A Season in Purgatory (11 page)

“Okay.”

We made an elaborate exit, led by Constant and Kitt, walking through the lounge straight across the dance floor to the hallway. Several girls stared at Constant. One girl stopped in the middle of a dance with Billy Wadsworth and said, “Hi, Constant.”

“Oh, here we go,” said Kitt.

“Oh, hi, Winifred,” said Constant. “Do you know my
sisters, Mary Pat and Kitt? You know Harry. This is Winifred Utley. She’s new in town.”

“I saw you in the dining room. I was hoping you’d come in, even though this group is too young for you,” said Winifred, walking away from Billy.

“We’re just passing through on our way out,” said Constant. “We’re not dressed for the occasion.”

“You wouldn’t stay for just one dance? Imagine how popular I’ll be back at school if I can say I’ve danced with Constant Bradley,” said Winifred.

“That’s entirely up to my sisters,” said Constant.

“Oh, please tell him it’s all right,” said Winifred. “Just one dance. Everyone says he’s such a wonderful dancer. The dance is over at ten, and I have to be home by ten-thirty. I have the strictest mother ever.”

“We’ll stay here with Harry,” said Kitt.

He led Winifred off to the dance floor. “Do you mind dancing with a man with an erection?” he asked.

“You’re a naughty boy, Constant Bradley. Cute, but naughty,” said Winifred.

“Did Bradley say what I thought he said?” asked Billy Wadsworth, scowling.

We watched the dancers for a while. Constant, older than the other boys by a year or two, was the only one on the floor not in black tie, but it was he and Winifred who dominated the young group, causing others to stare at them. Then he disappeared in the direction of the men’s locker room again. After several numbers, he came over to where I was standing. “Why don’t you take the car and drive the girls home. I’m going to stay and dance with Winifred for a bit.”

“Billy Wadsworth doesn’t appreciate you, Constant,” said Kitt. “He’s the one who brought her.”

“He’ll get over it,” replied Constant.

“How will you get home?” I asked.

“I’ll get a ride.”

“Do you want me to come back for you?”

“If you want.”

“Good old Constant. He always dumps us,” said Kitt.

The telephone rang in the Bradley house. Grace Bradley was a light sleeper. She switched on the reading light inside the canopy of her bed and looked at her bedside clock. It was two o’clock in the morning. Late-night calls always alarmed her. She thought of Gerald in New York on business. She thought of Sandro in Washington. She thought of Maureen in Chicago with Freddy.

“Hello?” said Grace Bradley, at the same time making the sign of the cross.

“Mrs. Bradley? This is Luanne Utley. I’m terribly sorry to bother you at this hour. I’m looking for my daughter, Winifred Utley. She was supposed to be home at ten-thirty, and she hasn’t come home. I’m out of my mind. My husband is out of town.”

“Who is this?” asked Grace, confused.

“Luanne Utley. Mrs. Raymond Utley. My husband is the new president of Veblen Aircraft. We bought the Prindeville house on Varden Lane.”

“Yes? Isn’t it awfully late to be calling?”

“I’m looking for my daughter, Winifred.”

“Why would you think she’d be here? It’s two o’clock in the morning. Do my children even know her?”

“Your son Constant danced with her at the club junior dance tonight.”

“I don’t think my son was at a dance, Mrs. Utley. I think he had dinner with his sisters.”

“Please. Would you look, Mrs. Bradley? I’m sorry to bother you. I know it’s a terrible hour to call anyone. Winifred said she’d be home at ten-thirty. She’s never late.
Ever. I am worried about her. Could you put your son on the phone? Please.”

“Hold on,” said Grace. She got out of bed and put on her robe and slippers.

The room that I usually used in that house, the room that had once been Agnes’s room, before she was put away, had lately been used by Freddy Tierney, and I was sharing a room with Constant. I was in that room asleep when Grace opened the door and turned on the light. Immediately I awoke and sat up in bed.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, startled to see Grace Bradley standing in the doorway.

“Where’s Constant?” she asked.

I looked over to his bed. It was empty. It had not been slept in. “I don’t know,” I said.

“There is a woman on the telephone. Mrs. Utley. She is looking for her daughter. She said that Constant was dancing with her at the club. Do you know if that’s right?”

“Yes, he did dance with her.”

“Are Kitt and Mary Pat here?”

“Yes, I brought them home. Constant stayed. I went back to pick him up when the dance was over at ten.”

“And the Utley girl. I can’t remember her name. Was she there?”

“Winifred. I assumed she went home with Billy Wadsworth. He was her date.”

Grace went to an extension phone in the upstairs hall and picked it up. I got out of bed and followed. “No, Mrs. Utley. Your daughter is not here.… Yes, he is, but he is asleep.”

Grace looked at me for an instant, as she told her lie.

“He said your daughter went home with Billy Wadsworth.… Oh, I see. You’ve talked to Mrs. Wadsworth, and to Billy.… I wish I could help you, Mrs. Utley.… Oh,
no, I wouldn’t call the police,” said Grace, quickly. “You can’t be in a safer neighborhood than this. It’s patrolled hourly. Maybe she slept over with a girlfriend from school. I’m sure it will be all right.”

She said a few more comforting things. Then she hung up. She looked at me again. There was an expression of enormous sadness on her face, a look I had never seen before. “Girls, girls, girls,” she said. “Constant’s just like his father. And his brothers. Look where it got Jerry, this sort of thing. A cripple. And that girl in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.”

I didn’t reply. I didn’t know what to say.

“How old is this Utley girl?”

“Fifteen, I would think.”

“Fifteen. Imagine her being out at this hour. I may not have any control over the men in my life, but I most certainly do over my daughters. Will you go downstairs? If Constant is there with her, drive her home, will you? Varden Lane. Tell the silly girl her poor mother is frantic. Good night, Harrison.”

I watched her walk down the long hall to her own bedroom. I, like Sally Steers, always thought she didn’t know of her husband’s infidelities. I realized then that she chose to ignore them. At her bedroom door, she turned back to me and saw me watching her. “Don’t tell Mary Pat and Kitt about this. I don’t want my daughters to know such things go on in this house.” She went into her bedroom.

I looked out the window. Constant’s Porsche was in front of the garage, where I had parked. I quickly pulled on my trousers and a sweater and a pair of loafers. I went down the hallway as quietly as possible and down the stairway. At the entrance to the living room, I cleared my throat as loudly as possible to warn them if they were in the act of making
love. There was no reply. The room was quite dark and silent, except for the loud ticking of an antique clock on the mantel. I switched on the lights. The room was empty. I turned and walked over to the library. The door was shut. I knocked. I loudly cleared my throat again. There was no reply. I opened the door and walked in. “Constant?” I whispered. I turned on the lights. There was no one there. I turned on the lights in the dining room. It was empty. And in the lavatory under the curved stairs in the main hall. Empty. Turning quickly, I knocked over one of the dozens of Easter lily plants, and the blue-and-white cachepot in which it sat broke on the marble floor. I waited for a moment to see if anyone upstairs had been awakened by the noise. There was silence. Then I turned on the lights in the small room off the main hallway which Gerald used as an office. It, too, was empty.

Suddenly, there was a tap on the window. Someone was standing outside. I froze in fear. My parents, whom I rarely thought of, flashed through my mind, how it must have been for them at that moment when their attacker was upon them. The window was of a Tudor design with small diamond-shaped panes. With the lights on in the room, it was difficult to see out. There was another tap, more urgent.

“Harry, Harry,” the person said in a loud whisper. Standing outside the window was Constant.

I ran over to the window. It opened out. “Jesus Christ, you scared me,” I said.

“
Shhh
,” he whispered.

He looked slovenly, dirty, his shirt unfresh, torn, darkly stained, his trousers unpressed. His skin was pale. His hair was sweat-wet and slicked back. There was a sore on his lip.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” I whispered.

“Oh, Harry,” he said. He was crying. “I need help.”

I put my leg through the window, but it was too small to get out of. “Shit,” I said.

“Be quiet. Don’t wake up anybody,” he whispered.

“I’ll go out the kitchen door,” I said.

I tiptoed through the hall to the kitchen. Bridey’s room was next to the maids’ dining room off the kitchen, and Bridey was known to be a light sleeper. The other maids, Colleen and Kate, slept up on the third floor. I continued to tiptoe until I got to the door. As quietly as I could, I unfastened the lock, the double bolt, and then the chain. Outside, Constant was standing by the door, breathing heavily.

“Why are all the lights on?” he asked.

“I turned them on. I was looking for you. Your mother sent me downstairs.”

“Ma? Why?”

“Mrs. Utley called. Winifred’s not home. She called the Wadsworths. Your mother thought you were with her downstairs in one of the rooms, but she didn’t want Mrs. Utley to know that. Where is she? Is she with you?”

“You better go back in and turn out the lights. They’ll attract attention if someone drives by. Like a police car.”

“I think Mrs. Utley is going to call the police.”

“Oh, my God. Shut out all the lights, Harry. Quick!”

Alarmed by the urgency in his voice, I went through the downstairs, turning out the lights in the living room, library, dining room, lavatory, and office. When I went back out the kitchen door, Constant was standing in the same place, as if he were in a trance.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

He turned and walked away toward the tennis court. I followed.

“You’ve got to help me, Harry. I need you. I need you like I’ve never needed anybody in my life. Are you my friend?”

“Sure I’m your friend. You’re the best friend I ever had.”

“No matter what?”

“No matter what.”

“Follow me.”

We went across the lawn, past the tennis court and pool, to the area at the bottom of the property where we had played softball on Easter Sunday. He continued walking into the woods. It was pitch dark.

“Here,” he said finally, stopping. “We have to move her deeper into the woods.”

“Who?”

“Winifred. We have to move Winifred.”

“Is she hurt?”

“She’s dead.”

I couldn’t see his face in the dark.

“Dead?”

He dropped to his knees. There in front of him on the ground was Winifred Utley. She was wearing the same pink dress she had on at the dance at the club, but it was pushed up on her so that part of the skirt covered her face. Her panties were pulled down to her knees. I reached out to touch her, but her face and head were covered with blood. I recoiled. I realized that the stains on Constant’s shirt were blood.

“Constant, what happened? Who did this to her?” I spoke in a whisper. My heart was thumping in my chest. I knew that a time of my life had come to an end. A door had shut. Nothing would ever be the same.

“Help me move her deeper into the woods, closer to her own house.”

“Why move her? We have to go for help.”

He ignored me. “I’ll get her head. You get her feet.”

“But why?”

“I have to get her off our property. If I drag her through the woods, they’ll be able to tell. Get her feet.”

As we started to lift her, she let out a faint moan.

“Constant, she’s not dead.” I was joyous. We placed her down on the ground again. “I’ll go for help.”

“No, you won’t. She’s beyond help. She’s more dead than alive.”

Then he picked up a baseball bat, the bat from the softball game on Easter Sunday, the bat that he had flung into the woods because it was cracked, the bat that neither Kitt nor I had been able to find. It was broken in two. The head of the bat was covered with blood.

I heard another sound from Winifred. Still staring at him, I knelt down to look at her. I could hear the gurgling sound of saliva in her mouth as she expired. I covered my own mouth to stifle the scream that was forming there. “She just died,” I gasped. My voice was barely above a whisper, but, unmistakably, there was the beginning of panic in it.

When he spoke, his voice was harsh as he enunciated each word carefully. “You cannot panic, Harry. You cannot lose your head. Do you understand? We have to stay very very calm. We have to do everything right. Tomorrow, when all this is over, we can fall apart, or mourn, or whatever has to be done, but not now. Do you hear me, Harry?”

I stared at him.

“Do you hear me, Harry?”

I nodded my head.

“Say the words, Harry. Say, ‘I hear you, Constant.’ Say, ‘I will stay calm. I will not fall apart.’ Say it.”

“I hear you. I’ll stay calm. I won’t fall apart.”

“Good. This has happened. We can’t undo it. We have to deal with the situation as it is. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Take her feet.”

Numbly, I followed his orders. I performed my assignments in mute stupefaction, distancing myself mentally from what my hands were doing. We lifted her up again, but this time I did not look at her. We moved deeper into the woods. Then, at a head signal from Constant, we moved in the direction of Varden Lane, which backed onto the Bradley and Somerset estates. When we were within sight of the three-story red-brick Utley house, we saw that there were lights on on several floors. There, at a second signal from him, we laid her down behind a clump of bushes. He began covering her with leaves. Calmly, he wiped his fingerprints off the head of the bat with the tail of his white Brooks Brothers shirt.