The Road Through the Wall (5 page)

When Harriet Merriam came to the house—the other girls thought this was funny and tormented her with it—she would open the door a crack, peering down the long dark hall inside to see if the grandmother's door were open. If the door were open that meant that Lotus was abroad, and Harriet would wait outside. “I don't want him to snap at
me
,” she said reasonably.

“If he snapped at
me
I'd kick him in the head and kill him,” Hallie said wisely. “That's how you kill dogs anyway, kick them in the head.”

“You just kick my grandmother's dog,” Helen said. She laughed. “My
grandmother
would bite you.”

In Helen's room at the back of the house were old fashion magazines and pictures of movie stars and collections of lace and ribbons the girls used to dress up in; Helen's mother worked in the city, and she bought Helen neat young girl's clothes which Helen decorated with bows or lace collars or five-and-ten jewelry and wore to school. Sometimes the girls at Helen's house would go into the dark front room where Helen's mother sat alone in the evenings, and play records on the phonograph and dance together. Once or twice they brought George Martin in to dance with them, although he was clumsy and had to be bribed with penny candy before he would stand up patiently for a minute or two and walk around the floor holding one of the girls.

“When I go live with my
father
,” Helen said frequently, “I've got to know how to dance and how to dress pretty, because my father is going to take me out a lot and we're going to travel and everything.”

“Where is your father?” someone, probably Harriet, would ask, and perhaps Virginia Donald would add respectfully, “You're terribly lucky.”

“My father goes everywhere,” Helen said. “Maybe Paris, or New York. Paris is where they have men who kiss your hands.” She giggled, and it made the other girls giggle too. With a lace shawl over her head, Helen stood up and curtseyed, holding out her hand. “Why, Mr. Paris,” she said in a high voice, “you mean you want to kiss
my
hand?”

Hallie stood in back of her, shouting, “Why, Mr. Johnny Desmond, you mean you want to kiss
my
hand?”

And Helen said seriously, “Boy, I'm not going to stay here much longer. I'm going to find my father pretty soon now.”

The Williams family was moving soon; Mrs. Williams had mentioned to Miss Fielding, who was the only person outdoors in the very early morning when Mrs. Williams left to catch her bus to the city, that it was too hard to try to get back and forth every day, and she wanted to put the girls into a city school. Miss Fielding told Mrs. Desmond, who said timidly that perhaps it was just as well. Little Mildred Williams, Mrs. Desmond said, was entirely too sweet and kind to be away from her mother all the time, and Mrs. Desmond added, with a stronger note to her voice, that perhaps the grandmother (out of respect for Miss Fielding's age Mrs. Desmond did not say “that almost bedridden old lady,” as she did later to Mr. Desmond) was not quite—Mrs. Desmond lifted her hand gently—not
quite
the person to deal with dear little Helen.

The word that dear little Helen had for Mrs. Desmond was “horse's behind.” “Thinks she owns the world,” Helen said.

Helen's little sister Mildred came home the last day of school and went immediately out into the back yard, where for the last month or so she had been building an elaborate playhouse, partly underground, dug out with a spoon, and partly put together with pieces of board salvaged from vacant lots and other back yards. The playhouse was just big enough for Mildred to crawl in and lie down, and her dolls were in there and what pillows and dishes she could take from her own house. “It's for my mommy and me,” she told Mr. Donald over the fence. “When Helen and Gram go away my mommy and me will live here.”

The afternoon that Harriet's mother found out about the letters, Hallie found Helen alone in the living-room, dancing solemnly around to “Missouri Waltz” on the phonograph. Hallie fell into line behind Helen, imitating her and saying, “Bet when you find your father you'll be the best dancer there.”

“I'll dance all day long,” Helen said. “I'll never stop dancing till I'm hungry and then I'll eat ice cream and chicken and chocolate creams.”

“I wish I could go with you,” Hallie said.

Helen stopped dancing and fell down on the couch. Hallie lifted the needle off the record and set it aside. She came over and sat down next to Helen and said, “Listen, Willie, can't I go with you?”

“You want to know something?” Helen said dreamily.

Hallie nodded, leaning forward.

“Don't tell,” Helen said, and Hallie nodded again. Helen looked around sharply, and Hallie crossed her finger over her heart, and Helen said impatiently, “Don't do that, baby. Swear on your honor.”

“I swear on my honor,” Hallie said obediently.

“Well,” Helen said, “you know where I was last night?”

Hallie shook her head, her mouth a little open.

Helen laughed excitedly. “Well,” she said, “I went out for a walk and I went over down by the stores.”

“Why?”

“I don't know,” Helen said vaguely, “I just
felt
like going that way. And you know this guy, the one in the gas station, the one we stopped and kidded with once?” She waited while Hallie nodded again, and then went on, “Well, he was there and we got to talking and he says he'll take me to the city some night and we'll go somewhere and dance.”

•   •   •

“
I
don't know, sweetie,” Dinah Ransom-Jones said to her sister, “I really don't know, you have such a
sense
of flowers.”

“But it's
your
garden, dear,” her sister said gently. “You'll be here a good deal longer than I will.”

“Brad always says the flowers look prettier when you do them,” Mrs. Ransom-Jones said.

“But I won't do them always,” her sister said. “He loves the way you plan them.”

“Sweetie,” Dinah said, “you've just
got
to decide. Nothing
ever
goes well around here unless you help. You know that.”

“Well.” Her sister hesitated. “Over
there
, then.” She pointed to a far corner of the garden, near the street hedge.

“Really?” Mrs. Ransom-Jones said. “You really think
there
?”

“Not if you have a better place,” her sister said.

“Of course not,” Mrs. Ransom-Jones said. She picked up the gardening basket and the bag of bulbs. “Don't you lean over,” she said, “I don't want you overtiring yourself.”

“It doesn't matter, really,” her sister said.

Mrs. Ransom-Jones moved with determination, and her sister said, quickly, “Not
that
way, dear. By the street hedge.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Ransom-Jones stopped and looked around. “I thought you said over
here
,” she said.

“Well, I
did
say by the street hedge,” her sister said, “but if you have a place you like better. . . .”

“Of
course
not, sweetie,” Mrs. Ransom-Jones said. She started off again toward the corner of the garden. “Brad will think this is wonderful,” she said. “That's just the spot for shy flowers.”

“He loves everything you do,” her sister said, following.

•   •   •

It was evening, and the kids were all outside; Harriet could see them from her bedroom window, Miss Fielding could see them from her chair on the porch, Marilyn Perlman could see them from the living-room window, past her father's head bent over papers at the desk. Early evening and twilight were always longer on Pepper Street than anywhere else; dinners were early up and down the block so the children could play longer; even Miss Fielding, who did not play, felt uncomfortable sitting down alone to her dinner later than anyone else, hearing the noise of dishes being washed at the Merriams'. Mrs. Perlman served dinner early because Marilyn might want to play with the other children.

They played tag and hide-and-seek and long involved games with a line across the street from curb to curb and elaborate systems of bases and penalties. Mr. Desmond, who walked out for the evening air, met Mr. Roberts halfway down the block, and together they stood on the sidewalk and watched the game.

“If those young animals could put half that creative ability into their school work,” Mr. Desmond commented drily.

“Healthy kids,” Mr. Roberts said. “Good to see.”

They stood quietly in the half-darkness, smiling vaguely. Past them their own children and the children of their neighbors moved swiftly back and forth, following some ancient ritual of capture and pursuit, dance steps regulated as far as the placing of the feet. With a wild howl little Jamie Roberts made a capture in the gutter near his father, and Mr. Roberts took the pipe out of his mouth to say, “Good boy, Jamie.” He lifted his eyes to where, across the street, his older son sat with Pat Byrne on the Donalds' lawn. They were half-watching the game, half-talking. Mr. Desmond followed his attention, and said quietly, “That's a very good boy, that Art of yours. Bright kid.”

Mr. Roberts sighed and turned to watch Jamie shrieking up the street.

“I guess just anywhere where you could find a job,” Art Roberts was saying. “Anywhere not here.”

“They send you right back,” Pat Byrne said. “You can't get a job because you're too young, and they send you right back.”

“In another year, maybe,” Art said. “I could say I was eighteen.”

“They take you in the navy at sixteen,” Pat said, “I
think
.”

Hallie cornered Helen for a minute, away from the glow of the street light, and said insistently, “Are you going to take someone? A friend?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Helen said, turning away.

“Tell me,” Hallie said insistently. “You said to him you'd take a friend?”

Helen looked down on the top of Hallie's head. “I said I'd take a
friend
with me, not a dirty little baby.”

James Donald came out of his house, spoke to Art Roberts and Pat Byrne on his way down to the sidewalk. He was all dressed up, and when Mr. Roberts and Mr. Desmond saw him they smiled at one another and waved across the street to him. He stood uncertainly for a minute and then crossed over to where they stood and said, “Evening, Mr. Desmond, Mr. Roberts.”

“How're you?” Mr. Desmond said. “And your family?”

“Dad's not well again.” James turned, hands in his pockets, and surveyed the game as though he belonged with Mr. Desmond and Mr. Roberts instead of with the kids in the street.

“Got a date?” Mr. Roberts said cheerfully.

James moved nervously, and swallowed. “Thought I'd go out for a while.”

“Young men,” Mr. Roberts said, and he and Mr. Desmond laughed.

James straightened his shoulders and laughed with them.

“Have a fine time, son,” Mr. Roberts said, and began to walk on. “Good night,” he said over his shoulder, and James and Mr. Desmond both said, “Good night.”

“Come in and see me some evening,” Mr. Desmond said to James. He smiled tolerantly and added, “Sometime when you're not so busy.”

“Thank you,” James said awkwardly, “I'd like to.”

“Still set on architecture?” Mr. Desmond asked.

“Guess so,” James said.

Mr. Desmond put his hand on James's shoulder for a minute before he turned away. “Good fellow,” he said. “You come in and see me.”

“I will,” James said. He watched Mr. Desmond go down the street, and then he looked ostentatiously at his watch and began to walk in the other direction, proudly aware that the children in the street were watching him over their game. He had not gone as far as the Perlmans' house when he heard footsteps behind him and Helen Williams caught up with him.

“Hey, James Donald,” she was yelling.

He turned with dignity and waited, his head held back and his arms folded across his chest in a manner strongly reminiscent of Mr. Desmond. “You running away from me?” Helen asked.

“You're very much mistaken,” James said.

Helen looked up at him from under her eyelashes. She was very blond and wore her hair in a long straight bob, and when she bent her head down her hair fell softly along her cheeks. “You never came over to see me at my house like you said you would,” she said.

“I don't have much time any more to play with the kids,” James said.

Helen put out her lower lip; all her gestures were very much exaggerated because she practised them alone in front of a mirror. “I wouldn't play with the kids, either,” she said meaningly, “if there was anything else to do.”

James looked at his watch again. “Well,” he said.

“Where you going?” Helen demanded.

“I am going,” James said elaborately, “to an orchestra rehearsal at the high school. Now are you happy?”

“Bet you got a girl there,” Helen said to his back, and when she saw his shoulders tighten she said more loudly, “You got a girl at school, James has got a girl.”

When he was past hearing her she turned and went back to the game still going on. Tod Donald ran up to her and said loudly, “We missed you, Willie, you don't want to talk to my old brother.”

“Let me alone,” Helen said. “I'm going home.”

•   •   •

“I suppose I should be used to this by
now
,” Mrs. Merriam said. She took out her clean handkerchief and put the damp one down on the table next to her. “After all,” she said, “I've been your wife for eighteen years, Harry, and I think by now I deserve a little consideration. Every sort of humiliation and insult. . . .” With a wail she lifted the clean handkerchief and began to cry again.