People Who Knock on the Door (19 page)

His mother was already trying to ease them out, with some gentle assistance from his grandmother. Lois was not standing, though she sat on the edge of the chair, saying something about her family being obliged to visit another house in the neighborhood.

“I’m sorry this can’t be a
longer
afternoon,” his mother said.

“Oh, I quite understand, Lois,” said Irene, leaning forward but not getting up. “I did want to say about Arthur—before we leave—” Irene looked at Arthur with the awful, red-lipped smile meant to be gentle and understanding.

At that moment, Louise struggled up from the depths of the green armchair and gave her attention to Arthur also. “Could you show me where the john is, please?”

Arthur escorted her down the hall. She must pee like a cow, he thought.

“. . . Christ does forgive. This is his very own day. Gloria in excelsis, I think people say,” Irene was murmuring. “This is a time for—redeeming—”

“Redemption,” said Richard, fiddling with his unlighted pipe, frowning.

Arthur noticed that Robbie had the blank but attentive expression that came to his face in church, or when his father talked at the table about the spiritual side of man. Irene, Arthur realized, was talking about the physical side, about “sinning,” about him.

“. . . young people have made a mistake, they must realize it and face it—and say they’re sorry. That way . . .”

His mother gave a nervous shake of her head and glanced at her mother. Arthur frowned at the floor for an instant.

“If you’ll excuse me,” his mother said, standing up, “we must be leaving soon. I’m sure Richard can drive you both home.”

“Or Arthur can,” said Richard. “Are we in such a rush to—”

“I’m sure Irene and her sister would prefer you to drive them, Richard,” said Lois, turning on the sweetness. “Wouldn’t you, Irene?”

“Well—I suppose we would.” Reluctantly, though still smiling, Irene got to her feet. She wore very high-heeled black shoes. “Thank you—all. You have been so kind. This is a household of the Lord. Isn’t it—Louise?” She looked at her sister, who was just then returning from the hall.

“What?” said Louise.

Robbie fetched the coats. Thanks and Merry Christmases, and then Richard went with the two out the kitchen door to his car.

His mother opened the kitchen window at the same time as Arthur opened a living room window. Just a minute, Arthur thought, we’ll get their stink out in spite of the cold! His mother came into the living room.

“My
goodness
, their vulgarity!” she said to both her mother and Arthur.

Robbie came in quietly behind her.

“Dear, Loey, we’d better think of it as funny—the way Arthur does,” Joan said. “I thought you were going to explode there, Arthur!” His grandmother laughed heartily.

Robbie was standing with one hand on the back of the armchair where Louise had sat. He was not smiling. He looked at Arthur levelly with his gray eyes that were more like Richard’s than were Arthur’s. Robbie’s brow was as smooth as if he gazed out on Delmar Lake on a quiet afternoon of fishing. He looked at his grandmother and said, “They have to be managed. That’s what Dad says. Otherwise they’ll fall. Or stray like sheep.”

“Sheep.” Arthur smiled. “The sister, too?”

“What do you mean, managed?” Joan asked.

“They need someone to talk to them—’specially Irene, to make sure she does the right things. She’s not so good at deciding things for herself.”

“Such as what?” asked Joan.

“Oh—Dad said she was going to buy a new fridge when she hasn’t even the money to pay her electric bill. So Dad stopped that. Then there’s a danger Irene might start to sell herself, because she’s a waitress in a truck-stop diner.”

Arthur broke up again and bent over. “Who’d buy her?”

His grandmother went on talking with Robbie, and Arthur drifted away, into the hall, to his room. He closed his door, seized Maggie’s present, then opened it with care. The sleek little white box under the wrapping contained a gold chain, longer and thinner than the one he had given Maggie. In its middle a small gold disc was suspended, a nearly flattened sphere, smooth on both sides, with nothing written on it. Her card said, “For Christmas, with my love. M.” The chain was soft as silk, not too thick or thin. Arthur felt that he had been presented with a Rolls or a yacht. He held it around his neck and saw in the mirror that it would hardly show if the top button of his shirt were open. Exactly right! Arthur fastened it, and tugged his shirt collar up. Very likely his family would not notice it this evening. Arthur suddenly realized that his father hadn’t given him a Christmas present. And who cared? He had given his father quite a nice pen and pencil set with a cheerful card warning him to hang on to the pencil, because his father was always complaining that the pencils got lost. Robbie had received, among many other things, a new suit.

The following Monday, Arthur’s mother and grandmother were invited to a buffet lunch at Jane Griffin’s house, and Robbie had an all-day date with “the men.” So Arthur invited Maggie for lunch at a quarter to 1. Bliss again to have her in the house, to know that they could be alone for two hours! Arthur made scrambled eggs mixed with pre-cooked crisp bacon. Lovely to take it easy, to know that after lunch and leaving dishes on the table, they could go to bed together in his room. His room had a key. Maggie went to take a shower. And she would have taken the magic pill! And the books Arthur had perused stood him in good stead. No rushing. Don’t do everything the same way every time.

“I’m glad you didn’t put on clean sheets. I like them like this,” Maggie said.

Arthur wore nothing but his new neck chain, and Maggie her gold bracelet. And girls could often do it twice, Arthur had read. Amazing, but true. And afterwards, it would also have been bliss to fall asleep for a few minutes, but Arthur reached for his wristwatch. When his mother and grandmother came home around 3, Maggie had departed five minutes before, and the kitchen was on the way to being tidy again.

Robbie was much in demand by his sportsmen chums that holiday season. Surely some of them had teenaged daughters, Arthur thought, though Robbie had never mentioned any. The night before New Year’s Eve, Robbie was invited to a stag party, and he fairly strutted when he announced this to his family.

“No girls allowed. No women,” Robbie said in his deepest voice, looking serious.

“Filthy creatures, anyway,” Arthur said, which provoked a laugh from his grandmother. “Don’t tell me one of these hunters is getting married.”

“No,” Robbie said. “Why?”

“Stag parties are usually the night before you get married. Supposed to send the bridegroom off in terrible shape.” Arthur blew smoke toward the ceiling. “Aren’t some of those fellows married?”

“Sure. Some of ‘em, maybe. I don’t know,” Robbie replied, as if he couldn’t care less.

“Haven’t they got kids around your age? Do you ever meet any? Any girls?”

Robbie squirmed. “Is that all you ever think about?” he asked, frowning, then turned and left the living room.

His grandmother was sitting on the sofa, knitting a cap out of dark green wool that she had found in the house, not enough wool for making anything but a cap, she had said. “He is a funny one,” she said, not looking up.

Arthur smiled. “Yeah. These—men—” He looked behind him, never knowing whether Robbie was lurking or not. He moved closer to his grandmother. He had told her about meeting some of the men down at Delmar Lake. “I bet they’re the type who go to a cathouse sometimes in a group. They’re always together, acting like professional hillbillies.—I think they have a contempt for girls and women. Do you know what I mean, Grandma?”

“Yes. I think I do.” She did not look up from her knitting. “But maybe Robbie’s jealous of you. That’s pretty likely, you know, Arthur? Normal.” She glanced up at him. “Maybe he’ll make some new friends soon—starting with boys his own age. He’s as tall as you, I noticed.”

“Yep.”

“And if he’s so interested in keeping Irene on the straight and narrow, maybe he gives more thought to the opposite sex than you think.” She chuckled.

Arthur nodded, unsatisfied.

“But don’t tease him, Arthur. He’s in a period of hero worship for these older fellows—and he’s flattered, of course, that they’ve taken him up. I talked to your father about it. Richard thinks it’s harmless. Outdoor activities, and he’s learning things.”

The night of Robbie’s stag party, Arthur invited Maggie and Gus and Veronica to his house, the rest of his family being out somewhere. They rolled the carpet back, played cassettes, and Maggie gave Gus a dancing lesson, lasting hardly ten minutes and ending in laughter.

Then came Maggie’s last day in Chalmerston before flying east. Maggie and he would have the whole day together, except for an interval around 5 p.m., she said, when she wanted to pack to get it off her mind. They spent the morning walking in the woods on Westside. Norma Keer had invited them for lunch, because she was taking the day off “for medical reasons.” And after lunch, Arthur had his house free again. His parents were out at their work, and Robbie was with “the men,” who were taking him to a government building in town where people obtained hunting permits. This was a very special afternoon, Arthur felt, because he wouldn’t see Maggie again until Easter, and at Easter there was a possibility that she would go with her parents to Bermuda, unless she insisted on staying in town alone in the house.

When he and Maggie had been in his room for an hour or so, there was a knock on the house door, rather like a
bam-bam-bam
of somebody’s fist pounding.

“Who the blankety-blank hell is that?” Arthur said. It was not even 3 o’clock.

Bam-bam-bam
!

Arthur picked up his bathrobe from a chair.

Maggie was lying in bed with a half-finished cigarette. “Robbie?”

“Doubt it.” Arthur meant to yell through the door to whoever it was to hold on for a minute, but as soon as he unlocked his own door and went into the hall, he heard Robbie’s voice shouting:

“Hey, Art! Lemme
in
!”

Arthur yelled down the hall, “Just a minute, would you? Take it easy!” He couldn’t tell if Robbie was at the front door or the kitchen door. He had bolted both of them.

Maggie was calmly getting dressed. Arthur did the same, pulling on trousers without underpants. He shoved his feet into house-slippers.

Robbie was banging again, loud and slow.

“Damn him,” Arthur muttered. “Mag, turn the key in the lock and take your time.” Arthur slipped out into the hall.

At that moment he heard a splintering sound, as if Robbie had forced the kitchen door bolt.

This was exactly what he had done, and Robbie stood wild-eyed in the kitchen with blood running down his upper lip.

“What’s the idea of busting in? Can’t you wait a minute? Look at that mess!” Arthur meant the kitchen doorjamb.

“I was in a fight. I hadda get in!” Robbie splashed water onto his nose at the kitchen sink. He jerked his head toward Arthur. “You got that girl here; that’s why you locked the doors.”

“You mind your own damned business, Robbie.”

“Her car’s outside!—I was just fightin’ about—about something like this.” Robbie flicked water from his fingers into the sink.

“You were
not
, you goddam liar!” Suddenly Robbie was on the floor. Arthur had picked him up in two hands and dumped him.

Robbie wobbled up, holding to the sink edge. “I’ll tell Dad about this! About
you
!”

“You go right ahead!” Arthur had his fists ready.

Robbie stormed past him and went to Arthur’s door. He knocked, then tried the knob. “’S locked!” he said to Arthur.

“You get the hell away!” Arthur seized him by the front of his clothes and shoved him against Robbie’s closed door.

Blood now flowed over Robbie’s chin, the color spread by the water. Robbie went into the bathroom.

“Maggie,” Arthur said at his own door. When Maggie turned the key, Arthur went in and locked the door again.

Maggie was dressed, combing her hair at Arthur’s mirror. She had even pulled the bedcovers up, so the bed looked as usual.

“Christ, I—He’s been in a fistfight somewhere and he’s gone nuts!”

“Oh—so what? Take it easy, Arthur. He’s just a pesty kid brother.” She smiled at Arthur in the mirror.

“Little son-of-a-bitch twit’s going to tell Papa, he says.”

“That I’m here? Well—so what?”

Arthur pushed his bare feet into loafers. Maggie and he went into the hall.

Robbie was on the telephone in the living room. “Okay, good. G’bye.” He hung up.

“Hello, Robbie,” Maggie said.

“Hi.—Dad’s coming over. You better stay,” Robbie said to Arthur.

“Oh,” said Arthur noncommittally, and took Maggie’s coat from a hook in the hall and took his windbreaker for himself. He was going to see Maggie to her car. “Great house, isn’t it?” he said to Maggie. “Friendly atmosphere.”

“Try to cool down, Arthur. Want to come to my place?” Maggie asked as they walked across the snowy lawn to her car.

“If my dad’s really coming over—I better stay and stand up to him.”

“They’re the ones who’re—funny.” Maggie said it in a tone that sounded as if “funny” meant mentally odd. “So what if I was in your room?”

Arthur couldn’t reply. “See you around seven?”

“Yes, sure.—Keep calm. Just say we were listening to a cassette.”

Arthur pressed his lips against her cheek, and turned back to the house. Her car was moving off before he reached the front door.

Robbie was again in the bathroom, still washing, with the door open. Arthur went back to his room. He whistled a tune and opened the door of his closet. His grandmother had pressed his green corduroys, he recalled as he saw them, and he’d wear those tonight. He put on socks. He heard the front door close. He had not heard a car. A couple of minutes later, there was a slow knock on Arthur’s door.

“Yep?” said Arthur.

His father came in, pink-cheeked from the cold, but he had removed his overcoat. “Well, well—I understand from Robbie that you’ve had your girlfriend here this afternoon—for—for the usual purposes?” His father’s voice trembled. “Doors bolted?”