House Next Door

by Anne Rivers Siddons

  And then I thought, just as clearly and vividly: I believe I am jealous of this friendship. That’s all. Just plain, low-down jealous. That’s awful, but I can deal with jealousy. That’s not in that house. That’s in my own head. And I smiled at Susan Greene and said, “I don’t even have to tell you about the mess my house has been in all these years, because you’re standing in the middle of it, and not for the last time either.”

  I turned to the man, who stood straight and silent, looking methodically around the kitchen as if memorizing it. He had odd gray eyes, pale and opaque and almost silver, like dull coins. He was tall and slender and had brown hair cut so short that it was startling; bone-clean white scalp showed through. I thought he might be a military man.

  “Come on into the den,” I said, “and I’ll fix you a drink, or some coffee, if you like. Walter—my husband—will be home in a few minutes and I know he’d like to meet you. And it’s such a ghastly, rotten night.”

  “That would be nice, for just a minute,” said Susan Greene. “I haven’t sat down all day, literally. I meant it when I said I couldn’t seem to get hold of things somehow. I don’t know why, except that Lissa hasn’t been feeling very well, but that’s no excuse really. It seemed such an easy house to keep, too, when we first looked at it. So functional. But it’s as bad today as it was five minutes after the movers left. It’s driving Norm wild.”

  She smiled up at her tall, straight husband, who did not smile back at her. There was adoration in the smile and something else—apprehension? Eagerness to please? She is afraid of him, I thought roundly and suddenly.

  “Mama,” called the child Melissa from the den in a sudden, clear treble. “Mama, I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “It’s right through that door by the fireplace, honey,” I called back and started for the den to show her. “Come on and settle in by the fire, you all,” I added over my shoulder.

  “No. Not tonight,” said Norman Greene, and we turned. He had not moved from his spot in the middle of the kitchen. “Thank you, Mrs. Kennedy, but Susan really does have a great deal of work to do on the house yet. A rain check, maybe?”

  “For goodness’ sake, Norm, at least let Melissa go to the bathroom—” Susan Greene began.

  “Melissa can wait until we get home. And I’m not going to sleep in that bedroom until it’s straight.” He raised his voice and called, “Melissa. Get your coat on. We’re going home now.”

  “Daddy,” her clear small voice called back, “Daddy, I really have to go right now!”

  “Melissa.” He did not raise his voice, but it rang as if through a long stillness.

  “Daddy, it hurts!” It was a cry of distress, not petulance. Susan Greene brushed by her husband and went into the den to her child.

  “You can wait one minute, Norman,” she said. “You know she’s been upset ever since we moved. Is it all right, Mrs. Kennedy?”

  “Well, of course it is,” I said, not looking at Claire or at Norman Greene. Susan Greene took the child into the bathroom and closed the door. Norman Greene stood still. He said nothing, but his face seemed to fill, to swell somehow, though his expression did not change.

  “I’m sorry she isn’t feeling well,” I said lamely to fill the prickling silence. “Moving can be upsetting to children, I know.”

  “There isn’t anything wrong with Melissa,” he said. “Susan spoils her. I find bids for attention unbecoming in children.”

  Claire and I looked at him. He seemed to gather his face together, and produced a rigid smile. “I look forward to meeting your husband, Mrs. Kennedy,” he said. “Perhaps you’ll come and have that drink at our house when things are a little more organized. I hope you had a fine time in Jamaica. We have several good friends there, very substantial old island families. White, of course. Next time you and your husband go down I’ll write you some letters of introduction. It’s always more pleasant when you know the right people, I think.”

  “Yes, it is,” I said faintly. “That would be nice. I’m sorry you can’t stay for a minute, but I do understand how it is when you’ve just moved. You’ll let me know if there’s anything at all you need?” This to Susan Greene, who had brought the child, pale and large-eyed, back into the kitchen and was buttoning her into her coat. She looked, oddly, as though she were about to cry. Then she rallied her grin.

  “Of course I will. Although Claire here has practically given me every pot and pan and stick of furniture in her house, and has spent the last week driving us around and getting us acquainted with the city. She’s even given me the name of her doctor and her dentist and her hairdresser, and she’s fed us twice. So there’s nothing in the world I need, except maybe a genie or a few slaves or something.” She laughed, a stiff, social little laugh, aimed up at her husband. “Goodnight, then,” she said helplessly when he did not respond to the laugh, and they turned to go.

  “Goodnight,” I said, and Claire said, “I think I’ll stay and hear about Col’s trip, Susan. Call you in the morning.”

  The Greenes went out of the kitchen into the roaring night. Claire and I looked at each other.

  “Is he real?” I said. “‘Susan has a great deal of work to do yet.’ ‘I’m not going to sleep in that bedroom until it’s straight.’ ‘Very substantial old island families. White, of course.’ And not letting that poor child go to the bathroom because it ‘spoils’ her! God! I’ll bet he burns books and Jews.”

  Claire laughed mirthlessly. “That’s one of his problems. He is a Jew. Half one, anyway. Greene with an e? Besides, Susan told me he was. But he’s trying to pass for Episcopalian, I think. Isn’t he a creep? And she’s such a doll. I just can’t figure it, the way she adores him. But she does. And he just walks all over her. Yells at her like a damned drill sergeant, or rather, hisses commands at her in that nasty, flat, cold, snaky voice of his, and she jumps out of her skin to do his bidding. That child is scared to death of him too. With good reason, I might add. He talks to her as if he absolutely loathes her sometimes—when he bothers to talk to her at all.”

  “Oh, Lord. Life with Little Hitler. Tell me about them. Where are they from?”

  “Boston, or somewhere around there. He teaches at City; just took some position there and will start winter quarter. Math or something. I know he went to Harvard, because he told me so two minutes after I met him and has not ceased telling me since. He’s one of those Ivy League Jews who never got over the fact that he couldn’t join Hasty Pudding or whatever, and would sell his soul to the devil if his name could be Lowell or Cabot or Lodge. So he makes up for it by dropping names he barely knows and bullying his wife and trying to make that poor kid into Little Miss Perfect. I guess he’d never have bothered having one if it wasn’t the proper thing to do. They just got her into Chase Preschool, or rather, I did. And, of course, buying six-hundred-dollar suits and big cars.”

  “On a teacher’s salary?”

  “I’m coming to that. He keeps missing, though; the suits are silk and the cars are Cadillacs and the furniture is reproduction French whorehouse, though I’m sure it did cost the earth, because he told me what he paid for most of it. And he’s got Buffet paintings in there, can you imagine? What’s so sad is that she used to be a painter, a pretty promising one, had shown a few times in New York, and she gave it up when she married him. She told me about it the other day when I took her shopping. She said he hadn’t thought it looked right for the wife of a professor to be a painter—too Bohemian. Those were his words, not hers. She said it with absolutely no…rancor; I don’t think it’s ever occurred to her that he’s a tight-assed, bullying, pretentious prick. She loves the asshole.”

  “Claire! Such language! Surely he can’t be all that bad.”

  “He sure can be all that bad. You think he’s kidding about making her clean up that bedroom before he’ll sleep in it? I was over there Saturday, and they were in the basement—he was standing while she was on her hands and knees rearranging the food in the freezer. He was telling her
where he wanted everything to go. The beans here, and the corn over there, and stack the meat by shape and weight and cut, and then by consecutive dates. He had a legal pad and was reading it off to her, in order, and when I said I’d pitch in and help so we could get some Christmas shopping done, he said no, she wasn’t going shopping today, because she’d forgotten what he told her about the freezer and was just going to have to get it right. He was smiling, but you could tell he was furious. And then Melissa came downstairs looking for her mother, and he told her to go back upstairs and stay in her room until everything was in its place. I could have slapped him. The kid just turned around and flew back upstairs, and Susan looked like she was going to cry.”

  “How perfectly stinking. I wonder, if he’s such an awful snob and perfectionist and all that, why he married her? I mean, I think she’s charming, but if she’s a disorganized housekeeper and a Bohemian to boot—I think I last heard that word in 1956—why on earth did he pick her in the first place?”

  “That’s what I was going to tell you. Her money. She’s got a wad. And a lot of social position around Boston, though I think her parents are dead now. Apparently they were terribly Back Bay and all that, and really hated the idea of her being an artist. I guess they were glad to get her married to anybody at all. She’s not at all bitter about it or secretive. She talks about it openly, with no self-consciousness or false modesty. She says she never cared very much about the money, except that he seemed to enjoy the things it bought them so much that she was glad she had it. She said he grew up very poor and went through Harvard on a scholarship and worked nights and weekends. The whole Horatio Alger bit. She seems to feel that the money is his due; she seems grateful to him somehow. She bought the house and is paying Melissa’s tuition and all that. I don’t know what the arrangement is, but apparently she’s turned every cent over to him, and he spends it like he wants to. She’s a plain person. She doesn’t care a lot about clothes and parties and jewelry and stuff like that, but she buys them and wears them, and she entertains because he wants to. I simply cannot figure it. I think she’s a fantastic person, and I think she’s fifty times too good for him.”

  “Well,” I said, “there really isn’t any accounting for taste. I guess he’s her blind spot. If she’s stuck with him, I’m glad she’s so crazy about him. Wouldn’t it be awful if she wasn’t? But it is hard to understand; she’s so very personable and likeable. I’ve always been drawn to that kind of cheerful, disorganized, warmhearted woman.”

  “You know,” Claire said, “she isn’t really. Disorganized, I mean. She was treasurer of her Junior League chapter for years. She says she ran a six-bedroom house plus a shore cottage with no trouble at all before they moved, and did a lot of volunteer stuff, and gave parties—everything he wanted her to do. She says she just can’t seem to get things together here. I think she’s worried about Melissa, and distracted, like you would be if you’d just moved and your kid wasn’t feeling well, and he’s jealous and resentful of the time she’s spending with her. I think that’s all it is. Why else would he be so mean to both of them? I mean, my God, so he wants a perfect house, but she’s his child too. But he’s driving Susan batty. She said the other day that if she didn’t absolutely know she was hopelessly sane and doomed to stay that way, she’d think there was really something wrong with her. She can thank him for that.”

  I moved jerkily, inadvertently, and winced. Claire looked at me.

  “Oh, no, nothing like Anita. She was kidding, really. There’s not a saner woman in America. She’s absolutely unflappable, except when it comes to pleasing him, and then she gets that kind of hunted look, like she’s afraid he’s going to—I don’t know what. Hit her, or something. Or…take it out on the child.”

  “Do they know…about the house?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. She hasn’t said anything about it. Somehow I don’t think so, because I believe she’d have mentioned it. She says whatever she thinks the minute she thinks it. I don’t think it would bother her; she’s too balanced and down-to-earth for that. But it sure would him, so I don’t think they know. I doubt if he’d have bought it if he did.”

  “He didn’t strike me as the type who’d worry about that sort of thing,” I said. “I wouldn’t think he’d have the imagination.”

  “Oh, he doesn’t. It isn’t that he’s superstitious or anything. He’d just find that kind of reputation in a house of his socially unacceptable. Gays carrying on in his house? A crazy woman in his house? A miscarriage, a sloppy stroke? Wouldn’t do, wouldn’t do at all.”

  And a sex scandal between a married guy and the married lady next door, I thought bleakly. And a near-double murder, a near-suicide. The image of those thrashing white bodies intertwined on the sofa snapped into my mind with the clarity of a slide snapping onto a screen. I heard Buck’s hoarse cry of release and saw Virginia’s contorted, gaping face. I saw Anita’s face, emptied out and frozen. I saw Walter’s face, and Kim’s, and the death that was written on both of them.

  “Claire,” I heard myself saying before the words registered on my consciousness, “don’t get too involved with her. Don’t go over there. Let her come to your house if you just have to see her, but don’t spend much time in that house. Better still, just don’t see any more of her than you have to—” I stopped. Claire looked at me.

  “What the hell is the matter with you, Colquitt?” she said in angry disbelief. “Susan is already my friend. I like her. I like her very much. She’s warm, and real, and absolutely open—which is more than you’ve been with me lately. Are you jealous of Susan Greene, Colquitt? Because if you are, then you’re really a spoiler. You don’t want to be my friend, not like you were, but you don’t want anybody else to be either, is that it? Well, I’ll tell you, if that is it, you can take your fine friendship and all the neat little conditions you put on it and you can—”

  “Claire, my God!” I cried. “I’m not jealous of you and Susan Greene! I’m afraid for you! I’m afraid of what that house can do to you—look at what it did to the Harralsons and the Sheehans—look at Pie’s father, look at Luke Abbott, look at Kim, look at Virginia—” I stopped, but not in time.

  “What about Virginia, Colquitt?” Claire said softly and levelly. “What did the house do to Virginia?”

  I began to cry. I could not help myself. I was endlessly tired, endlessly sad. Fear and foreboding sat chokingly on my chest like twin succubi.

  “I don’t know anything about Virginia,” I said through my tears, through my fingers. “I didn’t mean to say Virginia. I’m just afraid for you, Claire. I love you, and I’m afraid that house is going to do something terrible to you.”

  She was quiet for so long that I thought perhaps she had tiptoed out of the den, and I raised my head to look. She was staring at me with a terrible concern, a sort of straining incomprehension on her face, like a bright, good dog who is trying with all its wits to understand an obscure, unfamiliar command. There was fear and worry and love in her face, but there was exasperation, too, and Claire’s characteristic mulishness.

  “I’m afraid for you, Colquitt,” she said. “I’m afraid for your mind. You sound like somebody I never even knew before. You have, ever since Anita and Buck left. Since Charles and Virginia left. What are you saying about that house? Are you saying that the house is haunted or something? Colquitt, either you’ve taken leave of your senses or you’re trying to hide something from me with all this garbage about the house, and either way, I’m not buying it. I know that something awful happened over there, and I know it happened to Virginia Guthrie, and I know you know what it is. If you’re seriously trying to warn me about something—the house, or whatever it is—then you’re going to have to tell me why. God, Colquitt, give me some credit for some sensitivity and discretion and understanding. Do you think I’d go blabbing whatever it is all over town? I want to help you too, Col, but I can’t unless I know what it is that’s scared you so.”

  “I can’t tell you.”
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br />   “You were my best friend in this world!” It was a wail of anguish.

  “I can’t, Claire.”

  “Colquitt, you—you dishonor me. Your lack of trust dishonors me.”

  “I can’t!”

  “All right. All right, then. We’ll say no more about it. For Walter and Roger’s sake, I guess we should keep seeing each other. But just don’t give me any more manure about haunted houses and danger and not seeing Susan Greene, not when you can’t or won’t even make the effort to keep me for a friend. She makes the effort.”

  “You don’t understand,” I said dully.

  “No. I don’t understand. I want more than anything in the world to understand, but you won’t help me. All I do understand is that you could help me and you won’t. Do it, Col. Please. Please tell me. I want my friend back.”

  “I can’t,” I whispered.

  “Then sit over here and go bananas on your own.” She was crying too. “Just wig on out. Oh, don’t worry, I’m not going to cut you dead in the street or turn my back on you at the Parsons’ party. I guess I don’t have any pride in me, Colquitt, but if you ever change your mind and want your old fat friend back, just whistle. I’ll come running. I always did. But don’t do it until you can do it with no reservations. I can’t be half a friend to you. I don’t want half of you.”

  She got up and walked rapidly through the den and kitchen and out the back door, not stopping to put on her coat. I saw her for a moment, limned against the flying black sky by the back porch light, struggling into the coat, gesturing and flapping like a dear, awkward bird. Then the night swallowed her and pure, mindless hurt flooded and drowned me, and I stretched out on the sofa by the fire and wept until Walter came home and found me.

  19

  WHEN I LOOK BACK on that Christmas I remember the time when my father was dying of cancer and we all moved through the fragile structure of our lives as if submerged under heavy, scummed, brackish water. We clung to the small rituals of life as it had been before with a tenacity that often astounded me. On every side the grief and pain and dread, the heavy immutability of the death spinning toward him like a star pressed and gnawed and nibbled. The rites of life kept them at bay, but they were there, and you knew that a time would come when they would catch you with your guard down and would sweep over you and desolate you.