The Dark Descends (6 page)

"Tricks? What tricks? I don't understand. Are you trying to tell me you're going to let her get away with it?"

"There's nothing we can do," the youngster said.

"What do you mean, nothing you can do? She's breaking the law, isn't she? You're supposed to punish lawbreakers, aren't you? Well, why don't you go upstairs and—"

"Calm down, lady," the veteran cut in, somewhat gruffly. His face looked wary, as though he anticipated having a situation on his hands.

"Yeah. Better take it easy, ma'am." The youngster's tone was more sympathetic, but his face wasn't any less wary.

"I'm all right. I'm not going to have hysterics. It's just that what you're telling me—You see, it's the first time I've ever had cause to make a complaint like this and—"

"That's okay, ma'am." The youthful face ventured on a smile—cautiously. "It's always a shock to people when they find out how little we can do for them. The thing is, we don't have punitive powers. All we can do is make requests. You can keep calling us all night long and we have to come every time you call, but every time we come she'll shut off her radio and every time we leave she'll turn it on again. It's rough, but there's nothing we can do about it."

"You're making it sound like something out of Kafka. Or Beckett. I can't believe it. I can't believe I have to go on being subjected to this kind of punishment without—"

"You don't," the veteran said.

"But he just said—"

"I didn't," the youngster said. "I said we can't do anything. But you can. You can go down to Center Street and swear out a summons against her and bring a civil suit."

"Make sure you get a patrolman to serve the summons for you," the veteran said. "Don't try serving it yourself, whatever you do."

"That's right. She might get violent. Don't look so skeptical, ma'am. You never can tell what people will do, and it's better to be prepared. And a type like her—An old maid, isn't she?"

"Why, yes. I guess you could describe her that way, but—"

"How old? Early forties?"

"About that, I should imagine."

Two heads nodded wisely. "They're the worst," the veteran intoned darkly.

"You'd better believe it," the youngster said. "On top of everything else, she's probably jealous of you because you're—" Now the face that appeared designed for blushing actually did blush. "Well, ma'am, you'd rate as a dish in any man's little black book, if you don't mind my saying so."

A moment after the outside door closed behind the patrolmen, an explosion of sound—a woman wailing and shrieking, the nature of her grievance swallowed up by vibrato.

This time, when the tears welled up, Joyce made no attempt to check them.

...

"You made a big mistake, calling the police."

"Maybe I did. I'm not sure. The more I think about it, the less sure I am of anything." Joyce struck a match and lit a cigarette. Over the wire, like an echo, came the sound of another match being struck; in her mind's eye she saw Eliot draw on his cigarette, the match in his fingers still alight. "Don't burn your fingers, darling," she said, just as she had a thousand times before.

"I won't," Eliot said, just as he had a thousand times before. An exhalation like a sigh, and then, "Second-guessing isn't much use, I know. It's done. I'm sure you must have had a hell of a lot of provocation."

"Oh, I did. If you only knew what that radio sounds like. You wouldn't believe—"

"I would believe, baby. You're not the kind to fly off the handle over nothing. Still, it's too bad. A nut case like that is bound to interpret calling the cops as a declaration of war, so all you accomplished was making her feel justified in doing her worst. Pity you didn't give her a real talking to first, let her know that you know the radio is a ploy for attention and that it wouldn't work again no matter what."

"What good would that have done? If she's that desperate for attention it's obvious she can't control—"

"You'd be surprised what people can control when they know you're on to their little tricks. It would have been worth a try, at any rate."

"All right, so I didn't try. Damn it, I didn't know when I rented the lousy apartment that I'd have to take on the job of resident analyst!"

"Hey, Joyce, take it—"

"I'm sorry, darling. I didn't mean to snap your head off. My irritability threshold is so low that getting caught in the rain would probably inspire a fit of hysterics. It's shameful, but if you only knew what I've been going through—"

"Baby, you don't have to explain to me. I'm sure it must be bad or it wouldn't be getting to you like this."

"It's bad, all right. It's not only bad, it's horrible. You know, every time I start thinking about the kind of mind that willfully submits itself to a frontal assault like that, my blood runs cold. Now, of course, she's stepped up the pace. She blasts off all night long, and this past weekend she didn't shut the damn thing off for a minute, unless she gave herself a rest while I was out walking the streets to get a little peace. It's a wonder the thing doesn't explode."

"Isn't there anything you can do to deaden the sound? Line the walls and ceiling with cork or something?"

"It wouldn't help all that much. I had a soundproofing man in, and he told me that to do anything really effective he would have to take up the flooring in her apartment and practically rebuild the place. At an astronomical cost, needless to say. I tried getting after the landlord, but it was no use. He said if I was that bothered I should move—and forfeit the security, naturally. He said she's paid her rent on time for six years and there's nothing he can do to keep her in line."

"There probably isn't. And even if there were, he probably wouldn't do it. When do they ever? Maybe you ought to move."

"What about the security? What about the agent's fee? I won't get that back either—I've already checked. And what about moving expenses? I can't see myself making the outlay all over again."

"If you're short of money—"

"It's not only the money. It took me ages to find this place, and the thought of embarking on another hunt—Besides, who knows what I'll come across in the next place? Dracula in the basement and the Wolf Man in the attic, with my luck. I'll try to grin and bear it a while longer. If I don't do anything further to antagonize her, maybe she'll let up."

"Chances are she will. Chances are calling the police set off a marathon tantrum and when she cools off she'll be feeling ashamed of herself."

"I don't much care how she feels, as long as the marathon ends. Do you know, I can't even telephone at home? I have to make all my calls from a booth or here at the office. Which reminds me that lunch hour's just about up and the mob will be upon me any second. Take care, darling. Thanks for letting me bend your ear."

"No sweat. I wish I could do more than listen. Look, baby, if it gets too bad, just come here and camp out with me for a while. Okay?"

"Not a chance. We made an agreement, remember? It would take more than Charlotte Bancroft to make me go back on it. If you really want to be helpful, send up a few prayers for her change of heart. Or make a wax effigy and stick pins in it."

"There speaks the voice of rationality. Which course of action do you prefer?"

"Maybe you'd better do both. I wouldn't like to think I'd missed out on aid from any quarter through want of asking for it. All kidding aside, unless she lays off I'm going to have to haul her into court, and that's something I'd hate to do to anyone. Even her."

...

One wall of the large living room was a montage of travel posters, many of them advertising music festivals ("Jake's wall," Kitty Shanks had explained. "He's a percussionist, and the posters are his way of keeping score of the places he's toted the sticks"); the wall opposite was all mirror; the other two walls, painted white, had windows. There were no chairs, only giant cushions in diverse colors, a low divan covered with a batik throw, and a shaggy yellow Greek rug, which made an ideal seat, as Joyce had discovered on her first visit. Sometimes one or two of the others joined her on the rug, but not tonight. The only other group member with squatting potential present tonight, Veronica Stanton, a willowy red-haired dancer, every inch the siren (she was full of diatribes against men who regarded her as nothing but a sex object), had announced that she was being taken by her broker to a late supper at El Faro and didn't want to get her black velvet trousers all hairy.

Rebecca Rosenberg was on center stage at the moment. Soft-spoken Rebecca, with her rounded contours and Madonna's face and air of placidity that beguiled people into thinking she didn't have a care in the world, until they spotted her fingertips swollen, with the nails bitten to the quick.

"... hate myself, just hate myself," Rebecca was saying. "Every time I swear to myself it'll be different next time, I won't behave like a bitch again, but it doesn't do any good. I'm not a bitch by nature, I know I'm not. I don't come on like one with anybody else. But just let him telephone me or show up at the door and the rage rises up in me like bile. I can't control it. I try and try, but I can't. So when he wants to take the kids to a football game I tell him I have tickets to The Nutcracker. It's a lie, of course, and I hate myself for it. Why do I behave that way? I don't love him anymore, but I certainly don't hate him. It's not as if I can't trust him with the kids. He loves them, and he'd never in a million years try to use them against me, any more than I'd try to use them against him. So why can't I—"

"You do use them against him," Del Peterson cut in, in a tone as uncompromising as her words. Militancy was her bag, and, emaciated, with perpetually red-rimmed eyes and pale face obscured by wings of lank, straw-colored hair, she looked like someone who spent a lot of time at the barricades. Reputedly Del was short for Adelaide. "Quit kidding yourself, baby. You're using the kids against him and you're doing it because you hate him. When he offers a football game it isn't good enough. It never has been. You have to be one up, so you make him feel like a slob by coming on with the ballet."

"It's not like that. I like football myself and I'm not a snob. It's just that—"

"Okay, so if he offered the ballet, you'd top him with a football game. What's the dif? The point is, you hate him. You've never forgiven him for using your cunt and trading it in for a different model, the way he does with his car. You've never forgiven—"

"That's not the way it was!" Tears were forming in Rebecca's eyes. "There wasn't any other woman. We just—"

"Okay, so he got tired of your cunt. Or you got tired of his prick. What's the dif who got—"

"But it wasn't like that! It wasn't!" The tears started to flow. Slowly.

"Balls it wasn't like that! It's never not like that. The whole one-prick-for-one-cunt bit is a myth, a bill of goods women have been sold for much too long. Men don't believe in it, they never have. It's something they've invented to keep us in the trap, and how it must have tickled the old funny bone down through the ages to see us swallowing it hook, line, and sinker. Fucking is fucking. All it takes is a prick and a—"

"Stop it," Rebecca pleaded, sobbing now. "Stop it, Del. You're being horrible!"

"—cunt. Cunt, cunt, cunt and prick, prick, prick. What's the dif whose? Why invent a mystique about it? All the blah, blah, blah about love is pure horseshit, and all the blah, blah, blah about love being gone is horseshit piled on horseshit.

How can something that never existed be gone? The way we delude ourselves makes me puke. We sell ourselves into slavery, and the worst of it is, we're overjoyed to do it. We rush to meet our doom with stardust in our eyes and confetti in our hair, and when we find out it really is doom we're—"

"You're way out of line," Joyce exclaimed, and immediately wished she'd kept her mouth shut. For Del was quick to react, with raised eyebrows, a mocking smile, muscles tensed and ready to pounce on a new victim. "I mean, you exaggerate so much. To do that is to knock down one myth and set up another in its place. Some of us go into things with stardust in our eyes, but some of us have our eyes wide open. It's wrong to generalize. Every relationship is unique."

Del threw back her head and laughed—a bellicose donkey's bray of a laugh. "Too much! Oh, baby, that is too much! Every relationship is unique! Groovy! I dig that, I really do. You've been holding out on us, baby. Sitting there on your tuffet all preoccupied with your own curds or turds or heartburn, and all the time you have gems like that to contribute. 'Every relationship is unique.' Groovy, groovy, groovy." And Del threw back her head for another laugh, louder and more bellicose.

"She's right, Del." Support from Rebecca. "It is a mistake to generalize. You can't possibly know what goes on between two people."

"One does run the risk of getting too simplistic when one takes hard-line attitudes," Kitty said, in the kindly, judicious accents of a den mother. Well, it was her den.

"What you mean is that I'm outnumbered, so I'd better pipe down or be shouted down," Del said. She flashed her mocking smile at Joyce again. "Okay, Miss Muffet, you had a unique marriage and it went bust in a unique way. Why not tell us about it?"

Joyce hesitated. "There isn't that much to tell," she said, and even to her own ears her voice sounded prissy, uptight. How it sounded to the others was apparent from their faces, all but Del's full of reproach. No help for it. The challenge would have to be met. First, a deep breath: it came out a sigh. "I mean, it's not just reluctance to make a great moan and groan about my troubles, though that's part of it—early habits die hard. There really isn't that much to tell. Things didn't go bust or anything like that. It was more a process of erosion. Erosion of—"

Again Joyce hesitated. Erosion of what? Not of feeling, certainly not of feeling. Whatever she and Eliot had lost, they had not stopped caring about each other. Thus all was not lost. Something had been preserved, something that could be built on again when the time came. If the time came.

"Erosion of the desire to stay together. That's as good a way of phrasing it as any, I suppose. We simply decided that the life we were leading—deep in the suburban rut—was costing too much, much more than the returns justified, and—"