Росс Макдональд - The Three Roads

I know the feeling, Paula thought, even if your dialogue does need a little toning down (but then you learned to talk before Hemingway was here to teach you). “The last thing I want to seem is critical,” she said carefully. “And I have no desire to cause you pain. It simply happens that Bret has been having trouble with his memory. He’s confused about what happened to you, for one thing. It may be that if you tell me what actually happened it will help to clear up his trouble.” She let out her breath slowly. Trying to get the truth out of an aging romantic was as ticklish as walking on eggs.

But the carefully chosen words had their effect. The woman looked both guilty and penitent, and she spoke in an honest, uninflated way. “I wouldn’t have done anything to hurt Bret, not for the world. It was terrible for me to have it happen, and I hated to leave him. But he was so young I was convinced that he wouldn’t remember.”

“How old was he?”

“Four. He was only a baby. It couldn’t have meant anything to him.”

“Bret’s doctor would probably disagree. I don’t know whether you’ve read much about psychoanalysis–”

“Oh yes, I have. I do a great deal of reading.”

“Then you know how important they think certain childhood events can be. Some of them say that the first year is the most important of all.”

“I took very good care of him when he was a baby,” Mrs. Swanscutt said irrelevantly.

“No doubt. But what happened when he was four? He told his doctor that he went into his room and found you dead.”

“Is that what he said?” There was incredulous horror in the strained blue eyes. For a moment she might almost have believed that she had died then and had been deceiving herself for twenty-five years. Perhaps part of her died then, Paula thought, the part that belonged to her son.

“Yes, that’s what he said. That delusion may be the origin of his mental troubles. That’s why the truth is so important, do you see?”

“Is he in the asylum?” It was hard for her to say the word, but she got it out.

“Yes.” After all, he had been in a mental ward until yesterday. She needed every available tool to pry the truth out of this misty-brained woman.

“My poor boy!” Mrs. Swanscutt said. “My poor boy!”

Mrs. Roberts came in with the tea cart, walking firmly as if she had waited long enough and was determined to get it over with.

“Oh, I’d forgotten about tea,” Paula said, but she was furious. Damn Roberts for blundering in at the crisis of her third degree! And damn the Swanscutt woman for being a woman! She could guess well enough what Bret had found in his mother’s room. But she had to know.

She said in a low hard voice over the teacups: “I believe you did Bret an injury, Mrs. Swanscutt. The least you can do is tell me what happened so that I can tell his doctor.”

“I can’t tell you. I can’t.”

Paula felt a cold fury gathering in her body. Once again she was fighting for Bret’s sanity and her own chance of happiness. The woman could either tell her or get out of her house. “You had a lover,” she stated.

“Yes.” The admission was almost inaudible. “My present husband. Frank was a graduate student in the college, and he did the heavy work around the house in return for a room. We saw a great deal of each other, and we fell in love. But you can’t possibly understand the circumstances, Miss West.”

“Why not? I’m in love – with Bret.”

“After Bret was born my husband never came near me again. Do you understand me? He believed that intercourse was wrong except for the purpose of having children, and the doctor said I couldn’t have any more children. George had his own room, and never once in four years did he come into mine.”

I haven’t bedded with a man for six years, Paula thought, but she didn’t say it.

“Frank became my lover. I never thought of it as wicked. I simply didn’t think of George as my husband any longer. He was more than ten years older than I, and he seemed more like a father to me after the first year. He was never ordained, but he was like a priest. Frank was my true husband.”

“You needn’t make apologies to me,” Paula said. “Most of my friends have been married at least twice. I divorced my first husband in 1940.”

“You did? For Bret?”

“No, I didn’t know Bret then. For myself.”

“I see.”

The woman was stalling again. Perhaps she needed another jolt. Well, Paula thought, I’m the girl to give it to her. I take them, and I dish them out. “And when did Bret come into this? Or didn’t he matter?”

“Of course he mattered.” Mrs. Swanscutt said in her wispy, emotional voice. “I loved him too. I never dreamed it would turn out as it did.”

“Yes?”

“He must have been frightened by a dream – he sometimes had nightmares, though he hadn’t had one for a long time. Anyway, he woke up in the middle of the night and came to my room. Frank was with me. We were – in bed together. Bret came in very quietly and turned on the ceiling light – that was the first we knew of his being there. When he saw us he carried on something terrible. He set up a terrible howling and rushed at me with his fists. He bruised my breast quite badly.”

I’m glad, said Paula to herself.

“George heard the disturbance and came running up the stairs. He caught Frank before he could get back to his room, and they fought in the hall. It was frightful. George knocked Frank down – he was quite a powerful man. I tried to take Bret in my arms and quiet him, but he hit and scratched at me like a wild animal. Then he ran back to the nursery, and that was the last I saw of him. George went downstairs and locked himself in his study. Frank and I left town that night and went to Cincinnati, where his people lived. Several years after that I received a legal notice that George had divorced me on grounds of desertion. Frank and I got married and came west, and I never heard from George again. Perhaps he did tell Bret that I was dead. I don’t know.”

Paula respected Mrs. Swanscutt’s honesty, but it was not enough to keep her from hating the woman. She had harmed Bret, and that damned her forever in Paula’s eyes. Still, she spoke as kindly as she could. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Swanscutt. Will you have some more tea?”

“No, thank you. But I do think I’ll have one of these sandwiches. I’m quite famished.” Her voice broke then, and she placed her hand lightly on Paula’s arm. “I know you love Bret. You speak of him as if you loved him. Do you think I’m evil, an evil mother?”

“I think you were unlucky, I’m sorry for you. Bret was unlucky too – and George. He’s dead, by the way.”

The hall telephone rang, and Paula was there before Mrs. Roberts could come out of the kitchen. “Hello?”

“Is that you, Miss West?”

“Yes.” She shut the door to the living-room with her foot.

“You know who’s talking. I want to see you personally – now. Your boy friend has been sticking his nose in once too often, and I don’t like it. Not a little bit.”

“I warned you to leave town. You said you would.”

“Maybe I did, but I’m not going, understand? I’m sticking around to see what gives. I think you’ve been giving me the cross, and I don’t like it.”

“Think what you like. I haven’t.”

“Maybe you haven’t and maybe you have. Anyway, I want to see you. Do I get to?”

“Yes. Yes, I’ll come. Are you at home?”

“Nix! Taylor drops in too much. I’m in the Mexicana Motel, room 106. Know where that is?”

“On Hollywood Boulevard?”

“Correct. I’ll be waiting. And if you bring anybody with you you’ll be making an ugly mistake – but ugly.” He hung up.