House Next Door

by Anne Rivers Siddons

  Kim shot me a shallow gray look, but the face Anita Sheehan turned to me was rapt with gratitude, and I thought guiltily, well, whatever happened over there, it doesn’t change how the house looks. I can still say that honestly.

  In the darkness I could feel Claire’s eyes on me too. She knew that I, of all of us, had felt grieved and torn and sickened by the Harralsons’ tragedy, and Lucas Abbott’s, and by the unhappiness and loss and disturbing obsession the house had brought to Kim. She knew that I had loved the grace and beauty of it, and that now my pleasure in its beauty was diminished and its nearness oppressive to me. I thought for a moment that she was, in her blunt manner, going to chide me openly for the half-lie, but she said nothing.

  “I felt that way too,” said Anita Sheehan. “I never thought I’d be comfortable in anything so contemporary—we had a very traditional house at home….” Her voice fell but climbed again. “But when Buck brought me to see it for the first time and I opened the door and went in, it was just as if it had been waiting for me to come home. You might have built it just for me.” She smiled at Kim, who nodded stiffly.

  “It’s a pity the young couple who lived there moved back to their home town after such a short time. But lucky for us. Why on earth did they, do you know?”

  Kim opened his mouth, and then closed it. No one said anything. Buck Sheehan was on his feet in an eye blink, taking Anita’s glass to be refilled and asking Walter about the rocks in our rock garden.

  “River rocks, unless I miss my guess,” he said loudly. “Too smooth and flat for anything else. I’d love to build one like it for Anita, right back there where the ground rises at the edge of the woods.”

  I thought of the terrible little cemetery that lay there now. The small animals. The puppy. I knew Walter did too. As I turned toward Anita Sheehan I heard him say, “If I were you, I’d put it around on the other side there, where the ridge runs along the side of the Guthries’ garden. I think there’s solid rock at the edge of those woods.”

  “There is,” Kim said.

  Anita was still looking around at us questioningly, but there was nothing more than ordinary curiosity about the former occupants of her house in her face. The strain and fine-edged fear were almost gone.

  “They were having marital troubles,” I said. “But they did love the house, and so will you. For a million years at least, I hope.”

  She gave me a smile of tentative happiness, a quick one that flickered away again, but I could see what a stunningly lovely woman she had been before she was ill, and might be again when she recovered. Let it be all right for them, I breathed to whoever might control such things, and said, before any more talk of the Harralsons could come up again, “I have a strictly-from-scratch strawberry shortcake here that is guaranteed to put fifteen pounds on everybody on this patio, and I’ll be furious if anybody refuses it. That means you too, Buck.”

  “I never say no to a lady,” he said, and laughed, but it was the same thinned, ersatz sound we had heard that evening on his doorstep, so I hurried into the kitchen to get the cake. Claire followed.

  “She doesn’t know about the Harralsons, then,” she said. “And he does. And is damned if anybody’s going to tell her. What’s wrong with her, Colquitt? I see what you meant by haunted, sort of. Do you think it was mental?”

  “I don’t know. I just know I’ll murder you if you ever so much as breathe a word to her about it.”

  “Well, of course I wouldn’t,” she said indignantly. “What do you think I am? But she’s bound to find out sometime.”

  “Well, by the time she does, maybe she’ll be stronger and more settled. I don’t know, Claire—I have a bad feeling about her. She’s just barely holding herself together, or was at first. I think she’s unwinding a little now. What do you think of them?”

  “I like them, I think. She may be funny and he may be overprotective, but she has real class, and he’s really sweet, isn’t he? Don’t worry. I’ll curb my mouth and be an angel, and you all won’t know me. Do they have any children, by the way?”

  They were almost the exact words that Buck Sheehan had called after us that first evening. Natural words now, in this context, not stilted and ringing with portent as they had been before. But the queer wing-brush of uneasiness touched me again. I had meant to warn the Swansons and the Guthries and Kim not to mention the children, but I had forgotten. It had not come up so far, but it would, almost inevitably.

  “No. And there’s something funny about that too. He asked about the kids on the street in a strange sort of way, as though he hoped there weren’t any, or that they wouldn’t see much of them. I meant to tell you all to hold off on that until we know them better.”

  “Well, God, I’ll shut up about the Harralsons, and I’ll shut up about Lucas Abbott and all those dead animals, and Pie’s baby, and I’ll try to be gentle and kind and all that to her, but I can’t very well hide Duck and Tommy and Rog in the basement. You think she lost a baby or something?”

  “I don’t have any idea. I’d say a little too old for that. But there’s something there. See if you can pass the word to Virginia on the QT when you go back out there. I don’t think any of the guys will bring it up if we don’t.”

  Apparently she was able to alert Virginia, because the talk for the rest of the evening was quiet and comfortable and drifted gradually into sources for shopping, dentists, doctors, maids and yard men—the armatures around which, in our set, satisfying lives are sculpted. I thought, as the night grew older and the moon higher and the katydids louder, how ordinary, how ordered, how worldly and yet in a way how fragile our lives all were. That richness and substance should rest on such mortal bones. I felt the way, suddenly, that I had the night almost a year ago when the owl had begun his calling deep in the woods behind the house next door. I remembered precisely the sour taste of fear. It would take so little, so little…I reached across the little gulf of space that separated Walter’s chair from mine, and I took his hand, and I squeezed it.

  Out at the edge of the driveway, where the streetlight threw a pool of white light over the curb and a small slice of our lawn, a voice called out.

  “Ma? Hey, Ma? You over there? I need to talk to you about something.”

  Turning my head, I saw a stocky, solid figure, limned at the edges in light, diffused radiance spilling around it, coming slowly down our driveway. You could not see the features or clothing, only the shape, moving steadily toward us where we sat on the patio. I could not hear the footsteps either, but I knew it was Duck Swanson, padding silently toward us in ancient Adidas.

  “Ma? I need you for a minute.”

  Claire turned, grumbling a little. “Excuse me a minute. Ten to one he’s lost his key again.” She half rose to go and meet her son, coming on and on down the driveway toward us.

  A violent motion from Buck Sheehan caught our eyes. We turned to him. He sat staring at the figure in the darkness, his face as still as if it were settled forever into death. Then he turned to Anita, and we looked too. In the half-light that bathed the chaise she sat with her feet up and her hands folded loosely in her lap, so still that she might have been carved from marble. Her face was absolutely white and pure and mild, and her eyes looked unblinkingly into middle distance. Not at Duck Swanson, but over his head into nothing. A thin stream of Chablis began to trickle from the overturned glass in her lap, and ran down her leg and dripped from the chaise onto the patio flagstones. She did not move, and there was something in her stillness so far removed from ordinary quietude that my heart gave a sick leap and began to race. Then, very slowly, she began to rock, back and forth, back and forth, bending from the waist and straightening up again, the precise same distance each time. Like a machine, she rocked in her marble quiet, like a metronome. Her eyes did not blink. Duck came on down the driveway into the light.

  Buck Sheehan moved fast to his wife on the chaise, and gathered her into his arms, and tried to force her sightless face against his shoulder. The muscles of his ar
ms tightened and flexed, but they could not stop the rocking. We were very still. I simply sat beside Walter and Charles Guthrie thinking nothing at all. The night rang with shock. Virginia rose hastily and crouched down beside Anita on the other side of the chaise and put her arms around her, covering Buck’s arms with her own. She made soft, quiet noises. Duck Swanson stopped uncertainly, and Claire ran to him, and Roger followed.

  Buck Sheehan and Virginia managed to raise Anita Sheehan from the chaise and start with her toward the Sheehans’ house. She walked stiffly, with even steps, eyes open and straight ahead. Buck stopped and she stopped with him, standing straight and still in the circle of his arm. He looked at us out of the ruin of a face.

  “Our son was killed in Vietnam,” he said. “He was our only child. The boy looked very like him for a minute there, with the light behind him…she thought…I almost did too…It was the way he walked, I think. The walk was very like…forgive us. Forgive her. I’ll need to take her home now. I hope you’ll understand.”

  We stood silently as Virginia and Buck Sheehan took Anita Sheehan back across the driveway and up the bank and into the house next door. Off in the darkness of the driveway I heard Duck Swanson say, “Mama, I’m sorry. Mama, I didn’t mean to scare anybody—I just forgot my key.”

  “It’s all right, baby,” I heard Claire say. “I know. It’s all right.”

  But of course it wasn’t.

  11

  THE NEXT DAY, sometime after noon, I saw the Guthries’ car stop on the street in front of the Sheehans’ house and Buck Sheehan, in a dark summer suit and a tie, get out and smile and say something to Charles Guthrie and go into his house. I knew that Charles and Virginia had been to church; they hardly ever miss the services at the Episcopal cathedral. Could Buck Sheehan, after the dreadful ending of the night before, have left his wife alone to go to church with them? It had been a terrible scene; we were wrung with pity for Anita and Buck, and I had been certain that whatever frail hold she had gained on health and stability was shattered now. Somehow I had expected cars, doctors, lights during the night, some ghastly echo of that other night in April. The pain and terror, the dead, stony calm, had seemed so deep. But Buck Sheehan’s step this morning had been firm as he walked down the driveway to his house, and his smile had seemed sunny and normal.

  The night before, after the Sheehans and Virginia had disappeared into the darkness of the rhododendrons, we had moved silently and by tacit agreement into our den and sat down to await some summing up, some period to the wreck of the evening. We waited for Virginia to come back with some sort of epilogue, or for Buck Sheehan to call with some word that things were better or that he needed help. Claire had come back to sit with us, though Roger stayed with Duck and the younger boys. We had made ourselves nightcaps, rather strong ones, and even Charles Guthrie had poured himself a sturdy shot of brandy. Only Kim had refused a drink. He sat quietly for a little while, his long body slouched into the corner of the sofa, deep in some private reverie of his own, saying nothing. Soon he murmured his thanks and good-nights and went away. The rest of us looked at each other helplessly but said little. There is little to say in the face of such agony.

  Claire said finally, “It was mental, then. It must have been. God, that poor woman, that poor guy. And poor old Duck. He just feels awful—responsible, somehow. You know how Duck is; he tries to be responsible for the whole world. But we can’t just banish all the kids in the neighborhood. They must know there will be children—teenaged boys—wherever they go. I wish they’d let us know. I could have at least warned off the boys. Ten to one she’s back to square one now. I never saw such…walking death.”

  “I think it might have been different if she’d been able to get used to the kids gradually,” said Walter. “Poor old Duck did look ghostly as hell padding down that driveway, with the light behind him, not making any noise. If he really does look like their kid, you can sort of understand. Christ, what rotten luck for her.”

  “It didn’t do Duck a whole lot of good either,” Claire said fiercely. “He’s really upset. How was he to know we had an arrested psycho over here? This was a pretty good place to live until Happy House went up over there.”

  It was so nearly what I was thinking that I snapped at Claire. “I’m glad Kim wasn’t here to hear that. How do you think he feels? Our trouble is that we haven’t had any trouble,” I said. “Not real trouble, not the kind that the Harralsons had, or Luke Abbott, or the poor Sheehans. We’re so insulated and fat and happy over here that we’ve forgotten that there’s real pain and trouble in the world. Oh, yes, Claire, even among ‘nice’ people. Don’t blame the house. That’s just absurd.”

  “You blame it.”

  “I damned well do not, Claire! That’s crazy! I hate what happened to the Harralsons, and my heart breaks for the Sheehans, and for once in my life I’m close to tragedy instead of reading about it in the paper or hearing about it at the club, and I’m going to do what I can to help, and you’re a very callous woman if you don’t do the same.”

  Claire stared at me in hurt, and my face flamed with shame. She had not been callous. Claire lashes out when she is troubled and threatened. I retreat and brood. She allows me my reactions in silence and tolerance, and I have always allowed her hers in the same vein. I had broken faith. I went to her and hugged her and said, “I’m truly sorry. I really am. I talk a good game, but I don’t handle trouble very well. Forgive?”

  She hugged back. “Of course. Neither do I. You’re right, what you said. We have been lucky, all of us. And fools to think there would never be real trouble among us. I’ll help Anita, of course I’ll help her, if somebody will just tell me how I can. We all will, you know that. Virginia is helping right now.”

  “Well,” said Walter, “let’s wait and see what Virginia has to say when she comes back over. She’ll know what they need.”

  We sat waiting for a long time, but Virginia did not come back, and finally Charles Guthrie rose and said, “She’s probably going to stay the night with them. She does that sometimes. She’s good at getting people to talk things out, and that’s probably what they need more than anything. I’ll go on home and wait for her, and she’ll be in touch. Thanks for dinner, Col. Our turn next time.”

  Claire left just after he did, and Walter and I went to bed, for once leaving dirty dishes and glasses piled in the sink. Simple exhaustion gave us both quick, dreamless sleep.

  I don’t know quite what I had expected the next morning, but not the quiet banality of the Guthries’ dropping Buck Sheehan off after church. Walter and I went to the club that afternoon, and I played a dispirited set of tennis with Margaret Matthieson, and cut her off rather brusquely when she asked me how I liked the new neighbors she’d sent us. Walter sat in the sun by the pool and read The New York Times, and we had a salad from the cold buffet line, and then came home about dusk. The curtains were drawn over at the Sheehans’, but both cars were there, and the house had the look only of a somnolent Sunday in June. The phone was ringing as we came into the kitchen.

  It was Virginia Guthrie and she said briefly, “Could you and Walter drop over for a little while about nine? I’d like to tell you a bit about last night. The Swansons are coming.”

  “Is Anita okay?” I asked.

  “I think so, or will be. Tell you when you get here.”

  Virginia’s house is very like Virginia, cool and elegant and yet somehow warming and soothing. The light, graceful Hepplewhite furniture is unmarred by the scratches and dents that three children should have left. No one knows how Virginia managed that, because the children are sound and whole and unscarred by excessive fussing and discipline, if slightly humorless and otherworldly, like Charles. Virginia let her live-in maid go when they married and moved away, but she has daily help, and her house speaks of it. I had thought, on this hot evening, that we would sit in the beautiful gazebo in her garden, as we usually do, but she said, “We’re in the library. Come on back.” When we did, Claire and Ro
ger were already there. They sat straight in their chairs, hands in laps, as if in a waiting room. We all knew we had been summoned. The Guthries don’t go in for spur-of-the-moment get-togethers.

  Virginia sat down in a wing chair facing us. She said, “There are some things I need to tell you that I wouldn’t ordinarily. Buck asked me to do it. He thinks you should know. He was very definite about it; he wants you to hear all of it. Anita doesn’t know that I’m telling you, so I don’t need to say that I hope it won’t go any further. I don’t like doing this, but he felt it would be less…embarrassing for you if it came from me. He is a remarkable man.”

  Her face lit gently and then straightened into severe lines of distress. Virginia feels actual pain at disclosing what she feels are the private hells of other people.

  “Anita’s illness was emotional, as you’ve probably guessed,” she said. “There was a long time when they didn’t think they’d ever reach her again. She was in deep catatonia. She was hospitalized for a very long time. It almost wiped out everything they had. Then she began to pull out of it, the doctors told Buck quite simply that it was as near a miracle as they’d ever seen.

  “It was triggered by the son, but it didn’t start there. Anita’s mother died when she was very small, and she was more or less raised by her father and her older brother. The father was a GP in Montana, where they lived, and was away a lot of the time, so she formed a very special closeness to the brother. I gather there was more money than just what a country GP would make, because her father had his own small plane and a private airfield. He’d fly anywhere they needed him, and he often took the boy along. Anita never went. She was afraid of planes. She stayed with the housekeeper.”

  I looked at Walter, sensing where this was going. He was grim-faced and quiet. Virginia went on.

  “They were flying up to Billings one day, the father and the boy, and she came down to the field with them to see them off, like she always did. The plane took off and her father circled and waved, like always, and then the plane just…fell out of the sky. Crashed and burned, practically at her feet. They never did find out why; there wasn’t anything left. She was knocked down by the explosion and burned slightly herself, and she just lay there on the ground, not able to get up, and she heard them screaming until they…died. After that she lost consciousness, and when she woke up in the hospital she didn’t talk or move again for almost five months. Some of her mother’s people came out from the East and took her back with them and got her into a good clinic, but it was still that long before she could move or talk. Pure, classic catatonia. They kept her alive with IV’s. She was nine years old when it happened. Her brother was barely eighteen.”