The Fiend

by Margaret Millar

  “Yes.”

  “Then why in hell do you do these things?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, it’s over with, it’s finished. There’s not much use dis­cussing it.” Ben rose, heavily, from the rocking chair. “I sup­pose this means you won’t be going to the library anymore?”

  “I can’t.”

  “You could if you wanted to. If it were me, I’d just sail in there one of these nights with a smile on my face and pretend the whole thing was a joke.”

  “She knew it wasn’t a joke.”

  “How can you be sure? You said you turned and walked out. If you didn’t stick around to watch her reaction, you can’t tell what it was. She might have gotten a big laugh out of it, for all you know.”

  “Stop it, Ben. It’s no use.”

  “It’s no use always looking on the black side, either. You’re a good-looking man, Charlie. A woman could easily flip over you if you gave her a chance. If you held your head up, squared your shoulders, if you thought white instead of black for a change, if you put on a front—”

  Charlie knew all the ifs, including the one that was never spoken: If you got married, Charlie, some of your weight would be lifted off my back.

  The following afternoon, when Charlie got home from work, there was a letter waiting for him, propped up against the sugar bowl on the kitchen table. Charlie received few letters and he would have liked to sit with it in his hands for a few minutes, wondering, examining the small neat handwriting. But Ben came out of the bedroom where he had changed from his good gabardine suit into jeans and T-shirt.

  “There’s a letter for you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Aren’t you going to open it?”

  “If you want me to.”

  “If I want you to?” Ben said irritably. “For Pete’s sake, what have I got to do with it? It’s your letter.”

  Charlie didn’t argue, though he knew the letter wasn’t really his. He had nothing that was privately, exclusively his own, any more than a five-year-old child has. The letter might as well have been addressed to Ben, because Ben would read it anyway, just as if Charlie, in his times of trouble, had lost the ability to read.

  Charlie slit the envelope open with a table knife and unfolded the small sheet of stationery:

  Dear Mr. Gowen:

  I wanted to tell you this in person, but since you haven’t appeared at the library, I must do it by letter. I was deeply moved by your courage and forthrightness on Monday evening. Very few people are capable of such honesty. Perhaps I’m being too presumptuous but I can’t help hoping that what you did was an act of trust in me personally. If it was, I will try to deserve this trust, always.

  Very sincerely yours,

  Louise Lang

  P.S. About that reference book on architecture, I have arranged for you to borrow it for a month, if you’d like to.

  “Well,” Ben said, “who’s it from?”

  “Her.”

  “Her?”

  Charlie’s left hand was clenched into a fist and he kept rub­bing it up and down his jaw as if he were testing it for a vulnerable place to strike a blow. “She—she misunderstood. It wasn’t like that. I’m not like that. I’m not any of those things she said.”

  “What in hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m not, I’m not brave and forthright and honest”

  Ben picked up the letter and read it, his eyebrows raised, one corner of his mouth tucked in.

  Charlie was watching him anxiously. “What’s it mean, Ben?”

  “It means,” Ben said, “that she wants to see you again.”

  “But why?”

  “Because she likes you. Don’t try to figure it out. Just enjoy it. She likes you, she wants to see you again. You want to see her too, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, then. Go and do it. Right after supper.”

  “I will,” Charlie said. “I have to set her straight. I can’t let her go on thinking all those good things about me when they aren’t true.”

  Ben took it very quietly, without arguing or making a fuss or giving a lecture. But after supper, when the dishes were done, he changed back into the brown gabardine suit he wore to the cafeteria he managed. Then he told Charlie, “It’s such a nice night I think I’ll take a little walk to the library.”

  “It’s foggy out, Ben.”

  “I like fog.”

  “It’s bad for your bronchial tubes.”

  “I’m going with you,” Ben said heavily, “because I know that if I don’t, you’ll louse things up for yourself. You may, anyway; in fact, you probably will. But the least I can do is try and stop you.”

  The rest of that night was never quite clear in Charlie’s mind. He remembered the fog and Ben walking grayly beside him, in absolute silence. He remembered how, at the library, he’d stood beside the newspaper rack while Ben and Louise talked at Louise’s desk. Every now and then they would glance, sympa­thetically and kindly, over at Charlie, and Charlie knew that between the two of them they were creating a fictional character, a person who didn’t exist, called Charlie Gowen; a brave, forth­right, honest man, too modest to admit his good qualities; every maiden’s dream, every brother’s joy.

  The scene in the library had taken place a year ago. Since then Louise had become almost part of the family, but Charlie often felt that there had been no real change during the year. He was still standing apart, across a room, unrecognized, un­identified, while Ben and Louise talked, adding more touches to their creation, the Charlie doll. They were so proud of their doll that Charlie did his best to copy it.

  Charlie located the package of cardboard skeletons and took them up to the front of the building. Mr. Warner’s secretary hadn’t returned from her lunch hour and Warner had just left for his, so the office was empty. This was the first time Charlie had been in the office when it was empty and it gave him an odd but not unpleasant feeling that he was doing something wrong. It was like entering a private bedroom while the owner slept, exposed, defenseless, and searching through the contents of pockets and purses and bureau drawers and suitcases.

  To make room for the package on Mr. Warner’s desk, Charlie had to move the telephone. As he touched it, an impulse seized him to call Louise. He dialed the number of the library and asked for the reference department.

  “Louise? It’s me, Charlie.”

  “Hello, Charlie.” She seemed, as she always did, very happy to hear his voice. “Your timing is good. I just this minute ar­rived at work.”

  “Louise, would you do me a small favor?”

  “Consider it done.”

  “Would you look up an address in the city directory and tell me who lives there? It’s 319 Jacaranda Road. You don’t have to do it immediately. Just make a note of the name and give it to me tonight when you come over.”

  “What’s the mystery?”

  “Nothing. I mean, it’s not a mystery, I’ll tell you about it tonight.”

  “Are you feeling all right, Charlie?”

  “Sure I am. Why?”

  “You sound kind of excited.”

  “No. No, I don’t,” Charlie said, and hung up.

  She must be crazy, he thought. Why should I be excited? What have I got to be excited about?

  (4)

  Mary Martha Oakley was on the window seat in the front room, playing with her cat, Pudding. Her feelings toward the cat were ambivalent. Sometimes she loved him as only a solitary child can love an animal. At other times she didn’t want to see him because he symbolized all the changes that had taken place in her life during the last two years. Her mother had brought the cat home from the pet shop on the same day her father had moved out of the house.

  “See, lamb? It’s a
real live kitten, just what you’ve always wanted.”

  Where had her father gone?

  “Look at his adorable eyes and his silly little nose. Isn’t he adorable?”

  Was he coming back?

  “Let’s think of a real yummy name for him. How about Pudding?”

  After the cat there were other changes: new locks on the doors and the downstairs windows and the garage, a private phone with an unlisted number that Mary Martha wasn’t allowed to tell anyone, even her teachers at school or her best friend, Jessie. Furniture began to disappear from the upstairs rooms, silver and china from the dining room, pictures from the walls, and all the pretty bottles from the wine cellar. The cook and the gardener stopped coming, then the cleaning woman, the grocery boy, the once-a-month seamstress, the milkman. Kate managed everything herself, and did her own shopping at a cash-and-carry supermarket.

  Pudding was the only one of these changes that Mary Martha liked. Into his furry and uncritical ear she whispered her con­fidences and her troubled questions, and if Pudding couldn’t give her any answers or reassurance, he at least listened, blinking his eyes and now and then twitching his tail.

  “Mary Martha, I’ve been calling you.”

  The child raised her head and saw her mother standing in the doorway looking hot and fretful as she always did when she worked in the kitchen. “I didn’t hear you.”

  “It’s all right, it’s not important. I just—” I just wanted to talk to somebody. “I just wanted to tell you that dinner will be a little late. It’s taking the hamburgers longer to thaw than I reckoned it would. . . . Stop letting the cat bite your ponytail. It’s not sanitary.”

  “He’s as clean as I am.”

  “No, he isn’t. Besides, he should go outside now. He doesn’t get enough fresh air and sunshine.”

  Mrs. Oakley leaned over to pick up the cat and it was then that she saw the old green coupé parked at the curb across the street. At noon when she’d unlatched the front screen door to let the girls in, she’d seen it too, but this time she knew it couldn’t be a coincidence. She knew who was behind the wheel, who was staring out through the closed, dirty window and what was going on in his closed, dirty mind.

  Her hands tightened around the cat’s body so hard that he let out a meow of pain, but she kept her voice very casual. “Mary Martha, I’ve been concerned about those book reports that were assigned to you for summer work. How many do you have to write?”

  “Ten. But I’ve got a whole month left.”

  “A month isn’t as long as you think, lamb. I suggest you go up to your room right now and start working on one. After all, you want to make a good first impression on your new teacher.”

  “She already knows me. It’s just Mrs. Valdez.”

  “Are you going to argue with me, lamb?”

  “I guess not.”

  “That’s my angel. You may take Pudding up with you if you like.”

  Mary Martha went toward the hallway with the cat at her heels. Though she couldn’t have put her awareness into words, she realized that the more pet names her mother called her, the more remote from her she actually was. Behind every lamb and angel lurked a black sheep and a devil.

  “Mother—”

  “Yes, sweetikins?”

  “Nothing,” Mary Martha said. “Nothing.”

  As soon as Kate Oakley heard Mary Martha’s bedroom door slam shut, she rushed out to the telephone in the front hall. With the child out of the way she no longer had to exercise such rigid control over her body. It was almost a relief to let her hands tremble and her shoulders sag as they wanted to.

  She dialed a number. It rang ten, twelve, fifteen times and no one answered. She was sure, then, that her suspicions were correct.

  She dialed another number, her mouth moving in a silent prayer that Mac would still be in his office, detained by a client or finishing a brief. She thought of how many times she had been the one who detained him, and how many tears she had shed sitting across the desk from him. If they had been allowed to collect, Mac’s office would be knee-deep in brine, yet they had all been in vain. She had been weeping for yesterday as though it were a person and would be moved to pity by her tears and would promise to return ... Don’t cry, Kate. You will be loved and cherished forever, and forever young. Nothing will change for you.

  Mac’s secretary answered, sounding as she always did, cool on the hottest day, dry on the wettest. “Rhodes and MacPherson. Miss Edgeworth speaking.”

  “This is Mrs. Oakley. Is Mr. MacPherson in?”

  “He’s just going out the door now, Mrs. Oakley.”

  “Call him back, will you? Please.”

  “I’ll try. Hold on.”

  A minute later Mac came on the line, speaking in the brisk, confident voice that had been familiar to her since she was Mary Martha’s age and her father had died. “Hello, Kate. Any­thing the matter?”

  “Sheridan’s here.”

  “In the house? That’s a violation of the injunction.”

  “Not in the house. He’s parked across the street, in an old green car he probably borrowed from one of his so-called pals. He won’t use his own, naturally.”

  “How do you know it’s Sheridan? Did you see him?”

  “No, he’s got the windows closed. But it couldn’t be anyone else. There’s nothing across the street except a vacant lot. Also, I called his apartment and he wasn’t home. When you add two and two, you get four.”

  “Let’s just add one and one first,” Mac said. “Do you see anybody in the car?”

  “No. I told you, the windows are closed—”

  “So you’re not sure that there’s even anyone in it?”

  “I am sure. I know—”

  “It’s possible the car stalled or ran out of gas and was simply abandoned there.”

  “No. I saw it at noon, too.” Her voice broke, and when she spoke again, it sounded as if it had been pasted together by an amateur and the pieces didn’t fit. “He’s spying on me again, trying to get something on me. What does he hope to gain by all this?”

  “You know as well as I do,” Mac said. “Mary Martha.”

  “He can’t possibly prove I’m an unfit mother.”

  “I’m aware of that, but apparently he’s not. Divorces can get pretty dirty, Kate, especially if there’s a child involved. When money enters the picture too, even nice civilized people often forget every rule of decency they ever knew.”

  Kate said coldly, “You’re speaking, I hope, of Sheridan.”

  “I’m speaking of what happens when people refuse to admit their own mistakes and take cover behind self-righteousness.”

  “You’ve never talked to me like this before.”

  “It’s been a long day and I’m tired. Perhaps fatigue works on me like wine. You and Sheridan have been separated for two years and you’re still bickering over a financial settlement, you haven’t come to an agreement about Mary Martha, there have been suits, countersuits—”

  “Please, Mac. Don’t be unkind to me. I’m distracted, I’m truly distracted.”

  “Yes, I guess you truly are,” Mac said slowly. “What do you want me to do about it?”

  “Tell Sheridan to get out of town and I’ll settle for eight hundred dollars a month.”

  “What about Mary Martha? He insists on seeing her.”

  “He’ll see her over my dead body and no sooner. I won’t change my mind about that.”

  “Look, Kate, I can’t tell a man that simply because his wife no longer loves him he has to quit his job, leave the city he was born and brought up in and give up all rights to his only child.”

  “He’s always loathed this town and said so. As for that silly little job, he only took it to get out of the house. He has enough money from his mother’s tru
st fund. He can well afford to pay me a thousand dollars—”

  “His lawyer says he can’t.”

  “Naturally. His lawyer’s on his side.” She added bitterly, “I only wish to God my lawyer were on mine.”

  “I can be on your side without believing everything you do is right.”

  “You don’t know, you don’t know what I’ve gone through with that man. He’s tried everything—hounding me, holding back on support money so I’ve had to sell half the things in the house to keep from starving, following me around town, stand­ing outside the door and ringing the bell until my nerves were shattered—”

  “That’s all over now. He’s under a court order not to harass you.”

  “Then what’s he doing parked outside right this minute? Waiting to see one of my dozens of lovers arrive?”

  “Now don’t work yourself up, Kate.”

  “Why can’t he leave us alone? He’s got what he wanted, that fat old gin-swilling whore who treats him like little Jesus. Does he actually expect me to allow Mary Martha to associate with that?”

  Lying on her stomach on the floor of the upstairs hall, Mary Martha suddenly pressed her hands against her ears. She had eavesdropped on dozens of her mother’s conversations with Mac and this was no different from the others. She knew from ex­perience that it was going to last a long time and she didn’t want to hear any more.

  She thought of slipping down the back stairs and going over to Jessie’s house, but the steps creaked very badly. She got to her feet and tiptoed down the hall to her mother’s room.

  To Mary Martha it was a beautiful room, all white and pink and frilly, with French doors opening onto a little balcony. Beside the balcony grew a sycamore tree where she had once found a hummingbird’s tiny nest lined with down gathered from the underside of the leaves and filled with eggs smaller than jelly beans.

  It was the cat, Pudding, who had alerted Mary Martha to the possibilities of the sycamore tree. Frightened by a stray dog, he had leaped to the first limb, climbed right up on the balcony and sat on the railing, looking smugly down on his enemy. Mary Martha wasn’t as fearless and adept a climber as either Pudding or Jessie, but in emergencies she used the tree and so far her mother hadn’t caught her at it.