“Good night, Anna,” I said.
I looked at my watch and noticed that it was only a little after ten. I put some coffee on and prepared to reread Titus Groan, one of the world’s great oddball books in that wonderful Mervyn Peake trilogy of the castle Gormenghast.
I heard the truck’s engine heave into life, roar as the accelerator was revved. I looked out the window as the truck’s lights went on, blazing in a swirl of fine snow. The truck shook as it backed up, snow falling from its sides. The wipers cut small, myopic arcs, and the truck lurched forward again, its tires spewing snow. Sliding faintly to the left, it turned under the porch light.
Anna was at the wheel. I knew it was her without seeing into the frosted cab. A shadow was all I needed. The truck swung down the driveway, fishtailing, picking up speed. I watched the taillights dwindle and suddenly jump into empty night.
I didn’t panic. I poured coffee into a thermos, dressed as warmly as I could, and turned off all the lights before I stepped out into the storm, closing the door behind me.
14
Before the snow had begun to fall, Richard Parrish watched his wife leave. He blinked down at her from the upstairs window, assured that she couldn’t see him. If she didn’t come back in for a last goodby, he wouldn’t have to hit her. He didn’t want to hit her, because, almost certainly, he would have to keep hitting her, and he didn’t want to do that, because he had more important things to do.
He watched her put the suitcases in the trunk. She was wearing a big, black fur coat that made her appear broad-shouldered and ungainly. Goddam skinny broad, not his type, full of thin suffering. A woman should have some flesh on her bones. Like Anna Shockley—the woman he had always loved.
Jane Solomon looked up and Parrish stepped away from the window.
She stopped looking at the window and got in the car and drove away. Parrish watched the car turn a corner, then he went downstairs.
He poured himself a drink and looked up at the ceiling. He gulped down the drink. Time to get on with it. He hauled the trunks down from the attic and carried them out to the backyard. He opened the trunks and spilled the notebooks and black volumes into the crumbling fireplace. He went back into the house, into his study, breathing rapidly, sweating from exertion, and brought the last of the diaries out. He poured kerosene over the books, his hands shaking. He was nervous but resolute. Time to put away childish things. He struck the match and it seemed to leap of its own accord, flames bursting over his past.
His heart was rocked by a blast of panic when, momentarily, the books defied the flames, went untouched by the sheath of fire. Then they began to writhe, to curl and explode, exhaling black, evil smoke.
Parrish watched the smoke roll toward the sky. His wife was divorcing him, and old Solomon was no longer an ally—the son of a bitch had suggested that Parrish take a leave of absence.
“We can settle this thing out of court,” Solomon had said. “I realize that you’ve done nothing wrong, but they’ve documented their side of it, blood tests, doctors’ affidavits, even someone on the hospital staff. Jenkins says they can make it unpleasant, and in this business, allegations alone can ruin us. The public is a hanging jury.”
At the time Solomon had said that, Jane hadn’t yet announced her intentions to leave. This new development would simplify matters for her old man. The next phone call from Solomon would, Parrish knew, dispense with tact. It would be an ultimatum.
The son of a bitch never did like me, Parrish thought. Tears filled his eyes, surprising him. He just wanted to be liked; that’s all he ever wanted. The sons of bitches.
One thing Parrish knew: Walker wouldn’t let up, wouldn’t settle out of court. He couldn’t. He was under Anna’s spell.
“Oh, there is a sorry lot of us,” Parrish said. The alcohol had offered him a profound insight. He wasn’t Anna’s only victim. There were others. Stopping her, putting her down as though she were some sad, maimed wild thing, would rescue others. He loved her, loved her even though she had made a wreck of his life, but there were other considerations. She had violated a natural law, come back from the dead like a monster in a fairy tale.
Now, leaving the past to burn, he walked back into the house. He fixed himself another drink, noticed that his legs were shaking. He felt unmoored, naked, but he knew that the feeling would pass. He was alone. It was a terrible thing to be alone (the curious tears pressed under his eyelids and he clenched his teeth).
He walked down to the basement, then upstairs, roaming the house, confirming his solitude. He had an urge to record his latest insight but he had left the realm of solitary journals and inaction.
He had been in a dream.
Burning the diaries had made him stir in his sleep.
Anna’s death would waken him. She would be free from suffering. The malpractice suit would evaporate and Solomon would see that Parrish was not a man to be dismissed so cavalierly.
A single bold, swift stroke and things could be made right. That was the secret of it: Boldness.
Later, Richard walked outside again. The fire had died down, meditating redly over the ashes. Snow was beginning to tumble from the sky—a good sign, cleansing whiteness. The alcohol had wrapped him in warmth. He smiled, poked the ashes with a stick.
He would have to plan carefully. This time his plan would be seamless.
He went back into the house, finished his drink, and refilled the glass. He was not a drinker, but today he felt that alcohol was part of his declaration of freedom. It let his mind roam, allowed him to reflect objectively on the problem of Anna Shockley. Where was she? In Virginia with Livingston? Or, as Solomon thought, right here in Newburg? She would be easy enough to locate.
If she were in Virginia, it would be inconvenient, but he was confident that he could solve the problem.
“Oh, Anna,” he said, speaking out loud, “it’s all over. You’ve stayed up too late and you know how cranky that makes you. You were very naughty, staying up so long past bedtime. Time for Daddy to tuck you in.” He raised his glass, finished it with a flourish.
He awoke to a dull, thumping sound and squinted through gluey eyelids. The room was dark except for the end table lamp which glowed weakly—Jane had an infuriating pocket of frugality when it came to buying low wattage bulbs—and the furnace had kicked on, throwing a great, suffocating heat into the room.
Someone was at the door. “Be right there,” Parrish shouted, pushing himself out of the armchair where he had fallen asleep. Never should drink, he thought, rubbing his face, confused and disoriented.
He swung the door open, and a gust of snow spun around him, the cold stinging his face, startling him.
He snapped the porch light on and Anna, wrapped in a full-length coat and clutching a bottle of wine in gloved hands, smiled at him.
“It’s me,” she said.
15
The man in the tow truck hollered back to his friend, who waved a hand and shouted something that was caught by the furious swirling snow. The tow truck, wheels spinning, hauled me back onto the road.
It was luck that they had come along when they did. I had just decided to walk, having failed to rock the car out of the ditch, but I knew that it was a good three miles to the next gas station, and the sense of peril, of time running out, had increased.
“You was lucky,” the service man said. He was a big man, wearing a hat that said Hartman Auto Repair. “We was on a beer run, heading back from Dixie’s. Good luck for you.”
I agreed.
“You still set on driving to town?” he asked. “This storm is just getting started. There’s more ditches on the way, you know. I wouldn’t recommend it.”
I told him that I had to get to town and asked if I could buy some snow chains.
“They’re steep,” he said. “This time of year, this particular hour of the evening, these conditions, chains are steep.”
He named a price. It was steep, but I told him I would double it if he could have me back on the
road in twenty minutes.
He did it. I was impressed. I drove down the middle of the white, winding road. The chains clattered and a loose link whacked against the side of the car, but I didn’t stop to correct it. I leaned forward, peering into the storm, looking for Anna’s truck on the side of the road. The truck would have no problem with these roads, but Anna’s driving might and I thought there was a good possibility I’d find her foundered somewhere along the route. I didn’t.
I was locked in a tunnel defined by the beams of the car, the snow, the dense night. I was moving very slowly, but, whenever I pressed on the accelerator, the car would instantly shift sideways and I would have to let up on the pedal.
I turned on the radio and was greeted with static, the snow’s sound effect, and an occasional lost voice, half a sentence, a rattle of music. Silence was more reassuring so I turned the radio off and thought about Anna.
I didn’t know why she had left in the storm, what had prompted her, but I thought I knew where she was going. And the knowledge made my slow progress more unendurable. I leaned forward and stared out the foggy window and had the strange conviction that I was driving down a steep incline, into an abyss inhabited by demons.
16
She came into the room, covered with snow, holding the bottle of wine in one hand, something white in the other. She was raucously alive, filling the dim living room with her presence. She took her knit cap off and shook out her hair. Parrish, just awakened, sweaty and unsettled, blinked at her and tried to field just one thought from the confusion.
“Is your wife here?” she asked. “If she is, you should ask her to leave. We have to talk privately.”
Parrish shook his head. “She left. She’s gone.”
Anna looked around the room. “I guess your wife is in charge of decorating.”
“Yes.”
“This is a big house, a mansion, I guess. Are you surprised that I knew where you lived?”
No, Anna, nothing about you surprises me, he thought, but he said nothing, waited.
“Are you going to ask me to sit down or what? You aren’t being a terrific host, you know.”
“Please,” Richard said. “Sit down. Here, on the sofa. I’ll be right back.”
Parrish went upstairs and urinated and washed his face in the sink. He studied his face in the mirror as he combed his hair. His eyes seemed devoid of intelligence. There was a numbness in his features, the flesh sullen and passive. Anna was downstairs. She had been delivered to him, as though all the fates were roaring in unison, “Here she is. Now what are you going to do about it?”
He had to act. Damn the drinking. He wasn’t awake. He opened the medicine cabinet, found the pills, swallowed two with water from the tap. Speed kills, he thought. He promised himself it wouldn’t become a habit.
As he walked back down the stairs, he imagined he was already feeling the amphetamine sharpening of focus.
She was sitting primly on the sofa. Her wet coat was thrown over the back of the sofa, and melting snow was leaking into the plush fabric. Jane would have fainted. Richard walked over to the coat, picked it up, and said, “I’ll just hang this in the kitchen.”
Returning from the kitchen, he said, “It’s good to see you, Anna. I was worried about you. And I’m sure your friends are worried about you tonight, out alone in this terrible weather.”
Anna smiled. “They don’t know I’m here. Nobody knows I’m here.”
A gift, Richard thought. It was as though, in breaking his chains, in burning his diaries, he had invoked the awesome powers of the gods of action. He had offered a sacrifice, and this was his reward.
But Anna was still talking. “You weren’t worried about me, Richard. I know that now. I’ve had a lot of time to think. If you really loved me, you would have known I wasn’t dead all those years. You would have felt it in your soul; you would have heard my heart beating in your ears.”
Richard sank into an armchair facing the sofa. He smiled at Anna. She was so beautiful. Anyone might have been led astray. The cold had reddened her cheeks, and her full lips retained the pouty sensuality of a young girl. Her eyes were the brightest thing in the room. He wanted her, felt the need for her warm and waken him.
“The worst thing,” Anna continued, “was our baby.” Her voice trembled; her thoughts had led her into violent emotions. “You didn’t care about our baby. You didn’t care that our baby was alone, frightened.”
“There is no baby,” Parrish said, and he was surprised at the softness in his voice. It angered him, this softness, as though, after all she had done, he would still seek to comfort her.
Anna said, “You don’t even know his name, do you?”
“What?” The girl was losing him, talking nonsense.
“The baby’s name is David. After a friend, a true friend. The baby can’t come over to this side. He’s frightened and confused and sometimes I hear him crying at night. He needs us, Richard.”
Parrish shook his head. Such a beauty, housing such a ravaged mind. And this girl had once been capable of overturning his career … it was unthinkable, impossible. “You’re not well,” Parrish said. “Come back to the hospital.”
Anna shook her head. “No. The hospital was bad for me. You should have seen that, but you didn’t care.”
“You need help.”
“I love you,” Anna said. “It doesn’t matter what I think about it, there it is—I love you. That love was created before I was born. It was sewn inside of me by angels. I can’t rip it out.” She was talking very rapidly now, licking her lips as she spoke, her hands moving around, touching her knees, darting away. “So I came here. They would all be mad if they knew I was here, but that won’t matter. Their anger isn’t important. I brought this bottle of wine. It is a rare wine, for special occasions. This is a very special occasion, Richard.”
“Come here,” Parrish said. He still loved her, here at the end of everything. He stood up. “It’s been too long,” he said. He reached for her, caught her shoulders and pulled her forward. On his knees, he kissed her rich mouth.
She pushed him away. “No, Richard. That is over with us.”
Yes, Anna. All over. He yanked her down from the sofa. She hadn’t been expecting that. Her head snapped back and he spun her down, falling on top of her. They wrestled on the floor. “Stop it!” she screamed.
But she didn’t want him to stop. She liked it rough.
He took her on the living room floor, his mind free and easy and full of effortless power. Secrets bloomed within him. What would his wife think if she were to suddenly return, hot for reconciliation? The thought filled him with passionate laughter.
He came quickly, his breath ragged and magnified in his head. He crouched naked next to her and looked at the room, strewn with her cast-off clothes. They might have been the center of an explosion—a molten, deadly center.
She was looking at him with those large, serious, nocturnal eyes. It was a look of expectancy, that goddam demanding, hero-hungry look that females got. Parrish felt an urge to crush the false softness in her, to hit her until that innocence fled and the true, ruthless self erupted from the softness, showed its gleaming death’s head as it came for him. He was a match for the bitch.
He hugged his knees and stared at her. She smiled up at him. She seemed to be floating on the pale sea of her nakedness. He reached down and cupped her breasts.
He lifted her up and carried her up the stairs. He eased her onto the great bed, on top of the sheets, and then he fell upon her, ravenous again. Now they were engaged in a slow dance, something they might have rehearsed, turning in animal agreement, fast, now slow again. Parrish felt alert, aware of the room and the snow at the window, pervaded by a deep, omnipotent calm.
He entered her from behind, gazing beyond the sleek curve of her spine to the cold, steadfast snow, and, with no feeling of incongruity, indeed, with a sense of perfect timing, the way of her death was revealed to him.
Parrish climaxed again, l
eaned over her and hugged her shoulders.
He went into the bathroom, to the adjoining room. He tiptoed down the stairs and into his study where he quickly found what he wanted. He filled the syringe with a fast-acting sedative and hurried back upstairs. Even as he acted, his mind moved, refined the inspiration. Sedate her. He could pull the truck into the garage, cut up a garden hose. Still later, he could take the truck to some convenient location, drive it into a snowdrift, leave Anna, and walk home, confident that the falling snow would eradicate any traces of a second person.
He paused in the bathroom and put the syringe on the sink beside him. He was thirsty again and he leaned under the tap and gulped water.
He picked the hypodermic up and pushed the bathroom door open. Anna still lay on the bed, on her stomach. He entered the room quietly and walked to the edge of the bed.
“Richard?” she murmured, turning over.
He reached for her.
She spun around, her eyes fixed on the needle in his hand. “No, Richard. No!” she screamed.
She fought with frenzied strength, surprising him. He was forced to drag her off the bed and set the needle on the night table while he subdued her. He was careful not to hit her. Then, with his knees on her chest, he was able to retrieve the needle and plunge it into her left arm. She ceased struggling and glared at him.
He held her tightly. Silently, they stared at each other. Then her eyelids drooped and her body loosened, resigned to unconsciousness. He wondered what she had been thinking. Probably pissed. A giggle escaped his lips. He stood up. His arms ached and his legs felt weak and unreliable.
But he had much to do, no time for weakness.
He stood up and staggered downstairs. He gathered his clothes in the living room and dressed quickly. Then he gathered Anna’s. He cursed her as he sought a missing sock, finally finding it wedged behind a sofa leg. “Damn it,” he muttered. “Goddam you Anna.” But he found the sock and admitted that, in all fairness, it wasn’t Anna’s fault the sock had slid under the sofa. He couldn’t blame her for that.
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