The Houseguest

by Thomas Berger

  “I’m just admitting our error, Bobby. We’ve got to clear the air.”

  He looked at Lydia and was surprised to see her burst into tears.

  “I’m not used to violence,” she said. “I never did that kind of thing before. I never even really believed it would work.”

  Now was the moment Doug should have gone for her gun: he knew that, but he failed to act.

  “There were a whole lot of them,” Lydia said, still weeping off and on. “I beat ’em! I won!” More tears. “You know what really made me mad? That hog of a Lyman claimed he heard me using foul language in the village. That’s not true.”

  Audrey said, “He was thinking of the sightseers, tourists. He was wrong to include you, dear. Now may I have a sip?”

  Lydia stopped crying. “Don’t you understand that now it’s up to me to make something of you people, now that I’ve saved you from Chuck?”

  “But can’t we begin that tomorrow?” asked her mother-in-law. “Bright and early on a Monday morning? And by the way, there’s no point in mentioning any of today’s events to Mrs. Finch. If Chuck is really related to her, then no doubt she’ll have heard his version. But let’s leave it at that. It would only demean us to plead our case with someone who works for us.”

  “You see?” asked Lydia. “You forget about drinking as soon as you have something else to occupy your attention.”

  “No, I don’t,” said Audrey.

  Lydia disregarded the statement, if she heard it at all. She said, “But don’t concern yourself about Mrs. Finch. We’re going to fire her. And we’re also going to turn away those women who come to clean. There’s no need to hire anybody: all of us are here, doing nothing of value as it is. You can cook. Bobby will wax the floors, and Doug can handle the yardwork.”

  She laid the pistol on the kitchen table, as if tempting her father-in-law to seize it, but of course he did not.

  “You’ll see,” Lydia went on. “You’ll all have something to give you self-respect, for a change.”

  “By doing housework?” Audrey asked, more in amazement than resentment.

  “You shouldn’t look at it that way. Anything can be disparaged. Law can be called merely the cynical means by which some people claim the right to dominate others. And do you think scientists consciously work for the good of the human race?”

  “For the life of me, I can’t see what’s evil about giving people employment.” Audrey sighed. “I know that I’d be grateful if I needed work.” She sighed again. “You must be exhausted, dear. You won’t mind my saying you could use a good cleanup after all your trials. You’ve got burrs caught in your hair, and your arms are all scratched. If you’d like to borrow some clothing—I know you haven’t brought much along. And we’re just about the same size.”

  “No,” said Lydia, “you can’t have anything to drink. I’m nailing the liquor cabinet shut, and when the secret supply you must keep in your room is gone, that will be it. But you won’t need any, you see. Doug will be staying here all summer. And Bobby won’t even be going to the club.”

  “And you?” Bobby asked bitterly, having at last drained the brandy glass. “What are you going to be doing, Lyd? Just waving that gun around?” Already feeling the effects of the alcohol, he added, “You don’t know how silly you look.”

  “Me?” Lydia asked, smiling. Her face was dirty, but her teeth sparkled. “I’ll be enjoying your flawless hospitality.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Doug. “Aren’t you being a little self-pitying? You’re family, and you know it. This experience has brought us all closer together. In the years to come, we’ll undoubtedly look back on it as something that worked for the good of all—even the Finches, or in any event, the more reasonable of them, who must surely appreciate that we all have to live together. Which doesn’t mean we have to like one another.” He yawned and stretched. “Well, I don’t know about you people, but I’m exhausted. I don’t even want to think about any more problems. Tomorrow we’ll deal with the cars. Maybe the phones will be back on by then. If not, someone can hike to the gas station: it’s only about two miles.”

  “Yeah, Lyd can go,” wryly said Bobby. “She’s the one with the gun.”

  “Mark my words,” said Doug. “No Finch nor anyone remotely connected with them will remember any of today’s events. They’ve lost face, you see. That’s mortal for people of their kind. You think they don’t have feelings? They do. They don’t want to be reminded of the trouncing we gave them out here.”

  Lydia at last lowered the gun. “Yeah,” she said, “you really showed ’em.” She seemed to be running out of steam now, and therefore was once again not terribly attractive to Doug.

  He said to Audrey, “C’mon, I’ll walk you back.”

  “Oh,” said she, as usual thinking exclusively of herself, “I’m not afraid.”

  “Just be sociable,” said he. He bade Bobby and Lydia goodnight. He believed his daughter-in-law must eventually be persuaded to return the gun to Lyman, but that could wait.

  He remembered all the disarranged furniture in his quarters only when he returned and saw it. On leaving the hastily constructed fortress they had merely moved the desk and thrown the mattress aside. Everything was still in disarray.

  Audrey was just entering her own doorway.

  “Look,” said he to her back. “Don’t worry about what that kid was saying. She’s all worked up. She’ll be back to normal tomorrow.”

  His wife turned. “I can’t say I like her, but she’s not all wrong. She’s the only one of us who could have gotten rid of Chuck.”

  “You mean she may be a necessary evil, like a policeman?” He grimaced. “Mind if I spend the night with you? I think we’re all a little lonely after a day like this.”

  “Speak for yourself,” said she. She entered her room and closed the door.

  “Go on to bed,” Lydia told Bobby.

  “Alone?” he wailed. “Are you still mad at me?”

  “I can’t sleep,” she said. “I’m too wound up.” She gestured at the pistol. “I feel like shooting this, but I don’t know at what. I don’t want to hurt anybody, but it seems unfinished, somehow.”

  Bobby raised his hands and let them fall. “I really think you ought to get some rest, Lyd. Sleep with the pistol, if it will make you feel better. I’ll take one of the couches.”

  “Go away, Bobby.” Finally he did. Lydia wandered through some of the rooms overlooking the now invisible ocean. At last she sat down in a chair so soft and capacious as to be a complete environment, and she fell asleep… .

  The first thing she noticed when she awakened was the revolver in her lap. In the light of morning it was an embarrassment, and she hid it within the chair. The sun was shining, but the sea, full of whitecaps, was obviously being agitated by an offshore wind. She was far from finished with that ocean, with which she had a score to settle.

  All at once she smelled the delectable aroma of coffee, and went without delay to the kitchen.

  Chuck Burgoyne was peeping into the oven, through a door slightly opened for the purpose. He was dressed in the same clothing he had worn since his first arrival: the chino trousers, navy-blue knitted shirt, and loafers, none of which seemed the least soiled by incessant use. Materially he was of a stainless character.

  “Morning, sleepyhead!” he cried before he had turned far enough to identify her by sight. “Though I shouldn’t pick on you: the others are still dead to the world.” He gestured with a shoulder at the stove. “Go get yourself a cuppa. Give me another five minutes for the muffins.”

  “You came back?” Lydia asked incredulously, though she realized it made her sound naïve as ever.

  Chuck had the same beautiful rosy complexion. No doubt he had had a night’s sleep in good conscience. “I thought I had a certain investment,” said he, “and shouldn’t just write it off. I’d never forgive myself.”

  “There’s nothing here for you.”

  “That’s a matter of interpretation.”
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  “Yes,” said Lydia. “Mine. I’m in charge here now.”

  “Forgive me for saying this, but you look awful.” Here he had made a grievous error: he had turned trivial.

  “I’m also just getting my period.”

  When he looked revolted, she knew she had him on the run. “I just want to ask you,” he said mournfully. “That bullet last night nearly hit me in the groin. Were you aiming there?”

  “If I had been,” said she, “you’d be a soprano today.” This was not true; she really didn’t know how to shoot a pistol, let alone aim it. In desperation she had closed her eyes and pulled the trigger.

  “You’re one tough chick.”

  “You’re an amusing little fellow.”

  “You don’t want a blueberry muffin?”

  “No,” said Lydia. She was backing him to the door.

  He showed his famous grin one more time. “I’ll admit I underestimated you, but I can change.”

  “That may be true,” Lydia said, “but you’ll never really make a go of it. You’re all resentment. You have no vision.”

  “I suppose you do?”

  “I’m trying to accomplish something here,” she said. “You are the cheap hustler, not me.”

  “All right,” Chuck said bitterly. “You don’t have to pull a gun on me again.” He turned and left the house. She watched him until he had trudged through the parking area. Apparently he had come on foot from wherever he had spent the night. He was, perhaps intentionally, something of a pathetic figure. She regretted not having been able to tell him that all in all he had helped her establish herself in this alien place, but she did not yet have the skill to deal finely with someone so lacking in moral discrimination.

  She might have stayed longer at the window had not dark smoke begun to issue from the oven. She found an insulated mitt and removed the muffins from the heat. They were badly singed, the bottoms positively blackened. Her mother would have trimmed them to an edible state, then eaten them herself or crumbled them for the wild birds, would never have tried to pass off such on the family. But that was another kind of family.

  When the Graveses appeared—first Audrey, then Doug, and finally a groggy son—they ate the muffins with enthusiasm.

  “Delicious,” said Doug, on his second. “And I thought you said you couldn’t cook!” He waggled a fake-chiding finger at her: its nail looked freshly manicured, though he had not been in the city for three days now.

  Bobby, obsessed with his third muffin, buttered its latest surface after each bite.

  Audrey wore lime-green slacks and a sparkling white blouse. She smiled at Lydia. “Have you slept at all, dear?”

  “What I haven’t done is wash or change my clothes,” Lydia said in as civil a tone as she could manage when she really felt like snarling. “If you’ll excuse me now …” She drifted towards the door but eventually stopped and said, “Look, I can’t take credit for the muffins. Actually, Chuck sneaked back and baked them while I was asleep. Maybe he thought something like that would be atonement! Naturally, I ran him off.”

  Audrey’s expression did not change. “Naturally,” said she.

  Doug nodded amiably and took a sip of the instant coffee each had prepared individually.

  “Did you hear me?” Lydia demanded. “Chuck had the nerve to come back!”

  Doug swallowed with care. “I don’t find that surprising. Do you, Bob?”

  Bobby shook his tousled head and plucked up some fallen muffin crumbs. “I even expected it, to tell you the truth. He’s hard to discourage.”

  Audrey made a sort of tulip of her hand. “Such persistence,” said she. “It can even be seen as flattering. He went through an awful lot of abuse.”

  Lydia looked from one to the other. “What is going on here?”

  “You have to admit,” said Doug, deploying his butter knife, “that he went to a good deal of trouble. Those telephone voices, for example: I admit I still can’t quite explain them. I did speak with someone claiming to be named Perlmutter, with Chuck standing right beside me. Therefore he could not have been faking that voice. On the other hand, it might well have been he in the case of the first—”

  “Goddammit,” cried Lydia.

  Bobby had seized another muffin. Notwithstanding that its bottom was black and hardened, he chomped on it with relish.

  “He did not always know his place,” said Audrey, “but that’s true of many people who make something of themselves. They err on the side of zeal, but that’s not necessarily something to be deplored.”

  Lydia let them go on eating and drinking for a few moments, which they proceeded to do without looking towards her. What she resented most was their aplomb.

  “All right,” she said eventually. “Where is he?”

  Doug smirked. “You anticipated us. We thought it would take a lot more preparation.”

  Chuck came in from the butler’s pantry. “Sorry about those muffins,” he said to Lydia. “They wouldn’t have burned if I hadn’t been distracted at the time.”

  Lydia’s glance made a tour of the Graveses. “You want him back, don’t you?”

  Audrey shrugged, though with no suggestion of apology. “He could be mighty useful. Mrs. Finch is not as young as she once was.”

  “Neither am I, for that matter,” said Lydia.

  Bobby spoke eagerly. “He’s going to get the cars running and put the phones back in shape.”

  “Also,” said Chuck, “I have to replace the broken glass in the door to the pool. There’s more than enough to keep me busy.” He walked briskly to the refrigerator. “Now, who wants what for the next course? I think you all deserve a big breakfast, to start the week off with a bang.”

  “I’m willing to pay Lyman for the gun,” Lydia told him. “But I’m keeping possession of it.”

  “I can’t say I blame you,” Chuck said blandly. “With all you’ve gone through.”

  She stared at her in-laws. “Listen to him. He’s the one who’s responsible for the damage he’s now allegedly going to repair. He’s the reason I intend to keep the gun.” None of them returned her gaze, but neither did they seem concerned by what she said. “He despises all of you.”

  Audrey chuckled. “He made that clear enough!”

  Doug’s noble forehead showed a frown. “Which of course has nothing to do with the quality of his work. There’s no reason why we have to love everybody with whom we deal in life, or even to regard them in a personal way. We simply want the job done.”

  “Then he’s an employee now?”

  Doug smirked. “He could certainly never get back in here as a guest! That was the trouble before: the basic arrangement was wrong.”

  “Putting him on wages takes care of everything?”

  “That’s right, Lyd,” said Bobby. “It’s the perfect answer.”

  “And,” said Doug, as if Chuck were absent, “you can be sure I’ll keep after him until I get an explanation of those puzzling phone calls and also the matter of the gun in the ankle holster.”

  “And,” Chuck said with verve, “you can be sure I’ll come up with plausible answers!”

  Lydia put her head down and deliberated for a moment. The knees of her jeans were muddy, and she still carried burrs and other foreign matter here and there on her clothing. She had never been so filthy or exhausted in her life, yet she was far from being contaminated.

  She looked up. “It makes sense.”

  “It does?” Bobby asked happily, and the others, including Chuck, showed their pleasure.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever before understood what manners are,” Lydia said. “And I’m not at all sure I do even now. But I’m going to give you my condition: the only way I’ll put up with the new arrangement is if I become the houseguest.”

  The Graveses looked at one another, and then Doug said, “I can’t see any objection.”

  “With all the privileges of that situation,” said Lydia.

  “Of course,” Audrey said grandly. “Tha
t goes without saying.”

  Chuck was holding a spatula. “Now, who would like flapjacks?”

  Lydia pulled off her dirty sneakers. “Here,” she said to him, “go scrub these someplace.”

  “I’ll pop them into the washer,” said he, accepting the shoes. She could identify no irony in his speech or expression. “And then I’ll take Bobby to the club and Doug to the airfield for the ten o’clock flight. Then back here to do the rest of the week’s wash, and if time permits, to draw up a guest list for the annual party. Then I’ll prepare lunch.”

  “Something special,” said Lydia. “I’ll never eat another frank or bean or a forkful of cole slaw in this house.”

  “As you wish,” said Chuck, with an inclination of his smooth head. “We’ll do anything we can to assure you a pleasant stay.”

  She could not resist saying, “That’s the slogan of a chain motel.”

  Chuck’s response to the gibe was in the same idiom and could be heard as either submissive or ominous. “We’ll stop at nothing to please you.”

  Whether or not that “we” included her relatives-in-law, all four people in the kitchen were smiling benignly upon her.