Phantom Nights (10 page)

"Oh, my," Bernice said with a vague smile.

"That's what I mean," Cecily said and grimaced to sum up all of the tension that she felt Alex brought to their house.

"Couldn't you have let him hold the baby for a few moments?"

"No," Cecily said.

"Well. Frankly, under the circumstances—there's just so much hostility in Alex. You see that, don't you, dear?"

 
"I only wish Bobby did."

A
lex was in the garage before supper cleaning his bike, applying a little 4-in-1 Oil to the chain, when Bobby strolled in, still wearing his sheriff's department khakis and black gunbelt rig. He leaned against his workbench with folded arms until Alex, crouching, glanced at him over his shoulder.

"How's everything, Twig?"

Alex shrugged slightly, then nodded toward the house. Bobby lighted a Lucky, blew smoke.

"Yeah. I know. She 'Berns' me up too." He grinned encouragingly. "But I think we can both get along with Cece's mom for a few days."

Alex shrugged again.

"I got a call today from Berk Swift. Said you were over to their place using the pool today when nobody was around except the stable hands."

Alex nodded indifferently.

"Said it wasn't so much he minded you in their pool, but if you had an accident and drowned with nobody to help you, then they'd be liable."

Alex got up, took the broom leaning at the other end of the bench and a dustpan and swept up some of the sawdust from the concrete floor where oil had dripped. He might leave his underwear and soggy towels on the bathroom floor, but he was meticulous about keeping the garage neat, tools hung correctly, not a stray nail anywhere. It was
their
place, his and Bobby's.

Bobby handed the Lucky to Alex, who took a drag and gave it back.

"Don't want to let it turn into a habit," Bobby cautioned routinely. "Half pack a day, that's all I allow myself. What I'm asking, summer's over another month, so unless they do the invitin', stay away from the Swifts' pool."

Alex smiled cynically.

"I know; you can swim like Tarzan so drowning's not the issue. What I thought we could do, get up early tomorrow morning, take the boat over to the Tennessee River for the day."

Alex looked toward the house again, where Cecily, her mother, and Rhoda Jenks were all in the kitchen laughing about something.

"Just the two of us," Bobby said. "Sound like a winner?"

Alex gave him a thumbs-up sign, then took a double handful of sawdust from a barrel and spread it on the floor where he'd been working. He looked happy.

Bobby stubbed out the Lucky in a Folger's can on the workbench. Half a pack a day, and never smoke one all the way down.

"Supper," he said. "'N I could eat the ass off a barely singed cow."

H
alfway through the evening meal, Bobby was called away from the dinner table. An accident involving a truckful of hogs had tied up a highway bridge over the Yella Dog halfway down to Memphis, and there was a fatality; Luther Tebbetts being away on the third honeymoon of what Cecily called his "romantic career," Bobby was needed.

After supper Cecily fed Brendan, who was still on the breast, in the nursery while Alex and Bernice ate peach cobbler on the front porch. Bernie keeping up a cheery dialogue about this and that, although she was largely talking to herself. But she had never minded the sound of her own voice. Alex nodded a couple of times while wolfing down his dessert but avoided looking at her.

Alex's second cousin Denny Limber came by on his bike with his best friend Jess Robinson, as Denny was apt to do a couple of times a month, prodded by his mother, who felt sorry for Alex. They were going to the Gem picture show which was playing
Red Mountain
, a western with Alan Ladd. Alex made a quick decision to tag along. He seldom passed up a Western picture, and Alan Ladd was a big favorite of his. If he could have any voice he wanted it would be Alan Ladd's. Pleasant baritone timbre, manly. Alan Ladd wasn't tall, but he was someone who meant business. Alex sprinted upstairs to change his shirt and withdraw fifty cents from his hidden allowance cache.

Once Brendan was tucked in for the night, Cecily went outside with her own postponed dessert. A mild wind had risen at night's renewal, freshly starred. Through tall poplars and shagbark hickories in the side yard she saw heat lightning. It was well to the north: no rain was expected in their vicinity.

Mother and daughter passed a half hour together with gossip and random reminiscences, avoiding touchy subjects. Then Bernie, almost on the dot of nine-thirty, excused herself and went upstairs to draw her second bath of the day.

Cecily rinsed out her dish in the kitchen, left it on the drainboard of the sink, then went up the back stairs to look in on Brendan. The filmy curtains at his windows billowed from the wind that had been consistent enough to cool down the house. The lightning seemed closer, more prolonged, and there was thunder. Brendan slept with little knowledge of the world to trouble him. She went into their bedroom wondering if Bobby would be gone half the night, feeling a little sore about that. And then he planned to be up early and off somewhere with Alex and the boat, probably for the whole day. Displeasure was hardening into resentment when she heard a knock.

She opened the door to find her mother in the hall wearing only a pink lace negligee and a tight hairnet, hand at her throat, looking ill or faint from terror.

"Cecily, ohhh, Cecily!"

It was all of the talking she seemed able to manage. Through increasingly frantic gestures, she urged Cecily to follow her down the hall to the bathroom between her room and Alex's. Breathing heavily by the time they got there, Bernie motioned her daughter inside while leaning against the doorjamb, still clutching the root of her throat. Forcing blood into her cheeks as if she were decorating a cake with a pastry gun. Cecily looked around the brightly lit bathroom not knowing what to expect, but everything appeared perfectly in order.

"The tub," Bernice said with an erratic flap of one hand. "Look."

Cecily inspected the bathtub with its finely cracked porcelain and eyelets of blue iron where the porcelain was chipped away, then looked around at her mother in utter confusion.

"Mom, I don't—"

"Slippery. It's all slippery. He wanted . . ."

Cecily got down on one knee beside the high tub and looked more carefully at the bottom. The stopper was in. Bernice had run about an inch of water.

". . . me to break my . . ."

Cecily reached down and drew a finger across the tub bottom. Scummy; no, slick from something. Add a little water, and—

"Thank my lucky stars I didn't run the tub full before stepping in! I might've hit my head and drowned."

"I am not believing this," Cecily said slowly, rubbing her thumb and forefinger together, feeling stunned and apprehensive. Had to be petroleum jelly. And it completely coated the bottom of the tub.

Bernice sat splay-legged on the toilet seat and announced, "I'm going to be hysterical."

"Mom, no you're not; please try not to get all worked up."

"I want to go home! I want to be in my own house! How can I stay here another minute? He's a young maniac, and he'll murder me in my sleep. I have never been anything but gracious to that unfortunate boy, but you see what he's done!" Bernie began to drum her heels on the tile floor and flap her hands. "Why are you
doing
this to me, Cecily? Don't you love me? How could you
allow
this to happen?"

Cecily had been exposed to such outbursts before. If she touched Bernice during a wing-ding, then her mother would pummel her in a frenzy. Making the point that everything that was wrong in Bernice's life was Cecily's fault as an imperfect daughter.

"I ought to kill myself and be done! That would be best for everybody, isn't that what you're thinking?"

Hysteria had no logic; she would continue until she burned herself out, with the neighbors hearing and wondering what the hell. Cecily got up grimly, half-filled a pitcher of water, and let Bernice have it full in the face.

"Sorry," she said and left her mother sputtering and keening to go into Alex's room. If Brendan didn't wake up, it would be a miracle.

She didn't have to do much looking around. The nearly empty jar of petroleum jelly was at the bottom of Alex's wastebasket beside his desk, covered with the tissues he'd used to wipe his hands clean.

Cecily just stood there looking down for the time it took disbelief to yield to heart-thumping rage. How much time she couldn't have said. But when she returned to the bathroom, her mother, prostrate and heaving on the floor with her negligee in total disarray, was in the latter stages of her fit, wailing incoherently. The wailing would taper off into moans and sobs, and then with the help of a sedative she could be expected to drop off and sleep soundly the rest of the night.

She pulled Bernie to her feet and helped her into the guest room.

"Don't know what it's like to get old and not be wanted anymore."

"You're not that old, and you know I love you."

"No, no, I can't stay here!" Bernice said, looking wildly around.

"Yes, you can. You don't have to worry about Alex. He won't be spending the night in my house. Or any other night if I can help it."

"Bob protects him."

"That's over with. Even Bobby will have to see there's something seriously wrong with his brother."

"You and Brendan are all I have left in the world."

"I know, Mom. Let me get you into these pajamas."

"You won't leave me? You'll stay right here? I'm afraid, Cecily."

Cecily was afraid too, but couldn't let on. Her turn to do the mothering, to be the brave one.

Bernie calmed down as Cecily helped her into silk pajamas.

"You're such a dear. Always so good to me. I've never regretted not having other children, because none of them could have meant as much to me as you have. I've been blessed."

"Yes, Mom," Cecily said, her mind on another track.

"Would it be too much trouble to fix me a cup of tea? I want to take my pills."

"Of course not."

"I'm so anxious. To think . . . Does he hate me so much that he hoped I would slip and fracture my skull or break a hip? I'm not a young woman. It's what I most dread, living out my life as a helpless cripple in a wheelchair. And what a burden to
you
." In spite of her arthritis, Bernice managed a solid grip on one of Cecily's wrists. "You know, I've heard that young people with severe . . . mental disturbances do things that are spiteful or dangerous, but later on they have no recollection. They are subject to blackouts. Hem. Remember when Alex climbed the WDOK tower? To this day we don't know what he was thinking. Ask him about the Vaseline in the tub, undoubtedly he'll deny any knowledge of it. Blackouts." Bernice produced an expiratory moan as she slipped into bed and laid her bedraggled coif on a feather pillow. Cecily pulled up the sheet, smoothed it over her mother's breast, and rose from her side. Bernie made a last effort to cling. "Where're you going?"

"Downstairs. To fix your tea and call my husband. I don't care about that wreck on the highway, I want Bobby home
now
."

"And isn't it about time for Alex to be home from the picture show?"

"Depends," Cecily said, pulse picking up again, a flurry of light behind her eyes like the hard jewel of a migraine exposing itself. "I'll be back in a few minutes. I'm closing the bedroom door, Mom. Don't get up unless you're feeling sick to your stomach."

"Leave the lamp, and would you turn my little radio on? Ted Weems and his orchestra are broadcasting from the Drake Hotel in Chicago right after the ten o'clock news. I have such memories of the Drake Hotel. Your father and I spent our first night together there after we were married." She closed her eyes, smiling faintly. "Men and their urges," she said. "But it is over with rather quickly; otherwise I had a splendid time."

C
ecily stopped by Alex's room for the wastebasket with the discarded jar of petroleum jelly in it. She hurried downstairs to lock the front door.

The house she loved suddenly seemed cursed, imbued with a deadly menace; Cecily didn't know if she was locking it out or locking it in. She stifled a splurge of tears on her way to the telephone on the hope chest in the center hall. There she cleared her throat and made her voice steady before she spoke to Arlinda Kellum, the night dispatcher in the sheriff's department.