Wicked Angel (22 page)

“I’ll tell him after I see the doctor; don’t be so fussy, Mark dear,” said Kathy. “I just can’t wait! I can just see him jumping for joy! And excitement!”

“Kathy,” said Mark, “will you promise me not to tell him unless I am there?”

Kathy looked at him quickly. “Why, what a funny expression you have, Mark! Why should I wait?”

“I’ve told you a dozen times,” he answered, with weariness, “and it never penetrates. Look. The baby is my baby, too; I’d like to have a share in the telling. And, in another way, childbearing is a woman’s world, and Angelo is a boy. He’ll be confused; he might even be resentful. That’s normal, in older children; they don’t want to feel displaced. Now wait, Kathy. I know you’ll assure him he’ll never be displaced. But he’ll understand that he’ll have to share your love and your time and devotion, and that’s a jolt to any child. I want to be present, as a man, as a member of his own sex, to give him some moral support. Can’t you understand?”

“All right,” said Kathy grudgingly, and with disappointment. She had envisaged a loving, secret session with her son, holding him in her arms, confiding her hopes to him, petting him, being petted in return by her “little man.” And now Mark was spoiling it! He was really very selfish. But she understood to a certain extent; after all, Mark was the father. Perhaps Mark, too, was feeling in advance another displacement in his wife’s affection. She suddenly smiled at her husband, nodded, and patted his arm. All men were still boys!

Kathy was careful not to let Angelo know the name of the obstetrician she was visiting. He was so intelligent! He would know almost at once. As for his going with her, and seeing potential mothers in various stages of bloat, that would be embarrassing to her. So, on Monday morning, she said to him, “Darling, you must take a taxi to your dentist this afternoon. Betty is going to drive me to my doctor’s—”

Angelo’s eyes widened. “But you were at the doctor’s only a month ago!”

“Yes, dear. But the tests aren’t—aren’t complete—”

He was frightened. Did she have cancer or some other mortal disease, which would remove her from his life forever? Or diabetes? There had been a boy in his class who had had diabetes; he had died! The old lady was looking fat and flabby recently, just as that boy had looked. Angelo’s fear ripened to real terror. If his mother died, then the old man would soon comfort himself! He’d bring that ugly and vicious Aunt Alicia here! He’d marry her! And then—and then—Angelo, in unaffected horror, threw himself upon Kathy so that she reeled under his weight. His eyes flooded with tears; he turned white.

“You’ve got to tell me!” he screamed. “What’s the matter with you? What tests? For what?” He saw Alice in this house, stern Alice with her eyes which saw everything, who remembered that he had tried to kill her. She would send him away to that damned military school. She would be afraid to have him here; she would deprive him of all that he enjoyed. She hated him. His life would be over, all his pleasant, adulation-surrounded life, all his luxuries, all the pamperings, all the devotion, all the pocket-money, all the privileges. His mind blazed with his furious and terrified thoughts, his dark horrors. Alice, when married to his father, would tell him everything; women always told their husbands, the idiots. And then, it could even be confinement in some locked place! His beautiful face was convulsed. He stamped; he shrieked; he wept; he tore up and down the room.

And Kathy looked at him and her heart melted, and her eyes swam with adoring tears. The darling, the darling, the darling! Her heart’s own love. He was afraid for her; he was frightened that she was ill; he was full of fear of losing her! He was a little man, wanting to protect: her. And she held out her foolish arms to him, and he struck them aside in his panic.

Now he was running faster up and down the room, like a caged beast, uttering the wildest and most savage of! desperate cries. “No, no!” he bellowed hoarsely. “No! No! I can’t stand it! I won’t stand it!”

And he saw Alice standing before him, unmoved, hating, loathing, and his father beside her with a changed cold face, condemning him, accusing him, pushing him away. Perhaps men would come with a straitjacket, intoning, “We know all about you; we know all about you. You tried to kill your aunt. You tried to hurt or kill Jane Whythe; you drove Kennie Richards from your school. You tripped—you injured—you hurt—all those others. All! those others no one knows about but us. And now we’ve: got you. Well take you away and you’ll live in a cell—”

Hateful, stupid, goddam fools! They’d never understand! They wouldn’t even listen to his explanations. They wouldn’t know that he’d had to remove those people from his way, that they frustrated or laughed at or defied him or disliked him or knew all about him!

The frenzied thoughts calmed a little. Perhaps he was exaggerating. He stopped in the center of the room, panting. His head hurt; his heart tumbled in his chest. Kathy, still holding out her arms, was a pinkish blur to him in her pretty blue bedroom. Only his thoughts, his conjectures, were real. Mark might send him away to a military school; he would! There was no doubt of it, for Alice: would not have him here. But he wouldn’t be sent to—a cell, or something. After all, that idiot father of his was still his father. But a military school! The discipline, the conformity, the demanded obedience, the treating of all boys like all others! The disgusting uniforms! The regulations! And there were men there, not easily deceived women, not soft, weak women who could be cajoled and deceived. Angelo, when first he had heard mention of a military school, had enlightened himself about them by discreet questions, by studying books in the library. He had seen the photographs of the kind of retired soldiers who ruled such schools, uncompromising, quietly disillusioned, quietly strong and comprehending men. They would know all about him. these broad-shouldered, firm-chinned, clear-eyed men. They would especially be warned about him by Alice and his father.

Deceitful and cruel himself, it was impossible for him to believe that others were not like that, also. Oh, he understood that there were only two kinds of people in the world: the eating and the eaten! The soft, weak, whimpering ones; the harsh and taking and merciless ones! There were no other kinds. But all, even the weakest and most timid, were devourers.

Only one person stood between him and the unspeakable future, and that was his mother. And she was sick; she might even be dying. He ran to her, his face awash with genuine tears, his usually rosy cheeks white and drawn.

“You’ve got to tell me!” he screamed. “Right now! You’ve got to tell me! I can’t wait until you come back from the doctor!” And he stamped his foot violently. He seized her arm again; he shook her with great strength.

“What’s wrong?” he shrieked. “Do you have cancer, or something? Are you going to leave me?” He was freshly affrighted by her soft, moved face, by her trembling lips, by her tears. All her features seemed to be melting together in one quiver. She began to sob. She tried to take him into her arms. She was touched as she had never been touched before, and her adoration for her son reached the heights of blasphemous worship. Seeing all this, Angelo felt faint for the first time in his robust life; sweat appeared on his forehead, on his upper lip, spread under his white shirt.

Again, he flung her reaching arms aside, and sprang back from her. If Kathy had not been so unbearably moved, so trembling with joy and love and worship, so overwhelmed by the sight of what she believed to be her son’s fear for her, his terror for her, his grief for her, even she would have been stopped by his awful expression, which was not the expression of a child. Even she, the fatuous mother, would have retreated under the fire of those terrible eyes, and she might have fled, understanding that here was no loving child, no son, but a monster. She would have recognized an insane and murderous rage when she saw it, a rage inspired by self-love. And, in an eruption of the instinct for self-preservation, she would have run for help, screaming, down the stairs, dreading to hear, in her panic, the following footsteps, the awful face, of a murderer.

But Kathy was overwhelmed. She wiped her eyes; she sobbed softly, with rapture, with ecstasy, that this darling of hers, this adorable son, loved her so passionately. There were fools who warned of pampering children too much, of coddling them, of giving them everything they wished, of elevating them in their own estimations too much, of pouring endless love and devotion upon them! If only they could see her darling now, so white, so frightened for her! Then they, too, would bow their heads humbly before The Children.

Then Kathy thought suddenly, I can’t bear for him to be so upset, so afraid. Why should any adult let a child hang in suspense, and imagine all kinds of fearful things? It’s cruel, cruel. If I keep my promise to Mark, God knows what my darling will suffer until Mark comes home tonight, and we tell Angel together! How can I do that to the very core of my heart? I’d be a dreadful kind of mother, and I’d never forgive myself.

Angel, all at once, was ominously quiet. He listened with his inner ear. His mother was holding a debate with herself; he knew that delicate nibbling of her lower lip with her small white teeth; he knew that silly glow in her eyes, that secret, delighted smile. He knew the arch expression, the radiant look. He stood and watched her; his heart was still roaring; his breath was still heavy and audible. But he was waiting now.

And then. Kathy was lifting her right forefinger archly; she was cocking her head; she was preening. He knew the signs. She had a secret, and she was going to impart it to him. It wasn’t a dangerous secret, it wasn’t something that threatened him. Or was it?

He watched her as she tiptoed elaborately about the room, preparing to divulge the delicious secret. Angelo became puzzled, and more wary than ever. He knew all these disgusting symptoms, which he had endured indulgently in the past, for it usually meant something delightful about to happen to him. She locked the door with dainty, flourishing gestures; she peeked into her blue and pink bathroom as though, idiot! she thought some one was hiding there who should not hear what she was about to say. She ran to the window, and carefully pulled aside the draperies, and peeped outside. Idiot! Fool! Stupid, fat old woman! Yes, she was getting fat and shapeless; she ate too much. And she was old, old and revolting. He winced and clenched his teeth at the sound of her ruffled lace petticoats under the bouncing, foolish skirt. He shivered at the sight of her profile, girlish, naughtily sly, grinning, as she looked through the window. Her auburn curls were in rings around her flushed cheeks and wizened neck.

And then she hugged herself with a girlish trill. “Betty’s out in the garden, cutting the last roses, and some phlox!” she caroled. “Oh, we’ll have such a celebration tonight! There’ll even be a teentsy glass of wine for my darling, to toast! How we’ll laugh together, and plan! Oh, oh, I can’t wait!”

Stupid old bitch! What was she talking about? But Angelo’s eyes lost their fire, and began to sparkle with anticipation. This must be a special occasion. There were no birthdays imminent. There were no anniversaries at hand. It must be very special. But why did she always have to go through this babyish ritual, this mincing, this self-hugging, this trilling, this radiance? Angelo’s heart still thudded, but it was quieter. Still, he felt that he would shout, maddened beyond endurance, after what he had just suffered, by this imbecility of his mother’s. What was there he wanted? A treehouse he had been coaxing for up at the cabin? A motor bike, which his father had forbidden? A motor scooter, even more quickly forbidden? Angelo caught his breath. He had talked winningly of that motor scooter only yesterday; several of the boys at school had them; his father had not exactly said no this time. He had merely frowned and answered nothing. A motor scooter! Angelo forgot all about his mother’s impending visit to the doctor. She would not be so flushed now, so delighted, so arch, so coquettish, if there was anything serious in the background. She looked well, even if she was so damned fat lately, with bulging breasts.

She tiptoed over to Angelo, teetering, smiling, clapping her hands. He was almost as tall as she, yet she bent in her silly way as if he were two years old.

“Guess!” she sang. “Oh, my darling, guess!”

Angelo, through the open window, filled with sun, could hear the brisk clipping of Betty’s garden shears in the hot silence. He could hear sudden locusts whirr. There was no other sound.

He was still unnerved. But he controlled himself. “There—there isn’t anything wrong with you, Mum?” he asked, thinking of the doctor again. “I mean, you wanting to have more tests—”

“Oh, no, no! In fact, I was never better in my life, sweetheart. Never better! Never happier! Oh, my sweet, and you were worried so about your mother—” She stretched out her hand to ruffle his crisp curls, but he drew back. He breathed a heavy sigh of relief. His face began to shine. It was something special for him, something wonderful for him. She had been going today to order it: she had been lying: she had not intended to go to the doctor at all. He smiled like the sun.

“A motor bike? A motor scooter?” he said lovingly. “I can’t wait. Tell me.”

“Oh, oh, oh!” cried Kathy in rapture. “Much, much more wonderful than that! So wonderful that sometimes I can’t believe it! And I just can’t wait, though I promised your father not to tell you! It’s naughty of me, but I just can’t wait!”

He began to sweat, now, with glorious anticipation. What? What?

“You’ll dance with joy!” sang Kathy. “We’ll dance together!”

Angelo, in his consuming curiosity, wanted to slap her. His heart was thumping again. And there she was. tiptoeing, wetting her lips with her tongue, grinning like a half-wit, swishing her skirts, and moving, high step after exaggerated high step, towards one of her large fruit-wood dressers. And then, dramatically, she pulled open one of the larger drawers. “Come and see for yourself, Angel. Come and feast your eyes yourself!”

He flew across the room. Holding his breath, he looked into the drawers. They were heaped with infants’ clothing, tiny white dresses trimmed with lace, minute shirts, fluffy little coats, bonnets, doll-like stockings, blankets, fluffy petticoats, diapers.