Metger escorted her up a short flight of steps and into the waiting room, noticing how short her breath had become and how ungainly her movements. The receptionist, a gray-haired widow called Maria Tubbs, smiled from behind her desk. “Doctor won’t be a moment, Mrs. Metger.”
Nora placed her hands flat on her huge stomach and sighed. “You don’t need to stay, Jerry. I’ll be okay. I can call a cab when I’m through here if you’ve got something to attend to.”
“I want to stay.”
“You’re overprotective. You know that? You spoil me. You’ll make a lousy father if you treat the kid the way you treat me.”
Metger took his wife’s hand. Her fingers were swollen. The wedding band seemed to cut right into her flesh. Sometimes he couldn’t remember what she’d been like before the pregnancy except for certain flashes he’d get of a slim, vivacious woman. This baby was draining her. It was the first, and everybody told him the first was the worst.
“I like to spoil you,” he said. “I want my wife to be healthy. And I want our kid to be healthy as well.”
“We’re fine,” Nora said. “This kid has the kick of a mule.”
Metger leaned back in his chair.
Beyond the receptionist’s desk he saw Dr. Pelusi passing out of one door and vanishing behind another. Pelusi was a squat, dark man with solemn ink-colored eyes who had taken over the clinic after Miles Henderson’s retirement. Between Scoursby and Pelusi, Metger thought, there was some competence, but he still didn’t have the confidence he needed in them. He wasn’t altogether sure why. Maybe he didn’t want his kid born in Carnarvon, that was all.
What kind of thinking was that anyhow? He got up from his chair and looked out the window.
He’d been born in Carnarvon himself and it hadn’t hurt him any, had it? And they didn’t even have the medical center back then—a midwife had delivered him in his parents’ bedroom. Safe and sound and complete, all eight pounds of him. Still, as he stared at the stand of pines, he felt uncomfortable.
Nora said, “Something wrong?”
“Just thinking.”
“You want to tell me?”
Metger went back to his chair, crossing his legs as he sat down. He didn’t say anything.
“You worry too much, Jerry,” his wife said. “The baby is going to be fine. You’ll see. And I’m a big girl. I’ll survive.”
Metger scratched the tip of his nose.
“You always do that when you’re troubled,” she said.
“Do what?”
“This.” She ran one fingernail around the tip of her own nose. “I know you, Jerry. I know when something’s bugging you. You’ve been like this for days.”
Metger uncrossed his legs and shuffled his feet in the pile of the rug. Was he so damn obvious? He took out a cigarette, remembered where he was, then stuck the pack back in his jacket.
The receptionist said, “Dr. Scoursby will see you now, Mrs. Metger.”
Nora got up awkwardly and moved toward the door. She turned around and smiled at her husband.
Metger said, “I’ll wait.”
“Okay.”
Metger watched her go out of the room. In another office Scoursby would check her blood pressure, her pulse, her heart; he would poke at her in his curiously offhand manner, then announce she was coming along just splendidly and remind her to take her vitamins and get a good night’s sleep and watch what she ate. It was routine, it was the same damn thing every visit, and the pregnancy was coming along as expected—so what the hell was this vague, gnawing unease that was getting to him?
He stepped outside and lit a cigarette. In the distance he could hear the drone of traffic coming along the two-lane highway that ran throught the heart of Carnarvon. Tourists, bringing life, blood, and money to a town that would normally have died in the natural course of things when the old silver-mining operations folded fifty years ago. Without these visitors, Carnarvon would have no reason to exist.
He took smoke deeply into his lungs. It was a morning of rare beauty; the sun made the trees appear silken and luscious and there was a warm breeze blowing up. His thoughts turned to the Untermeyers in the forest—maybe he’d find the time to take a run over there later just to see that they were fine.
Jesus, Jerry. Old Miles Henderson was right. You don’t know when to leave things alone. Of course the Untermeyers are okay. Of course their kid is fine.
A little irritated with himself, Metger dropped his cigarette and stamped it with his foot, then went back inside the building. Because a tragedy happens to a family called Ackerley twelve years ago, do you really imagine gruesome history could repeat itself? And because, years before that, a child called Robert Hann became sick, you want to see connections all over the place, don’t you?
What is it, Metger? You tired of being a cop in a tourist town? Tired of having no bank robbers to catch and no rapists to apprehend?
He stood in the corridor of the center absently gazing at health bulletins tacked to a bulletin board. There were reminders about getting tetanus shots. Dietary information. An antitobacco poster.
“Sheriff, how are you? And Nora—how’s the better half?”
Dr. Pelusi had appeared at the end of the hallway. His manner was always that of a man flustered, somebody forever on his way to a place where he simply had to be.
Metger smiled. “She’s being checked over,” he said, making his wife sound like an automobile.
“She’s in good hands. The best.” Pelusi took a fountain pen from the breast pocket of his white coat and rolled it in his hand. “Andy Scoursby’s a good man. For a Brit.” Pelusi smiled, his plump little lips welded together.
Metger leaned against the wall. “See much of Miles these days?”
“Last time I gave him some AA literature. He more or less threw it back in my face. I don’t know any other way to put this, but there’s one guy that wants to kill himself.” Pelusi had an expression of resignation on his face.
“Why?”
“I’m no psychiatrist, Jerry. I don’t know Miles Henderson well enough to speculate.”
Metger watched a nurse disappear through a door at the end of the hall. She was shaking a thermometer in one hand and her white shoes squeaked.
“So what’s new around town, Doc?” he asked. “Any devastating medical emergencies I should know about?” He kept the questions light around the edges, almost flippant. He wondered what it was that he really wanted to hear.
“I had a tourist with a fractured arm. Fell out of a bus, I guess. Then a woman suffering Valium withdrawal. Not a whole lot, Jerry.”
“Nothing unusual?”
Pelusi laughed. “You fishing, Jerry?”
“Just keeping my ears open, that’s all.”
“There’s been nothing but run-of-the-mill stuff recently, I suppose.” Pelusi was silent a moment, trying to remember. “There was one man, guy of about forty, with a broken pacemaker. But nothing I could write up for a medical journal, if that’s what you mean.”
Metger looked up a second at the fluorescent strip of light overhead. Pelusi was right, he supposed. He was fishing. But it was like casting your line into murky, stagnant water when you couldn’t see a damn thing under the surface and you didn’t know what you expected to catch in any case. Quit, he thought. For Christ’s sake.
“How long have you lived in Carnarvon, Doc?”
“Oh … four years going on five.”
Four years going on five, Metger thought. It wasn’t very long. Maybe it wasn’t long enough to understand the place, to hear any of the rumors and gossip that ran in the bloodstream of a small town.
Pelusi frowned now. “You got something on your mind, Jerry?”
Metger gazed into the palms of his hands. “Nothing, Doc. Just killing time, I guess. Idle curiosity.”
A nurse appeared at the end of the corridor and called to the physician. Pelusi turned away.
“See you around, Jerry.”
Alone, Jerry Metger move
d back inside the reception room.
Nora was already waiting for him.
She reached out for his hand. “Take me to breakfast, Pops. I got a clean bill of health.”
He draped an arm around Nora’s shoulders and went with her out into the morning sunshine.
Maybe that was what lay at the bottom of all his recurring concerns, his half-assed anxieties, his troubles—a clean bill of health for both his wife and baby.
His unborn baby.
18
Louise put her brush down and drew a hand across her face. Her mind wasn’t on her work. She stood up, gazing down at the child she’d painted. He was what she thought of as her Standard Boy—his eyes were large blue saucers, his mouth a plump pink heart. Today, she thought, this kid makes me sick.
She wandered around the bedroom. The house seemed hollow and empty. Dennis had risen early and departed, to visit the Summers again. She strolled to the window and looked out at the trees. Max was out there, sitting beneath a pine, his back to the trunk. She observed him a moment. He flipped the pages of a book, then closed it and tilted his head back against the tree with his eyes shut. His face seemed strangely gaunt.
She turned away from the window and went downstairs. In the kitchen, she brewed coffee. She was remembering yesterday, when she’d come back from the Summers, how she’d found Max asleep on the living-room sofa. She’d lain down beside him, pressing her body against his, whispering in his ear, We’ve got the whole place to ourselves, Max. Anything you feel like doing?
Max had opened his eyes, stared at her. There was something cold at the center of his expression, as if he were emerging from a bad dream and didn’t recognize her. It was a look she’d never seen before and it froze her. When he had focused, when he’d snapped himself back into the present, he muttered something about a nightmare in a voice so thick it was almost unrecognizable. Hold me, Louise. Hold me. There was an urgency in the way he spoke. As she cradled his head against her shoulder, stroking his hair, whispering to him, it crossed her mind that Max was somehow drifting away from her, that she was losing him in a way she couldn’t quite grasp. But that was nonsense, a random notion, one of those uninvited thoughts that gate-crash your brain now and again. Where’s the real Max? she wondered. Where is the man I love? He trembled as she held him, shaking like someone with a high fever.
And then they’d made love on the floor, Max driving away at her with what she thought was panic, his body stiff and unyielding. He wasn’t participating in anything—he was using her to drive away whatever demons might have been inside him right then. A strange Max, a different man, coarse in his actions, rough. And the perception filled her with anxiety—you live with somebody a long time and then suddenly another facet of that person is abruptly revealed and you’re lost all at once. He had never made love to her so selfishly before; she might not have been there.
She sipped her coffee now as she walked into the living room. What was wrong with him? And why hadn’t she noticed anything before? Even Denny had seen something different in his father. It’s because you don’t want to see, Louise. You don’t even want to look.
She rose and walked through the living room, absorbed the silent telephone and the dead TV (whose reception was appalling in any case), and went to the cabinet that contained the liquor they’d bought in Carnarvon the other day. They had brought home three bottles of scotch, three bottles of red wine, a fifth of rum, and some cocktail mixers. The rum and wine were untouched, but there was only one full bottle of scotch remaining. How much was Max drinking, for God’s sake? She hadn’t been conscious of his consuming excessive amounts—a little more than normal, perhaps, but not excessive. Did he drink outdoors? Did he drink in secret?
She shut her eyes. All these thoughts battered at her. Yesterday, hadn’t she said something to Denny about a period of adjustment? It sounded feeble to her now. How long did it take for somebody to adjust anyhow?
Her attention was drawn to the sound of somebody moving on the porch. Denny, she thought.
She went to the door, opened it. It wasn’t the boy.
Frog, clutching a brown paper bag, smiled at her. He was wearing a T-shirt with the motto STYLE IS EVERYTHING. Louise held the door open for him and he came inside, his ponytail swinging against his neck.
He raised the paper bag in the air and said, “I bring goodies from Carnarvon. Freshly baked croissants from the bakery known as the French Quiche, which I understand is some kind of play on words.”
“Great. I just brewed some fresh coffee.”
They went into the kitchen. There was a strong, fresh, soapy smell coming from Frog. His hair was soft and shiny and he moved with a quick little spring in his step. He opened the bag and removed two croissants, one of which he handed to Louise. She thought, I need Frog right now. I need somebody upbeat.
She said, “I was trying to get into a working frame of mind.”
“Did it catch on?” Frog brushed crumbs out of his thin beard.
“Let me put it this way, Frog. I welcome the interruption.” She poured a cup of coffee for him and set it down on the table. “Kona. Like before.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
She told him.
“Ah, you poison the minds of the very young with a distortedly cheerful view of reality,” he said.
“Actually, I only illustrate texts that are distorted to begin with.”
Frog sipped his coffee. “Good stuff. Where’s Max?”
“Buried in a book,” and she waved a hand loosely. She didn’t want to talk about Max right now. “Do you go to Carnarvon often?”
“Once a week. I use the public baths there. Makes a change from the stream I usually bathe in. I can’t make up my mind whether a chlorinated pool has it over a sluggish green stream.” He finished his croissant and rubbed his fingers together. “Where’s the kid?”
“Gone to visit our neighbors,” she said.
“The old people, you mean?”
Louise said nothing. She gazed past Frog toward the window, the trees beyond. She wondered when she might get sick of this forest, when she might fall victim to a green claustrophobia.
“He likes it over there,” she said eventually. “The old people like him. I guess he brings a little liveliness into their world.” She poured more coffee. “You were right about their property, Frog. It’s a dump. But inside the house they have some stuff you wouldn’t believe—antiques, treasures. And it’s all just rotting away.”
Frog plucked another croissant from the bag. “So they’ve taken a shine to Denny, huh?”
“Looks that way. What’s more interesting is how he’s taken a shine to them. We’re talking about an incongruous relationship here.”
Frog nibbled the edges of his croissant. “I keep meaning to run over there and see them,” he said. “I figure if they employ me to knock their place into shape, it would be a reliable source of income for a while.”
Frog got up and brushed crumbs from his T-shirt. He collected them conscientiously in the palm of one hand and dusted them off inside the trash can. “Neat freak at work,” he said. “For this kind of behavior, you could be expelled from a commune and have your name blackened forever among old-time hippies everywhere.”
Louise watched him. He moved very lightly on his heels. Although he was skinny, he gave a comforting impression of strength. “I wonder how long the Summers have lived up here, Frog.”
“Since dinosaurs roamed,” he answered.
Louise smiled. Frog skipped in and out of flippancy, like a man afraid of being taken too seriously, especially by himself. She had a warm feeling right then toward him—it was as if they had been friends for a long time. The brotherhood of the sixties, she thought. That was it. They shared something of the same water that had swept, with a depressing swiftness, under the same bridges.
He came back to the table and sat down. “Old eccentrics aside, how are you adapting to the woods?” He pushed a croissant toward her, holding it as t
hough it were a microphone.
“Fine,” she answered, nudging the croissant away from under her nose. “Except for the night noises.”
“The forest never sleeps, they tell me.”
“I guess. But whatever it is that doesn’t sleep out there, it has the annoying habit of waking me up at night. It doesn’t happen every night, but sometimes I hear this animal wandering around outside the house. It seems to brush against the walls. You’re the resident expert. You tell me what it could be.”
“Probably an aardvark,” Frog said.
“Seriously.”
“Okay. Could be a raccoon. A skunk. A fox. Might be a beaver or a deer looking for something to eat. You’ve got quite a choice around here.”
Louise had an image of a whole congregation of furry things gathering in the darkness and pressing against the house. She hadn’t been disturbed in her sleep for the past three nights or so, but just the same she wanted to put some kind of label to the animal that foraged just under her bedroom window in the darkness. It would be consoling simply to know.
Frog got up from the table now. He yawned and stretched his arms. “Well, I better be running along. Shame I didn’t get to see Denny. Next time. I’ll check your weed situation on the way out.”
“You only just did them,” Louise said.
“They grow, Louise. In the dark, when you’re not listening, those little monsters are forcing their way up out of the good earth. When it comes to weeds, you can’t be too careful. Don’t forget that.”
Then he was gone with a quick smile and a flurry of pony-tail, and the house silently settled down once again around Louise. She wandered restlessly down the hallway, stopped outside the door of Denny’s room, which was halfway open.
She went inside. As soon as she entered the room a terrible smell hit her with the force of a small hammer. She crossed the floor quickly, pushed the window open, gasped—the stench was indescribable, choking.
It might have been the aroma of a long-dead, rotted animal. It had the bittersweet pungency of corruption.
She roamed around the bedroom, trying not to breathe too deeply. Saliva formed at the back of her throat and she thought she was going to be sick.
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