Yet she can ignore the night. She is not disturbed by the thought of prowling cats, who move so confidently and silently through the darkness. She doesn’t seem to realize that night creatures cannot be trusted, and sometimes I must cry out to warn her that strangers are dangerously close.
Perhaps she would sleep less soundly if she were not protected by this elaborate house. I find the house fascinating and comfortable, but it does not make me feel secure. It contains many traces of former inhabitants—people who will never return. Obviously it is the house that is safe and permanent; not those who live in it.
Each night, before the old lady is ready to sleep, she opens the back door and lets me go out into the night. My bladder contracts, my nostrils dilate, and I rush about the redolent, overgrown yard. In the darkness there are no visual distractions. I put my nose to the ground and concentrate fully on the scents that seem so rich in contrast to the staleness of the house.
I go first to the spot where I often find fresh rat droppings. I leave my own scent there, hardly taking time to raise my leg. There is so much territory to examine, and the old lady allows me so little time. There are nights, particularly when I have found traces of an unidentifiable creature, when she must force me back into the house, pulling at my collar and whining at me impatiently.
We go upstairs then. She locks herself in the bathroom and does the things that I am not allowed to witness. I lie on the bed and recall the experiences I have just had. There was a time when these recollections would stay with me all night. But now, after the old woman is in bed and her breathing has become noisy, I leave the bedroom. I go down to the living-room, my claws clicking on the shiny bare wood of the stairs. I go to the window and watch the house across the street until it is in darkness.
Then I lie on the sofa and think of the couple. I wait to hear the faint, peculiar sounds they make in the darkness. If I were living with them I think there would be no acts I would not be allowed to witness.
I go back up the stairs and sit at the side of the old woman’s bed. I stare at her dim figure. I listen to her harsh breathing. And I wait for morning.
Two
One of the things Mrs. Prescott resented about Baxter was the way he interfered with her morning routine. After the death of her husband she had formed the habit of awakening slowly, letting consciousness come and go in irregular waves. Her first thoughts were no longer of someone else’s needs, but of herself and the present moment.
She had never been a sensual person, and she had seldom been expected to behave like one. Yet she had begun to rediscover in the first moments of consciousness each morning the pleasures of simple sensation. It pleased her to notice the slightly cooler temperature of her body below the line where her nightgown ended. There were mornings when the nightgown had worked itself almost up to her waist, and she felt a sexual pleasure that, although mild, was more meaningful than any she had experienced with a man. I am, she would think, a person who appreciates subtleties.
Also, in these moments, she enjoyed opening her eyes partially and briefly—not enough to allow an image to register, but just enough to let herself feel the complex process of vision begin. The simple perception of formless light pleased her.
At such times she occasionally wondered whether she might be something other than the commonplace person she seemed to herself when fully awake.
Baxter’s arrival ended such speculation. He was there beside her bed each morning, whimpering and bringing her immediately into the reality of the world they shared. What exactly did they share? He was at her bedside now. When she opened her eyes his whimpering stopped, and his tail began to scrape back and forth across the floor.
He’s pleased that I’m awake, she thought. But would he be any less pleased if I were some other person? She had sometimes wondered the same thing about her husband and her children. She was the one who fed them and consoled them, and they were grateful in varying degrees. Perhaps they had even loved her, but if so it was a destructive love—not the harmless kind of affection she sensed in Baxter.
Mrs. Prescott looked into the dog’s strange eyes. It stared at her with a directness she had never seen in a human expression. She remembered how her husband had seldom looked directly into her eyes. He had looked at her face as if it had been her elbow. Her eyes could have been plaster; a detail of an uninteresting surface.
It was in this bedroom that he had first seen her without her clothes. He asked her to stand before him. He stared at her for perhaps five minutes, his gaze never moving above her shoulders until he noticed the tears falling on to her breasts.
Baxter could never insult me in that way, she thought. She drew back the covers and stood up. The dog ran excitedly to the doorway and stopped, waiting for her to follow him down the stairs. Instead of following him, she stood in the center of the floor and removed her nightgown. She watched Baxter carefully. He was staring into her eyes. She smiled and reached for her robe.
From the sidewalk came the tapping and scraping of Mr. Cuzzo’s cane. Each morning he moved slowly and noisily along the street, displaying his pain to the neighborhood, mumbling about the past. Mrs. Prescott had never liked him, but she did respect the fact that he paid young men to paint and repair his house, to cut the lawn, and to plant flowers. It disturbed her that he could no longer walk to the end of the block, but that was because he was only two years older than she was.
Baxter whined. Mrs. Prescott tightened the belt of her robe and walked out of her bedroom. The dog usually ran down the stairs ahead of her, but this morning he did not seem to want to leave her. She paused at the head of the stairs, as she did each morning. It was the moment when she was reminded of the beauty of the old house. She had seldom in her life been offered the tributes that people pay to personal beauty. And she mistrusted those who made such gestures. The dog rubbed against her ankle. Perhaps I have been wrong, she thought.
And then Baxter circled behind her. Before she could turn to see why he was hesitating, she felt his weight against her calves. Her knees bent, and she pitched forward.
As she twisted, trying to regain her balance, she caught a glimpse of Baxter. She wondered whether his eyes were reflecting betrayal or stupidity. Her right hand brushed against the oak paneling she had polished so many times. And for a moment that seemed the longest of her life, she was suspended in the space of the old house. I have loved it, she thought. Her left hand reached for the rungs of the ornately carved banister, but they were beyond her grip. The ceiling moved slowly before her eyes, then the landing window, which was glowing in the morning light. How satisfying to see these things now, to be engulfed by them. And then the stairs. She had never wanted them carpeted. They were strong and handsome, and now the polished oak was just inches from her head. She closed her eyes and drew in her breath. There was a faint aroma of floor polish. She smiled. ‘I was not wrong,’ she whispered.
2
Mr. Cuzzo paused, leaning on his cane and squinting at the Prescott house. He had always considered a dog’s bark the ugliest of all noises. What had come over Eileen Prescott? She had never been one to tolerate ugliness around her, and yet she was allowing that creature to stand on her sofa and make that unbearable noise. She was getting old.
He put both hands on the cane and rested the bulge of his stomach against it. He wanted to go on, but he was unable even to inch forward now. Without the cane he would not have been able to stand. He waited for his strength to return, and he thought of Eileen Prescott. An unattractive woman who disliked unattractiveness in others. A healthy woman who disliked those who were unhealthy. She had never allowed Mr. Cuzzo to like her. He never saw her without remembering that day in her garage. They had been wearing bathing suits. How old had he been? Ten? She had laughed at what he showed her. Did she ever remember that? Probably not. And perhaps it was wrong of him to remember such trivialities; wrong to watch, as he did, for the signs of her decline.
But there were mornings as he passed her house
when he imagined alarming growths developing on her body; when he listened attentively for a cough. When they met on the street he questioned her carefully about the past, waiting for the day when she would hesitate and look confused.
He was encouraged when the dog began to live with her. It was perhaps the first crack in the wall of her independence. Now there was no doubt of it. The dog was beyond her control. How could she stand that yowling? And then it occurred to Mr. Cuzzo that the dog might be trying to get his attention. Maybe something was wrong. He pushed against his cane, moving his weight fully on to his legs, and turning to face the dog.
It barked without pause, clawing at the window. Obviously it was desperate, and obviously Mrs. Prescott would have stopped it if she had been able to. Mr. Cuzzo was helpless. His strength was not returning. He leaned once more against his cane and stared at the dog. So ugly. This was the creature she allowed to love her.
Mr. Cuzzo’s eyes were moist.
3
I suppose they have become dominant merely because there are so many of them. There is no other explanation. They are so awkward and defenseless. The woman was old, I admit, but even if she had been younger she wouldn’t have been agile enough to recover her balance. There can be no doubt it is a mistake to walk upright. If the old woman had walked on all fours, or at least had crouched, she would not be lying twisted and unbreathing on the landing now.
It was a minute or two before her breathing stopped. She murmured something in those last moments—not the noises one makes when in pain, but the monotonous gabble that she and her kind make almost continuously. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why they are so devoted to making those sounds. It may be that they comfort and reassure themselves that way. They are very insecure.
I believe the couple are still in their house. I want them to be the ones to discover what has happened. I want them to take me to their house. The old fat man has heard me, but he won’t come to see what has happened. He is a useless creature. If he had to find his own food he could not survive more than a few days. The steps to the front porch are as forbidding to him as if they were a wall of flame. Yet someone tolerates him; is loyal to him. People have a great capacity for loyalty to those who seem to depend on them. I have benefitted from that loyalty, but I don’t understand it. Urinate on their carpets, chew up one of the objects they endlessly accumulate. They sometimes punish, but in their loyalty they always forgive. Does their loyalty have any limits? Some day I’ll know. Soon, perhaps.
Three
John and Nancy Grafton lay half awake, listening to the sound of muffled barking. The windows behind them were bright with leaf-filtered sunlight. The covers were thrown back, and their bodies were faintly striped with shadows cast by the vertical bars at the head of the massive brass bed. John disliked the bed. It stood high off the floor, isolating and confining. It was designed by someone with strange attitudes, he thought. A device for punishment, or at least for pleasures that didn’t match his. Bars to which wrists and ankles could be tied.
His wife liked the bed, as she liked the elaborate relic of a house that contained it. Her world was more palpable than his. It pleased her to notice the worn edges of the stairs, to imagine the people who had walked there before her.
Her world was also moral. It was not necessarily a virtuous world, but it was one that allowed the possibility of individual virtue. John had always behaved well by most standards, but the standards were never his own. Last year, in graduate school, he came to realize that he was the kind of person who would never have his own standards; he would do what others expected of him: his parents, his teachers, his friends, policemen, sales clerks, almost anyone. Even pets.
He had decided his only chance for happiness was to concentrate on pleasing only one person: the best person he knew. That person was Nancy, who had brought them to this town and had introduced him to the kind of happiness that resulted from limited choices. Only occasionally did he recall that many people who were honored and remembered had not been happy people.
His pleasure was intense this morning. He was pleased merely to have Nancy lying beside him. She was awake now, he knew, although she had not moved or spoken. He sensed the slight tension that consciousness had brought to her body, and he sensed her sexual arousal. She would speak soon. Words were part of the sex act for her: a prologue and epilogue. Aural sex. Her words would be commonplace or frivolous, but her intention would be serious.
‘You don’t like dogs, do you?’ she asked.
‘Sensible people don’t.’
John opened his eyes and turned his head slightly to look at her unfamiliarly thick body. She was four months pregnant. Her hand lay on the receding curve of her belly, her fingertips moving slowly across her sparse, reddish pubic hair. He replaced her hand with his own.
Nancy shivered. The dog was howling now. It was the old woman’s dog. She remembered meeting them on the street. They had seemed so strange together: the old woman careful, resentful; the dog affectionate, uninhibited. Its cold nose against her foot. Moist.
‘What’s wrong with dogs?’
‘They’re parasites. They inspire third-rate emotions.’
He likes dogs, Nancy thought. This is a game. He’s inventing pleasures. ‘What else?’ she asked.
‘They defecate in public.’
‘Yes.’
‘And copulate.’
‘Yes, my darling.’
Her eyes were closed. The bed creaked slightly as her husband’s weight shifted. Then his cheek was on her thigh. Abrasive, bristly.
He mumbled, ‘They sniff. They lick.’
‘Yes, my darling.’
Soon she rolled over on to her stomach. Her hands grasped the bars at the head of the bed. And then she was kneeling.
‘You wouldn’t want a dog?’ she asked.
‘It would watch us.’
‘Yes, my dearest, it would watch.’ She lowered her head, her hair spilling across the pillow. ‘What would it think?’
‘The unspeakable.’ He was behind her, his hands on her hips.
‘Yes. Oh, yes.’
‘Bitch. My bitch.’
2
On the street below, in the shadow of the elms, Mr. Cuzzo leaned on his cane and stared at Mrs. Prescott’s window. The dog’s pale, baying head was dimly visible behind the curtains. To the old man, through his tears, the animal looked ghostly and more sinister than anything he had ever seen.
3
‘Young man?’
Mr. Cuzzo watched gratefully as John Grafton stepped out of his front door.
‘Young man, I need your help.’ How easily he moves, the old man thought. How long did it take him to get ready to leave the house? No surgical appliances to put in place. No salves to apply; no capsules to swallow; no special diet to prepare. Coffee. A few clothes.
‘What can I do for you?’ John asked. He respected the old man, for he realized his mere appearance on the street was an act of courage. But he preferred not to look at him.
‘There’s something wrong in Mrs. Prescott’s house.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure. It’s the dog. She’d stop it if she could.’
John thought Mr. Cuzzo was probably mistaken; just searching for drama. ‘You’d better rest,’ he said, and helped him to the porch. He lowered him to the steps, grasping an arm that felt like a rubber tube not quite full of water. ‘Shall I call the police?’
‘No. Go in.’
‘Is that legal?’
‘It’s necessary.’
The barking was louder, harsher.
John went up the steps and tried the front door. It was locked. He walked across the porch to the window, brushing against an old glider that was suspended from rusty chains. The glider moved gently from side to side. Mr. Cuzzo watched it, remembering an evening when he had sat there with Mrs. Prescott (Miss Haley then). He had not known what to say to her, and he was afraid to touch her. They had rocked slowly amid the sounds of cric
kets and the neighbors’ radios.
John pushed on the window-frame. It moved slowly upward. Baxter stopped barking and began to lick the man’s hands.
The house was silent.
John called out, ‘Mrs. Prescott?’
Across the street his wife stood on their porch, looking uneasily at him.
John moved awkwardly through the window and over the sofa. The dog ran to the foot of the stairs and sat looking back at him.
John stood in the center of the room. It’s like a church, he thought: substantial, under-used; a place for ceremonies.
It was much like the house his wife had chosen for them. It was a choice he objected to at first, sensing something idle and romantic in it; a feature article in a Sunday supplement. But he knew his sense of place had always been feeble. He had lived in city apartments, college dormitories, country cabins, and the only difference he noticed was in degrees of comfort. He believed it was a weakness to have one’s moods and thoughts affected significantly by one’s surroundings.
He started towards the waiting dog, but paused before the marble-mantled fireplace, which was crowded with photographs. He felt a sense of guilt and discomfort in staring at these preserved private moments. The pictures were not the decorative work of professional photographers; they were harshly lighted images of people staring at other people. Mrs. Prescott was in most of the snapshots, plain, distrustful, her hands never relaxed.
Baxter barked.
John went to stand next to the dog at the foot of the stairs. On the landing, extending over the top stair, was Mrs. Prescott’s hand, relaxed and graceful as it had never been in life. John walked slowly up the stairs and took Mrs. Prescott’s wrist in his fingers. He avoided looking directly at her body, but he was aware of a grotesquely twisted leg protruding from a worn robe. After a minute he went down to the telephone and asked the operator for the number of the nearest hospital.
Hell Hound Page 2
