Маргарет Миллар - Wall of Eyes

“Not a bit,” Marcie said shrilly.

“Perhaps I haven’t the right approach. I think you’ve got to work yourself up to it, get into the spirit, like a vestal virgin.”

Marcie let out a giggle. “Like a virgin...” The giggle crept into a corner, alone and ashamed. Marcie’s face dropped into sullenness. She wanted to strike out at them all, claw them without reason like a cat.

She drank her tea rapidly. She could hear herself swallow. Even when the others were talking she could hear the shameful gulp of tea in her throat.

“Johnny,” she said. “It’s getting late. I’d better...”

“But it’s early,” Kelsey said lazily. “You haven’t met Alice.”

“You just got here,” Johnny said.

“No, no,” Marcie cried. “No, I’ve got to go really, please, I’ve got to go.”

“Perhaps she has a dinner engagement,” Kelsey said. “Have you?”

“Yes, yes, I got...”

“Do come again. Perhaps we could be alone and compare notes on Johnny.”

“Yes, yes, sure.” She thrust out toward freedom like a bird seeing the door of its cage open. “Pleased t’have met you. I had a very good time.”

Johnny said, “I’m taking you home.”

“I had a swell time. Good-bye, Mr. Heath, good-bye, Miss Heath, good-bye, Mr. James.”

The door banged shut and the room slyly changed its face.

“Well?” Philip said.

“Ghastly,” Kelsey said. “ Horrible . What do you think of her, Father?”

“Eh?” He stirred under her voice. “Yes, a spot more, thank you, with a little less cream.”

“The girl,” Kelsey said sharply. “What did you think of the girl?”

“Ah,” he said. “Nice little thing. Quiet. Nice little thing.”

There was silence.

“How John does it,” Kelsey said at last, “I don’t know. Remember the waitress from Childs? And the one whose father was a Communist? And the singer?”

“That was Geraldine,” Philip said.

“No, no, it wasn’t!” No, the other one was Geraldine, the one whose face breathed and died and breathed again, a bloated face dangling in a dream.

She heard Philip twist in his chair and sigh.

“You’re going to take Johnny’s side against me,” she said. “You, and Alice too.”

“No,” Philip said. “No, I’m not. But perhaps Johnny likes that kind of girl. He...”

“What difference does that make? Am I to cater to his cheap tastes and let him disgrace the family?”

“I believe I’ll—” Mr. Heath said, “I think I’ll — go up to my room.”

“I have to fight you all,” she cried. “Without eyes I have to fight you all!”

“Yes, I certainly — it would be better to go up to my room.”

He shuffled across the rug.

It was six o’clock when Alice came home. The wind and the hill had tired her. A million years ago the Hill had belonged to Lake Ontario, but the water had gradually receded leaving its long steep shore as booty to enterprising architects and real estate agents. Here, on the edge of the shore which was now St. Clair Avenue, Isobel Heath had built a house for her husband, and within its walls they had built together a life and a family, first John, then Alice, and last of all a small, delicate child, whom Isobel, without reference to anyone, had called Kelsey. It was Isobel’s last concession to a physical world which repelled her. From that time on she began to recede like the lake, quietly and gradually drying at the edges, vanishing, but leaving a long deep shore behind her. On this shore she left her husband, cast up on the beach like a fish after a storm, gasping and feebly twisting his body.

Even Prince was tired and lay on the stone steps while Alice took out her key and fitted it into the door. The door opened, and here were the familiar sights and sounds and smells coming out at her, dragging her inside. The potted hyacinth on the hall table, the distant clink of dishes from the kitchen — the smell and sound of home that you always came back to.

But how much stronger were the sights — the red and blue Persian rug, the two bird prints one on each side of the hall facing each other. Alice could remember believing implicitly in those birds, as a child believes. For a time she had gone out every day staring up into the trees, expecting to come upon birds as huge and bright, expecting so hard that her whole body was stiff and set against the fright she knew would come when the birds appeared. She could remember, too, the terrible sinking in her stomach when all she ever saw was a sparrow, small and drab, sitting ignominiously among the horse leavings on the road.

She closed the door quietly and bent over to take off Prince’s harness. As she moved her eye caught a glimpse of white down the hall. She turned quickly.

In front of the closed door which led into the drawing room stood a small stout girl in a white and green uniform. Her ear was pressed tight against the door, her body bent sideways into an angle of eagerness.

Alice said, “Ida!”

The girl turned, gasping, and saw her. Her fat red mouth split open like a cherry wounded by a robin’s beak.

“Awk,” she said. “Awk.”

“What are you doing there, Ida?”

“Nothing. Honest, I wasn’t doing...”

“Don’t listen at doors, Ida,” Alice said. “It’s not polite.”

The wound healed gradually, puckering at the edges. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, backing up as Alice walked toward her. “But I didn’t hear nothing, ma’am.”

“Go back to the kitchen,” Alice said quietly. “It’s time for Prince to be fed. Take him with you.”

The girl stood still, breathing very heavily so that her body seemed ready to pop out of her uniform and splash against the wall.

“Maurice said to come and fetch the tea tray.”

Ida turned and walked away. Kelsey’s voice came through the door of the drawing room. “You’re away half the time anyway. You might as well get out for good! I don’t want you here!”

Without looking around Alice knew that Ida had heard, that Ida’s head was swinging up in the gesture that said, “I’m just as good as you are.”

Alice stood with her hand on the doorknob. What could you do with the Idas of this world, she thought. Put your fists over your eyes, as children do, to squeeze the evil in behind the eyes where it could lie in secret and gradually die, too well hidden to be found again.

She jiggled the doorknob to warn them she was coming, and then quickly, before she could change her mind, she slipped through the door and closed it again.

Kelsey was standing behind the high-backed chair, wrenching at the wood. In the chair Philip sat, doubled over, with his hands clasping his stomach as if he had a cramp.

“Who’s that?” Kelsey screamed. “Who came in?”

“Alice,” Philip said dully.

Alice came toward them, tossing her gloves casually on the tea table, pretending the scene was too ordinary to notice.

“Hello,” she said cheerfully. “What did I miss at tea? Cucumber sandwiches! Wait till I get Maurice!”

“Where have you been?” Kelsey said. “You should have been here. Leaving me to fight alone...”

Alice put her hands over Kelsey’s to quiet them.

Philip remained doubled up in the chair with the two women behind him. He did not turn his head or listen to them, as if by shutting them out of his ears and eyes he could leave them there forever, behind him.

But what could you do about the touch of Alice’s hand on your shoulder, coaxing you to recognize her, asking to come to life again?

“No, Alice,” he said. “It’s no use. No.”

“Such children,” Alice said, “both of you. And do you know who was listening with all ears to the row? Ida.”