home. Get home as quickly as you can. Get a car and driver.… Yes, I am. I’m in some trouble. Trouble like you never knew.… Not on the phone. There’s been an accident, a terrible accident. They’re going to say things about me that aren’t true. But it was an accident. I swear to you, Pa. It was an accident.… What? Yes, good idea. Phone Fuselli. Leave now, Pa. Hurry.”

Constant stepped into the shower. He washed his hair. He washed his body. He washed his hands. He scrubbed his
nails with a brush. He went to a bureau and took out a white Brooks Brothers shirt identical to the bloody shirt that he had just placed in the garbage bag. He put it on and got into bed. I stared at him.

“If they ask me for my clothes, I’ll give them this shirt. It’ll be used by morning. There’s another pair of gray flannels in the closet.”

“I don’t have an extra pair of shoes, or another pair of trousers.”

“I have everything. Don’t worry.”

“Where’s your blazer?”

“It must be in the Porsche.”

He looked out the window. “Jesus,” he said. He recoiled from the window in order not to be seen.

“What?”

“There’s police cars on the street.”

“What are they doing?”

“Driving slowly. Flashing the searchlights on the lawns.”

I stared at the man who had been my friend, as if he were another person whom I did not know. Turning from the window, he looked at me.

“Why are you staring at me?” he asked.

“You have a cut on your lip,” I replied.

He put his hand on the spot and walked to the bathroom mirror. He turned his head slowly from side to side, studying the blemish, as if it were an assault on his good looks rather than a possible clue to a murder.

“Constant,” I said.

“What?”

“Why? Just tell me why? So I can understand.”

He turned from the mirror and looked at me. “She screamed,” he said without emotion. Horrified by what he said, I covered my mouth with my hand. He walked toward me, taking off his shirt as he did. It dropped on the floor. He
stood naked in front of me, his hands on his hips. His body slowly undulated, as if in time to music. Then he put his hand on his penis and started to rub it back and forth. “Here. Take it,” he said. “It’s all yours.”

“No.”

“It’s what you always wanted, isn’t it?”

“No.”

“Don’t tell me no. I know you always wanted it. Here it is at last. Go ahead. Go ahead.”

When I awoke, unrefreshed, from a troubled and fitful sleep, the other bed in the room was empty. Gerald had returned to Scarborough Hill at six in the morning and was locked in the library with his son. Jerry appeared at seven from his apartment. There were telephone calls to Sandro in Washington. At eight the family gathered for breakfast. They were a family who normally abounded in good cheer at the breakfast table, vying with one another to tell their familial or social adventures of the night before. Grace was keen to tell of the political dinner she had attended, at which she had been placed next to a young priest, Father Murphy, who had been passionately devoted to Sandro’s recent campaign in Bog Meadow. She tried several times to tell her story but Gerald’s attention was elsewhere than on his wife’s latest favorite priest. It was obvious that Grace and the girls knew nothing of the drama that was unfolding around them.

“Constant dumped us last night, Pa,” said Kitt.

“What do you mean?” asked Gerald.

“Our brother Constant’s a ladies’ man,” said Mary Pat.

“We were having the most wonderful evening at the club, Mary Pat, and Harrison, and Constant, but first he got moody when Weegie and her parents came into the dining room and then, as soon as he saw that new girl in town, what’s her name, Winifred Utley, whose father is the new
president of Veblen Aircraft, and she said, ‘Hi, Constant,’ she couldn’t take her eyes off him, and he said he hoped she didn’t mind dancing with a man with an erection, and he just dumped us and went off and danced with her, leaving us stranded, and poor Harrison here had to bring us home.”

“Kitt!” screamed Mary Pat.

“I can’t believe what I’m listening to,” said Grace. She looked at her husband. “She couldn’t know what she’s talking about.”

Gerald and Jerry looked at each other.

“Didn’t Harrison ask you to dance?” asked Grace, trying to change the subject. She looked at me as if it were little enough I could have done for all the time I had spent in their house.

“No, but that was all right. The music sucked,” said Kitt.

“I hate that expression, Kitt,” said Grace.

Constant, late, arrived in the dining room. His hair was wet. He was dressed with his usual flair, his blazer retrieved from the Porsche, a clean shirt open at the neck, gray trousers, loafers. Only the dark circles under his eyes belied the freshness of his appearance.

“Morning, Ma,” he said, bending to kiss her on the cheek.

“You’re late,” she said.

“I’ve been swimming laps in the pool,” he answered.

“Isn’t it still a bit chilly for that?”

“Swimming laps in a cold pool is supposed to be great for a hangover,” said Kitt.

“And how would you know?” asked Grace.

“My roommate’s father’s an alcoholic,” she said.

Grace turned to look at her son. “A Mrs. Utley called me at two in the morning looking for her daughter,” she said.

“You see, Pa?” said Kitt. “A ladies’ man.”

“Did you cut your mouth, Constant?” asked Grace.

“Shaving,” said Constant.

Bridey walked into the dining room from the kitchen with Gerald’s eggs.

“Tell Bridey what you want for breakfast,” said Grace.

“Just coffee, Bridey.”

“You must have more than coffee. Bring him some juice and a boiled egg, Bridey.”

“No, Ma, really.”

“An English muffin then.”

“You certainly were up late,” said Bridey. “He woke me up at three o’clock in the morning. I couldn’t imagine what in the world he was doing in my kitchen at that hour.”

“Not three, no, no, no, Bridey,” said Gerald. “The dance was over at ten. He was back from the club long before eleven. Wasn’t he, Harrison? Harrison drove him.”

They looked at me. Before I could answer, the sound of a car coming up the long pebbled driveway caught the attention of everyone. “Gracious, who could be arriving here at this hour of the morning?” asked Grace.

Gerald and Jerry went to the window and looked out. “It’s Fuselli,” said Gerald. He nodded to Jerry.

For a severely crippled man, Jerry Bradley moved very quickly. He left the dining room and walked across the hall to answer the front door before Colleen could get to it. Johnny Fuselli was standing there.

“Move your car around to the back by the garage,” said Jerry. “My father doesn’t want to have too many cars in the driveway. Here’s the keys to the cook’s car in the garage. It’s a Pontiac. Drive it out of town somewhere and dump the garbage bag in the trunk. Then Pa wants you to come back here.”

“What’s the big mystery?”

Jerry ignored his question. “Make sure that garbage bag doesn’t get found.”

“I wanted to take a quick swim in the pool first,” said Johnny. “Okay?”

“We’ve got other things to do now than swim in the pool. Ask Bridey in the kitchen for a cup of coffee, but don’t tell her you’re taking her car.”

“Mary Pat, tell Charlie I want to see him, and tell him to have the Cadillac gassed up,” said Gerald in the dining room. “I want him to take you girls back to the convent this morning,” he said.

“No, Pa,” said Kitt. “Not till this afternoon. We don’t have to be back until five.”

“Now. You have to leave now. I’m going to need Charlie this afternoon to drive me.”

“We could take the train,” insisted Kitt.

“Pack your bags, girls. You’re going now. Your mother and I will be over for Parents Day. Grace, why don’t you help the girls.” He signaled to his wife to get the girls out of the room.

Kitt stopped at the dining room doors. “I sense a mystery in this room this morning,” she said. “What do you think, silent Harrison? You’re the writer in our midst.”

I did not reply.

“Mother Vincent will think we’ve done something wrong and you’re punishing us, Pa,” said Kitt.

“Give your old man a kiss, girls,” said Gerald. While he was hugging his daughters, he turned to his wife. “Why don’t you drive back with the girls, Grace? You always enjoy seeing Mother Vincent. I’m sure she’ll want to hear all about Maureen’s wedding.” He looked at her with a steely gaze that demanded compliance.

Grace, silent, nodded. She understood the look.

“This Father Murphy you met last night, the one who worked so hard for Sandro’s election. Why don’t you ask him to dinner this evening, Grace? I’d like to meet him.”

“Such short notice, Gerald,” said Grace. “He’s certain to be busy.”

“Doing what? Attending a Sodality of Mary meeting? Or the Knights of Columbus potluck dinner? Or the Wednesday-night bingo game in the parish hall? Believe me, Grace, he’d rather come here to Scarborough Hill. You can bet your bottom dollar on that.”

After the girls and Grace left the room, Jerry said to his father, “What’s with the priest? What are you inviting him to dinner tonight for?”

“It might be good to have a priest in the house this evening, just in case,” said Gerald.

Bridey reentered with a fresh pot of coffee.

“Just leave the coffee on the table, Bridey. Don’t bother passing it around,” said Gerald.

“That Italian guy drove out of here with my car,” she said.

“I told Mr. Fuselli he could borrow it,” said Jerry. “He was having trouble with his.”

“But I have the marketing to do this morning, and Mrs. Bradley’s clothes to be picked up at the cleaners, and—”

“He’ll be back, Bridey,” said Gerald, waving her away.

After she returned to the kitchen, there was a moment of silence, except for Gerald tapping his fingernails on the mahogany dining table. Then he spoke.

“About last night. You didn’t hear or see anything last night, did you, Harry?” He stared at me. As did Jerry. Constant looked down at his plate. Throughout, he remained quiet as things were done for him by his father and brother. There was no censure. That would come later, in privacy.
Here, in the turmoil whirling around them, there was only calm and order.

For a moment I did not speak. I stared back at Gerald Bradley’s fierce unblinking eyes beneath his graying bushy eyebrows. He looked aged by the strong morning sun coming in the dining room windows.

“I didn’t hear you reply,” he said. “Did you answer me?”

“What?” I whispered.

“I said, you didn’t hear or see anything last night, did you, Harry?” repeated Gerald Bradley.

“Yes, I did. I, uh, I saw Winifred Utley,” I said, my voice scarcely above a whisper.

“Oh, no,” he said, brushing away the incontrovertible facts as if they were annoying bugs at a summer picnic. “No, no, no.”

“I did.” I began to cry.

“You’re going to be all right, kid,” said Jerry. What he said was meant to be comforting, but there was a slight tone of impatience in his voice.

“I’m not crying for me,” I said, sobbing now. “I’m crying for her.”

“Let me be alone with Harrison,” said Gerald to his sons.

Jerry and Constant rose from their places. For an instant my eyes connected with Constant’s. There was in them a look I did not recognize, as if another person’s eyes had taken possession of his sockets. Then he walked slowly to the door, opened it, and went out. Jerry remained behind.

“I’d like to stay, Pa,” he said.

“Then close the dining room door.”

Jerry closed the door and then returned to the table, moving his seat up next to his father’s.

“This family has been a good friend to you, Harry,” said Gerald.

“Yes, sir.”

“We have made a home for you since the tragic deaths of your parents, have we not?”