The Dark Descends

by Diana Ramsay

  "That makes two of us. But it's not being heartless, it's being realistic. You're not responsible. Keep laughing. Just keep laughing. Promise?"

  "I'll try."

  ...

  "Eliot, do you believe it's possible for a sense of guilt—a genuine sense of guilt—to disappear? Simply vanish without a trace?"

  "Doesn't sound likely to me. It may seem to disappear because the person is refusing to face it, but it would probably show itself in some other form. Nervous tension, maybe. The person might drink too much. Or over-eat. Or under-eat."

  "Or walk around in a catatonic state. Or suck her thumb. I know. A while ago, I would have thought some such manifestation inevitable. But recently I heard about somebody who did something reprehensible and saw the awful effect it had on somebody else. Her—this person's conscience gave her a pretty bad time at first, but after a while she didn't even feel a twinge. And there was none of the compulsive behavior you might expect. What do you think of that?"

  "I think it couldn't have been anything that bad, just from the sound of the word 'reprehensible.'"

  "Oh, it was bad, all right. Outside the law, even."

  "Then I'd say the guilt was more affected than real."

  "But—"

  "Or I'd say that you've been going overboard on consciousness-raising with that Women's Lib group of yours."

  "Uh-uh. I stopped going to the sessions weeks and weeks and weeks ago. They were a waste of time."

  "That I can believe."

  "Male supremacist. Sexist."

  "Touché." Eliot's hand clutched his chest.

  "Darling, be serious. I want to know—"

  "Quit yapping." His hand moved from his chest to hers and cupped her breast, caressing the nipple; moved slowly down over her rib cage and came to rest on her thighs.

  "What are you up to now?"

  "You called me a name. I have to live up to it."

  "Idiot. You said a minute ago you wanted to sleep."

  "Well, you weren't giving me much cooperation on that, were you?" He stroked the front of her thighs, and, as they parted, his hand slipped inside, stayed there. Rolling over to cover her, he pressed his mouth against hers. Insistently, but not harshly. Never harshly.

  It was slow and leisurely, the way she liked it, the way no other man had ever succeeded in making it for her (not that there had been all that many others). Afterward, while he dozed beside her, she lay on her back, smoking, giving herself up to the luxurious contentment of being at his side, of knowing that soon he would wake and wrap his arms around her again. Make her snug. Keep her safe. For the moment. Only for the moment. He had made that plain when he telephoned to tell her about having the loan of the cottage for the weekend and to ask her if she was willing to suspend the separation. An assignation. Ridiculous, when one took a clear-eyed view of the matter, to be skulking away for an illicit weekend with one's own husband.

  But who wanted to be clear-eyed? Ridiculous or not, it was an adventure, it provided such a welcome change. Simply letting herself be transported into the country had done wonders for her—given her a sense of peace, of well-being, almost from the moment she was in the car. How badly she missed seeing greenery. Hardly surprising, after the better part of a lifetime spent where there were blanket lawns and a profusion of trees for the eye to rest on from morning to night.

  Except for the three years after college, years of transition, she hadn't been a city dweller for any length of time. Not until now. Perhaps land-oriented people couldn't be transplanted to concrete without feeling a sense of loss, a hunger for the sight of green. Or was that a romantic notion? No matter. It was nothing short of bliss to be lying here like this, looking out at the grassy knoll crowned with a willow tree that was quite the loveliest view the environs afforded, listening to the birds chirp their hearts out. Bliss. Euphoria. Everything connected with Manhattan seemed remote. Nothing to do but sit back and enjoy the world as God made it.

  Not that she and Eliot had shown much interest in nature appreciation. They had fallen upon each other like animals almost instantaneously; they would probably go on behaving like animals. Well, why not? Nature and animals went together, didn't they? How marvelous that things between them were as good as they ever had been, that the months apart had produced no awkwardness in their coming together. None at all. She had not realized until now how hungry she was for him. It was gratifying—a real boost to the ego—to discover that he was equally hungry for her. Old-fashioned of her to be getting an ego high from rating with a man (no Women's Liberationist, even the most moderate, would approve), but what the hell, old attitudes died hard. If they really died. Perhaps all that was old-fashioned was admitting one had them.

  Joyce rolled over on her side, crushed out her cigarette in the saucer on the floor, and rolled over on her other side to face Eliot, who was curled up into a question mark, the position he liked to assume after making love. Familiar. Everything just the same, except that his dark hair was long and a dense growth of it covered his cheeks and chin, giving him the look of a swarthy D. H. Lawrence. He had worn a beard when she first met him, way back when. Now there were gray hairs in it, testimony to the encroachment of age. He was hardly a candidate for the scrap heap, though. There wasn't a bit of gray in the hail brushed back from the high, knobby expanse of forehead. Or was there? Raising herself on her elbow, she bent over him for an inspection. No. Not even a suspicion of a gray hair. She planted a light kiss on his forehead and put her head down on the pillow again.

  But either the kiss or her movement had disturbed his slumber. He was stirring now, uncoiling himself slowly, like a child who fears waking in a dark room. He opened his eyes.

  Beautiful eyes, brown and deeply set and slanting upward at the corners to a network of faint creases. Vulnerable eyes. It had been a look into their depths by the first light of dawn that had made her feel sure she loved him.

  "Howdy, stranger."

  "Not stranger. Pardner. Just like always." He put a hand on the nape of her neck and drew her face against his, cheek to cheek. "I've missed you, baby. I've missed you like the devil."

  "Same here." Her lips sought his, but found only hair. "I've missed you, too, darling."

  "It seems so crazy, being separated when we care about each other like this. But I just couldn't go on the way I was going. I got to the point where I couldn't look at you without thinking—"

  "The ball and chain. I know." Her lips sought his again, successfully this time. He released her neck, and her head went down to rest on his shoulder. "Don't fret about it, darling. We've been all over that. So many times. I understand."

  "I know you do. You've been a brick, Joyce. Maybe too much of one for your own good. I can't help thinking sometimes that I got myself out of the jungle by throwing you into it."

  "Don't start that again. I've told you over and over again, I'm perfectly capable of standing on my own two feet."

  "Yeah, but that lousy job..."

  "It's not that bad. I won't pretend I like it, but I've adjusted to it. Anybody can adjust to anything."

  "Within limits, baby. When you were having all that trouble with the kook upstairs—"

  "That's over now."

  "Thank God." His hand cupped her breast, squeezed it gently, released it. "I'm glad it all blew over. I'm glad I didn't have to keep on worrying about you. I was feeling pretty divided for a while, hardly able to concentrate because I was too busy weighing the pros and cons of—"

  "Oh, darling, there was no need for that. I never meant to burden you with—"

  "Of course you didn't. But when the work's not going well—you know how it is."

  She moved her head back to the pillow and studied his face. And didn't like what she saw. Gloom in the caverns of his eyes. Lines of weariness on his forehead. "Why isn't it going well?"

  "You don't have to come on like a prophetess of doom. It isn't that bad." He gave her a rueful smile. "The thing is, I did my research so long ago I've been scooped
on a lot of material. Also, I've had to adjust my thinking on a number of points."

  "But that was only to be expected, surely."

  "Yeah, but the thing is..." He heaved a sigh. "The thing is, I'll have to do a lot more research. I might as well spring it on you now, I guess. I'm planning to go up to Cambridge to sift through the Hawthorne stuff at Harvard. That means relocating more or less for the duration."

  Joyce said nothing. All at once, she was gripped by a despair so acute that, for the moment, her heart seemed to leave its moorings.

  "How do you feel about it?"

  "What do you mean, how do I feel about it? What difference does it make how I feel about it? If you have to relocate to get the thesis finished, then you have to. There's no more to be said."

  "No, there isn't, I guess. I was afraid you might be upset about my going off into the wild blue yonder. You know, feel as if I'm abandoning you to your fate or something."

  "Eliot, I've told you and told you. I can perfectly well—"

  "I know, I know. No need to drag out the soapbox." He patted her thigh companionably. "I didn't really think you'd object. Cambridge isn't exactly the other side of the planet. I was sure you'd understand, but even so, I wouldn't feel right about going if you'd still been having your hands full with— Hey, you know what? I've been doing a lot of thinking about your neighbor and how come she suddenly turned on like that."

  "Have you? Why?"

  "Well, there sort of has to be a reason, doesn't there?"

  "Does there?"

  "Sure there does. And I'll bet I know what it is." He patted her thigh again. "Christ, baby, you're taut as a wire. Never mind. I know the cure." His hand slid between her thighs, worked up and down. Gently. Oh, so gently. "Better?"

  "Yes, yes. What is the reason?" She held her breath.

  "The reason? Oh. Well, you did say she's in her forties, didn't you?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Doesn't that suggest anything to you?" He waited, but his hand didn't wait—it went right on caressing her. "Menopause, my little dolt. Sometimes referred to as the change."

  Joyce burst out laughing.

  "I don't see that the idea is so ridiculous. Lots of women go haywire around that time. I'll admit your neighbor's behavior is kind of extreme, but could be it's hit her all at once how she's going into her dotage without ever having played the fun games and she wants to make up for lost time."

  The laughter subsided, leaving her completely relaxed. "That could be it, I suppose."

  "You're pretty easy to convince."

  "Well, it sounds plausible."

  He rolled over on top of her and kissed her forcefully. "I'm disappointed in you. I expected you to offer a few words of wisdom about some deeply buried sense of guilt she didn't know she had untill now."

  "No such profundities come to mind at the moment." Her arms went round him, clutching as though they never meant to let go.

  "Ouch! Those hip bones are as sharp as razor blades."

  "Oh, shut up."

  ...

  Summer days, running past seamlessly. At Yardstick, one day virtually indistinguishable from the day before or the day after because of the pace—hectic. Without being melodramatic, one could even toss around a word like frenetic, summer being the season of vacations and extra loads piled up on those who remained to get the magazine out. All summer long Joyce was among the remaining, not having worked long enough to qualify for a paid vacation. The demands on her time and energy were prodigious, greater than any she had ever known (possibly excepting the weeks of cramming for the comprehensive examinations that had closed her college career, possibly not), and yet, far from objecting to the regime, she felt invigorated, almost exhilarated by the confrontation with challenge after challenge—paramount, the challenge of proving that the copy room could function in the absence of Margaret and her charts. Inevitably there came the day when the pace caught up with her. One of those days that seem designed to make anybody long to go back to bed and start all over again. In the morning, an inquiry of a staff writer as to whether a split infinitive in his copy was really unavoidable that called down on her head a tirade on the subject of how it was the writer's prerogative to decide when to split an infinitive and when not to. In the afternoon, a session with an article on space aeronautics so technical she could hardly read it, let alone punctuate it. In the evening, pot luck with Irene, who kept up a stream of the most appalling anecdotes about life in her office, where, to hear her tell it, demons lurked at every turn, ready to spring upon and trample underfoot the woman alone who didn't look out for herself. Late in the evening (much too late in the evening), the return home via subway, hardly a joy ride at the best of times and this time an utter misery, for the train mysteriously came to a halt somewhere between Thirty-fourth Street and Twenty-third Street. A twenty-minute halt, but it seemed like twenty years. Was there anything more frustrating, more conducive to a feeling of total helplessness, than being trapped underground? Joyce found it necessary, before she could set foot indoors, to take a long walk—a walk that carried her from Abingdon Square all the way down Bleecker Street, up to Washington Square, and then, finally, home.

  It was after midnight. Almost numb with fatigue, she made straight for the bathroom and that time-honored remedy for exhaustion, a long, hot bath. She turned on the taps of the tub full force and peeled off her clothes, tossing them on the floor every which way. Untidy. The sort of thing she never did. But what the hell, tired was tired. She sat down on the edge of the tub, lit a cigarette, and, by dint of furious puffing, was able to reduce it almost to the danger point for lung cancer before the water rose high enough to suit her.

  She had one foot raised, ready to step into the tub, when she heard it: three short thumps. An instant of silence, then a repetition. Silence. Thump, thump, thump. Silence. Thump, thump, thump. Silence. It continued, the rhythm unvarying. Her foot returned to the floor. What was it? Trouble in the water pipes? But the thumping lacked the hollow, echoing quality of pipe knocking. In spite of its regularity, it suggested a deliberate rapping by somebody. Or something: the rapping was so faint that the thought of Poe's raven was inescapable. Yet, faint as it was, the sound had urgency, as though it had been going on for some time and would go on, slowly, inexorably, until a response came. Fancy?

  Find out. She snatched her robe from the hook on the door, wrapped it around herself, slid her feet into rubber thong sandals, and left the bathroom. Now the thumping was appreciably louder. It was coming through the ceiling. It was definitely coming through the ceiling. Something about its insistent monotony chilled the marrow of her bones. A ridiculous reaction. Irrational. Probably a recrudescence of the complex feelings provoked by Charlotte Bancroft a while back and buried when—

  But what was the point of standing around engaged in soul-searching? That thumping—Something about it— There was a glimmer of knowledge lurking in the depths of Joyce's mind, struggling to force its way to the surface. Three short thumps meant something. Something specific. What? All she could think of was dot-dot-dot-dash: V for victory and the start of the Beethoven Fifth Symphony. Fat lot of help that was.

  Then, like a bludgeon, it hit her. Three thumps: S.O.S. Panic swept over her, immobilized her, rooted her to the floor. But her brain wasn't immobilized; it was working. Working on the thought that upstairs someone was calling for help. Calling feebly but doggedly, like a sick child whimpering in the dark. How inhuman—how positively inhuman—to be standing here as though turned to stone when she should be doing something. Answering the call. Or at the very least finding out if there really was a call to answer. Something. Anything. And yet she couldn't seem to budge. Couldn't seem to get her limbs in motion for the effort common decency demanded. Couldn't seem to shake panic and listen to reason, which was trying to tell her that if she delayed much longer—

  Fight panic. Breathe deeply, like an unsure swimmer preparing to enter water over his head. Plunge in. There. It was working. Her legs were moving,
carrying her to the door. She opened it, went out, caught the knob in time to prevent a slam. A simple, familiar procedure—leaving the apartment. Something she did all the time. Important now to concentrate on the mechanics of moving. Important not to think about why she was moving. She made it all the way across the landing before panic gripped her again, paralyzed her again.

  The glare of the naked light bulb suspended from the ceiling was dazzling. Joyce closed her eyes to clear her vision, opened them and looked up the stairwell at the blue of the walls and, in the place where the whiteness of Charlotte Bancroft's door should have been, darkness. The door was standing open upon an unlighted apartment, and from within, from the darkness, came the steady, relentless thumping.

  Joyce lifted a leaden foot and placed it on the first step. "Miss Bancroft?" she whispered. Or thought she whispered: her voice seemed to roar through a tunnel.

  The thumping stopped. Silence now. Total silence. Then, a moan. A moan no louder than an infant or a small animal might have made.

  "Miss Bancroft, is something the matter?"

  Inanity. Jabberwocky. There was no answer, naturally. The thumping resumed, underlining the foolishness of the question.

  "I'm coming up, Miss Bancroft."

  Easier said than done. God, how hard it was to lift her feet. She began to climb. Slowly, with difficulty, for every particle of her being wanted to retreat, avoid what lay ahead. But she climbed. And the S.O.S. went on and on and on, patiently, unceasingly, as though meaning to go on till the end of time.

  She was up; she could go no higher. Viewed from the doorstep, Charlotte Bancroft's apartment was all darkness beyond the few feet illuminated by the hall light.

  "Miss Bancroft?"

  No reply. Only the reiterated thump, thump, thump of the S.O.S., coming from somewhere in the darkness. All at once, the thumping ceased. Now there was silence. Heavy, desolate silence.

  Panic was threatening paralysis once more. Blindly Joyce thrust her hand inside the doorway, found the light switch. The room seemed to explode into light.