by Belva Plain
Oliver, he of the old patrician style. Now with her eyes closed, she saw his face—the distinguished old one and the new one, that of the furious, cornered, and, in the end, defiant man. Because of her work with the camera, she had considered herself to be a clever judge of faces, believing that they really were a revelation of character. She had read them well, and had photographed them accordingly: the daring astronaut, twin spirit to a reckless gambler; or the aging beauty, fearful of advancing time. But she hadn’t read Oliver. Whatever message his face had conveyed might as well have been written in Sanskrit.
And then came the dour face of Dr. Lisle, whose disapproving schoolmistress manner had been so offensive to her. Now she could understand: The doctor had only been trying to convey a desperate message and had been frustrated by Sally’s stubborn rejection of it. I owe her an apology, she thought now, and I will give it to her.
After a while she was awakened from a troubled doze by the sound of snowplows grinding up the hill. They were a sign of life and therefore welcome. But they were also a sign that life was resuming its normal routine, from which there could be no escape. Funerals, questions, and more police—all these would be the aftermath of the storm.
Sally’s natural impulse was to run into Dan’s arms and there find some kind of comfort. Instead it became at once clear that, to the contrary, he was the one in need of comfort from her, if there could be any.
He mourned. He raged at the world. “Why do we allow these beasts to prowl the earth, to cut short a life like this? That man of all men, who gave so much and still had so much to give. Why, why?” He flexed his fingers. “If I could get my hands on the one who did it, just get my hands around his throat, I’d—I’d make him suffer, I’d make him pay for every second that Oliver suffered.” And he dropped his head into his hands.
“He didn’t suffer,” she said, with her throat so tight that she was scarcely able to get the words out.
“You can’t know that.”
“Bullets—I thought a bullet was quick.”
“Don’t, Sally. I know you mean well, but please don’t.”
She sat there looking at her husband, trying to imagine herself in his place. The man had been a father to him.… And the longer she sat, the more impossible it became for her to tell him the truth. Then the loneliness overwhelmed her, there in the warm, familiar room, a coldness, as if she were lost, left behind by the last human being alive in some region of the poles.
After a while he raised his head and, having recovered himself, began to reason.
“If it was not a robbery, and apparently it was not, Ian says, it must have been the work of some chance vagrant, some mental case. I suppose the authorities will start snooping into the company’s business, after all that stuff in the papers about a family dispute. But that’s only to be expected.”
She must tell him now about Amanda. The visit would be revealed by tomorrow anyway. So she began.
“I’m piling one thing on top of another, I know, but this is it: Amanda was here yesterday.”
“Amanda! What the devil did she want?”
Take it step by step, she thought, and taking the first step, replied, “She wanted to meet with Oliver.”
“To pester him about the business! She’s impossible, she knows he doesn’t—didn’t—want to be involved in it, she had no right. Could she have gone out there after you saw her? My God, Sally, the police should know this.”
“You can’t suspect Amanda?”
“Is it possible? Could she have gone off the deep end? She’s been so troubled. Poor Amanda—God, I hope not.”
“Dan, she did not go up to Red Hill and shoot Oliver Grey. Don’t, please don’t, even hint it to anyone. You’ll make a fool of yourself.”
His conjecture had made it even more impossible for her to take the next step. After the funeral, after the normal period of cooling off, she would tell him gradually, first about Oliver’s abuse of Amanda, and then, after some further cooling, would come all the rest. It would take courage, perhaps even more courage, to carry this weight and this fear alone—and then she would turn herself in.
Then came three wretched days. The police were everywhere, swarming not only through Red Hill, but through Hawthorne and the homes of Ian, Clive, and Dan as well. Family, servants, and deliverymen were minutely examined and it was apparent that neighbors were also being questioned. Plainclothes detectives were a tenacious lot, asking the same things over and over, about locks and keys and guns, about the handyman and the consortium deal, “And everything,” Dan said, “except what we all eat for breakfast.”
At the same time, they gave no hint of what they themselves might be thinking.
“That’s to see whether they can trip anybody up,” Ian said.
And even though it was Christmas week, and one would think they had other more joyous things to do, the curious public came.
“Trial by fire,” grumbled Dan. “It’s hard to believe that so many people will actually get in their cars and drive all the way to Red Hill just to stand outside the gates and stare. What on earth are they expecting to see?”
Nevertheless, they were there, and at Hawthorne too, and at the houses of Ian, Clive, and Dan, observing the children in Dan’s yard, watching the car that brought Clive back home from Red Hill and the delivery vans at Ian’s.
“Morbid curiosity,” Dan grumbled again, in the face of reporters, flashbulbs, and questions about the rumored family feud. “At least, though, the editorials have been splendid. At least the city appreciates the things he did for it.”
The funeral home was besieged with visitors and flowers, among the latter a most magnificent wreath of roses and orchids marked simply, From Amanda Grey.
“Mighty queer,” said Ian, who by then knew that she had come to town and departed.
“Very odd,” said Happy, who had never met Amanda Grey.
Clive made no comment. He had acknowledged no one’s presence or condolences. It was as if he were hearing nothing and seeing nothing except the coffin, as if he were memorizing every grain and whorl in its polished surface. Bent over on the settee with Roxanne’s arm about him, he seemed, as he clung to her forgetful of all else in his overwhelming grief, no larger than a child. She was the comforting, protective, pitying mother.
He had gone downhill overnight.
On the day of the funeral, the church, too, was besieged. Admission was by card only, so these were not curiosity seekers but friends, and as many of those who worked at Grey’s Foods as could be squeezed in. The service was long, with several eulogies given by sincere people who kept repeating each other. The scent of the heaped altar flowers was crushing, and Sally grew faint. It crossed her mind that she might perhaps lose that mind; it was said that everyone had a breaking point and she wondered what hers might be. She was feeling much too close to it.
At Clive’s house, after the battering arctic wind in the cemetery, the relatives gathered around the coffee urn. At doctor’s orders Clive had been given a brandy and now, slightly recovered from the morning’s ordeal, he half sat and half lay in his big chair, observing them. For all his life, except for the last few months, he reflected, he had been only an observer. He had learned to amuse himself with speculations about other people’s motives, the reasons they flirted or flattered or gave subtle insults. So now again, he was an observer.
From his chair he had an oblique view of Ian, who was lingering near the front door as if he were afraid to set foot inside the house. Obviously, Roxanne had given him a full report of that terrible night.
Roxanne herself hovered about him with pillows, medicine, and food. She had not been able to find enough to do for him during these last three days. No doubt she was not only appalled at what had happened but dreaded what might still happen. Certainly, he thought with some bitterness, she must be thinking about his will and how he would change it! Well, let her wait and find out in time that he hadn’t changed it. He would let her have the money. She had broken
his faith in human beings, she had broken him, but also she had given him the greatest joy he had ever known. So let her have it.
Odd, isn’t it, how events overlap and supersede one another? The loss of his father had quite wiped out his futile rage over her and Ian’s betrayal; now only exhaustion and bitterness were left.
And he looked over at Happy, who had also been betrayed but did not know it. Busy as always, she was serving sandwiches. He wondered what would become of her, poor woman, when those two make their final plans.
And I am dying, he said to himself; for all the doctors’ encouragement, I know better.
That leaves only Sally and Dan, good souls both, who have nothing at all to worry about.
Shortly before the end of the year, Sally returned to the office of Dr. Katie Lisle. Nothing had changed, not the doctor’s plain face nor the desolate view of the warehouse through the window behind her.
“I guess you’re surprised to see me again,” she began.
“Not necessarily. People come and go.”
“I mean,” Sally said nervously, “when I left last time I seemed to remember that I—I’m sorry, I think I was rather brusque.”
The doctor waited.
“What you told me, you said, was so shocking, that I guess I was stunned and I couldn’t believe it and so maybe I was even feeling a little angry at you. I mean, that sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it, but I was so sure you were wrong.”
A fire engine went by and was followed by another. The clamor and shriek of them filled the little room so that Sally had to pause. While this pause lasted, the two women had nothing to do but look at each other.
To this dispassionate intelligence, thought Sally, I think I could speak, if I dared speak to anyone, which of course I do not. Only an hour before, she had overheard a group in the supermarket discussing the murder. Positively brutal, a fine old man like him. And she had felt a sinking of her vital parts, heart, lungs, everything, simply dropping out of her onto the floor.
“You were saying,” the doctor reminded her, “that you were sure I was wrong.”
“Yes, but I have come back because you were right.” And, her eyes filling, she opened her purse to scramble for a handkerchief, but found none.
“Here’s a tissue,” said Katie Lisle, “and take your time.”
The unexpected gentleness only produced more tears and embarrassed apologies.
“I’m wasting your time,” she murmured.
“We have two hours. I rather suspected when you called that you might need another hour.”
“Thank you.” How she had misread this woman! “I’ll be okay, I can tell you what happened …”
And so she recounted the story of Tina and the carousel. Of Amanda’s experience, she said nothing; it need be no part of Tina’s. Of Oliver also, she said nothing, referring to him only as “he.”
“But since I am to work with Tina, I shall naturally need to have a name, Mrs. Grey.”
If this doctor were part of the city’s old establishment, Sally thought, it would be out of the question to give her the name; her own linkage to Oliver’s death would then be immediate. Even as it was, the newest newcomer in town had read the newspapers! But there was no way out.
She said very low, “He was my husband’s uncle, Oliver Grey.”
The doctor made no comment. After her fashion she waited once more for Sally.
So now she had done it, had left her footprint, her marker. Katie Lisle might do with it what she wished. And even if she were to do nothing, Sally knew, there were always others, someone encountered by chance on the road who suddenly, years after the fact, remembers something. Or there were innocent words dropped accidentally, perhaps even by herself.… She would never be safe, never free.
“Yes, the man who was—who died last week. An unbelievable coincidence. The one had nothing to do with the other,” she added quickly, and a second later was aware that the remark had been completely stupid, so very stupid.
“I didn’t think it had,” said Dr. Lisle.
“No, of course not.”
Worse and worse. I am a wreck, Sally thought.
“Doctor, why has Tina never said anything to me when she told you so readily?”
“Number one, she didn’t tell me readily. When some of it came out accidentally through her play, I took the clue and went on from there. Number two, as to why she didn’t tell you, I would say it was because she feared you would punish her.”
“But we’re not punishing parents. We’re quite the opposite.”
“Tina is a very bright child. You had told her not to let anyone touch her and she—at least in her mind—had disobeyed. Besides, you yourself said she had been threatened if ever she told, and cajoled with the silver carousel. It’s not so simple, Mrs. Grey.”
Yes, it’s simple, Sally thought, despairing. It’s a long, straight, dark tunnel with no light at the end. That’s what it is.
“Have you asked Tina whether she will come back to me?”
“She will come. If you were a man I’m almost sure she would not, but when I asked her whether she would go to play games with the lady, she agreed. Doctor, Dr. Lisle, tell me, will she ever get over this? Do people ever—” Her voice broke.
“They don’t forget, but they can be taught how to live with it and, when they are old enough, to understand it.”
“You haven’t said anything about forgiveness, I notice.”
“Now we get into the realm of the spiritual,” Katie Lisle said, smiling, “and I’m not a preacher. I can only try to heal.”
“Do you really think Tina can grow up and be well and happy and like—like other people?”
The doctor smiled again. “Yes,” she said, “yes, I do.”
Little Tina! I have done everything I can for you.
On the way home, Sally passed the route to the cemetery where Oliver Grey reposed in a granite mausoleum. She raised her fist.
“I didn’t mean to do it, but I did it and you deserved it, Oliver Grey.”
* * *
For the last few nights she had dreamed and for the last few days, in random moments, had seen before her eyes a tall, gray fortress-prison on a hill. Like the image on a computer screen, it blinked on and blinked away. And she knew, in the depths of her being she knew, that this was her future come to show itself to her.
So it was time to tell everything to Dan. She would start with Amanda’s tale and proceed from there to Tina’s and her own.
“I saw Dr. Lisle today,” she began. “You remember, we agreed on the first of the year.”
“We did. It’s okay.” And he studied her, frowning a little. “Poor Sal! You’re done in. Things have piled up too high, the worry over Tina, and now Oliver. I wish I could just take you away to lie on a beach and do nothing.”
“Take me out for a walk in the snow now. I need to talk to you.”
The snow was firm underfoot and the stars bright overhead. With no other walkers out and no other traffic, the night was so still and pure that it seemed an act of vandalism to speak what she had to speak. Nevertheless, it had to be done. So she opened her lips and began, “When Amanda came to live at Hawthorne …”
Dan heard her without interruption to the end.
“And after she left, Lucille was killed. Amanda believes she killed herself.”
“That’s it?” asked Dan.
“That’s it.”
“Well, shall I tell you what I think? I think she’s gone clean off her rocker. She was always eccentric. Ever since I was old enough to be any judge, I thought so. Eccentric. Unstable.”
“But don’t you see, this was the reason why?”
He came to a halt facing Sally. “No, absolutely not. This is simply another cooked-up, recovered-memory affair. I’m not saying they’re all cooked up, I know better than that.” Angrily, he kicked at the snowbank on the side of the road. “We discussed this kind of thing before, when Tina first saw that woman. But this one is very definitely cooked u
p and I’m sure I know why.”
She wished he wouldn’t call Dr. Lisle “that woman,” but there were more important issues to deal with right now, so she let it pass, saying only, “Dan, this wasn’t cooked up. I was there. If you could have seen Amanda’s face, and how she cried! She was broken apart.”
“Well, I’m broken apart too, when I think of Oliver. A man only in his sixties, with so many more good years and so much good he could have done! I’m not wasting my sympathy on my sister. This story is absolutely crazy, Sally, and I’m amazed that you fell for it.”
Taking hold of his lapel, she looked into his eyes. The light was so clear that she could read his righteous indignation in them.
“Listen to me,” she insisted, “believe me, Dan, she was telling the truth. There are things you simply know, and I know this.”
“Sweet Sally, you’re a softy,” he said, relenting. “You always were.”
“You’ve never said that about me before. You’ve always said I was a clever businesswoman.”
“Yes, but you’re soft all the same. A marshmallow. That’s what’s lovable about you. But you can’t allow yourself to be hoodwinked by a gush of tears, Sally. Amanda is just mad as a hornet because we won’t sell her share of the stock, and she wanted to make trouble for Oliver. Damn!” He kicked again at the snowbank. “Well, let her be patient a little longer, because as soon as the forest is sold, she’ll get her money.”
“I wish you’d believe me, Dan.”
Sally knew she sounded piteous, but the computer was flashing the iron-gray fortress-prison on the screen before her eyes, and she had lost her strength to combat him.
“Is it possible,” he said angrily, “that Amanda could have gone out to Red Hill after she left you?” Then, seeing the horror on her face, he corrected himself. “No, I forgot I asked you before and it’s as crazy as Amanda’s story. Let’s go in. It’s freezing out here.”
