Offbeat: Uncollected Stories Read online

  “Listen—”

  “Did you hear me!” he shouted.

  I sat without moving. He stood glaring at me, hands twitching at his sides. Finally he turned away.

  “If it’s true,” I said, “explain it.”

  “I told you,” he said in a bored voice.

  “I want the truth,” I said. “Mary is losing her mind and I want to know why.”

  He didn’t move. I couldn’t tell whether he was listening or not.

  “I know you,” I went on. “You don’t care about her. You never did. You’ve always expected her to live on scraps from you; well, that much she expected. She was prepared to share you with your work . . . and yourself.”

  I stood.

  “But this isn’t intangible,” I said angrily. “This is outright and cruel. And I want to know about it.”

  He sighed, then spoke with that shifting of mood that made him so inexplicable. His voice was almost gentle.

  “You are a child,” he said. “Impossibly and irremedially a child.”

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  He turned with a look of unconcern on his face.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t you ask Mary whom I’ve been consorting with?”

  I looked at him.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “Are you afraid?”

  “All right,” I said. “I will.”

  At the door I paused, about to say something threatening. I was afraid to say it. I went out.

  I was about to close the door when I heard his voice. At first I thought he was calling after me. I turned around.

  He wasn’t talking to me.

  “She is five foot seven,” he said. “Her hair is thick and golden. Her eyes are green jewels. They sparkle in the firelight. Her skin is white and clear.

  “She is long and sleek. Tawny as a cat that stretches on the hearth rug and rakes its nails across it. Her teeth are sparkling white. Her—”

  His voice broke off, and I knew that he’d seen the half-open door.

  I turned. Mary was standing beside me, staring at the doorway.

  “Let’s go in,” I said.

  She didn’t say anything. I put my arm around her and pushed open the door.

  “No,” she said.

  “Please.”

  Richard watched us dispassionately as we walked to the couch. I turned on the lamp.

  “And how are you, sweetheart?” Richard asked.

  She lowered her eyes. I sat beside her and took her hand.

  Richard turned his back to us and looked at the fire again.

  “Well,” he said, “what now?”

  “We’re going to get this matter thrashed out,” I said.

  Mary tried to get up, but I held her back.

  “We have to settle this now,” I told her.

  “We have to settle this now,” mocked Richard.

  “Damn you!” I cried.

  “David, don’t,” Mary said. “It never helps.”

  Richard turned around and looked at her with a laugh.

  “You know that, don’t you?” he said. “At least we’ve managed to teach you that much.”

  “Mary,” I said, “who is Alice?”

  She closed her eyes. “Ask my husband,” she said.

  “Why, surely,” Richard said. “Alice is a character in my last novel.”

  “That’s a lie,” she said. I could barely hear her voice.

  “Eh?” Richard said. “What’s that? Speak up, my dear.”

  “She said it was a lie!” I cried.

  He moved his gaze to me.

  “Control yourself,” he warned.

  I started to get up, but he quickly stepped over and closed his hands upon my shoulders.

  “Don’t forget yourself,” he said. “You’re such a little fellow. It would be a pity to break your neck.”

  “Tell us the truth,” I said.

  He pulled away his hands and went back to the fireplace.

  “The truth, the truth,” he chanted, “why do people want the truth? It never pleases them.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. Then he blew out a tired breath.

  “Listen,” he said, as though making one last effort, “Mary is the victim of a delusion.”

  I glanced aside. Mary had raised her head and was looking at him.

  “Try to understand,” he said. “The girl Alice is a fictional character. When my wife started to see her, well—” He shrugged. “She saw only a phantom, a figment of—”

  “Why are you lying?” Mary cried. “I saw her in this very room with you!”

  It was no use.

  “Come on,” I said, “I’ll take you upstairs.”

  “Please,” she whispered.

  As we were leaving, I noticed him turning off the lamp again.

  “Good night!” he called. “Pleasant dreams!”

  I took her upstairs and made sure that she locked the bedroom door from the inside.

  When I returned to the study, Richard was stretched out on the couch. I turned on the lamp.

  “Leave it off,” he said.

  “I want it on.”

  He threw himself on his side. “Oh, go home, will you? Get the hell out of here and leave me alone.”

  I went around to the front of the couch. He sat up.

  “Did you hear what I said?” he threatened.

  “I want the truth.”

  He jumped up, and his powerful hands closed on my arms. “I said go!” he yelled.

  My face must have gone blank with fear. His face suddenly relaxed and he shoved me down on the couch.

  “Oh, why bother?” he said, going back to the fireplace. “All right, I’ll tell you everything. I’d like to see your face when you hear it.”

  He rested one arm on the fireplace mantel and turned to me.

  “In my first book there was a character named Erick. I don’t expect you remember him. He was my first good character. Out of words I built flesh and blood and living force.”

  A look of recollection crossed his face.

  “Erick came in here one night while I was writing. He sat down where you’re sitting. Right there. We talked. He spoke in the way I had made him speak. We had a hell of a time. We discussed all the other people in the book. After a while, some of them came in, too. The ones that I had realized well.”

  “You’re lying,” I said.

  “Lying! You idiot! You wanted your damn truth, didn’t you? Well, here it is! Are you too ignorant to understand it?”

  He glared at me, trying to control his fury.

  “It went on like that,” he continued. “And then I’d think, ‘I want them to return to their spectral homes.’ And soon they started to make excuses, and before long I was alone again. Not sure I hadn’t dreamed it all.”

  He turned and was silent for a long time. Then a quiet laugh rumbled in his chest.

  “I wrote a second book,” he said, “but I was too anxious. I didn’t know my people. They never lived.”

  He turned to me with a look of elation on his face.

  “Then I wrote my third book. And Alice. She breathed and she lived. I could see her and know her. I could sit and look at her beauty. I could drink in the fragrance of her hair, run my fingers through it, caress her long smooth limbs, kiss those warm, exciting—”

  He caught himself and looked at me.

  “Do you understand?” he said. “Can you possibly appreciate this?”

  A look of childlike desire to make me understand filled his face.

  “Can’t you visualize it?” he said excitedly. “She was alive, David. Alive! Not just a character on a printed page. She was real. You could touch her.”

  “Then Mary saw—” I said.

  “Yes. Mary saw. One night I summoned Alice. She was right here, unclothed, standing in the heat, painted over with flickering gold, an incensing, blood-pounding creature . . .”

  He bared his teeth.

  “And then she came, my precious w
ife. She saw Alice. She cried out and shut the door and ran to hide her head. I sent Alice away. I ran and caught Mary on the stairs. I brought her down and showed her there was no one. She didn’t believe me, of course. She thought Alice had gone out through that window over there.”

  He laughed loudly.

  “Even though it was snowing outside!” he said.

  His laughter stopped.

  “You’re the first I’ve told,” he said. “And I’m only telling you because I have to share the wonder of it. I’d never meant to speak of it. Why should the sorcerer give away his sorcery, the magician market his wand? These things are mine, all mine.”

  He told me to turn off the lamp. Without a word I reached back and turned it off.

  “Yes, David,” he said. “My wife saw Alice.”

  He threw back his head and laughed again.

  “But not the others,” he said.

  “Others?” A feeling of unreality pressed in on me.

  “Yes!” he said, “the others! Do you know what happened after Alice came alive? No, of course you don’t.”

  He leaned forward.

  “After I created Alice, everything I imagined came to life. There was no struggle. I imagined a cat sleeping before the fireplace, I’d close my eyes and, opening them, I’d see it there, its bushy coat warm and crackling, its nose pink from the heat.

  “Everything, David! Everything I wanted. Oh, what people I filled this house with! I had madmen and harlots embracing in the hallways. I’d send Mary away and have my house bursting its seams with demons’ revelry.

  “I held ancient debauches in the front hall; had a torrent of red wine pouring down the stairway. I made altars and sacrificed voting maidens; the floorboards were soaked with their blood. I held shrieking, howling orgies that filled my house with masses of lust-mad people writhing like worms. Everything living—living!”

  He paused and caught his breath.

  “Sometimes I felt sad and dismal,” he said. “I filled my house with ugly, sorrowful people, silent people. I walked among them patting the shoulder of a clay-dripping corpse, chatting idly with a ghoul.”

  “You’re insane,” I muttered.

  It seemed to relax him. He closed his eyes and turned away.

  “Oh, God,” he said wearily, “why do people always say the things I expect? Why can’t they be a little original?”

  He turned at the sound of my standing.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.

  “I’m taking Mary away,” I said.

  “Good,” he said.

  I stared at him. I couldn’t believe it. “Is that all she means to you?” I asked.

  “Make up your mind,” he said.

  I backed toward the door.

  “Everything you’ve told me is a lie,” I said. “There aren’t any people. You imagined it all. There isn’t anything but the ugliness you’ve brought into my sister’s life.”

  I jumped back. He whirled and before I could get out he had rushed over to me and grabbed my wrists in a steel grip. He dragged me back to the couch and pushed me down on it.

  “She’s five foot seven,” he hissed. “Her hair is thick and golden. Her eyes are green jewels. They sparkle in the firelight. Her skin is white and clear.”

  A feeling of revulsion crawled over me.

  “She is wearing a blue dress,” he said. “It has jewels on the right shoulder.”

  I tried to get up. He shoved me back and, reaching out one arm, grabbed me by the hair.

  “She’s holding a book,” he snarled. “What was the name of the book you gave your mother? On her birthday long ago?”

  I gaped at him. His fingers wrenched hair off my scalp. White pain flared.

  “What’s the name?” he demanded.

  “Green Roses,” I said.

  He let go of me and I slumped on the couch.

  “That’s the book,” he said, “that Alice will be holding when she comes in this room.”

  He faced the door.

  “Alice,” he said. “Come upstairs, Alice. One step at a time. Now open the kitchen door. That’s fine. Don’t trip. That’s it. Walk across the floor. Never mind the lights. Push open the swinging door in the dining room.”

  I caught my breath.

  I heard a woman’s heels clicking on the dining room floor. I pushed up and scuffed backwards into the shadows. I bumped into a chair and stood there.

  The heels came closer.

  “Come right in here, Alice,” Richard said. “Closer and closer and—”

  The door flew open and the shadow of a woman streamed across the floor.

  She came in, exactly as Richard had described her.

  Holding a book in her right hand.

  She put it on the table behind the couch and walked up to him. She slid her red-nailed hands over his shoulders and kissed him.

  “I’ve missed you,” she said in a lazy, sensuous voice.

  “What have you been doing?” he asked.

  She ran a finger slowly across his cheek, an amused laugh bubbling in her throat.

  “But you already know, darling,” she said.

  He clutched her shoulders. A look of rage crossed his face. Then he pulled her against him and kissed her violently. I gaped at them like a spying boy.

  Their lips parted, and one of her hands slid like a serpent into his hair. Richard looked over her shoulder at me, a smile on the corners of his mouth.

  “My dear,” he said, “I’d like you to meet David.”

  “Why, of course,” she said, without turning, as though she already knew I was there.

  “That’s him cowering in shadows,” Richard said.

  She turned and looked at me. “Do come out of the shadows, David,” she said.

  She reached over the couch and put on the lamp. I flinched and pushed back against the chair.

  “Frightened?” Alice said.

  “Bashful,” Richard said.

  I tried to speak. The words caught in my throat.

  “Did you say something?” Alice asked.

  “Monster!” I whispered.

  A look of mild surprise crossed her face.

  “Why, David,” she said.

  She turned to Richard and held out her arms to the side as though offering herself for inspection.

  “Am I a monster, darling?” she asked.

  Richard laughed and pulled her against him. He kissed her neck. “My beautiful gold-haired monster,” he said.

  She left his embrace and came to me. I cringed back. She reached out one hand, and I felt the warm palm on my cheek. I shivered.

  She leaned toward me. I could smell her perfume. I made a sound of fright. Her warm breath touched me, and I drew back with a shudder. “No,” I said.

  Richard laughed. “That’s a new one. The first rebuff of your career.”

  Alice shrugged and walked away from me. “I must say he’s not the friendliest person I’ve met.” She gloated at Richard. “Like the Duke, for instance.”

  His smile disappeared

  “Don’t talk about him,” he said.

  “But darling,” she said mockingly, “you created him. How can you hate your own creation?”

  He grabbed one of her wrists and squeezed it until the color drained from her face. She made no outcry.

  “Don’t ever try to fool me,” he gasped.

  “We’ll see,” she said.

  Then her face relaxed. She looked over her shoulder.

  “Oh, David,” she said, “I brought you a book.”

  I stumbled to the table, felt their eyes on me. I reached out and picked up the book.

  Green Roses.

  My fingers went dead. The book slipped from them and thudded on the rug. It opened with a flutter, and I saw the title page. I knew the words by heart, for I had written them.

  To Mommy on her birthday. Love, David.

  “True,” I muttered.

  “Of course,” I heard him say.

  I kept b
acking up until I felt a chair against my legs. I sank down and stared dumbly at them, watched him caress her. The room seemed to whirl about me.

  “This is worth the hours of waiting,” he was saying. “It makes the torture seem like a just penance.”

  “Torture?” she said in an amused tone.

  He dug his fingers into the tresses of her hair. He drew her close, their lips almost touching.

  “You don’t know how much of me went into your creation,” he said. “You’re not just another woman to me. You’re more than anyone in the world. Because you’re a part of me.”

  I couldn’t bear to listen any longer. I pushed up and stumbled for the door.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “To get my sister,” I said.

  “No,” he said.

  I turned around. “But you said—”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” he told me.

  “Where is she?” Alice asked.

  He glanced at her. “Why do you want to know?”

  “I want to go and talk to her.”

  “No,” he said. “You can’t.”

  He was looking at me and didn’t notice the look of hate that flickered over her face.

  “Sit down,” he told me.

  “No.”

  “Sit down,” he repeated, “or I’ll destroy your sister.”

  I stared at him. Then, without a word, I went back to the chair.

  “I want to see her,” Alice said.

  He grasped her arm. “I said no,” he said. “You do what I tell you.”

  “Always?” she asked.

  “Or your life is ended!” he cried.

  He released her.

  “Now you must go,” he said. “You’ll kiss me once and go back to your secret place. Until I want you again.”

  An emotionless smile raised her red lips. Then she leaned forward and kissed him.

  “Goodbye,” she said.

  He pulled her close and looked into her eyes.

  “Remember,” he said. “As I say.”

  “Goodbye.”

  She moved away from him and I heard the door closed behind her. The sound of her heels faded.

  Richard turned back to the fireplace.

  He stayed that way. Slowly a hope that I could escape grew in me. I started to take off my shoes. If I could only get to the door without him seeing me . . . I stood.

  My eyes never left him. His body seemed to waver in the firelight. I stepped slowly across the rug. One foot after another.