The Houseguest Page 8

  “He’s a cop and he extorts money from me? Did I tell you that both phone lines are out of order, suddenly?”

  “I’m going to talk to him,” said Bobby.

  “I should think you’d learn a little about the background of someone you invite here.”

  “But I didn’t invite him.”

  His father looked away contemptuously. “I think you ought to take a stand somewhere, Bobby. It’s high time you developed some integrity. Okay, so you never expected this. Nobody’s saying the sole responsibility is yours. But to try to weasel out of the matter altogether is another thing.”

  “Dad,” Bobby said levelly, “I know it will require the most strenuous effort you have ever made, but try to listen to what I am saying. Chuck is not my guest. That is to say, I never invited him to come here. I couldn’t have. I saw him for the first time in this house, what was it?, a week ago. That’s Point One. Point Two is I haven’t any explanation for what you tell me. All I can say is I’ve never known any houseguest who has worked out as well as Chuck. Not only is he always in a good mood, but he’s made himself useful in countless ways, including now what I would call the ultimate, saving Lyd’s life.”

  “Bobby,” said his father, after having glanced back at the house, “I suppose it hasn’t occurred to you that the only testimony as to this alleged lifesaving has been Chuck’s own and, I gather, Lydia’s.”

  Bobby felt the oncoming of an emotion he could not immediately identify. “That’s right,” said he. “Who else’s do we need?”

  “Why,” said his father, “where’s the corroboration?”

  Bobby now believed the emotion was suppressed rage. “This is not some abstract legal thing,” said he. “It’s life and death, for God’s sake.”

  His father wore what might have been a thin smile; if so, there was no true amusement in it. “I’m thinking of something a little less lofty, if you’ll permit me.” He showed two fingers in tight parallel. “I wonder if Lydia and Chuck don’t seem unusually close. I don’t like to say this, Bobby, but I wonder if he might be putting it to her.”

  “Oh, shit!” Bobby cried, now giving vent to his rage. “That’s really nasty of you. There was no call for that remark, none at all. Go back to your whores, you bastard. Let us alone!”

  Nothing like this had ever happened before. He had never been close enough to his father to quarrel with him. Thus not even during Bobby’s teenhood had they been antagonists—not that Bobby had been an unruly adolescent: a little drinking, a few pills, was all.

  His father was silent for a moment now, then said, “I ask you, anyway, to give me respect when under this roof.”

  It appeared to be more of an appeal than a request, but Bobby stayed indignant. Since first learning of his father’s infidelities, many years before, he had felt his own manhood was impugned. That the same person now called him cuckold was unbearable. He went to look for Chuck, who remained someone to look up to.

  It was Audrey’s practice each summer to bring to the island—or rather, have sent by road and then ferry, while she traveled by air—cartons of outmoded clothing to give to the locals. The distribution of these garments was handled by the housekeeper, Mrs. Finch, and no doubt went mostly to her own female relatives, for though the Finches managed such business as there was on the island, they gave no indication in their visible way of life that they earned large profits. They drove shabby vehicles, lived over or behind their places of business, such as the grocery and the gas station, or in mobile homes with front yards full of firewood for sale and fishing shacks at waterside on the unfashionable stretch of the shore. So presumably various hearts were gladdened, for these frocks and suits and sweaters bore the best labels (whether or not the recipients could appreciate the names) and showed scarce sign of wear. But as Mrs. Finch accepted no gift with more than a curt nod and never reported back with a word of gratitude from anyone to whom she had forwarded it, Audrey had to take it on faith that her generosity did not go for naught. Surely it was preferable to do this than to deal with one of those charitable organizations in the city that were always being investigated for something to do with either corrupt finances or perverted sex.

  In an odd emotional state owing to the cupping of her breast by Chuck Burgoyne—in retrospect she could not believe it happened in quite the way it seemed at the time—she went to her rooms to see whether she might augment the collection of Finch-bound garments with several other items from the extensive summer wardrobe with which she stocked her closets: this included a selection of evening gowns, though for at least ten years there had been no island occasion for which such a garment would have been appropriate costume; and equestrian attire, jodhpurs, even a riding mac for rainy days, though no one she knew kept horses locally in this era. She had ridden well as a girl and was reasonably good at archery. But at golf she was hopeless, never really learned to serve at tennis, swam poorly. Her breasts had been well shaped and in fact remained so, largely as a result of fanatical determination. She believed her eyes were too small and pale of iris, but her skin had always been a great strength. At quite an early age her thighs had thickened, obviously a matter of genes, for no diet or exercise subsequently affected them, and she had since never been seen in shorts or bathing dress.

  The closet complex included a vertical stack of built-in drawers, a number of which, cedar-lined, were filled with sweaters to be worn on chilly island evenings, which were not unknown during the season, but even Audrey in a reflective mood had to admit they were not so frequent as to require more than a dozen sweaters in just two styles, V-necked and cardigan, and only three colors, white, beige, and navy, but she must have owned twenty-odd, all knitted of cashmere, with the exception of a few routine woolen examples of her own purchase. All of the former had been presents from Doug on the giftgiving holidays, in addition to which he often presented her with a brooch made in the form of a miniature animal with eyes of diamond chips or another gem. Within three years he was capable of repeating himself, and thus she owned two identical little rabbits and also a matching pair of ruby-eyed frogs. On discreetly (though not accidentally) finding that Doug owed his favorite jeweler, the same who had served his family for generations, for too many such gifts, Audrey quietly paid the bill insofar as it pertained to what she had received, naturally letting ride the charges for what he had presented to a succession of his bitches, items which she was amazed, and pleased, to note were usually less valuable than those he gave her.

  It had occurred to her that it might be nice to turn over to Mrs. Finch some of her excess of similar sweaters. The housekeeper was far too rawboned to fit into any of them, but presumably there were those who would do amongst the female kin to whom the other garments had gone, over the years. The difference was that the cashmere sweaters were not outmoded in style, hitherto the criterion for disposal. Thus the giving of them would be authentically generous, a true instance of charity in the classic sense of the word. Audrey had finally arrived at an age for performing an act that was uncompromisingly virtuous.

  But the moment had come too late. Of the former collection of sweaters, as the all but empty drawers now informed her, only the humble woolen examples were still in her possession. Like moths, who after all are merely practicing their métier, the thief or thieves could discriminate amongst yarns. The obvious culprits would have been the cleaning team, who had been to the house on Friday and would come again on Monday morning, were it not that Audrey had gone through the sweater drawers on Saturday morning, searching through the lookalikes for the particular cardigan into the pocket of which, back in town, she had tucked the latest letter from her traveling friend Molly, that which contained Molly’s schedule for the following month, more than a fortnight of which had now passed.

  And as of that time all the drawers were filled. Thus the cleaning women were exonerated even before being tried. Which left Mrs. Finch, who of course had for many years had access to all summertime possessions of the family and guests and had nev
er been known to steal any articles of clothing. Why would she start now and in such a conspicuous manner, taking at once the entire cashmere collection?

  There could be no evading the fact that the possibilities had been immediately reduced to her daughter-in-law. She knew nothing of Lydia—in any event, nothing that had been confirmed. Bobby had married this girl in some county clerk’s office in rural parts, not far from the university from which they had both only just graduated. Audrey had met Lydia for the first time when the newlyweds arrived on the island a week before, only hours before the coming of Chuck Burgoyne, after which she had been distracted from reflecting on a situation in which she found a touch of squalor, and all the more so when she heard, for the first time, that Bobby had been living with the young woman for most of the last year of college—yet had never mentioned her in his occasional telephone calls, which were always and solely concerned with begging more money from home. Neither Audrey nor Doug had gone to the commencement ceremony, but then no invitation had been received.

  As to Lydia’s bloodline, it could scarcely be less prepossessing, the family business, however profitable, being private refuse collection, and indeed the less said of her the better, a principle devoutly honored by both Audrey and Doug, but if the girl proved to be a kleptomaniac, what could one do? Then again, better her foible be kept within the family than revealed to the outside world. What if she were apprehended in a shop? One of Audrey’s cousins had had a messy divorce that got into the papers years before, but that had been a glamorous embarrassment, what with the references to figures with meaningful names to journalism: statesmen, financiers, and the like, her cousin’s reputed promiscuity having been an issue. And some relative of Doug’s had once got into some trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission. But no one in any familial association with Audrey had ever been charged with ignoble common theft.

  Tact was called for here. Lydia had left the house and grounds only to go once, with Bobby, to visit the club. That had been three or four days back, before the sweaters were missing. Therefore they must now be no farther away than her room. Could she be that brazen—or demented? But it took a special sensibility to perform such a theft at all—from an in-law and one’s hostess, when furthermore you were the only person under the same roof who could fit into the garments in question.

  But perhaps it was intended to be conspicuous, as a provocation of some sort. Who could say what were the motives of other people, especially those of not only another generation but also another class? It might even be a kind of malicious joke, designed to elicit a hysterical response from herself; then, once she had lost self-command, the sweaters would be returned secretly and revealed with much derisive laughter. Of course, this was to make an inordinate flight forward of the kind against which she had been sternly warned by her doctor, who insisted that only a little self-discipline was needed to withstand the impulses of a masochism that was by no means of natural origin but demonstrably acquired.

  She was well aware that she encouraged others, especially men, to take advantage of her basic generosity. For example, in her affair with Max Hopworth (which unlike any of Doug’s was characterized by true love on the part of both participants, though to be sure Max’s had not proved long-lived), it had always been she who had to defer to what at the time he presented as his obligations (wife’s birthday, rituals pertaining to his kids, etc.) but what in retrospect she strongly suspected were merely his own wishes. Yet even when she discovered that she was only one of the two women with whom he regularly consorted extramaritally, she could manage no more than a weak protest which was soon replaced by a gasp of great feeling as he put his hand between her thighs. Many years had gone by between Max’s doing that for the last time (Bobby had been a small child, and Dr. Hopworth was his pediatrician) and Chuck’s recent touch of her clothed breast, with nothing (but a few drinks) in the interim, yet Audrey had never thought of herself as being forever beyond the reach of passion.

  But, as she was totally dependent on Chuck to make the next move, which might not come soon, what with, God damn him, Doug’s decision for once to stay beyond the weekend, she had time enough to investigate the matter of the missing knitwear. Her first job was to gain access to their room while the young people were occupied elsewhere. Bobby must be encouraged to remove Lydia from the house, perhaps take her on a tour of the grounds, most of which of course consisted of dense woods, but there was the antique gazebo amidst the grove—where one of Bobby’s teenaged girlfriends had charged that she had been sexually importuned by his father and then ardently molested, all but raped. True, Doug was capable of that, but the little bitch did habitually mince about in abbreviated clothing and obviously found Bobby wanting.

  That had happened during the period in which Audrey had definitely decided Bobby was homosexual, and in fact nothing much since had occurred to change her mind until he now turned up with too vulgar a wife for an invert to marry: they invariably chose long-lipped, horsey-looking women with contralto voices.

  Just as she was ready to leave to look for Bobby, her husband came into the room, as usual without knocking though he demanded that courtesy be shown by visitors to his own quarters and in fact usually made it a necessity by having thrown the lock.

  He acted as if he were pursued; he peered about, then quickly turned the key in the door to the hallway.

  “Come over here, Audrey.” He drew her to a far corner between the vanity and the bed that had been left unmade, for it was Mrs. Finch’s day off. “We are in trouble.”

  Despite his hunted manner, she refused to take him seriously, and disparaged his assertion without making any effort to find sense in it: only by this means had she ever been able to hold her own with him, if such it could be called.

  “I’m sure you’re mistaken.”

  As always he paid no mind to her reaction, but went on as if she had assented. “He carries a gun, by God. Oh, it’s real all right, and I have no doubt he’ll use it if he has to.”

  “Doug,” Audrey said, stepping away, “are you on something?”

  “Both phones are out,” said he. “Look here.” He went to the nearer of the two little ivory cabinets that flanked the head of her bed, and lifted the pale blue telephone that was there. He listened at the earpiece for an instant, then brandished the instrument before replacing it. “Then there’s a confederate named Perlmutter. It occurred to me that he might even be hiding somewhere in this house—unless the guy merely changed his voice. I suspect Chuck knows something about phone systems. I’m sure I dialed Operator correctly. How could anyone make a mistake dialing 0? Yet a woman came on who claimed to be Information way out West in some godforsaken place.” His breathing was labored.

  Audrey went farther from him. “I haven’t any idea what you are talking about. Have you been drinking?”

  “Chuck Burgoyne,” Doug said, with the emphasis given that which inspires unusual emotion.

  For Audrey too the name inspired feeling. “Yes,” said she, “ask Chuck about the phones. Maybe he can fix them before the repairman gets here.”

  Doug at last attended to her. “Haven’t you been listening?” he asked in rage. “It’s Chuck I’ve been talking about. He’s a criminal!”

  Audrey now advanced on him and laughed in his face. Doug slapped her across the left cheek, and she recoiled against the vanity.

  Slowly returning to the upright position, she used an idiom that was unique for her. “You motherfucker.” She groped at the top of the dressing table and came up with a tiny cuticle scissors. “I’ll cut your balls off if you touch me again.”

  But her husband was once again in the state in which he seemed unable to see or hear her responses. “He’s just a little runt,” said he, “but what chance would I have against a gun? I’m no coward, but neither am I suicidal.”

  “Get out of here, you cocksucker,” Audrey cried. “And don’t ever come back.” All the same, she had a terrible sense of powerlessness: never in her life had she
voiced such language and thus now suspected it lacked the passionate conviction with which it was delivered by those to whom the gutter was home. In any event she always cowered when she heard it directed to others of their own kind by base types in the city, people with tattoos, shirts with the arms severed at the shoulders, caps bearing indecipherable devices, pushing wheeled contrivances or operating heavy machinery.

  Doug continued to remain deaf to her speech. Could she be only imagining she spoke aloud? Of course she had for some years been given to abusing him tacitly in these terms, which strangely enough had seemed much stronger in the unspoken medium.

  “But maybe, just maybe,” Doug was saying, “if his attention could be diverted for a moment, he could be successfully jumped. I don’t know. I’ve kept myself in good shape, but he’s at least twenty-five years younger.” He glared at her. “God Almighty, Audrey, must I be asked to perform a miracle?”

  So the obscenities had not been of service. Audrey therefore returned to her old style, though she was still holding the cuticle scissors. “You’re overwrought,” said she. “That woman has got you running in circles. You don’t have the self-possession of years ago when you chased jailbait. You may be over the hill, Doug: you don’t seem to know when it’s over.”

  Her husband was obliviously squinting past her. “You know, Aud, you could distract him. You have a motherly effect on him, Audrey! I’ve noticed that. He likes to impress you. That’s what the cooking is all about.” He stared at the ceiling, as if exasperated at heaven. “What a pretty pass, when a man has to ask his wife for help in this kind of matter and can’t expect any from his son, who is a gutless wonder.”

  Audrey wondered whether to try to defend Bobby. The trouble here was that she basically agreed with Doug’s assessment of their son. And Doug had just ignored her worst, which accurately reflected her genuine emotions. Furthermore, she still did not believe Doug’s charges against Chuck. But that he was authentically exercised seemed obvious.