The Dark Descends (12 page)

"But that was only to be expected, surely."

"Yeah, but the thing is..." He heaved a sigh. "The thing is, I'll have to do a lot more research. I might as well spring it on you now, I guess. I'm planning to go up to Cambridge to sift through the Hawthorne stuff at Harvard. That means relocating more or less for the duration."

Joyce said nothing. All at once, she was gripped by a despair so acute that, for the moment, her heart seemed to leave its moorings.

"How do you feel about it?"

"What do you mean, how do I feel about it? What difference does it make how I feel about it? If you have to relocate to get the thesis finished, then you have to. There's no more to be said."

"No, there isn't, I guess. I was afraid you might be upset about my going off into the wild blue yonder. You know, feel as if I'm abandoning you to your fate or something."

"Eliot, I've told you and told you. I can perfectly well—"

"I know, I know. No need to drag out the soapbox." He patted her thigh companionably. "I didn't really think you'd object. Cambridge isn't exactly the other side of the planet. I was sure you'd understand, but even so, I wouldn't feel right about going if you'd still been having your hands full with— Hey, you know what? I've been doing a lot of thinking about your neighbor and how come she suddenly turned on like that."

"Have you? Why?"

"Well, there sort of has to be a reason, doesn't there?"

"Does there?"

"Sure there does. And I'll bet I know what it is." He patted her thigh again. "Christ, baby, you're taut as a wire. Never mind. I know the cure." His hand slid between her thighs, worked up and down. Gently. Oh, so gently. "Better?"

"Yes, yes. What is the reason?" She held her breath.

"The reason? Oh. Well, you did say she's in her forties, didn't you?"

"Uh-huh."

"Doesn't that suggest anything to you?" He waited, but his hand didn't wait—it went right on caressing her. "Menopause, my little dolt. Sometimes referred to as the change."

Joyce burst out laughing.

"I don't see that the idea is so ridiculous. Lots of women go haywire around that time. I'll admit your neighbor's behavior is kind of extreme, but could be it's hit her all at once how she's going into her dotage without ever having played the fun games and she wants to make up for lost time."

The laughter subsided, leaving her completely relaxed. "That could be it, I suppose."

"You're pretty easy to convince."

"Well, it sounds plausible."

He rolled over on top of her and kissed her forcefully. "I'm disappointed in you. I expected you to offer a few words of wisdom about some deeply buried sense of guilt she didn't know she had untill now."

"No such profundities come to mind at the moment." Her arms went round him, clutching as though they never meant to let go.

"Ouch! Those hip bones are as sharp as razor blades."

"Oh, shut up."

...

Summer days, running past seamlessly. At
Yardstick
, one day virtually indistinguishable from the day before or the day after because of the pace—hectic. Without being melodramatic, one could even toss around a word like frenetic, summer being the season of vacations and extra loads piled up on those who remained to get the magazine out. All summer long Joyce was among the remaining, not having worked long enough to qualify for a paid vacation. The demands on her time and energy were prodigious, greater than any she had ever known (possibly excepting the weeks of cramming for the comprehensive examinations that had closed her college career, possibly not), and yet, far from objecting to the regime, she felt invigorated, almost exhilarated by the confrontation with challenge after challenge—paramount, the challenge of proving that the copy room could function in the absence of Margaret and her charts. Inevitably there came the day when the pace caught up with her. One of those days that seem designed to make anybody long to go back to bed and start all over again. In the morning, an inquiry of a staff writer as to whether a split infinitive in his copy was really unavoidable that called down on her head a tirade on the subject of how it was the writer's prerogative to decide when to split an infinitive and when not to. In the afternoon, a session with an article on space aeronautics so technical she could hardly read it, let alone punctuate it. In the evening, pot luck with Irene, who kept up a stream of the most appalling anecdotes about life in her office, where, to hear her tell it, demons lurked at every turn, ready to spring upon and trample underfoot the woman alone who didn't look out for herself. Late in the evening (much too late in the evening), the return home via subway, hardly a joy ride at the best of times and this time an utter misery, for the train mysteriously came to a halt somewhere between Thirty-fourth Street and Twenty-third Street. A twenty-minute halt, but it seemed like twenty years. Was there anything more frustrating, more conducive to a feeling of total helplessness, than being trapped underground? Joyce found it necessary, before she could set foot indoors, to take a long walk—a walk that carried her from Abingdon Square all the way down Bleecker Street, up to Washington Square, and then, finally, home.

It was after midnight. Almost numb with fatigue, she made straight for the bathroom and that time-honored remedy for exhaustion, a long, hot bath. She turned on the taps of the tub full force and peeled off her clothes, tossing them on the floor every which way. Untidy. The sort of thing she never did. But what the hell, tired was tired. She sat down on the edge of the tub, lit a cigarette, and, by dint of furious puffing, was able to reduce it almost to the danger point for lung cancer before the water rose high enough to suit her.

She had one foot raised, ready to step into the tub, when she heard it: three short thumps. An instant of silence, then a repetition. Silence. Thump, thump, thump. Silence. Thump, thump, thump. Silence. It continued, the rhythm unvarying. Her foot returned to the floor. What was it? Trouble in the water pipes? But the thumping lacked the hollow, echoing quality of pipe knocking. In spite of its regularity, it suggested a deliberate rapping by somebody. Or something: the rapping was so faint that the thought of Poe's raven was inescapable. Yet, faint as it was, the sound had urgency, as though it had been going on for some time and would go on, slowly, inexorably, until a response came. Fancy?

Find out. She snatched her robe from the hook on the door, wrapped it around herself, slid her feet into rubber thong sandals, and left the bathroom. Now the thumping was appreciably louder. It was coming through the ceiling. It was definitely coming through the ceiling. Something about its insistent monotony chilled the marrow of her bones. A ridiculous reaction. Irrational. Probably a recrudescence of the complex feelings provoked by Charlotte Bancroft a while back and buried when—

But what was the point of standing around engaged in soul-searching? That thumping—Something about it— There was a glimmer of knowledge lurking in the depths of Joyce's mind, struggling to force its way to the surface. Three short thumps meant something. Something specific. What? All she could think of was dot-dot-dot-dash: V for victory and the start of the Beethoven Fifth Symphony. Fat lot of help that was.

Then, like a bludgeon, it hit her. Three thumps: S.O.S. Panic swept over her, immobilized her, rooted her to the floor. But her brain wasn't immobilized; it was working. Working on the thought that upstairs someone was calling for help. Calling feebly but doggedly, like a sick child whimpering in the dark. How inhuman—how positively inhuman—to be standing here as though turned to stone when she should be doing something. Answering the call. Or at the very least finding out if there really was a call to answer. Something. Anything. And yet she couldn't seem to budge. Couldn't seem to get her limbs in motion for the effort common decency demanded. Couldn't seem to shake panic and listen to reason, which was trying to tell her that if she delayed much longer—

Fight panic. Breathe deeply, like an unsure swimmer preparing to enter water over his head. Plunge in. There. It was working. Her legs were moving, carrying her to the door. She opened it, went out, caught the knob in time to prevent a slam. A simple, familiar procedure—leaving the apartment. Something she did all the time. Important now to concentrate on the mechanics of moving. Important not to think about why she was moving. She made it all the way across the landing before panic gripped her again, paralyzed her again.

The glare of the naked light bulb suspended from the ceiling was dazzling. Joyce closed her eyes to clear her vision, opened them and looked up the stairwell at the blue of the walls and, in the place where the whiteness of Charlotte Bancroft's door should have been, darkness. The door was standing open upon an unlighted apartment, and from within, from the darkness, came the steady, relentless thumping.

Joyce lifted a leaden foot and placed it on the first step. "Miss Bancroft?" she whispered. Or thought she whispered: her voice seemed to roar through a tunnel.

The thumping stopped. Silence now. Total silence. Then, a moan. A moan no louder than an infant or a small animal might have made.

"Miss Bancroft, is something the matter?"

Inanity. Jabberwocky. There was no answer, naturally. The thumping resumed, underlining the foolishness of the question.

"I'm coming up, Miss Bancroft."

Easier said than done. God, how hard it was to lift her feet. She began to climb. Slowly, with difficulty, for every particle of her being wanted to retreat, avoid what lay ahead. But she climbed. And the S.O.S. went on and on and on, patiently, unceasingly, as though meaning to go on till the end of time.

She was up; she could go no higher. Viewed from the doorstep, Charlotte Bancroft's apartment was all darkness beyond the few feet illuminated by the hall light.

"Miss Bancroft?"

No reply. Only the reiterated thump, thump, thump of the S.O.S., coming from somewhere in the darkness. All at once, the thumping ceased. Now there was silence. Heavy, desolate silence.

Panic was threatening paralysis once more. Blindly Joyce thrust her hand inside the doorway, found the light switch. The room seemed to explode into light.

"Oh, my God, no.
No
!"

Blood. Blood all over the place. Splattering the polished wooden floor, ranging far and wide over the blue and white chintz slipcovers and curtains, the walls, even the Venetian blinds. Joyce felt her knees start to give way, braced herself with a hand against the doorframe. A hand wasn't enough, a shoulder wasn't enough: her whole torso had to lean. But her eyes had no support. They registered every drop of dark red and, confronting the spectacle in the middle of the room, they closed. Tight. Too much was too much. But of course they flew open again almost at once.

Charlotte Bancroft lay prone with her head facing the door and her chin resting on her left forearm. Her face was bruised and puffy, the eyes swollen shut, a patch of coagulated blood covering her mouth like a surgical mask. Blood saturated the blue and white paisley of her dress, rent from the neck almost to the hem; blood streaked the exposed flesh of her back and limbs. Her right arm lay straight at her side, palm down, and her right leg was tucked underneath her left at an angle no human limb ever assumes naturally. It seemed impossible that any spark of life could remain in that ravaged body. And then, incredibly, the flesh quivered and a faint, strangled moan emerged.

Joyce felt liquid—thick, nauseating liquid—well up in her throat. She swallowed. Hard. She could not be sick now. She
would
not be sick. She had things to do. Surely there were things that had to be done. What things? A good question.

Something, perhaps a delayed reaction to the light, perhaps an awareness of another presence, agitated the wreck of humanity on the floor, spurred it on to further manifestation of life. The swollen eyelids fluttered and were still again; the mouth strove to open, but, failing to break the crust of blood, was still again. Another moan emerged, and the fingers of the right hand clenched themselves into a puny little fist and began beating S.O.S. on the floor.

Wrong, wrong, wrong to stand there like a nitwit. There was so much to do. Where to begin? Reassurance. Offer reassurance.

"It's all fight, Miss Bancroft. You're not alone anymore." That was effective. The thumping stopped. The moan that emerged this time sounded like a sigh. The tortured body appeared to relax.

"I'm summoning help. There's nothing to worry about."

Now Joyce could act. She went quickly to the telephone on the table between the sofa and the window. Summoning help was, of course, what she should have done the minute she set foot inside the door, instead of letting panic get the upper hand. Hurry, oh, hurry, a voice inside her shrieked silently, even as her real voice calmly asked for the police and an ambulance, calmly explained why. As soon as she put down the receiver, a fresh attack of nausea nearly forced her down on the sofa, but the sight of the bloodstains on the slipcover effected a fast cure. She fled back across the room to the doorway.

A cigarette. That might help. At once the desire became a craving. Did she dare go downstairs for one? If she hurried— Unthinkable. She would have to do without, unless she happened to have one on her. Wonder of wonders, she did. In the pocket of her robe was a crumpled cigarette pack with two cigarettes inside. A miracle. She almost never left things in pockets—it stretched them.

She went to the stove, turned on the flame, bent over to give herself a light. The cigarette was stale. No wonder. How long since she had shoved the almost empty pack into the pocket? Weeks. Perhaps longer. Well, one didn't carp about miracles. One simply—

It suddenly dawned on her that she was performing all her maneuvers with her back to Charlotte Bancroft. Funk. Sheer funk. Well, what of it? There was nothing she could do for the poor creature. However great the temptation to try to ease the torment by reaching for pillows or cold compresses, giving way to it would be a mistake. Any boob knew enough about first-aid procedures to fear the danger of even so little as the touch of a hand, should the internal injuries be anywhere near as terrible as those that showed.