Mrs Caliban and other stories

by Rachel Ingalls

  ‘Or we could find you another place of your own,’ he told her. ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘All right,’ she said. By that time she’d know definitely about the pregnancy. By that time anything could have happened.

  *

  He did the driving. It was a new car and he owned it. His looks, his manner, his clothes: you could tell that everything about him was all right – respectable, coming from a good family that went back generations. He had his touchy side, but a lot of people had a funny temper.

  It had been a long time since she’d been out of the city. She looked at the landscape moving past and felt happy. She loved him. She was convinced that this time she’d get married.

  He didn’t talk much except to tell her about the family she’d be meeting: Katherine and Waverley Chase, who had been his parents’ best friends; and their three sons: Russell, Randall and Raymond. Russell had been married to Carter’s cousin, Julie. And for a few years when they were young, Carter and Julie and the Chase boys had all gone to the same school; until his parents had moved away.

  ‘They’re cousins by marriage?’ she asked.

  ‘They aren’t anything. They were neighbours and my cousin married into their family. But we’ll be staying with them.’

  They checked in overnight at a motel that had an indoor skating rink as well as a large, heated pool and a room full of computer games. The restaurant wasn’t bad, either; there was a help-yourself salad bar plus the usual waitress service. According to a cardboard notice on the table, private rooms were available for receptions; catering could be arranged. The building seemed to be the social centre for several small towns in the neighbourhood. Many of the diners were dressed up in Saturday night clothes: the women, in teetery heels, sported glitter and sleazy, backless dresses. One young couple, who were sitting in a booth near their table, had gone further than the rest and made themselves into living paintings: their hair had been striped with colours as bright as the feathers of a cockatoo, and made to stand out like sunbursts around their heads. The boy wore a great many earrings on each ear; the girl had a white, powdered face, red eye-shadow, black lips and green fingernails. In every other way the two were rather conservative – dressed in black leather and not flaunting their unusual appearance but sitting quietly together, his arm over her shoulders. He was reading a copy of Popular Mechanics, she was doing a crossword puzzle in a book. They were relaxed and unselfconscious with each other, like an old married couple.

  Mamie thought they were terrific. They looked like fun. But Carter said, ‘I’m surprised they let those two in. What a pair.’ And all at once she understood that the dividing-line he had drawn between himself and a couple like that was final. He’d never associate with them. So now she too would have to keep at a distance from such odd-looking characters. He had already told her what subjects she should try never to bring up when they arrived at the Chases’. ‘Don’t do this,’ he’d said, and, ‘Don’t do that.’

  They went back to their room. She put fifty cents in the bed massage and laughed hysterically as the mattress lumbered ponderously from side to side.

  ‘What’s it supposed to do?’ she yelled. ‘That’s the slowest bump-and-grind routine I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Not so loud,’ he told her. ‘There are people next door.’

  ‘Come on over here. I’ve always wanted to try out one of these.’

  He went to brush his teeth. When he was finished, the bed had come to the end of its shimmy. He sat down on the edge.

  He said, ‘I think we’d better get a few things straight. We’ll be there tomorrow.’

  She looked up.

  ‘Is your real name Rhoda?’

  ‘My name’s Mamie Hart.’

  ‘Mamie?’

  ‘For May. The month I was born.’

  ‘Well, I guess it doesn’t matter. I’ll introduce you as Rhoda, if you like.’

  ‘Not enough class, huh? One of my aunts was called Maybelle – it’s supposed to be French. We called her Mabel. And my grandparents were named Herz. They changed it to Hart.’

  ‘Is that a Jewish name?’

  ‘Not that I know of. What is this? You want to see a racial purity badge or something? Sal used to say she got this kind of crap from people all the time. What would it matter, anyway? Jesus fucking Christ.’

  He slapped her hard on the right side of the head. ‘I told you not to use that word,’ he said. ‘If you want to trade obscenities in a bar-room brawl somewhere, you go right ahead. That’s the place for them. You’re a little old for me to have to wash out your mouth with soap.’

  She burned all over. Tears had run from her eyes at the impact of the blow. She said, ‘You know what an obscenity is? An obscenity is what you just did.’

  ‘That’s another thing. We’ve got to do something about your cheap dialogue. You’ve been in too many corny plays. You can’t remember how real people talk.’

  ‘I’ve got a very good memory. I’ll remember this.’ She pressed her hand against her face. Luckily he’d hit her fairly high up. She might have a black eye afterwards, but the teeth were all right. The teeth were money.

  ‘As far as I’m concerned,’ he said, ‘you can be anything, and your name could be anything. It isn’t me. It’s some of the people you’ll be meeting. I thought I’d better prepare you. Psychologically. You might find it hard to act your part.’

  ‘Oh? What part is that?’

  ‘There’s something I should have explained. I should have told you a lot of things, but it started to get harder and harder to begin. What I said about this other girl – well: it isn’t exactly like that. It’s a long story.’ He reached out to put his fingers against her cheek. She drew back a little. ‘That’s all I need,’ he said; ‘you turning up there with a black eye.’

  ‘That’s the only thing you’re worried about, isn’t it – that it’s going to show? You don’t care if you hurt me, only if it makes a mark.’

  ‘Sure, I care. I’m just getting kind of nerved up, now we’re so near. I don’t want to drag you into it. What I needed was a hired professional. I should have gone to a private detective and paid them to find somebody.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘My cousin Julie, who was married to this guy, Russell Chase; they call him Ross. We grew up together. She was my favourite cousin. Our families moved twice. When we were just kids, there wasn’t anybody else around at all.’

  ‘You slept with her.’

  ‘You don’t understand. She was my favourite cousin.’

  ‘And you slept with her.’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘You can’t remember whether you did or didn’t?’

  ‘There wasn’t any need for it. We were completely … but we did, yes. When we were in our early teens, really still children. She was actually only twelve. Then my parents moved. I didn’t see her for years. We wrote to each other. I used to think … We didn’t meet again till she was getting married. I was invited. And I knew then. I realized at the reception. I almost started to make a speech, try to take her away with me. When I kissed her, we knew that the wedding was a big mistake. I looked around and there were all our relatives and all of his, everybody dressed up, eating and drinking, the noise: I thought I was going crazy. I asked her to go with me right then, that minute. And she said, “I can’t.”’

  ‘So, you started sleeping with each other again,’ Mamie said. It was what she would have expected; she’d been in plays like that.

  He sat up and lit a cigarette, took one long drag and then stubbed it out in the ashtray. He said, ‘We would have. I’d have made her get a divorce and it would have been all right. But we didn’t get the time. They acted too fast. What they wanted was the money. It was divided in our family so there was part of it she got for her lifetime and then it reverted to me unless she had children. One of those complicated Trust things. I don’t know what old man Chase did with their own money and investments, but they needed somebody to bail t
hem out and they had to get hold of it in a way that meant nothing could become mine before a certain time. Anyway, that’s it.’

  ‘That’s what?’

  ‘That’s why they killed her.’

  ‘They went to jail for murder and now they’re –’

  ‘They killed her and got away with it. Nobody else suspected.’

  ‘Carter, how can you know that?’

  ‘I’m sure of it, positively. They were out mountain-climbing. Said she got too near the edge. Well, I don’t believe it. I got a so-called suicide note from her. Very good job of copying her handwriting, but it just isn’t the way she said things. And she’d have used some of our special names, and so on. That was why I wanted somebody to try to get them to confess. I thought: if I got a girl to –’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Maybe it was only Ross. Or maybe the whole family was in on it.’

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘this is something crooked, isn’t it? I’ve never been mixed up in anything crooked in my life.’

  ‘I told you, Rhoda, it’s on the level. All I want is for you to get them feeling guilty and losing their nerve.’

  ‘But how could I do that?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you? You look just like her. Like my cousin, Julie.’

  ‘I feel sick,’ she said.

  ‘You relax. They’re the ones that are going to be feeling bad. You just enjoy yourself.’

  ‘Supposing these people did kill somebody – why wouldn’t they kill me, too?’

  ‘Because this time I’m here to protect you.’

  *

  ‘Katherine,’ he said, ‘this is Rhoda Hart. Waverley, Randall, Ray, Ross; Rhoda.’

  Mamie shook hands with them all. She didn’t understand why he’d used half of her real name and half of her stage name – especially why he hadn’t done it the other way around, since Hart had seemed to be the one he’d had doubts about. (‘I just forgot,’ he said later. ‘I was concentrating so hard on whether you’d be OK. And then it was too late.’)

  They sat down. She felt herself being sized up by the mother. One of the sons, the one named Randall, handed her a sherry. There was a log fire burning in the fireplace. Katherine Chase asked, ‘What part of the country do you come from, Miss Hart?’

  ‘From the middle,’ she said. ‘Not really east or south. But not really anywhere else, either; in the mountains, from one of those small towns where everybody just wants to get out. It’s funny how there’s still any population in those areas. Nobody ever goes back.’

  ‘“How you gonna keep ’em down on the farm?”’ Waverley boomed. His wife swivelled her head around and glared at him.

  ‘That’s right,’ Mamie said. ‘Once you’ve had theatres and museums and nice restaurants and good clothes, going out and having fun – well, even if you want to settle down, it isn’t going to be that kind of life again.’

  ‘You never go back?’ Randall asked. He’d treated her to a long look and touched her hand as he’d passed the glass to her. The important one, Russell, had barely given her a glance.

  ‘There are a couple of people I send Christmas cards to,’ she said. ‘But my family’s all gone now.’ She stopped. There was a silence no one had foreseen. Suddenly it was absolute. She remembered her childhood. Her eyes filled with tears. She couldn’t look at anyone.

  ‘Yes, well,’ the third brother, Raymond, said. ‘Can I offer you a peanut? Or some of these things – what are they?’

  ‘Cheese biscuits,’ Katherine said.

  ‘They look like something that’s been burned by mistake.’

  ‘No, thank you,’ Mamie said. She smiled at Raymond. And as she did, out of the corner of her eye she saw Russell look up and stare at her.

  The lunch went well. Waverley and Randall both got moderately drunk. Everyone except Russell retired afterwards for a nap. He stayed downstairs; ‘to do some work,’ he said.

  The house was large enough so that she and Carter had been given separate rooms without having it look as though they were being kept apart for reasons of morality. Another one of his last-minute decisions had been to introduce her as a friend, not a fiancée. But their rooms were adjoining.

  They went into her room and sat on the bed.

  ‘If he’s guilty about anything, he sure doesn’t act it,’ she said.

  ‘Why would he be guilty? He doesn’t feel sorry and he isn’t scared that anybody knows. I still can’t make up my mind about the others.’

  ‘If guilt isn’t going to worry him, there’s no point in me being here. How’s he going to go crazy if he doesn’t care?’

  ‘We’ve only been here a couple of hours. Give him a chance.’

  ‘I like the one that offered me the peanut.’

  ‘Raymond.’

  ‘But she hates me. And she’s got me numbered, all right. The others don’t mind. But men don’t, usually.’

  ‘They do. They just show it differently.’ He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. He said, ‘They’re taking us out to the country club. Try to dance with all three of them.’

  ‘You sound like a real promoter. Like one of those greaseballs that come up and say: you want a girl, a nice girl, a schoolteacher, my sister?’

  ‘I could hit you again, you know.’

  ‘And I could run downstairs and tell them all about your sneaky suspicions.’

  ‘I’d say you were just some girl I knew, who kept hallucinating. I can make things up pretty fast.’

  ‘But they’ve got to be thinking something. If I look just like her.’

  ‘Maybe they haven’t seen the resemblance yet.’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

  ‘Maybe not as obvious to them as it is to me.’

  ‘Do you have a picture of her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your favourite cousin? The girl you were in love with? You don’t have a picture of her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’ He was trying to make her think he was falling asleep. ‘Why not?’ she repeated.

  ‘I tore them all up when she died,’ he said.

  *

  For a while she believed the torn-up picture story. He could make her believe in anything for a while. And then he’d come up with some other mystification and blame her for being slow to understand what he meant. He’d criticize or correct her about something: her speech, her lipstick, the fact that her skirt was wrinkled. He had chosen and paid for most of her clothes himself, but she sometimes wore the wrong shoes or tied an old kerchief around her neck. He noticed everything like that.

  She followed his orders and reported back to him. There were periods when he’d grow sulky or quiet; he’d sit on the side of the bed in his room and fix his eyes on the wall. All she wanted now was to make love, but he’d move out of her embrace when she tried to hold on to him. He told her it was better not to, while they were still in the Chases’ house.

  ‘You could try re-routing it on to the boys,’ he said.

  She didn’t understand. One day he said, ‘You aren’t doing very much to make them interested in you.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do? They think I’m your girlfriend, don’t they? They aren’t going to make a pass at somebody else’s girl.’

  ‘Of course they are. That’s half the fun, taking a girl away from somebody else. Tell them a hard-luck story. Tell them anything.’

  ‘I guess I should just lay it on the line and ask, “How did you all kill cousin Julie?”’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, no. Don’t say anything about her.’

  ‘He doesn’t like me, you know. Ross doesn’t.’

  ‘First it was Katherine, now it’s Russell. Everybody likes you fine.’

  ‘No. The others do, all right. But he hardly even looks at me.’

  ‘He’s just a little under par with girls.’

  ‘He swept your favourite cousin off her feet, didn’t he? He must have something.’

  ‘She was on the rebound. She was so hurt, she thought she need
ed a wet rag like that. She’d have turned down Randall and Ray.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘See if you can get him to confide in you. Be a good listener. You know – all those things your mother told you.’

  ‘My mother told me not to do it, but if I was going to do it, to make sure he had a bank balance first, and then get pregnant and go to his mother and cry.’

  ‘Was that what she did herself?’

  ‘Of course not. She married for love and he didn’t amount to anything. That’s why she wanted me to have a better life.’

  *

  She stood at the top landing and looked down. The carpeted and banistered stairways stretched away in three directions. Potted plants filled the landings with exuberant growth. They were placed in front of huge, ornate mirrors and thus appeared to spread their jungle-like foliage twice as widely as they actually did. The stairs too ran up and down in the mirrors as you approached your reflection.

  She’d always wanted to live in such a house. In the part of the country where she’d grown up there were a few houses like that, but she’d never been inside one. Once she got to the city, she saw a lot of beautiful places: never any back home. She hadn’t been up on the knoll; her life had been down at the bottom of the hill in one of the little brick boxes near the railroad tracks. Her mother had been proud to think that one day the miserable thing would be theirs. That was what the family had hoped for.

  It hadn’t worked out that way. Her mother had died early. And Mamie had had no money behind her. She figured that if she had to drop down into real poverty, it would be better to do it in a big place, where nobody knew her. Possibly it would be more fun, too.

  She’d been right. But it hadn’t always been fun. And the shack near the railroad was Home Sweet Home compared to some of the places she’d been in: like that hotel where – if you got behind in the rent – the manager would come around and you could either pay up or go to the washrooms with him; and that didn’t cancel the debt, either – he’d just defer it.

  ‘Are you interested in fish, Rhoda?’ a voice said below her.