Frieda had come to depend on television for company. Hilton was often away on business, and even when he was at home the conversation was kept on Cleo’s level so Cleo wouldn’t feel excluded. It was Frieda herself who felt excluded.
“Please remove your elbow from the table, Cleo,” Hilton said. “And eat your soup like a good girl.”
“I can’t. It’s got funny things in it like shells.”
“They are shells. It’s bouillabaisse.”
“And bones, too.”
“Well?”
“The gardener won’t even give his dog bones. He says they might make holes in his bowels.”
“I don’t consider this a suitable subject for dinner conversation. Now eat your soup. Cook makes excellent bouillabaisse. Waste not, want not.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Frieda said. “Don’t eat the soup if you don’t like it . . . Now tell us what you did today.”
“I went to the museum.”
“You were gone all afternoon.”
“I saw lots and lots of pictures.”
“Did you meet anyone?”
“There were lots and lots of people.”
“I meant, did you talk to anyone?”
“One person.”
“Was it a man or a woman?”
“A man.”
“Cleo, dear, we’re not trying to pry,” Hilton said. “But what did you and this man talk about?”
“I asked him where the ladies’ room was. And he told me, and then he said, ‘Have a nice day,’ so I did.”
There was a brief silence, then Hilton’s voice sounding worried: “I thought the museum was closed on Mondays.”
The girl sat mute and pale, staring down at the bones and shells in front of her until Lisa came to take them away.
A twitch appeared at the corner of Hilton’s right eye, moving the lid like an evil little wink. “Of course you know how important it is to tell the truth, don’t you, Cleo?”
“I went to the museum. There were lots and lots of pictures. I saw lots and lots of people . . .”
“I care about you very deeply, Cleo. Your welfare was entrusted to me. I have to know where you go and what company you keep.”
“I go to Holbrook Hall. I have lots of company at Holbrook Hall.”
“Leave the girl alone for now,” Frieda said sharply.
“Obviously this is one of her foggy times. We can’t expect her to behave like a normal person.”
“I am exceptional,” Cleo said.
“Certainly you are, dear. And it’s not your fault you’re different. Everyone’s different. Look at Lisa. She’s different from other people.”
“In what way?” Lisa said, putting the gravy boat on the table, spilling a dollop and wiping it up with her forefinger.
“You wear awfully tight pants,” Cleo said. “I don’t see how you can go to the . . . well, you know, the ladies’ room if you’re in a hurry.”
“Practice.”
Hilton sat in gloomy silence. He had felt for some time now that things were getting out of hand, that he had no control over Cleo or Frieda or the servants. Even the gardener’s dog, Zia, didn’t acknowledge his presence when he walked down the driveway to get the paper in the morning.
Bad manners and taxes and crime and Democrats and unsuitable subjects for dinner conversation were sweeping the country. He was only forty-five and he wanted to stop the world and get off.
“I would rather be exceptional wearing tight pants,” Cleo said.
Hilton sighed and served the scrawny rock hens which reminded him of Cleo, and the wild rice which was only grass from Minnesota, and the asparagus which he hated.
“Why couldn’t I be exceptional wearing tight pants? Why not?”
“Please don’t argue with me, Cleo.”
“Why can’t I wear . . .”
“Because that style of dress is not suitable for you.”
“Why isn’t it?”
“There’s a stranger in our house. We don’t air our personal problems in front of . . .”
“I’m going to tell on you. I’m going to tell everybody.”
“They won’t listen to you.”
“Oh, yes, they will. I have rights.”
Hilton ate the scrawny little hen that reminded him of Cleo, and the wild rice which was really grass and the asparagus which he hated. His hands shook.
“I have rights,” the girl said again softly.
Later that night Ted came home on his semester break from college. He’d hoped to arrive in time to make a pass at Lisa but she’d already left and he went up to his room alone. He rolled a joint with some pot he’d bought from an assistant professor who’d allegedly smuggled it in from Jakarta. More likely it was grown in somebody’s backyard, but he lit up anyway, stripped to his shorts and lay down on the bed.
He was a good-looking young man, tall and heavyset like his father. His long brown hair reached almost to his shoulders in spite of Hilton’s attempts to get him to cut it. He wore a beard which his parents hadn’t seen yet and were certain to squawk about. But after the first couple of puffs he didn’t care.
He was only halfway through the joint when there was a knock on the door.
“Who is it?”
“Me. Let me in.”
He opened the door and Cleo came into the room. She was wearing a pink nightgown, not quite transparent.
“Hey, go and put some clothes on,” Ted said by way of greeting. “The old boy will have a fit. He thinks I’m a sex maniac.”
“Are you?”
“Sure.”
“What do sex maniacs do?”
“Oh, Christ, beat it, will you?”
“You’re smoking that funny stuff again, aren’t you? I could smell it all the way down the hall.”
“So?”
“Give me a puff.”
“Why?”
“Donny Whitfield says it makes you feel keen. I want to feel keen.”
“Well, at least you don’t have to worry that it will damage your brain.”
She took a puff and immediately let the smoke out again, then sat down on the bed. “I don’t feel keen.”
“You should inhale and hold it. Like this.”
“Okay.” She made another attempt. “Your beard looks awful.”
“Thanks.”
“May I touch it?”
“If you’re that hard up for a thrill, go ahead.”
She touched his beard, very gently. “Oh. Oh, it’s soft. Like a bunny.”
“That’s me, Playboy bunny of the year. Now haul your ass out of here.”
“You talk dirty,” she said. “Give me another puff.”
“I will if you promise to leave right afterwards.”
“I promise.”
She inhaled the smoke, holding it in her lungs for a few seconds. “I think I’m beginning to feel keen. But I’m not sure—I never felt keen before.”
“You promised to leave.”
“In a minute. I haven’t had a chance to ask you the question I came to ask you.”
“Go ahead.”
“Do you think I’d look good in tight pants, the kind Lisa wears?”
“How the hell would I know?”
“I could show you my figure.”
“Hey, wait a minute. For Christ’s sake, don’t . . .”
But she’d already taken off the pink nightgown and was standing naked, pale and shivering as though she had a chill. She didn’t have a chill.
Ted closed his eyes.
“Ted, are you sleeping?”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t even look at me.”
“I looked enough.”
“Well, what do you think?”
“Abo
ut what?”
“Gosh, you must have foggy moments like me. You haven’t paid any attention. I asked you a question.”
He sat up on the bed. Sweat was pouring down the back of his neck.
“Are you having a foggy moment, Ted?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re not sleeping, are you, Ted?”
“No.”
“You haven’t even looked at me yet.”
“I looked enough.”
“I like being here with you, Ted, you know? It’s cozy. Do you like it, too?”
“Yeah.”
She sat down on the bed beside him. Their thighs were touching and he could feel the quiver of her body and her warm breath against his neck.
“Cleo . . . listen. You better . . .”
“Now I’ve even forgotten the question I was going to ask you and it was terribly important. Oh, now I remember. Do you think I should wear tight pants like Lisa?”
“Not now,” he said in a whisper. “Not for a while.”
“You’re feeling real keen, aren’t you, Ted?”
“Lie down.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
“You want to.”
He put one hand between her legs. She let out a squeal and fell back on the bed.
Hilton was awakened by the sound of a car. He thought it must belong to a neighbor, since Ted wasn’t due to arrive until the following morning and his arrival was usually accompanied by the blare of a stereo and the whine of tires.
Hilton lay for a long time listening to the night sounds, the ones he hated: Frieda snoring in the adjoining room, the dog Zia barking at a stray cat; and the one he liked: the song of the mockingbird which could begin any time of the day or night. During the day it seemed a medley of all the noises in the neighborhood, coos and rattles and squawks and shrieks, but at night it was mainly a pure clear whistle, the same phrase repeated over and over again, like an impressionist revealing his true self only after the audience had left.
There were other sounds, too: a cricket in the rosebush outside Hilton’s room and the rolls and gurgles of hunger inside his stomach. He got up, put on a robe and slippers and went out into the hall intending to go down to the kitchen for some milk and crackers. Before he reached the top of the stairs he saw a light shining under the door of Ted’s room at the end of the hall.
Hilton stood listening. Ted’s presence was always accompanied by noise of one kind or another, but tonight there was none, not even faint music from a radio. He thought Frieda or the day maid had left a light on after cleaning the room to have it ready for Ted.
He opened the door. Two people were lying across the bed, their bodies so closely entwined they looked like one, a monster with two heads. It wasn’t the first time Ted had sneaked a girl into his room, and Hilton had started to close the door before he realized the girl was Cleo.
A scream formed in his throat, froze, melted, trickled back down into his chest. The two bodies separated and became two.
“God almighty,” Ted said and sat up on the bed.
“Get dressed,” his father said, “and get out.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, this is some homecoming.”
“Put your robe on, Cleo.”
“I don’t have a robe,” Cleo said. “Only that pink nightie Frieda gave me for my birthday.”
“Here.” Hilton took off his own robe and covered her with it.
“Are you mad at me, Hilton?”
“No.”
“Cross your heart and hope to . . .”
“Please be quiet.”
“He’s mad at me,” Ted said. “I’m the villain.”
“You are a despicable cad,” Hilton said. “And I want you out of this house tonight.”
“I’ve been driving all day. I’m tired.”
“Not too tired, I notice. Now move. And don’t come back to this house, ever.”
“Well, for Christ’s sake, how do you like that,” Ted said. “This crazy kid comes in here naked and flings herself at me and . . .”
“Shut up. Get moving and don’t come back to this house. Ever.”
“This is crazy, I tell you.”
“Cleo, go to your room. I want to talk to you.”
“You are mad at me. I,” the girl said, “I knew it, I just knew it. And I didn’t come in here naked. I had my nightie on and I took it off to show Ted what my figure looked like, in order to get his opinion.”
“It seems to have been favorable.” Hilton walked out into the hall and after a minute the girl followed him, dragging the pink nightgown on the floor behind her like a guilty conscience.
In the blue and white room whose furnishings had not been altered since she was a child, Cleo sat in a white wicker rocking chair that creaked and squawked with every move she made. Hilton stood with his back to her, facing the wallpaper Cleo had been allowed to choose for herself: masses of white flowers and green leaves and blue-eyed kittens.
“Stop that,” he said. “Stop that rocking.”
“You are mad at me.”
“I’m disappointed.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“No.”
“Is Ted going away?”
“Yes.”
“Forever and ever?”
“He won’t be living in this house anymore.” His voice shook. “Are you sorry for what you did?”
“I guess. If you want me to be.”
“I want you to be sorry.”
“Okay, I am.”
He knew he might as well be talking to one of the blue-eyed kittens romping across the wallpaper, but he couldn’t stop trying. “I love you. You realize that, don’t you, Cleo?”
“Oh, sure. You’re always telling me.”
“Do you love me in return?”
“Sure.”
“No, you don’t,” he said in a harsh whisper. “You care about nothing.”
“Oh, I do so. I love Zia and ice-cream cones and T. V. and flowers and strawberries . . .”
“And where do I rate on that scale—somewhere between ice-cream cones and strawberries?”
She’d begun to rock again, very fast, as if to outdistance his voice, and muffle the funny little sounds that were coming from her mouth. These were the sounds of her foggy moments. After a time they would go away.
“Cleo, answer me. Where do I fit on that scale of yours?”
“I have to love Zia best,” she said slowly, “because he never gets mad and when I talk to him he always listens like I was a real person.”
He turned and grabbed the back of the wicker chair to keep it quiet. “You are a real person, Cleo.”
“Not like the others. You said I didn’t care about things. Real people care about things.”
“I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry. I’m terribly sorry.”
“That’s all right.”
“Cleo.” He fell on his knees beside her, and began stroking her hair. “Promise me something. You must never let another man touch you. Will you promise me that?”
“Sure,” she said. He smelled nice, nicer than Ted.
In the morning Ted’s BMW was missing and the only sign he’d come and gone was a pair of skis taken from the roof rack and thrown alongside the driveway.
The ski season was over.
From the breakfast room the sounds of quarreling began as soon as it was light outside. Loud sounds, soft sounds, then loud again, depending on who was talking, Frieda or Hilton.
Cleo stared up at the ceiling and listened. Frieda was such a good screamer that every word was clear: Ted was her son as well as Hilton’s . . . Hilton had no right to kick him out so cruelly, his very own son . . . It wasn’t even Ted’s fault, it was hers, that damned girl, spoiled, spoiled rotten . . . She didn’t know right from w
rong and had no intention of learning . . . It was Hilton who spoiled her, letting her twist him around her little finger, setting him against his own son . . . And what if she had a baby? . . . All these damned morons should be sterilized . . .
Cleo put her hands over her ears but the sounds sifted in through the open window, seeped up through the floorboards and under the cracks of doors like poison gas . . . your fault . . . sacrificed the whole family . . . damn morons should be sterilized . . . spoiled brat . . . one bad apple spoils the whole barrel . . .
She rolled her head back and forth on the pillow, smothering the words in feathers. She wasn’t an apple, a brat, a moron. She was Cleo.
“I am Cleo,” she said aloud. “I got rights.”
WOMAN
3
During the next few days Aragon thought of the girl off and on in a desultory way. It wasn’t until Thursday that he had reason to remember her more vividly. A card was brought into his office by the receptionist: Hilton W. Jasper. The card made him think of the girl’s high, thin voice repeating, “Hilton says . . . Hilton says.”
He told the receptionist, “Send him in here.”
“Here?”
“It’s the only place I have.”
“It’s a mess. This man looks important, you know, like in M-O-N-E-Y.”
“Send him in anyway. He might enjoy slumming.”
Hilton Jasper wasn’t quite what Aragon expected. A tall, well-built man in his forties, he was almost handsome except for the puffiness around his eyes and the thin, tight mouth.
“Mr. Aragon?”
“Please sit down, Mr. Jasper.”
“Thank you.” He sat in the same straight-backed cane chair his sister had occupied. “We haven’t met, Mr. Aragon. I didn’t even know of your existence until an hour ago. Now it seems you may be very important to me.”
“In what way?”
“I have a young sister, Cleo. Her welfare is of prime concern to me.” He paused. “I have reason to believe she came here the day before she disappeared.”
“She came to my office on Monday afternoon.”
“Why? Oh, I’m aware of the confidentiality between lawyers and clients but I can hardly consider my sister a client. She had no reason to seek legal advice. Everything has always been taken care of for her. The idea of her coming to a law office is quite incomprehensible to me. Unless—and I’m forced to consider this possibility—she was interested in you personally.”
Mermaid Page 2
