Bad Desire

by Devon, Gary;

  A blonde like that—there was little room for doubt.

  They had dinner guests that Friday evening, and in light of the bombings, Faith wondered at Henry’s expansive mood. He ate as though famished; he poured and filled glasses and drank wine. When the conversation turned serious, when the only thing anyone wanted to discuss was how to protect themselves from these madmen, Henry cajoled them back into feeling safe again. He razzed; he teased the men’s wives. These were their oldest friends, but even so, Faith listened to his reassurances and watched him again become a consummate politician in the face of this crisis.

  After dinner, as the men walked out on the veranda with their brandy and cigars, she overheard him offering to loan Jack Sutcliffe ten thousand dollars. She thought, Where did a young girl like that get the money to buy a sports car?

  When the last couple sped into the night, Henry turned to her. “Let’s get to bed, Faith, what do you say? I’m beat.” He was asleep before she had changed into her nightgown.

  In the middle of the morning on Saturday, he said, “Faith, I’m going to run into town and see if I can talk to Reeves. Then maybe I’ll find a game somewhere. You want to meet me at the Rod and Gun around six-thirty?”

  Faith gave him a ten-minute lead and drove down to Balboa Avenue. The white Karmann Ghia convertible was gone. She pulled away. She could feel the pressure building inside her, drop by drop, but the car’s not being there didn’t tell her anything. I can’t believe I’m doing this, she thought.

  At five-thirty—an hour early and dressed for the Rod and Gun Club—she sat waiting on the other side of the park. The white Karmann Ghia came back at six-fifteen. It seemed an odd, coincidental time for Sheila to be returning—Faith had barely enough time to get to the club.

  On Sunday, after a late and leisurely breakfast, she didn’t wait to hear his excuse for not staying home. She wanted to see what he would do. “I’m thinking I’d like to drive into San Francisco,” she said, “and spend the day browsing through the galleries and antique shops—would you like to come along?” He appeared to consider it for several minutes before he said, “I’ve got a lot of things I should do around here. Why don’t you go without me?”

  At the bottom of Condor Pass, where the hillside met the city, she pulled into the back parking lot of the combination gas station-coffee shop. With her car concealed among other cars, she went inside, took a booth near the large front windows and ordered coffee. Then she waited, watching the hill road for Henry’s car to appear. Her fingernails tapped on the Formica tabletop. If he was going to go to the girl, Faith had given him a clear field—to do so. She wondered if she had been too obvious about what she was trying to set up. She waited, sipping cup after cup of coffee, until the waitress became a nuisance. Nearly an hour and a half had passed. He wasn’t coming. Convinced that if he was ever going to, Henry would still make a move, she paid, went out and drove to the park across from Balboa Avenue. The white Karmann Ghia sat in the sunny drive.

  It wasn’t until after lunch that Sheila went out. Faith followed her all that Sunday afternoon. She was clumsy at it, at first. On Canyon Valley Drive, she saw the girl going into her grandmother’s house and drove past, thinking, This is stupid. By three o’clock she was trailing behind the little car more easily. Patiently, silently. Faith watched Sheila go into Mary McPhearson’s house. Minutes later, the girls came running out and jumped into the car. She’s not doing anything out of the ordinary. Stupid. Stupid. But she made herself stay with them.

  In his rusty old Bronco, Denny Rivera pulled Sheila over in the late afternoon and Faith quickly stopped at the curb only a few cars back, afraid of driving past and being seen. She saw him grab Sheila by the arm and yell, “All right! To hell with you then! I’m going tomorrow. Don’t you think I know what you’re doing behind my back?” Sheila pushed him away then, and Denny pushed her back. Faith could hear their raised voices but she couldn’t make out everything they said. She didn’t want to know what they said. Doors slammed. Tires burned. Denny was gone; Sheila drove away.

  Faith couldn’t remember ever spending a more miserable or humiliating afternoon. I’m never going to do this again, she thought. This isn’t like me. And besides, it’s a complete waste of time. Chasing around after a high school girl! For godsake! I’m just not going to do this anymore.

  On Monday evening, Henry called to say he would be in meetings until late. “Mr. Slater not coming home again tonight?” Luisa asked as Faith sat at the dining room table, looking at his empty place. She could hardly bring herself to answer.

  On Tuesday, they had a quiet dinner at home, then he had to leave.

  Late Thursday afternoon, when she hung up the telephone after he had called, she said, “Luisa, you can stop making dinner and take the rest of the evening off. I won’t be needing you tonight.”

  Faith was wearing a black velour sweatshirt and black velour sweatpants and she had her car keys in her hand as she went out.

  20

  Doing seventy on the interstate, the girl’s white Karmann Ghia switched lanes and dropped from sight on the Bay Court exit. A few seconds later, Faith executed the same maneuver, sliding across lanes, cutting dangerously in front of another car and hitting the exit ramp in time to see, at the bottom, the girl’s brake lights go dark as the car turned left.

  At the bottom of the ramp, Faith hesitated at the stop sign, shifted gears and turned quickly in the direction the girl had gone—to the left, through the underpass. In the distance, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, she saw the rear of the white car sink into a tree-shadowed curve and disappear.

  It was twenty past six—clear, deepening dusk. Faith knew she had to remain far enough back not to be seen but close enough to the Karmann Ghia to keep it in sight. I can’t stand it anymore, she thought. I’m going to find out what you’re doing or know the reason why.

  Running beside a stream, the road twisted and curved, crossed a narrow bridge and cut due east through rolling farmland. Now and then, through the frieze of branches, she spotted the white car shooting away before her over a knoll. But the distance between them continued to widen. Faith thought, She’s driving too fast for this road. Then it occurred to her: she’s got to know this road like the back of her hand. Again, coming up over a rise, Faith caught a glimpse of taillights blazing, dipping from view.

  She was trying to keep track of her mileage. She pushed her own speed up to fifty—as fast as she dared to go—and held it there. When she had driven about fourteen miles from town, she came over a hillock and saw the land fall away in a long sweep of fields. In the twilight, the road descended through it like a snail’s shiny track. Not a glimmer of taillights met her gaze, not a speck of metallic white paint—the girl and the car had vanished. Only the winding ribbon of pavement lay before her.

  What’s happened? she thought.

  Immediately, she let up on the gas and put her foot on the brakes. Clasping the wheel, she looked around. It’s not possible, she said to herself. Nothing moved. Off to her right, at the top of a grassy ridge, she saw a thin veil of dust flying in the wind. Where did she go?

  Did Sheila pull off the road? Could I have passed her without knowing? Not possible, Faith thought, angrily. No, I couldn’t have; I would’ve seen her.

  She tried to calculate how far the girl had been ahead of her—half a mile, a quarter—and couldn’t. She has to be down there somewhere. Faith continued driving for another mile, then two, then three miles, carefully looking for a place where the girl could have pulled in and stopped. She passed entrances to pastures, long rising fields edged with trees, a graveled place beside a big oak—the Karmann Ghia was nowhere in sight. She got away from me. But how?

  An intersection appeared before her, a one-lane dirt road that crossed the pavement at right angles. If Sheila had slowed to take it, Faith would have noticed the boiling up of dust, even at a distance. And yet, as far as she could see down the sandy side road, the air was clear.

  Dust, she thought
.

  All at once she wheeled in the crossroads and went hurtling back. That dust, that damned dust! Now she could think of nothing else.

  The fence surrounding the old orchard was broken out completely between its posts. She could see what appeared to be parallel indentations in the grass as if, long ago, a lane had been there—a lane that was now completely overgrown with grass. So that’s it, she said to herself. That’s got to be it. Wherever the girl had gone, it lay over that ridge.

  She pulled through the broken fence onto the grass until the car was safely off the paved road. She turned the engine off, set the emergency brake, and taking along her purse and keys, got out of the car. A gust of wind whipped around her.

  She discovered two shallow paths beneath the grass, with a slight hump between them—she could feel the topography beneath her shoes as she went up the rise. It left no question in her mind: it was a kind of invisible lane and it led somewhere.

  At the top of the ridge, she drew a deep dizzying breath of sweet honeysuckle mingled with wood rot. She had the illusion she could see for miles, like a hawk. In the immediate valley below her, in the hollow between hills, sat an old farmhouse—it was so well concealed among trees that, at first, it appeared not to be there at all. Walking higher along the ridge, Faith could make out a shed or stable adjacent to it. Behind the shed, a stream ran to the ocean through a wide gorge in the hills and there, at the end of all she could see, lay the Pacific. The sun was going down in the west, giving the valley and the farmstead a brilliant patina.

  But there was no sign of the Karmann Ghia.

  This isn’t right, Faith thought. Where could she have gone? If the girl had come this way, the farmhouse was her only possible destination—the creek would have prevented her from going farther. So where is she?

  Faith wiped her eyes. The top of the ridge was worn, sparsely matted with grass, the earth dry and powdery. She kicked up a little puff of dust. I’m not seeing something. She turned, still wondering, still looking around, and started back toward her car.

  Maybe it was the nap of the wind-blown grass or the angle at which she looked or the shadow that had fallen across the back of the hill throwing it into stark relief, but she noticed it, then, clearly: the grass chewed in places, bruised by the tread of tires—the unmistakable twin tracks of tires, one of which ran between her feet. She is here! She did come this way! Faith whirled and ran back, up and over the ridge.

  At the bottom of the long slope, a broken line of hedge flanked the imaginary lane, setting the house and yard apart from the derelict orchard. The evening was very still. Crickets were chirping all over the hillsides—a noise like slow, incessant sleep.

  Its upper story hidden in leaves, the back of it built into a steep bank, the early nineteenth-century farmhouse looked as much a part of the landscape as the massive gray oaks that sheltered it. A spooky desolation hung over the barn lot; a soundless night bird darted through the air. Not a light burned in the house. The grounds were deserted; no one was about. On the other side of the tiny front yard, Faith could barely make out a pond shining up like a mirror in the dusk. Does someone live here?

  Never had she felt so alone and exposed. The main road over the ridge, where she had left her car, seemed to exist in another world. A voice in her head kept repeating, Don’t go in there. Go back. Go back. But she knew she had to do it. I won’t be able to live like this, she thought. Forever in the dark, never knowing from one minute to the next what’s going on. I just can’t bear it one more minute.

  Her hearing sharpened for the slightest disturbance, Faith looked back to estimate how far she had come and then went on toward the old stable—the only place where Sheila could have hidden her car. The weathered clapboard siding showed dull gray in the twilight. Keeping an eye on the front of the house, half-expecting someone to rush out demanding to know why she was there, she crossed the pebbled barn lot as silently as she could. To Faith, even the soft grit of the gravel under her sounded grotesquely loud.

  Suddenly there was a deafening shriek. Her fist clasped to her chest, she twisted, eyes startled, searching the empty lot. Again the wind blew; the weathervane atop the stable roof pivoted, metal scraping metal.

  Completely shaken, she reached the only true door among the six closed stalls and tried the handle. The door opened; she stepped inside. She was in a dark vestibule, a sort of wind trap, then in front of her, a second door. She opened it and took the step down into the stable. The deep room was dark, shards of light filtered through chinks in the siding, but even before her eyes completely adjusted, Faith recognized their cars—Sheila’s white car and, parked beside it, Henry’s dark Jaguar.

  She felt sick. It was as though she had never once expected it. So they’re here, she thought. They’re here, together, after all. In admitting it to herself, she grew weak, her legs melting under her. When she put her hand out to steady herself, her fingers brushed across a light switch. Faith hesitated, then flipped it up.

  A single bare light bulb came on above an old workbench, cluttered with tools. She saw that the Jaguar XK 140—which he had said could take a few months to restore—was already done, the new black and burgundy paint sparkling, the rechromed bumpers smooth as bright silver. And the leather, the new dove gray leather—she could smell it across the room. Kept here, secret from her. All of her anguish attached itself to that beautiful little car and she nearly wept. Instead, she let the misery she had felt, all the hate she had tried to suppress come to a boil.

  And then, after that, everything came a little unstuck.

  She thought, They’re here … someplace … hiding from me.

  The next minute she was wondering if they actually knew she was there. Surprise would be to her advantage, not theirs. Faith turned and went out of the stable, carefully shutting the outside door and crossing the pebbled drive. Now the crickets seemed to mock her with their raucous chatter. The flagstone walk leading to the house was so old that dead moss withered in the crevices. She stepped up on the shabby porch where the windows were boarded shut.

  She had an urge to bang demandingly at the front door, but she wanted to come upon them together. Determined, now, to put an end to this thing, Faith wanted blatantly to expose him, whatever the result. Without making a sound, she tried the doorknob. It was locked.

  Shading her eyes, she squinted through a knothole, but the room inside was dark. Where are they? In minutes, it would be night. Time was abandoning her. Faith looked over her shoulder for the sun, trying to gauge how much longer she would have its waning light, but the sun had gone down over the Pacific.

  What was that? She stiffened and raised her head. Not a breeze sighing on the eaves, no, but a sound like that. Or a bird cooing.

  Quietly she went down the porch steps and looked straight at the windows upstairs—open windows. And there it was again. Music. She thought, crazily, it is music—leaking from the windows. Maybe that was why they hadn’t heard her. As though from faraway, a note of laughter passed above her head; it was a sound that almost wasn’t a sound, drowning in the music. It lurked. It played on the air, like a whisper, teasing, mocking her through the red-gold gloom.

  She thought, They’re upstairs.

  It’s got to be them.

  Moving as silently as she could, she went down along the side of the house toward the rear, looking for a means of getting up there, some other entrance. The back of the house was built into the slope of the hill behind it, but she saw no door. Faith started backing up. Maybe on the other side. She noticed a kind of beaten path going up through boulders at the side of the slope—there wasn’t enough time to search for anything else. Crossing through weeds, she started to climb among the large rocks.

  She climbed until she found herself shielded behind a large protruding boulder and across from a rear window. The window was open.

  She heard them before she saw them. Small but unmistakable sounds.

  Through the music, a girl was moaning.

  Then
Faith heard his voice.

  And in a gap of silence on the record, there were other sounds. She had no trouble recognizing them; they were all too familiar. Instinct warned her, Don’t look. Don’t. You really don’t want to look.

  The window was open and gave in on a small dim bathroom with its door ajar. Through it she could see a portion of a larger room, which was fire colored; even the shadows were molten. The harder she looked, the smaller the room seemed to become. At first, against the vivid glare, Faith hardly realized what she was seeing. She thought she saw only the girl kneeling face down on the bed. Sheila was swaying up and back, gently, rhythmically.

  This is evil, she thought. This is an evil place.

  Still rocking, Sheila unfolded, rising, pushing herself up on her arms and the radiance streamed in, tracing her bare pink body in gold. From beyond Faith’s angle into the room, dark hands came up, rubbing the young full breasts. For an instant Faith felt the insane urge to be touched in just that way.

  Sheila wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, arched up, slipped lower on the bed and bent downward, her hair a gold turbulence, and Faith saw what they were doing, where her mouth went, the man she straddled. Then his voice, Henry’s voice: “Sheila …”

  Hearing him say it sent the blood singing through Faith’s head, but already her eyelids were shut, while the hard thumping of her heart went on and on as though it would never slow down. She didn’t remember getting down from the hill. Her face burned with blood as if she had been beaten. “Caught you,” she whispered, no louder than her breath. Eyes closed, fighting to keep herself quiet, she was standing deathly still, shaking with hatred, wave upon icy wave of it.

  “Caught you,” she murmured. “Caught you at last … you stinking bastard.”

  So it was over. It was all over. She would no longer have to suspect or doubt anything about him. She knew. Finally, she knew, after eighteen devoted years of marriage. Faith’s rage gathered until it loomed stronger and larger than she was. She hated him. Her body throbbed with it, her chest ached with it, her face was consumed with its fury. I’m going to kill you. Taking up her purse, she stalked across the pebbled lot. I’ll set the fucking house on fire.