East Into Upper East (37 page)

Today Dave did not open Sophie's curtains, nor did he rush in. It was her maid's day off, and letting himself in with his key, he tiptoed through the silent apartment as far as the living room, which was empty. “In here!” came Sophie's voice: for however drugged she was, and however quiet he tried to be, any sound from him at once detonated a response in her.

“Why are you in bed?” He spoke to her from the doorway—too timid to approach. There was something remote about her lying motionless amid the white sheets of their double bed.

“Oh, I'm being lazy—just for today,” she smiled. She patted the side of her bed but had to do it again before he ventured to perch there, and then gingerly, on one big buttock. They were silent, taking each other in, shy like a couple just getting to know each other.

“Michael was here,” she said at last.

“I know. He told me.”

“What did he tell you?”

He answered with a question of his own: “You're sure you're doing okay, Sophie? You're not hiding anything from me?”

“What would I hide from you?” She smiled again—he knew her teeth were not her own but had never seen her without them. His eyes shifted to her bedside table. There was only one bottle of pills on it today. “Yes, I know you told me not to take anything,” she intercepted him, “but I haven't gotten around to throwing them out.”

“Why don't you tell what's-her-name to do it? Your girl—that's what she's here for.” He took the bottle and held it up, trying to read the label. “I haven't got my specs,” he said, replacing it. They were
in his top pocket—she could see them—but what was the use of putting them on, for even if he could read the label, he didn't know one medicine from another.

She said, “Michael told me about you.”

“Forget it. It's not important. What's important is your health.”

She lifted her hand where it lay on the sheet and touched the lapel of his suit. He looked down at her hand: it was the broad, heavy hand of her German ancestry but now reduced to its bony frame, big bumpy knuckles pushing through the paper-like skin.

She whispered, “Why don't you open the curtains so we can see each other?”

“No. It's nice this way.”

The light filtering through the golden bedroom curtains veiled the two of them in a pale haze that made them look spectral. She kept on whispering, and this seemed right because what they had to say to each other was outside of ordinary speech.

“I'm afraid,” she whispered.

“As long as I'm here, nothing will happen to you.”

“But what if something happens to you—like before?”

He seized her hand, still on his lapel. Although he meant his grasp to be firm, strong, and reassuring, his hand was trembling more than hers. They held on to each other.

“I won't let it happen,” she whispered.

He repeated: “Forget it. It's not important. Only your health.”

“I told you a lie—those pills? The doctor prescribed them. He says I have to take them.”

“And then you'll be okay?”

“Oh yes. But you know how bad I am with taking pills. Throwing up and so on.”

“How many do you have to take?”

“All of them in the bottle.”

“All at once? The doctor said? Dr. Blum?”

She nodded. “But he said Dave has to help you.”

“That's what I'm here for.”

“I want to sit up.”

She tried to do so by herself, but he wouldn't let her. He put his arms around her and lifted her and then kept holding her. Frail in his arms, she seemed to be made of some other, ethereal substance; her fine white nightdress enhanced this impression. Her mouth was
very near his ear and her words came wafting into him on her breath: “Mr. G. knows what to do, and Mr. R.B.”

“I don't need to hear this,” he whispered back. “You're not to think of any business till you're absolutely one hundred per cent again—understand?”

She nodded, shutting her eyes. Joy and suffering lay so close together, they were really one and the same.

“Should I get some water? Or what do you want to take them with?”

“I'll try with fruit juice. That—what's it called? Apricot nectar. Or is it Ambrosia? It's in the ice-box. But just one more minute. Hold me for one more minute.”

“As long as you want. Forever, if you want.” Tears had already gathered in his eyes, ready to flow and ease him.

BOBBY

After her last man friend, when the situation with Bobby became very difficult, Claire preferred to have only women friends. And as the years passed, and Bobby grew into his full and frightening manhood, his mother only felt comfortable with her oldest friend, Madeleine, and spent most of her time with her. That suited Madeleine better than anything. When they were at school together, Madeleine had had a crush on Claire that never entirely wore off, though their lives had diverged completely and there were years when they had lost touch. But now that the main activity of those years had ended and they were back, at least geographically, where they had started, the old relationship could be resumed.

It wasn't as though either of them had changed all that much. They found that underneath everything—that is, underneath their transformed physical appearance—they retained the character of the schoolgirls they had been. They had a lot of fun together even now. Madeleine, who had lived abroad for many years, bought an apartment in New York in the same building and on the same floor as Claire's. At weekends they drove to the place in the country that Madeleine had inherited from her parents. It was a two-story house, built in the twenties, and they could have comfortably lived there all the time. Madeleine wanted to, but Claire said she would miss the plays and concerts in the city. But it wasn't that at all—they could have easily driven in for the day; it was Bobby. It was always Bobby.

Sometimes he joined them, but mostly he stayed in the city, and then Madeleine had Claire all to herself in the house in the country. It made her more happy than she had dreamed, during her bad
years, she ever could be again. She got up in the morning and prepared breakfast for when Claire woke up. It wasn't until she had given the last touch to the table laid cozily in the breakfast nook that she tramped upstairs to Claire's bedroom. She stood over Claire and said, “Up with you, lazybones.” From within the delicious warmth of her bed, Claire looked up at her; and if Katze was curled on the comforter, then Madeleine would grab and squeeze him hard till he miaowed in indignation.

“You'll kill him,” Claire warned.

“Yes, kill him with love,” said Madeleine, making big threatening eyes at Claire in bed.

“You will,” Claire said. “You don't know your own strength.”

“I'm not like you—look at your ridiculous little wrist.” Madeleine took it and spanned it between two fingers. “I could snap it in two if I wanted,” she said, sounding as though she might.

“Help,” said Claire lazily; making her wrist go limp, she left it where it was in Madeleine's big hand.

At first Bobby had hated Madeleine. He jeered at her appearance—her big shapeless body and the way she dressed it in long peasant gowns. He asked, what was she, an Old Believer, or a prophetess? With this he was also hitting out at the way Madeleine had spent her life. She had been companion-secretary to a philosopher and had traveled around with him all over the world. People thronged to his lectures and workshops, for his philosophy was as attractive as his personality. Both were totally absorbing to Madeleine, and she had dedicated herself to him; but then he took on a younger secretary and the situation changed. Madeleine had returned home to the States, and all that was left of her years of devotion was a trunk full of the peasant gowns that he had encouraged his women followers to wear.

When Bobby taunted Madeleine, Claire was ashamed and would have stopped him, if she hadn't known that this would only make him worse. She was grateful for the patient way Madeleine, who was not patient by nature, pretended to take it all as friendly kidding. It turned out to be the best way to deal with him. Losing interest in her, he ignored her, which could be interpreted as tolerating her—anyway, that was how Madeleine and Claire interpreted it, enabling them to continue building up a life together. Madeleine made it scrupulously clear that the house in the country was as much
Bobby's home as it was hers and his mother's, and that he was free to come there whenever he wanted. But of course it was best when he didn't come.

At first Madeleine and Claire used to drive back on Mondays, but one week Madeleine said, “Why not stay till tomorrow?” Claire said nothing, but after a while she went up to her bedroom, shutting the door. Madeleine knew she had gone to phone Bobby, to ask his permission, and she waited nervously. But when Claire returned, she said: “There's no answer.”

“He's out having a good time,” Madeleine urged in false cheer.

Claire continued to frown anxiously. It may well have been that Bobby had gone out, but equally well he might be at home not answering the phone—for any number of reasons: because he didn't feel like it; or because he knew it was his mother and it gave him pleasure to think of her worrying where he was, what he was doing. Or he may have been asleep, he often slept through the day after taking God knows what, a legitimate drug prescribed by his doctor or something else. Or perhaps he wasn't asleep—didn't Madeleine know every tormenting thought that formed behind Claire's delicate forehead? Perhaps he
couldn't
answer the phone because—well, anything could
happen
: “We'd better go,” Claire said, and Madeleine knew there was nothing she could say to keep her.

But the following Monday Madeleine decided to stay back and let Claire return alone. It was both a wrench and a relief: to let her go, and yet not to have to be with her in the city under the cloud of Bobby's presence. They spoke briefly on the phone several times a day and had long conversations in the evening. In the background Madeleine could hear the rock music that Bobby always played at an earsplitting level. On Friday afternoon Madeleine drove to the station to collect Claire. Her heart leaped when she saw her step off the train—stylish and slim, laughing with some silly thing that had happened to her on the way. They both laughed, like a couple of madcap schoolgirls, Madeleine driving the car rather recklessly. Then Claire said, “Bobby said he might join us this weekend,” and Madeleine said, “Oh good,” getting a firmer grip on the wheel because the front tires had skidded with her careless driving.

He arrived the next day in a cab from the station. It was early evening, and Madeleine and Claire were sitting idyllically under an apple tree, shelling peas for their supper. Behind them the sun was setting in a mild glow of gold. The moment she saw Bobby arrive, Claire put down her bowl of shelled peas and went to pay the cab driver. She kissed Bobby, who turned away from her to face Madeleine—not with his usual scowl but with a sort of triumphant smile that may have meant no more than “Here I am.”

He was carrying his big metal stereo. He never went anywhere without it—loud, reverberating sound was his inescapable accompaniment. Madeleine had almost gotten used to it. It was difficult to tell where the music ended and his own personality began, for both hammered mercilessly through whatever space he occupied. That weekend happened to be calm for him. He sat for many hours, frowning over a book of which he rarely turned a page; when he looked up, his eyes were clouded with thoughts that seemed to have welled up not from any reading but from some abyss inside himself. That impression may have been subjective, Madeleine had to admit, formed by her vision of him as a darkly brooding presence. Whenever he went on one of his long solitary walks, she imagined him throwing a sombre, terrible cloud over this golden landscape of streams and hills and immaculate white clapboard houses. But she knew it wasn't right to think of him that way, for what was he but a youth enjoying a day out in the country? The impression of shadow, of darkness may have been due only to his complexion, which was a throwback to his father's Italian ancestry.

They gave him one of the bedrooms on the second floor, a charming, simple room with white furniture and flowered wallpaper matching the curtains. He lay, sweet and pure, with his head on the white pillow. Claire sat on the side of his bed and Madeleine stood in the door, watching them. “How handsome you are, my darling,” said Claire, brushing the hair from his high arched brow, which would have been noble if it hadn't been for the scowl lowering there. But now he was calm; he let her stroke his face; he loved her. “Shall I read to you, my darling?” she asked. She often read to him—fairy tales of princes bewitched into monsters until redeemed by love; or plays she would have liked to act in—before her marriage she wanted to be an actress—or would have liked him to act in, for wasn't he handsome like an actor, a star? Again she stroked his face,
kissing her own fingertips where they had touched him. She loved his looks, and to draw Madeleine's attention to them. Sometimes she compared him to his father, whom she had described to Madeleine as pale, emasculated, deracinated, not only in appearance but in character too: a weak, weak man. But Bobby was strong, with a broad chest and back matted in luxurious black hair. His father's hair had begun to thin before he was thirty; and his father had long thin hands like the artist he had pretended to be, though settling for a safe job with an international organization. Bobby's hands were huge and strong, they were those of the Italian farmworkers his family had been, several generations ago. Claire stroked them where they lay on the sheet; she said, “Do you like being here? Madeleine loves having you here, she's so grateful you've come—aren't you?” she said, smiling to her standing in the door, and Madeleine smiled back and said yes.

By next day Bobby was bored with being in the country, so his mother returned with him to the city. Madeleine stayed through the week—this had become a regular pattern for her, along with her daily calls to Claire. But on one of those calls there was something odd in Claire's voice, off-key. Madeleine phoned again an hour later, and still that inflection was there, but of course when she said, “Is everything all right?” Claire gave a light laugh and said: “Why shouldn't it be?” Madeleine knew many reasons why. By evening she was so restless that she got in her car and drove to the city. The moment she let herself into her apartment, she felt a difference. During her absence, Claire always came in to water the plants; but as soon as she opened the door, Madeleine knew that someone else had been there. And not only been there—had lived there—had turned it into his lair! In her bedroom the mattress had been dragged from the bed to the floor; dirty underwear was stuffed into the sides of an armchair. Her photographs, of her parents and a brother who had died as an adolescent, were thrown face down on the dresser. She thrust open the window to get rid of the feral smell that lay thick in the air.

When she felt calm enough, she went to Claire's apartment down the hall. She rang the bell and called through the door, “It's me.”
Claire opened and said in a shocked voice, “What happened—why have you come?” She let her in, quickly turning aside her face but not before Madeleine had seen the injury on it.

Madeleine said in a calm, normal voice: “I have to see my taxman tomorrow, so I thought we might have dinner tonight, you and I.”