The Fiend (6 page)

“I'm speaking of what happens when people refuse to admit their own mistakes and take cover behind self-righteousness.”

“You've never talked to me like this before.”

“It's been a long day and I'm tired. Perhaps fatigue works on me like wine. You and Sheridan have been separated for two years and you're still bickering over a financial settlement, you haven't come to an agreement about Mary Martha, there have been suits, countersuits—”

“Please, Mac. Don't be unkind to me. I'm distracted, I'm truly distracted.”

“Yes, I guess you truly are,” Mac said slowly. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“Tell Sheridan to get out of town and I'll settle for eight hundred dollars a month.”

“What about Mary Martha? He insists on seeing her.”

“He'll see her over my dead body and no sooner. I won't change my mind about that.”

“Look, Kate, I can't tell a man that simply because his wife no longer loves him he has to quit his job, leave the city he was born and brought up in and give up all rights to his only child.”

“He's always loathed this town and said so. As for that silly little job, he only took it to get out of the house. He has enough money from his mother's trust fund. He can well afford to pay me a thousand dollars—”

“His lawyer says he can't.”

“Naturally. His lawyer's on his side.” She added bitterly, “I only wish to God my lawyer were on mine.”

“I can be on your side without believing everything you do is right.”

“You don't know, you don't
know
what I've gone through with that man. He's tried everything—hounding me, holding back on support money so I've had to sell half the things in the house to keep from starving, following me around town, stand­ing outside the door and ringing the bell until my nerves were shattered—”

“That's all over now. He's under a court order not to harass you.”

“Then what's he doing parked outside right this minute? Waiting to see one of my dozens of lovers arrive?”

“Now don't work yourself up, Kate.”

“Why can't he leave us alone? He's got what he wanted, that fat old gin-swilling whore who treats him like little Jesus. Does he actually expect me to allow Mary Martha to associate with
that?”

Lying on her stomach on the floor of the upstairs hall, Mary Martha suddenly pressed her hands against her ears. She had eavesdropped on dozens of her mother's conversations with Mac and this was no different from the others. She knew from ex­perience that it was going to last a long time and she didn't want to hear any more.

She thought of slipping down the back stairs and going over to Jessie's house, but the steps creaked very badly. She got to her feet and tiptoed down the hall to her mother's room.

To Mary Martha it was a beautiful room, all white and pink and frilly, with French doors opening onto a little balcony. Beside the balcony grew a sycamore tree where she had once found a hummingbird's tiny nest lined with down gathered from the underside of the leaves and filled with eggs smaller than jelly beans.

It was the cat, Pudding, who had alerted Mary Martha to the possibilities of the sycamore tree. Frightened by a stray dog, he had leaped to the first limb, climbed right up on the balcony and sat on the railing, looking smugly down on his enemy. Mary Martha wasn't as fearless and adept a climber as either Pudding or Jessie, but in emergencies she used the tree and so far her mother hadn't caught her at it.

She stepped out on the balcony and began the slow difficult descent, trying not to look at the ground. The gray mottled bark of the tree, which appeared so smooth from a distance, scratched her hands and arms like sandpaper. She passed the kitchen window. The hamburger was thawing on the sink and the sight of it made her aware of her hunger but she kept on going.

She dropped onto the grass in the backyard and crossed the dry creek bed, being careful to avoid the reddening runners of poison oak. A scrub jay squawked in protest at her intrusion. Mary Martha had learned from her father how to imitate the bird, and ordinarily she would have squawked back at him and there would have been a lively contest between the two of them. But this time she didn't even hear the jay. Her ears were still filled with her mother's voice:
“He's got what he wanted, that fat old gin-swilling whore who treats him like little Jesus.”
The sentence bewildered her. Little Jesus was a baby in a manger and her father was a grown-up man with a mustache. She didn't know what a whore was, but she assumed, since her father was interested in birds, that it was an owl. Owls said, “Whoo,” and were fat and lived to be quite old.

Mr. and Mrs. Brant were in the little fenced-in patio at the back of their house, preparing a barbecue. Mr. Brant was try­ing to get the charcoal lit and Mrs. Brant was wrapping ears of corn in aluminum foil. They both wore shorts and cotton shirts and sandals.

“Why, it's Mary Martha,” Ellen Brant said, sounding pleased and surprised, as though Mary Martha lived a hundred miles away and hadn't seen her for a year. “Come in, dear. Jessie will be out in a few minutes. She's taking a bath.”

“I'm glad she didn't get blood poisoning and convulsions,” Mary Martha said gravely.

“So am I. Very.”

“Jessie is my best friend.”

“I know that, and I think it's splendid. Don't you, Dave?”

“You bet I do,” Dave said, turning to give Mary Martha a slow, shy smile. He was a big man with a low-pitched, quiet voice, and a slight stoop to his shoulders that seemed like an apology for his size.

It was his size and his quietness that Mary Martha especially admired. Her own father was short in stature and short of temper. His movements were quick and impatient and no matter what he was doing he always seemed anxious to get started on the next thing. It was restful and reassuring to stand beside Mr. Brant and watch him lighting the charcoal.

He said, “Careful, Mary Martha. Don't get burned.”

“I won't. I often do the cooking at home. Also, I iron.”

“Do you now. In ten years or so you'll be making some young man a fine wife, won't you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I'm not going to get married.”

“You're pretty young to reach such a drastic decision.”

Mary Martha was staring into the glowing coals as if reading her future. “I'm going to be an animal doctor and adopt ten children and support them all by myself so I don't have to sit around waiting for a check in the mail.”

Over her head the Brants exchanged glances, then Ellen said in a firm, decisive voice, “No loafing on the job, you two. Put the corn on and I'll get the hot dogs. Would you like to stay and eat with us, Mary Martha?”

“No, thank you. I would like to but my mother will be alone.”
And she will have a headache and a rash on her face and her eyes will be swollen, and she'll call me sweetie-pie and lambikins.

“Perhaps your mother would like to join us,” Ellen said. “Why don't you call her on the phone and ask her?”

“I can't. The line's busy.”

“How do you know that? You haven't tried to—”

“She wouldn't come, anyway. She has a headache and things.”

“Well,” Ellen said, spreading her hands helplessly. “Well, I'd better get the hot dogs.”

She went inside and Dave was left alone with Mary Martha. He felt uneasy in her presence, as if, in spite of her friendliness and politeness, she was secretly accusing him of being a man and a villain and he was secretly agreeing with her. He felt heavy with guilt and he wished someone would appear to help him carry it, Jessie or Ellen from the house, Michael from the football field, Virginia and Howard Arlington from next door. But no one came. There was only Mary Martha, small and pale and mute as marble.

For a long time the only sound was an occasional drop of butter oozing from between the folds of the aluminum foil and sputtering on the coals. Then Mary Martha said, “Do you know anything about birds, Mr. Brant?”

“No, I'm afraid not. I used to keep a few homing pigeons when I was a boy but that's about all.”

“You didn't keep any owls?”

“No. I don't suppose anyone does.”

“My ex-father has one.”

“Does he now,” Dave said. “That's very interesting. What does he feed it?”

“Gin.”

“Are you sure? Gin doesn't sound like a suitable diet for an owl or for anything else, for that matter. Don't owls usually eat small rodents and birds and things like that?”

“Yes, but not this one.”

“Well,” Dave said, with a shrug, “I don't know much either about owls or about your fath—your ex-father, so I'll just have to take your word for it. Gin it is.”

Twin spots of color appeared on Mary Martha's cheeks, as if she'd been stung by bees or doubts. “I heard my mother telling Mac about it on the telephone. My ex-father has a fat old whore that drinks gin.”

There was a brief silence. Then Dave said carefully, “I don't believe your mother was referring to an owl, Mary Martha. The word you used doesn't mean that.”

“What does it mean?”

“It's an insulting term, and not one young ladies are supposed to repeat.”

Mary Martha was aware that he had replied but hadn't an­swered. The word must mean something so terrible that she could never ask anyone about it. Why had her mother used it then, and what was her father doing with one? She felt a surge of anger against them all, her mother and father, the whore, David, and even Jessie who wasn't there but who had a real father.

Inside the kitchen the phone rang and through the open door and windows Ellen's voice came, clear and distinct: “Hello. Why yes, Mrs. Oakley, she's here.... Of course I had no idea she didn't have your permission…. She's perfectly all right, there's no need to become upset over it. Mary Martha isn't the kind of girl who'd be likely to get in trouble…. I'll have Dave bring her right home…. Very well, I'll tell her to wait here until you arrive. Good-bye.”

Ellen came outside, carrying a tray of buttered rolls and hot dogs stuffed with cheese and wrapped in bacon. “Your mother just called, Mary Martha.”

Mary Martha merely nodded. Her mother's excitement had an almost soothing effect on her. There would be a scene, naturally, but it would be like a lot of others, nothing she couldn't handle, nothing that hadn't been said a hundred times.
“If you truly love me, Mary Martha, you'll promise never to do such a thing again.” “I truly love you, Mother. I never will.”

“She's driving over to get you,” Ellen added. “You're to be waiting on the front porch.”

“All right.”

“Jessie will wait with you. She's just putting her pajamas on.”

“I can wait alone.”

“Of course you can, you're a responsible girl. But you came over here to see Jessie, didn't you?”

“No, ma'am.”

“Why did you come, then?”

Mary Martha blinked, as if the question hurt her eyes. Then she turned and walked into the house, closing the screen door carefully and quietly behind her.

Dave Brant watched his wife as she began arranging the hot dogs on the grill. “Maybe you shouldn't question her like that, Ellen.”

“Why not?”

“She might think you're prying.”

“She might be right.”

“I hope not.”

“Oh, come on, Dave. Admit it—you're just as curious as I am about what goes on in that household.”

“Perhaps. But I think I'm better off not knowing.” He thought of telling Ellen about the fat old whore but he couldn't predict her reaction. She might be either quite amused by the story or else shocked into doing something tactless like repeating it to Mrs. Oakley. Although he'd been married to Ellen for eighteen years, her insensitivity to certain situations still surprised him.

“Dave—”

“Yes?”

“We'll never let it happen to our children, will we?”

“What?”

“Divorce,” Ellen said, with a gesture, “and all the mess that goes with it. It would kill Michael, he's so terribly sensitive, like me.”

“He's going to have plenty of reason to be sensitive if he's not home by 6:30 as he promised.”

“Now, Dave, you wouldn't actually punish him simply for losing track of the time.”

“He has 20-20 vision and a wrist watch,” Dave said. But he wasn't even interested in Michael at the moment. He merely wanted to change the subject because he couldn't bear to talk or even think about a divorce. The idea of Jessie being in Mary Martha's place appalled him, Michael was sixteen, almost a man, but Jessie was still a child, full of trust and innocence, and the only person in the world who sincerely believed in him. She wouldn't always. Inevitably, the time would come when she'd have to question his wisdom and courage, perhaps even his love for her. But right now she was nine, her world was small, no more than a tiny moon, and he was the king of it.