The Dark House

by John Sedgwick

  He watched her go, the sadness thickening in his chest. She was nearly to Tina’s apartment by now, the door open. She was moving through it, as if in slow motion. The door was swinging lazily toward him. He had only a moment.

  “Wait!” he called out. He leaped down the hall and caught the door just before it closed. He slipped inside without a word, shutting the door behind him as Marj disappeared around a corner.

  He passed through the narrow foyer into the sparsely furnished living room, a sharp contrast to his own. Heather was curled up under a blanket on the lumpy couch, her mouth open, her frayed teddy clutched under one arm. Marj watched her and paid him no attention.

  “I finally got her to sleep,” Tina told Marj quietly. If they were surprised to see Rollins, neither let on. They had become their own private sorority. Tina passed through a swinging door into the kitchen. Marj went in after her, and, aware that he was pushing his luck, Rollins followed.

  The kitchen was nearly empty, with none of the appliances and cookbooks that Rollins had come to expect. It was also extremely hot, as if the oven had been left on. Tina fetched a bottle of Southern Comfort from the cabinet over the refrigerator and poured out a couple of glasses.

  “How can you wear all that?” Marj asked Rollins. He was still in his blazer and tie. “I’m about to melt.” She pushed open the window over the sink, then flapped the bottom of her T-shirt to circulate a little air. “Why’s it have to be so hot all the time? God! Boston is the worst. Why did I ever come here?” She turned the tap to release a torrent of cold water into the sink, then put her head under, sending spray in all directions.

  “Here.” Tina handed Marj a rumpled dish towel when she finally turned off the tap and straightened up. Marj dried her hair, then draped the towel over her shoulders to catch the last drips. Her hair falling every which way, her clothes disheveled, Marj looked all the more fetching to him. He imagined she needed his tending.

  Tina passed a glass to her. “Drink up. You’ll feel better.” Tina filled one for herself, then another for Rollins.

  “Mommy?” a voice came from the other room.

  “Oh, jeez,” Tina said. “Excuse me.” She passed out of the kitchen.

  Marj took a slurp of the whiskey liqueur, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “So, now what do we do? Any bright ideas, big guy?”

  “I think you should stay with me for a while,” he said.

  With a sudden, frightening motion, Marj grabbed the dish towel and smacked it down on Rollins’ shoulder, sending a bit of spray onto the side of his face.

  Rollins thought for a moment that he might break, burst like porcelain into a thousand pieces. Not just from the blow itself, but from the blind rage on her face when she delivered it. Marj had caught a bit of the flesh on the side of his neck, too, and it stung. He blinked to clear the moisture from his eyes.

  “You just don’t get it, do you?” she shouted at him.

  “Look, you don’t dare go back to your place, so I figured you could stay with me.” He tried desperately to sound calm, reasonable. “That’s why you came, isn’t it?”

  She smacked him with the towel once more, letting go of it this time. “I’m not going to sleep with you. Can’t you get that through your thick head?”

  “I wasn’t suggesting that.” He picked up the dish towel and draped it over the lip of the sink. He hoped she wouldn’t see that his hands were trembling.

  “I’m staying here.”

  “With Tina?”

  “She offered, and I said okay.”

  “But you don’t even know her.”

  “I don’t know you.” She glared at Rollins until the hinges on the swinging door squealed and her eyes moved to the doorway.

  Heather stood there, yawning, her teddy bear in her hand. “You okay, mister?” she asked sleepily. “I heard somebody shouting.”

  “I’m fine, thanks,” Rollins answered, calmed a little by the sight of her. “You should be in bed.”

  Tina came in. “That’s what I keep telling her.”

  Heather came over closer to Rollins and looked him over. “You’re not sick?”

  “Just tired.”

  She came closer still. “But you’re all sweaty.”

  Rollins smiled as he looked down at his jacket, darkened at the shoulder where Marj had swatted him. “It’s tap water, actually. We had a little accident.” He glanced over at Marj, and Heather’s eyes followed his.

  “Mommy said I shouldn’t get near you because you were sick.” Heather touched the back of Rollins’ hand. “But you don’t feel hot.”

  “Actually, I didn’t want her to make you sick,” Tina clarified.

  “No,” Heather protested.

  “Ssh. That’s enough, little lady.” Then, to Marj: “She had a fever just a few days ago.”

  “It’s all right,” Rollins said. He reached for the girl, but Tina came over to pull Heather away. “Okay, now out of here, you.” She led her firmly by the hand toward the kitchen door.

  The little girl turned back to Rollins before she left. “You can show me baby pictures again sometime, if you want.”

  “I’d like that,” Rollins replied.

  Heather waved to him, one quick sweep of her little hand. “Bye.” Tina gave out a groan, as if she were sorry to miss the action. Then they were gone, and the door swung shut behind them.

  “Baby pictures?” Marj asked Rollins.

  “My little sister,” he said. “Heather reminded me of her.”

  “You didn’t tell me you had a sister.”

  Rollins let the silence gather for a moment. She was right there, just a few feet away, but seemed so much farther, with plate glass separating them. He wasn’t sure he could reach her, but he took a breath all the same and started in. “She died when I was very young. I should have told you, but it was such a long time ago. I don’t think it matters anymore.”

  “Then why can’t you look at me when you say that?”

  It was true: He’d dropped his head to stare at the floor, a speckled linoleum. He looked up at her.

  “How’d she die?” Marj asked.

  “She drowned.” He could hear his mother’s screams ringing faintly in his ears and feel his father’s stony, accusing stare. But the feeling was dimmer now, with Marj there.

  She looked at him skeptically. “Don’t toy with me, Rolo. I’m not in the mood.”

  Rollins dug into his back pocket for his wallet. He pulled out Stephanie’s photograph and passed the photo to Marj, who studied it.

  “Where’d it happen?” Her voice was softer now.

  “In the bathtub,” Rollins said quietly. He had to concentrate on the words, since he’d never used them out loud before. Not with anyone, not even with the child psychiatrist, Dr. Ransome, he’d seen for nearly a year afterward. They talked about a lot of things, but never about that. “She drowned in the bathtub,” he repeated. It was a terrible strain to push the words out toward her. Marj was still so very far away. He thought of reaching for her hand, the one holding the photograph. He needed something to grab on to, something warm, with life in it. But he didn’t quite dare.

  No one had ever looked at him so intently as Marj did right then. “Tell me about it.”

  Stephanie’s tiny back all white and slick-looking.

  “It was horrible.” Stephanie was drowned again right in front of him, and it frightened him all over again. “She was floating, facedown in the—” He wanted to reach for his sister, plunge into the water, scoop her out.

  Her hair like spilled ink. Her little rubber ducks—bright yellow—bobbing slowly around her.

  “You saw her?”

  He nodded. “From the doorway.” He was there again, watching. It was a terrible sight. “My mother pulled her out.”

  A great wave of water over the bathtub wall, drenching her clothes, as Stephanie flew up in his mother’s arms toward her chest…

  He had to steady himself to speak. “She set her
down on the floor and tried to resuscitate her.”

  Stephanie’s little all-white body down on the tiled floor, his mother gasping, wailing as if she were drowning herself, pressing down sharply on Stephanie’s belly with the heel of her hand, then brought her lips down to her child’s.

  Rollins didn’t think he could go on. It was too awful. He closed his eyes, hoping to clear the memory, but it was still there, brighter even, when he opened them again. “She pushed on her belly, all that. I thought she was doing it too hard. That she’d hurt her.”

  “Oh God, Rolo.”

  His mother’s pearls draped across Stephanie’s throat when his mother bent down, then lifted again when she rose up.

  Rollins reached a hand up to his face; he needed to remind himself that this was the present and that was the past. “Then she yelled for my father, and he came running in and kind of jerked my mother away,” Rollins mimed the motion. “And he tried to bring Stephanie back.”

  Blowing and blowing. His mother holding her, so she wouldn’t slip across the tiles.

  Rollins gripped the edge of the kitchen table. Otherwise, he was afraid he might collapse.

  “It’s okay, Rolo.” The sound of Marj’s voice made him want to cry, but he managed to control himself.

  “Finally, they called the medics, but by the time they got there, there was nothing they could do.”

  “Oh, Rolo, I’m so sorry.”

  She moved toward him a little, and, after some hesitation, reached out to him, curving a hand around behind his neck.

  He noticed the ends of her hair, spilling down to her shoulders. “Stephanie’s hair curled at the tips just like yours. When it was wet.”

  The two of them fell quiet, watching each other. “I’ve messed up your jacket,” Marj said at last. She ran a finger down one lapel, then tapped on it. “You just make me so crazy sometimes.” Marj got up to pour herself another drink. When she returned to the table, she stood behind him and returned her hand to the side of Rollins’ face. “That whole thing with your sister—God. That sounds really hard.”

  Rollins nodded, suddenly unable to speak. He reached up to touch the back of her hand as she lightly caressed him. But by then, she’d withdrawn it.

  “I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?” Tina declared when she burst back through the swinging door and found Marj standing so close to Rollins. She reached into the freezer for some ice.

  “We were just having a conversation.” Rollins drew out the last two words.

  Tina dropped the ice into her glass and poured herself another drink. “Oh yeah. I used to have those, before Heather was born.” She turned to Marj. “Did you ask him about the tapes?”

  That was a shock. No one was supposed to know about his tapes. Rollins was afraid he might be sick.

  “Oh, now—don’t look so surprised,” Tina said. “Mrs. D’Alimonte told me all about them. She thinks you’re so interesting. She said they were stacked up on this big long shelf over your bed. Hundreds of them.”

  Rollins brought his hands to his temples. He feared a migraine coming on. “When did she—?”

  “Don’t sweat it, Rolo,” Marj reassured him. “It’s not like I couldn’t guess a lot of this stuff.” She leaned back against the counter, her pelvis protruding.

  This was precisely the scenario that Rollins had dreaded for years, the reason that he had been so careful about locking his door, setting the burglar alarm. Certainly, he had other valuables in his apartment, but the tapes were by far the most precious of all. They were his secrets. “How did Mrs. D’Alimonte—?”

  “She had to go in there one day because of some roach problem.”

  “Oh, Christ.” Rollins remembered surrendering his keys one morning about a month ago. “But I told her she was to go only into the kitchen. I made that very clear to her.” He should have put a lock on his bedroom door, just as he’d always meant to.

  Tina shrugged. “Yeah, well. I guess she got curious.”

  “Look, don’t worry about it,” Marj said.

  “Don’t worry about it?” Rollins declared. “Those tapes were private.”

  “So what’s on them?” Tina asked.

  Rollins nearly hit her before he realized she’d delivered good news. “She didn’t tell you?” He had assumed the worst.

  “No, she said there was this big long shelf of them, all with dates. May second, nineteen ninety-seven, October fifth, nineteen ninety-nine, like that—that’s all. She made it sound very mysterious.”

  “So that’s why you wanted to look in my bedroom.” Rollins stared right at her.

  Tina shrugged noncommittally.

  “I bet it’s part of that driving thing,” Marj said.

  He had the sensation of falling and of things crashing down around him.

  “I already told her all about it.” Marj turned to Tina. “It’s just something he does. It’s like his way of going to the movies.”

  “The porno flicks is more like it,” Tina said with a laugh.

  “You make a tape about going to that dark house that first time?” Marj asked him. Then, to Tina again: “I told you about that place.”

  “The one with the Jacuzzi,” Tina said.

  “Right. Did you, Rolo?”

  Rollins needed to lie down. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Bingo,” Marj said. “Maybe we should hear it. Maybe we’d pick up something.”

  For the last five years, Rollins had indeed created his tapes with the idea that he might, someday, play them for someone. Someone very much like Marj, in fact. But now that the moment was at hand, he felt nothing but terror. He had been completely violated. That’s all he could think. It was as if he were being told to strip himself naked and bend over in the middle of Government Center.

  “Come on, Rolo,” Marj said. “There might be something about that guy you followed, or Sloane maybe. Something that will clear stuff up.”

  Rollins waited, praying that this nightmare would pass by itself.

  Tina seemed to lean toward him a little.

  “Well?” Marj said.

  Twelve

  “I should have all these locks,” Marj said as Rollins struggled with the third dead bolt on his front door. It was just the two of them, finally. Rollins had insisted that his tape not leave his apartment, and Marj told Tina that maybe she’d better stay with Heather. “I’ll be waiting up,” Tina had told her. Now, with Marj standing so close beside him, Rollins’ head spun so, he couldn’t remember whether the key to the third lock was round or jagged.

  “I’ll do it.” Marj plucked Rollins’ keys from his hand. In moments, the lock turned with a click, and Marj straightened up, smiled, and dropped the keys back into Rollins’ moist hand. He stepped inside to deactivate the burglar alarm, then ushered Marj in after him with a sweep of the arm. He hoped the gesture wasn’t too grand.

  For some time now, Rollins had been fretting about how Marj would respond to his antique-laden decor, but she made her way straight to the living room window. “Smells like mothballs in here,” she said. “And it’s so hot, how can you stand it?” She pushed her hands between the heavy green draperies and raised the sash easily while he admired her long, straight back, and her trim legs that tapered down to tiny white socks and battered running shoes. He just wished she weren’t so visible from the courtyard.

  Marj turned back to the room. “God—it’s so dark.” She clicked on a porcelain lamp in the corner, then glanced around, taking in the furnishings for the first time. In the lamplight, she looked like some sort of finch. There was her hair, of course, but also the pale pink of her T-shirt and the bright red of her running shorts. She made the room’s dark hues seem like various shades of mud.

  “Well, you are rich,” she declared.

  “Comparatively, I suppose.” He watched her carefully, curious to see how this admission went down. He’d come in for some teasing about his wealthy background at Williams, which was itself a joke, considering that
almost no one there was genuinely poor.

  “Compared to a hick like me, you mean.” Marj fingered the plush material of the draperies, then glanced up at him. “But hey, take a breath, all right? I mean, I kind of suspected. The rich relatives, the preppy clothes. Plus, you never talk about money.” She ran a finger along the top of the Moroccan carved-wood chair, then checked it for dust under the lamplight. “It doesn’t bother me.” She looked at him again. “I bet your dad is some big computer guy.”

  “Hardly. He had a little investment business for a while, but he blew it.” He thought better of mentioning the possible SEC investigation. “All this comes down from my mother’s side of the family. My great-grandfather financed some of the Rockefeller oil business, early on. These are mostly his things.”

  “They valuable?”

  “The rugs and the paintings probably are, but I’ve never had them appraised. I don’t plan to sell them, so I don’t particularly care what they’re worth.”

  She opened the humidor on the sideboard, then quickly snapped the case shut again. “Oh, sorry.” She giggled. “I thought it was a music box.”

  “Cigars,” Rollins explained. “That detective, Al Schecter, gave them to me, years back, but I don’t smoke.”

  “Thank God,” Marj said. “My stepdad does. Or at least he used to. He really stank, the creep.”

  A few moments passed. Rollins settled himself in the wooden chair by his fold-up desk and clasped his hands over his knee. “I should tell you where I went tonight.”

  Marj turned her head slightly, making herself look very fetching. “Maybe I don’t want to know.”

  But there was no stopping Rollins now. He explained that he’d been in Somerville at the gaunt man’s house. Marj went very still, and possibly a little pale (the light wasn’t too good), and dropped down onto Rollins’ fat leather chair, which gave out a crackling sound. He told how Schecter had gotten him the address, but carefully left out the part about the criminal history. He could tell that Marj was frightened enough as it was; there were certain things that Rollins figured he would have to bear alone. She listened attentively until he got to the part about sending the police to Jeffries’ house. Then she laughed, or barked, more like, involuntarily, eyes wrinkled.