The Pariah (18 page)

I climbed out of the car and approached the cottage with a terrible sense of foreboding.

A stray shutter clapped at an upstairs window: the hook had been pulled free from the outside wall during the high winds of the past few days, and unless I wanted it to bang all night, I was going to have go up on a ladder and fix it. I opened the front door, and went into the house, and it was just the same as when I had left it. Chilly, stale-smelling, without warmth or atmosphere or any sense of contentment.

The first task was to light the living-room fire. When that was licking up, I poured myself a drink, and walked into the kitchen, still wearing my raincoat, to see what I could make myself for supper. There was Salisbury steak; or chicken-in-gravy; or hot tamales in a can. I didn’t feel like any of those. What I really had a hankering for was one of Jane’s chilli-con-carnes, fiery with pepper and thick with beans. I felt very sad for her then, and sad for myself. The flickering apparition of her which had been haunting me these past three nights had half-distorted my real loving memory of her, and when I thought of her now I couldn’t help picturing that horrified electrical face.

‘Jane,’ I whispered to myself; maybe a little bit to her, too. Dante had written
‘nessun
maggior dolore che ricor-darsi del tempo felice nella miseria’ -
there isn’t any greater sorrow than to remember a time of happiness when you’re in misery. My old boss at MidWestern Chemical Bonding had taught me that one.

‘John,’ a voice whispered back.

She was there, in the cottage. I knew she was there. In the wind that sighed down the chimneys, in the beams and the woodwork and the lath-and-plaster walls. There was no way of exorcizing her, because she had
become
the cottage, and in an extraordinary way she had become me, too. I knew intuitively that however far I travelled, even if I went back to St Louis, or across to the West Coast, Jane would always be there, whispering, cajoling me to make love to her, drawing me deeper and deeper into the half-world of electrical purgatory, and making it impossible for me to continue to lead my life. I had loved her when she died, but if she kept on haunting me I knew that I would end up hating her. Perhaps that was what had happened to Mrs Edgar Simons. She had refused to submit to her dead husband’s demands, and he had killed her. How long would it take before that happened to me?

It seemed to me that the dead were jealously possessing the living. Charlie Manzi’s marriage had been ruined by the ghostly appearance of his dead son. George Markham was growing increasingly anxious about his brother. My relationship with Gilly was in suspense until I could lay Jane’s spirit to rest. And God knows how many other bereaved people in Granitehead and Salem were finding that the overwhelming demands of their dead loved ones were making it impossible for them to give affection and attention to the living.

The other night I had wondered whether I would meet Jane again if I were to die. What had she whispered to me, as I struggled under the water this morning? ‘Don’t leave me,’ as if she wanted
me
to die, too, so that we could be together again. I wondered if the same thing had happened to Mrs Goult. Had she been called by her recently-dead mother? Had she felt that the only way in which she possibly be happy was to commit suicide, and join her mother in that flickering, restless world of ghosts?

Perhaps I was being too inspirational, like Edward. But I began to believe that all of these hauntings had the same purpose: to alienate the people whom the dead had loved from the real and physical world, to encourage them to believe that death would be their only chance of contentment and happiness. It was as if the dead were trying to exorcize the living, instead of the other way around. And whether it had anything to do with the
David Dark
or not, I believed then that Edward was right, and that some powerful and malevolent influence was at work.

I finished my drink and walked back into the living-room to pour myself another. The long-case clock in the hallway whirred, and then struck six. It was later than I had thought: time seemed to have jumped, the way it sometimes does after four p.m. The fire was crackling, and popping, and I stacked on another couple of logs.

It was then that I glanced across at the painting of the
David Dark,
which Edward had left propped up against the side of my armchair. It was different, somehow; although I couldn’t understand why. I picked it up, and examined it under the lamplight. It appeared to be gloomier, in a way, as if the sun had gone in. And I was sure that when I had first looked at it, there hadn’t been such a menacing build-up of clouds on the right-hand side of the picture.

Perhaps this painting was like spiritualism to us. When dangerous events were in the air, it darkened, and grew more threatening. Even the painted waves seemed to be rougher, and the painted trees were bending in an unseen wind.

I put the picture down again. I was beginning to think that tonight was going to prove to be something of a showdown: a frightening confrontation between me and the Bedfords and the ghosts of Granitehead. A squall of rain lashed against the leaded window, as if in temper, and I stood where I was, chilled in spite of the fire, and wished to God that I knew how to bring this grotesque and terrifying dream to an end.

NINETEEN

I was praying all evening that the Bedfords wouldn’t come, but a few minutes after the half-past eleven chimes had struck, I heard the crunching of tires on the lane outside, and when I went to open the front door, there they were, in their shiny gray limousine, bouncing to an expensive stop behind my used-looking Toronado.

I hooked my golf umbrella out of the forged-iron stand in the hallway, and took it out to the front gate, so that Mrs Bedford wouldn’t get showered on. She was wearing a dark mink jacket and her hair must have been waved that afternoon, for it swept up from her forehead in a blue-gray wing, and her little black hat was perched on top of it precariously. She presented her right cheek to be kissed, and when I duly did so, I smelled a heavy Italian perfume that probably could have been used to fuel municipal buses.

Constance Bedford was a handsome woman, there was no question about that. But she could also be suspicious and snobbish and tiresome, and all those characteristics showed in the slittiness of her eyes, and the dragged-down wrinkles at the corners of her mouth. I looked over her shoulder at Walter Bedford, and I could tell by the tight, tense look on his face that he had warned Constance to be on her best behaviour. He wanted desperately to see Jane, and he knew that the price of that was for Constance at least to be cordial.

‘I see you haven’t done very much to the cottage recently,’ said Constance, as she stepped into the hallway and looked around. She twitched her nose a little, as if she didn’t approve of the smell.

‘I’ve been busy,’ I told her. ‘Can I take your jacket?’

‘I believe I’ll keep it on for a moment, thank you. It’s not exactly climate-controlled in here, is it?’

‘Jane always liked a log fire,’ I replied.

‘I like a log fire,’ put in Walter, trying to keep the party sociable. ‘A log fire, and a glass of punch. Nothing like it, in the winter. It’s the most romantic thing you can think of.’

‘When was the last time that
we
sat in front of a log fire with a glass of punch?’

Constance asked him, sharply. She turned back to me, and pulled a face that showed that even if Walter were actually to offer, she wouldn’t be seen
dead
in front of a log fire with a glass of punch. ‘Walter’s idea of romance is halfway between a second-rate ski-lodge in Aspen and the centre-spread of the Christmas issue of
Playboy,’
she said, stalking ahead of us into the living-room.

‘Well ,’ she sniffed. ‘You haven’t done very much in here, either.’

Walter said to me,
sotto voce,
‘Let her settle down, John. Give her time. She’s very up in the air about this; very emotional.’

‘Do you want a drink?’ I asked him, as if he hadn’t said anything at all.

‘Is that Chivas Regal you’re drinking?’ he asked. ‘Sure. I’ll have one of those, with a little water.’

‘Constance,’ I said, ‘would you care for a glass of wine?’

‘Thank you, but I don’t drink before six or after eleven.’

After I had fixed Walter’s whisky, we all sat down around the fire and looked at each other. The rain sprinkled against the windows again, and upstairs I could hear that loose shutter banging. Constance tugged down the hem of her dress, and said impatiently,

‘Aren’t we supposed to do something? Like hold hands, or close our eyes, and think of Jane?’

‘This isn’t a séance, Constance,’ I said. ‘In a séance, you call the spirits and with any luck they answer. If Jane’s going to appear here tonight, she’s going to do it whether we want her to or not.’

‘But don’t you think she’s more likely to appear if she knows her mother is here?’ asked Constance, earnestly.

I looked at Walter. I could have said that I didn’t believe for one moment that Constance’s presence was going to make the slightest difference. But the truth isn’t always necessary; and the last thing I wanted was an argument. I was very tired after my aqualung diving experience, and all I really wanted to do was go to bed, and sleep. I was so tired, in fact, that I was almost glad that I wasn’t with Gilly tonight.

‘I expect that your being here will increase our chances of seeing Jane quite a lot,’ I said to Constance, and smiled as benignly as I could manage.

‘A girl always goes to her mother in times of trouble,’ said Constance. ‘She may have been a father’s girl when she was little, but whenever it came to anything serious …she always came to me.’

I nodded, and kept on smiling.

Walter checked his watch. ‘Almost midnight,’ he said. ‘Do you think she’ll appear?’

‘I don’t know, Walter. I don’t have any control over it at all. I don’t even know why she appears, or what she wants.’

‘Does she look
well!’
asked Constance.

I stared at her. ‘Constance, she’s dead. How can she look well, when she’s dead?’

‘I don’t have to be reminded that my daughter’s been taken away from me,’ Constance retorted. ‘I don’t have to be reminded how it happened, either.’

‘Good. Because that was the last thing I was going to talk about.’

‘Oh,’ said Constance. ‘I suppose you accept no responsibility at all.’

‘What particular responsibility do you
want
me to accept?’ I asked her.

‘Come on, now,’ put in Walter. ‘Let’s not start digging over old graves.’ He was immediately sorry that he had chosen that particular metaphor, and sat back in his chair, and blushed.

‘Jane was pregnant,’ insisted Constance. ‘And the whole idea of allowing a pregnant woman to drive all that way in a snowstorm … all alone, unprotected, while
you
sat at home and watched some juvenile football game … As far as I’m concerned, it amounts to criminal negligence. Manslaughter.’

‘Constance,’ said Walter, ‘forget the recriminations, will you? It’s over and done with.’

‘He murdered them, or as good as,’ said Constance. ‘And I’m not supposed to feel bitter about it? My only daughter; my only remaining child. My only chance of a grandson. All wiped out, because of a football game, and a husband who was too lazy and too careless to look after the people who were under his care.’

‘Constance,’ I said, ‘get out of my house. Walter, take her home.’

‘What?’ said Walter, as if he hadn’t quite heard me.

‘I said take Constance home. And don’t bother to bring her back. Ever. She’s been here five minutes and already she’s started. When is she going to realize that there was no snowstorm blowing when Jane went out to see you; that if anybody’s at fault it’s you, for letting her drive home when the weather was so bad. And when is she ever going to realize that I lost far more than either of you did. I lost my wife, the girl who was going to be my companion for the rest of my life; and I lost my son. So goodnight, okay? I’m sorry you had a wasted journey, but I’m not going to sit here and listen to Constance slandering me, and that’s all.’

‘Listen,’ said Walter, ‘we’re just on edge.’

‘Walter, I am not on edge,’ I told him. ‘I just want Constance out of here before I do something enjoyable, like pushing her teeth down her throat.’

‘How dare you speak about me like that!’ snapped Constance, and stood up. Walter stood up too, and then half sat down, and then stood up again. ‘Constance,’ he appealed to her, but Constance was too irritated and too tense to be mollified by anything, or anybody.

‘Even her
spirit
isn’t safe in your custody!’ she snapped at me, wagging her long-clawed finger. ‘Even when she’s
dead,
you can’t take care of her!’

She stalked to the door, Walter turned to me, and gave me a resigned look which, if I knew anything about Walter, meant partly that he blamed Constance for being so volatile, and partly that he blamed me for setting her off again.

I didn’t even bother to get out of my chair. I might have guessed the evening was going to develop into another row. I reached for the Chivas Regal bottle and refilled my glass, almost to the top. ‘I drink,’ I said to myself, in my best barfly slur, ‘to forget.’

‘What do you want to forget?’ I asked myself.

‘I forget,’ I slurred.

It was then that I heard a furious rattling at the front door; and Walter came back into the living-room again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘The front, door’s jammed. I can’t open it.’

‘Don’t apologize, Walter, just tell him to open the door!’ Constance demanded.

Wearily, I got up, and walked into the hallway. Constance was standing there with her hands planted furiously on her hips, but the first thing I noticed wasn’t Constance. It was the cold. The strange, sudden cold. ‘Walter,’ I said, ‘it’s colder.’

‘Colder?’ he frowned.

‘Can’t you feel it? The temperature’s dropping.’

‘Will you please open this door,’ barked Constance. But I raised my hand to silence her.

‘Listen, do you hear something?’

‘What’s he
talking
about, Walter? For God’s sake, make him open the door. I’m upset and I want to go home. I don’t want to stay in this horrible dilapidated cottage a moment longer.’

Walter said, softly, ‘I hear whispering.’

I nodded. ‘That’s what I hear. Where would you say it’s coming from?’

‘Upstairs, maybe,’ said Walter. His eyes were bright now, and he had completely forgotten about Constance. ‘Is this what happens? Is this the way it starts?’

‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘Whispering, cold, and then the apparitions.’

‘If you don’t open this front door at
once,
you son-of-a-bitch,’ screeched Constance, ‘then by God I’m going to-‘

‘Constance, shut your mouth!’ roared Walter.

Constance stared at him with her mouth wide open. I don’t suppose he’d dared to speak to her like that more than once in 35 years of marriage. I looked at her and gave her a sour little smile which meant that she had better
keep
it shut, too, if she knew what was good for her. She said, ‘Oh,’ in utter frustration, and then ‘Oh!’

The whispering grew no louder, but seemed to circle around us so that sometimes the voices seemed to be coming from upstairs, and sometimes from the library, and sometimes they sounded as if they were right behind us, only a few paces away. All of us strained to make out the words, but it was useless: it was a long, persistent, discursive conversation, in what language we couldn’t make out. And yet there was something unmistakably obscene about it; a feeling that the whisperers were relishing some filthy sexual act or some unspeakably sadistic torture, and discussing it in relentless detail.

The temperature kept on dropping, too, until our breath was smoking. Constance tugged her mink jacket around herself, and stared at me as if this was all some kind of barbaric hoax. I think she had come to the cottage in the genuine and excited belief that she was going to encounter Jane, but I don’t think that Walter had done what I had told him to do, and warned her what it was going to be like; that it could be frightening, and unpleasant, and even potentially dangerous. Constance had probably walked through the door with the expectation that Jane would be sitting in front of the fire in the pink and natural flesh, knitting baby-bootees, no more harmed by death than if she had spent a month in Miami.

‘Who is that
whispering?’
she said, with her eyes wide. ‘Is that
you!’

 ‘How can it be me? Do you see my lips moving?’

 The whispering went on. Constance came closer, and stared at me even harder. ‘I saw your lips move,’ she said, with obvious uncertainty.

 ‘I’m breathing through my mouth, that’s why. I went diving today and my sinuses are sore.’

 ‘He makes excuses, at a time like this. He always has excuses,’ Constance told Walter, although she kept on staring at me.

 Behind her, although Constance didn’t realize it, the front door had silently opened itself.

I reached over and touched Walter’s arm, but he had seen the door already, and he said softly, ‘I know. I know, John. The handle turned by itself.’

 The door smoothly swung open, without its familiar squeaking noise. We were looking out now into the front garden, into the dark and blustery night. And there, halfway along the garden path, much smaller than she had appeared in my bedroom, only the height of an eleven-year-old child, stood Jane.

 ‘Constance,’ said Walter gently. ‘She’s here.’

 Constance turned, slowly, hypnotically, and stared out into the garden. She said nothing at all, but I could tell by the shaking of her shoulders that she was sobbing, and trying to suppress her sobs.

 ‘I didn’t realize,’ she wept, her mouth twisted into a snarl of grief. ‘Oh my God, Walter, I didn’t understand.’

 Jane appeared to be floating a few inches above the path; a flickering image of her that faded and sparkled in the wind. Her arms were straight down by her sides, her face was hollow-eyed and expressionless, but her hair floated around her head like a electrostatic crown.

 Constance took two or three uncontrolled steps towards her, lifting one arm. ‘Jane, it’s your mother,’ she appealed. ‘Jane, listen to me, wherever you are, darling, it’s your mother.’

‘Jane, I want to help you,’ she said. ‘I’ll do anything to help you. Speak to me, Jane, please. Tell me you can see me. Tell me you know that I’m here. Jane, I love you.

Please, Jane. Please, I’m pleading with you.’

‘Constance,’ warned Walter. ‘Constance, come back here.’

Jane’s image shifted and altered, both in size and appearance. She appeared taller now, and her face was different, thinner-cheeked, gaunt, like a starving angel. She raised one arm, leaving in the air for a moment a succession of after-images, so that it looked as if she had five arms instead of one.

‘John,’
she whispered, more affirmatively now.
‘You mustn’t leave me, John. You mustn’t
leave me, not here.’

 Constance was down on her knees on the garden path in front of her spectral daughter.

Walter choked, ‘No, Constance!’ and shouldered his way past me to bring her back; but just as he did so, Jane turned her head and stared down at her mother with eyes that were as black and expressionless as the shadowy windows of Quaker Lane Cottage.