Into The Darkness

by Kathy

  "I can take it."

  "No more hitting, okay?"

  Meg laughed. "Okay."

  Darren glanced wistfully at the door of the restaurant, but evidently he wasn't confident enough of Meg's self-control to suggest they go in. "Riley was in an army hospital for six months. Apparently he was lucky not to lose his leg; he ended up with permanent nerve damage and considerable loss of muscle tissue, but he insisted he'd rather wear a brace than a prosthesis. He's had several operations and a lot of physical therapy. Recently they developed a new technique for dealing with injuries like his, and he has been going to Boston for weekly treatments. My man wasn't able to find out what the chances for improvement are. Doctors don't discuss their patients with nosy strangers."

  "I see."

  Darren glanced at her. "I'm not sure you do. I refrained from telling you about this in part because—well, because I allowed my personal feelings to affect my professional judgment. I felt, rightly or wrongly, that you were beginning to think more favorably of him. I was reluctant. ... I didn't want to encourage. . . ."

  "You were jealous."

  "Er. ... In a word, yes."

  "Jealous of a man because I expressed admiration for his talent? That's a helluva poor prospect for a successful marriage, Darren."

  He had been right, though. Probably for the wrong reasons—but he had seen it coming long before she did.

  "That's now irrelevant," Darren said. "I had another reason for keeping the information to myself, until I could decide what to do about it. You may not believe this, but I was trying to be fair. Hasn't it occurred to you that Riley's experiences in Vietnam may explain his present actions? Call it shell shock, call it post-whatever-the-current-fad-is syndrome—many of those men came back with permanent psychological damage. For years after he got back, Riley was little more than a bum. He worked as a laborer, a bartender, a janitor; he never held a job for more than a year. He was arrested several times for vagrancy. Eventually he landed in another army hospital, where they kept him for eighteen months. It wasn't his leg this time. He was being treated for drug abuse and mental illness."

  They had their lunch. It was not the friendly, comfortable tete-a-tete Darren had envisioned, but he appeared to enjoy it. Meg found his sympathy even more infuriating than his jealousy. "The poor devil doesn't need pity, he needs help," Darren kept insisting. "You're not doing him any favor by denying the evidence against him, Meg. He seems to have been stable for a long time—"

  "Yes, what about that?" Meg looked up from the slice of avocado she had been mashing into a pulp. "The rumors about his behavior here in Seldon—"

  "Are no more than rumors," Darren admitted. "I suspect it was the shock of Dan's death that made him lose control. He needs treatment, Meg. Heaven only knows what wild fantasies he's harboring."

  Meg put her fork down. She couldn't eat; the sight of food made her sick. "It always goes back to Dan, doesn't it? He might at least have had the decency to leave me one of those long rambling letters exposing his dirty secrets and tying up the loose ends. What's the connection between him and Riley? There must be a connection, a strong one, somewhere in the past; they couldn't have developed such a tight relationship in only three years. Couldn't your tame 'tec dig it out?"

  Darren adjusted his glasses. He looks just like a stupid Jersey cow, Meg thought bitterly, with those big brown eyes of his beaming placid satisfaction. "Dan was the one who paid for his college and technical training."

  "Another little item you chose not to tell me. Why?"

  "I was wrong," Darren admitted magnanimously. "From now on I won't hold anything back. But surely you can see why I feared you might be distressed. Think it through, Meg. How did Dan happen to find a designer of Riley's quality? What did he see in a mental patient, a bum, that would lead him to go to such expense and trouble?"

  Meg stared, aghast, and Darren gently administered the coup de grace. "He's Dan's bastard son, Meg. He must be. There is no other logical explanation."

  Only the stiff-necked pride she had learned from both grandparents kept Meg from bursting into hot denials. Darren would think she was objecting because she didn't want Riley to be a blood relative—and maybe Darren would be right. However, that wasn't the only logical explanation. It was a possible explanation, and the one Darren wanted to believe. Meg didn't believe it. (Because she didn't want to believe it?)

  "How old is Riley?" she asked.

  "Thirty-six. Dan was fifty-three when he was born. That's an age when many men go off the rails, even men as devoted to their wives as Dan."

  "The midlife crisis in males seems to run from thirty to eighty," Meg said caustically. "Never mind the soothing psychology, Darren. Have you any concrete evidence that Dan knew Riley's mother, or are you suggesting she was just a common whore?"

  Darren winced. "Meg, dear, your language—"

  "What would you prefer—prostitute, tart, easy lay? Oh, the hell with it, Darren. You may be right, you may be wrong. Tell your boy to keep digging. And from now on I want to see those reports with my own eyes."

  It was not a happy note on which to end the discussion, but Meg was in no mood to be conciliatory. She had not had a good day—and the preceding night had been nothing to brag about either.

  Darren was studiously polite during the return drive, but whenever he stopped talking his lower lip protruded like that of a sulky child. Meg decided this was not the time to tell him about the partnership. She had a lot of things to settle in her own mind before she came to grips with that matter, not the least of which was the question of the cottage. Mr. Casey would be arriving shortly. Why hadn't she put him off? Just because it happened to suit his schedule and good contractors were hard to find—but she was in no state to cope with the physical and emotional trauma of renovation. Her eyelids felt grainy from lack of sleep.

  When she got back to the store she stole like a thief into the office and closed the door. After she had seated herself at the desk she sat for a few moments with her shoulders bowed and her hands over her eyes. Then she straightened and reached for the phone.

  Nick sounded even warier than usual when his secretary finally put her through to him. He probably thinks I'm going to make a scene, Meg thought dispassionately. "I need a discreet private inquiry firm," she said, without wasting time on apologies or explanations. "Can you recommend one?"

  "Why, uh—yes, I do know of one." He gave her the name. Meg thanked him and was about to hang up when he said, "I find I'll be able to make that business meeting after all. Is Friday still okay with you?"

  It took her a few seconds to understand what he meant. "No. It isn't okay with me."

  "Saturday, then. I have a new set of figures I'd like to present."

  I'll just bet you do, Meg thought, marveling at her own detachment. A few days ago—a few hours ago—she might have responded, given him a chance to repair their relationship. Now she could only marvel at his smug assumption that theirs had been a standard lovers' quarrel rather than a final break.

  "Sorry," she said, and hung up before he could answer.

  She dialed the number he had given her. As she described what she wanted done, her voice got gradually softer. After he had asked her for the second time to repeat a name, she said, "Just a minute," and hurried to the door.

  There was no one in the store. It had been her guilty conscience that imagined the click of the extension being lifted. She went back to the telephone and forced herself to finish the call. "It's extremely urgent. I want it done as quickly as possible."

  After she had hung up she crept back to the door and peeked out. To think that only a few days earlier she had made that smug self-righteous speech to Darren about invading someone's privacy. . . . But it had to be done. She didn't trust Darren; she didn't trust anyone, except possibly Mike, and even he. . . . They were all keeping things from her, editing the facts, sometimes deliberately, sometimes unconsciously, telling her what she wanted to hear or what they thought she ought to hear. Sh
e found herself remembering another of Dan's favorite sayings. "Don't take anybody's word for anything. Find out for yourself." Well, that was what she was going to do.

  The chimes tinkled, heralding a customer. Riley emerged from the shop, saw Meg and retreated without speaking. She advanced, smiling stiffly, to do her job.

  The customer, a balding, heavyset man with eyes like gimlets, wanted a present for his wife. After discovering they had nothing in his price range—under fifteen dollars—he left, muttering discontentedly. "Cheapskate," Meg said, as the door closed after him. Now what? Mr. Casey would be there in twenty minutes, and she had no idea where to find the keys to the cottage. They were not among the neatly labeled keys on Dan's ring. There must be a set somewhere. George might know, but she hated to ask him, it might be tantamount to rubbing salt in his wounds. Perhaps Riley. . . . No. He was the least likely person. She was just looking for an excuse to see him, hear his voice, win back the ground she had lost. ... He had told her he didn't accept help gracefully. But it wasn't fair, it wasn't her fault that she had been witness to his weakness, as he obviously considered it. How many other people knew about it? He had gone to great lengths to conceal it; even that slow, arrogant stride was probably the only alternative to a betraying limp. When he took off work Friday afternoon he must have gone for one of the treatments Darren had mentioned. He had looked exhausted the following morning; probably the procedure was painful. . . .

  I've got to stop this, she thought. He doesn't want pity. That's not what I feel. How can I make him understand? It wasn't his physical handicap that opened my eyes, it was what happened before I found out—that moment of mutual dependence and confidence, when he trusted me enough to admit his vulnerability and lend his strength to mine. ... If Cliff hadn't come in just then. . . . I'd like to kill him. I'd like to kill Riley, for being so bullheaded and stiff-necked and unresponsive. . . . With a muttered curse she snatched up the telephone and dialed the number of the hardware store.

  The sound of Mike's slow, deep drawl failed to have its usual calming effect, and his deliberate answers annoyed her inordinately. No, he was sorry, but he had no idea where the keys to the cottage might be. He couldn't get anybody out there on such short notice. Anyhow, what she needed was a locksmith.

  "Mike, please stop telling me what I can't do," Meg said. "I'm getting into that cottage today if I have to break down the door. I had hoped you might suggest a better alternative."

  "Now just calm down, honey. What's the rush? You sound upset. You better wait a day or two, take time to figure things out."

  "Thanks, Mike." Meg hung up. After hesitating for a moment she dialed the house.

  It was such a pleasant change to have someone acquiesce unquestioningly to her orders that she began to relax—until, having settled the arrangements, she turned to see Riley standing in the door of the shop.

  As she waited for him to speak, Meg was aware of a disconcerting sensation of upheaval, as if all her internal organs were changing place. The chaos of shifting viewpoints, from "Uncle Aloysius" through "drug addict" and "psychotic," finally stabilized and she found herself able to see him as she had before Darren dumped his load of news onto her—complex, enigmatic, troubled and, she hoped, salvageable. Even her new awareness of him as a man who could arouse her physically and emotionally subsided into something controllable; it was still there, but instead of roaring through her veins like rapids it had become a background murmur—but a murmur as steady and necessary as her heartbeat.

  "I heard," Riley said, indicating the intercom.

  "That's okay. It wasn't a private conversation." She thought of the very private conversations she had conducted earlier and was glad she had forgotten how to blush.

  "Are you leaving now?"

  "As soon as Mr. Casey gets here. Why don't you close up?"

  I shouldn't have said that, she thought. Damn the man, why can't he wallow in female sympathy, like some of the guys I know?

  "It's not necessary," Riley said. "I'm all right. Do you mind if I ask you a personal question? You don't have to answer."

  "Ask," Meg said. Her heart, or some equally inconvenient organ, beat an unsteady tattoo against her rib cage.

  "The cottage you were talking about. ... Is that the one on the estate, that's been closed up all these years?"

  "Yes." The inconvenient organ sank into her shoes. "Is that your idea of a personal question?"

  "I haven't asked that one yet. Are you. . . . Why are you so anxious to get in the place?"

  "I'm planning to live there."

  "Why?"

  "I want a place of my own. The cottage is ideal—close to Gran, in case she needs me, and yet offering the privacy I want."

  "It's private enough," Riley muttered. "That's the only reason?"

  "What other reason could there be?"

  "If that's how you feel," Riley said slowly. "There isn't any other reason."

  The chimes rang an accompaniment to the last words. Mr. Casey had arrived.

  As Meg had requested, one of the gardeners was waiting for them when they reached the estate. He was loaded with tools and wearing an anticipatory grin. At his age—he looked no more than eighteen—the prospect of being allowed to break into a house, violently and legally, must have been appealing. Meg had forgotten his name, so she let the two men introduce themselves, and led the way.

  "Dunno how I'm gonna get a crew in here," Casey said doubtfully, beating a path through the weeds.

  "There used to be a back gate and driveway," Meg said. "The drive was gravel, I think; it must be completely overgrown. Dennis, will you check that out first thing tomorrow? Clear the drive, find out what has to be done to open the gate; it may be rusted shut. I want these weeds cut down too."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  She listened patiently to Casey's grumbling as they circled the house looking for a way in. If she had taken him seriously she might have concluded it made more sense to tear the place down and start all over. Chimneys, walls, shutters, foundation, all were in "turrible shape, it was gonna cost a mint of money— and that was just the outside." However, she had done some minor remodeling of her apartment, so she was familiar with the mind-set of men who fix things, be they painters, plumbers, electricians or humble handymen. "I'm sure you can do it," she said firmly. "Dennis, let's tackle the back door. It will have to be replaced anyway, the boards are rotting."

  "Termites," groaned Mr. Casey.

  Splinters flew as Dennis hurled himself and his crowbar joyously into the fray, but when the door finally yielded and he faced darkness thick with the stench of sour air, he stepped back, his grin fading.

  "Geez, Miz Meg, I wouldn't go in there if I was you. Smells like something died."

  A lot of things had died—mice, birds and at least one larger mammal, whose bones had been picked clean by smaller predators. With the help of the flashlight Dennis had brought, Meg picked her way across the dusty, squeaking floor while Dennis began removing the boards from the windows. As sunlight replaced the darkness she beheld a scene of desolation that almost converted her to Casey's pessimistic view of the task ahead.

  It wouldn't have been quite so bad if the house had been empty. Some of the contents must have been removed—trinkets, personal possessions, favorite chairs or pictures—but most of the furniture remained, shrouded in tattered dust covers. The fabric had been fouled and chewed by animals. Broken glass had fallen from several panes, and only the breeze coming through the openings made the air breathable.

  Her handkerchief to her nose, Meg was in the hall, heading for the dining room, when she heard voices outside. One was that of Dennis. The other was Cliffs.

  Meg hurried to the back, hoping to head him off. The wreckage distressed her, and she had never lived here. It had been Cliff's home. Seeing it as it was now would be like viewing the rotting corpse of a friend.

  She was too late. He was standing in the open doorway when she entered the kitchen. He didn't look at her; his eyes wandered fr
om the open cupboard doors to the scarred surface of the kitchen table, and she knew he was seeing the past: shining chrome, gleaming floors, a table spread with food. Not knowing what to say, she followed him into the living room, where he stopped short, swaying as if from a physical blow.

  "I'm so sorry, Cliff." She moved to his side, put her arm around him. "I had no idea it would be this bad."

  "What are you apologizing for? Serves me right for butting in where I wasn't invited." But his voice was remote, without its usual bite, and his eyes remained focused on memory. "We used to sit there, on the couch in front of the fireplace, after supper. She always read me a story before I went to bed. Dad built a fire on winter nights. I remember. . . ."

  A shudder rippled through his body. When he spoke again his voice was normal. "So much for the joys of nostalgia. I don't remember all that much, to be honest. How old was I—seven?— when they sent me to boarding school? I blamed you for that, you know."

  "You picked on me," Meg said. Casey had joined them; conscious of his curious stare, she moved away from Cliff. "I don't remember much either, but I remember how you used to bully me. A poor helpless little four-year-old girl."

  "Yeah, I was a rotten kid." He turned to Casey and held out his hand. "I'm Cliff Wakefield, Ms. Venturi's cousin. Think you can do anything with this ruin, Mr.—"

  "Casey, Joe Casey. It's not so bad, Cliff. Basic structure's still sound."

  Reduced to her proper inferior status, Meg followed the two from room to room while they discussed the repairs manto-man. In the presence of another male, Casey waxed positively garrulous, and Cliff nodded and looked wise as the contractor talked learnedly about joists and vents and subflooring. Meg suspected he knew no more about them than she did. What it came down to, she decided, was that she would have to install new wiring and plumbing, buy a new furnace and new appliances, have the chimneys repaired, repair the windows and frames and replace floorboards, molding and steps eaten by termites . . . gut the house, in other words. So why couldn't Casey just say so?