And
the broken window.
I
stood there on the path. Even as I looked I could imagine myself in the lower half
of the house. I thought my way through it, up the stairs, and then looked out
through the broken window. The broken window was in Eve's bedroom, the bedroom
where she'd lain and told me of the candle- moth.
I
could almost smell the place, that fresh scent of lavender and cinnamon, and
the way the sun cut through those upper floor windows and created such space
within.
The
reasons I would have bought that house if I'd had the money. But I hadn't.
Seemed no-one else had either. Or no- one else wanted it.
The
place was falling apart, damp had set in along the edge of the porch and around
the verandah. The mesh in the screen door was torn like someone had hurled a
stone through it. The paint was peeling from the outer walls, like leaves, like
the tongues of cheeky kids pulling faces at the strange guy standing on the
path staring at them. The strange guy who used to come down here and see the
crazy old witch a hundred years ago.
Place
had been empty since she'd died back in the beginning of '67. Nearly three
years.
I
felt something I could not have described. Loss? Anger? A sense of
worthlessness?
I
walked towards the front door, went up those same steps where I'd stood and
been showered in snow. I remembered the Christmas lights Benny Amundsen had
hung along the front, the way Eve Chantry had leaned from the window and
hollered at me.
Hell
of a thing, Mister Ford.
Hell
of a thing, Mrs. Chantry.
I
remembered everything. And it hurt.
I
reached for the handle, felt the damp mouldy surface of swollen wood, and when
I turned it, the rusty latch creaked against the striker plate. I shoved the
door and it gave, and pushing it back against the raised carpet I stepped
inside.
This
was no longer Eve Chantry's house.
Everything
had been taken away, the furniture, her personal effects. The atmosphere.
That
was the main thing. Eve Chantry's house had been the way it was because of her.
With her gone it was just a house. Nothing more.
Perhaps
the rumors she herself had created had been sufficient to convince people the
place was haunted.
I had
a fleeting thought: that I should sell my mother's house and buy this one,
restore it, recreate the atmosphere that was present when Eve was alive.
Do
that for her. For myself. I smiled. It was a crazy thought.
I
surveyed the hallway, saw through the door into the kitchen where she had baked
those cookies, the ones that tasted of nutmeg and sweet cherry and something else
indescribable that made you want two or three more.
I
stepped forward and looked into the room where we had drunk Christmas punch and
smoked cigars, where we had remembered Jack and Jennifer and a terrible day in
the summer of '38.
All
these things.
I
turned and looked up towards the landing. Taking each riser slowly, testing my
weight with care, listening to the creak of the damp wood beneath my feet, I
went up.
I
stood in the upper hallway, and when I moved I could almost see her there, see
her lying on her bed, the tray of food untouched by her feet, that smell of
lavender, the sense of losing…
I
stood right where I had when I'd come to see her.
I
remembered Dr. Backermann, his words, his platitudes, and how I'd wished I'd
had all the money in the world to send her to Charleston State and have people
who knew what they were doing give Eve Chantry back to me.
I
remembered the candlemoth.
I
turned at the sound of a car engine. Reaching that same broken window I had
seen from the path below I lifted the net curtain aside and saw a dark sedan
pull along the path and approach the house.
I
frowned.
I
released the curtain and went back to the upper landing. I started down the
stairs, quietly, slowly, and without asking myself why I was going with such
care. If I had stopped to think I perhaps would have been puzzled by the
coincidental appearance of someone else. The house had been empty for years.
Perhaps this was a buyer. A real estate agent. But it was Christmas Eve.
Back
in the lower hall, I approached the front door and, as I reached for the door
handle, I saw a silhouette through the frosted glass of someone out there on
the porch steps.
Something
tight and cold clutched at the pit of my stomach.
I
stepped back as I realized whoever was out there was coming in. I was at the
kitchen doorway by the time they had turned the handle and opened the door.
A man
stood there. Tall, dark hair, long overcoat. He was not alone. I glimpsed a
movement to his right.
'Mister
Ford,' he said, and smiled.
I
felt like someone had slapped my face.
'They
knew your name?' Father John asked.
I
nodded.
'But
you'd never seen them before?'
I
shook my head. 'Not that I could remember.'
'And
the second man came in alongside the first?'
'Yes,
but he sort of hung back, like he didn't really want to be seen as much, like
he was trying to avoid showing his face.'
'But
you did see them both clearly?'
'I
saw them both clearly.'
'And
you remember what they looked like?'
I
frowned, puzzled. 'Why d'you ask?'
Father
John leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table. He looked like a
schoolteacher explaining something once more to a slightly backward child.
'I'm just
fascinated,' he said. 'It's like gangster stuff. You go down to this house and
these two guys turn up, long overcoats, menacing, all this kind of stuff. And
also the thing that this guy Schembri told you about Mister West being in the
employ of Senator Goldbourne.'
'Robert
Schembri was a lot of things,' I said. 'And just plain crazy may well have been
one of them.'
'You
don't want to believe that Mister West knew something about what happened with
Nathan?'
'What
I want, what I believe, none of these things count for much right now. It
doesn't matter whether Mister West knew anything about it or not…'
'Doesn't
matter?'
'Say
he did. What the hell am I gonna do about it now? I'm here, right here on Death
Row, and he's doing whatever he does and there's nothing that's gonna change
our places, right? It was what it was… I said all along that that's what
happened. I went down there, they said what they came to say, they left.'
'And
they threatened you?'
'Not
directly… they didn't say they were gonna kill me or anything, but their
purpose for coming down was clear.'
'And
what was that?'
'Your
friend,' the first man said. 'Your negro friend, Mister Ford.'
He
took a step towards me. There was something in his face that I would recognize
years later in that of Mr. West.
These
people possessed dark aspects. They carried shadows and ghosts. Ghosts of what
they had done, what they were about to do. Ghosts of what they would
like
to do if there was some way they could.
'Who
the fuck are you?' I asked. I could hear the tension and fear in my voice. I
sounded like a frightened ten-year- old.
'Let's
say we are associates of an interested party,' the first man said. 'Anyways,
who we are and who you are isn't the issue at hand, Mister Ford. The issue at
hand is a certain Mister Verney who happens to be spending a little too much
time and showing a little too much interest in a particular young lady.'
He
smiled, and again there were dark aspects, shadows beneath his eyes that seemed
to flicker out from someplace and return just as swiftly.
'So
who the fuck are you?' I asked again. 'You're like paid fucking thugs or
something?'
The
second man appeared to emanate from behind the left shoulder of the first. He
was slightly taller, he wore a wide-brimmed hat, and the light from the frosted
pane in the front door cast a shadow that obscured all but his chin. It was a
strong chin. Clean-shaven. I could see the muscles along his jawline tensing
and relaxing back and forth as if something was alive and breathing inside his
mouth.
I
felt nauseous.
'We're
no-one,' the first man said. 'We're messengers, nothing more than that. There's
no threat to you, Mister Ford, none at all. We merely bring you a message that
we would appreciate you passing on to your negro friend.'
'Message?'
I said. 'What message?'
The
first man smiled. 'I think you have the message loud and clear, Mister Ford…
loud and clear.'
He
turned as if to leave.
'Hey
wait!' I said. 'What are you saying? That if Nathan keeps on seeing this girl
there'll be some kind of problem for him?'
It
was a stupid question, and even as I said it I felt awkward and naive. They had
delivered a message, I
had
received that message loud and clear, and
these people were very simply the kind of people that stayed over their side of
the field and you didn't proffer invitations.
The
first man turned back.
He
smiled, but there was something so sinister in that expression, that slight
flicker of tension around the lips and eyes.
'We're
not here any more, Mister Ford… we're gone… we were never here in the first
place…'
The
second man had already backed out through the front door and was standing on
the porch.
The
first man went then, slowly, deliberately, his eyes never leaving me, and even
as he reached the door the second man was walking away towards the sedan.
People
didn't operate like this without a great deal of practice.
I was
gripped by an indescribable sense of terror that seemed to pervade every nerve,
every sinew, every muscle, everything inside of me.
The
first man nodded, smiled again, and then he turned and closed the front door
behind him.
I
watched his silhouette as he went down the front steps and started along the
path.
I
walked to the stairs and sat down on the third riser.
I
heard the sound of the car pull away towards the road.
I
listened until the sound vanished into nothing, and then I buried my face in my
hands and started to shake.
'And
you didn't see them again?' Father John asked.
'Not
that day, no.'
'Later?'
I
nodded.
'And
you were sure it was the same men?'
'Sure
then, sure now… always will be sure it was the same men.'
'No
question about it?'
I
shook my head.
'The
second man… you never saw his face clearly?'
'I
saw his face clearly enough as he was leaving. He walked backwards towards the
front door, and there was a moment when the light from the side window in the hallway
illuminated his face.'
'So
you saw them both clearly?'
'Jesus,'
I replied. 'This really is the third degree.'
Father
John laughed. 'I'm sorry, Danny. The whole thing intrigues me. The fact that
Goldbourne would send two heavies down to threaten you because his daughter was
seeing someone…'