The Walker in Shadows (4 page)

"Hello," she said. "I'm Pat Robbins, from next door?"

Now why had she made that statement sound like a question? She knew who she was.

Friedrichs continued to stare at her in silence. He had a long, prominent nose and a thin mouth. Though not conventionally handsome, his face had distinction and character, and his thick dark hair, streaked with silver at the temples, was as attractive as Nancy had claimed. Pat wondered what he would look like if he smiled. He was not smiling now; his expression of cold disinterest made her feel even grubbier and shorter than she really was.

"I just dropped by to welcome you to the neighborhood," she said. "If there is anything I can do…"

"Thank you," Friedrichs said, after an interval that was, surely, deliberately prolonged. "There is nothing."

By that time Pat knew she was in trouble, and that there was no way to get out of it gracefully. But she was damned if she was going to carry the casserole back home, like a rejected kitten.

"Here," she said, thrusting the carry-all and its contents at Friedrichs. He had to take it, but his expression was that of a man accepting a parcel from the garbage man: contents unknown, but highly suspect. "I thought you might not feel like going out for dinner on such a wretched evening," Pat went on desperately. "And I know what moving day is like; the pots and pans are always at the bottom of a carton marked 'Books.' "

Friedrichs peered into the carry-all. Pat saw that her apple-cinnamon muffins had escaped the twisted silver paper in which she had wrapped them, and were sprawled dissolutely on top of the casserole like rejected leftovers.

"How kind of you, Mrs. Robbins," he said, drawling his words. "It's delightful to meet a woman who believes in the good old adages."

They stood staring at one another for a moment, Pat in bewilderment, Friedrichs smiling faintly. Pat knew that the smile, like the enigmatic comment, was not intended to be friendly.

"Well," she said. "Please let us know if there is anything we can do. Good night."

If she had been a little less upset, she would have seen that Friedrichs' cynical mouth relaxed, and that his lips parted as if he were about to speak. But she was in a hurry to get away.

Naturally, she forgot her umbrella. She didn't remember it until she was at her own gate, and the rain was running down her face. By then she would rather have drowned than go back. She didn't understand Friedrichs' comment, but there was no mistaking his general attitude. Antagonistic? Hostile? Suspicious? She couldn't decide on the right word-words had been Jerry's hobby, not hers-but any of them might apply.

After she had hung up her raincoat and changed her wet shoes, she went to the kitchen to see how dinner was coming along. Contrary to her usual habit-solitary drinking was a danger she consciously avoided-she poured herself a glass of sherry and sat down at the kitchen table to think about adages. What the hades had the man meant? Adages were sayings, like, "There's many a slip between the cup and the lip," or "A stitch in time saves nine…"

Then the answer struck her, and she felt a wave of color flood her face. "The way to a man's heart is through…" Oh, no. He couldn't have meant that one, he couldn't be so rude!

But he had been rude. Everything he had said, every change of expression had been designed to offend. And he knew who she was. He had called her Mrs. Robbins. The workmen he had employed, painters and plumbers and electricians, were local men; she had recognized their trucks. They would have gossiped. "Nice lady next door, Mr. Friedrichs; lost her husband last year." Or would they say that? Maybe they didn't think she was a nice lady. Maybe they said something like, "Watch out for that widow next door, Mr. F.; you know women, she'll be looking for a new mealticket…"

When Mark came in the back door he found his mother with her head down on the kitchen table, emitting horrible snorting noises.

Being a young man of practical bent, he checked the stove first. Nothing was burning. Having ascertained that his dinner was not in danger, he put a large, oil-stained hand on his mother's heaving shoulder and said gently, "What's bugging you, chick?"

"Oh!" Pat sat upright. "I didn't hear you come in. Why is it that you sound like a thundering herd most of the time, and then walk like Natty Bumppo when I would appreciate some notice of your approach?"

"Who's Natty Bumppo?"

"Never mind." Pat took a napkin from the holder on the table and wiped her eyes.

Mark sat down opposite her. He refilled her sherry glass and then lifted the bottle to his lips.

"Mark!"

"Thought that would get you." Mark put the bottle down and indicated her glass. "Drink up. What's the problem, Mom? Is it… Dad?"

"No," Pat said, mildly surprised. She managed a feeble laugh. "Mark, you wouldn't believe it. I have been insulted. How about challenging somebody to a duel?"

"Sure," Mark said, looking relieved. "Custard pies at fifty paces? Two falls out of three? Who insulted you, dear gray-haired mother of mine? When is dinner?"

Pat started to laugh, and hiccuped. "You horrible person," she said.

"Hey, Mom…"

Pat pushed him away.

"Being embraced by you is like being hugged by a grizzly," she complained. "I'm sorry, bud. This rotten cold is making me weepy. I had a fit of neighborliness, and took a casserole next door. I was not well received."

"If he refused one of your casseroles he's out of his skull," Mark said tactfully. "It smells great."

"Oh, I'm being silly." Pat gave her nose one last swipe and rose to her feet. "What do you want, corn or green beans?"

"Both. Please." Mark was on a vegetable kick. He added, finishing Pat's sherry, "Seriously, Morn, what did the guy say? I mean, if he really was rude to you-"

Pat stood stock-still, the packages of frozen vegetables in her hand, and stared thoughtfully at Mark.

"He was rude," she said, after a moment. "But in a strange way. He wasn't rude to me personally. How could he be? He doesn't even know me. He's hurt and angry at the whole world."

"His wife left him last year," Mark said.

"How do you know?"

"Kathy told me."

"Oh, her name is Kathy, is it? How did you elicit such personal information from the girl in such a short time?"

"Aha!" Mark leaped from his chair like Dracula preparing to swoop on a victim. "You and Mrs. Groft were snooping, weren't you? I knew you were watching me. Honest to God, a person has got no more privacy around here-"

"That's one of the little problems of community living," Pat said. She was feeling better, and was inclined to laugh at her own sensitivity. "What is the girl like, Mark? We couldn't see anything but the top of her head."

Mark drifted to the cupboard and began foraging in the cookie drawer. His mother made no comment; to call his appetite voracious was to understate the case, and she knew he could consume an entire box of cookies and still eat an excellent dinner.

"Very foxy," he said, his face averted.

"Blond?"

"If you saw the top of her head-"

"Small."

"Five-two, a hundred and one pounds."

"Mark-"

"Just a rough estimate," Mark said, grinning.

"I don't care about her measurements. What is she like?"

There was a pause.

"Nice," Mark said. His mother stared at him. "Well, dammit," Mark said, "isn't that what you're always saying? 'She's such a nice girl,' and like that? She's… nice."

"Hmmm."

"If you're going to act like that, I'm leaving," Mark growled. He caught Pat's eye, and after a tense moment he suddenly burst out laughing. "Hey, cut it out, Mom."

"I love you," Pat said.

"Me, too," Mark said, and laughed again. He sat down at the table with a box of chocolate-chip cookies. "We didn't have much time to talk. I just introduced myself and I said welcome to the neighborhood and like that, and I told her about my-my family, and she told me about hers… She's going to Princeton next fall."

" Princeton!" Pat was properly impressed.

"Yeah, well, I guess she's pretty bright," Mark said thickly, swallowing a cookie whole. "Changing schools in your last semester of high school is tough. She's finished her course work already. Only her dad thinks it's better for her to be in school, so she's going to Willowburn."

Willowburn was a private school, one of the most highly regarded in the area, and very expensive. Pat nodded thoughtfully.

"They are on the trimester system, aren't they? March… The last trimester must be starting about now. But I wonder why-"

"I'm not Mrs. Groft," Mark said. "Spare me the groundless theories."

"I suppose he didn't want her sitting around all day with nothing to do," Pat went on, ignoring the comment. "That makes sense."

The casserole was ready. She put it on the table. " 'Sensible' is one word for Herr Friedrichs," Mark said. Without rising he took two plates from the shelf of the cupboard above his head and slid one across the table toward Pat. Then he began folding the napkins into the shapes of tulips, an archaic and useless skill he had picked up from a former girl friend. Like his father, Mark had a weakness for esoteric knowledge.

"That's right, you met him," Pat said. "What did he say?"

"It was what he didn't say. Oh, he was polite. Kathy introduced us and I said 'Howdy-do,' and practically genuflected. He said, 'Hello, young man; come in, Kathy, I need you.' And, man, that was it. Not exactly your warm neighborly greeting. I am beginning to get the impression," Mark concluded, "that he doesn't approve of people in general."

Pat served the vegetables. Now she understood Mark's reaction to the news that Friedrichs had been rude to her. He too had seen his friendly advances wither under Friedrichs' frigid stare. It was easier for Mark to accept rejection if he thought it was not directed at him personally. In fact, Pat was inclined to wonder whether her reception had not been affected by Friedrichs' obvious antagonism toward Mark. He had pounced on the two young people like a dragon, refusing to give them time to talk (although Mark had certainly managed to learn a great deal during that brief encounter)!

Pat smiled wryly to herself. She was reacting just as Mark had-trying to blame Friedrichs' hostility on some-thing other than herself. To hell with him, she thought. Who does he think he is, Paul Newman?

"I guess maybe we had better give up on the Friedrichs," she said.

"I would certainly advise you not to waste your well-known charm on that cold fish."

"But you are going to waste yours on Kathy?"

"It wouldn't be wasted." Mark grinned broadly and heaped his plate.

"I don't know, Mark. If Mr. Friedrichs doesn't want-"

"Oh, come on, Mom. It's up to me to make the overtures, isn't it? I mean, Women's Lib and all that, but she's new around here, and… Maybe you and I are over-reacting. Moving is hell, and he was probably tired." Mark took a large bite and was rendered temporarily speechless. He chewed with such energy that his mother deduced he had more to say, so she waited, and finally Mark went on, his eyes twinkling. "If he gives you any more grief, let me know, and I'll sic the ghost onto him."

"Ghost! What ghost?"

"Oh, they have a ghost," Mark said calmly. "Old Hiram used to see it. He told Dad about it. We were going to check it out…"

He stopped speaking and buttered a muffin with exaggerated concentration. Pat did not pursue the subject. She and Mark were still tiptoeing around one another's feelings, and, as people are wont to do in those circumstances, they kept tripping over their own grief. But this was the first time she had heard Mark display the same bitterness she felt about Jerry's unfinished plans and frustrated hopes.

They ate in silence. Mark's eyes were lowered, his face shuttered, and she knew better than to prod at his reserve. But beneath her remembered pain another green shoot of healthy curiosity thrust itself forth. Jerry had been a confirmed skeptic. He had also been one of the few people in the neighborhood old Hiram condescended to notice. What had the old man said to him? And why hadn't Jerry mentioned the conversation to her, so they could laugh together over poor crazy Hiram's imaginary ghost?

Spring came early that year. An unseasonably warm spell brought crocuses and daffodils leaping out of the ground in sunny splendor and encouraged the cherry blossoms to bloom on schedule for the first time in ten years. When the women met in the supermarket they gloated over the lovely weather, and hoped frost wouldn't blight the blooms of peach and cherry and apple. Fruit prices were as high as Everest already.

Mark's fancy did not lightly turn with the season. It had focused on its goal even before the daffodils appeared. Actually, according to Nancy Groft, spring didn't make young men turn to thoughts of love. They thought about it all the time, winter, fall, and summer. If "love" was the right word…

Pat smiled dutifully at Nancy 's jokes, but she wasn't really amused. Although she would never have admitted it to Nancy, who had been rendered callous by the love affairs of four sons ("you have to get tough, honey, or you bleed to death,") she was worried about Mark. He wasn't eating. Even Nancy would have agreed that was a bad sign.

To say he wasn't eating was an exaggeration, of course. He ate what a normal human being would eat-about half of his usual capacity. Pat knew what was bothering him, and in her opinion, it was only about fifty percent love. If "love" was the right word…

The other fifty percent was outraged ego. Mark was a fast worker-as Pat's generation might have said-but in this case he didn't even get a chance to start working. Kathy's father drove her to school every day. It was a long drive, almost thirty miles, and they left before seven. After a week or so Mark became desperate enough to rise at six thirty-a hitherto unheard-of concession for a girl-but it did him no good. Kathy and Friedrichs emerged from the house together, got in the car, and drove off. Their garage was on the side of the house away from Pat's, so Kathy didn't even see Mark draped over the fence like a pensive gargoyle. Pat saw him, though, and she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.