The Broken Hours: A Novel of H. P. Lovecraft (29 page)

One of my what?

She seized my arm, then, and to my surprise pulled me violently inside and shut the door behind us. I stood, rubbing my wrist, in that bright living room.

Honestly, Flossie. Don’t be a child.

She tucked in her chin, looking hurt.
I just meant those things you make up, those monsters and things, like in that magazine you’ve got. I don’t like them, you know.

Well, I don’t like them either.

You write them.

It doesn’t mean I like them.

Who sounds like a child now?

How had things devolved so quickly between us? I was glad to see her, I really was. But Jane …

I’m sorry,
I said.
I’ve just had this terrible headache.

She uncrossed her arms and stepped toward me then, laying a hand on my arm.
Poor you,
she said, sincerely. So different from Jane, who could nurse a grudge into the wee hours of the morning.

Sit here,
Flossie said,
and put your feet up and I’ll make you a hot drink, to help you sleep. There now.
I saw then a bottle of aspirin stood on the coffee table. She cranked the top off the bottle and shook two into my palm.
Take your precious aspirin and just relax.

She disappeared into the next room with her travelling case. When she was gone, I shook out two more aspirin into my mouth, leaning back into the sofa.

I confess a part of me was pleased. I’d felt starved for the kind of light Flossie emanated; she was all clear sunlight where everything else was murky, dark. I put my head against the violet cushions. The electric light shone against the draperies, making the room dreamy, ethereal, and I closed my eyes, just for a moment.

I must have dozed off. When I opened my eyes, the light had changed; the apartment was still and cold. The bottle of aspirin lay in my lap with the magazine. I listened for the sounds of Flossie puttering about in the kitchen but all was quiet. The air had, somehow, grayed. Something—I cannot explain it—felt so awful just then, so, I don’t know, frightening, so empty, that I was afraid to rise from the sofa. I pressed my eyes shut again.

And then all at once Flossie was there, with two steaming mugs on a tray, smelling of cinnamon and green apple.

Silly
, she said.
I saw you open your eyes. You can’t fool me. You’re going to have to sit up here and drink this like a good boy and keep me company.
She stared at me hard, then.
My goodness,
she said, gently touching her fingertips to my temple.
What’s happened?

I scarcely know.

Poor you,
she said again.

She sat down on the coffee table, facing me, and gave me a wobbly smile. Then, all at once, she started to cry.

I stared at her, dumbfounded.

What is it?
I said.
What’s happened?

She shook her head, fumbled for a tissue in a box on the table, smiling as if she were surprised by it herself, as if it were not her but someone else weeping there.

Something, obviously,
I said.

She was crying heavily now, great wracking sobs, and trying to catch her breath as she wept.
I didn’t want to tell you before
.

Tell me what?

She shook her head again.

For heaven’s sake.

Helen,
she choked out.

What about Helen?

Oh, it’s too awful. I can’t.

I stifled my growing irritation and poured her out a tumbler of water from the pitcher on the coffee table and had her sit in my place on the sofa and take a few sips and blow her nose.

After a few moments, she said,
I wasn’t truthful before. I wasn’t truthful at all. I don’t like to lie to my friends, but I just couldn’t tell you; I just didn’t even want to say it.

Say what, for heaven’s sake?

I wasn’t in Boston for any silly old convention. I was in Miami
.

Indiana.

Yes, Indiana.

All right—

For a funeral. There. I’ve said it. And I hope you’re glad, because I certainly don’t feel any better.
She began to sob again.

Flossie …
, I began, after a moment.

It’s too terrible
, she said through her tears.
I didn’t even like her, really. But still, I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone, and then me just sitting here like a fool and I didn’t even call her parents or, or the police, or anything, just sat here wondering where she’d gone like the idiot that I am. And you were no help, really, telling me not to worry. She’s on holiday, you said. She’ll be back soon. And all the time I knew, I just knew. Why are you all so stupid that way?

She’s …
, I began.
But … is she dead, then?

Yes, she’s dead,
Flossie cried.
For god’s sake. That’s just what I’ve been saying. It was … oh, Arthor … it was …

What?

Suicide.

And she put her head in her lap and sobbed again.

I sat down on the coffee table, astonished.

My god,
I said.
She shot herself ?

Flossie raised her reddened eyes and wiped a wrist across her nose.
What? Shot herself ? No. Why would you think such a thing?

I don’t know. I just assumed—

I don’t see why you’d think that.

Of course not. I don’t know why I said it.

I poured her some more water and she pushed it away, and I handed her a dry tissue and pulled a throw blanket from one of the armchairs and covered her and coaxed her to lie down a bit on the sofa. But she began to cry again and I hardly knew what to do with myself. I turned on her radio, softly: that song that seemed to be always on—
Is it true what they say about Dixie? Does the sun really shine all the time?—
brought a renewed bout of sobs, so I turned it off again.

When she had cried herself out and lay silently on the sofa, I said,
But Flossie, why didn’t you tell me
?
In the first place?

I don’t know
, she said, staring glassy-eyed at the ceiling. After a while, she said,
I know you think I’m silly, Arthor, and scatterbrained, but I’m not, you know. I feel things, too. I may not be a writer, I may not be so bohemian, like you, I may just be a silly old actress, and not even a very good one, but I have feelings, you know.

Of course you do.

You seem to think I don’t.

Why would you say such a thing?

You seem to have this wrong idea, of who I am, the kind of person, as if you’d already decided …

She stared at me a long while, and finally turned her head away.
You treat everyone
, she said quietly,
like a character in one of your stories
.

If only she knew how mistaken she was.

Oh, I don’t know,
she said then, turning back to me.
Don’t pay any attention. I’m just upset about it all. I guess I just didn’t want to say it. Didn’t want to hear myself saying it.

Understandable.

And I wasn’t very kind about her, was I? I said terrible things. Do you know what I remember about her most? I mean from when I was a girl?

Yes?

Well—
she sniffed and dabbed at her nose with a tissue
—I was friends with her sister, Harriet, like I told you. She and Harriet didn’t get on very well, and I thought her kind of strange even then, but in a mysterious sort of way, like you do when you’re a child. And there was something appealing about that. Do you know what I mean?

Only too well.

I can’t say I liked her, and certainly she wasn’t very kind to Harriet. I remember they had some argument once, something silly, about toast, and Helen went after her with a knife, chasing her around the kitchen. It was just a little butter knife and probably harmless, but it was terrifying at the time, and Harriet locked herself in the bathroom, screaming bloody murder, and me just standing there not knowing what on earth I should do. I thought Helen might go after me next, but she didn’t. She came back into the kitchen holding that knife and just asked would I like some toast, nice as you please. Of course I said no thank you.

Good thinking.

I know it sounds crazy, but I’d felt, well, almost drawn to her, because of her strangeness. Even though I was afraid of her. Does that make any sense?

In fact,
I said,
it makes perfect sense. To me it does.

Oh, I don’t know that I understand it myself. Not then, certainly not now. Back when we were children, Harriet and me, I remember Helen had this bottle, a plain old green glass bottle, a wine bottle or something, and she’d used it to hold candles, all different colours, I guess, so as the candles melted, the wax ran down the outsides of this bottle, making this pattern of all these colors, like … I don’t know, just layer after layer. I wanted that bottle so badly. And one day while I was alone in their house—I don’t know where Harriet had got to—but I was holding that bottle, just admiring it and prying a bit of the wax off with my thumbnail, when I dropped it. At first I thought it hadn’t broken and I was so relieved. But then I picked it up and saw that it was only the wax that held it together and it was cracked apart in three big chunks. And do you know what I did?

What?

Nothing. I just left their house and went home. I thought Helen would blame Harriet, which Harriet told me later was just exactly what happened. Harriet said Helen was so angry with her, so upset, and that Helen had wept and wept about that bottle—that’s what Harriet said—that Helen seemed herself so broken about it, and said terrible, hurtful things to Harriet, and Harriet said the ugly old thing had probably just toppled onto the floor on its own, but you could see Harriet was upset about it too, upset about whatever it was that Helen had said to her. She never did tell me just what, and I never did set Harriet straight about that. I never did set Helen straight. And then at the funeral, I’d been thinking about that silly old bottle, and do you know I still couldn’t tell Harriet the truth. After all this time, and such a, such a terrible tragedy. I still couldn’t even confess my own little deception, and I feel doubly horrible about it because now Helen never will know. It’s too late.

I’m sure it feels important,
I began,
but it could hardly matter, given the circumstances. It probably means more to you than it ever did to either of them. Guilt works that way, you know. It is you who are haunted by it, and not them.

She seemed comforted by that, and more collected, and certainly more herself. I rose to go, but felt her eyes on me as I opened her door.

You’ll feel better about it all in the morning
, I said, in the way of things. I felt suddenly weary, and immensely sad. But as I made my way up the stairs, I heard her come out and follow me up to the landing. I turned again to her.

She was staring up at me, imploringly. The way the shadows fell across her face, I could not see her eyes, as if they were black holes there, empty. She rubbed her arms and I had an inkling, a premonition, of exactly what she was about to say next.

Arthor
, she began,
I just, please. I don’t want to be alone down there. It’s just, it’s too …

I did not know what to say.

Oh,
she said unhappily. She turned away.
I’ve been a terrible bother
.

Of course not,
I said, coming back down the stairs.
I’m just tired. I need to go back upstairs and get some sleep. And work. I’m falling far behind. You must understand.

Oh, please
, she said suddenly, and grasped my sleeve.
Please don’t leave me in that horrible apartment … with all of her … things, just sitting there. I’ve nowhere to go. You could bring your work down, or whatever you have to do, and sit in the armchair, and I’ll just lie there quietly. I won’t bother you, I promise. Please.

The streetlight from the window fell in a soft outline along her cheek.

It could not possibly be prudent. I looked again at Flossie, so broken and so alone, the two of us, there on that grim landing while the darkness moved and moved around us.

God help me, what else was I to do?

I hadn’t intended to fall asleep there. When next I opened my eyes, my back ached and my neck was in knots, and the windows were all dark, though whether it was late evening or the middle of the night or just before dawn, I had no idea. All the lights in Flossie’s apartment blazed. But she was not there. I rose hastily and looked about the apartment, but all the rooms were empty and I felt a terrible, cold sinking, a memory creeping upon me.