I drank some coffee and spread some peanut butter on my toast and ate that. No matter what they had done, I had to force myself to be fair. Why? What did fairness have to do with it? Well, I wasn’t sure. But I had to go on living, so I had to be fair. And Mike and Hacker hadn’t been part of it, not now, not twenty years later. I had seen the humiliation in them, heard it in their voices, the shame and the guilt and … I had to be fair.
I poured more coffee and felt my systems starting to turn on. I didn’t want to think about the Belinda Pact anymore. It was like thinking about the Crab Nebula. I didn’t understand it and doubted very much if I was going to. So I thought about Harry. What were we going to do about Harry? How were we going to handle him? It was one thing for Mike and Hacker and me to sit around and decide that Harry had killed Peter. It was one thing to sit around and see it clearly and know it was true. But what exactly were we going to do about it? That was the kind of question that you don’t sit around and talk about because it’s too damn inconvenient. I didn’t have any answers at all. If we could only find the gun covered with his fingerprints …
My thoughts kept fluttering around the loft like one of those bats over Sally’s lake. My attention was splintered by questions needing answers. I was still unsteady from the whole Belinda Pact thing, trying to see the implications it carried deep within it for me, Belinda now. I had to come up with some ideas about dealing with Harry in a way that would make Antonelli and his colleagues pay attention: Harry had killed once and I saw no way of proving it, or even convincing an outsider to take it as a serious accusation.
And I had to get Sally back to civilization. I had to make her see that Harry, not Jack, had killed Venables. Did it matter why? Had he killed him because of me? Or because of Sally and her relationship with him? Or because of both of us, because Peter had come back into Harry’s life and was pulling all of it down? Did it matter, really?
Most of all I knew I wanted to be with Sally. I wanted to make sure she was safe.
The phone rang and for some brainless reason I thought it might be Sally.
It was Harry.
“Are you all right, Belinda? You scared me out of my wits last night.”
“I’m all right,” I said mechanically.
“I want to see you. You understand that, don’t you? I have to see you … I can understand your reluctance but I’m just about at the breaking point. I’ve got to see you. You’re all my life is about now, Belinda, you’re all I want … I’m going to have you, I’ve done something …” The words seemed disjointed, unrelated to one another, as if they were random words he was reading on a wall somewhere. He didn’t sound like Harry anymore. “I’ve done something so terrible… I can’t believe it, you won’t believe it. But you’ve got to give me a chance to explain.” He was almost panting. “I’m going to go get Sally, I’ve got to tell her first, the truth … and then I’m coming back, Belinda … I’m coming back for you. …”
I was about to say something, anything just to make him stop talking, to make the hard, whistling breathing stop, when suddenly the line went dead. I didn’t hear a phone slammed, nothing. It just went dead.
I kept calling Sally at the cabin until her line wasn’t busy anymore. But then there was no answer. So I kept calling and finally she answered. She sounded calm, remote, but she hadn’t killed herself and I was in the mood to be thankful for small favors. I told her I wished she’d come back to the city, come and stay with me for a few days, we’d play at getting things put back together and take surveys of our lives. We could spend some time being pals, like the old days, and see where we were headed. I gave her the works, full nostalgia treatment, but she stayed distant.
“Look, Sal,” I said, “there’s something else. It’s Harry, he’s acting very weird. A little crazy … he just called me—”
“Oh? Did he really? What did he have to say?”
“He said he’d done something terrible. He didn’t sound like Harry anymore. I’m not saying I know what he did, or what he thinks he did, but I am saying he’s in pretty spooky shape and he told me he’s going up to see you at the cabin. Sal, I don’t think you should be there when he arrives … I don’t think it would do anybody much good. He’s pretty shaken up.” I sounded like an idiot but I didn’t want to let her slip off the hook. I had to convince her.
“Did he say why he was coming all the way up here?” She didn’t sound very interested. More like she was making conversation.
“No, he didn’t, Sal. But you’re a damn fool if you wait around to find out.”
“Belinda, Jack killed Venables, not Harry. If that’s what’s on your mind.” She laughed tinnily. “We all know that. Poor Harry’s just had some nasty shocks this week. I have been awfully hard on him. I can talk to him. Maybe it’ll do him some good.”
“You’ve had some shocks too,” I said. “Please, as a favor to me, get in your car and come down here. Just for a night or two. Please—”
“Belinda! You really will make me angry if you keep this up! I can deal with Harry. I’ve dealt with him for quite some time, you know. Now, you just pull yourself together and count to ten! And relax—”
“He’s dangerous!” I screamed. “He could kill you, Sal … he might do anything! He’s off the edge, you’ve got to realize that! For the love of God, don’t be such a fool! You should have heard him, you should have seen him!”
“You saw him?”
“Last night. By accident—he looked god-awful. It’s not just me, Sal. Mike and Hacker think so too.”
“I don’t want to hear this, it’s not worthy of you, Belinda. You should be ashamed of yourself. But I understand. It’s hard for you, accepting Jack’s guilt—”
“Jack didn’t do it! You’ve got to believe me …”
But it didn’t do any good. She just went on sounding calm and superior, as if she had a direct pipeline to Received Truth and nothing could possibly hurt her. I was sounding like a banshee and she was calm as the grave and she ended the discussion by telling me to get a grip on myself and she’d see me soon. I wasn’t supposed to worry. If there was anything in the world she could do, it was handle Harry. She hung up. I felt like breaking everything in the loft.
Maybe she was right. Maybe she could handle Harry. Maybe that was the best place for Harry, being handled by Sally. After all, what did she have to fear from him? He had no reason to want to hurt her …
No, not much. Only her affair with his fellow Ruffian and the bearing of a secret child and her wanting to leave him and go live in London.
My mind was a garbage dump.
I sat for who knows how long. Then I called Hacker, against my better judgment, but he wasn’t home. I sighed like a scenery-chewing tragedienne and called Mike Pierce. His secretary said he hadn’t come in and she didn’t know when to expect him. I felt almost relieved. I didn’t know quite what to say to either of them after last night.
I paced around the loft. Finally my eye came to rest on the sketches for the Central Park piece and I began fiddling with that. My mind shut off and my hands did the work. Therapy. I tried not to think of what Sally had told me she and Harry were doing that day in Central Park.
The telephone didn’t ring again until midafternoon.
It was Sally.
No, Harry hadn’t been there but she’d been thinking about what I’d said this morning. She’d decided it might be a good idea to come down and stay with me. Old times. We could talk over old times and spin the wheel-of-fortune and see what the future was holding for us.
I practically cried with relief. Finally something was going right.
Chapter Forty-three
IT BEGAN THUNDERING AND THEN the first big drops of rain splattered on the skylight, slowly, as if the storm were reluctant to let them go. It was dark by early evening. I felt worn out; my psychological stiffness had made me ache in every bone and joint. I dozed on the padded wicker couch, saw the streetlamps come on, heard the rain drumming steadily on the glass. Throug
h the windows onto Prince Street it slanted in sheets. If it hadn’t been for the rainstorms that summer the heat would have killed us all. A little breeze flicked occasional drops across the sills. I finally got up and stretched and stood by the window spinning the wheel-of-fortune, wishing Sally would get here. I wondered where Harry was. The thought that he was still out there, looking for Sally, planning on coming back for me, kept that boulder of tightness in my belly.
I stood staring at the sketches of the couple on the bank and the other couple in the rowboat and then I heard her coming up in the elevator. The super had finally done something about the noise and the elevator wasn’t quite so obstreperous anymore. I went over and propped the door open to catch the cool breeze that would collect in the elevator shaft now that the storm was bound to drop the temperature a few degrees. Anything for relief.
Sally came in shaking her wet umbrella. She didn’t say anything for a moment or two, then shucked out of a faded denim jacket and came over to me. I hugged her and felt her making a little kissing gesture against my cheek.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” I said. “Was the driving bad? Are you okay?”
She nodded. “No and yes respectively.” Her eyes had a glassiness, as if she were watching me through the black irises from behind the window of a control room. I couldn’t tell what was going on inside, but then, with Sally that was nothing new. “You’re so worried about everything. Why is that, Belinda?”
I had to keep remembering what she’d been through. She didn’t sound like herself, but I suppose she wasn’t herself, wouldn’t be for a while. “Oh, you know … things.”
“You’re not still going on about Harry, I hope.”
“I can’t help it,” I said. “There’s no point in my lying about it.”
“There’s no need to worry about Harry, believe me.” She was moving restlessly around the room, looking out the window, staring for a long time at the wheel-of-fortune. I put a record on the stereo, something sinuous by Poulenc. A clarinet, a piano.
“He’s out there somewhere with a shotgun,” I said softly. “You have to realize that. For your own safety. We’ve all been through hell in one way or another, but it’s got to end soon, we’ve got to get through it—”
“Harry’s not out there with a shotgun,” she said. “And it’s more or less over. I mean, it must be … what more could matter now?”
“But there’s no point in taking chances. I think Harry may want to harm you … he told me he’s done something terrible, Sal.”
“Maybe he has, but it doesn’t matter. He hasn’t killed anyone. I don’t want to talk about this anymore, Belinda.” She stood listening to the music for a while, silently, swaying slightly to the rhythm, and I finally went to the kitchen and began poking around in the refrigerator. Cheese. Wine. I found some Double Gloucester and Stilton mixed, a chunk of sage Derby, a wedge of pale gold Vermont cheddar, a box of stone-ground crackers, a bottle of white Bordeaux. I got a tray down from the top of the cupboard, a couple of plates, wineglasses, the corkscrew. It would be good, sitting down with Sal, getting her unwound, stay away from unpleasant subjects. It would take some time, but I could start now, tonight. Turn her back into the old Sal. All she had to do was give me the chance. I knew I could do it because she was still Sal, no matter what.
I gathered up the tray and went back into the main room. She was standing at my worktable, scrutinizing something. I set the tray down.
“What’s this? Tell me what you’ve been working on … What is this?” Her voice had sharpened, as if anger was billowing inside her. She pointed at the sketch of the scene in Central Park and I felt my stomach do one of those little flip-flops. Goddammit! You can’t think of everything. I mumbled something hopeless and her eyes were boring into me, black and bottomless in her gaunt face, looking like my terrible dream, the twin barrels of the shotgun pointing at me. “How could you do this? It’s Harry and me, isn’t it? What do you think you’re doing? Drawing little pictures of my life, my pain? I don’t understand you, Belinda …” She looked back at the sketchpad. “No, I guess I do understand you, but it’s taken me such a long time. Better late than never, as they say. Were you spying on us? Is that what was going on? Is that you in the rowboat? You and … who? Oh, it doesn’t matter. Don’t bother to tell me.”
I’d been wrong, and it hit me just then. She wasn’t Sal anymore. Too much had happened to her. She was in a world of her own. I wasn’t so sure I could bring her back, not the way she sounded now. “We weren’t spying,” I said. “It was an accident. We happened to see you, that’s all—”
“And you happened to come home and start drawing pictures of what you saw? That seems a bit much. Not that it matters, it doesn’t change anything. You can’t help being you, that’s the truth of it.” She fumbled in the pocket of her gingham check blouse and took out a cigarette, lit it. She stood shaking her head at me.
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
She laughed and coughed on the smoke and laughed again. “God, you really are unbelievable. And now you’ve decided Harry’s a murderer. Have any little drawings of him shooting Peter? It could form the basis of your next show. You could think of a clever little name and have a clever little show, using the tragedies of your friends’ lives—”
“Stop it, please. This is crazy.”
“How true! It is crazy, I’ll grant you that.” She suddenly smiled disarmingly. “Am I being too hard on you? I’m sorry. We’re not ourselves these days, are we? None of us.”
The thunder rolled softly, crunching. Rain drummed on the skylight. I felt tense and shaky, and I wished Sally would just relax. She was going somewhere in her mind and I didn’t want her to drag me with her. She turned away from the table and the drawing, began pacing. I sat down and pulled my knees up under my chin and hugged myself to stop the trembling. There were only two table lamps lit and she moved out of their reach, stood watching the rain in the street.
She began talking almost as if she were alone, ruminating about how happy we all had once been, how wonderful all our prospects had seemed. I listened quietly, realizing how often I’d done the same thing during the past six months, once I’d accepted the idea that it was all pretty much over.
“Mount Holyoke,” she said, as if intoning a magic word. “You were such a golden girl.” I cringed at the sound of it but stayed silent. She needed to talk. “So tall and pretty and wholesome and self-possessed. I was so lucky to be your best friend. Remember how we used to tool around in that little red car? My God, that was fun!” She turned to me in the shadow and I imagined her smiling, the wide, thin mouth. “I was the snippy one, the smartass. Something like that. I was livelier, wasn’t I? It’s been such a long time since I was lively. I guess I was someone else then … that’s the big secret, isn’t it? Everybody changes. How many people are we in our lives? How many masks do we wear?” She didn’t expect any answers. I don’t think she’d have heard me if I’d spoken. She was there with me but she was alone.
“So what went wrong? Where did the whole thing go off the tracks? Maybe when you threw Harry away in favor of Jack? That was the first nasty thing … the first bad thing, wasn’t it? It wasn’t quite so happy after that. It got worse when I let myself fall for Peter—I’d never imagined love and passion like that. I ran the risk of getting pregnant because I loved him and nothing was more important … why couldn’t I trust what I felt, why couldn’t I have married him and led a normal life? I don’t suppose I’ll ever know now. I mean, time’s just about up, isn’t it?”
She was leaning against the window frame, half-watching me, somehow looking past me at the shapes of our lives. She was seeing monsters.
“I used to think everything was the fault of the men,” she said. “I mean, they’re really all the same, aren’t they? What they really want is the fucking, isn’t that right, Belinda? They all wanted to fuck you … they used to celebrate when one of them had fucked you, they’d talk about it, tell each other what i
t was like to fuck Belinda … can you imagine what the stories must have been like?”
I wanted to vomit. Where was this coming from, why was she telling me this? How could she know what I’d only heard of last night? And why was she making it so ugly? They had cared about me, too. I believed them, I had to believe that. They had cared. Started out caring. Venables had been the one, he’d wanted to fuck me … nothing more. It was his turn … I tried to speak, but nothing came. I was dried out. My stomach was turning.
“They really were all alike.” She turned and moved slowly to the window by the wheel-of-fortune. She put her hand out and touched it, the wedding present. Then she gave it a spin and stared into the blur of spokes. “That was the problem. They looked alike, Peter and Harry … that’s why Peter died that night, in the doorway. The light overhead was burned out and there was only the light from behind—did you know that? With the light out, standing in the doorway, he looked just like Harry. I thought maybe you might have figured that out, you’re so smart, so visual. I mean, wouldn’t you expect Harry to answer the damn door? It’s our house, not Peter’s. She kept spinning the wheel, watching it go faster.
“That’s the way it was, that last night,” she said calmly, explaining everything to someone who was a little slow. “Peter died all because of a burned-out light bulb—I mean, my God, Belinda, you don’t think I wanted to kill Peter, do you? I loved him, no matter what. I loved him. … No, it was Harry I wanted to kill, Harry, it should have been Harry answering the door. But, no, it wasn’t … when the head sort of flew apart there was still enough left for me to see that it was Peter—I can’t tell you what that was like. Pretty bad. So you can see why I wanted to kill myself, can’t you? I mean, of course I wanted to kill myself … I’d have been crazy if I hadn’t wanted to die too. But when the door opened and I was standing there with the shotgun, I was sure it was Harry—Belinda, it was just like when my father taught me to shoot skeet, I just pointed and squeezed and the head wasn’t there anymore. Gone, it was all over everything, everywhere. …
Guilty Parties Page 25
