Usher's Passing (7 page)

The doors slid closed behind Rix, gently but still with the faint
click!
of
a trap snapping shut. Now he was alone with them. He wore faded jeans and a pale blue shirt under a beige sweater—a good enough outfit for anywhere but here, he thought. Boone was dressed in a pinstriped suit, his mother in an elaborate blue and gold gown. "Hello, Mother," Rix said.

"I'm cold." She spoke as if she hadn't even heard. "It's very cold in this house, don't you think?"

"Want me to get you a sweater, Momma?"

She paused, her head cocked slightly to one side, pondering Boone's question. "Yes," she said finally. "A sweater would do nicely."

"Sure thing. Momma, show Rixy those pearls I brought you from New York." He put a finger under her chin to persuade her to lift her head. The strand of pearls glowed, catching golden light that filtered in through the large picture window overlooking the azalea garden. "Nice, huh? They cost four thousand dollars."

"Very nice," Rix agreed. "Boone brought me a couple of gifts in New York, too, Mother."

Boone laughed without humor. "How about that thing, Rixy? I thought you'd like it! Pet shop two blocks from the De Peyser had just what I was looking for. Fella who sold it to me said it was just like the ones they use in monster flicks."

"I figure I screwed things up for you. You probably wanted me to find that thing first, and you thought the shock might trigger an attack. Then, when I went into the Quiet Room, I'd stumble into your second surprise."

"Don't say that word." Margaret was staring fixedly into the fire. " 'Screwed' is not a decent word." Her voice was calm and throaty—the voice of a woman used to giving commands.

"It's not the kind of word a famous author ought to use, is it, Momma?" As always, Boone leaped on every opportunity to score points with their mother against Rix. "Now you just sit right there and I'll run get you a sweater." When he passed Rix on his way to the door, Boone flashed a quick, tight smile.

"Boone?" Margaret called, and her older son paused. "Make sure the sweater won't clash, dear."

"Yes, Momma," Boone replied, and left the room.

Rix walked toward her. As he neared, he again caught a whiff of that foul aroma, like a dead rat moldering in one of the walls. Margaret picked up a can of Lysol pine air freshener from a table beside her chair and began to spray clouds of mist around her. When she was through, the room smelled like a pine woods full of dead animals.

Rix stood beside his mother. She was still trying to stall time. At fifty-eight, Margaret Usher was desperately fighting to remain thirty-five. Her hair was cut stylishly short and dyed a coppery auburn. Several trips to a California plastic surgeon had left the skin stretched so tightly over her sharp cheekbones that it looked as if it were about to rip. Her makeup was thicker than Rix recalled, and the shade of lipstick she'd chosen was much too red. Tiny lines were creeping around her mouth and nesting in the corners of her pale green eyes. Her body remained sleek except for a bit of heaviness around the hips and stomach, and Rix remembered Katt telling him his mother feared unsightly flab like the Black Plague. On her slim, graceful hands she wore a stunning variety of rings—diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. Pinned to her gown was a brooch whose diamonds glittered in the firelight. Sitting motionless, she appeared to Rix as yet another perfect furnishing of the Gatehouse, never meant to be touched.

Her expression was disconsolate and helpless. A feeling of sadness for her came over Rix. What price had she paid, he wondered, to live as the mistress of Usherland?

Suddenly she turned her head and looked at him. It was the same kind of vague stare one would give a stranger. "You've lost weight," she noted. "Have you been sick?"

"I've felt better."

"You look like a walking skeleton."

He shrugged uneasily, not wanting to be reminded of his physical ailments. "I'll be all right."

"Not living the way you do. Hand to mouth in a distant city, without your family. I don't see how you've stood it this long." A light glimmered in her eyes, and she reached out to take his hand. "But you've come home to stay this time, haven't you? We've needed you here. I've had your old room readied for you. Everything's just as it used to be, now that you're home to stay."

"Mom," Rix said gently, "I can't stay. I just came for a few days, to see Dad."

"Why?" Her grip tightened. "Why can't you stay here, where you belong?"

"I don't belong at Usherland." He knew it was pointless to be drawn into this discussion yet again. Inevitably there would be an argument. "I've got to get back to work."

"You mean that writing you do?" Margaret released his hand and stood up to admire her new pearls in the mirror. "I'd hardly call that work, Rix. At least not the kind of occupation you're capable of. Did you see these pearls your brother brought me? Aren't they nice?" She frowned and ran a finger beneath her chin. "My God, I'm looking like an old woman, aren't I? I should sue that last doctor who tucked my chin. I should sue him right out of business. Aren't I just the ugliest old woman you've ever seen?"

"You look fine."

She regarded herself and smiled wanly. "Oh, you don't remember what I
used
to look like. Do you know what my daddy always called me? The prettiest girl in the whole of North Carolina. Puddin' thinks she's pretty, but she doesn't know what real beauty is." Margaret mentioned the name of Boone's wife with an undisguised disgust. "I used to look like Katt. I used to have fine skin, just like hers."

"Where is Katt?"

"Didn't your brother tell you? She's gone down to the Bahamas somewhere on an assignment for a magazine. It was something she couldn't get out of. She hoped to get back either tomorrow or the day after. Do you know what they're paying her now? Two thousand dollars an hour. They're going to put her on the cover of
Vogue
next month. I used to look like Katt when I was her age."

"And what about Puddin'?"

"What about her?" Margaret shrugged, uninterested. "She's up in her room, I suppose. She sleeps all the time. I've tried to tell Boone his little beauty-queen wife is beginning to drink a bit too much, but will he listen? No. He goes running off to the stables to clock the horses." She picked up the Lysol can and misted the air again. "At least you're a free man. Your brother's made a mess of his—"

The doors slid open and Boone entered, carrying a pale gold sweater. The way Margaret immediately closed her mouth and stiffened her spine was a clear message that she'd been discussing
him. Boone wore his toothy grin like a mask. "Here's your sweater, Momma." He draped it around her shoulders. "What mischief you two been talkin' about?"

"Oh, nothing that concerns you," Margaret said sweetly, her eyelids at half-mast. "Rix was just telling me about all the ladies in his life. He's playing his cards right."

Boone's mouth
stretched wider, and Rix could almost hear the flesh
crack. In his eyes was a familiar warning glint; Rix had seen it
many times when they were children, just before Boone attacked him for some imagined slight. "What Momma means to say,
Rixy, is that I'm the disgrace of the family—next to
you,
that is.
Because I've been divorced twice and I've married a young
chickie, Momma seems to think I ought to go through life carrying a ball and chain. Isn't that right, Momma?"

"Don't make a fool of yourself in front of your brother, dear."

"Know why Rixy's
got so many ladies, Momma? 'Cause none
of 'em go out with him a second time. His idea of a fun date is to amble over to the nearest graveyard and hunt up the spooks.
And let's don't forget that little lady of Rix's who decided
to take a nice warm—"

Rix wheeled toward him. He felt the rage contorting his face. Boone
stopped dead. "Don't say it," Rix whispered hoarsely. "If you
say it, you bastard, I'll have to kill you."

Boone
stood like stone. Then he laughed, the note sharp and short—but there was a tremor in it.

"Boys,"
Margaret chided softly. "Is there a draft in this room?"

Boone
ambled over and warmed his hands before the hearth. "Know
what, Momma? Rix says he's finished another book."

"Oh?"
Her voice was stiff with frost. "I presume it's another disgusting
bloodfest. I swear, I don't know why you write those things!
Do you actually think those books of yours
please
people?"

Rix had a headache. He touched his temples, fearing an attack. My God, why did I come home? he asked himself. Boone's reference to Sandra had almost sent him over the edge.

"You've got to understand Rixy, Momma," Boone offered, his gaze flicking back and forth between them. "He was always scared of his own shadow when we were kids. Always seein' the Pumpkin Man under his bed. So now he writes horror books so he can kill off the bad ol' demons. And he thinks he's Edgar Allan Poe. You know, the sufferin' art—"

"Hush!" she said sharply. "Don't you dare mention that name in this house! Lord knows, your father would have a fit if he heard it!"

"Well, it's true!" Boone insisted. He grinned at Rix, rubbing his hands together. "When are you gonna write somethin' about us, Rixy? That's about what I'd expect of you next."

From the corner of his eye, Rix saw his mother blanch. He responded with a smug smile of his own. "You know, brother Boone, that might be a fine idea. I could write a book about the Ushers. The history of the family. How about that, Mom?"

She opened her mouth to reply, then abruptly clapped it shut. She sprayed the air again, and Rix smelled the new, almost overpowering stench that had crept in under the doors.

"It's so hard," Margaret said as she followed the mist around the room, "to keep an older house fresh and clean. When a house reaches a certain age, it starts to fall to pieces. I've always cared about keeping a good house." She stopped spraying; it was clear the disinfectant wasn't strong enough. "My mother raised me to care," she said proudly.

Rix had delayed the moment as long as possible. "I'd better go up and see him now," he said resignedly.

"No, not yet!" Margaret clutched his hand, a tight false smile across her mouth. "Let's sit down here together, both my fine boys. Cass is making a Welsh pie for you. She knows how much you like them."

"Mom, I have to go upstairs."

"He's probably sleeping. Mrs. Reynolds says he needs his sleep. Let's sit down and talk about pleasant things, all right?"

"Oh, let him go on upstairs, Momma," Boone said silkily, watching Rix. "After he sees what Daddy looks like, he can go write himself another one of those horror—"

"You shut your mouth!"
Margaret whirled toward him. "You're a cruel boy, Boone Usher! At least your brother wants to pay his respects to Walen, which is more than you'll do!" Boone looked away from his mother's wrath, and muttered something under his breath.

Rix said, "I'd better go up." Tears glinted like tiny diamonds in his mother's eyes, and he reached out to touch her cheek.

"Don't," she said, quickly pulling her head back. "You'll muss
my hair."

He slowly withdrew his hand. It never changes here, he thought. They draw you in some way or another, and then they try to
crush the feelings out of you, like stepping on a bug. He shook
his head and walked past her, out of the living room and along the hallway to the central staircase. It wound upward to bedrooms
and parlors that had been used by Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, and a score of government and Pentagon luminaries, both famous and infamous.

As he climbed the stairs, dread at seeing his father gnawed at his insides. He didn't know what to expect. Why did Walen want to see him, he wondered. The old man hated him for leaving Usherland, and Rix despised what Usher Armaments stood for. What could they possibly have to talk about now?