The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (24 page)

“Sorry,” he said. “Just an old and annoying habit of mine.”

“That’s all right,” she said. “Only it’s so strange.”

“Yes?”

“
He
had that same habit, too. My husband. He used to tap the edge of his glass the same way you do.” She seemed to have gone suddenly pale. A shiver ran up his spine. If he had carried one of Jeffrey Chapin’s little eccentricities beyond the grave, how many more did he have that Marcia Chapin would recognize and identify in the same way?

He changed the subject, nodding at the photographs on the wall. “It seems a terrible thing. To die so young.”

“He was only twenty-seven. Did Ann tell you how it happened?”

“Well, she said he drowned.”

“But she didn’t tell you
how
?”

“No.”

“You know, it’s so idiotic, the way tragedy happens. The thing is, you never expect it. I keep thinking back, and I keep thinking
back, and I tell myself it couldn’t have happened that way. It just
couldn’t
 …”

“Look, Mrs. Chapin, maybe I shouldn’t have brought this up. I’m sure it’s upsetting …”

“No,” she said. “No. It happened such a long time ago. I’m over it now. I’ve been over it for a long time. I know it can’t possibly interest you, but I don’t mind talking about it now. I really don’t. You see, we had this cottage at a lake outside of Riverside. Lake Nipmuck. It was late September, you know, when all the summer people had gone home. Jeff and I used to love to go out to the cottage then. It was so quiet and peaceful, so beautiful, a time when all the leaves were just changing into autumn colors.”

The blue eyes were vacant now, far away. Her voice was a monotone, as though she were reciting a much repeated and much rehearsed speech. Did she talk about this with every stranger she met? How often did she have this kind of discussion, this monologue about a husband who had been dead for twenty-eight years? Perhaps it was this room, with its photographs on the wall, that had set her off. And, of course, her own guilty memory.

“On this particular night, my husband had an urge to swim the lake. He loved to swim in the nude, and it was night, nobody could see him. It wasn’t unusual for him to do this. He’d swum the lake many times, and he was a very strong swimmer. I begged him not to go—the water was too cold—but he insisted. He’d had, well, a drink or two, and he could be stubborn. When my husband got an idea into his head, nothing could stop him. When he had gone, I thought how foolish it all was. What would he do when he reached the opposite shore? He had no swimming trunks on. And he’d be cold. He’d catch his death of pneumonia. So I took out our boat and went after him, to pick him up and bring him back with me. But then—I couldn’t find him. He had disappeared. He must have gone down somewhere. Something had happened, a cramp perhaps. I don’t know. But he couldn’t have made the other side; there wasn’t
time. I went around and around the lake, crying out his name. But he was gone. I went to the other side, to the hotel, and called the police. They brought him up from the bottom of the lake—two days later. Have you ever seen a person who’s been drowned and been under water for a while? They look so white, so bloated, so awful …”

He listened, and for the first time he felt a stab of anger.
Oh, you liar
, he thought.
You murdering bitch
. “I’m sorry,” she said suddenly. “I really don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

“That’s all right.”

“Please forgive me. I know I’ve been boring you,”

“Not at all.”

She continued to apologize. “Really, I’m surprised at myself. I don’t normally do this with anyone. I guess I wasn’t thinking.” She tried to smile. “It’s like talking about your operation.” She reached for his glass. “Another martini?”

“No, thanks.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “I’m sorry you have to wait. I don’t know what’s keeping Ann. She tells me you’ll be here for a while.”

“Yes. Several weeks, at least.”

“I see.”

Vaguely he had the feeling that this news bothered her. But her voice was impassive.

“I suppose you’ll be busy researching your book—on the American Indian, isn’t it?”

“Oh. Ann told you?”

She smiled. “She told me quite a lot about you. But it’s interesting that you’re doing a book on Indians. My husband was part Indian, you know. One-sixteenth Pequot, and very proud of it, too. People having any Indian blood at all around here are pretty rare. It’s much more common in the western states, I understand.”

He was about to tell her about his own Seneca heritage. But he decided against it. At that moment Ann came in. She was wearing
a shirt-top jacket in a red and white print over white pants. “Well, I see you two have met,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Sorry I made you wait.”

“That’s all right. I’ve been enjoying myself.”

“We’ve been having a good talk,” Marcia said, smiling. “He’s very nice, Ann.”

“I told you he was, Mother. Pete, we’d better go.”

“But, dear,” said Marcia. “You can sit down and have a drink.”

“Sorry, we can’t. We have a reservation, and we’re late already. Ola’s cooking dinner, and she’ll be staying overnight, as usual.” Then, a little anxiously: “You’ll be all right?”

“Of course I will.”

“In case you need me, we’ll be at Mario’s. The number’s in the telephone index.”

“I won’t need you,” said Marcia.

“You’re sure?”

“Sure. Now you run along and have a good time.”

As they drove away from the house, he wondered why Ann had been so solicitous. But he said nothing about it. He pointed the car up Vista Drive, and then Ann said, “Well, what do you think of her?”

“I like her.”

She smiled. “The true gentleman and diplomat. Still, you wouldn’t dare say anything else.”

“Should I?”

“I don’t know. I had an idea you two didn’t really hit it off so well.”

“Now, what gives you
that
idea?”

“Call it intuition. Certain vibrations tickling my very sensitive antennae.”

“When I came in, you were both sitting there like a couple of stiff manikins watching each other. Sort of guarded. You know?”

“Well”—he grinned—“maybe. But we’d just met. How did I know I wasn’t meeting my future mother-in-law, or something?”

She laughed. “I assume you’re just being funny.”

“Not really. Actually, the thought crossed my mind. Maybe it crossed your mother’s, too. Don’t mothers always see gentlemen callers as prospective sons-in-law for their daughters?”

“I guess they do, but only in Tennessee Williams plays. Anyway, you’re both a little premature, of course.”

“Of course.”

“But I love you for thinking about it at all. What did Mother and you talk about?”

“Some small talk. But mostly about your father.”

She stared at him. “My father?”

“I don’t quite know how she got on the subject. All those pictures on the wall, I guess. But she told me the whole story about what happened at the lake. How he died.”

“That’s funny.”

“Is it? Why?”

“She never talks about that particular incident to anybody. Not even to me.” She stared at him. “Why you?”

“I don’t know.”

She shook her head, puzzled. “That’s really funny. I don’t understand it.”

“I got the idea she’s still in mourning over him.”

“She is.”

“But after all this time, isn’t that a little—”

“Sick?”

“Look, I didn’t say that …”

“I know you didn’t. I did. The answer is yes. In that sense, she
is
a little sick. His death hit her hard. She never really got over it. I guess she must have loved him very much. Now and then she gets these vast depressions. It isn’t normal, I know. I’ve never understood it …”

I do
, he thought.
It’s guilt, baby. Guilt is a monkey on your back. The biggest and heaviest monkey in the world. Guilt can drive you crazy
.

“You take that room you were in,” Ann was saying. “It’s a kind of sanctuary. I almost never go in it myself; it’s too depressing. And all those photographs of my father. She’ll go in alone and simply stare at them for hours, reliving memories. I’m used to it, I suppose. But it’s still a little frightening when I see her do it. I wish she’d take them all down someday and put them away. She’s reasonably attractive for her age, you know. She could still find another man. You’d be surprised how gay and charming and lovely Mother can be when she wants to be.”

“Then she never remarried?”

“No.”

“But there must have been other men. Afterward …”

“I don’t know. When I was very young, I guess—at least I was told there were a few. They didn’t last very long, and I don’t blame them. I’d be turned off, too, if I had to compete with a ghost. The past few years, Mother’s sort of withdrawn from everything, stays in the house most of the time. She used to go to the club now and then to mix with friends. Now she sees hardly anybody. Unless you count my grandmother.”

“Her mother?”

“No. My father’s mother.”

“Oh? She’s still alive, then?”

“If you want to call it that. Half alive would be a lot more accurate. She’s old and completely senile. Lost her memory and doesn’t recognize anybody, Just sits in a wheelchair and babbles. She’s in an institution outside of town here. I haven’t visited her for a year. I just can’t stand it; it depresses me so, watching a human being wither away like that. But Mother’s very devoted to her. She takes care of all the expenses there—housing, nursing, medical supplies—and it isn’t cheap. Not only that, she visits Grandmother at least once a week, sometimes twice. She’ll sit around with the old lady half an afternoon, just to keep her company.”

“But if the old lady doesn’t even know who she is …”

“That’s the funny part of it. Mother goes on visiting her anyway. She’s made Grandmother her total responsibility. I suppose there’s some emotional involvement with my father …” Suddenly she stopped. “Here we go again. Now you’ve got
me
doing it.”

“What?”

“Talking about my father.” She stared at him. “I don’t know what’s going on here. All of a sudden, he’s become a prime topic of conversation. You come to town, and both my mother and I start to babble about him to a perfect stranger. After being dead for thirty years, he comes up stage front, as far as you’re concerned. Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, it doesn’t make any sense. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to drop the subject of my family. We’ve been hacking away at it long enough, and it’s really a bore. Why don’t we talk about ourselves?”

“Why not indeed? Where shall we start for openers?”

“Well, I know you’re a bachelor, and I know what you do. You know I’m a maiden lady, and you know what I do.”

“So?”

“I have a question for you.”

“Proceed.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“When will you be twenty-eight?”

“On the tenth of October.”

“My God,” she said. “That makes me what they call an older woman.”

Then she laughed. “I feel like a character out of Colette. You know, the older woman with infinite experience who seduces the naive young man.”

“A three-months’ edge isn’t going to make you
that
good.”

“How’d you know that?”

“How’d I know
what
?”

“That I was three months older than you.”

She was staring at him in surprise. The violet eyes were puzzled. They wanted an answer. He cursed himself for not thinking. “Just guessing.” he said lamely.

“No,” she said. “You
knew
. How? I never told you.”

Suddenly he remembered something. He could have shouted with relief.

“One of those photographs on the wall.”

“Yes?”

“It was a picture of your father and mother taken in the backyard, or somewhere. Your mother was holding what appeared to be a very newborn baby. Obviously, it was you. There was a date written across it, sometime in July, I think.”

“Oh. Yes. July twentieth.”

He’d have to be careful from now on, he thought. Think before he spoke. Know only what he was supposed to know.

“July twentieth,” he said. “What’s your sign?”

“Sign?”

“Horoscope sign.”

“Oh. I’m a Cancer.”

“Well, what do you know,” he said, smiling. “I’m a Libra.”

“Is that good?”

“It’s perfect. Libras and Cancers mix well together.
Muy sympatico
. They often fall in love with each other and go through life together. They’re particularly close right now, when Jupiter is in the solar seventh house and Mercury ends its retrograde period.”

She stared at him a moment, then laughed.

After they had gone, Marcia Chapin turned on the television set. A news program was on, but she found she could not concentrate. She turned off the set and opened another bottle of club soda.

She felt nervous, edgy. The club soda was worthless. It was supposed to help if you simply held a glass in your hand, but it did nothing for her. She watched her hand tremble as she held the glass. What I need now, she thought, is a drink.

She had felt fine an hour ago. But that was before he had walked into the house. Peter Proud.

When she had taken her first good look at him, something extraordinary had happened. She had suddenly felt tense. Somewhere a nerve had begun to jangle. She had taken an instant dislike to him. Something about him repelled her. What was it? His face? His voice? It made absolutely no sense. He was good-looking, well-dressed; his smile was warm; he had been very polite. Nothing he had said or done had in any way been out of line.

Then why?

She put it down as one of those mysterious things that sometimes happen between people. You meet a total stranger, and your reaction is automatically hostile. He has said nothing to you, he has done no harm to you, yet you cannot stand the sight of him. Sometimes you walked down a crowded street, and hundreds of people were swirling around you, and then you saw one face, a face that bothered you. Sometimes it even haunted you.

She had been so sure she had met him before, seen him somewhere. Yet she knew this couldn’t be so; otherwise, she would have remembered.