Маргарет Миллар - The Cannibal Heart

“It looks like a party,” she said. “You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble, Mrs. Banner.”

Though she addressed Evelyn, it was Mark she looked at. He had paid little attention to her when they first met in the afternoon, and he was surprised now to see how tall she was — nearly as tall as he — and how full of energy her body looked. No — more than energy. Challenge. She herself seemed ignorant of the challenge; she was friendly, impersonal. But he felt a little thrill of interest run through his veins, and he looked away deliberately when their eyes met, aware that Evelyn was watching him and could see the invisible.

“It is a party,” said Jessie, who could make a party out of a piece of cake or a picnic out of a hard-boiled egg eaten on the beach. “Daddy, do I look different?”

“Let me see,” Mark said. “Well, yes. You’re terribly clean for one thing.”

“No, this is much differenter.”

“Your hair’s combed.”

“No! This is much better!”

“Then I guess it’s the earrings.”

Jessie bobbed her head up and down, and the gold earrings swung deliciously against her skin.

“I hope you don’t mind?” Mrs. Wakefield said to Evelyn. “She saw them in my case, and I thought just this once—?”

Evelyn minded quite a bit; to her Jessie looked grotesque in the gypsy earrings. But she said pleasantly, “Of course not. As long as Jessie doesn’t try to make a habit of it.”

“I won’t make a habit. I promise.”

“But don’t keep shaking your head like that, Jessie. You look like an idiot.”

“What’s an idiot?”

“Someone who isn’t very bright.”

“What causes idiots?”

“I don’t know. Lots of things, I guess.”

Mrs. Wakefield spoke suddenly in a high, unnatural voice: “I’d better go and say hello to Luisa. She might think I’ve forgotten her.”

“I’m an idiot,” Jessie cried, rolling her head dramatically from side to side. “Look, I’m an idiot!”

But Mrs. Wakefield wouldn’t look. Averting her eyes, she walked back into the house with quick nervous strides.

It was nearly half an hour before she returned, full of apologies, and apparently at ease again.

“You didn’t keep us waiting,” Evelyn said. “As a matter of fact, Mark likes to eat late anyway.”

Her expression didn’t change, though she couldn’t help wondering why it had required so much time to “say hello” to Luisa, and why Mrs. Wakefield had decided to remove the topaz necklace she’d been wearing when she came downstairs.

When dinner was over Mark built a fire in the living room grate. He had done considerable talking during the meal, mostly about his work, and he was feeling well pleased with himself, and with Mrs. Wakefield. Her interest seemed genuine, and her comments had been unexpectedly intelligent. He tried to tell himself that these were the reasons why he found her pleasing, though he was increasingly conscious of a feeling of excited curiosity.

But Jessie was bored. The effect of the earrings, which had temporarily imposed on her an adult restraint, was wearing off. When Mrs. Wakefield settled down in a wing chair in front of the fireplace, Jessie crowded in beside her, in spite of a perfectly obvious frown from her father. Her parents had all sorts of ways of communicating their displeasure without words — coughs and raised eyebrows and gestures and frowns and sometimes even little pinches if the situation was desperate — but Jessie had a way of either ignoring these hints with a blank stare, or else bringing them right out into the open arena with a blunt question: What are you frowning at me for? What am I doing? Jessie had a sophisticated subtlety which was all the more effective because it hid behind her age, and no one could prove it was there.

“Can you play any games?” Jessie said. “Like Parchesi or Old Maid or Hearts?”

Mrs. Wakefield smiled. “I used to, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten how.”

“Don’t you play games with your little boy?”

“Not anymore.”

“If you could bring him along next time, I could teach him how to play Casino.”

“That’s nice of you, Jessie. But I’m afraid I can’t bring him.”

“Why?”

“Isn’t it just about your bedtime, Jess?” Mark interrupted. “Scoot on up now and don’t forget to clean your teeth.”

Jessie looked pained. “Well, what are you making such faces at me for? I didn’t do anything!”

“You heard me. Now for once in your life go to bed without arguing.”

“I want to know why she can’t bring her little boy.”

“Well, you see, Jessie,” Mrs. Wakefield said patiently, “Billy had a bad accident.”

“In a car?”

“No, a boat. He was drowned.”

Jessie asked, frowning, “Couldn’t he swim?”

“No.”

“I can swim. In a pool, not in the ocean, on account of the waves.”

“We’ll have to go swimming in the ocean together. The waves won’t hurt you if you know how to handle them.”

“Can we go tomorrow?”

“If you’ll go to bed right now.”

“I will.”

Mrs. Wakefield unscrewed the gold earrings. Jessie was secretly relieved to be rid of them. Her head felt so delightfully light and airy that, even after she was all undressed and tucked in, it wouldn’t stay down on the pillow properly. It kept wanting to bob up again like the balloons she used to play with in Central Park when she tried to hold them underwater.

She closed her eyes, wondering why Billy hadn’t bobbed up again like that. But she couldn’t go to sleep. There were the sounds of voices from the living room beneath her, tantalizing sounds, almost but not quite loud enough for her to identify words. Outside her window a mockingbird rustled through the oleanders and challenged her with her own name, calling “OO-essie!” Just the way Carmelita called her up from the beach sometimes.

She got up in the dark and went to the window. From the yard below, very faintly, came the sound of James scraping his bill insistently against the screen door. The lights were on in Luisa’s room over the garage, and she could see Luisa quite clearly standing in front of the bureau mirror. Luisa had her hair done up on top of her head and she was wearing nothing but a slip and a necklace.

Jessie leaned away out of the window and called in a soft penetrating whisper, “Luisa! Hey, Luisa!”

“OO-essie, oo-essie,” the mockingbird corrected sharply. “OO-essie, oo-essie!”

“Luisa!”

She had to call several times before Luisa finally heard her. She turned off the light and came to the window, propping her elbows on the sill. “What do you want?”

“Nothing. What are you doing?”

“None of your business,” Luisa said crossly. “You’re supposed to go to sleep, it’s nine o’clock.”

“We could talk.”

“I don’t want to talk, I’m busy.”

“What doing?”

“None of your business.”

“You sound funny,” Jessie said with a little shiver of excitement. Luisa’s voice was ghostly, it seemed to rise mysteriously from the velvet darkness like fog from the sea. “Do I sound funny, too?”

“Sorta.”

“I found the you-know-what in the woods today. The... dead man.”

“You weren’t supposed to,” Luisa said. “It’s a secret.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s in hell fire.”

“I don’t believe it,” Jessie said, shaken. “My mother says there’s no such place as hell fire.”

“She doesn’t know. She’s not a Catholic.”

“Why did he go to hell fire?”

“You’re too little to know. He did, that’s all. There are rules about it and he broke one.”