The Houseguest

by Thomas Berger

  “Lucky I spotted you when I did,” said he. “I guessed you might not know of the undercurrent. I grabbed the jacket and came running down.” Until this moment, in her desperate solipsism she had overlooked the bright yellow life jacket he wore. “They keep out of the ocean,” he said with an edge of contempt. “Are you strong enough to climb the steps?”

  They were near the stairway of log-halves. “I guess so.” She looked up at the house. “Do you think anyone up there saw any of this?”

  “I assume they’d be out now if they had,” Chuck said.

  She turned to him. “Could you do me one more favor? This is asking quite a lot, but could you possibly not mention that I went swimming down here?” The request was outrageous of her, she knew, disqualifying him as it did of all recognition of his heroism.

  Yet he agreed immediately, and what was perhaps more remarkable did not ask her to explain. She was suddenly aware of their affinity: this was embarrassing, given her previous repugnance for the man.

  “Im really grateful, Chuck,” said she, and put her hand on his. He was still supporting her at the waist without emotional significance; he could have been a professional nurse.

  Audrey now saw them from the house, but she had witnessed nothing of the earlier events and therefore was not aware of the saving of Lydia’s life. To her there seemed no question that her daughter-in-law and the houseguest were embracing, and blatantly, there on the beach where they might be seen by anybody. Appalling as the incident was, Audrey was gratified to have been given, without the expenditure of effort on her part, evidence that confirmed the suspicion she had been entertaining since Bobby had first brought the girl home, viz., that Lydia was an insolent little tart.

  Now the problem was how to deal with the matter. She could not remember the last time she had spoken with Bobby on any really personal issue: perhaps she had never done so in the course of his life. With no precedents whatever, how then could she bluntly inform him that his bride and his best friend were lovers? Nor could she find it possible to forgive Chuck Burgoyne. She had assumed his taste in women would be as superior as everything else about him. Surely he could have had his choice: then why this one? For the degrading reason that she happened to be the nearest? If so, he was no better than Doug. And now Audrey felt justified in admitting the possibility that Doug too might have had his moment with Lydia. He was more slippery a customer than of old. Her surveillance being what it was in this house, she could have sworn that for once there had been no congress between her husband and a girl brought home by his son.

  Not that all the young ladies could, in justice, be blamed: most had resisted, some complaining to Bobby, and one was sufficiently outraged as to apply to Audrey. But irrational though it might be, Audrey could never forgive any of them, least of all the girl who complained to her. She simply detested anyone her husband found attractive, and had the ill fortune to be married to a man who when it came to women could be called both insatiable and omnivorous.

  Her sole confidante, Molly Finley, was still abroad, thus could not be invited to come up from the city to help with the problem. Molly was the only friend of Audrey’s never to have been the target of Doug’s advances, being candidly homosexual. Her friendship with Audrey was conspicuously nonerotic, to the degree that Molly eschewed all physical contact, even to the shaking of hands. If one accidentally collided with her, she could be felt to recoil. Yet morally she was the most comfortable of intimates: she was the unique friend whom nature had disqualified as a competitor.

  But Molly, an art dealer, was on the other side of the world, in quest of new work to sell in her gallery. Audrey was unlikely to purchase any of it, given Molly’s penchant for crazy, provocative mixed-material pieces, fur-and-copper, say, or ceramic-and-newsprint, which set Audrey’s teeth on edge. For her part, Molly no doubt despised Audrey’s predilection for geometric arrangements in the primary colors, on the one hand, and primitive daubs of barns and daisies on the other, if indeed she ever looked at a wall of Audrey’s, which in fact she had never been caught doing.

  After many summers on the island, Audrey had yet to meet a woman she liked, and she would sooner have shared the current scandal with one of the Finches than with anyone of, her summer acquaintance. That Marge Meers would cackle in triumph went without saying, and Jane DeHaven had an Old score to settle because of Doug.

  Audrey suddenly realized that she was thinking exclusively of her own embarrassment and not poor Bobby’s humiliation. To be cuckolded so soon must be especially devastating to a man. Was it therefore more humane to do what one could to keep him in the state of blissful ignorance? He seemed genuinely fond of Lydia, but fortunately he displayed no hint of passion for her, whereas Audrey had been really gaga for Doug and therefore was all but destroyed at the first evidence of his infidelity. She had actually put the razor blade to her wrist and was restrained only by aesthetic considerations, therefore overdosed on pills instead, gulping so many as to upset her stomach, and she threw up before coming anywhere near death. Nobody learned of this episode. She hadn’t even had to call a doctor.

  The screen slid back, and Lydia and Chuck, still embracing, boldly entered the wide doorway. Audrey flinched, having no idea of how to deal with such provocation.

  “I was dumb,” Lydia cried. “I almost drowned. Chuck saved my life.”

  “Good gosh,” said Audrey, feeling spiritually naked after having been so decisively disabused. She smiled brilliantly at the houseguest. “Our hero!”

  For a moment Chuck seemed modestly to hang his sleek head. Then he made a burlesque wink and said, with an assumed accent, but too light a one to be identified linguistically, “Wade till you get duh bill!” He released Lydia. “She should get some rest after that ordeal,” he said to Audrey, and to his patient: “You go lie down. Do you need help?”

  “I can walk all right,” said she. She lowered her head and carefully left the room, watching where she stepped, as if on a pathway of intermittent stones.

  Audrey was now alone with Chuck, and for an instant she was too frantic to find a topic of conversation. Then, “I gave in to my baser instincts a while ago and tried to call one of my so-called friends on the island. But the phone doesn’t work.”

  Chuck had those unusual blue eyes that are quite as warm as brown. “I’ll take a look at it.”

  “Golly,” she said with delight, “don’t tell me you can do that too? Chef, lifesaver, telephone techni—”

  He narrowed those remarkable blue eyes. “Are you making fun of me?”

  She was horrified by the possibility he might not be joking. “Oh, please—” And caught her breath, for Chuck had extended his right hand to cup her left breast. She felt more fear than desire, expecting as she did that his purpose was to hurt and not to caress her: in the next moment he would begin to squeeze, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  But he defied her flight forward and did nothing else: she got neither fondling nor pain.

  “Don’t you worry,” said he. “Everything’s in order.”

  His hand was suddenly snapped away as if by spring.

  Doug had done nothing whatever to deserve the tone in which Perlmutter addressed him. The unprovoked attack, the display of bluster: the classic tactics of the bully, in this case all of it behind the impermeable electronic curtain. Perlmutter could well be a little down-at-heels clerk, who in a pre-telephone age would have been but another Cratchit.

  Doug was not obliged to suffer threats from anybody but the women with whom he went illicitly to bed and, sometimes, their husbands. He would be prepared, next time Perlmutter phoned, and he would do what he could to insure that the man did call back: Doug had no intention of giving a message to “Chaz.”

  Scarcely had he made that resolution when he betrayed it. Someone was rapping sharply on the door of the study. He went out and opened the door. It was Chuck Burgoyne.

  “Say, Chuck,” Doug said plaintively, “there was a phone call for you, from a guy w
ho for no reason at all was really insulting. He—”

  “Look here, Doug,” Chuck said, grimacing, “Lydia almost drowned in the ocean just now. Luckily I was there to pull her out. You should make sure your guests know about that undertow: you should post signs on the steps to the beach.”

  “Lydia?” Doug asked, as if he had difficulty in identifying her immediately. “Lydia? Is she all right? Anything I can do? Should we call a doctor or something? That won’t be easy on a Sunday, I can tell you. The people up here are not moved by compassion. They close the hospital on the weekends so the staff can go fishing, for God’s sake.” This was of course an exaggeration, but once when the child Bobby had fallen on slippery shore rocks and broken his arm, the volunteer ambulance, a Finch at the wheel, took forever to collect the boy and take him to the island hospital, where the lone attendant had to summon a doctor from his home, halfway around the bay. When the physician arrived he said he had been smoking mackerel, and smelled of it.

  “I’m sorry you were bothered by that call,” said Chuck. “No doubt it was a wrong number. People can be nasty as they want when they remain anonymous.”

  Doug felt a quick affection for the houseguest, as he always did for those whose theories echoed his own. “You know, I was just thinking the same thing myself? It doesn’t take much courage for a man to—”

  “The coward wouldn’t give his name?”

  Doug frowned. “Actually, he did. … Jack Perlmutter.”

  After a moment Chuck said, “I imagine there’s been some mistake.”

  “I’m sure I got the name right.”

  “No doubt,” said Chuck. “But I know Jack Perlmutter. He’s a decent man, Doug. Under no condition would he speak abusively. He’s known for his geniality.” Chuck slapped him on the shouldercap. “But why are we just standing here? It’s easy enough to get to the bottom of this.” He went to the desk as if he owned it, opened the oak box, and removed the handpiece of the telephone. He brandished it at Doug and grinned. Without an obvious search of memory he quickly punched a series of buttons.

  “Hi, Jack. … . That’s right.” Chuck explained why he had called. “One moment—” He took the phone from his face and handed it to Doug.

  Doug was reluctant, but finally he accepted the gift and made a lugubrious hello into it.

  He was greeted by a voice that could have been that of the earlier abusive Perlmutter: there was no way of telling for certain. Whatever, it was downright submissive in tone.

  “Mr. Graves? I’m sorry to hear you got a call from somebody who was nasty, and who gave himself my name. I guess it’s not an uncommon one, though. I just want to say it certainly wasn’t me, but if you’d like, I’ll apologize for anything rotten done since the world began by anybody named Perlmutter. How’s that?”

  “I probably just didn’t hear accurately,” Doug said. He saw no reason why he should be grateful to this man for making a silly joke of the incident. He returned the telephone to Chuck.

  The houseguest produced a clicking sound with his tongue, then said a brisk good-bye. This behavior would fit the two-Perlmutter theory: the caller had wanted with some urgency to talk to “Chaz,” but Chuck’s remarks at this end of the wire now had not suggested the reception of any message.

  Chuck returned the phone to its box, and for the first time in his relations with the houseguest, Doug struck a negative note.

  “No offense, old fellow, but that telephone is supposed to be private. There are extensions of the main house line in just about every room.”

  “Oh,” said Chuck, “that number’s been out of order. Hadn’t you heard?”

  Doug stepped to the desk and touched the oak box. “Then I’d better call the company. But don’t expect anybody to come out on Sunday.”

  “Oh,” said Chuck, looking him in the eye, “I’ve already taken care of it.”

  Doug moved the wooden box an inch or so from where it sat. When he looked up, Chuck was still staring at him.

  “I trust you’re not worrying about the Connie Cunningham matter? I thought I had set your mind at ease.”

  Doug said, “Now that you mention it, I guess I was a little concerned.” He coughed in embarrassment. “This will sound crazy to you, I know, but when you said you’d take care of it, you meant you’d just talk to her … ?”

  Chuck made an expansive gesture. “I’ve got a friend who specializes in affairs of the heart.”

  “He’s a psychiatrist?”

  “A professional. Don’t worry.”

  “All right,” said Doug, displaying more relief than he really felt. “Connie’s a nice person. I didn’t want to hurt her, but you know these things come to a natural end. The excitement obviously can’t be sustained forever, and of course that’s the idea.”

  Chuck continued to smile. “You and Audrey have it all worked out.”

  “That didn’t happen overnight. Also, there’s the financial aspect. We couldn’t ever really have afforded to split up. We own everything in common.” Doug raised his eyebrows. “And then she’s as good a wife as any, really.” He frowned. “This is new to me, this sharing of my private life with a male friend. I don’t ordinarily have the least urge to do so.”

  “I assure you I don’t care to take your confession,” Chuck said, not smiling. “I’m just curious. Why do you have to fall in love on such an occasion? Because you do, don’t you? Why can’t you just hire women as you need them? Don’t tell me it wouldn’t be cheaper in both money and emotion.”

  The man was diabolically prescient: how could he know this? Doug now did, contrary to what he had just said, feel a need to impart most private information. “The damnedest thing: I can’t perform any more unless I’m in love with the woman, or think I am, anyhow. That hasn’t always been the case.”

  Chuck winked at him. “I think it has something to do with the quality of the stuff you get: it’s not that attractive unless you delude yourself somehow. I could introduce you to some special people who could get it up on a corpse.”

  Doug recoiled in spirit. Since the matter of Connie had emerged, Chuck had revealed a side of himself the existence of which could not have been suspected in the affable, efficacious young man he had been hitherto, with his cooking and all.

  He thanked Chuck nonetheless, and said he would think about the offer. He was not exactly afraid of him, but saw no need to offend.

  “Okay,” said Chuck, “I’ll do what’s necessary. Oh—” He gestured. “This is always an awkward business, but it has to be dealt with. I’ll need some …” He extended his hand, making prominent the thumb and forefinger, rubbing them together.

  Doug must have looked quizzical, for Chuck soon elucidated, though for some reason in archaic terms: “Mazuma, moolah, spondulicks …”

  Was the man a pimp? Whatever, he was still a guest in one’s house. Doug found himself, as if in a dream, going back to the bedroom closet and taking his wallet from the appropriate jacket. When he turned back, Chuck was standing in the doorway, but readily stepped aside to permit him access to the study.

  “I’ve only got a hundred or two,” Doug said. “I don’t carry much on me these days: too hazardous.” What an irony then that he would in effect be shaken down in his own home!

  Chuck smirked. “Get yourself one of these.” He lifted a foot, and placing the shoe against the edge of the desk, raised the left leg of his chinos. God Almighty, a small holster, the brown butt of a revolver protruding from it, was strapped at his ankle!

  Doug now could admit to himself that Chuck did indeed frighten him. To the houseguest, however, he gave his best smile and asked, “Is that real?”

  Chuck said genially, “Might not stop a charging rhino, but it’s amazing what damage such a little slug will do to human tissue.”

  Doug was lightheaded as he looked into the compartment of his wallet that should have contained folding money. It was empty now, though it had held a number of bills as recently as when he stopped at a newsstand in the airport to
buy afternoon papers to read on the flight up.

  “I’m sorry,” said he. “I was sure I had some cash. I can’t understand—” He broke off at this point, believing without a doubt that the money had been taken by Chuck, who had earlier proved to have had easy access to these rooms. But Chuck carried a deadly weapon. Always leery of guns, Doug had never even tried skeet shooting, another of the sports offered by the club, which had its own range.

  Chuck seemed to be humming tunelessly. Doug actually was about to offer to see what kind of money Audrey had in her possession when Chuck said, “I guess it will be okay if you agree to cover whatever expenses are entailed.”

  “Oh,” said Doug, relieved, “that’s simple enough.” However, as yet he had no sense of what particularly was meant: call girls, back in the city? But at the moment he was here. “We’ll work something out.”

  Chuck was smiling at him. “Let me have a check. That will protect us both. You can always stop payment.” He laughed aloud.

  Doug joined him in the laughter, but said, “But how are you protected, if I can stop payment?”

  “Oh,” Chuck said, “I trust my fellow man.” Now he roared with laughter. “That’s why I carry a piece!”

  Doug’s checkbook was in the other inside breast pocket of the same jacket that had held the wallet. If Chuck had made free with all else in these rooms, he surely was aware of the precise balance in the account. But it was all too likely that he had simply taken the checkbook and was making the current suggestion only as sadistic sport. Within a moment or two Doug had decided that Chuck was not a mere rogue but rather a dangerous criminal, capable of anything. Leave it to Bobby to introduce such a person into the house! The strategy was clear: the man must be placated till he got what he came to these rooms for. What had been his full purpose in coming to the house was not to be thought of at this moment.

  One must assuredly not panic, but rather proceed towards proximate goals. Having decided on his style, Doug became more stable than heretofore. He had a second trip to the bedroom closet and was pleasantly surprised to find the checkbook where it was supposed to be and, given the numerical agreement between checks and stubs, intact. This was Doug’s private account, in which at the moment the balance was lower than usual, for he had finally sent a peevish tailor a largish sum to discharge some of his obligation to him and also had given something to one of his favorite restaurants to forestall the reminders which in recent months had got ever nearer to outright rudeness (he was nowadays careful to act before the situation deteriorated to the point at which the proprietor of Allons, Enfants! had threatened to embarrass him before a guest).