Brian would have done anything to escape those voices. So he wasn’t too surprised to find himself in a stranger’s bed one morning, in a stranger’s house. When he first awakened there, he thought he was back in the apartment they’d had before the kids came. The bedroom walls were just that close, and comforting.
But that apartment had gone to someone else, a long time ago. He had awakened in some stranger’s home.
The sunlight filled the window here, heating the bed and burning out the tension in his chest. Their new house had a tree by the bedroom window; he’d quite forgotten what it was like to wake up in sunlight.
The sunlight filled the room, making the yellow wallpaper glow, putting a glaze on the old-fashioned water pitcher and bowl on the washstand, bringing out the crescent-shaped highlights on the tall mahogany bureau and the four cherrywood posts rising out of the corners of his bed. The shadows in the dimpled ivory ceiling filled with it. The pastel paintings, of orchards and haystacks and children playing in front of a blood-red barn, came to life with it.
Someone had hung his tan corduroy sport coat neatly on the back of an ornate, high-back chair. His brown trousers were folded on the seat. He rolled his head a bit and could see the toes of his shoes peeking out from under the side of the bed, brightly polished.
He always called this his “salesman uniform”. It was what he wore when he visited out-of-town clients.
He closed his eyes and thought about that, trying to force alertness into his system. His boss had sent him out of town to call on some roofing contractors. That must have been what happened. He’d asked for some extra work—they always needed the money—and there was that new line of shingle material that had to be introduced.
But then he remembered that his boss had said no, said it was the wrong time of year for that. And he couldn’t remember packing. He couldn’t remember saying goodbye and driving here.
He opened his eyes. He glanced down at his chest, felt the soft material of his pajamas. The new ones Elizabeth had bought him only a short time ago. He just hadn’t got around to wearing them before. He looked around the room, but was reluctant to lift his head completely off the pillow. He couldn’t figure out what had happened to his shirt, or the suitcase carrying his change of clothes.
He twisted his head back towards the window. The sun appeared to be high in the sky, the shadows of the tall trees late afternoon shadows. He could see a part of the yard, bright green with a sprinkler feeding that green. A child’s red wagon. Bright yellow flowers bordering a flagstone path that led away to an immense barn in the distance. A line of trees beyond that. And deep blue. He had awakened in a stranger’s home after a long afternoon nap.
A slight breeze rustled the pink-tinted curtains. It carried a scent of green, but Brian could distinguish it no further.
He could hear the voices of children calling from the fields beyond. A woman read softly to another child, somewhere below his window. He could hear the child asking questions, knew they were questions from the lilt of the sentences, but he could not make out individual words.
He sat up in bed until dizziness passed, then gained his feet. The ivory ceiling seemed far away. He drew nearer the window but still could not see the children. But he did see more of the yard: a wooden wheelbarrow in need of paint, a collie sleeping under it. He heard someone, male or female, calling dinner.
He wondered how he got here. He tried to think about a car, but the image wouldn’t come. He wondered about what he must have been doing before he fell asleep. Perhaps listening to a woman singing a young child to bed. He wondered about how he had closed his eyes—slowly with fatigue, heavily with alcohol, or quickly with determination.
He wondered if it had been raining at the time, or if a wind had been coming up.
Someone had called Brian from downstairs.
He opened his eyes uneasily; he had fallen asleep again. He wondered if it had been such a long trip, to make him so tired. Boston, New York, maybe Bangor. Some place in the country, outside one of those cities. He used to dream about places like this. He used to gaze out of his living-room window to the heavily wooded lands beyond the city, where there were no lights, where it was always dark. He used to wonder what was beyond the forest. Maybe fields with restful houses like this one. Places where a guest would fit so comfortably.
But someone had called him down to dinner, and he had to be properly dressed. He stood and walked over to the tall bureau. He knew shirts were often kept in the top drawer of such pieces.
But when he opened the drawer he could not bear to reach his hand inside.
He saw four freshly-starched shirts, bleached blazingly white, folded stiffly, rigid in blue paper wrappers. Fresh from some local laundry. He didn’t think they were his shirts—if they were, they had been seriously transformed by the laundry. He dared not touch them. Maybe it was the fineness of the material, and the unbidden thought that the cloth seemed like a kind of skin arranged in neat, antiseptic folds. Or maybe it was the stiffness, the edges and angles so sharp he wondered if they might cut, might slice through layers of flesh.
He was afraid the shirts had death inside, all folded neatly away, creased and wrapped in blue paper.
Somewhere a meal had been prepared, a meal so quiet and perfect it was like a party. Brian knew they expected him; a place had been set. Dinner would not be the same without him. Children were dressed in their best, sitting quietly with expectant faces because a stranger was coming to dinner. They were hungry, famished after a long day at play, but could not eat until their guest had arrived.
Brian opened the second drawer, which held two or three much friendlier polo shirts, each striped in a different color and bearing an arcane symbol on the one breast pocket. He slipped one on hurriedly, pulled on pants and shoes, and opened the bedroom door.
He could tell at once that the house was an old Victorian, trimmed with ornate woodwork. The lamps were old, the electricity new. Numerous doors led off a narrow central hall. He assumed that he must be staying on the second floor. Here and there the ceiling tilted at a sharp angle. He wondered if there was one of those old barn-like attics overhead.
He could see the tops of the heavy staircase rails at the end of the hall, so he made his way there. He could hear the metallic sounds of cutlery being applied to a table somewhere below, so he quickened his pace. His gallop down the stairs cleared his head and made him wonder when was the last time he had eaten. His stomach growled; he tightened it in embarrassment.
The dining-room was to his left at the bottom of the stairs. A broad round table. A half-dozen people dressed variously in suits and work clothes seated around it, postures erect, waiting, three small children staring up at him wide-eyed. Several cats wandered the room, periodically making their way through the maze of legs.
A large bald man began to smile. The effort blushed his face scarlet, swelled his cheeks. “We thought we were going to have to start without you,” he said in a friendly tone. “Glad you could make it.”
Suddenly shy, Brian made himself walk into the room. He wasn’t sure if he had ever met any of these people before. Maybe they had all come in late the night before, after his own arrival, whenever that was. “Sorry,” he mumbled, and took his place at the one empty seat.
No one said anything for a few moments, then the bald man passed serving plates around, nodding vigorously as if it were the most wonderful thing in the world to be doing. Brian took a little bit of each dish, muttering thank yous, and doubting he could eat anything. Suddenly his appetite was gone. Occasionally someone would add something to his plate when he wasn’t looking, however, so he found himself eating just to keep the food from overflowing onto the dainty lace tablecloth.
“We’ll fatten you up,” the bald man said with a wink, and Brian thought he could feel nerves tugging on the skin covering his abdomen. He turned his head slightly left and right, confirming his suspicion that the children were still staring at him. He wondered how long he had been h
ere. His wife might be worried. He’d call her but he didn’t think they’d have a phone. He was almost sure they didn’t have a phone.
Sometimes he would gaze at another guest and they’d raise an eyebrow or make some ambiguous gesture with a raised fork and Brian would stare down at his plate again. He could hear people working in the kitchen and he’d wonder if they were servants, or members of the family that owned the house. He’d look at each diner around the table and doubted they belonged here, except for perhaps the children. He wasn’t sure about the bald man. Maybe he was a local who stayed here frequently, which made him like a member of the family. Maybe he was the family retainer, entitled to speak for all of them.
Just when he was looking for an excuse to leave the table, Brian saw a pale hand wrap around a door on the other side of the room. Two dark eyes peered round, the forehead sloped so steeply Brian couldn’t see the hairline. Two dark lips like crusts of bread opened and closed, seeming to nibble on the paint along the edge of the door. Then the lips, the eyes, the hands were gone. Brian stood up abruptly.
“Delicious meal,” he said, then paused awkwardly. “Thank you.” He turned and headed up the stairs.
Brian sat on the edge of his bed, listening to the sounds of the house: pipes banging, footsteps, the occasional murmur of voices like small winds trapped in the walls. Although he was reluctant to go down the steps again and visit with the other guests—for he’d finally decided this must be a guest house, or a boarding house, a place where travelling salesmen spent a night or two—he knew he liked it here, would always like it here.
He’d found his suitcase in the closet, and carefully searched it, as well as the room, for any papers regarding the purpose of his visit here. There were none; he’d apparently left even his wallet at home. He had no idea how long he had planned to stay. He supposed there was a way to find out—the bald man might know. In any case, the lack of documentation gave him an excuse to stay as long as he liked.
Elizabeth might be worried, but she also knew that these trips sometimes took longer than planned. At least she wouldn’t be panic-stricken. He wondered how she was doing with the bank account, with writing the checks. He’d probably have an enormous paperwork mess to clear up when he got home. She always wanted to put off paying the credit cards, or the loan accounts, or the utilities, in order to buy something for the house or the kids. She just couldn’t understand why that filled him with such anxiety. He could see the bills accumulate—he was the one who dumped them into the bill basket each month. And, with almost mythical mathematics, the payments due seemed to increase geometrically once you got behind. He was surprised they hadn’t had to declare bankruptcy at least once. Half the year they spent trying to catch up from the other half.
He used to spend hours each night worrying about the money—adding it up, rearranging it, trying to make it fit into the seemingly countless hands and pockets that demanded it, that demanded it from him. He was always trying to think of other ways to make more money, and he discovered early on that he was quite poor at that. In fact, he seemed poor at most things involving money. He couldn’t save it; he couldn’t even spend it wisely. And bill collectors terrified him. They had a way of making him feel worthless, insignificant. They implicated his common sense and his honesty. Every phrase seemed to veil a threat.
If he had the money he’d buy them all off. He’d pay the bills and pass out the insults. Elizabeth could do what she wanted then; nothing would bother him.
He was tired of thinking about it. Elizabeth didn’t realize. It would kill him. He couldn’t imagine it not killing him in some way or other.
He didn’t have to worry about the bills here. In some way, his company was paying for this. He wouldn’t be here if it weren’t. And there was nothing he could do about his family’s bills while he was out here, which must be a long way from home. Elizabeth would have to take care of things. Let her put off making the payments, then she’d have to talk to the collectors. She’d find out soon enough what it was like.
He heard footsteps outside the room. Shadows stopped for a time in the thin crack of light beneath his door. Someone was whispering in the hall.
The sunset through his window was a beautiful, exotic bruise. Brian had never seen one quite like it before.
He imagined the guest house to be pretty self-sufficient. Grow your own food, rent out the rooms. No collectors to pay. People like these always made their payments on time. They didn’t like to owe.
After dark Brian went downstairs and out to the front porch. He sat by himself on a large, handmade swing that might have held five or more. All the other guests must have retired to their rooms, or to some television-or reading-room or other he didn’t know about yet. At some point he would ask the bald man about that.
With no street lights it was almost black outside. He could barely make out the outlines of the barn, but nothing else beyond the front yard.
Suddenly the swing was rocking, and the bald man was sitting down beside him. Brian didn’t see where he had come from.
“Nice night.” The man sighed. “Enjoying your stay with us?” Brian couldn’t see the bald man’s eyes, just his jowls and large, florid lips.
“I am, very much. Nothing much to worry about here, is there?”
“Oh, no.” The bald man chuckled. “We don’t worry much at all, about anything, in this house.” He patted Brian’s arm and Brian felt himself draw away. “No need for you to worry your pretty head about anything either.”
Brian didn’t know what more to say at first; he felt his cheeks go hot. He moved his head back and forth slightly, still trying to see the bald man’s eyes. Then after several minutes he remembered what it was he wanted to know. “By the way, did I mention how long I was staying here?”
“No, you just said as long as it took, didn’t you? I could be mistaken, I suppose. Nothing to worry about if you didn’t. We’ll let you stay as long as it takes, even if it takes forever.” He laughed, but Brian wasn’t sure why.
Something rustled out by the trees. A tall, thin shape. Pale hands were flapping in the moonlight.
Again the next day Brian couldn’t bring himself to try the shirts packaged so neatly in the top drawer of his bureau. Instead he took another polo shirt, but felt seriously underdressed. A guest should dress nicely, he thought.
He spent most of the day on the porch, watching the children play around the barn. Once he helped the six-year-old untangle a kite.
Nothing to worry about here.
These children sang more than any others he had ever encountered. They watched him as if he were something different, something more than a stranger.
Sometimes he’d awaken abruptly from a nap, his thoughts disjointed. It was the silence that frightened him. But there was nothing to worry about here. Sometimes the breeze seemed unusually cold. Perhaps he’d arrived here by train. He saw no cars, and he thought those were iron rails glistening out in the fields under the mid-afternoon sun.
Brian felt inconspicuous here on the porch. Maybe that was the most wonderful thing of all. No one could see or hear him here, in the guest house. Voices faded into the dark.
He tried to imagine a new guest arriving at night. All the guests seemed to arrive by night. For there were always new faces around the table in the mornings. By train, having to walk across several hundred yards of grassy fields to reach the house. Dark windows and stark outline against the expansive sky. The front door opening to welcome them. A dark hat gesturing respectfully from the entranceway.
Dinners were interrupted more and more frequently by glimpses of pale, bloodless hands and faces, whisperings in the kitchen and pantry, closets, the dark corners of the house. The bald man tried to keep Brian in a festive mood, always talking about getting up chess and bridge games, activities in which, he claimed, Brian’s participation was essential to the wellbeing of all.
Cats walked through the dining-room one at a time, whispering to unseen presences standing behind the man
y doors of the guest house.
Brian saw a desperate white hand drawn out of hiding, sliding out from a doorway and squirming on the floor, trying to steal a piece of discarded meat from a calico kitten’s mouth. They tussled awhile and the cat won, the hand withdrawing slowly in defeat.
It was like looking up from your meal and spying the dead, beckoning you from distant rooms. Brian found it difficult to swallow.
But there was nothing to worry him here. All bills had been paid in full.
Brian had fallen into sleeping most of his days. He ceased to wonder about his family.
He’d eaten little on his plate. He was too busy trying to catch another glimpse of those who did not eat in the dining-room with the other guests. The ones who scavenged. When he looked around the table he discovered that all the faces were unfamiliar. He’d been in the guest house the longest, with the exception of the bald man.
A tap on the shoulder. The bald man stood over him.
“You can’t eat here tonight, I’m afraid,” the bald man said.
“My name is Brian. Brian.”
“But you can’t eat here, you see. The guest house is full now, and there are more people coming.” The bald man’s voice was gentle, but Brian could see the definiteness in the man, the assumption of unquestioned authority.
“You never call me by my name. You never did,” Brian said.
“I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.” The bald man’s eyes held tears. Brian wondered if they were sincere. “You have to leave our table now.”
“Nothing to worry yourself about,” Brian said. And stood.
They’d given Brian the shirts to wear with his freshly-pressed trousers. He wore a new one today, but then they seemed to be new every day. Crisp and sharp.
The collar sliced a piece out of his neck. Blood encircled the starched collar like a necklace. When Brian buttoned the cuffs the stiff material tore into his wrists, managing extensive damage when he walked and swung his arms. By the end of each day he was sore and bloody, but he felt fashionable, a well-dressed guest with no need of money.
Absent Company Page 21