The Houseguest

by Thomas Berger

  Audrey asked Chuck, “Think the Bulldog will be swinging a big bat again this season?”

  “Probably time for an off-year,” he said immediately. “Always happens after the signing of a big new contract.”

  What in the world could Chuck have meant when he said Connie had been taken care of? Despite his previous favorable opinion of the young man, Doug found a suggestion of arrogance in the suggestion.

  He rose from the chair and rubbed his hands together. He now had sufficient justification to announce he was hungry, in which statement there was a definite implication that was critical of Chuck. “I haven’t had anything to eat since dinner last night. Does anybody have any plans for lunch?”

  Audrey seemed to quail, but after a moment Chuck threw up his arms and cried genially, “Couldn’t sleep, so I came out early and made a big breakfast. This toast has taken care of me till dinnertime.”

  Doug was now provoked to reveal his annoyance. “I really was looking forward to your pancakes.”

  Chuck raised one eyebrow. “You don’t remember? We all agreed last night we’d each be on his own this morning?”

  Audrey remained serenely silent. She could not be looked to for assistance.

  After a moment Doug shook his head and said expressionlessly, “My mistake.” He walked to the casement window over the sink and stared out to the parking area, a graveled place below tall pines. Seeing which car remained, he asked, without purpose, “Bobby went to the club?” He slowly came to the table. “I think I’ll run in to the village and catch a sandwich at the diner.”

  “It’s closed,” said Audrey. “All day Sunday.”

  Smirking, Chuck strolled to the refrigerator, swung open the door, and while peering into the interior said, “A man’s got a square meal coming under his own roof. I’ll rustle up something.”

  All at once Doug had lost his sense of hurt. “Mighty nice of you, Chuck old boy. I wouldn’t mind it at all. You’ve spoiled us with your culinary prowess.” He had intended, on the route to the village, to stop at a roadside phone booth and call Connie Cunningham in the city: it was too risky to try that on his private telephone in the house, what with people wandering through the hallways. But he now had an excuse not to perform this chore, at least not promptly, and that was just as well, for he was sure to be wrong in feeling any apprehension as to her welfare: the result would be only to postpone, for more painful days, the necessary end to their association, for Connie was currently in the mood to see a routine hello as evidence of his revived passion.

  Audrey protested hypocritically to Chuck, “It’s really me who should be doing that. You’re our guest!”

  “I’d rather be useful than sit around,” said Chuck. “You know that.”

  But good as he had previously been at the stove, today he produced fried eggs with hard yolks and brown edges, and burned the bacon, yet he served this fare to his hosts with the same air of confidence he had justifiably displayed with fine meals.

  But one should probably not judge him harshly on the basis of a unique off-day.

  Audrey was about to sit down to the plate Chuck had prepared for her when she said, “Oh, I guess I’d better tell Lydia we’re eating.”

  “No,” said Chuck, “you sit down while it’s hot. I’ll find her.”

  When the houseguest had left the kitchen, Doug asked Audrey, “Know anything about Chuck’s family?”

  She shrugged. “Not really. I think he hails from out West somewhere. Ask Lydia. I gather she’s the one knew him first, introduced him to Bobby.”

  “He’s an awfully agreeable guy,” said Doug, munching some bacon, the char-bittered taste of which was actually stimulating to his palate. “I hope he’s able to stay for some days to come.”

  Audrey agreed. “He’s nice to have around the house. You know when Mrs. Finch is here he never comes into the kitchen. He’s that delicate.”

  Unlike his wife, Doug had never seen their weekday housekeeper as charmingly quaint. He had been coming to the island all his life and had yet to find a local he either trusted or liked.

  “I wonder if Chuck would like to audit her accounts,” he said to Audrey. “I doubt they’d pass muster.” Members of the Finch family owned the nearest grocery, the gas station, the liquor store, and supplied the cleaning women, and the island postmaster was an in-law. In Doug’s experience they were all lazy, surly, and unscrupulous throughout the generations. In appearance most of them shared a potato-face, though now and again a Finch had a foxlike snout: long nose and undershot jaw.

  “Oh, Doug,” Audrey chided. “You’re hardly ever here when she is.”

  “I will be tomorrow,” said he. “I’m not going back this evening.”

  His wife lowered her knife and fork. “Not flying back?”

  “Nor driving. Nor going. I’m staying on for a couple of days for a change. Is it that amazing?”

  Audrey made a little gesture. “Well, it’s unprecedented.”

  “You weren’t expecting guests?” he asked sardonically. “I can keep my room?”

  “Then how long will you be staying?”

  “I trust I’m welcome?”

  “You’ll have more than Mrs. Finch to contend with: the cleaning crew comes again on Monday.”

  These women, three or sometimes four of them, were also essentially Finches, at least second cousins or perhaps a near neighbor who probably had some of the same blood, so interbred were the island folk.

  “You’ve forgotten. I’ve been coming here since I was a baby. I know how to handle myself with that tribe.”

  “Well, I’m just pointing it out. And remember not to leave anything lying around that you want to find afterwards. They put away everything loose, any article of clothing, jewelry, papers, ashtrays, everything movable, so they can dust a room all at once. Trouble is where they put the things: never places I would choose. They’ll shove one shoe into a dresser drawer and throw its mate on a closet shelf.”

  “Genetic deficiencies have been passed on from generation to generation,” Doug pointed out. “Necessarily: any breeding done on the island has to be incest. These are essentially the same people that came here three centuries ago. Nobody leaves and no new blood has been added.”

  Audrey herself could freely criticize the Finches, but of course when Doug added his observations she came to their defense.

  “You exaggerate,” she said now. “They’re probably as good or maybe even better than the usual people found in such a place as this, with a part-time population so different from the human beings who live here all year—to whom the permanent residents are merely servants.”

  Lydia had composed herself by now and had only just left her room when she encountered Chuck, of all people, in the hall.

  For no apparent reason he was positively ebullient. “Hi!” he cried. “You’re quite the slugabed today.”

  If she knew the term at all, it was but distantly, perhaps from some childhood book written in the century past but still read to little girls in her day. It went with “counterpane.” Despite these innocent associations she was having a struggle with herself to keep from making a wisecrack with reference to the state in which she had last seen him.

  “I’ve been up and about for hours. You’re the one who overslept today.” And not being burdened with Audrey’s obligations as hostess, she added, “We naturally assumed you’d be up to make breakfast, and waited and waited.”

  Chuck did not admit a hint of failure. “Where were you?” he asked aggressively. “I did cook, and everybody else has eaten long since.” His front teeth, now on gleaming display, were perfect. He was not at all her type, but there could be no argument as to his good looks.

  He went on. “That’s why I came to fetch you. It’s so late now there won’t be another meal till evening. Better come along and eat some eggs.” He turned and strolled along the hall for a few paces, then stopped and spun around to face her again. At first it seemed odd that he would not have waited till she was at
closer range to say such a thing, but in retrospect she understood that it was his game to unsettle prospective prey by the use of special effects. “Just as well you’re up,” said he. “Can’t tell what I might have done if I found you still in bed.”

  Had she had time to reflect, Lydia would have seen that the only effective response here would have been none whatever. As it was, inexperienced at this kind of contest, she answered with some asperity.

  “Oh. I can take care of myself.”

  His grin was triumphant. “I would be counting on that.”

  She realized she was now in the uncomfortable and in fact preposterous situation of fearing that he might believe she was afraid of him.

  The car conked out not long before Bobby would have emerged from the private lane to join the cross-island road: simply coughed twice and stopped. He obstinately tried for a while to start it, angrily failing to comprehend how an engine that was running well could quit without warning and did not at least “miss” for a mile or two. But finally he climbed out and began to walk the quarter mile back to the house. The lane was one car wide, unpaved, and deeply grooved by wheels that had traveled it in wet weather. This was no place for anything but utilitarian vehicles. Not to mention that the salt air pitted any finish within months. The Graveses kept two cars at hand, a station wagon of some capacity and the rusty compact that had just given out on Bobby. These machines were regularly maintained during the summer by the Finches who operated the local garage and then when autumn came “winterized” by them and stored in one of the barns at the disposal of that family. But it was more than possible that, as his father routinely suspected of anything managed by the Finches, this job was poorly done. If so, Bobby did not want to be the one who told them so, for his childhood bête noire, Dewey Finch, now ran the automotive branch of the Finch enterprises. Once when Bobby was twelve and Dewey fourteen or fifteen and much thicker-set than he, the brutal islander had cornered the rich kid in the gas-station toilet and forced the younger boy to masturbate him, after the performance of which degrading act he predicted that Bobby would be far too humiliated to report it, and of course he was right.

  Dewey had obviously not forgotten that episode, for he still smirked today if Bobby was so careless as to gas up one of the cars when his enemy was on duty.

  On the walk back he saw a red squirrel that looked no bigger than a good-sized mouse and heard the sounds made by a larger animal he could not see but had set to flight amidst the trees. Many beasts lived in these woods. Deer were not uncommon. A gardener when Bobby was a boy, of course another Finch, scared him with tales of wandering bears, but in later years he determined that there had been no bear-sightings locally since the turn of the century.

  As he was approaching the house, Chuck came around the wing nearest the parking area.

  “Out for a constitutional?” asked the houseguest. Chuck wore his habitual uniform: khaki trousers, navy knitted shirt, and leather loafers. Apparently he had brought little else. Since it was not likely he was poor, this was perhaps an expression of his austere tastes. But Bobby really couldn’t understand how anyone would want to stay out of shorts in this season.

  He groaned now. “Car broke down, just stopped in its tracks. Sunday the garage is closed, so I guess what I’ll have to do is take the wagon out there and pull the car back. Mind steering the car, Chuck?”

  “Why don’t you let me walk out and see whether I can get it started?” Chuck asked. “I know a few tricks.” He held out his hand for the ignition keys that Bobby had been swinging on an index finger.

  Bobby felt a great sense of relief. He hated to have trouble with cars, for even the simplest matter pertaining to the internal-combustion engine was mysterious to him: he really had no idea of what, say, a distributor did.

  “God, I’d be grateful,” said he, surrendering the keys. “I’ll go get the keys to the wagon, just in case.”

  “No,” Chuck said evenly. “Let me see first.” He started off up the lane in his, usual brisk, regular, almost military stride. Bobby would have liked to go along with him on this very male mission, but he had the definite sense that Chuck did not require his company. Also, he was hungry and assumed that now Chuck was up, some provision had been made for a meal.

  He found a door that was reasonably near the kitchen and entered the house. In the kitchen he found Lydia eating an open-faced grilled-cheese sandwich with knife and fork. She also had a tall glass of what looked like grapefruit juice.

  He told her what had happened. She frowned and lowered her fork. “He certainly makes himself indispensable around here,” said she. “I gather Chuck is a longtime friend of the family.”

  Bobby shrugged. “I guess so. My parents are probably friends of his.” The molten cheese looked delicious. “Say, Lyd, make me one of those, will you?”

  “You mean you don’t know him?”

  “Only since he came, last week.”

  “You never saw him before?”

  “Not that I can remember,” said Bobby. “I don’t think he’s ever stayed here before. Hey, how about it: grill me a cheese?”

  Lydia pointed with her fork. “See that gadget on the counter, Bobby? That’s a toaster-oven. You just take the cheese from the fridge and bread from the breadbox. You put the cheese on the bread and the bread in the tray of the toaster, then you press down the lever on the side. You watch through the window, and when it’s done you take it out.”

  “I know how to do it,” said he. “I just thought it might be nice and generous and kind of you to fix it for me.”

  “You mean,” she asked with an expression that favored one eye, “it’s some kind of test of my regard for you?”

  She could be derisive in the kitchen, but when they were in bed, he would be the one who would be expected to perform, whatever the state of his own ardor at the time, and it never quite matched hers.

  “I’ll have something else, then,” he said, expecting her to capitulate, but she did not, so he had to go to the refrigerator and root around. As it happened, he never did come across the cheese. Instead he found one of the many packages of frankfurters for the lunch Mrs. Finch prepared every third day: hotdogs, canned baked beans, and the cole slaw sold in plastic containers at her family’s grocery. Unable to breach the tough plastic without a tool, Bobby whined to Lydia, and she gave him the knife she had been eating with.

  “For God’s sake, this is dirty,” said he. “Also, it’s blunt.” He gave it back, sighing. “I don’t have any fingernails.” This was true: he trimmed them so short he could not pick up a fallen coin.

  Lydia groaned and pointed to the conspicuous hardwood block with slots for many knives, all of them filled. It took him a while to find the littlest one. By the time the hotdogs were available to him, he lacked the energy and patience to cook them, and ate a couple cold, from his fingers, then reached over Lydia’s shoulders and stole her grapefruit juice.

  She was finished by now, anyway. She took her plate to the dishwasher, and while there looked out the window that gave onto the parking area.

  “Huh, Chuck’s brought the car back. He seems to have had no trouble with it.”

  Bobby came to join her. “How about that,” said he. “He was right.”

  “Right?”

  “He said he knew a few tricks about cars.”

  “And not just about cars,” Lydia said sourly. “He’s a pretty tricky guy in general.”

  Bobby frowned with his forehead, letting his long jaw hang loose. “He knows how to do everything. Maybe I should take a few lessons from him.”

  Lydia seized him around the waist. “No, you shouldn’t,” she said fiercely.

  “I really ought to learn something about cars,” said Bobby. He found the hug slightly painful: he had a sensitive rib. “I’ve been driving since I was twelve or thirteen.”

  “Speaking of cars,” Lydia said, releasing him, “where’s Chuck’s? How’d he get here?”

  But Bobby was distracted, watching Chuck
lock the door of the car he had just returned to its place. There was no need for that up here: robbery of any kind was virtually unknown during the season. When the summer people were away, however, their houses were fair game—unless they hired the Finches, at quite a healthy fee, to keep an eye on the property. It was his father’s theory that this constituted a “protection” racket of the kind operated in the cities by mobsters: namely, that the people who could be hired as guards were, unless given such employment, the selfsame who ransacked the houses—though naturally this would have been hard to prove. Even old General Lewis Mickelberg, former supreme commander of the armed services, had a healthy respect for them, as did other summer residents who were people of power in the real world, e.g., Nelson T. Boonforth, chairman of the board of the third largest bank in the country; and celebrated defense attorney Hartman Anthony Johncock, whose eldest son was Bobby’s principal rival on the tennis courts.

  Chuck was heading in a direction that would have taken him out of sight had not Bobby leaned across the counter and shouted through the screened casement.

  “I’m in the kitchen!”

  Chuck halted.

  “You got it started?” Bobby asked. “Did it run okay?”

  Chuck nodded.

  “What the devil was the problem?” asked Bobby.

  “Flooded,” Chuck answered laconically. He walked away.

  Lydia lifted her upper lip. “Don’t you think that’s rude?”

  “I guess it was dumb of me,” Bobby said. “But if you don’t keep trying to get the motor started, how’s it going to start? Yet if you do, you flood it.”

  “I notice he’s keeping the keys,” Lydia pointed out.

  “Well, we know where to find them.” Bobby yawned, crucifying his arms. “Anyway, the moment has passed for going to the club. I can hardly keep my eyes open.”

  “Are there extra sets of car keys?”

  “Sure,” said Bobby. “On the hook inside the door of the cabinet in the utility room, next to the washer-dryer. Why? Going someplace?”