by Edwin West
But somebody else showed up Tuesday night, earlier than Paul. Uncle James. He arrived at seven o’clock, just as Angie was washing her dinner dishes.
Angie opened the door, and when she saw who it was she said immediately, “Paul isn’t here. He won’t be back until tomorrow.”
“It isn’t Paul I want to talk to,” he said, pushing his way into the house. “It’s you.”
She felt frightened of Uncle James. She’d always been frightened of him, he was such a gruff, purposeful, angry man. And he had never in his life been as gruff, angry and purposeful as he was now. This was no good.
In the living room, he sat on the sofa and said, “Sit down, Angie. I want to talk to you a little bit.”
“Paul is the one you should talk to, Uncle James,” she said. “I don’t know anything about all this.”
“No. You’re the one I want to talk to. Because if anybody can put some sense into the head of that brother of yours, it’s you.”
“Honestly, Uncle James--”
“Just hear me out, if you please. Now, I want to tell you one or two things about your brother, and I don’t want you flying off the handle and getting sore at me. I’m not a tactful man and I’ve never claimed to be. I’m a plain-speaking man and I intend to speak plainly to you.”
She sat down across the room from him, resigned to the inevitable. Only she wished he’d waited until Paul was at home.
“Here’s the thing,” said Uncle James. “I know a bit about what your brother’s been doing since he got home from the Air Force, and it isn’t very good. He’s been spending most of his time boozing with a lot of wastrels and bar hounds and--”
“Not any more, Uncle James. He--”
“Just let me finish, please. He hasn’t done anything about looking for work. He’s loafed his time away, he’s taken up with a shiftless crowd, and he’s become sullen toward his relatives. Now here’s the thing. If that boy manages to get this house away from me, you know what’s going to happen? He isn’t going to be able to support it. He isn’t going to be able to keep it up properly. The house is going to deteriorate, it’s going to have its value drop steadily downward, and before too long Paul is going to lose it. He’ll lose it to the tax assessor for non-payment, or he’ll gamble it away--”
“Paul doesn’t gamble!”
“--or,” continued Uncle James, ignoring her interruption, “he’ll sell it for less than it’s worth just to get his hands on some money so he can go on loafing and not have to go to work. I know what I’m talking about--you can take my word for it. I don’t want to see that happen. I put a lot of good money into this house. So long as your father had it that was one thing, but to leave it in the hands of an irresponsible boy is something else again entirely.”
“I don’t see why you’re talking to me about it,” said Angie. “It’s up to Paul.”
“You’re a sensible girl, Angie,” said Uncle James earnestly. “You’ve always been level-headed, and I thought you might be able to talk some sense into your brother, if you saw the way things were. This isn’t any kind of a life for you two kids. You’ve got a job down in the city now, I hear, and that means you’ll be wanting to move to an apartment in the city. Besides, Paul is going to have to strike out on his own sooner or later. Neither of you kids needs this house. Believe me, it’s a millstone around your necks.”
“I’m not going to move into an apartment,” she said. “I’m going to stay right here. And so is Paul.”
Uncle James was visibly trying to control his temper. “But don’t you see--? What the hell do you want with a big place like this, for God’s sake?”
“It’s our home,” she said simply.
“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “I just don’t know. I thought I could talk sensibly to you, but apparently your brother’s filled your head with the same kind of nonsense--”
“My brother,” she said, her fear of her uncle fading before anger, “hasn’t filled my head with any sort of nonsense. This is our home. It’s my home. I don’t want to move away from it and neither does Paul. And if you want to talk about it, you should talk to Paul. I don’t know anything about it. All I know is that this is my home, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself, trying to take it away from me.”
“Goddamn it!” cried Uncle James, leaping to his feet. “What do you mean, your home? I paid for every brick, every stick of lumber that went into this house. What do you mean, your home?”
“You stop that!” cried Angie, getting panicky at the rage in her uncle’s face. “Leave me alone, or I’ll call the police!”
“We’ll see who’ll call the police,” he snarled. “We’ll just see what happens when I take you and that smart aleck punk of a brother of yours to court.”
“Do what you want,” she wailed, despairing. “Just leave me alone, please! It’s Paul you want to talk to, not me.” All at once she was crying, not having known that she was going to cry, not wanting to cry, not wanting Uncle James to see her so weak and defenseless. “Talk to Paul,” she wailed. “Talk to Paul and leave me alone!”
But her tears, unplanned and unwanted though they might have been, finally turned the trick. Uncle James hesitated, glared around at the living room and retreated. “I’ll come back tomorrow,” he said, less loudly and less belligerently. “I’ll come back tomorrow and see your brother.”
“Do what you want,” she sobbed. She turned away from him, burying her head in her arms. “Do what you want. I don’t care. Just leave me alone.”
“I thought you were the one with sense,” he said. “I thought we could talk together. I--I’II come back tomorrow.”
He slammed his hat on his head and stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind him.
She remained where she was for a long while after he’d gone. Her crying subsided and she stretched out on the sofa, her head buried in her arms, too exhausted--both physically and emotionally--to move.
Why did Uncle James have to be like this? There wouldn’t be any problem at all if he would just leave them alone. She and Paul, the two of them together here--they got along so well.
Maybe they just ought to give him the house. The lawyer, Mr. McDougall, had said something about Uncle James making a settlement for maybe half of the value of the house. Maybe they just ought to take it and move to an apartment in the city some place. That way, they wouldn’t always have him snapping at their heels.
But she knew she would never be able to suggest such a thing to Paul. She understood that the house was the most important thing in Paul’s life, that he would do anything to keep it, and that he would never forgive her if she so much as mentioned the idea of giving it up and living somewhere else.
She couldn’t understand the depth and intensity of his feeling about the house, but she did acknowledge that the depth and intensity were there. And she had no desire to test them by disagreeing with him on the subject.
Thinking of Paul, she remembered the other night when they had gone out together to celebrate his discharge. She remembered their good-night kiss.
It was not the way a brother kisses a sister. He had kissed her the way Bob kissed her, the way a man kisses a woman. But better than Bob--far, far better and much more exciting. She had felt the same stirring within her that had made itself known the night she had almost gone to bed with Bob. This time, however, the stirring was stronger, and she had been afraid to go upstairs with him, afraid that she wouldn’t be able to control herself, that she would have made a fool of herself with him.
Except that he had felt the same kind of stirring. She was sure of that. She had sensed it in him then, and it had only served to make her own desire all the more intense.
And that night, in her imagination, her brother’s face had loomed over her again, her brother’s body had, in make-believe, lain atop hers. She hadn’t been able to stop that make-believe. She hadn’t wanted to stop it.
But nothing had happened since, either in reality or in imagination. Sinc
e that night, they had acted as though nothing at all had happened between them.
But something had happened. They had both felt it. They had both been aware of it. And in a strange kind of way, though she was frightened of what had grown between them that night and was repelled by it, still she was fascinated and glad that it had happened. She couldn’t completely rid herself of the hope that it would happen again.
During the hours after James left, while she was waiting for Paul, she thought of Uncle James, the house and her parents and she thought of Paul.
Not once did she think of Bob.
***
Paul arrived home a little after one, roaring drunk. He hammered at the front door, shouting to Angie to let him come in.
Angie had fallen asleep on the sofa, waiting for him, and she burst at once into complete wakefulness. She jumped to her feet and ran to open the door, whispering, “Paul! Stop it! You’ll wake all the neighbors!”
“I’m free!” he shouted, and staggered into the house. He pirouetted into the living room, arms stretched wide, slamming against a chair and turning to grin blearily at her. “I’m free,” he said again, more softly. “Free as a bird. Free as the air. Free as a goddamn civilian.”
She had been going to tell him about Uncle James’ visit, but now she saw that it was the wrong time. He was as drunk as she’d ever seen him, and unpredictable. She had no idea what he might do if she were to tell him that Uncle James had come here tonight. That would have to wait until tomorrow.
“Paul,” she said gently. “Maybe you ought to go to bed and sleep it off.”
“I celebrated,” he told her, unnecessarily. “Took the train, rode the club car all the way. Celebrated! Had a grand old time, on account of I’m a goddamn civilian.”
“I know, Paul,” she replied, smiling at him. She came to him and took his ann. “You deserved a celebration,” she told him maternally. “But now it’s time for you to go to bed.”
“No more Germany,” he mumbled. “No more leaving here, ever. No more Germany, no more Air Force, no more Ingrid. Ingrid! Fah on Ingrid! Who needs her?”
“Right,” she said, guiding him gently toward the stairs.
“Everything’s all right now.”
“Who needs Ingrid?” he cried. He threw a heavy arm around her shoulders, leaning weightily against her, and said, “I’ve got you, Angie, so who needs Ingrid? I’ve got my sweet little goddamn sister and she’s the sweetest, prettiest, truest girl in all the whole goddamn world.”
“That’s right,” she said, smiling, glad of the opportunity to help him and pleased at the things he was saying about her. “You watch the stairs now,” she said. She put an arm around his waist to help support him, and felt his body pressing against hers.
It was a long, slow, tedious trip up the stairs. He kept stopping to tell her all over again how great she was, and how great it was that he was free, and how he didn’t need Ingrid and he didn’t have to go back to Germany and the Air Force could go to hell. She kept agreeing with him and guiding him gently up the stairs, until finally they made the top step and went around the corner and into his room.
She set him down gently on the bed. He lay back at once, arms flung out, lying sideways on the bed, his feet hanging over the side. “Whooey!” he cried. “Did I celebrate!”
“I guess you did,” she said. She knelt in front of him and took off his shoes and socks, then straightened to lean over him and started unbuttoning his shirt.
He reached up, suddenly, grabbing her arm, pulling her down on the bed beside him. He wrapped his arms around her, and buried his face against the side of her throat, holding her close, mumbling something she couldn’t make out because the words were muffled against her neck.
She felt the stirring again, stronger than ever, and forced herself to push him away, forced herself to sit up and laugh and act as though it were just horsing around and fooling and not meaning anything. “Now come on,” she said. “I’ve got to get your shirt off. You don’t want to sleep with your shirt on, do you?”
“You’re a good girl, Angie,” he whispered. He lay on his back, smiling up at her, patting her arm. “You’re one hell of a good girl,” he repeated. “And I’m a goddamn louse. Oh, you’ll never know what a goddamn louse I am.”
“Now, hush,” she said. “Don’t carry on that way. You’ll wake up all the neighbors.”
Then he reached up again, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her down on top of him, the upper half of her body against his chest, her hips on the bed beside him, her head against his shoulder. Her face was turned to the side, her ear pressed against his chest, and she could hear his heart beating, pounding away at a terribly fast pace, his arms tight around her, clamping her to him.
“I love you, little sister,” he whispered brokenly, and moved his head to kiss her throat and the line of her jaw, to nibble at her ear. His hands caressed her back, the one hand moving around to stroke her side, the palm stroking over the first curving of her breast. He turned slightly, one leg thrown over hers, and kissed her on the mouth.
She tried to pull away but she couldn’t get her arms or her body to do what she wanted.
He kissed her, his lips demanding, his tongue forcing its way deep into her mouth, his hands caressing her, touching and fondling her whole body. She trembled with terror and desire, wanting him, knowing it was the most evil thing she could ever do, but unable to help herself.
And then he relaxed and lay back, his arms still around her. She found herself trembling, waiting for reason to take over or for him to make another move. His breathing grew slow and regular. She realized at last that he had fallen asleep. The drink had been too much for him.
Suddenly it was funny--funny and wonderful. She snuggled close to him, laughing to herself, glad to be with him, the fear and the desire abating. She kicked off her shoes and snuggled against him once more. After a while she, too, fell asleep.
EIGHT
There was sunlight. His back was stiff from lying crookedly on the bed all night. There was a constriction at his waist because his trousers were still on and still belted. In his head were all the symptoms of the classic hangover--fuzzy mind, muddy tongue and eyeballs made of cotton, with boll weevils on the inside.
There was a warm, heavy pressure against his side and chest.
He had his arms around something, above him.
Around someone.
He opened his eyes, squinting immediately against the glare of sunlight coming through the window. It was ten o’clock in the morning, hot and clear, without mugginess.
He was lying on his bed, on top of the sheets, still wearing all his clothes except for his shoes and socks. His shirt was half unbuttoned. And, without moving his head, he could just see blond hair out of the corner of his eyes. He was lying in bed with a girl, the girl sleeping cuddled against him, her head pillowed on his chest. She, too, was fully dressed, and her body within the clothing was warm and soft against him.
And she was his sister, Angie.
He remembered, dimly. Last night, on the train, he had gotten himself drunk as a skunk. He’d almost missed the station, almost rode on and on, right past the city and Thornbridge. He’d realized the train had been standing at his stop for some time and he barreled out of the car, weaving and sliding around, bouncing off porters and posts. Eventually he poured himself into a cab and, on the third try, got his address out intelligibly enough for the cabbie to understand. Then he had ridden in the back seat, his head out the side window for air, all the way home.
He had been less drunk when he arrived home. That is, he could stand with practically no difficulty at all. But he was still drunk as a skunk.
He remembered, dimly.
Angie had been up, waiting for him to come home. And she had talked gently to him. She had helped him up the stairs and to the bed. And then he--
