Spellbinder

by Collin Wilcox

  Father dear, old and sick. No longer could he run. No longer would others fear him. The king was almost dead.

  Dying, dying, finally dead.

  Yes, if he willed it, dead. Millions would mourn the fallen king. And all because of one man’s power, one man’s control.

  His power. His control.

  Only one passenger remained in front of him: a tall, teenage girl wearing tight jeans and something that looked like a Mexican serape thrown over her shoulders. Her hair was long and blond, falling around her shoulders like golden flax, incredibly fine.

  She was walking ahead—passing through the detector. The attendant was beckoning to him, smiling. Was he smiling in return? He didn’t know, couldn’t be sure. But, moments later, he was passing the attendant, passing the two policemen standing guard.

  Free.

  Trotting again, he came to the first gate, 44. The area was deserted. But the next gate, 45, was crowded. Drawing up, breathing hard, he stopped just inside the entrance, scanning the waiting faces. The faces were all blank: faces already dead, waiting their turn to cross into hell. Some of the faces were hidden behind a wall. He moved to his right—

  —and saw them: the father and the son, sitting directly in front of the loading counter. Above the counter, on an illuminated screen, he read:

  Flight #812, Los Angeles to San Francisco

  Departing 9:55 On Time.

  Turning away, careful that they didn’t see him, he began running back the way he’d come.

  Nineteen

  STANDING IN THE HALLWAY outside the closed door of her bedroom, she held her breath, listening. From inside she heard the unmistakable sound of a deep, sad sigh. Then, equally unmistakable, she heard the sound of a suitcase lock snapping shut.

  Had her mother finished packing?

  Was their mutual agony almost ended?

  Soon her father and her brother would arrive. After an hour spent exchanging meaningless pleasantries, her father and her brother and her mother would leave, followed by the omnipresent bodyguard, always keeping his discreet, carefully calculated distance.

  Like any other potentate—like any other corporate figurehead or political tyrant—her father’s retinue was elaborately structured. Everyone who served Austin Holloway knew his place, and kept to it. Otherwise, he—or she—was replaced.

  In the family, the same rules applied—and the same penalties were exacted. Except that, in the family, replacement by dismissal was impossible. So, instead, the royal favor was withdrawn, de facto excommunication. Soon the excommunicate’s soul began to shrivel, like a shrunken head, fugitive from some ancient voodoo rite. With the soul so shrunken, the body’s disintegration was inevitable. But the wasting away was a slow, subtle process, at first readable only in a downward deflection of the eyes, or a dullness of the voice, or a discouraged cast to the mouth. Yet, once begun, the process was irreversible, and eventually physical manifestations emerged. In the case of Elton, a telltale puffiness was beginning to bloat both his face and his waistline. After thirty-two years, the secret of Elton’s debaucheries was showing.

  In the case of her mother, the malignancy was more advanced, plain for all to see in the perpetual pain etched into the lines around her mouth, and in the sorrow so stark in her eyes. Her mother’s final decline was close at hand. Someday soon, her mother’s liver would fail. It would all be over.

  And, finally, there was her own case. Denise Holloway, age twenty-eight. Unmarried. Childless. A lonely woman who secretly despised her family. Because it was all that remained to her, she fiercely cherished her own independence—and just as fiercely fought for it. Yet, ultimately, it was a meaningless victory. Because, as Peter had once said, people were meant to live two by two.

  Peter …

  As soon as her family left, she would throw some things in a suitcase, and water the plants, and set the timers, and ask Mr. Byrnes at the grocery store to watch their stoop for circulars and newspapers. An hour later, she would be on the road to Mendocino. Four hours later, she would arrive at the cabin. By that time, it would be dark. The windows of the cabin would be glowing soft and golden, lit by the kerosene lamps inside. Peter would see her headlights coming through the trees long before he could see the car and recognize it. With Pepper beside him, he would be standing on the porch, waiting and watching—and frowning. In Mendocino, at night, visitors could mean trouble.

  But then he would recognize her car. In one bound he would leap from the porch to the ground, following Pepper, already barking and frisking around her car. She would switch off the headlights, switch off the engine and get out of the car. In the darkness, they would hold each other close, saying little, letting the small urgent movements of their bodies seek each other out—exploring, rising, stroking, accepting. At first, their movements would be tender, almost tentative. But, as passion rose, their bodies would begin moving together with one strong, single purpose. Until, with their arms tight around each other, they would go inside, to bed.

  Two by two …

  Inside the bedroom, she heard soft, hesitant footsteps approaching the door. Silently, she stepped back—one step, two steps. Now the doorknob was turning, the door was opening. Dressed in a beautifully cut sharkskin traveling suit and wearing a sheer silk scarf at her throat, her mother stood in the open doorway, both hands clutching a small beige handbag. Her hair was meticulously coiffed, piled high on her head in elegant chestnut coils. Her feet were together, her chin was lifted. She was smiling: a fixed, mechanical smile, betrayed by eyes that were too bright—too vulnerable. If she were wearing an organdy gown instead of the sharkskin suit, and clutching a Bible instead of the purse, she could have been on stage, smiling fixedly into the TV camera as The Hour approached its finale.

  “You look wonderful, Mother. Your hair is perfect. Beautiful.”

  Most of the morning, her mother had been working on her hair.

  “Thank you, dear.” Her mother nodded: a quick, artificial inclination of the head that left the hairdo undisturbed.

  “Why don’t you go into the living room? I’ll bring in your suitcases.”

  “Yes—” Again, the careful nod. “Yes, I will. Thank you.”

  Walking with slow, wooden deliberation, still moving as if she were on camera, her mother was making her way down the hallway toward the living room—and the kitchen. Denise stepped into her bedroom, where she’d helped her mother put her two suitcases on the bed, open. Now the suitcases were closed and locked. She stood for a moment in the narrow space between the bureau and the bed—her bed and Peter’s.

  When her father had first phoned, two weeks ago, and asked her to take her mother in, Peter had called the docks and arranged for a leave of absence, citing an unspecified “family emergency.” He’d done it almost eagerly, glad that fate had given him leave to spend some time in the country, alone, writing all day long. An hour later, Peter was gone, driving jauntily down the street in his old GMC pickup, with Pepper sitting in the seat beside him. Returning to the apartment, with two hours remaining before her mother’s arrival, she’d considered taking Peter’s things to her basement storage locker. Peter had always had his own apartment, just two blocks away. So he’d never kept more than a few things at her place. Yet, whenever she saw his clothes hanging beside hers in the closet, and when she went to the bureau and found his socks and underwear, neatly folded, sharing the same drawer with her things, she felt reassured, less alone.

  Standing in the bedroom, two weeks ago, she’d realized that the price she would pay for hiding his clothes would come too high.

  So, instead, she’d taken a long, luxurious shower and changed into a skirt and sweater, in deference to her mother. Then she’d brushed her hair and tied it up with a bit of ribbon. It was the same hair style she’d worn when she’d lived at home, years before.

  Then she’d gone into the living room, poured a large glass of red wine and played a Simon and Garfunkel record. When she’d been living at home, Simon and Garfunkel’
s measured melancholy had been her constant boon companion—her only salvation, she sometimes thought.

  For two weeks, she’d waited for her mother to ask about Peter—or, at least, about his clothes, hanging in the closet. Not once did her mother even suggest the subject.

  As she picked up the two suitcases, one in either hand, she heard the soft, furtive sound of a door closing. It was the kitchen door. At the doorway of the bedroom she paused, giving her mother a chance to settle herself in the living room. Then she stepped out into the hallway, with the two big suitcases banging awkwardly into her legs.

  For two weeks, they’d both kept up their separate little charades. While her mother hadn’t acknowledged the presence of Peter’s clothes in the apartment, she hadn’t acknowledged the presence of the gin bottle in the kitchen cabinet.

  Which of them was more guilty?

  She placed the suitcases on the floor beside the door, and turned to face her mother, sitting in the precise center of the sofa, still holding the handbag in her lap. Still with her feet placed primly together. Still smiling—too brightly.

  In an hour or two, her father and brother would arrive. Between her and her mother, time was running out. Two weeks had come down to two hours, no more. Twenty-eight years had come and gone. Twenty-eight years for her, fifty-six for her mother. All gone.

  She sat down on a ladderback chair that faced the sofa. “I’m sorry that you can’t stay longer, Mother.”

  But it was a lie. Yet another lie. After twenty-eight years, with only hours left to them, she was still doing it. Still lying.

  So, speaking slowly and deliberately, staring into her mother’s faded, wounded eyes, she said, “What I mean is, I’m sorry that it—it hasn’t worked out, for you to stay longer. I mean—” She gestured: a small, helpless wave of her hand. Signifying the futility she felt as she began again: “I mean, we—you and I—we have our own lives. And they—they’re different. So it’s just as well, for both of us, that you’re going home.”

  Like a child trying to learn a difficult lesson, her mother frowned, as if she were deeply puzzled. But, still, the meticulously painted lips remained upcurved, clinging to the small, fixed smile. Now, slowly, her mother nervously nodded. Saying softly: “Yes, I know it is, Denise. I know it’s better. I realize that. You’ve got your work. And your—your life, too.”

  It was as close as she would ever get—as good an opening as she would ever have. So, drawing a deep breath, she said, “One problem—the biggest problem, really—is that, most of the time, I live with a man. His name is Peter, and he’s a writer. Peter Giannini. He’s very nice—very kind. And—well—I’ve missed him, the past two weeks. I’ve missed him very much.”

  As she’d said it, her mother had dropped her eyes to her lap, where her hands still held the purse in a white-knuckled grip. Finally, still with her head bowed, eyes averted, she said, “How long have you—” A long, painful pause. Then: “How long have you—known each other?”

  “I’ve known him ever since I came to San Francisco. Five years, almost. But he—” She hesitated, then said, “But he was married, then. So we didn’t go out together until two years ago, when he was divorced. And it’s just been about a year, that we’ve been living together. Except that, really, he still has his own place. It’s—you know—it’s insurance, I guess you’d say.”

  “Insurance?” With an obvious effort, her mother raised her head, to meet her eyes. The artificial smile was gone. But the look of almost childlike puzzlement remained. Was her mother trying to understand? Or was she too stunned to react?

  Tentatively, she smiled. “Insurance against his feeling trapped, I guess you’d say. See, Peter took his divorce very hard. So he’s not about to commit himself to another marriage. Not for a while, anyhow. He’s a very serious man. He takes marriage seriously. Very seriously.”

  Now her mother was slowly shaking her head. Saying: “I don’t know what to say, Denise. I—I just can’t understand it.”

  Searching her mother’s face, she let a long, heavy moment of silence pass. During the silence, she saw sadness cross her mother’s face like a shadow of death. Behind her mother’s carefully applied makeup, she saw a deep, mute agony of the spirit revealed, as if the makeup was a mask that was disintegrating before her eyes. In silent, desperate confirmation, she saw her mother’s eyes stray toward the kitchen door.

  Then, obviously with great effort, her mother’s haunted eyes returned, meeting her own. Speaking in a soft, almost furtive voice, her mother said, “I won’t tell your father, Denise.

  “Mother, I don’t care whether you tell him or not. Don’t you see that? It’s not something I’m ashamed of. I’m—Christ—I’m proud of it. Peter is—he’s the first good thing that’s happened to me. Ever.”

  “But, still, I won’t tell your father, Denise. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “Listen, Mother—” Once more, she drew a long, deep breath. “Forget about Dad. What about you?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, Mother. You. How do you feel about my living with someone without benefit of marriage?”

  “Well, I—” The puzzled frown returned, lending the innocence of confusion to the sad, tortured eyes. “Well, Denise, I—I wish that you hadn’t told me.” She spoke softly, regret fully.

  “But why? Why do you wish I hadn’t told you? So you wouldn’t have to face it?”

  Unable to respond, her mother dropped her eyes. Now, with her shoulders slumped, her head began moving in a glow, stricken arc, shaking sadly from side to side. It wasn’t a denial of the question. Rather, it was an admission that, yes, she couldn’t face it.

  Involuntarily, Denise stretched out a hand, as if to touch her mother, as she said, “I’m not trying to—to give you a hard time, Mother. I’m not trying to rub your nose in it. All I’m trying to do is make you realize that there’s a real world out there. It’s not the world that Dad preaches about—not the world he’s created with a few homilies and a couple of talented set designers. It’s not just sinners and saints, Mother. It’s people who’re just trying to get through, the best way they can. They’re lonely, and they’re scared. And they’re desperate, too. They’re imperfect. Very, very imperfect. But at least they know they’re imperfect. They have some idea of who they are and what they want. Not much of an idea, but some idea. They—they’re like me. They’re confused, and they’re scared. But they aren’t so scared that they’re not willing to take a few chances with their lives.”

  Still shaking her head in the same slow, sad arc, her mother spoke in a low, indistinct voice: “You don’t have to do it, Denise. You don’t have to be scared. You don’t have to take chances. Your father would have taken care of you. He—he’s always taken care of Elton. And me, too. Don’t you see that?”

  “Taken care of you? Of Elton?” She realized that her voice had suddenly, unpredictably risen: a stranger’s voice, shrill and derisive. “How? By giving Elton a house and a sports car and all the money he wants? By giving you pretty clothes, and your daily—” She stopped short, stricken by what she’d almost said.

  Once more, her mother’s head came up: slowly, reluctantly, as if the effort was overwhelming. Her mouth was trembling, barely able to form the whispered words: “My bottle of gin.”

  Denise realized that she couldn’t speak, couldn’t respond. Suddenly her throat closed. Her eyes were filled with tears. It was as if she’d done something shameful—as if she were a little girl again, and had been caught lying, or stealing, or swearing.

  And it was true. She’d done something shameful. She’d stripped her mother naked—left her defenseless, without the illusions that were her only protection, her only way out.

  With her head lowered, to hide the tears, she heard her mother clear her throat, then speak in a low, exhausted voice: “You’re twenty-eight years old, Denise. And you’re strong—a lot stronger than I was, at your age. I—I’d already started to drink, when I was twenty-eight. And I never stopped. And I nev
er will stop. Not now. But I—”

  “Mother, I—” She raised her head, blinked her eyes, tried desperately to focus on her mother’s face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “But I’m not hurting anyone, Denise,” she went on, still speaking in the same low, toneless voice. “Except for that—that little girl, I’ve never hurt anyone. Not deliberately. I know that I’m—I’m a weak person. I think I’ve always known that, about myself. Even when I was a little girl, I was afraid of things. Everything, I remember, frightened me. I always felt very—very small, inside myself, even when I wasn’t small anymore. And to make it worse, I was pretty. I was always pretty. Beautiful, some said, when I got to be twelve or thirteen, and I started to—to develop. Which meant that boys were always after me—telling me how wonderful I was, and how much they loved me. For a long time—for years—I thought I was very fortunate, to be so pretty. I—I seemed to be getting everything I wanted. But really, of course, I was still afraid of things—everything. Inside, I was still a little girl. I’d never gotten over it, you see. I’d just been able to—to ignore it, for a while, because I was so pretty.

  “But then—I guess it was when I was about thirty—things started to go wrong. You were still just a little baby, I remember. And Elton was still very small. And suddenly—” Momentarily her voice caught. But, doggedly, she cleared her throat, shook her head sharply, and went on: “Suddenly nobody around me was happy. That was in the early fifties, your father wasn’t succeeding in his work. Or, at least, he didn’t think he was succeeding. And Elton seemed to hate everything—especially me. And you—you cried, all the time. All day long—and all night, too. It—it was all something that I—I just wasn’t prepared for. I remember that I used to lie in bed at night, thinking about myself, and what was happening to me. And that’s when they started to come back: all those terrible fears I used to feel, when I was a little girl. And there wasn’t anyone I could talk to, about it. No one at all. Your father was too busy. And I didn’t have any friends, not really. That’s—” The mouth twitched again, trying vainly to smile. The wounded eyes were glistening now: tears brimmed over, streaking the Elizabeth Arden makeup. “That’s the trouble, you see, with being pretty. No one likes you. Not really. Sometimes the men seem to hate you, because you make them feel—” She broke off and shook her head, unable to find the phrase. Then, sadly: “And the women hate you because you’re pretty. It—” Once more, she shook her head. “It can hurt, Denise. It can hurt very much.” With her eyes streaming now, her mother lowered her head and began fumbling at her purse, for a handkerchief. Her story was finished.