The Tea Party - A Novel of Horror

by Charles L. Grant

  Restive; high-strung thoroughbreds being led to the starting gate.

  “It seems,” he said with an enforced calm, “as if the big moment is arriving.”

  He looked over, and Liz’s face was strained. The skin was drawn taut over her cheekbones; her lower lip was pulled between her teeth, her eyes were narrowed as if she were trying to see through a dense fog.

  “Liz?”

  She pointed.

  The party had come to a complete halt.

  Judith had left to join the others, and now Eban Parrish was standing in the doorway.

  3

  5:00

  The overcast had thickened perceptibly and laced itself with black, the air was darker grey and still, and the lanterns dangling motionlessly from their chains under and around the tent were crystalline bright as if a mist were trapped inside them. The door was closed. All the windows were black now, reflecting nothing. “Doug, we can still go.”

  “No,” he said. “No, not now.”

  And the anger returned, apprehension replaced by a silent promise to end once and for all the manipulation of his life.

  He rose awkwardly and pulled Liz to her feet. They took the slope slowly, watching as Parrish, smiling and nodding, walked toward the tent. The others closed around him expectantly, nervously, the barbershop quartet cut off in mid-verse by a matron’s imperious scowl. The kids had already grabbed their food and drink and were streaking back to the site of their game; no one raised a voice to stop them.

  Parrish stood in faint shadow just beneath the canopy’s fringed overhang, his back to the mansion, his hands folded loosely in front of him—a respectful and humble speaker waiting patiently to be recognized. He smiled blandly as the townspeople who remained filled in the gaps between the buffet tables, waiting until the shifting for position was completed, the accidental elbow knocking a cup or a platter placed under control. Someone coughed; someone blew his nose; someone hastily crushed a cigarette under his heel.

  Doug and Liz stopped at the back of the crowd, and she gripped his hand, hard.

  “Winterrest welcomes you,” the realtor said. He seemed to speak in a normal tone, but there was no one who had to crane to hear his words. “May I assume that Mr. and Mrs. Cleary have done their usual fine job?” He paused for a smattering of self-conscious applause to fade with the breeze. “And of course, our equal thanks to the Depot and the lovely proprietress, Miss Lockhart, for the, shall we say, slightly spicey punch?” Again the applause, this time laced through with polite laughter.

  Doug couldn’t see Judith; he imagined she was grinning.

  Parrish cleared his throat.

  The overcast lowered.

  “I will make a third assumption, if you will permit me.” He glanced around the crowd blindly, not caring about eye contact, enveloping them all with a single sweep of his head. “I imagine you have heard by now that certain highly interested and well-financed parties from outside our little community here have made certain inquiries into the availability of Winterrest— for purchase, that is, not for rent.” An uneasy stirring; less people knew than Doug had suspected. “I assure you the respectable concern engaged in these preliminary exploratory inquiries has in mind turning this wonderful old estate into a—how shall I put it?—into a—”

  “Development,” Doug said loudly, ignoring the sudden yank on his left arm, ignoring the alarm he felt by blurting out the word before he had time to think.

  Parrish stretched without taking heel or toe off the ground. Heads turned; there was whispering.

  “What was that?” he asked, a slight frown on his brow.

  “The word you’re looking for,” Doug said, shaking off Liz’s hand. “It’s development. As in Meadow View.”

  “Perhaps, but hardly a common one, Mr. Muir,” Parrish said without a single change in intonation. He paused, and blinked once. “The generous people who will eventually live here should this matter be concluded in the way they wish, will be used to a standard of living quite naturally above what the rest of us are accustomed to.

  “As for Winterrest itself,” he continued, now addressing the guests generally, “it will be something like but definitely not your usual hotel. A clubhouse, so to speak, with accommodations for overnight guests. These magnificent lawns will be completely preserved, except for those sections utilized as a golf course and a relatively small number of tastefully contemporary townhouses and condominiums. I expect, my friends, that as time passes quite a lot of business will be done with the town proper.”

  “Rich or middle class,” Doug said just as loudly, “it’s still a development. High-toned, ticky-tack, no matter how you slice it.”

  Heads swiveled again, the whispering more intense and the looks frankly quizzical.

  Liz yanked his arm a second time, cautioning him with a frown to watch what he said. He didn’t mind the attention, however; Parrish had forced him into speaking out before they could get him alone and make known their objections; and though he saw little support among those facing him, he also did not sense any outright condemnation. They were annoyed with his behavior, not with what he said.

  “The interested parties,” Parrish said, with a nod to note the architect’s objections, “have made this little gathering today possible, in the hopes that you will not dismiss their plans out of hand. They wish you to understand they are neither hostile nor indifferent to your feelings, nor are they desirous of creating any ill will among you.”

  “Where are they, Mr. Parrish,” a man’s deferential voice asked from the crowd. “Do we get to meet them today or what?”

  “In time,” Parrish answered warmly. “In time, sir, in time you will see.”

  “What are their names?” another wanted to know. “Are they from around here?”

  “In time,” Parrish repeated. “For now, let me say only that the duly chosen representatives in this matter are myself,” and he ducked his head modestly, “and the legal firm chaired by Mr. Clark Davermain, of Newton.”

  Liz gasped softly; Doug’s puzzlement grew.

  “Mr. Parrish,” said Nell Cleary, “what’s this all gonna do to our taxes?”

  Wanda Hallman wanted to know if traffic was going to choke up the town, and did anyone know where the hell Bernie was?

  A woman Doug recognized as Archie Mancuso’s mother worried aloud that an influx of new citizens might mean they would have to start building schools, which would raise their taxes and force the creation of a school board which none of them, at the moment, were qualified to man.

  Doug was pleased. If the agitation in the air was as real as it sounded, he may have at least solved one problem today; and if not solved, he had at least driven it out into the open where it could be properly examined. Parrish, however, seemed unaffected by the barrage of questions and comments that grew steadily in volume.

  The canvas above began snapping sharply at their heads; the breeze had returned.

  Liz hissed when he cleared his throat. “Mr. Parrish,” he said, shouting over the heads of the people in front, paying little heed to a woman who wanted her chance to put in a word, “would you mind telling us who owns this place? Who hired you and Clark Davermain to deal with this so-called concern?”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Parrish?” Judith’s unexpected voice was clear, and unforced, and turned Parrish’s gaze away from Doug’s eyes. “Mr. Parrish, excuse me, but isn’t this a matter for a town meeting? You really should have asked for one, you know. This honestly isn’t the time or the place to spring something like this on us. It smacks . . . well, it kind of smacks of coercion, or bribery, you know.”

  Jesus, what the hell is she doing? Doug thought, craning to find her; what’s she trying to prove? Though it appeared as if she were merely consolidating the objections, what she had done was to rob the infant fire of its fuel.

  Parrish, meanwhile, accepted the remarks, and their respectful echoes in the murmurs filling the tent, with evident good grace. A brief lowering of his head in acknowledge
d guilt for a misstep in procedure, raising it again with the first smile Doug had ever seen on his face.

  “Our Miss Lockhart, as usual, gets straight to the point. I will attend to it straight away. Meanwhile, may I suggest we do not insult our host by ignoring all this fine food and drink? You may stay as long as you like, and of course the house is open for your inspection and delight. And please,” he added, a palm raised in caution as the gathering began to fray at the edges, “do please be careful once you are inside. I must ask that you neither bring cigarettes in nor light a match once through the door. Winterrest is expressly preserved as it was in the beginning; we certainly don’t want it to think we are clumsy bulls in a china shop.”

  There was laughter and applause, and Doug stood with Liz as the others milled around them, averting their faces now, not bothering to stop to either decry or declare. He had expected one or the other and was braced for it; he was not prepared to feel the complete absence of caring. It was as if they had been told there was rain in the forecast—any fool can see that, all he had to do was look up.

  Within moments they were alone. The buffet was deserted except for a few stragglers, the rest heading for the tables and chairs, to watch the renewed ball game, or to the queue up at the doorway for their Parrish-guided tour.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said helplessly. “Can you beat that?”

  “Doug,” said Liz, “have you seen Ollie?”

  5:30

  It’s marvelous, Ollie thought in headspinning delirium, her cheeks aching pleasantly as if they were about to split open; it’s absolutely and totally fabulous! I’m making a fool of myself.

  But she didn’t stop grinning, didn’t stop giggling, couldn’t get over the way the men rushed to fetch her food, rushed to fetch her drinks, ate her up and drank her down with their eyes while she stood there in the middle of it all and could feel them, just feel them straining and panting against their little-town morals. Any of them, would have gladly emptied his wallet just to get her alone in the house; any of them would have cut off his right arm just to be able to touch the swell of her breasts.

  Oh god, it was beautiful!

  And that damned sonofabitch ought to be here now, ought to be taking notes on the way his imaginary rivals suddenly weren’t very imaginary anymore. He ought to be here, damnit, to see the way they treated her, to see the way she played peekaboo with her hair, squared her shoulders to position her breasts, stretched the thin muslin over them so they could see, if they looked closely, the lace roses on her bra and the dark shadows of her nipples.

  Oh Christ, the bastard ought to be here!

  If he needed a father for the kid so damned badly, he could take his pick of half the town.

  She drank, then, and ate, and let her constantly changing escorts do most of the talking; she felt her cheeks flush, her neck grow warm, and decided as Parrish came out of the house that she really should go stand with Doug and Liz in case they thought she was pissed at them, too. They had tried their best to make things easier for her, tried to show her how wrong she was to get so hysterical over . . . well, maybe not exactly nothing, but not the end of the world, either.

  It definitely wasn’t the end of the world.

  God, it had taken her hours last night to find the right screws for her head, the right way to reset it so she was thinking straight for a change and not having bastard Bud do it all for her. Hours and hours, and now, though she wasn’t drunk, she was feeling no pain and feeling the best she had since . . . since God only knew when.

  She covered her mouth with a palm to stifle a guilty laugh. If Bud had thought the goods were tainted before—him and his damned paranoia flushing it down the damned toilet—he should see the colors her secret stash was giving her now: all those greens sometimes so bright they made her eyes water, all those golds shimmering and swimming on the circus tent, all those incredible blacks up there in the sky, like holes opening onto the soul of the universe, showing how it really was and whispering to her that she knew more than she thought.

  All the colors, all the sounds, and the beautiful feeling that her stomach had grown, that she was much like a woman only days from her term.

  For a moment, when Doug first interrupted Parrish’s speech, she felt a twinge in her abdomen and shook it off as too much rum and set her glass down—it was too soon for the kid to do anything but swim around in there and have himself a good time before the world crashed into sight.

  By the time the speech was over (it was too bad she hadn’t heard any of it), there was this nice man who looked a lot like Judy’s bartender in the godawfulest pink shirt and silly white pants who seemed determined to hand-measure the circumference of her waist and the diameters of her breasts; he breathed something she couldn’t understand into her ear that made her lungs fill with fire, made her head giddy, and she was about to turn around and introduce herself when the twinge came again.

  She winced, swallowed a moan, and ran a soothing hand over the swelling.

  It was bigger. God, it was bigger.

  The twinge became a streak of pain across her gut.

  She gasped and grabbed hastily for the edge of the nearest table, shaking her head when Gil Clay asked if she needed any help. It would be all right; all she had to do was find a chair and stop her damned drinking. Christ, she’d have to remember she had a kid to watch out for now, and all this slurping the sauce wasn’t going to do her a bit of good.

  There wasn’t a chair nearby, and the pain arrowed up her spine and into her brain. She whimpered, and whispered Bud’s name, looked around to find Doug, to find Liz, and found herself staring into Eban Parrish’s eyes.

  “My dear Miss West, aren’t you feeling well?”

  Her brave smile was replaced by a squeak of pain. She shook her head.

  “Oh my poor dear,” he said solicitously, his eyes abruptly filled with concern. “Well, we certainly can’t have you giving birth right here in the middle of the party, can we? Good heavens, I shouldn’t think so. It’s much too soon, am I correct?”

  “Yes,” she said, and almost added “mummy,’ but he was being so kind she swallowed the word instead.

  “As I thought,” he said, and put an arm around her waist (funny how strong these little guys can be) and took hold of one hand (funny how cold those fingers can be). Smiling, and murmuring unintelligible words of comfort, he guided her across the lawn and into the house.

  The central hallway ran the width of the mansion, and before she could protest, he had brought her closer to the front, the wall on the right plastered and divided with thin pale beams above black walnut wainscoting, the wall on the left painted white and faintly marked with fingerstreaks of dust. The light was dim but not uncomfortably so, glowing from glass-globed gaslamps now harboring light bulbs in the shape of quivering candle flames.

  “Mr. Parrish,” she managed at last, “I’m all right now, really.”

  He shook his head at her display of courage. “You young women these days certainly do have your stamina. But,” he continued with a raised finger, “may I be presumptuous enough to suggest a short rest before you attempt the walk home? After all, you must think for two now, isn’t that correct?”

  “Well . . .” She supposed he was right, after all. A little too much attention, perhaps too much of that punch. She guessed it wouldn’t do any harm at all to lie down for a while. A nap. Until the dizziness went away and she could stand alone again.

  “Fine, that’s fine.” His voice was eager, two hands scrubbing each other.

  They climbed the narrow staircase to a landing which branched left and right to a hallway above. The stairwell was encircled by a low oaken balustrade, and she leaned on it at his direction while they made their way to the front corridor and turned right, where he opened the front door.

  “Oh . . . my,” she said, blinking away the light from the single high window. “This is . . . weird.”

  The room was small, its ceiling low, the bed Parrish indicated stretching ou
t from the lefthand wall barely her size. A wood canopy extended over the frame, a red and black quilt covered a thick mattress. A mahogany wardrobe took up most of the space beside the door, a straight-backed chair next to the window the only other piece of furniture in the room.

  There were no pictures on the walls, but cracks in the plaster formed faces and creatures and rivers of shadow.

  “They were, as you can see, much smaller in those days than we are now,” he explained as he assisted her onto the bed, fluffed the pillows and waited until she lay prone. Her ankles rested just on the footboard. “Even I, who am certainly not very tall by today’s standards, feel obliged to duck each time I enter one of these little rooms.”

  She looked to the window—the sill-length white curtains had been tied back, and she could see the wall, the highway, and the trees on the other side. The sky was considerably darker, gloom spilling through the panes until Parrish turned on the light switch. It wasn’t much better, there was only one wall lamp beside the door, but it helped. She smiled her thanks.

  “I shall leave the door open for you, of course,” he said solemnly. “And I will have Mrs. Cleary—I think you know Nell, don’t you?—look in on you in half an hour. I would hope that by that time you will be feeling much better.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, thanks.”

  Her eyelids felt uncommonly weighted, sand scraped at the corners, and she astonished herself by yawning the moment the old man left her.

  “Too much,” she said quietly. “This is really too much.”

  She yawned a second time, and tears filled her eyes.