Offbeat: Uncollected Stories Read online

  “Oh. Well, I do . . . apologize . . . my dear. It is just that it is such an admirable tart.”

  If they continue staring as they do I shall be compelled to discharge them. There is no other way. I will tell John merely that I find them inefficient. There is no point in telling him of my experience, he lacks capacity to understand such things.

  “What?” she said.

  “Shall I ring for coffee?” he inquired.

  “Really, do you have to ask me?” she replied in fine exasperation. “Ring for it if you wish.”

  With flickering smile John Castle rang and, in the kitchen, the maid drew breath into her lungs and lifted up the heavy polished urn. She scrabbled backwards through the swinging door, then turned about and scuffed politely to the table end at which her mistress sat.

  She lowered down the urn and moved away as Valerie grasped her cup and held it underneath the spigot. Then, as the coffee jetted black and steaming in the cup, Valerie’s eyes moved up instinctively, as they invariably did when faced by any bright, reflecting surface.

  Abruptly, nerveless fingers lost hold upon the handle and coffee torrented across the glossy oak to waterfall across the table edge. The spigot, still discharging, splashed smoky brew into the curving dish below it. John Castle started to his feet, eyes expansive with alarm.

  Quickly Valerie Castle closed the spigot, quicker yet dropped damask napkin on the table and arose.

  “Have you burned yourself, my love?” inquired a solicitously approaching Mr. Castle.

  “It is nothing, nothing.”

  The footfalls of her tiny shoes moved rapidly beneath the alcove to the living room rug.

  “My dear!” John Castle hurried in concerned pursuit.

  “Leave me alone!” she cried, so that the servants heard again.

  The clicking of her heels echoed sharply up the curving stair flight and did not cease until she sat in short-breathed silence in her room, hunched before the spacious mirror of her dressing table. Outside, in the hall, prowled a harried husband.

  Was it just imagination aggravated by distortion in the urn reflection? Or had she truly seen that awful face again?

  A fearful tightness held her ivory throat like strangling claws, her hands vibrated, helpless in her lap. Imagination or the truth?

  She had to know.

  “Valerie. My dear. Tell me what is wrong!”

  Heart like pounding tympani in her breast, she raised her eyes and looked.

  A moment later all there was within the mirror face was the converse picture of a woman’s room. The woman herself lay senseless on the rug beneath debris of combs, brushes, tubes and jars. While talcum powder like a floury snow drifted silently across her outflung arm.

  When she had finished her account, Doctor Mott had nodded purse lipped, hands still clasped upon his desk edge, portly thumbs still circling one another.

  “So,” he said, admiring her appearance.

  “Miss Pettigrew has highly recommended you,” said Valerie. “That is why I came.”

  Doctor Mott acknowledged this remark with rocking head nod.

  “Just so,” he said. Her clothes, he thought, they fit her flawlessly.

  “You do not think it possible that . . .”

  “That you really saw that face,” he said, snapping back into his professional niche. “Why, yes of course. You saw it.”

  Valerie Castle shuddered, digging lacquered nails into her palms.

  “Which is not at all to say the face was really there,” completed Doctor Mott. “Discharge such possibility from your mind. The face exists but only in your id, you comprehend?”

  “You mean it is not actual.”

  “Actual in your mind,” said Doctor Mott, “seeded by obsession, nurtured by increasing phobia and ultimately harvested in this wracking vision. But please dismiss the thought that this sad episode has proved clairvoyance. No, not at all, my dear, it merely shows once more the torture chamber that we build within ourselves to grieve ourselves.”

  “You say obsession,” Valerie replied. “Obsession over what?”

  “Your looks, of course,” said Doctor Mott. “To be precise, your fear of losing them.”

  “But such a face,” said Valerie, “and in such terrible detail. How could my mind evolve a face so definite?”

  “Who knows what care the machinations of the mind involve? Least of all myself for all my years of study. I know only this, the mind is diabolic in its sleight and dexterous invention. Believe me when I say that to create a face within a mirror is but child’s play to a mind imbued.”

  “But how am I to cure it?” Valerie inquired. “Then, is it hopeless?”

  “Not in the least,” said beaming Doctor Mott. “Now to begin . . .”

  The elevator slowly sank into its well, humming past the numbered floors. Valerie Castle stood within the falling cubicle, a smile compressed between her lips.

  It was just as she had reasoned then, she thought, a fancy neurotic, a tendency disordered. Well, at least she’d had the wit to nip this cancerous malady in its bud. It would not be too long now. Doctor Mott’s assurances had loosed the tension and a short prescribed assay into her subconscious would cure the rest.

  She slid herself across the leather seat of her convertible, a smile of self possession asserted on her lips. How comforting it was to relegate the unknown to the known, to light a bulb of cognizance in the darkened room of rationless anxiety­.

  The situation was entirely explicable—should not beauty fear the blighting of its own perfection? A natural diffidence in any woman gifted with the dearest compliment of nature—a lovely visage.

  Another smile of confidence as Valerie inserted shiny key and twisted. The Cadillac motor coughed into euphonious combustion. The automatic gears revolved, the polished phaeton nudged away the curb and joined the shifting tapestry of traffic.

  Now the mind of Valerie Castle turned to primal love.

  Tomorrow night the banquet at the home of Mrs. Royal Arkwright. There was endless preparation to be made. The final fitting for her gown, the hours to be spent beneath the kneading fingers of the masseuse, the mudpack’s ooze, the electric helmet of the hair machine, the file and orange stick of the manicurist. So much tiresome provision in exchange for blathering male dialogue and epicurean mélange. What merciless demands beauty really made upon its hapless possessor, came the not too irking rumination.

  The traffic light now shifted orange caution to green allowance, the gears gnashed teeth, her Cadillac moved regally across the intersection, holding to the outer lane. Behind, a harried salesman sounded horn in his desire to pass.

  A pity the entire morning had been wasted on analysis of mind, thought Valerie.

  The salesman honked again, his ire in the ascendancy.

  To recapitulate: At one, the fitting at Antoine’s. At two . . .

  The horn, most urgent, tore her veil of meditation. Hardening eyes sought out the culprit in the rear view mirror. The mirror had been turned. It faced her.

  “No!”

  The cry that forced apart her shaking lips could not be heard in all the traffic noise. And no one saw her twist away in horror from the mirror nor witnessed how her hands ripped in mindless terror from the wheel.

  What people saw was a rather nasty accident.

  Light flickered in the blackness of the room as if the hidden operator had thrown his switch and started his projection. His lens was not in accurate adjustment though and fluttering arms and undulating faces were blurred to eye.

  And yet, despite distortion, the scene was simple to identify. The paleness of the walls, the ashen costumes of the moving figures, the smell of calculated disinfection in the air. These things described precisely a hospital effect.

  Ah, now the lens was slowly turned, the picture clarified. A smell? Great God, what picture had aroma, what film such three dimensional precision?

  Her head jerked sideways on the pillow, eyes picking at the walls, the door, the windows, the
somber faces of the nurse and interne. And, suddenly, the terror billowed; two pale hands moved searching to her face.

  Which face was wrapped entire in bandaged strips.

  “Oh, no.” Her voice emerged a bubbling sibilance in the quiet room.

  The intern and the nurse looked down into her stricken eyes which peered at them through loopholes in the gauze.

  The intern held her wrist in pulsebeat estimation.

  “So you are conscious now,” he murmured.

  “My face! Please tell me what has happened to my face!”

  “You’ve been in quite an accident,” the intern said, “the flying glass, you know.”

  “Oh, God, my face!”

  The wares of half a florist’s shop did not abate the twisting horror in her heart. Jewels, bon bons, gifts and loving husband smiles did not appease the ruthless tension of her nerves. Her only thought concerned that promised moment when the bandages would be undone, the mirror placed into her shaking hand. And every second passing, all the minutes ticking into hours only added to the trembling panic of suspense.

  When she raised the mirror would she see—that face?

  The day arrived. The surgical shears moved snipping through the bandage layers. Beside the bed stood waiting Mr. Castle, smiling as he could, holding in his nervous hands the mirror for his wife. The doctor’s face was grimly set. There was no sound within the room save that of scissors clicking razor jaws together.

  And then the bandages were drawn away, Valerie Castle grabbed the mirror from her husband’s hand and looked.

  “Oh . . . God,” she sobbed. “Thank God, thank God! I have not changed at all.”

  And then she looked up smiling to the face of Mr. Castle and saw the horror there.

  She sits alone within her room, never stirring out, not in the street, not down the stairs, not even in the hall. A dozen separate surgeries have failed to repossess the beauty of her past. Her features only shift from one sad ugliness into the next.

  And yet there is this other element.

  For, in that moment when her bandages were taken off, she actually saw within the mirror the face she knew and so adored. And now, just every once so often, as she gazes in her mirror, her old face is reflected in all its perfect line and hue. Sometimes only for a second, other times for longer minutes; once it even lasted for an hour.

  She never knows, you see, exactly when the shifting will occur, just when the mirror surface is to cloud, then show her long departed beauty once again. She dare not be away however lest she miss the moment. And so she has her meals placed on the table just outside her always bolted door. She eats and drinks and lives entirely in her room.

  Which is, you see, the reason that I said this story ends as it begins except, of course, that similar words can mean two different things when context alters.

  For Valerie Castle still remains one of those women who sit endlessly before their mirrors.

  Well, perhaps it’s not the same. If not, why, I apologize. Then let me make amends by telling you about the ghost whose ectoplasm unexpectedly congealed thus rendering him a bowl of gelatine.

  It seems that . . .

  Two O’Clock Session

  The breakthrough came at two forty-one. Until that time, Maureen had done little more than repeat the bitter litany against her parents and brother.

  “I have nothing to live for,” she said then. “Absolutely nothing.”

  Dr. Volker didn’t respond, but felt a tremor of excitement in himself. He’d been waiting for this.

  He gazed at the young woman lying on his office couch. She was staring at the ceiling. What was she thinking? he wondered. He didn’t dare to speak. He didn’t want to break in on those thoughts, whatever they might be.

  At last, Maureen spoke again. “I guess you didn’t hear that,” she said.

  “I heard,” Dr. Volker replied.

  “No reaction then?” she asked, an edge of hostility in her voice. “No sage comment?”

  “Like what?” he asked.

  “Oh, God, don’t start that again,” she said. “Respond with an answer, not another goddamn question.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dr. Volker said. “I didn’t mean to make you angry.”

  “Well, it did make me angry! It made me—” Her voice broke off with a shuddering throat sound. “You don’t care,” she said then.

  “Of course I care,” he told her. “What have I ever done to make you think I don’t care?”

  “I said I have nothing to live for.” Maureen’s tone was almost venomous now.

  “And—?” he asked.

  “What do you mean and?” she snapped.

  “And what does that make you feel like?”

  The young woman shifted restlessly on the couch, her face distorted by anger. “It makes me feel like shit!” she said. “Is that precise enough for you, God damn it! I feel like shit! I don’t want to live!”

  Closer, Volker thought. A shiver of elation laced across his back. He was glad the young woman was turned away from him. He didn’t want her to know how he felt.

  “And—?” he said again.

  “Damn it to hell!” Maureen raged. “Is that all you can say?!”

  “Did you hear what you said?” Volker asked as calmly as he could.

  “About what? About having nothing to live for? About wanting to die?”

  “You didn’t use the word die before,” he corrected.

  “Oh, big deal!” she cried. “I apologize! I said I don’t want to live! Anyone else would assume from that that I want to die! But not you!”

  “Why do you want to die?” Volker winced a little. He shouldn’t have said that.

  Maureen’s silence verified his reaction. It became so still in the office that he heard the sound of traffic passing on the boulevard. He cleared his throat hoping that he hadn’t made a mistake and lost the moment.

  He wanted to speak but knew that he had to wait. He stared at the young woman on the couch. Don’t leave me now, he thought. Stay with it. Please. It’s been such a long time.

  The young woman sighed wearily and closed her eyes.

  “Have you nothing more to say?” he asked.

  Her eyes snapped open and she twisted around to glare at him. “If I said what I wanted to say, your hair would turn white,” she said, almost snarling the words.

  “Maureen,” he said patiently.

  “What?”

  “My hair is already white.”

  Her laugh was a humorless bark of acknowledgment. “Yes, it is,” she said. “You’re old. And decrepit.”

  “And you’re young?” he asked.

  “Young and . . .” She hesitated. “Young and miserable. Young and lost. Young and empty. Young and cold, without hope. Oh, God!” she cried in pain. “I want to die! I want to die! I’m going to see to it!”

  Dr. Volker swallowed dryly. “See to what?” he asked.

  “God damn it, are you stupid or something?” she lashed out at him. “Don’t you understand English?”

  “Help me to understand,” he said. His pulsebeat had quickened now. He was so close, so close.

  Silence again. Oh, dear Lord, have I lost her again? he thought. How many sessions was it going to take?

  He had to risk advancing. “See to what?” he asked.

  The young woman stared at the ceiling.

  “See to what, Maureen?” he asked.

  “Leave me alone,” she told him miserably. “You’re no better than the rest of them. My father. My mother. My brother.”

  Oh, Christ! Volker clenched his teeth. Not the goddamn litany again!

  “My father raped me, did you know that?” Maureen said. “Did I tell you that? Tell you that I was only seven when it happened? Tell you that my mother did nothing about it? That my brother laughed at me when I told him? Did I tell you that?”

  Volker closed his eyes. Only about a thousand times, he thought.

  He forced himself to open his eyes. “Maureen, you were on to som
ething before,” he risked.

  “What do you mean?” she demanded.

  Oh, no, he thought, chilled. But he couldn’t stop now. “You said you wanted to die. You said—”

  The young woman twitched violently on the couch, her head rolling to the right on the pillow, eyes closed.

  “No!” Volker drove a fist down on the arm of his chair.

  One more failure.

  When the young woman sat up, he handed her a glass of water.

  Jane Winslow drank it all in one, continuous swallow, then handed back the glass. “Anything?” she asked.

  “Oh . . .” He exhaled tiredly. “The usual. We’re right on top of it, but she backs off. She just can’t face it.” He shook his head. “Poor Maureen. I’m afraid it’s going to be a long, long time before she’s free to move on.” He sighed in frustration. “Are you ready for the next one?”

  She nodded.

  At three o’clock she lay back on the couch and drew in long, deep breaths. She trembled for a while then lay still.

  “Arthur?” Dr. Volker said.

  Jane Winslow opened her eyes.

  “How are you today?”

  “How should I be?” Arthur said bitterly.

  Dr. Volker rubbed fingers over his eyes. Helping them was difficult. My God, how difficult. He had to keep trying though. He had no choice.

  “So, how’s life treating you, Arthur?” he asked.

  And in Sorrow

  White is cold. Not just because it is the hard impersonal glitter of winter. White is cold because it is harsh and sterile. It stretches on endlessly, an impassive blankness. White is cheerless; an antiseptic shade.

  White was the color of the walls that day.

  White in the laboratory where they had taken my life force and isolated its parts.

  White in the reception room with its furnishings of bright tubular steel, polished and aloof; where I sat waiting for my wife Patricia.

  I tried to think of the money we were going to get; of all our financial worries at last reduced to their proper pettiness. It was a good feeling in part.

  Yet, exhausting those anxieties only left the rest larger. In some ways it is almost a consolation to be absorbed in money matters. It leaves no time for other concern.