The House That Jack Built (32 page)

    They climbed up the steps. The front door was closed, but when Norman tried the handle they found it wasn't locked. He opened it, and it swung back in total silence, as it always did. A perfectly-joined door, on perfectly-balanced hinges. Inside, it smelled the same. That odd aroma of camphor, and menthol and aniseed. Spicy, but stale, like opening Tutankhamen's tomb and finding a crisp, bandaged mummy.

    They crossed the hallway. The light in the broken windows was beginning to fade. For some reason this gave Effie a strong sense of urgency, as if they had to complete their business here before it grew totally dark. Then she thought: Dracula. It's a memory from Dracula. Everything had to be done before the sun dropped below the horizon.

    She looked up at the galleried landing, and the coat of arms with all its heraldic symbols on it. Bobbin, dice, dragon and skull. The four quarters of Jack Belias' life. And its legend,
Non omnis moriar - 'I shall never completely die'
.

    The windows grew darker and darker, and Effie's feeling of panic began to increase, although she kept telling herself that everything was fine, everything was under control. She was here with Norman; and Pepper was here, too. Before his accident, she would have been reassured by Craig's presence, too.

    'Halloooo!' called Norman. 'Anybody, like, home?'

    There was no reply, so he called again. 'Hallooo, everybody! It's us! Is there anybody home? If not, why not? Come out and explain yourselves!'

    Effie couldn't help giggling. 'Come on, Norman, if they're not here, how can they explain themselves?’

    Norman listened, turning around and around. At last, he said, 'Ssh! I can hear something!'

    They both listened intently. Nothing. Only the wind, sighing through the broken window panes. Only the quick, furtive scuttling of rats.

    'I can't wait to get rid of those rats,' said Norman, wrinkling up his nose. 'Mr. Bellman and me went down to the cellar a couple of days ago, and the whole damned place is squirgling with them. Literally squirgling, everywhere.'

    'Squirgling?' asked Effie.

    'That's right. That's when they like squirm and wriggle and writhe, all at the same time. Jesus, you should see them.'

    'I think I'd rather not. And thanks for telling me, before we spent the night here.'

    'I'm sorry, Mrs. Bellman. But they're cellar rats. Like, live-in-the-dark rats. They wouldn't dare to come upstairs.'

    'I'll believe you.'

    They walked through to the ballroom but when they opened the doors it was deserted. Even while she was standing in the doorway, uncertain about whether she should venture inside, Effie could see the daylight dying and dying in the tall, tainted-glass windows. She tried not to think about the The Blue Danube, or the broken champagne glasses slicing into her feet.

    'Halloooo!' called Norman.

    They listened; but there was no reply.

    'They must be upstairs.'

    They returned to the hallway, and climbed the left-hand staircase to the galleried landing. 'This place is killing me,' said Norman. 'All you have to do is forget your screwdriver on the third floor, and you have to like walk back thirty-five miles.'

    Effie said, 'Where do you think they are? I hope they haven't had an argument. Your mother asked me not to tell Craig that she was coming here.'

    'They've probably met by surprise and, like, frightened each other to death.'

    Effie laughed. 'That wouldn't surprise me.'

    They reached the landing. The doors to the anteroom were slightly ajar, and as they approached them, Effie could hear Pepper calling out. She couldn't make out what she was saying, but she sounded as if she had hurt herself. Then she heard Craig's voice, shouting back at her. Effie turned to Norman and frowned in bewilderment.

    She was just about to push open the doors when she distinctly heard Craig saying, 'Bitch!' and she took her hand away from the door handles as if they were red hot.

    'What's up, doc?' asked Norman.

    Effie swallowed. The only time that Craig had ever called her 'bitch' was when he was having sex with her. He hadn't called her bitch at any other time, even when they were going through a hell-blazing row.

    Pepper cried out yet again. This time - with a jerky thrust of both hands that was more like a nervous spasm than a deliberate act - Effie threw the doors wide open.

    At first she couldn't understand what she was looking at. The anteroom was already filled with shadows, and the thing that writhed in the middle of it looked for one skin-prickling instant like a single distorted creature, like the plaster monster on the landing. But then it moved, and resolved itself, and she saw Pepper lying on her back, with a flimsy cotton dress dragged right up around her neck, both bare feet up in the air, her thighs impossibly wide apart, while Craig crouched between them, like a supplicant at some unholy ritual, wearing nothing but his black polo-shirt.

    Effie stood in utter silence. Norman, just behind her, turned his head away in embarrassment.

    'Bitch!' Craig snarled at Pepper, pushing himself into her. His bare buttocks tightened like a fist.

    It was then that Pepper, as she clung to him, glanced over his shoulder and saw Effie standing in the doorway. An extraordinary expression crossed Pepper's face - not of shock or surprise, as Effie would have imagined, but complete mystification, as if she couldn't remember who Effie was, or why she should be standing there looking at her. It was the expression of somebody who glimpses an old acquaintance in a busy street; knowing that friend to have died, years ago.

    Norman tried to catch Effie's arm, but Effie said, 'Take me back to the Inn, please, Norman. Please, Norman... now!'

    She crossed the landing and ran down the stairs. She didn't want to see, she didn't want to think. Most of all she didn't want to hear any explanations. She tugged open the front doors and hurried out onto the steps. A soft still darkness was gathering, and the sky around Valhalla was speckled with bats.

    'Effie!' It was Pepper. 'Effie, wait!'

    Effie ran down the steps and across the shingle to Norman's automobile. Her forehead felt as if she had been pressing it against a block of ice for ten minutes: numb and cold and physically hurting. She wished to God that she had brought her own car: then she could have sped away from here directly, and never, ever come back.

    Norman came out, closely followed immediately by a flustered Pepper. She was white-faced, except for two crimson spots on her cheeks. In her diaphanous white dress she looked as if she were playing Lady Macbeth. She came hurrying barefoot down the steps, overtaking Norman, and she came right up to Effie and caught hold of her sleeve. Effie twisted herself free, and turned her face away.

    'Effie, I didn't realise! Effie, listen to me, it wasn't even me!'

    'Please, Norman,' said Effie, ignoring her. 'Can we just get out of here, pronto?'

    Norman opened the car door for her, and Effie climbed inside. Pepper clung onto the door to stop her from closing it. 'Effie, you have to believe me! It was a psychic vibration, the worst one yet!'

    Effie looked up at her coldly. 'From where I was standing, it looked more like a physical vibration. Now, do you mind.'

    'Effie it wasn't me!'

    'In that case, my eyesight must have got worse than I thought.'

    'It wasn't me, just like when you were dancing in the ballroom, that wasn't you!'

    'I cut my feet in the ballroom. At least I didn't screw somebody else's husband. What's happened to you? Come on, Norman, please, I'm tired of this.'

    Norman started up the Charger's engine with an ear-splitting roar. 'It wasn't me!' screamed Pepper, over the noise. 'It wasn't Craig, either!'

    Effie pried Pepper's fingers off the edge of the door, slammed it and locked it. Norman looked across at his mother and shrugged in resignation. There was no point in them standing on the steps having a screaming contest. Craig and Pepper had been caught in the act, and no amount of emotional opera was going to change that.

    They burbled up the driveway, and Norman switched on his headlights, freezing six or seven rabbits in their tracks. Effie sat repetitively rubbing her left arm; too shocked to cry. She couldn't see rabbits. All she could see were Pepper's bare feet, and the whiteness of her thighs, and the blackness of Craig, kneeling in between them.

    'Did you know about this?' she asked Norman, as they passed back out through the main gates.

    Norman shook his head. 'I don't know what to tell you. You could have knocked me over with a goose-feather.'

    'You're telling me the truth? You really didn't know?'

    'Cross my heart, Mrs. Bellman. I never knew nothing. Mom has plenty of men friends. She likes to call them her "beaux". She's been in trouble a couple of times with, like, married guys. But I didn't know nothing about her and Mr. Bellman, no way. I would've warned her off. You can't mix business with hanky-panky, no way. This has ruined everything.'

    'You bet it's ruined everything. I'm going down to see Walter Van Buren tomorrow morning to have the sale blocked.'

    'Oh, shit,' said Norman, under his breath.

    Effie said nothing. There was nothing else to say. She would call her lawyer in New York as soon as she got back to Pig Hill Inn; and then she would call her mother. But before she did either of those things, she would order a large vodka-tonic on the rocks and put the chain on the bedroom door.

    

    

    She was sitting in front of the fireplace nursing the last of her second drink and staring at the slowly-collapsing logs when the door suddenly opened - only to be sharply arrested by the chain. She heard Craig say, 'Damn it to hell, Effie!'

    He rattled the door a few times, and then stopped. 'Effie! Effie, are you listening? I have to talk to you!'

    'Go away, Craig. I don't even want to look at you.'

    'I have to talk to you!'

    'Whatever it is, I don't want to hear.'

    'But I can explain everything!'

    She sipped her drink. It was so watered-down now that it scarcely tasted of vodka. 'I know. You slipped on the underfelt and accidentally fell on top of Ms. Moriarty, who just happened to be lying in front of you with her legs open.'

    'Those people you saw making love, they weren't us at all. Pepper will tell you.'

    'You hired look-alikes, I suppose?'

    'They genuinely weren't us! Not in the sense that you're actually Effie and I'm actually Craig. Pepper was right about Valhalla, it does have psychic vibrations. There are all kinds of lives being lived out there, at one and the same time. There's all kinds of people living there, all at the same time.'

    'There's all kinds of cheaung going on there, too. I don't want to hear any more. I really don't. I wasn't sure that I believed Pepper when she talked about coincident lives. It seems to me that the Only coincidence she was interested in was her body coinciding with yours. I mean, come on, Craig, this must be the most bizarre excuse for adultery that anybody has ever come up with.'

    'You don't believe me, then? You won't believe me?'

    'You got it. I don't and I won't. And I'll tell you something else that I don't and I won't, and that's go along with your buying Valhalla. That place has brought us nothing but grief ever since we walked through the door.'

    'You can't stop me buying Valhalla. In fact it's already bought. I gave Walter Van Buren our banker's draft before I went up there this afternoon, and I'll be picking up the titles Monday morning.'

    Effie stood up and stalked across to the door. 'You gave him the banker's draft? At least a quarter of that money was mine!'

    'Joint account, sweetheart, with single-signature authorisation. Besides, I got the impression that you were coming around to the idea of buying it.'

    'That was before I caught you and that hippie witch bitch fucking on the floor!'

    'Sweetheart, how many times do I have to tell you that it wasn't us?'

    'Oh, no? What do you think I've got for brains? Cream of Wheat? You're looking at a divorce, mister. Don't even dream that you're not. I'm going to take you for everything, and if we've already bought Valhalla then I'll take you for that, too. Then we'll see whether it was you or not.'

    Craig hesitated, leaning against the inch-wide crack in the door. Effie could smell the alcohol on his breath.

    'Effie, this is serious. This is really serious. What happened this afternoon was something extraordinary.'

    'I'll bet. How did you like her? Did she have better vaginal grip than me? I notice she was noisier than me.'

    'Effie, I think I was Jack Belias.'

    She said nothing, but looked at him with tired contempt. 'I met Pepper in the ballroom,' he blurted. 'She was doing some kind of psychic ritual - you know, trying to get rid of all the disturbances. At first I was me but then for some reason I wasn't me. I don't know what happened after that. The house was different, Pepper was different. I was different. I was married. I knew I was married, but it wasn't to you.

    'I had power, Effie. I had all of my confidence back. What those people took from me… that taxi driver, those gangsters… I had it all back. I was full of energy, full of... I don't know. You know they talk about these black holes, these collapsed stars, that have such intense gravity that even light can't escape? They suck in everything around them - meteors, whole planets, even. That's what I felt like. And I sucked in Gaby, too.'

    'Gaby?' asked Effie, sharply.