The Spirit Wood (20 page)

Twenty-three

N
O MATTER HOW
many times she'd rehearsed it in her mind, Meg still couldn't figure out the best way to break the news to Peter. Just talking to his mother on the phone made him crazy . . . she hated to guess what he'd do when he learned that she was coming out to Arcadia to see them. And to stay, for as much as a week or two. She'd have liked to put off telling him altogether, to wait a few days until an auspicious moment turned up, but when Mrs. Constantine had called the house that night, she'd made it clear that she was coming on Saturday morning, and that was that. Something must have changed her mind about the place, Meg thought . . . or else she'd simply decided to give up fighting it and make an attempt now to reconcile with her son. None of it would be easy, Meg realized—but for all she knew, maybe Mrs. Constantine would be able to help Peter return to himself.

As usual, he'd gone to the Caswells that night without giving her any idea what time to expect him back. In front of Byron, he'd mentioned that Jack had volunteered to read over his dissertation and tell him what he thought. So far as Meg knew, Peter had never even let
Byron
read what he'd done. Why on earth would he solicit Caswell's opinion—a man who published pedigreed pornography—when Byron, his best friend and a Ph.D. himself, was ready, willing, and
able? Was it an intended slight? Though Byron had pretended to be oblivious to any injury, Meg knew that he must have felt it. Why, she thought for perhaps the hundredth time now, did Peter have to treat him so badly?

The house was quiet; Byron had gone to bed an hour or two earlier. Meg had intended to wait up until Peter got home, but she was tired of wearing her work clothes and decided to shower and get into her nightgown. Maybe he'd be back by the time she was done. She tossed her clothes onto the bed, then, chilled by the cool wind blowing through the open doors to the balcony, scampered into the bathroom. Throwing the shower curtain around the large sunken tub and turning on the water, she waited, with her arms wrapped around herself, for the spray to get hot enough. When a faint billow of steam rose from the tub, she turned the shower nozzle to the wall and gingerly stepped in.

She held her face to the fine, hard spray, letting the hot water drum against her eyelids. She and Byron had taken Diogenes for his constitutional that night, and she'd only then found out why he'd been named that. In ancient Greece, Byron had explained, the philosopher Diogenes had been known as “the dog” because of his independent thinking and contempt for social amenities. “I thought it was rather clever,” Byron had said, “naming a dog Diogenes, until I realized no one was ever going to get it.” Meg lowered her head to let the water soak her hair. That was just like Byron, she thought, to be so subtle that no one would notice what he was after. It was only in the past few weeks that, she'd grasped what she should have known for two years. If only she'd had two years’ warning, she might have been better able to deal with it.

And she might have known better what she felt herself.

Taking the soap from the gold shell-shaped dish, she lathered herself thoroughly. Her hands were rough
from her work; after the shower, she'd have to apply another coat of lotion. She shampooed her hair and was vigorously working in the conditioner, when she thought she heard the bathroom doorknob turn.

“Peter?” she said.

But there was no other sound. Wasn't he ever going to call it quits at the Caswells? With a Daisy razor she'd left in the soap dish, she started to give her legs a quick once-over. Might as well go the whole hog, she thought.

Then she definitely heard the doorknob turn. Peering through the semitransparent curtain, she saw Peter's dark blue shirt and chinos. He closed the door behind him.

“I was just wondering when you were going to get home,” she said. She heard him kick off his shoes; they thumped against the side of the tub. “So what did Caswell have to say about it?” she asked, bending over with one foot resting on the edge of the tub. She could feel the stubble, but she couldn't really see it. Sometimes she wondered why she bothered to shave at all.

Peter grunted something in reply; it sounded as though he'd been pulling his shirt off over his head. Already she knew this was not the right time to bring up the call from his mother. Not if she wanted to get any sleep that night.

“Had he read the whole thing?”

The lights went out.

“Peter,” she said, holding her finger at the place where she'd just stopped shaving, “don't play games right now. I'm shaving my legs.”

The curtain behind her was pulled back; he stepped into the big tub with her.

“Peter, I've got to
see
,"
she said, straightening up. Tonight he was going to start getting amorous again? They hadn't showered together in weeks. Months. She felt his hands take hold of her at the waist. Firmly.

“Aren't you even going to talk to me?” she said, trying to turn around to face him. But he held her as she was, his fingers kneading the flesh eagerly. One hand slipped around to her belly, then down.

This was all wrong. It was what she'd wanted, every night since coming to Arcadia. But not like this. Not without a single word. Or kiss. Or any gesture of tenderness.

“Come on . . . ,” she said, as if he were only kidding. “One of us is going to slip and kill himself.”

He pressed himself against her now, breathing hard over her shoulder. His breath reeked of wine. She felt the bushy hair on his chest, not yet wet, scratching her back. There was so much of it, and it was so bristly that it hurt.

“If you don't want me to use this razor on that chest of yours,” she said, but before she could finish he had suddenly inserted two of his fingers, bluntly, into her vagina. She tried to push his hand away—what the hell did he think he was doing?—but he used the fingers like a handle, to hold her fast.

“That hurts!” she cried.

But he only increased the pressure. He was rubbing his whole body against her now. She could feel his penis against her thighs, stirring and stiffening. And even
that
felt furred, hard and sharp as a dagger. The air itself smelled like a wet, unclean animal.

“Let go!” she said, her hand now gripping the razor. “I swear to God, I'll cut you with this!”

He punched her, in the stomach. Just hard enough that she doubled over, gasping for breath. The razor clattered to the floor of the tub. He butted her forward, so that her hands went up against the wet tiled wall. His fingers ruthlessly prized her open. She screamed when he forced himself into her; it felt as if she were being torn in half. As if it would never stop. As if she could never contain it. The water streamed down into her mouth.

There was a banging, first from far away, then very close. On the bathroom door.

“Meg! Meg!”

Peter thrust himself into her one more time, then ripped himself away. She heard him hurl the shower curtain back and leap out of the tub just as the lock on the door cracked and Byron staggered in.

“Meg! What the—”

Before he could find the light, Peter must have charged into him, like a raging bull, and sent him sprawling. When Meg turned, and fell to her knees in the tub, Byron was struggling to his feet again.

“All right?”

She nodded, clutching the bottom of the shower curtain around her.

“Right back,” and he scrambled out of the room. Peter, he knew, had made for the balcony. He ran out onto it just in time to hear a splash from below, in the fountain. There was a dark figure, like the statue itself come terribly to life, clambering over the rim, shaking itself like a wet dog, and then loping, arms akimbo, toward the black shelter of the trees.

IV

Metamorphosis

Twenty-four

M
RS.
C
ONSTANTINE, STEPPING
off the train, saw them before they saw her. Which was lucky, because she needed a few seconds to collect herself. She hardly recognized Peter at first—his skin was so tanned, his black hair so long and curly. He was wearing wrap-around sunglasses and stood several feet back from Meg, almost as if he were there alone, waiting for someone else. A tall, thin man, as pale as Peter was dark, stood between them. Byron, whom she'd met once or twice in New York when he and Peter had come in to see exhibits at the Morgan Library or the Met. From the way they were all
grouped, you might almost have thought Byron was the husband and Peter the friend.

Meg, the first to spot her, waved and trotted toward her. Meg, too, seemed different somehow—she looked even more drawn and worried than she had in the city. She reintroduced Byron—"Of course I remember you,” Mrs. Constantine said, “though I'm looking forward to meeting the famous Dodger"—and then Peter stepped forward.

“Hello, Mother,” he said, leaning in and perfunctorily brushing his lips against her cheek. “Glad you could make it.” Behind the dark sunglasses, it was impossible for her to make out his eyes. He bent to pick up her suitcase, then started toward the parking lot. Though the bag wasn't particularly heavy, Mrs. Constantine noticed that he seemed to be having some trouble carrying it; with each step, it bumped against one of his legs.

In the car, Mrs. Constantine sat in front, while Meg and Byron kept up a steady chorus from the back, pointing out the local sites: the post office, the art shop where Meg bought her supplies, the town hall. She knew they were doing it to put her at ease, to distract her, and she appreciated the effort. But nothing was going to be able to do that. Not with Peter staring stonily ahead, saying nothing, driving as if he were a cabbie anxious to deliver his fare and be gone.

It was only when they left the commercial district of the town and entered into the leafy, residential streets that Peter appeared to relax a little. His fingers no longer clenched the steering wheel so tightly. He rolled his window down the rest of the way and tilted his head back to catch the breeze. As they passed a colonial-style house, he said, “That's the Plettners’ place.” Farther on, he slowed and said, “That's where the Caswells live,” indicating a large Tudor-style house nearly concealed behind a high, thick hedge. They had entered into a much more exclusive area,
Mrs. Constantine could tell—fewer and fewer houses, set back more and more from the road. They had already shot past a house that looked to Mrs. Constantine like a jumble of shoe boxes when Peter said, “That, by the way, belongs to our friends the Simons. We're on Huntington Road right now.” They couldn't be far from Arcadia, then; Mrs. Constantine felt her heart thump in her chest. She drew a long, silent breath.

Peter, conversely, seemed to be expanding by the moment. Occasionally, he glanced over at her now, a slight smile fleeting across his face. It struck her that he was pleased, proud of the increasing grandeur of the surroundings. And waiting for her to acknowledge it somehow.

“We're almost there,” he said. “Arcadia.” As if she'd forgotten the name of the place.

He pressed a button attached to the sun visor above his head; they were approaching a pair of wrought-iron gates that swung ponderously open. They waited for a car to pass in the opposite direction, then drove through onto a narrow gravel driveway.

Peter followed the winding drive slowly, as if to give her ample time to appreciate the size and scope of the estate. It was one of the lushest and most verdant places she had ever seen—that much she had to concede. Ancient trees lined the sides of the drive, their branches reaching out and almost touching the hood of the car. The grass was long, and dotted with wild-flowers, giant toadstools, rocky outcroppings. There was a sunny, seductive quiet about the place, an atmosphere so bucolic and tranquil it instantly made everywhere else, even sleepy Passet Bay, seem impossibly hectic and remote. A robin redbreast fluttered past the windshield.

“That's about the most commotion you'll see out here,” Peter remarked.

They emerged from the trees, and the house sud-
denly came into view, its colossal facade and broad portico bathed in the early afternoon sunlight. Mrs. Constantine instinctively recoiled in her seat. The house had been described to her, she'd known what to expect, but still, the sight of it momentarily flattened her. It was so much what she might have expected her father to build for himself, a monumental pile of cold stone and imposing columns. A veritable temple, with Alexander Constantine as its resident deity. There was something about the place that
physically
reminded her of him: the narrow windows like slitted eyes, the white wings of the house like the wisps of hair that used to jut out from his head. The huge black doors, suggesting a mouth both voracious and insatiable.

“Well?” Peter said, stopping the car in front of the steps. “Not your usual suburban split-level, huh?”

“No,” Mrs. Constantine replied, “it's certainly not that.”

Peter seemed dissatisfied. “Don't you think it's incredible? Have you ever seen any place like it?” he demanded.

She wasn't acting suitably impressed. To avoid an outburst, she mustered up some false enthusiasm. “Outside of a trip I once took to Newport, I don't think so,” she said, steeling herself to get out of the car.

Byron had removed her suitcase from the trunk. The doors to the house opened, and a young woman with long, black hair came out; a golden retriever charged out from behind her.

“This is Diogenes,” Byron said as the dog bounded around their feet, “better known as Dodger.”

“And this is Leah,” Peter said, holding the young woman by her elbow. “My mother, Ellen Constantine.”

“Welcome to Arcadia,” she said, looking at Mrs. Constantine fixedly. “I hope you will enjoy your stay here.”

“I'm sure I will.” This was the girl Meg had mentioned, the daughter of the caretaker. The one who made the wine. But why was Peter holding her arm that way?

“Come on,” Peter was saying, “I want to show you the inside, too.” It had been a long time since she'd seen him like this, so anxious to impress her, to gain her approval. She would have to do her best to persuade him that he had.

He took her eagerly all over the house, showing her the pebbled floor mosaic, the sculpted fireplace, the skylight, the kraters and credenzas and iron tripod lamps; he guided her into each successive room with mounting pride and satisfaction.
Look at all this,
he seemed to be saying.
Now that you've come here and seen it all for yourself, can you still oppose it? Can you still oppose our being here?

She did, but knew enough not to say so. Not yet.

He was just about to whisk her outside again—"You must see the gazebo on the back lawn,” he insisted, “you're going to love it"—when Meg intervened and said he had to give his mother a few minutes to catch her breath first, to go upstairs, unpack, and relax. Meg was right. The moment the bedroom door closed behind her, Mrs. Constantine unsnapped her purse and removed a small prescription bottle. In the bathroom, she swallowed one of the bright-red capsules with a glass of water, then took off her shoes and lay down on the white coverlet spread across the bed. The room was large but musty still—it would need another day or two of airing. The windows, two narrow rectangles in leaded frames, looked out toward the front of the house, across the circular drive and into the wooded area. Sunlight sluiced through them now, brightening the otherwise austere cast of the room: the cumbersome brown bureau, the matching bedside table with the heavy brass lamp, the upholstered armchair in the far corner. The only note of color was a bouquet of
vibrant wild flowers in what looked like an antique terra cotta vase, black with an orange design around the top. It must have been Meg who'd thought of the flowers.

Closing her eyes, it was the silence that most impressed her—the total absence of noise. No car horns, no fire trucks, no music blaring from an apartment across the airshaft, no rattle and groan from an incinerator chute down the hall. Even when her own apartment was at its quietest, on those nights when, haunted by nightmares at three or four in the morning, she would heat up some milk to help her fall asleep, there was always some audible reminder of the people and life around her. Here, there was nothing—whatever luncheon preparations might be going on in the kitchen were too far away for her to hear; Huntington Road was such a distance from the house that no traffic noises carried over. She could feel herself gradually relaxing, her pulse returning to a regular beat.

Perhaps the worst was over now, and she'd be able to handle Arcadia after all.

Nothing that happened that day or night refuted it. Everything that could be done for her was done—Leah had even turned down her bed that night—and she awoke the next morning feeling curiously calm and contented. The gazebo Peter had mentioned proved to be her favorite place on the grounds, after all. In the early afternoon, while Peter and Byron were working in their respective rooms and Meg in her boathouse studio, Mrs. Constantine took her needlepoint bag down to the gazebo, to sew a while in the fresh air. And to mull over all that had happened in the past twenty-four hours.

She'd had very little time to do it before she looked up to swat away an especially persistent bee and saw Nikos ambling down the lawn toward her. He was wearing the same black rubber boots he'd had on the
night before, when he'd burst into the dining room, a straw-covered bottle in hand, to toast her arrival at Arcadia. Her heart sank at the sight of him.

Coining straight to the gazebo, he poked his face in between two of the rounded wooden posts and greeted her
in Greek. Though she was familiar with the salutation—she'd heard her father, and Kesseogolou, use it often enough—she gave him no indication of understanding it now. Nikos, however, failed to be put off.

“Don't you stick your fingers, with those pins?” he asked.

“Not if I'm careful.”

“What is it?” he asked, craning his short, thick neck to catch a glimpse of the design.

“Flowers,” Mrs. Constantine replied. “Just a bowl of flowers.”

Nikos grunted. “Very pretty,” he said. Then, without any warning, he thumped his hand against one of the wooden posts. Mrs. Constantine jumped, and pricked her finger.

"Seeghnomí,”
Nikos said in apology. “I did not mean to frighten you.”

“Then why did you do that?” Mrs. Constantine said, touching her pricked finger to her mouth.

“To see how strong she is.” He gripped the post again and made it rattle. “They want to use this, for the auction. I must see how strong it is first. You know about the auction, yes?”

“I do,” Mrs. Constantine said. Meg had mentioned it, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. Nikos, uninvited and certainly unwanted, lurched around to the opening in the gazebo and plunked himself down on the unused wooden bench directly across from Mrs. Constantine. Their knees were only inches apart. There was a subtle smile, presumptuous, all-knowing, on his face. He sat as if waiting for her to speak. Or to admit to
something. She worked diligently at the needlepoint design.

“It is good, after so long, to meet you,” he finally ventured. “Your father, he lived here for many years. And you never came.”

She made no reply.

“Why not?”

“Because I didn't even know he lived here,” she said, laying one hand flat against the pattern in her lap. “And because even if I
had
known, it wouldn't have made any difference.”

“But to Peter?”

“What about Peter?”

“Perhaps he would have liked to know his grandfather,” Nikos said with a shrug. “His
grandfather"
—Nikos gave the word a special sinister attention, Mrs. Constantine thought—"many times spoke about him. And how he would one day come here.”

So this inheritance scheme—or something even worse—had been in her father's mind all along? He'd even gone so far as to speak of it, and of Peter, to his caretaker? What else, Mrs. Constantine wondered, had he confessed to this man? Everything? Is that why Nikos looked at her with such cunning and self-assurance?

“I don't see how his grandfather"—she tried now to invest the word with its full authority—"could have said anything about Peter, or his coming to this place. They never had any contact with each other, I'm pleased to say.”

Far from taking offense, or backing off, Nikos seemed pleased at her rising temper. His smile broadened; a bee circled the brim of his cap.

“Yes, that is so,” he conceded. “But still, Peter likes it here very much, I think. I think he would like to stay at Arcadia.”

“As it happens, he can't.” She enjoyed saying so. “He has a job to return to at the university.”

Nikos wagged his head, as if to say he wasn't so sure about that. When he stopped, the bee landed on his brim. “Why must he go back to a job? What he does—the reading, the writing—he can do here. He has his books, his papers, his
library.”
The last he made sound very grand, and slightly foolish. “Everything else we can do for him. Angelos, Leah,” and moving one hand to his chest, “me.” Another bee joined the one on his brim; a third landed on his knee. Nikos seemed unconcerned. Leaning back against the bench, he began to describe, slowly and in detail, the life that he and his family had led in the old country. A place he referred to as Proseleni. “Very beautiful,” he said, “but very hard. On our island, there was nothing left. Everywhere we went, places that had been ours—” he made a looping gesture to indicate forever; another bee popped onto his shirt—"were not ours anymore.” He spoke in a low, almost hypnotic fashion. About the mountains of Greece. The olive groves. The ruined temples.