Lasher (7 page)

He sighed, and looked defeated.

She leant forward and kissed him on the mouth. Immediate connection. In fact, it startled her a little, and even startled him. But there wasn’t much follow-up. The drugs took care of that, like folding up the kiss in a blanket.

Age made such a difference. Kissing a man who’d been to bed a thousand times was nothing like kissing a boy who’d done it twice, maybe. All the machinery was here. She just needed a stronger jolt to turn it on.

“Hold on, honey, hold on,” he said gently, taking her by the left shoulder, and forcing her back.

She found it almost painful suddenly that this man was right there, and she probably couldn’t get him to do what she wanted, and maybe never would.

“I know, Uncle Michael. But you have to understand that we have our family traditions.”

“Is that so?”

“Oncle Julien slept with my great-grandmother in this house when she was thirteen. That’s how come I’m so clever.”

“And pretty,” he said. “But I inherited something from my ancestors too. It’s called moral fiber.” He raised his eyebrows, smiling at her slowly, taking her hand now and patting it as if she really were a little kitten or a child.

Best to step back. He looked groggier now than when they’d started. It seemed wrong, really, to try to draw him to her. Yet she ached for him. She really did; she ached for intimacy with him and the entire world of adults which he embodied for her. Stranded in childhood, she suddenly felt freakish and confused. She might have cried.

“Why don’t I put you in the front bedroom?” he said. “It’s all clean and neat in there, has been since Rowan left. You want to sleep in there? That’s a nice room.” His voice was
thick. His eyes were closed as he talked. He stroked her hand affectionately.

“Front bedroom’s fine,” she said.

“There are some flannel nightgowns in there. They were Rowan’s. I gave them to her. They’ll be too long. But wait a minute, maybe Aunt Viv is still awake. Maybe I should tell her you’re here.”

“Aunt Viv is uptown, with Aunt Cecilia,” she said, venturing to squeeze his hand one more time. It was beginning to feel a little warm. “They’ve become famous friends, Aunt Viv and Aunt Cecilia. I think Aunt Viv is now an honorary Mayfair.”

“Aaron. Aaron is in the second bedroom,” he said, as though thinking aloud.

“Aaron’s with Aunt Bea. He and Bea have a thing together. They went back to his suite at the Pontchartrain, because she is far too proper to take him home.”

“Is that true? Bea and Aaron. Gee, I never noticed.”

“Well, you wouldn’t. I’ll bet Aaron will be an honorary Mayfair soon too.”

“Wouldn’t that be something? Beatrice is perfect. You need a woman for Aaron who appreciates a gentleman, don’t you think?” His eyes closed again, as if he couldn’t prevent it.

“Uncle Michael, there’s no such thing as a woman who doesn’t appreciate a gentleman,” said Mona.

He opened his eyes. “Do you know everything?”

“Nope. Wish I did, but then again, who would want to know everything? God must be bored. What do you think?”

“I can’t figure it out,” he said, smiling again. “You’re a firecracker, Mona.”

“Wait till you see me in a flannel nightgown.”

“I won’t. I expect you to lock your door, and go to sleep. Aaron might come home, Eugenia could get up and start her ceaseless walking…”

“Ceaseless walking?”

“You know old people. I’m so sleepy, Mona. Are you sleepy?”

“What if I get scared all alone in that front bedroom?”

“Doesn’t compute.”

“What did you say?”

“Just means you’re not scared of anything. And you know it, and you know I know it.”

“You want to sleep with me, don’t you?”

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

“Doesn’t matter. I won’t do what I’m not supposed to do. Honey, I think I should call somebody.”

“Trust me,” she said. “I’m going to go to bed now. We’ll have breakfast in the morning. Henri says he makes perfect Eggs Benedict.”

He smiled at her vaguely, too tired to argue, too tired perhaps to even remember the phone numbers he ought to call. What evil things drugs were. They made him grope for the simplest verbal constructions. She hated them. She never touched alcohol, or drugs in any form.

She wanted her mind like a scythe.

He laughed suddenly. “Like a scythe!” he whispered.

Ah, so he’d caught it. She had to stop herself from acknowledging this, because he didn’t realize that she hadn’t spoken. She smiled. She wanted to kiss him again, but didn’t think it would do any good. Probably do harm. He’d be dead asleep again in a few minutes. Then maybe, after a nice long bath, she’d search for the Victrola upstairs.

He surprised her by throwing back the covers and climbing out of the bed. He walked ahead of her, unsteady, but obviously chivalric.

“Come on, I’ll show you where everything is,” he said. Another yawn and a deep breath as he led her out the door.

The front bedroom was as beautiful as it had been on the day of the wedding. There was even a bouquet of yellow and white roses on the marble mantel, somewhat like the bouquet which had been there on that day. And Rowan’s white silk robe was laid out, as if she really were coming home again, on the pale damask coverlet of the four-poster bed.

He stopped for a moment, looking about as if he had forgotten what he meant to do. He wasn’t remembering. She would have felt it if he’d been remembering. He was struggling for the context. That’s what drugs did to you, they took the context of familiar things away.

“The nightgowns,” he said. He made a halfhearted little gesture towards the open bathroom door.

“I’ll find them, Uncle Michael. Go back to bed.”

“You’re not really scared, are you, honey?” Too innocent.

“No, Uncle Michael,” she said, “you go back to sleep.”

He stared at her for a long moment, as if he could not even concentrate on the words she spoke. But he was determined to
be protective, determined to worry appropriately. “If you get scared…” he said.

“I won’t, Uncle Michael. I was teasing you.” She couldn’t help smiling. “I’m the thing to be afraid of, most of the time.”

He couldn’t repress a smile at that either. He shook his head and went out, throwing her one last very blue-eyed and adorable glance in which fire burned up the drugs for a moment, and then he closed the door.

The bathroom had a small pretty gas heater. She turned it on immediately. There were dozens of thick white towels on the wicker shelf. Then she found the flannel nightgowns, in rows on the top shelf of the closet—thick, old-fashioned gowns, in gay flowered patterns. She chose the most outrageous—a pink gown, with red roses on it, and she turned on the water in the long deep tub.

Carefully she removed the pink taffeta bow from the back of her hair, and laid it on the dressing table beside the brush and comb.

Ah, what a dream house, she thought. So unlike Amelia Street with its claw-foot tubs, and damp rotted floorboards; where the few remaining towels were chewed and worn, and would be until Aunt Bea brought by a new load of hand-me-downs. Mona was the only one who ever laundered them; she was the only one who ever laundered anything, though Ancient Evelyn swept the banquette, as she called the sidewalk, every day.

This house showed you what could be done with love. Old white tile, yes, but new and thick plum-colored carpet. Brass fixtures that really worked, and parchment shades over the sconces beside the mirror. A chair with a pink cushion; a small chandelier descending from the tiny medallion above, with four candle-shaped bulbs of pink glass.

“And money, don’t forget money,” Alicia had said to her not long ago, when she had wished aloud that Amelia could be beautiful again.

“Why don’t we ask Uncle Ryan for the money? We’re Mayfairs. There’s the legacy! Hell, I’m old enough to hire a contractor, to bring in a plumber. Why is everything always falling apart?”

Alicia had waved that away with disgust. Asking people for money meant inviting them to interfere. Nobody at Amelia Street wanted the Mayfair Police on the premises, did they? Ancient Evelyn did not like noise, or strange men. Mona’s father
didn’t want anybody asking him questions. On and on it went. The excuses.

So things rusted, and rotted and broke, and no one did anything about them. And two of the rear bathrooms hadn’t worked now in years. Window sashes were broken, or painted shut. Ah, the list was endless.

An evil little thought crept into Mona’s head. It had almost crept into her head before, when Michael had said her house was Italianate. What would he think of the present state of affairs at Amelia Street? Maybe he could
suggest
a few things, like whether or not the plaster in her room would start falling again? At least he would know. That was his thing, of course, restoring houses. So bring him home to see the house, she thought.

But then the inevitable would happen. He was bound to see Alicia and Patrick drinking all the time, and then to call Uncle Ryan, the way everybody did sooner or later. There would be the usual row. Aunt Bea might come again and once more suggest a hospital.

But what nobody understood was that these hospitalizations did more harm than good. Alicia came back crazier, more eager to drown her misery. The tirade last time had been the worst ever. She’d tried to smash everything in Mona’s room. Mona had stood with her back to the computer.

“Lock your own mother up? You did that! You and Gifford, you lying little witch, you did that to me, your own mother! You think I would have done such a thing to my mother? You are a witch, Ancient Evelyn’s right, you’re a witch, take that bow out of your hair.” And then they’d fought, Mona holding Alicia’s wrists, forcing her back.

“Come on, Mom! Stop it!”

And then Alicia went limp as she always did, just a sack of potatoes on the floor, sobbing and pounding her fist. And the shock of seeing Ancient Evelyn in the doorway, which meant that she had made the long trek up the stairs by herself, not very good, and her dour words.

“Do not hurt that child! Alicia, you are a common drunkard. Your husband is a common drunkard.”

“That child hurts me!” Alicia had wailed.

No, Mona would never put her in a hospital again. But the others might. You never knew. Best not to drag Michael into it, even if he wanted to help her fix up the place. Scrap that plan. Go on to the next one.

By the time she’d peeled off her clothes, the room was filled with delicious warm steam. She turned off the lights, so the only illumination came from the orange flames of the gas heater, and then she sank down into the tub of hot water, letting her hair stream out as if she were Ophelia again, or so she always imagined, floating to her death in the famous stream.

She turned her head this way and that to stir her long hair in the water, seeing the swirl of red around her, to get it really clean. She pulled at the bits and pieces of dead leaf. God! One of these could have been a roach! How ghastly. It was this swirling back and forth that made her hair so thick and shining after, the long soak and the turning. A shower would just beat it flat. She loved her hair to be as big and thick as possible.

Perfumed soap. Wouldn’t you know it? And a bottle of pearly thick shampoo. These people knew how to live. This was like a fine hotel.

She washed her hair and body slowly, enjoying every minute of it, lathering gently all over and then sinking down to rinse the soap and shampoo away. Maybe she could somehow restore Amelia Street without inviting in all the new brooms of the family. Maybe she could explain to Uncle Michael that things had to be done cautiously and quietly, that he mustn’t talk about Patrick and Alicia, that everybody knew anyway. But then what would they do when Ancient Evelyn started to tell the workmen to go home, or that they could not use noisy equipment?

It was comforting to be clean. She thought again of Michael, the sleeping giant, in there in the witch’s bed.

She stood up and reached for the towel. She dried her hair roughly, tossing it forward and then backward, loving the freedom of being naked, and then she stepped out of the tub. The soft clean flannel gown felt snug and safe to her, though it was too long of course. So she’d pick it up like a little girl in an old-fashioned picture. That’s how it made her feel. That’s how her bow made her feel. Little old-fashioned girl was her favorite disguise, to the point where it wasn’t a disguise at all.

She rubbed her hair fiercely one more time, and then picked up the brush off the dressing table, stared at herself for a moment in the mirror, and then began brushing her hair firmly back away from her forehead and behind her shoulders, so that it would dry neatly as it should.

The gas heat seemed to curl and breathe around her, to tap on her forehead with fingers. She picked up her bow of ribbon,
and pinned it in place on the back of her head. She could just see two little bits of it sticking up. Like devil’s horns.

“Oncle Julien, the hour has come,” she whispered, shutting her eyes tight. “Give me a clue. Where do I look for the Victrola?” She rocked from side to side, Ray Charles style, trying to recapture one vivid moment from all those ever-fading dreams.

A thin distant sound came to her, under the gentle roar of the gas heater, a song she could barely hear. Violins? Too thin a sound to tell what the instruments were, except there were many, and it was…it was…She opened the bathroom door. Far far away, but it was the waltz from
La Traviata
playing. It was…the soprano singing. She started to hum it, irresistibly, but then she couldn’t hear it! My God, what if the Victrola was down there in the living room!

She padded barefoot, towel over her shoulders like a shawl, into the hallway and peered down over the balusters. Very distinctly came the song of the waltz, louder than it had ever been in her dreams. The woman sang gaily in Italian, and now came the chorus behind her, sounding on the whole scratchy record like so many birds.

Her heart was pounding suddenly. She reached up and touched her bow to make sure it was securely clipped to her hair. Then she dropped the towel in a little careless heap and went to the head of the stairs. At that very instant, light softly leapt out of the doorways of the double parlor, and grew soundlessly brighter as she went down the steps. The wool carpet felt slightly rough to her bare feet, and when she incidentally saw her toes they looked very babyfied beneath the flannel, which she had to lift now, just like a picture-book kid.