The Lady and Her Doctor (21 page)

The baby carriage brigade had not left for the day. When he was more than a block away, one of them—he wasn't close enough to see which biddy it was—saw him and told the others, evidently. The others, except for the one who was scrubbing at her child's leg where he had fallen, all looked up at him. The mixture of talk and giggles which he had come to expect from the baby carriage brigade rose to meet him. He didn't know what they were saying, of course, but he got the general idea: “That's the doctor coming. Did you hear the latest? The other day she had him on his hands and knees digging in the dirt behind the fence in the cold. For this a man studies ten years to be a doctor?” That was the general idea and the sounds now diminishing as he approached meant they were snickering at him for marrying money and being turned into a ditchdigger for his trouble. From now on, he thought, it would be different. Today let them laugh at him, let their faces stiffen with embarrassment as he reached them because to them a doctor who became a ditchdigger was in a class with a minister who became a drunk. You snickered, maybe, but at the same time you were ashamed and maybe a little scared. Today he smiled as he passed them. He didn't stop and talk but he didn't stiffen up and hurry past as he had been doing.

Milton expected Sloane to be out in the yard, but she wasn't there. He took his time walking up the path, expecting until he reached the steps that he might have missed her, that she could be behind that bush or working on the one behind the maple tree. Until he opened the front door, Milton expected her to sneak up at him, kind of begging him with her whole body to give in about her sister because that was what had been happening all week. He had not let her talk, but every movement she made, every look she gave him, begged him to get rid of the sister. (“Do me a favor,” her eyes said, “do me a slight favor, kill my sister!”)

The two suits of armor had developed a new trick in the past week because the light came in at a different angle: now, as the door opened, they seemed to turn their shining heads. So let them. He heard Mrs. Austen's steps coming toward him from the kitchen side of the house and, although he didn't want to, he called, “Sloane?” He hurried in Mrs. Austen's direction as if he couldn't tell the difference between the slow cautious steps of a cardiac old woman and the elastic tigery walk of his wife. “Sloane? Oh, Mrs. Austen,” he said, “I thought you were the madam. Where is she? Upstairs?”

“Madam is out.”

“Still out? I didn't see her there.”

“Madam went somewhere, Dr. Krop. She didn't say. I was to tell you she would be back at six.”

“You don't know
where?
” He was so frightened that he shouted at the old woman. Suppose she had gone to her sister? Suppose the sister had told her even though she had promised she wouldn't for three weeks? Austen was staring at him. He turned on his heel and walked back to the telephone. The telephone book slipped out of his hands and the thump it made on the floor set his heart pounding. As he bent to pick it up, he saw Austen's feet planted. He called out, “How did she seem?” He wet his thumb so that he could turn the pages of the directory. “Particularly—?” He found Lady Constant's hotel number and dialed it, waving at Mrs. Austen to wait until later to answer his question. She disappeared discreetly.

Milton was happy to find that he could say “Lady Constant” without clearing his throat.

The moment he finished talking to Lady Constant, he called Mrs. Austen and repeated his question about the madam. Had she seemed particularly depressed? All she could tell him was that the madam said she would be back at six; she hadn't seemed any—different. “I'm going upstairs and lie down,” Milton said. “And conserve my strength,” he added, but to himself. Sloane had not gone to her sister, her sister hadn't told Sloane; it was O.K. From the half landing the bronze woman with the light in her hand bent toward him as suspiciously as usual. He withdrew his hand from the rail until he passed her, remembering the nasty gash he had once received from the sharp tip of the bronze shoe. Bitch, he thought, the bronze bitch and the iron bitch!

The door to Sloane's room was open and he looked inside, deliberately evoking the hatred which invariably welled up when he visualized himself lying there in that bed, sucked slowly into the valley in the middle where Sloane always lay waiting. The anger against what Sloane had done to him came into his mouth, from his guts, he thought, as sour, as bitter, as acid as ever. But if he stood there too long, if he overcharged his battery with the hatred, he would not be able to wait. As it was, he couldn't be still but went to the next room and, walking up and down it, went over the plan from the moment when, sandwich in hand, he walked into Jenny's apartment, at about seven forty-five, sat down on the good old Hide-a-Bed, ate the edible part of the sandwich and began telling Jenny how worried he was about Sloane, about projection, about her condition (attested to by good old Helga) about the suicide note (witnessed by good old Austen). He would break down and admit to Jenny that he had bitten off more than he could chew. (“I told you so,” Jenny would say.) He would make a good long story of it because the picrotoxin was fatal in from one-half to three hours. He would spin it out and Jenny would love every minute of it: Milt coming to her at last; Milt admitting Jenny knew best. He would tell Jenny that he had come to her because, after all, she had worked on the psychiatric wards, she knew something about this terrible business, more than he did, probably—if you came right down to it, what training had he had? He was no psychiatrist and although neither was Jenny, one advantage was, he could have her look Sloane over without Sloane thinking it was anything more than a social call. (Sloane won't ask why you're here, he would tell Jenny; she was too wrapped up in her own troubles these days. But if she did, Jenny was to say that Bud had barged in on them so they couldn't talk in her place and had come to the Haunted House to finish.) He would tell Jenny that he couldn't go it alone another day. He wanted her to come back with him and see whether she agreed that he must not defer to Sloane any longer and call a psychiatrist in no matter how much she objected.

Jenny would eat that up. Boy, how Jenny would eat that up—and he would eat up his nice sandwich!

If he timed it right, the kids would come back and he would let Jenny get them to bed and hear Maureen's prayers and by the time he got back to the Haunted House—

When Milton had gotten that far with the review, his ears did a kind of double take on the noise he had been making, walking up and down the big room, and he pulled off his jacket and shoes, yanked his tie loose, undid his collar button and forced himself to lie down on the bed. He did not want Austen testifying afterward that he had been pacing up and down or it might look funny, his running out on Sloane to go to Jenny's, no matter what she wanted about Bud. He must seem worried, of course, but no more than usual. Lying stretched out, his whole body twitched, and he remembered a patient, a Mrs. Knudsen, a blonde whose husband was a traveling man in more ways than one, according to her. She had described how her whole body twitched as she lay in bed nights and he found himself apologizing to her now because he hadn't given her enough sympathy. “Excuse me, Mrs. Knudsen!” (“Excuse me, Mom. Excuse me, Phil—”)

He couldn't make his mind a blank so he went over the whole thing again, step by step, examining each move, trying to anticipate even more minutely than he had, but that wasn't such a good idea because he started going too far, anticipating trouble without knowing where it would come from or how to prevent it. It was better, since he had it all letter perfect, to give himself a thrill, to see in his mind's eye the villa on the cliffs of Antibes. He let himself walk down the steps “cut into the living rock” and felt it warm under his feet. He was wearing bathing trunks and a shirt to match. Didn't they call those outfits Riviera outfits? On the beach—in bikinis—and if that wasn't what was being worn on the Riviera any more, by gum, one girl—his girl—was going to be wearing one if he had the say-so. And he would have the say-so! The guy who had the green stuff had the say-so and, for once, he would be the one with the green folding stuff.

He felt the bills in his wallet, then he felt the warm sand under his back. He closed his eyes and saw “the blue of the Mediterranean” and soon the twitching stopped so that he must have looked asleep because when Sloane came and opened the door she closed it again after her, softly, softly, so as not to disturb him. He lay as quietly as possible, hearing Sloane move around her room. (It sounded as if she was taking her clothes off. What for? She was always taking her clothes off, he thought, any time—in broad daylight—before lunch! She'd take off her clothes at the drop of a hat, he thought, and the hatred welled up inside, but although that made it harder to lie still, although it made the twitching come back, he welcomed the hate. He had to feel it. The hate was necessary.)

He lay as quietly as possible until he heard Mrs. Austen toil up the stairs, pausing at each step. When she was almost at the second floor, he got off the bed, walked across the room and threw the door open, standing there in his stockinged feet, stretching. “I guess I dozed off,” he said. “What time is it?”

“About six-forty, sir.”

“Is Mrs. Krop home?”

“Yes, sir. Madam returned at six. She is in her room.” Mrs. Austen took a deep breath and started up the third flight to her room.

“Mrs. Austen, you shouldn't go upstairs when you have to come right down again. You should arrange things better than that.” Mrs. Austen turned to him, about to explain that she was going up for her hat and coat: Milton snapped his fingers. “I forgot! Thursday, isn't it? Your night off. Had your dinner?” She nodded. “All ready to go?” She nodded again. “Have a good time.”

“Thank you, Dr. Krop.” She sighed.

The sigh was supposed to mean that there wasn't a chance in the world she'd have a good time, but he chose to interpret it as a sigh of weariness. “You look tired.” He snapped his fingers again. “Get your hat and coat and I'll run you over to Roosevelt. They have the escalator there: save you the stairs. Go on, no trouble at all!” He nodded toward Sloane's door, meaning because he was grateful to Mrs. Austen for helping out with Sloane, and ducked into his room. He got his shoes on, pulled his tie tight, ran his hand through his hair and grabbed up his jacket before the old woman reached her bedroom, then he knocked on Sloane's door. “Sloane? I'm going to drive Mrs. Austen to Roosevelt so she has enough moxie left to paint the town red. I'll be back in ten minutes.” Before she could say anything, he started downstairs. He was so afraid Sloane would somehow manage to stop him that he did not wait for the old woman but went downstairs and out.

He was standing on the top step waiting when he realized that the table in the dining room had not been set. He had glanced into the room as he passed, but it hadn't registered until now. He had the shakes so bad he couldn't get his door key out, and had to wait until he heard the old woman inside. He rang the bell. “Forget my car keys,” he said to her, shooting past. It was true; the table wasn't set. Dark, the finish gleaming, the huge table was bare except for the condiment set and the silver candlesticks.

He was afraid to trust himself to ask, so he waited, saying nothing as he shepherded Mrs. Austen around to where the car was. Whatever had happened, he had to drive her to the station, which would give him time to ask in a way that wouldn't look suspicious. “Nothing like a cat nap to get you hungry! From the appetite I've worked up, I must have been digging ditches in my dreams. What's for supper, Mrs. Austen?”

“I don't know, sir.”

Never heard of supper. Hadn't heard Sloane plan it with her in the morning: cold roast lamb (with plenty garlic, he had said, remember?) leftover string beans from yesterday mixed with leftover peas from the day before with some kind of fancy dressing, potatoes in the hot thing, anemic custard topped with stewed fruit from Monday's supper. “You mean you haven't fixed dinner? I thought it was understood that in the condition Mrs. Krop is, she isn't fit to—”

Nobody ever accused me of skimping my work, her voice said. “It was madam herself, Dr. Krop. Madam said I was not to fix dinner tonight.”

“That's news to me!”

“Yes, sir, just before madam went out she gave me her orders. It was not my doing, sir.”

“Of course not,” he said. And they had reached the subway station, thank God. He pulled up to the curb and managed a smile, but that was about all he could manage.
Sloane knew!
The old woman didn't smile back at him. She hated him. He saw it on her face there before he bent to release the brake, before she pulled her servant's face back on.
Sloane knew!

He had to pull up a block away because he was shaking like a leaf. “Take it easy,” he said. “Don't jump to conclusions. All you know for a fact is she canceled the meal, that's all you know for a fact!”

“Oh yeah?” he said, “that's all? Just tonight, just tonight of all nights since we got married, for the first time she cancels the supper: just like that! The leg of lamb would dry out, the fancy dressing on the vegetables would turn rancid—just tonight, though, she doesn't give a damn about waste!” He put his head down on the wheel, dizzy with a panicky desire to start the car and head for the Canadian border.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “One step at a time.” He raised his head cautiously: it felt full of fluid. “She can't
know!
” He touched the envelope of picrotoxin in his jacket pocket. “There's no possible way for her to know.” It was difficult to think because he felt so dizzy and nauseated. He said aloud, “Lady Constant!” Sloane had been there after all! Lady Constant had lied to him. The autopsy report had come through early and she had told Sloane. So Sloane knew that much, but not that he meant to poison her tonight! So it was all over, finished, but that was all. She could only throw him out; she couldn't throw him into jail. Sloane was finished with him and the Riviera was finished. To quiet his churning stomach and swimming head, he took a deep breath of air—the usual Queens air, full of the exhaust of cars, of food, of small, dull lives.