A Visit to the House on Terminal Hill

by Elizabeth Knox

  “And they’ll listen,” Barnes said. “Look at the elevation. That house isn’t going to be underwater.”

  “Exactly.”

  The aerial photo also showed the remnants of an old road running down from the summit of the Palisade Range. A road that wouldn’t take travelers past the other Zarene houses. The road didn’t look easily usable—but that didn’t really matter since there were no other roads into the valley anyway, from its head or its foot. The Zarene Valley only had walking tracks. Barnes had walked them all in 1940, before Southland’s entry into the war meant the Lazuli Dam Project was shelved. Barnes told Teal how he had gone house-to-house—in exactly the same way the government lawyers did in 1927, before the stock market crash and Great Depression first put the dam project on hold. “There were fewer houses in 1940 than 1927, and the valley seemed a pretty poor place. But the Zarenes were even more unhelpful. They just closed their doors in my face.”

  “Sounds to me as if these people are plumb out of reprieves,” Teal said. “All we have to do is find the one who’ll wise up first.”

  Barnes checked the photograph again. “I don’t remember seeing this house in 1940. It must be new.”

  * * *

  Lying in the dark, Teal tried to bring to mind the moment he had first seen the house. The house itself—not an aerial photograph. He followed the thread of his memory only to find it frayed and broken. It was only yesterday. Why couldn’t he remember?

  He did remember hiking down from the summit. They’d stopped when Barnes got a stone in his shoe. There was nowhere for the lawyer to sit down and get it out because the hillside was overgrazed and covered in sheep droppings, some of it powdery balls of fiber, some still wet and black.

  Barnes leaned on Teal’s shoulder, unlaced his brogue, removed it, and shook the stone out. It was at that moment that Teal realized he hadn’t spotted the house from the summit. The forested hill was in front of them now. It filled the head of the valley, hiding the river and orchards beyond. “I can’t see the house from here,” he said. “That’s Terminal Hill. The one we have to climb.”

  “The house is behind the trees. The top of the hill is flat, I think. There’s a clearing.”

  “Did you look for it before we started down?” Teal asked.

  “I wasn’t looking. That rock formation was an eyeful, wasn’t it?”

  There was a huge rock formation a few hundred yards from the road that crossed the summit of Palisade Range. It had become quite famous in recent times. Come to think of it, it did seem rather odd to Teal that the rock formation was never mentioned in documents from back at the turn of the century, when there was a stagecoach stop on the summit. Teal had seen historical photos of the four-door coach, its passengers ranged in front of it wearing drab black clothing, and looking hot. There’d be a six-horse team in the photos, lather gleaming on the horses’ hides. There’d be the coach-stop proprietor in his long white apron, standing in the doorway of his premises and—in the background—the rock formation, interesting, but nothing special.

  Now it was famous. Tourists came to that part of the country especially to visit it, even though its beauty was also famously impossible to photograph.

  Teal had found the formation bewitching, the rock turrets surrounded by a natural garden of flowering heath plants. He’d stood with Barnes for a long time, staring, slack-jawed. And he’d forgotten to take a look down into the Zarene Valley.

  Barnes was limping by the time they reached the foot of Terminal Hill. He frowned up at it. “You expect me to climb that?”

  “It’ll take us forty minutes, tops.”

  It didn’t. They struck out along the vestiges of the old road, a level place where the trees were a little younger, though thickly clustered, as if they’d been planted, not sprung up from dropped seed. Still, the going was very difficult and some hours later, after a climb with more perils, and byways, and obstacles than anyone could have imagined—and where Barnes griped the whole time and kept saying, “How does anyone get up this hill?”—they finally stepped out into a clearing.

  But it wasn’t the top of the hill. And something horrible was waiting for them.

  It appeared that a cow had got lost in the black tangles of the bush and, spotting a clearing, had blundered eagerly out, and gashed herself on a splintered remnant of a snapped sapling. Her belly was torn open, and pinkish-gray intestines were pushing their away out of the gash. She was tramping in a circle, lowing with pain.

  “Oh Jesus Christ!” Barnes said.

  The cow looked at them, frightened and beseeching.

  “I’m sure we are much closer to the house on the top of the hill than we are to any of the houses in the valley,” Teal said. “We should just keep going. Reporting this might help us form a bond with the householder.”

  “Sure, sure. Lead on, Macduff,” Barnes said.

  They left the cow to its misery and forged on. Gradually her pained lowing faded. The climb seemed easier now, though the trees were just as thick. In another half hour they had reached a man-made terrace. Teal clambered up the stone wall and then lay on his stomach and extended his hand to Barnes. Barnes struggled up—smearing his suit with fronds of moss.

  Teal pushed his way through some rhododendrons and found another terrace wall. He repeated the process, this time promising his colleague that the garden was less overgrown here, and he was sure he could see the tops of bean frames on the terrace above that.

  “There’s another terrace above this?” Barnes moaned.

  “We’re just about at the top.”

  They walked along a path through currant bushes and lemon trees till they came upon some steps. After that the way was easy, and before long they were standing on a groomed lawn looking at the house from the aerial survey.

  The gorgeous rock formation was one thing—this was another. The rock formation was beautiful, it sucked you in, so that you helplessly stared at it. The house and garden were beautiful too but, confronted by it, Teal found himself whispering, as if he were standing before the great altar of St. Lazarus Temple. “The front door is open,” he whispered.

  “Well, it’s not as if someone might just wander in off the street,” Barnes whispered back. Then, “It’s very late in the day, Tom. It’s close to dinnertime and it will be dark soon. How are we supposed to find our way back down again?”

  “Obviously there is an easier route. A zigzag, probably with a wheelbarrow for moving supplies.”

  “Obviously,” Barnes repeated. He sounded unconvinced. Then, “Perhaps we’d better not mention that cow, Tom. We haven’t any time for fiddle-faddle.”

  Teal went onto the veranda and knocked at the open door. The brass doorsill was so highly polished it dazzled him. He peered through the glare and saw a shape appear at the top of the stairs. The person hesitated there, as if fearful.

  “Good afternoon!” Teal called. “We’re sorry to bother you, but we were wondering if we might have a word?”

  The shape moved, started down, emerged from the indoor darkness, and turned out to be a young man. He was wearing a clean shirt and pressed pants, but his hair was a little too long. He had black hair and eyes, like all the Zarenes, who were of Mediterranean ancestry.

  “Mr. Zarene?” Teal said, and left a space for the young man to offer his first name.

  “Here’s four words,” the young man said. “Are you an apparition?”

  “I’m a surveyor,” Teal said, in a soothing way. “My name is Tom Teal. This is Albert Barnes. Mr. Barnes is a lawyer. We work for the Lazuli Dam Project. Might we come in and talk?”

  The young man moved aside. “By all means. Come in.” His voice trembled.

  “He’s a bit of a recluse,” Teal thought. “Countrified. Old-fashioned. Shy.” He smiled, then he and Barnes wiped their feet on the welcome mat and stepped into the cool house.

  * * *

  Teal had gone into the shadow, and was in the dark about everything. He said, to the weighty, silent presence above
him, “It was hard to get up the hill. That’s why we ended up imposing on your hospitality.”

  “‘Hard,’ you say. Not ‘forbiddingly difficult’?”

  “I don’t know what you mean. I’m trying to explain why we seemed so rushed when we talked to you. We had only a few hours till the sun set, and we weren’t carrying flashlights.”

  “I asked you to stay the night.”

  “We were grateful for that. I know we pushed you too much. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry that Barnes had a nightmare and woke up screaming.”

  The recluse laughed.

  “We only wanted you to understand that you weren’t in the same boat as everyone else in the valley.”

  The recluse stopped laughing as if someone had flipped his off switch.

  “Where is Barnes?” Teal’s voice trembled.

  “He left early. When I got up I could see the marks his shoes had made on the dewy grass.”

  “He wouldn’t go without me.”

  “And yet he did. And I thought you’d be in a hurry to go too. That made me sad. I never have visitors. People are a real treat for me.”

  Teal wondered whether, if he promised to visit regularly and bring—say—girls, the recluse would let him go.

  “I do like listening to you think,” said the recluse. “It’s silence with a presence in it. Not the usual silence.”

  “You must know that Barnes will bring people back with him. He’s only gone to get help.”

  “I know. They’ll stand at the edge of the garden and threaten me.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “You don’t even have to pluck a rose to owe me your youngest daughter,” the recluse said, sly and apparently nonsensical—till Teal remembered the fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast.”

  “You were my guests,” the recluse said. “And you acted like door-to-door salesmen.”

  * * *

  Teal and Barnes had sat sipping peppermint tea in the parlor of the house on Terminal Hill. They put the government’s case—the usual stuff about money and “the public good.” Then Teal told the young man that, even with the valley flooded and Lazuli Lake level with the top of the dam, the summit of Terminal Hill wouldn’t be underwater. “Your house and garden will be high and dry. And the government could undertake to build a jetty on the island, and another on the lakeshore. That’s something you could negotiate.”

  The recluse had listened to them talk and talk—a tag team of professional persuaders. He remained quiet once they finished. There was a whirr and clunk from the strange clock on the parlor wall and the number seven appeared in the little window at the top of its otherwise blank face. The face itself was moving and only the hour ever showed in that window. The young man looked at the clock and got up. “We should eat,” he said, and left the room.

  Teal whispered to Barnes, “Why do I feel as if I’m in the underworld and shouldn’t let any food pass my lips?”

  Barnes looked confused. He obviously didn’t know the story of Hades and Persephone. He said, “We are going to have to spend the night. Invite ourselves. It’s too late to go anywhere else.”

  “There’s a guesthouse in the valley.”

  Barnes raised one finger. “We’d need to leave right now to make it through the forest before dark.” He raised a second finger. “The guy is thinking. He’ll have questions. That’s why he’s asked us to stay for dinner.” He put up a third finger. “If we turn up at the guesthouse other Zarenes might figure out who we are and what we’ve been doing. We came into the valley by its back door—so to speak. We did that for a reason.”

  Teal nodded, but “Hades,” said a voice in his head, and “fairyland.” He closed the voice down; told himself to stop being a nervous Nellie.

  Dinner was ratatouille with fresh-baked cornbread to dip in it. Then a cup of chicory—fake coffee—which Teal hadn’t tasted since the war and its shortages. The recluse appeared happy to put them up. He didn’t seem to want to talk any more about the Lazuli Dam. He was an early-to-bed-early-to-rise type and they were shown upstairs around nine thirty. Teal chose a room with a bed already made—for the guests who no doubt came up the hill from time to time. Barnes chose the bed that had a mattress doubled up on its bare springs. Teal helped Barnes haul the mattress open and lay it flat while their host fetched sheets and blankets from a linen cupboard at the end of the upstairs hall. He lit the gas lamps in their rooms and showed them how they were shut off. He gave them candles and matches. “If you need a light in the middle of the night.” He pointed the way to an upstairs bathroom, then left them to make ready for bed himself.

  Teal retired with the newspaper he’d been carrying in his briefcase. The soft, hazy gaslight couldn’t keep him awake, and he shut the lamp off and fell asleep well before midnight under the covers but still in his clothes.

  * * *

  Someone was screaming. Teal came bolt upright and fumbled for the candle on his nightstand. He struck a match. The pitch-black rural night drew back perhaps a yard from his face. He put the flame to the wick, took up the candleholder, and swung his legs out of bed. The screaming had tapered off, and Teal could hear doors opening and closing—very discreetly, as if a parent were busying themselves about the house while being careful not to wake any of the children.

  Teal went to check on Barnes. He poked his head out into the corridor. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed the doors of the linen cupboard closing softly, as if someone had concealed himself there.

  The recluse emerged from his own room. He seemed surprised, but not alarmed. Teal raced him to Barnes’s door, and they carried their lights into the room.

  They found Barnes on the floor by his bed. The crotch of his shorts was soaked with piss, and it was puddled on the floor beneath him. There was no sign of his bedding, and his mattress was once again doubled up on the naked bedsprings.

  The recluse burst out laughing—then quickly throttled it. “Sorry,” he said. He put his candle down and helped Barnes to his feet. Barnes batted his hands away and shrank from him. “Why did you do that?”

  “Why did I do what?”

  “Turn me out of my bed?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “I saw you.”

  The recluse shook his head. “The bed just behaved like an unbroken horse,” he said.

  “So it’s the bed that is at fault?”

  “It’s forgotten it’s a bed, to be made up and slept in.”

  Teal was listening to this strange exchange when he remembered the linen cupboard. He decided to get to the bottom of all this. “Just a moment,” he said, and made for the door.

  “Don’t go, Tom!” Barnes cried.

  The recluse said, “Shall I go with him? Would that make you feel more secure? You’ll need a towel and basin, anyway.”

  Teal let their host walk ahead of him out the door. Then he jostled past the young man and hurried to the linen cupboard. He flung its doors wide.

  The cupboard was filled with shelves, and the shelves were filled with towels and washcloths, sheets and blankets, and beautiful patchwork quilts.

  The recluse reached past Teal and grabbed two towels. He pressed them into Teal’s chest until Teal took hold. “I’ll go boil the jug and fill a basin.” He pointed at the shelves with his chin. “There are more sheets and blankets. You’ll have to make his bed again.” He went away.

  Teal took the towels to Barnes, then went back for bedding. It was only when Barnes was washing, and he was finishing the bed, smoothing its quilt, that he saw that the quilt was identical to the one Barnes had had before. He looked at his colleague. Barnes was pulling his trousers on over his bare arse.

  “What happened?”

  “He came in and yanked off my covers, then folded the mattress over with me inside it.” Barnes’s jaw was trembling. “He’s insane.”

  “Did you actually see him come in?”

  “I saw him once he attacked me.”

  “Did he have a light?”

  Bar
nes frowned furiously, then looked confused. “I suppose I must have left my candle burning. I saw him. He was folding the sheets and blankets.”

  “While attacking you?”

  Barnes shook his head, dazed and baffled.

  Teal gestured around the room. “Where’s your old bedding?”

  “He must have put it back where he got it from.”

  “But I met him in the hallway,” Teal said. “He came out of his room.”

  Barnes kept shaking his head.

  Teal had a thought. “Do you think there might be someone else in the house?”

  “I don’t know, Tom. But if there is, it’s not without his knowledge.”

  “Okay,” Teal said. There was no point pressing it. “If you want to try to sleep, I’ll sit up and keep watch.” He settled in an armchair. “Throw me a blanket. And blow out your candle. I’ll let mine burn down, then I’ll light yours.”

  Barnes lay down. He said, “I won’t sleep.” But half an hour later, he was snoring.

  Barnes relieved Teal in the blue twilight—then, when Teal woke, because sunlight was coming through gaps in the curtains, Barnes had vanished.

  * * *

  “I did most of the talking. So why did you find Barnes more offensive?” Teal said.

  The lid of the window seat creaked again as the recluse changed position. “Do you suppose I chose between you? I didn’t. He just crept away before I was up.”

  “So you say. But I don’t believe you. What have you done with him?”

  There was a smile in the recluse’s voice when he countered, “And what am I going to do with you?”

  “Is it fair that you’re taking things out on me? I’m not the person who came up with the plans for the dam. Your family has been living under the threat of this for decades.” This was a very feeble line of argument to try with a madman. Teal suspected that a person wasn’t a person to a madman. A person was only representative of something inside the madman. If only he could work out what he represented to Zarene. He decided to take risks—he had to: if Barnes hadn’t actually run off then his situation was desperate. He said, “If you didn’t want to sell out your family you only had to say so. Mr. Barnes and I just wanted you to consider all your options.”