Long Lankin: Stories (6 page)

The screen door was locked, and she shook it frantically.

—Helen. Helen.

The door opened, and as she stepped quickly inside Helen looked at her with mild curiosity.

—What is it, Julie?

—Nothing. I … nothing.

She went into the living-room, and Helen followed, watching her. She sat on the couch and squeezed her hands between her knees. Helen stood above her and put a gentle hand on her hair.

—What’s wrong, Julie?

—I don’t know. Something … strange. I saw someone.

—Who did you see?

—Someone. I don’t know.

She began to tremble. Helen looked up to the window and slowly smiled.

—Look, Julie. There’s who you saw. Look.

Julie turned. Beyond the glass glaring with light someone was moving, a hand was raised, signalling.

—Don’t let it in, she breathed, her fingers tearing at each other. Lock the door, Helen.

But Helen was gone. Julie looked away from the window and held her face in her hands. After what seemed a long time she lifted her head, hearing sounds about her.

—Julie. Julie. We have a visitor, Julie, look.

Helen was there before her, smiling, and beside her a stranger.

—Who are you? Julie asked in a small, dead voice.

He was young, not more than eighteen or nineteen, a tall, heavily built boy with a shock of red hair flowing up and away from his forehead. He wore a blue shirt open at the neck, and faded denims. With his hands on his hips he stood and watched her, his wide, handsome face composed and expressionless. He asked:

—Why were you frightened of me, Julie?

She looked from one of them to the other, searching their faces.

—What do you want here? she asked.

—I came to say goodbye to you, he said. You’re going away and I came to say goodbye.

She shook her head and looked appealingly at Helen.

—What does he want, Helen?

—He came to say goodbye to us.

—But I don’t know him, she wailed.

The boy laughed, and shook the flaming hair away from his forehead. He lit one of Helen’s cheroots and sat down on the couch. Julie moved away from him, and he smiled sardonically at her. Helen put her hands on her knees and leaned down to gaze silently into Julie’s face. The boy asked:

—Are you sleeping well now, Julie? Do you sleep well?

She did not answer, and he went on:

—Why can’t you sleep, Julie?

Again silence. He shrugged his shoulders, and leaving the couch he walked about the room, examining it here and there. Julie followed him with her eyes. Helen reached forward and touched her cheek lightly and then went to stand again at the window. Julie’s lips began to move, and she said:

—I’m afraid. I’m afraid of the dark.

The boy stopped in the middle of the floor.

—Well you should leave a light burning. With a light there would be no darkness and then you would not be afraid. Would you?

Julie looked down helplessly at her hands where they lay like dead things in her lap. Without turning, Helen murmured:

—Not that kind of darkness.

—I see, the boy said. Yes I see.

Julie’s hands moved, and she smiled at them.

—You see, I’m afraid that I won’t wake up and yet I’m afraid of waking too. Sometimes I think there is something in the room. Some animal sitting on its haunches in the corner watching me. And I’m afraid.

The boy ambled out the door, and from the next room he called:

—What kind of animal? In the corner, Julie, what kind of animal is it?

—I don’t know, she whispered.

—What? What did you say, Julie?

Helen left the window and sat down in an armchair in the corner. One half of her face now lay in shadow, and Julie looked away from the still, single eye watching her. The boy came back and leaned against the door frame, his arms folded.

—There are some strange things in this house. Shaving lotion. I found shaving lotion.

—I like the perfume, Helen said. I prefer it.

—Ah. You prefer it. But there are other things. In the bathroom.

Helen suddenly laughed, and the sound of her laughter seemed to shake the room. The boy sat again beside Julie. This time she did not move away. She was gazing in a trance at her knees. The boy ran a hand through his hair and said:

—Last year there was a girl here. In this house. She was alone. A very strange girl with blue eyes. I don’t think she was Irish. Maybe English. I came to see her. She used to talk too about things following her. Threatening her. I came every day to see her. I listened to her and she said it made her feel better that I listened to her. One day I found her sitting on the floor crying. I asked her what was wrong and she said she was afraid of the sea. I wanted to teach her how to swim and she said that once she could swim and was a strong swimmer but now she had forgotten. She couldn’t swim now.

There was silence but for the cries of birds out on the sound. At last Julie asked:

—What happened?

—What?

—The girl. What happened to her? Was she drowned?

—Drowned? No. She went away, I think. But I don’t think she was drowned.

Julie stood up and went toward the stairs, her head bent and her arms hanging loosely at her sides.

—Where are you going? Helen said.

—I’m going to … to lie down for a little while. Just a little while. I’m so tired. It’s strange.

In the bedroom she lay with her hands folded on her breast and listened to their voices. Once they laughed, and in a while all was silence. She watched the reflections of the water above her on the ceiling. They seemed to have but one pattern which constantly formed, dissolved, and reformed again. A small wind came in from the sea and murmured against the window, and the curtains moved with a small scraping sound. Her eyelids fell. She struggled against sleep, but the strange weariness she felt was greater than her fear. She watched in fascinated horror her mind drift into the darkness, floating away with the small sounds of the sea, the distant crying of the birds.

—Helen. Helen.

A voice was screaming, but no call came in answer. The room seemed filled with a white mist that pressed heavily against her eyes. She left the bed and opened the door. A vast, deep silence lay on the house, a silence which seemed to hold in it the inaudible hum of a tremendous machine. She moved to the top of the stairs and sat on the first step. From here she could see into the living room. They were down there, on the couch. She leaned against the banister and watched, listening in awe to the strange sounds, the terrifying sounds. There was a faint warm smell, like the smell of blood and bones. She fled into the bathroom, and there she was sick. When the nausea passed she lowered herself to the floor and leaned her face against the cool enamel of the bath. She wept.

There were footsteps on the stairs, the sound of a door opening quietly, more steps, a voice.

Julie. What are you doing here?

Crying out, she opened her eyes, then turned away her face. Helen ran her fingers through her unruly air, and looked down helplessly at the girl huddled before her in terror. She reached down, and taking her under the arms lifted her to her feet.

—Julie, what is the matter with you?

—Has he gone?

—What? Are you hurt? Take your hands away and let me look at you. You haven’t taken anything, have you?

Julie, her fingers pressing her eyes, began to moan. Helen pulled open the door of the cabinet above the handbasin and checked swiftly through the bottles there. She said in exasperation:

—This will have to stop, Julie. You’re behaving like a child. You are looking for attention. Are you listening to me?

But Julie went on moaning. She sat on the edge of the bath now, her shoulders trembling. Helen threw up her hands and groaned at the ceiling.

—You’re impossible, she cried, and left the room. Down the stairs Julie’s cries followed her.

—You hate me! You hate me! You want to see me dead!

Helen went to the window and with trembling fingers lit a cheroot. This would have to stop.

She crushed out the cheroot with a savage twist of her fingers and went into the empty room where their cases were stored. Gasping with the effort she hauled them out and piled them on the couch. Julie came down the stairs, and Helen worked steadily on, pretending not to notice her.

—Don’t leave me, Helen, she said mournfully.

Helen paused, but did not turn. She said:

—We have to leave today, Julie.

—I know.

—And then you’re going away. You decided, didn’t you?

—
You
decided.
You
did. I decided nothing. It was you!

Helen beat her fists on the battered case before her, then ran a hand over her forehead, her mouth.

—O Julie Julie Julie.

She turned, and they looked at each other. Julie lowered her eyes and pulled in the corners of her mouth. She touched the cases piled before her, her face betraying an ill-controlled, frantic incomprehension of these square, heavy things. Helen said gently:

—We’re leaving today, Julie. You haven’t forgotten. It’s what you want. You want to leave here, don’t you? The summer is over.

Julie nodded dumbly, and stepped back from the couch. She lifted her hands and opened her mouth to speak, then turned away in silence. As she went to the door Helen watched her, and shook her head.

Julie stood in the doorway and looked out across the sound. The brittle autumn sunlight danced on the water and the far islands seemed to shift and tremble in their distance. Helen came behind her and touched the down on her neck. Julie started, and as though the touch had sprung some hidden switch she began to speak tonelessly.

—I want to get married. I want to have a baby.

—Of course you do.

—My mother worries about me. She asks what are my plans. What can I tell her? And I’m weak. I feel sorry for her. I want to tell her I’ve found someone. That everything is all right. That everything is … all right.

She sighed, and turned back to the room. With her hands against the door frame she halted. Helen spoke to her, but she was not listening. A bird called to her across the reaches of the sea. Helen took Julie’s face in her hands, and covered her ears with her palms, and in this new silence Julie seemed to hear vaguely someone screaming, a ghost voice familiar yet distant, as though it were coming from beyond the frontiers of sleep.

Nightwind

He shuffled down the corridor, trying the handles of the blind white doors. From one room there came sounds, a cry, a soft phrase of laughter, and in the silence they seemed a glimpse of the closed, secret worlds he would never enter. He leaned against the wall and held his face in his hands. There were revels below, savage music and the clatter of glasses, and outside in the night a wild wind was blowing.

Two figures came up from the stairs and started toward him. One went unsteadily on long, elegantly tailored legs, giggling helplessly. The other leaned on his supporting elbow a pale tapering arm, one hand pressed to her bare collarbone.

—Why Morris, what is it?

They stood and gazed at him foolishly, ripples of laughter still twitching their mouths. He pushed himself away from the wall, and hitched up his trousers. He said:

—’S nothing. Too much drink. That you David?

The woman took a tiny step away from them and began to pick at her disintegrating hairdo. David licked the point of his upper lip and said:

—Listen Mor, are you all right? Mor.

—Looking for my wife, said Mor.

Suddenly the woman gave a squeal of laughter, and the two men turned to look at her.

—I thought of something funny, she said simply, and covered her mouth. Mor stared at her, his eyebrows moving. He grinned and said:

—I thought you were Liza.

The woman snickered, and David whispered in his ear:

—That’s not Liza. That’s … what is your name anyway?

—Jean, she said, and glared at him. He giggled and took her by the arm.

—Jean, I want you to meet Mor. You should know your host, after all.

The woman said:

—I wouldn’t be a Liza if you paid me.

—Mother of God, said Mor, a bubble bursting on his lips.

David frowned at her for shame and said:

—You must be nice to Mor. He’s famous.

—Never heard of him.

—You see, Mor? She never heard of you. Your own guest and she never heard of you. What to you think of that?

—Balls, said Mor.

—O now. Why are you angry? Is it because of what they are all saying? Nobody listens to that kind of talk. You know that. We’re all friends here, aren’t we, Liza—

—Jean.

—And this is a grand party you’re throwing here, Mor, but no one listens to talk. We know your success is nothing to do with … matrimonial graft.

On the last words the corner of David’s mouth moved as a tight nerve uncoiled. Mor looked at him with weary eyes, then walked away from them and turned down the stairs. David called after him:

—Where are you going, man?

But Mor was gone.

—Well, said the woman. Poor Mor is turning into quite a wreck. These days he even has to pretend he’s drunk.

David said nothing, but stared at the spot where Mor had disappeared. The woman laughed, and taking his arm she pressed it against her side and said:

—Let’s go somewhere quiet.

—Shut your mouth, David told her.

Downstairs Mor wandered through the rooms. The party was ending, and most of the guests had left. In the hall a tiny fat man leaned against the wall, his mouth open and his eyes closed. A tall girl with large teeth, his daughter, was punching his shoulder and yelling something in his ear. She turned to Mor for help, and he patted her arm absently and went on into the drawing room. There in the soft light a couple were dancing slowly, while others sat about in silence, looking at their hands. In the corner a woman in a white dress stood alone, a little uncertain, clutching an empty glass. She watched his unsteady progress toward her.

—There you are, he said, and grinning he touched the frail white stuff of her gown. She said nothing, and he sighed.