Линвуд Баркли - A Noise Downstairs

“What kind of car was it?”

Charlotte sighed. “It was kind of boxy. It was like the car you said you saw out there the other day.”

Paul looked at her. “What are you talking about?”

Charlotte raised her eyebrows. “What was it? Saturday? When you said there was someone on the street watching us?”

“I... don’t... Saturday?”

She nodded. “I was sitting right there.” She pointed to one of four stools tucked under the kitchen island. “You were looking out the window wondering about a car. A station wagon. You said some guy got out, stood there for a second, and pointed right at you. Shouted your name.”

Paul moved slowly back into the kitchen, turned, and leaned against the counter. He ran a hand over his chin. “I don’t have any memory of that.”

Charlotte approached him slowly. “Okay.”

“When I told you this, did you see him?”

She shook her head. “I got to the window fast as I could, but there was no car there. But I couldn’t help but remember that when I saw that car, right now.”

“But that guy didn’t get out?”

“No.”

“Was he looking at the house?”

“Actually, not so much.” She shrugged. “It could have been anybody. I shouldn’t even have mentioned it.” She shook her head. “God, you’re starting to make me paranoid.”

Paul visibly winced.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” she said. “I totally take it back. It was—”

“Don’t worry about it, really.”

They said nothing for several moments. It was Charlotte who broke the silence with a tentative question. “How did it go today with Dr. White?”

Paul nodded slowly. “It was okay.”

“You told her you’re still having the nightmares?”

“Yeah. And I told her about my idea of facing this whole thing head-on.”

Charlotte pulled out a stool and sat down. “What did she say?”

“She didn’t try to talk me out of it. I told her you were on board with it.”

“Did you tell her it was my idea?”

Paul frowned. “I didn’t. I’m sorry. I should have given you credit.”

She waved a hand. “Doesn’t matter. I’m just glad she didn’t shoot it down. If she had, maybe that’s when you’d have told her it was my idea.”

That brought a smile. “Anyway, when I got home, I actually got started.”

Charlotte looked into his office off the kitchen, saw the open laptop. “That’s great.”

“I’m starting by reading all the news accounts of the trial. I want to know everything, including the things I forgot afterward. And anything I can’t learn, I’m going to...”

“Going to what?”

“You know how, in American Pastoral , Philip Roth has his alter ego character, Nathan Zuckerman, write about this guy’s life — he calls him ‘the Swede’ — and he starts with what he knows, but then when he gets to the parts he doesn’t know, he imagines them? To fill in the narrative blanks?”

Charlotte looked at him and smiled. “Only you would use an example like that to try and explain something. I’ve never read that book.”

“Okay, forget that part. And anyway, I’m no Philip Roth. But what I want to do is, write about this. The parts I know, and even the parts I don’t know. Not to actually be published. I don’t even know that I would want it to be published, assuming any publisher even cared. I’m thinking that writing it would be a kind of catharsis, I guess. I want to try to understand it, and I think that might be the way to do it. Imagine myself in Kenneth’s head, what he said to those women, what they said to him.”

“I’m not so sure in Kenneth’s head is a place you want to be.”

“I said, imagine .” Paul saw hesitation in Charlotte’s eyes. “What?”

“I know it was my idea, but now I’m wondering if it’s such a good one. Maybe this is a really dumb thing to do.”

“No, it’s good,” Paul said. “It feels right.”

Charlotte went slowly from side to side. “You have to be sure.”

“I am,” he said. “I... think I am.”

She slid off the stool, walked over to him, slipped her arms around him, and placed her head on his chest.

“If there’s anything I can do to help, just ask. I have to admit, I’m alternately repulsed and fascinated by Hoffman. That someone can present as friendly, as someone who cares about you, but can actually be plotting against you. He didn’t come across that way when I met him.”

“You met Kenneth?” Paul asked.

She stepped back from him. “You know. From that faculty event we went to a couple of years ago, when I thought he was coming on to me? How smooth he was? He wanted to read me a poem he’d written that afternoon, about how a woman is exquisitely composed of the most beautiful curves to be found in nature. I thought it’d be creepy, but God, it was actually pretty good, but then, I’ve never been much of a judge of poetry.”

“I don’t — when did you tell me this?”

Charlotte shrugged. “I don’t know. More than once. Around the time it happened, and then, you know, since...”

“You’d think I’d remember something like that, I mean, if it involved you.”

“Anyway, it’s not like I got a case of the vapors and started going ‘Ah do declare, Mistah Hoffman, you are getting my knickahs in a twist.’” She laughed and tried to get her husband to see the humor in it. But Paul looked troubled.

“I’m sorry. It worries me when I can’t remember things.”

Her face turned sympathetic and she wrapped her arms around him. “Don’t worry about that,” she whispered. “It’s nothing.” She squeezed him. “I nearly lost you.”

He placed his palms on her back. “But I’m here.”

“I feel... like I can’t forgive myself.”

Paul tried to put some space between them to look into her face, but she held him tight. “What are you talking about?”

“Before... before it happened, I wasn’t a good wife to you. I—”

“No, that’s not—”

“Just listen to me. I know I was distant, that I wasn’t... loving. I wasn’t there for you the way I should have been. I could offer all kinds of excuses, that I was all wrapped up with myself, wondering about my choices in life, whether my life was going the way I’d imagined it when I was younger and—”

“You don’t have to do this,” Paul said.

“All I was thinking about was me. I wasn’t thinking about us . And then that horrible thing happened to you, and I realized...”

She pressed her head harder against his chest. He could feel her body tremble beneath his palms as she struggled not to cry.

“I realized I couldn’t just wait around to receive what I thought was owed me. I realized that I had to give, that I hadn’t been giving to you. Does that make any sense at all?”

“I think so.”

She tilted her head up. Tears had made glistening, narrow tracks down her cheeks. She wiped them away before managing a smile.

“Josh’ll be here in a couple of days. Maybe, while we still have the house to ourselves...”

He smiled. “I hear you.”

She gave him a quick kiss, broke free, and said, “How about a drink?”

He’d already had a prenoon beer, but what the hell. “Sure.”

As she headed for the refrigerator she said, “I picked up a little something for you the other day.”

“What?” he asked.

“You’ll have to wait and see,” she said.

He was about to press for details, but his phone alerted him to a text message. He dug it out of his pocket. It was from Hillary Denton, the dean of faculty at West Haven College, and read: Sure, any time you want to come in I’m available.

Under his breath, he said, “What the hell are you talking about?” He scrolled up to look at the previous message.