People Who Knock on the Door

by Patricia Highsmith

  “Ow!”

  “Oh! Sorry, Maggie!” He had been squeezing her arm. “W-want to get out and walk?”

  “Yes—if you promise not to fall over the edge again.”

  Arthur took her hand and was careful not to squeeze it as they climbed the slope toward the beginning of the dark edge. The air was warmer than the last time, heavier with summer; the stars were all out, though Arthur couldn’t see a moon. He felt shaky with a sense of possible failure ahead, failure in every direction. That was just as possible as success, wasn’t it? He gulped and asked, “Diane’s a relative?”

  “No, just an old friend of Mom’s. She lives in the same town as my grandma in Pennsylvania. She’s a dietitian in a hospital.”

  Arthur half-listened. He was thinking that he couldn’t tell Maggie about Irene Langley’s visit, though he had thought he might. Irene Langley was too depressing to talk about, to try to be funny about.

  “Hey, Maggie! Starting Tuesday I’ve got my house free to myself. For us. For a couple of weeks at least. My brother’s taking off for Kansas.”

  16

  Robbie was to fly to Kansas City Tuesday morning at 9:30, and Arthur looked forward to his departure. To Arthur, he had become somebody else. If this was growing up, Arthur thought, if his brother was going to become an adult who resembled Robbie at present, then Arthur simply didn’t like him. Robbie no longer said anything spontaneous, original, or funny as he had used to. He went around in a slight daze, yet as if on good behavior, a bit stiff-necked, looking as if he were conscious of whatever he was doing, even something as simple as dropping a couple of eggs into a skillet. It crossed Arthur’s mind that his parents had left Robbie behind for a few days so that Robbie could try to persuade him into the good path, but there had been no speeches from Robbie. In fact, Robbie’s attitude was one of subtle shunning of him.

  “You coming to church?” Robbie asked on Sunday morning around 10. He was already dressed in blue trousers and a clean shirt.

  “No—thank you. You going on your bike?”

  “Guthrie’s picking me up. You ought to come.”

  Arthur was on the floor in his room, looking over his books and choosing a few to sell. He wore old Levi’s and no shirt, because it was another hot day. “Thanks, my friend, I’m going over to the DeWitt establishment in a few minutes. Work, you know?”

  “Sunday’s supposed to be a day of rest.”

  Arthur was suddenly bored, or angry. “Parrot!” He stood up with a couple of old paperbacks and instead of slapping them together as he had an impulse to do, he dropped them into the wastebasket.

  “You’re throwing away books?”

  “Yeah.—Sex books. You know? How to make love.” The two he had thrown away were starting to get yellow with age.

  Was Robbie blushing? Robbie looked at the wastebasket with interest.

  “You wouldn’t want to read dirty stuff like that. Sinful.”

  A simultaneous knock and a short ring of the doorbell came.

  “That’s Guthrie,” Robbie said, and went off.

  Arthur returned to his books with a dust rag, and after this, he thought, it might be worth it to take the vacuum cleaner to his carpet. His mother expected him to keep the house reasonably clean, because they hadn’t a regular cleaning woman.

  “Arthur?” Robbie’s voice had an oddly shrill note. “Come and meet Guthrie.” Robbie stood in the doorway.

  “Can you tell him I’m busy—just now?”

  But there was Guthrie just behind Robbie in the hall, a blond fellow in his twenties. “Hello, Arthur. Glad to meet you,” said the young man, extending a hand. “Guthrie MacKenzie.”

  Arthur extended his hand, hating the feel of the soft moist palm against his. “Howdy.”

  “Not coming with us?—Robbie’s told me about you. Like to take you along today, if you’re willing,” Guthrie said with a smile. He wore neat blue cotton trousers, a blue shirt and tie under his cotton jacket.

  “Just explained to Robbie, I’m going out to work in a few minutes,” Arthur said, and slowly advanced, so that first Guthrie and then Robbie had to back out of his room. Arthur detested them in his room and was determined to herd them into the living room or the kitchen. Robbie, his brother, had probably told this one about Maggie, too!

  Guthrie walked backward, turned and entered the living room.

  Arthur stalked into the living room barefoot, feeling rather proud of his suntanned torso and muscles.

  “We’ll be off in a minute,” said Guthrie MacKenzie. “I know—from what your father and Robbie’ve told me—that you think we’re sort of against you. Or we’re trying to get you into a club you don’t want to join.” He shook his head slowly. “It’s not like that. We have an open attitude. Come to us if you like.” He opened his arms, reminding Arthur of programs he had seen on TV. “I don’t like labels myself. Mind if I smoke?” Guthrie had pulled out cigarettes.

  Arthur shrugged. He shook his head when Guthrie extended a pack of Kents.

  “Labels give a man a bad name. Give a church a bad name, too. I don’t even like the label Baptist,” he continued in a pleasant tone, “though my folks’ve been that for generations. What we’re aiming for is contact, friendliness, happiness. I wanted you to know that you have friends right here, if you want them. You’re among friends.”

  His grandmother’s phrase, Arthur remembered uncomfortably. “Thank you,” Arthur said.

  Robbie was drinking this in.

  “You won’t join us this morning? You don’t have to change your jeans, just put on a shirt. I bet you could come barefoot. Sure! Lots of good men have walked barefoot before.”

  Arthur nodded, and hated himself for nodding. “Yes,” he said, bored and polite. “If you’ll excuse me—Got some things to do before I take off.” He went back to his room.

  He found three more old paperbacks to chuck. He tried to damp down his temper, lest he throw away more books than he wanted to.

  Guthrie stuck his head into Arthur’s room, having suddenly opened the closed door a little, and said a cheery, “Good-bye! Bless you!”

  Finally, the front door closed.

  Arthur got the vacuum cleaner and pushed it over the floor of his room, and decided to do Robbie’s room, too. Robbie had made his bed in a sloppy way; there were several socks on the floor and a couple of pairs of sneakers, magazines, and cassettes. In the course of clearing the floor of these, Arthur noticed a yellow and blue poster on the wall above Robbie’s table: JESUS SAVES, it said, and below the usual Jesus portrait of a bearded fair-haired man with sad blue eyes and pink lips, a photograph of the backs of a crowd of contemporary children had been superimposed. All the children were reaching their arms up toward Jesus. Arthur thought of doing the floor in his parents’ bedroom while he had the vacuum out, but he disliked going into their room and decided to put the job off.

  He rode off toward Mrs. DeWitt’s. She had insisted that he have lunch with her today, since last Sunday’s lunch had been “so sadly interrupted.”

  His work that day was a breeze: painting a fence green. He mixed some black and white in the green, so the fence would blend with the color of the grass around it. After lunch he worked till just after 4, the hottest time of the afternoon, then turned the hose on himself in the backyard, and rode off in wet Levi’s. At home, he took a shower and collapsed on his bed to sleep for a while. Robbie was watching TV. Arthur hadn’t a date with Maggie or with anyone that evening, but he had told Robbie he had, because he wanted to get out of the house.

  Just after 7, Arthur telephoned Norma Keer, and asked if he could come over. “I know it’s late—the dinner hour.”

  “Since when do I keep a definite dinner hour?”

  Arthur cut a few roses from the backyard to take to her and went over.

  Norma was bringing
a big bowl of something to her table, which she had set for two. “Just some Jell-O,” she said. “Too hot to eat anything else. Raspberry with banana and cantaloupe cut up in it. Fix yourself a drink first, Arthur, if you want one. My, you look nice. Got a date somewhere later?”

  Arthur laughed. “No.” He made a gin and tonic in the kitchen. Norma already had one.

  “And how’s your nice girlfriend—Maggie?”

  “Oh, fine, thank you. Taking a course at C.U. this summer to brush up on her math. For Radcliffe.”

  As the evening went on, Arthur thought Norma didn’t know anything about Maggie’s stay in the hospital. He was alert for the slightest hint or query.

  “More cake, Arthur. Don’t be shy.”

  Arthur helped himself. Norma made excellent carrot cakes. “Do you happen to know a woman called Irene Langley? About thirty, dyed blond hair?”

  “Langley—” Norma tilted her head back and looked at the ceiling as if she were going through her list of clients at the First National. “Don’t know the name. Who’s she?”

  “One of the ones that go to my dad’s church. She knocked on the door Friday night.”

  Norma smiled her tiny smile in her round face and looked suddenly merry. “I suppose she wanted to drop off a few pamphlets? She didn’t knock here.”

  “No, she wanted to see my dad, but I’m sure she knew he was out of town. She said my dad talks to her—cheers her up. She’s a bit nuts. An ex-prostitute who’s found religion.”

  “Oh, my goodness!” Here Norma rolled with laughter, and her bosom shook under her low-cut dress.

  Arthur had never before noticed Norma’s breasts, and he thought now that they looked rather comforting, motherly. He was grinning. “And Robbie—he knows her. He was furious and asked her to leave. Took quite a while. It’s the aura she wanted, she said, the aura in the house there.”

  Norma shook her head. “What’s so new about Christ I don’t know. When these magazine-peddlers knock on my door and ask me if I know about the Bible, I tell them I read the Bible before they were born!”

  Arthur said after a moment, “What worries me a little is my brother.”

  “Oh. Always with those older men, you mean.”

  “That’s one thing.” Arthur twisted his glass on the table. “Then his bossy attitude toward this woman Irene. I dunno what’s charitable about that. It’s just—strange.” There was still another thing, Robbie treating him now as if he were a sinner, and an unrepentent one, but Arthur couldn’t say this to Norma. “Robbie really doesn’t like me anymore.”

  “Oh, between brothers—Moods, Arthur. Temporary attitudes. Robbie’s only fifteen, isn’t he?—It won’t last.”

  Arthur said nothing more.

  EDDIE HOWELL TURNED UP unannounced Monday evening at half past 7. Arthur was especially annoyed, because Maggie was there. He had invited Maggie for dinner. Robbie had told Arthur that morning that his friends Jeff and Bill were giving him a send-off party at the house of one of them and that he wouldn’t be home before midnight. Consequently Arthur had invited Maggie for the first of what he hoped would be several evenings at his house. Then, just as Arthur was opening the fridge to bring forth cold roast beef and potato salad, the twit was on the doorstep.

  “Robbie’s out tonight,” Arthur said.

  Smiling as ever, Eddie Howell pushed into the hall. “But anyway you’re here and I’d—” He saw Maggie over the partition between hall and kitchen. “Is this your friend?”

  “Yes. Maggie—Eddie Howell. Maggie Brewster.”

  “A pleasure,” said Eddie. “Excuse me for intruding, but I won’t stay. I wanted to see how Arthur was. I had no idea I’d have the pleasure of meeting you.”

  Arthur wondered about that. “We were just—”

  “I know about the situation of a week ago,” Eddie said to Maggie. “I’m glad to see you looking so well—because it can be a dangerous thing. And it’s always most depressing.”

  Maggie exchanged a glance with Arthur. Her polite smile had gone. “I’m not depressed.”

  “Maybe it hasn’t hit you yet.”

  “No,” Maggie said with her honest air that Arthur knew well. “It won’t. I know by now.”

  Arthur saw her brows tremble with annoyance. “If you don’t mind, Eddie—we were just about to eat.”

  “Right, and I’m off in a minute.” Eddie Howell’s eyes blinked rapidly as he glanced from Arthur to Maggie and back to Arthur. “I just came to remind you—both—that though you have gone against God’s will, you are still forgiven—if you acknowledge what you’ve done—admit it—and vow to yourself to walk in the right path in the future.”

  Maggie took a sip of her drink and set the glass down on the sideboard, just as she might have done if she and Arthur had been alone.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying?” Eddie Howell asked Maggie, with a smile.

  “Yes,” Maggie said.

  “Good.” Eddie Howell nodded cheerfully. “May I just leave you something?”

  “No,” Arthur said, because Eddie was unzipping his briefcase. “Not tonight, please. Save it for someone else. And while you’re—” He glanced nervously toward the living room, then suddenly remembered that he had cleared the living room of religious magazines in preparation for Maggie’s visit and had put all the stuff in Robbie’s room. “Never mind.”

  “I can see that you’re in need of some of the things I have,” Eddie Howell said.

  Arthur went to the front door and opened it and stood aside to let Eddie Howell pass him. “Thanks for the visit, Eddie.”

  Eddie Howell moved toward the door, holding his briefcase in both hands. “Good night, Maggie—Arthur. God bless!”

  Arthur closed the door after him and slid the inside bolt.

  “Wow,” Maggie said, laughing. “I thought you were going to throw him out the door!”

  Arthur spread his arms, then embraced Maggie tightly for a moment. “See what I’m up against here? You see what they’re like?”

  “And who’s he?”

  “Church friend of my father’s.”

  “Take it easy. They’re not worth getting angry about.”

  Maggie and her family weren’t living with it. But if Maggie wanted him to calm down, he would. He glanced at the fridge, and thought the roast beef could wait a few more seconds. “And there was one other creep at the door, Irene Langley, Friday night before I saw you. Reformed prostitute.”

  “She goes to that church too?”

  “Yes! My dad makes friends with these people, talks to them when they’re depressed. The one Friday night looked coked out.” He told Maggie about Robbie’s rude behavior, because it added a comic touch, but he didn’t tell her that Irene Langley had frightened him, as an insane person might. He didn’t want to tell her either that Irene Langley knew about the abortion.

  “Next time they come to the door—just keep the door locked. Tell them through the door your father’s out.—Come on, let’s eat.”

  Later they sat on the sofa, talking of September and school, while a Mozart string quartet played on Arthur’s cassette. Tomorrow morning Arthur was going to the C.U. office with his grades from Chalmerston High and his letters of admission to Columbia. He was going to find out the costs and apply for admission, whether he could afford it or not when September came. And the Reagan administration was making student loans harder to get. Maggie had decided to major in sociology as soon as she could at Radcliffe, though her father wanted her to take only liberal arts courses in the first two years.

  “I don’t mean the social worker house calls kind of thing,” Maggie said. “I mean finding out why things already exist—conditions and problems. I see the world so differently since those days in the hospital. Funny. Everything’s suddenly real, not like a backdrop or a lot of scener
y.”

  Arthur listened, also aware of Maggie’s head resting gently against his cheek. And wouldn’t it be great, he thought, if they could spend a little bit of their evenings like this together, once college started, just sitting on a sofa and talking?

  “’Scuse me.” Robbie’s voice had come from behind them.

  Arthur saw Robbie standing in the living room doorway.

  “Why’d you bolt the front door?”

  Arthur stood up. “I felt like it. Why’d you sneak in? Can’t you ring the bell?”

  “Wasn’t sneaking in; I hadda come in by the garage!”

  Robbie had had a few beers, Arthur saw.

  “Hello, Robbie,” said Maggie.

  “Hi,” said Robbie, still in the doorway.

  “I bolted the door because Eddie Howell crashed in, and I don’t want any more such,” Arthur said. “Did you sic him on me tonight?”

  After a second, Robbie said, “No.”

  “Don’t get mad again, Arthur,” Maggie whispered, putting on the shoes that she had slipped off.

  Robbie disappeared into the hall.

  It was hardly 11 o’clock, Arthur saw. “Fine brother I’ve got, don’t you think?”

  “Aren’t all kid brothers like this?”

  Mozart came to a halt. They sat on in the living room, but the atmosphere was not the same. Arthur rode home with Maggie in her car, and then he walked back home, even though it was raining a little.

  Arthur knocked on Robbie’s door, feeling like one of the intruders, but on the opposing team.

  “Yup?”

  Robbie was in pajamas on his knees, packing his blue duffel bag. “Bill’s picking me up tomorrow to take me to the airport.”

  Robbie had told him that this morning. “Got your swim shorts? Extra pair of sneaks?” Arthur asked in a bored tone. Their mother wanted Arthur to be sure Robbie had them.