The Houseguest (11 page)

“By now, though,” Lydia went on, “he'll be finished with his shower and be just about dressed. We should take cover somewhere.”

Doug led her out of the room. “We better not go to my part of the house: he's back there all the time. I've got it: the utility room: we can talk in private there.” This was the site of the oil furnace (whose heat was available if required, the house being equipped for all seasons though routinely used for only one), the water heater, and washer-dryer; it lay behind the kitchen and except for vents for the appliances had no communication with the outer world. A cul-de-sac in which one could be trapped as well as hidden.

They entered this place and closed the door. A naked bulb of low wattage jutted from the wall; it was kept permanently lighted, for reasons of safety.

“Now,” said Doug to her dimly illuminated and thus even paler visage, “you're not going to be crazy about this plan, but in view of the existing situation I think it would work. But you'd have to go to bed with him again—that is, get him to undress and take off his gun, and keep him distracted just long enough for me to come in and get the pistol.” She was grimacing. “I'm sorry,” he said quickly. “Forget it. Bad idea. We'll think of something else.” He was continually being astonished by this new delicacy of his.

“No,” said she. “No, it's a fine plan. But
I'll
get the gun. You don't have to come in.”

He shrugged. “You're so modest, even in such an emergency? I assure you—”

“No,” said Lydia. “I don't want you to risk your life. This is
my
problem.”

He was injured by her selfishness. “Didn't I say he robbed me at gunpoint?”

She had expressive eyes; they understood him. “All right, we'll be partners, but I still don't want you to take such a risk. Let me grab the gun, though. Then I'll yell for you.”

Now that he had learned of the eloquence of her eyes, he examined them for a moment. “You don't want to just capture him and turn him over to the police. You want to shoot him, don't you?”

“I don't know what I want, except to make the first move against him. I hate the way he made me feel.”

“Did he really save your life?”

“I can't deny that. But I can't live it down, either, till I pay him back. It's all of a piece: the lifesaving and the rape. One can't be separated from the other. I have to even the score.”

She might be seen as demented to a degree, yet Doug felt she made a certain sense. He and she had affinity in their common concern for honor.

Strange things were happening, such as the disappearance of her cashmere sweaters, which she had not mentioned to Doug lest that too be blamed on their houseguest, but Audrey knew that if Chuck were involved in any of these occurrences there was a rational explanation for such involvement.

She was aware that her position with respect to Chuck had deteriorated somewhat: until now she had refused to put him anywhere in the picture of negative events. But on reflection she could say that while Doug was a skilled evader of the truth, he had never been a blatant liar unless his sex life was the subject at hand. It would therefore be utterly out of character for him to cut from the whole cloth such a tale as that in which Chuck robbed him of money at gunpoint.

Perhaps Chuck did possess a firearm or something that resembled one and coincidentally Doug had espied this real or fake weapon while the houseguest was asking him for a loan. For it was not out of the question that Chuck might find himself financially embarrassed at the moment, in need of pin- or mad-money, say, and would find it necessary to apply to the father of his best friend. As everybody close to their son would know, Bobby was always out of pocket, irrespective of how much had lately been given him, and was himself always and exclusively a debtor.

Perhaps Chuck had been acting in Bobby's behalf. Bobby was quite capable of putting a friend in such an uncomfortable position, and from what she had observed of Chuck, it would be in character for
him
to undertake such a selfless mission.

She had seen nothing in Chuck that was untoward with the exception of that instant in which he had suddenly, irrationally, clutched her left breast. But in retrospect she could now identify that incident as being a product of pure fancy: which was to say, it had not happened on the plane of that which we know as everyday reality but was rather an emotional projection of some sort. Having made that identification, and without a doctor's help, she could go now without uneasiness to find the charming houseguest.

The door to his room was ajar when she reached it. Therefore she did not knock but opened it farther while asking, “Chuck?” Receiving no answer, she stepped in and repeated the name. But no one answered. Both bedroom and the bath were as neat as though they had yet to be used, on this Sunday afternoon, two days since the latest tour of the cleaning staff, nor had Mrs. Finch been on the premises since 4
P.M.
Friday. In like circumstances, at least before his marriage (since which his mother had scrupulously avoided visiting his quarters), Bobby's room would have been an unspeakable sty, and when the help were not at hand Audrey herself rarely even pulled up the bedclothes on arising. Actually, Doug was somewhat more self-reliant in these matters, having been sent at least one summer as a child to a camp that imposed quasi-military discipline on its charges, and certain residual effects persisted: when making a bed he could even, if he chose, give the sheets an army tuck.

But there had been no precedent for Chuck's spit-and-polish. It was routine for Mrs. Finch to complain about the slovenliness of guests, but now it occurred to Audrey that the housekeeper had not made a single reference to Chuck, and small wonder, given the condition of this room even on a weekend.

As the current resident was not on the premises at the moment, Audrey had no legitimate reason to remain, except to wonder at the unusual orderliness. Was it likely that so neat a man could be ethically irregular? She decided just to peep into the closet: there were those who hid confusion behind closed doors.

A single garment hung on the horizontal rod: a simple tan jacket of the sort worn at golf. Apparently Chuck at all times wore the remaining entirety of the outer wardrobe he had brought with him, and it was of such an unobtrusive nature that one did not easily notice it never changed. Also there was the considerable distraction of his personality. … . Was his intimate apparel in comparably short supply? She opened the nearest of the drawers that, as in every other room, were sunk into the wall, the architect having had a distaste for pieces of movable furniture that served principally as receptacles, and Audrey had gone along with all of his ideas, being as enchanted with him as it was possible to be in the case of a man who was demonstrably without a sexual taste for women.

The first drawer opened by her was empty save for a lone paper clip, which slid forward with the motion to clatter against the front panel. The second, nearer the floor, held a number of cashmere sweaters. For a moment she assumed that, like her, Chuck had owned a collection of such garments, but unlike her had retained possession of his own. Which is no more than to say that her first impulse was as always to give the houseguest the benefit of any possible doubt. Not even the labels were accepted as conclusive proof of theft—but there could be no arguing with the size of the sweaters.

While she squatted at the ordeal of investigation, Chuck came in from the hallway. She knew it was he without turning, and for an instant she flinched, expecting to be throttled from behind.

Having been allowed to survive, she spoke to the open drawer. “I'm sorry. It's unforgivable of me.”

He advanced to a position beside her and gave her his hand. He pulled her to her feet.

“Here,” he said, “take a look at this.” He went to the closet and slid open the door on the right: his lone jacket hung at the far left end of the rod. On the floor of the closet, in the rear right-hand corner, sat a sizable cardboard carton. Chuck thrust in his head and shoulders and drew the container out into the room, folding down the flared flaps of its top to make visible a mailing label.

Audrey submissively placed her hands on her knees and bent to examine the legend on the label. Fortunately it had been hand-printed in large capitals and was legible in the absence of her eyeglasses.

“You have so much,” Chuck said softly, behind and above her. “And they have so little.”

But this was not a note that Audrey found easily persuasive. She turned and said, frowning quizzically, “But that sounds like the tropics.”

“It gets frigid every night in the mountains where the peasants have been driven by the big landowners.”

“Presumably they come down every day to work on the plantations?”

“Exactly,” said Chuck, with a leer that seemed to hover on the edge of nastiness. He pushed the carton back into the closet and hurled the door to the closed position.

Audrey sighed. “I don't really care. I hate those sweaters. I hate everything Doug gives me, because I hate him.”

Chuck kicked shut the drawer full of cashmere. “What does that mean?” he asked. “That you want me to do something about it?”

Audrey sighed again. “Only if you'd like to.” She realized that this could seem pitiful if misinterpreted, but was at a loss as to how to direct his reaction.

He looked away, though probably not in delicacy. “There are expenses.”

After a moment or two, Audrey came back decisively from her dream. “Oh, no,” she said. “I don't want him killed. Oh, God.”

Chuck shrugged. “You'd better make up your mind.”

“Well, I certainly did not suggest
that.”
She stepped towards him. “Please be patient with me, Chuck. I think I have a certain sense of things, but of a pretty naïve kind, I suppose, by your standards. You're younger than I, but you've undoubtedly seen more of the sort of life—”

He winced. “Stop driveling!”

The command was much harsher, and more fearsome, than the slap in the face she had been given by her husband, and her response now was not anger but rather self-pity.

“Take the sweaters,” she said tearfully. “And I've got a lot of other stuff I don't need, which the poor people down there can undoubtedly use. Take anything—anything in the house. Just don't be nasty to me. I can't stand that.”

His smile was like that of a young boy. “I don't need your permission. You have nothing to bargain with.”

Audrey was frightened, but she was also strangely thrilled by Chuck's sudden display of what must finally be his true colors. “Then it
is
true? You do carry a gun?”

“Right here.” He put his hand to his groin. “Just do as you're told. That shouldn't be a strain on you: it's your normal way of life.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

He laughed heartily. “Why would I want to do that?”

“We won't obstruct you,” Audrey said. “We're not used to this sort of thing… . Do you mind my asking? Are you a friend of Lydia's?”

Chuck jovially raised and lowered his eyebrows. “Only since a little while ago. But I had her number the first time I laid eyes on her. She's not your kind.”

“No,” said Audrey, “she's not.”

“The rest of you are useless. At least she's a good fuck.”

Audrey remembered that this was all a dream. Therefore it did not really matter what she heard, or what she said in response.

“Chuck … I thought perhaps you and I had—well, a certain sympathy, affinity …”

He let her drift for a while, then said, “
You?
An old lady like you?”

She did not ask permission to leave his presence. She went from the room, passed through the breezeway, and was back in the main house. The door of Bobby's room was open, offering a view of the rumpled bed. The image had obscene and disorderly connotations for Audrey, whereas it seemed natural that Chuck and Lydia should connect sexually. She had only profited by her expedition to the room of the houseguest: her theory that those two had conspired against the Graves family had been decisively confirmed.

That called for a drink, which could be taken openly, boldly, in all conspicuous self-righteousness. She steered for the little bar-pantry just off the dining room. In ransacking her room Chuck must have discovered the half-gallon jug of vodka, which Mrs. Finch discreetly and regularly replenished. Then he wasn't as cruel as he might have been: he could have called her a drunk. She was not all that old. She came off better than she could have hoped. Injustice is always easier to bear than punishment for the failing of which one is guilty.

Bobby woke up when his shoulder was shaken. It was his mother, who looked uncomfortably animated.

“Hi,” he said slowly, and closed his eyes again. “Is dinner ready?”

“Bobby, please.”

He reluctantly opened one eye.

“I can't find either your father or your wife.”

“Lyd just went to the room.” He looked at his wristwatch. “My God, have I slept that long? Well, an hour or so back she went to take a nap. You remember she almost drowned.”

His mother peered in turn at each of the doorways. She lowered her voice. “How long have you known Chuck?”

Bobby scowled in exasperation. “Dad keeps asking me that! He refuses to believe me when I say I never saw the guy before meeting him here.”

“Then his connection is with Lydia. That's been my feeling all along.”

Bobby adjusted his long body to sit up on his buttocks rather than his sacroiliac. “This is getting to be quite the joke,” said he. “Lyd didn't know him, either!” He remembered something. “Dad's got it in for Chuck for some reason. We had an argument about that and Dad slapped me. Imagine that: at my age.”

“Chuck is not a good man, Bobby. He's been stealing things from this house.”

“Oh, come on, Mother, not you too! All at once you both have gotten so
weird.
There are a hundred good reasons why Chuck would carry a gun. After all, he hasn't exactly shot anybody around here, has he?” Except when fooling with her plants, his mother always seemed to wear a dress, not even a blouse and a skirt. Bobby was noticing that consciously for the first time. She also always gave the appearance of being well balanced, even now. He therefore could not believe anything was out of order, even if it was she who said it was.

“I don't know why a person would carry a gun if he had no intention of using it.”

Bobby stood up and looked down at her. “Self-protection, Mother. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to answer the call of nature.”