She straightened and smoothed the dress down and her mirrored reflection no longer looked inviting and smug, but humiliated and degraded. The saleswoman was chattering over her, and she murmured an apology and almost ran into the dressing room, her moments of happiness over for the day.
It kept coming to her, daily. And now, today, It had been stronger than ever before. She felt ravaged, brutally so, and still it was not over. Their anniversary party was tonight, their first, and she had been trying to prepare for it.
The Hate danced around the kitchen as she prepared the food, picking up everyday items in its whirlwind path and turning them into monstrous creations with a will of their own. Eggs broke as she picked them up; the lettuce withered as she touched it; the wine turned to vinegar as she added it to the cream sauce. It was everywhere and everything. It was becoming stronger with every passing minute. She stood there crying, fighting it with all within her, stolidly keeping her hands moving with the miniscule details of the party. She swore she would not let It have this night.
"Everything is done now," she screamed at It. "You can't undo what is done!" She ran out of the kitchen and ran upstairs to ready herself for the party.
In the shower the Hate joined her, crowding her into a corner, pushing, shoving. It turned off the cold water and she screamed again as she felt the scalding hot water pouring onto her body. She tried to reach the faucets, but It was there between her and the wall, fencing her in with its attempt to prevent her reaching them. Finally she succeeded, and she leaned against the wall, moaning with the agony of the light and the pain.
She dressed slowly, as the Hate sat on the bed and laughed. Its hostility was all around her, there was an oppressive weight of it in the air. She could sense it, taste it, smell it; yet she could not make it take substance. All day it had been building, building until now she gasped for air with the heaviness of it.
She seated herself at the dressing table. Her powder puff, already dipped in powder, was in her hand, but the Hate held it motionless; stopped as a movie is stopped into a still life picture, complete, yet not complete in its tale.
She gazed at the mirror, her eyes searching the turnabout reflection as though hoping to see the Hate in form. A shiver went through her, for there was nothing, nothing but her own reflection, yet she sat looking, searching.
The door opened and Jeff stuck his head into the room.
"Almost ready? Everyone will be here soon. Come down and have a drink with me, Okay?"
Nadine's eyes slowly turned to Jeff. She had kept him unaware of what had been happening all these months. Her eyes remained clouded for a moment and then cleared.
"I'll be right down," she answered. Turning back to the mirror she raised the puff—and was able to pat her nose with it. She stood up, putting the puff slowly down. She drew a deep breath and left the room, closing the door to keep the Hate inside, although she knew it wouldn't help.
She could hear the guests arriving as she crossed the vestibule.
"Damn, I won't even have time for a drink first," she thought as she turned back to the door to let them in.
Sally and Bill were the first ones to arrive. Breathless as always, Sally came in going directly to the living room without pausing to take off her coat. Marching herself to the table with the hors d'oeuvres she Oohed and Aahed over it, taking a nibble here and there as proof of its appetizing looks.
By the time Nadine had retrieved Sally's coat, and hung it in the closet the next guests had arrived. For a few minutes she was kept busy and so was Jeff, hanging coats and murmuring the words of greeting that come automatically without thought.
Her mind was not on her guests. She could not get the heavy feeling of fear to leave her. As soon as she could, she escaped from the room to the kitchen where she leaned weakly against the counter. Waves of sickness kept rising in her, flooding through her.
"Oh, God," she thought. "What is the matter with me? I feel as though I am going to die."
She stood there a moment more gathering her strength for the night's ordeal. Then taking another platter of canapes, she pushed through the swinging door to face her guests.
No sooner had she entered the room when—IT HIT HER FULL FORCE. Panic stricken she stood there, the tray held precariously tipped in her hands. It came in wave after wave, strong, stronger than ever.
"Tonight's the night." The thought drummed into her head. "It is going to be tonight."
The Hate swept across the room smothering her with gale-like force. It lifted the tray of canapes from her with a quick surge of power.
They fell to the floor. Everyone turned to look and she quickly bent to hide the whiteness that masked her face. In the confusion of hands trying to help her pick up the food and bits, she felt the Hate break and little chills of silent laughter took its place. The laughter was almost as bad as the Hate for it mocked and derided her. As she stood up her eyes quickly searched the room over the heads of those still helping her. Who had come in while she was in the kitchen? She kept searching the faces of the guests as they sauntered about the room, looking for some sign of the mockery, something that might show the Hate that pursued her with such malice.
Pat and Cheri had come in. Cheri had been Jeff's girl before the quick summer romance that ended in Nadine and Jeff's marriage. Linda and Gus? Gus was Jeff's partner. Florence and Stan, her in-laws, had arrived too. Florence came over and hugged her. Stan handed her their gift. As she opened it, she thought to herself, "Funny, I'm like two different people . . . I never knew a person could carry on a normal conversation while her mind was on other things." The gift was a beautifully matched string of pearls for her and a matching set of pearl cuff links for Jeff. She turned around automatically as Florence hooked the clasp on them and kissed her saying, ". . . these are for the girl my son loves."
Nowhere was there a sign of the Hate. It had left the room quietly as though it had never existed. But Nadine knew better. She knew it was waiting, somewhere.
". . . so there I was in the middle of Main Street and the light had already turned red so I couldn't go back, and there you were holding onto a lamppost, crying, Nadine. Whatever was wrong, anyway? . . ." the words took form to her mind and she looked up to see Linda standing beside her with a cocktail glass in her hand, expectant—waiting for an answer. The room had grown silent. Evidently the words she had returned to awareness on had not been the first ones describing yesterday's episode with the Hate. Even Jeff had come to stand beside her, looking at her strangely.
"Hey, sweet? How come you never mentioned it?" he asked concernedly.
"Oh, it wasn't very important," she answered. "I just got a little dizzy all of a sudden."
She felt the Hate sweep back into the room again, laughing. It was mocking her, laughing at her excuse.
She turned to Jeff and smiled up at him.
"Darling, let's have some champagne now," she whispered.
Jeff grinned and put his arm around her saying, dramatically,
"I guess this is the moment we have all been waiting for."
Her father-in-law, Stan, walked over to them. In his hand was a bottle of champagne Florence had saved from that they served at the wedding. He popped the cork, and poured a silver goblet full. Taking the goblet from his father, Jack turned to her. The guests were all around them, smiling, smiling.
"Darling, this champagne was saved for today, remember?"
"Yes, I remember. I love you more now than I ever did then," she quietly said.
"That's the way it should be. Me, too."
He held the goblet out to her. "You first. Then I will drink from it just as we did one year ago, to show how we'll always share things in life."
Not everything. Not the horror, her mind whispered. But she took the goblet and drank deeply of it. And then the Hate was there and it was maniacal in its strength.
She felt the Hate tear into her, twisting her insides and tearing, tearing at her, and the necklace seemed to tighten—tighten unbearab
ly. She gagged and choked as the liquid burned a path down her spasmed throat and she knew it wasn't a love cup—it was a Hate cup. As the room swam around her, she fell and Jeff crouched over her, his tears falling on her tortured face and then—she saw the Hate, saw it unmasked.
In a way, it was almost good to have it over with, to know finally whose Hate was that strong. It was a relief to see the look that could kill and as the darkness closed in the last thing that she heard came like a shadowy whisper over the mocking laughter ringing in her ears, saying . . . "Now my son is mine again!"
A QUIET GAME by Celia Fremlin
It was not Hilda who first talked of being driven mad up there in the high flats, far above the noise of the traffic and the bustle of the crowds. On the contrary, it was her neighbours who complained to her about the stresses. "It's driving me up the wall!" said her neighbour on the right: and "I can't stand it any longer!" said her neighbour on the left: and "I'll go out of my mind!" said the woman in the flat below.
But not Hilda. Hilda was the young one, the busy one. From the point of view of the neighbours it was she who was the cause and origin of all the stresses. She wasn't the one who was being driven mad, Oh no! That's what they would all have told you.
But madness has a rhythm of its own up there so near to the clouds; a rhythm that at first you would not recognize, so near is it, in the beginning, to the rhythms of ordinary, cheerful life . . .
"What's the time, Mr. Wolf? What's the time, Mr. Wolf?" Thumpty-thump-thump-thump. Thumpty-thump-thump-thump . . . The twins' shrill little voices, the thud of their firm sandalled feet reverberated through the door of the kitchenette and brought Hilda to a sudden halt in the midst of the morning's wash. Her arms elbow-deep in warm detergent, she just stood there, while the familiar, helpless anger rose slowly from the pit of her stomach.
She would have to stop them, of course; the innocent, happy little game would have to be brought once more to a halt by yet another "No!" And quickly too, before Mrs. Walters in the flat below came up to protest; before Mr. Peters on the right tapped on the wall; before Miss Rice on the left leaned across the balcony to complain of her head and to tell Hilda how well children were brought up in her young days.
Miss Rice's young days were all very well; in those days children had space for play and romping. If they were rich they had fields and lawns and nurseries and schoolrooms; if they were poor, they had at least the streets and the alleyways. But today's children, the sky-dwellers of the affluent twentieth century, where could they go to run, to shout, to fulfil their childhood?
All day long, up here in the blue emptiness of the sky, Hilda had to deprive her children, minute by minute, of everything that matters in childhood. They must not run, or jump, or laugh, or sing, or dance. They must not play hide-and-seek, or cowboys and Indians, or fling themselves with shrieks of joy into piles of cushions. Except when she could find time to take them to the distant park, they must sit still, like chronic invalids, growing dull and pale over television and picture books.
"What's the time, Mr. Wolf? . . . One o'clock . . . two o'clock . . . three o'clock." Thumpty-thump-thump-thump. Hilda had a vision of the sturdy little thighs in identical navy shorts, stamping purposefully round and round the room, little faces alight with the intoxication of rhythm and with the mounting excitement of the approaching climax.—
Before this climax—before the wild shriek of "Dinnertime, Mr. Wolf!" rent the silence of the flats, Hilda would have to go in and spoil it all. "Martin! Sally!" she would have to say, "You really must be quieter. Why don't you get out your colouring books, and come and sit quietly? Come along, now, over here at the table." And she would have to watch the bright little faces grow tearful, hear the merry chanting voices take on the whine of boredom; watch the firm, taut little muscles relinquish their needed exercise and grow flaccid as they sat . . . and sat . . . and sat. It was wicked, it was cruel . . .
"Mrs. Meredith? Could I speak to you for a minute, Mrs. Meredith?"
So. Already she had left it too late. Here was Miss Rice out on her balcony, hand on brow, headache poised like a weapon, and already sure of her victory.
"It's not that I want to complain," she began, as she began every morning, "and if it was just for myself, I suppose I'd try to put up with it, but it's Mrs. Walters, she hasn't been too well either, and it's driving her up the wall, it really is, all this hammer, hammer, hammer. She's just phoned through to me, asked if I could have a word with you, save her coming up the stairs with her bad knee."
Bad knees. Headaches. Not-too-well-ness. These were the weapons by which happy little four-year-olds could be crushed and broken; there was no defence against them.
"I'm sorry," said Hilda despairingly; and again, "I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry . . ."
The twins had been settled at their colouring books for nearly an hour before Mrs. Walters below rang up to inquire if Hilda couldn't somehow stop that boom-boom noise? "Boom-boom-boom," the clipped voice mimicked explanatorily down the wire. "It goes right through my nerves, Mrs. Meredith, it really does. I can't think what they can be doing, little kiddies like that, I can't think what they can be doing."
Firing cannon? Riding roller-coasters round the room? No, it turned out to be Sally's energetic rubbing-out of her drawing of a cat. It wobbled the table, it set the floor vibrating.
"No, Sally, don't use the rubber any more, just colour it as it is, there's a good girl."
"No, Martin you must keep your dinky-car on the rug. Mrs. Walters will hear it on the linoleum."
"No, Sally, leave that chair where it is, we don't want Mr. Peters knocking on the wall again."
No . . . No . . . No . . . Two lively little creatures reduced to tears and tempers, to sobbing, hopeless boredom.
Nevertheless, it wasn't Hilda saying, "I can't stand it!" It was Miss Rice. And Mr. Peters. And Mrs. Walters.
Autumn passed into winter, and it was less and less often possible to take the twins to the park. Their bounding morning spirits had to be crushed earlier and earlier in the day. The search for a quiet game, for something that wouldn't annoy the neighbours, became a day-long preoccupation for Hilda; but in spite of all her efforts nothing, nothing seemed quiet enough; for still, without respite, came the voices, from above, below, on every side: "Really, Mrs. Meredith, if you could keep them a little quieter . . ."
"Mrs. Meredith, I don't want to complain, but . . ."
"Mrs. Meredith, sometimes I think it's a herd of elephants you've got up there . . ."
"It's not that I don't love kiddies, Mrs. Meredith, but that's not the same as letting them grow up little hooligans, is it, Mrs. Meredith?"
"It's my head, Mrs. Meredith."
"It's my nerves, Mrs. Meredith."
"I've not been feeling too well, Mrs. Meredith."
So No, No, No, all through the grey November days. No, Martin. Stop it, Sally. No. No! No! No! The twins grew whiney and quarrelsome; their sturdy little legs looked thinner, their faces paler.
And still it wasn't Hilda who said "I can't stand it!" It was Miss Rice. And Mr. Peters. And Mrs. Walters.
It was the new carpet that gave her the idea; the new square of carpet brought to deaden the sound of footsteps in the hallway. It was not really new, it was second-hand and somewhat worn, but the twins were enchanted by it. They had never seen a Persian carpet before, and for a whole afternoon there was silence so absolute that not a word of complaint came from above or from below or from either side. From lunchtime till dusk, Martin and Sally crouched on the carpet examining every brown and crimson flower, every purple scroll and every pinkish coil of leaves. Hilda felt quite light-headed with happiness; a whole afternoon with the twins truly enjoying themselves and the neighbours not complaining!
"It's a magic carpet," she told them, hopefully, when she saw that their interest was beginning to flag. "Why don't you sit on it and shut your eyes, and it'll take you to wonderful places! See? Off it goes! You're flying off above the rooftops now, you'r
e looking down, and you can see all the houses, and the streets, and the trains . . ."
"And the Zoo!" chimed in Sally. "I can see the Zoo and all the animals in it. I can see tigers and lions . . ."
"And now we're over the sea!" squealed Martin. "I can see the whales and the submarines and—and—Oh, Look! Look Sally, I can see an island! Let's stop at that island, let's go and live there!"
The game took hold. The perfect quiet game had been found at last. Hour after hour the twins would sit on the carpet travelling from land to land, and seeing strange and wonderful sights as they went. They would land in Siberia, or at the South Pole, or on a South Sea Island, where wild adventures would befall them, and they only escaped in time to fly home for tea.
But their favourite destination of all was Inkoo Land. In Inkoo Land there were tiny elephants just big enough to ride on; there were twisty, knobbly trees, wonderful for climbing; trees from which you could pick every kind of fruit in the world. There were wide spaces of grass to run on, there was a jungle to play hide-and-seek in, there were monkeys who talked monkey-language, and Sally and Martin learned it too, with fantastic speed and ease; and then they played with the monkeys, swinging from branch to branch through the green, sun-spangled forests.
But always, in the end, they had to come home; they grew tired of sitting even on a magic carpet; and the moment they disembarked and set foot on the floor, the voices would start again, from all round:—
"It's my head, Mrs. Meredith."
"It's my nerves, Mrs. Meredith."
"It's not what I'm used to, Mrs. Meredith, it's making me ill, it really is!"
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