Authors: Unknown
The house telephone was ringing as she re-entered the apartment. She closed the service door and bolted it, before taking up the receiver.
‘There’s a Mr Hoover on the line, Miz Templeton,’ came Dominick’s high-pitched voice. Janice felt a leap of panic and was about to refuse the call when she abruptly changed her mind. She had acted resolutely and correctly with the flowers; what then had she to fear from the man who had sent them? He was enemy, and enemy must be dealt with.
‘Connect him, please,’ she said as her quivering hand went to her head and brushed a wisp of hair away.
‘Hello, Mrs Templeton?’ Hoover’s voice bore a distinct note of anxiety.
‘Yes,’ replied Janice tremulously.
‘Good morning, thank you for talking to me. I just called to find out how your daughter is.’
‘Ivy is much better,’ answered Janice very gravely.
‘But not well enough for school. You’re very wise to keep her home.’
The statement required no answer, and Janice made none.
Hoover picked up the slack with: ‘I wonder if you’d mind my dropping in? I think we have a great deal to talk about.’
‘You’ll have to ask my husband about that.’
Would you put him on, please?’
‘He isn’t here.’
‘Oh?’ Hoover seemed surprised. ‘His office said he was home ill.’
‘He’s gone to see the doctor.’
‘I hope it’s not serious.’ Then, shifting mood: ‘By the way, have you had a chance to look at the books I sent you?’
‘No. I haven’t the time for books. Besides, I’m not interested in the subject.’
‘Oh?’ said Hoover quietly. ‘I thought, after what happened last night, you might want to know more about … the subject’
‘You’re wrong, Mr Hoover.’ Janice was finding a new strength in her voice. ‘Nothing happened last night to increase my interest in your books.’
‘I don’t believe that, Mrs Templeton. I saw the look on your face when’ - he paused, seeking the right words to express his next thought - ‘when Audrey Rose sensed my presence nearby and made contact with me through Ivy. You had the look of a person who had just witnessed a miracle, as it surely was. Your husband was too overwrought to perceive it, but you certainly did.’
‘The look you saw on my face, Mr Hoover, was the look of a mother in despair over the health of her child. It is a look I often wear, as my daughter often experiences these attacks.’
‘She does?’ Hoover said, as if stung.
‘Yes, Mr Hoover, several times a month over the last nine years,’ Janice lied. ‘What happened last night was not unique, nor was what you did to calm her. Her psychiatrist uses a similar technique to bring her out of these trances. It’s called suggestive hypnosis.’
‘I didn’t know Ivy was under the care of a psychiatrist,’ Hoover replied, as if berating himself for having failed to discover this fact in his research on them.
‘Well, she is. And the cause of her problem has been fully defined and is well known. It relates directly to an accident she had Vhen she was an infant - a milk bottle that was too hot burned her fingers and made a lasting impression on her mind. The ‘hot, hot, hot’ she babbles refers to the milk bottle and nothing else.’ Janice could hardly believe the words were her own.
‘Your psychiatrist approves of this theory?’
‘Yes, she does.’
‘I think she’s wrong,’ said Hoover in a voice deflated of energy. ‘I think your daughter may be in far greater trouble.’
‘You may think that, Mr Hoover, but we do not. We believe in our doctor, have confidence in her training and experience, and trust her completely. Furthermore,’ Janice continued, socking it home to him, ‘we believe in medical science, not in superstition.’
Hoover was silent a moment, then spoke in a tone that was quietly respectful, and even sympathetic.
‘Do you have a religion, Mrs Templeton?’
‘No, I don’t believe in religion.’
‘Were you always an atheist?’
‘Yes, always. And I’d really appreciate it if you’d stop sending me your religious books, your flowers, your sayings, or anything else regarding your beliefs, as I have absolutely no interest in the subject, nor do I have the time to continue this conversation, so good-bye, Mr Hoover…’
Janice quickly lowered the receiver onto its cradle without giving him a chance to say another word. She was trembling with the fevered excitement of an athlete who has just won a race, her heart fluttering, but her soul uplifted by success. A drink, she thought, would be marvellous. She had never drunk liquor this early in the morning, but this was a morning like no others.
Sipping the neat scotch, seated in the rocker, vaguely hearing the television upstairs, Janice wondered why she had lied to Elliot Hoover about the history of Ivy’s nightmares. It was fear. He was seeking a wedge into her mind. He was the enemy. One doesn’t share truths with the enemy.
Actually, the nightmares had struck only once before - beginning one night soon after Ivy’s second birthday and persisting for nearly a year.
Dr Ellen Vassar, whom Bill promptly nicknamed Brunnhilde, had swooped down into their lives like an avenging angel, her strong, heavily accented voice and razor-sharp Freudian mind probing, questioning, analysing, and finally succeeding in casting the demons out of Ivy’s dreams.
Janice recalled the strong, humourless face of the German psychiatrist at their last session and her parting words to them.
‘Your child was expressing some special fears of separation from you, Mrs Templeton, and she appears now to have mastered those fears, which children do as they grow older. However, do not treat her as though she were in any way special and fragile. Simply treat her as any three-year-old. You should have no further trouble.’
And now, seven years later, the demons were back, with a renewed and murderous fury…
Janice felt a glacial chill rise within her and quickly swallowed some scotch to dispel it.
Suggestive hypnosis? That was Bill’s theory. It had worked for Dr Vassar. Why not for Elliot Hoover? Well, why not? His explanation was too self-serving and convenient to be believed.
She was less certain of why she had lied to Hoover about her religion.
Born a Catholic, she had gone through all the rituals of that sombre faith and had actually enjoyed being frightened by the nuns’ talk of death and resurrection when she was a child. The church, St Andrew’s, was hewn out of ancient and silent stone, covered with fungus and stained with bird droppings. Entering its massive, silent mustiness was like walking into Dracula’s castle. Yet she had truly believed in all the lovely, improbable promises of heaven, the sick, terrifying threats of hell.
She had stopped believing even before high school. She went to mass each Sunday to please her parents, as a matter of rote. The Latin words and rites had been reduced to a meaningless jumble by then. In her third year of high school she left the Church. Her parents never said a word. They were pained by her decision, but they never said a word. In the back of her mind, Janice feared a terrible retribution for her sin of inconstancy. She knew that when the time for death came, she would wish to have the last blessed sacrament read over her and receive extreme unction.
Maybe this was God’s retribution, she thought - the empty glass dangling from her fingers - sent down to her in the form of Elliot Suggins Hoover.
Harold Yates lay stretched across the Barca-Lounger like a reclining Buddha. His damp features were screwed up in a curjously bemused smile as the tape came to an end.
‘Boy, when you bump into ‘em, you sure bump into ‘em.’ He chuckled softly.
‘He’s gotta be a kook, right?’
‘I don’t know, Bill. That’s hard for me to say. He seems to know what he’s talking about. I mean, he certainly puts his case forth in a logical manner. He’s not a ranting hysteric. He’s a calm, reasonable person who seems to believe what he’s saying.’
‘What the hell are you saying, Harry?’ Bill’s voice was unsteady. ‘You telling me I’ve got to honour this guy’s demands?’
Harry held up the flat of his palm in Bill’s face.
‘Whoa, Bessie! Back up! I said nothing about honouring his demands. I said you can’t stop him from believing what he wants to believe in. When it comes to honouring his demands, you certainly cannot give in to him, for then you will have taken another member into your family. So regardless of what he wants, you must take steps initially to protect yourself and your family, and the law will help you in doing this.’
‘Okay, give! What steps?’
Well, initially you might adopt a less vigorous attack. You might tell him, next time he calls, that whatever he believes, thinks, or feels about your daughter sheltering the spirit or soul of his daughter, you do not subscribe to his thinking, you don’t feel that you can permit him visitation privileges, nor can you allow him to interfere with the normal course of your family life. And then you tell him, if he’s going to persist, that you’ll take legal steps to restrain him from bothering you.’
Bill thought about this, a look of uncertainty on his face.
‘Is there some special way, some special legal language I should use to tell him these things?’
‘If you want, I could write you a letter,’ obliged Harry. ‘You could send it to him, registered mail, or even have it hand-delivered, return receipt requested, telling him to cease and desist from doing this objectionable act and, if he does not stop, that you are authorized to seek whatever legal remedies are available. The effect of this letter is of no real legal significance, except It is evidence to the court, should you seek injunctive relief, that Hoover was advised that what he was doing constituted a nuisance and was objectionable to you and your family.’
With a slight strain of tension in his face, Harry advanced the Barca-Lounger to the sitting position and depressed the button for his secretary. ‘It’s the best way to proceed, Bill; we find ways to discourage him, ways short of hauling him into court or a police station. I mean, we try all kinds of peaceful ways before we bring down the majesty and the awesome force of the law.’
The secretary, a tall woman in her early sixties, had silently entered, taken her chair, and, pencil poised over memo pad, was waiting.
The ‘majesty and awesome force of the law.’ The words had a fine, comforting ring to them, Bill thought with a tinge of emotion as he entered the elegant elevator and smiled his routine hello to Ernie.
Harry had written a strong, solid letter, couched in all those intricate, fearsome phrases that lawyers use to strike terror in the hearts of their opponents. They had sent it via special Red Arrow messenger to Hoover’s YMCA address, to be delivered into his hand, and with signed receipt to be returned to Harry’s office for safekeeping.
Having opened both locks with his two keys, Bill still had to ring, as Janice had kept the chain bolt on the door.
She seemed gayer, her mood lighter, as she took the tape recorder from his hand, placed it shakily down on the floor, then rose on her toes to kiss him, losing her balance in the process. Bill held her arms to steady her and chuckled, Well, well, somebody’s been juicing it up.’
Janice grinned. ‘What the hell’
It was just after three o’clock - a bit early in the day to be potted but, ‘What the hell,’ Bill agreed and went to the kitchen for ice.
Janice told him the good news as he knocked ice cubes into the martini shaker. Ivy’s temperature was down to absolute normal, and Bill was an absolute genius for having predicted as much, at which point she started humming ‘Isle of Lovely Hula Hands’ and doing sensuous things with her hips. Bill hummed along with her as they hulaed their way to the liquor cart in the living-room, where Bill filled the shaker with gin and refreshed Janice’s drink. Oddly, the crisp, cold jolt of pure alcohol had a sobering effect on Bill, and a moment of seriousness ensued as he told Janice about Harry’s letter, trying to recall the specific words and phrases: ‘harassing, molesting, invading…’ and ‘an ex parte order shall be issued …’ and ‘the majesty and awesome force of the law…’
‘He called this morning and sent me a plant,’ Janice told him, spacing her words out with care to keep from slurring.
‘Sent you what?’
‘A plant - with a note saying that even flowers do it - reincarnate, that is.’
‘The bastard.’
Janice’s face screwed up in a sly and wicked smile. ‘I dumped it in the incin … erator,’ she said falteringly. ‘Pot, plant, flowers, poem, the works’
Bill grinned and clicked his glass to hers. ‘That’s my gal.’ They sipped their drinks and looked at each other approvingly. Then Bill asked, ‘He called, you said?’
‘Yup. Right after the plant came - and went.”
‘What’d he want?’
‘Wanted to come up, what do you think?’
‘What’d you say?’
‘Told him to … bug off, mister … go peddle yer karmers up the street!’
Bill burst out laughing. ‘You didn’t?’
‘Or words to that effect’ Janice winked with pride and nodded her head. ‘He got the message all right.’
Putting down his drink. Bill reached out, drew his brave, besotted wife into his arms and kissed her soundly.
The telephone rang.
Each felt the other flinch. They drew apart.
Bill took a deep breath, then picked up the receiver.
‘Yes,’ he said, brusquely, then relaxed and offered the phone to Janice. ‘It’s Carole, for you.’
Janice’s face fell; it would be a long and weary siege, but there was no way to refuse the call.
Bill picked up drink and shaker and went upstairs to visit Ivy, whom he found sitting on the floor, Indian-style, surrounded by elements of Clue. Her eyes shone with a healthy glow as she reached up, took his hand, and placed it against her cool face.
‘One game, Daddy, please?’ she begged, gazing up at him with her impossible-to-refuse smile. ‘Mom played terrible,’ Ivy complained. ‘I beat her without even trying.’
Bill could well understand why.
By the time he had finished the last dividend in the shaker they had played two games, which they split, and were on the final lap of the third. The time was ten to five, and good odours were wafting up to them from the kitchen.