She returned to her room, settled herself beneath the covers. Her sense of smell, she decided, was especially acute tonight. The gas in the kitchen had been far more pungent than usual, and now the alcoholic perspiration that David gave off was stronger than she remembered it. Perhaps it was a heightened sensitivity of hers that made her see the woman in the shawl on this particular night.
She lay back, closed her eyes. A couple of thoughts began to move into her consciousness, but the Valium took hold quickly and she slid away from them.
She awoke in the morning with what felt like a hangover. Her breakfast was coffee and cigarettes, an excessive amount of each, and they set her nerves on edge. She went to the medicine cabinet, hesitated, then took a Valium. What the hell, they were medicine. Otherwise why would Gintzler have prescribed them for her?
Around ten-thirty she called Jeff at his office. He wasn’t in and she declined to leave a message. She called again at eleven and a third time at eleven-thirty, and each time his secretary assured her that he was out. The third time she said, “This is Mrs. Jardell. I’m sure he’ll talk to me.”
“But he’s not in, Mrs. Jardell,” the woman said. “He may be in shortly, or he’ll probably call in for his messages. Shall I have him call you?”
“Please.”
She had no appetite for lunch but forced herself to make a cheese sandwich and managed to eat a little more than half of it. She drank some more coffee, smoked several cigarettes, and swallowed another Valium on her way out the door.
It was cold out, and the wind had an edge to it. She drew her car coat around her and walked purposefully south and east. At the Battery, she walked through the little park and stood with her arms propped on the railing, looking out over the water. She was alone. There was no one fishing from the shore, only a few scattered persons on the park benches. A few hundred yards out on the water, a cruise boat carried passengers taking a tour of the harbor.
It was restful at the railing, restful looking out over the water. Here, away from the house, she could dismiss the pools of anxiety that floated on the edge of consciousness. She didn’t have to let herself be aware of them. Instead she could relax in the Valium’s embrace, going with the flow, letting herself relax. Sometimes she would feel her mind beginning to drift, and at those times it was necessary to drag herself abruptly away from those areas that didn’t bear thinking about. Each time she made herself return to the peace of the harbor view like a meditator returning to his mantra, embracing it with something like relief.
When she turned from the harbor view, her eyes fastened on a black woman seated on a bench halfway across the park. She was leaning way forward, trying to feed something to an apprehensive squirrel. At first Roberta thought it was the woman she’d talked to before Caleb’s death, the woman who had spoken so knowingly of haunts.
She wanted to avoid her entirely, then realized she’d come here hoping to encounter the woman. She made her way toward the bench, only to discover when she’d come within fifty yards of the woman that she was someone else altogether, a stranger, years younger and a good deal taller and more robust than the woman to whom she had spoken.
She turned from the woman and headed home.
At four o’clock she finally reached Jeff. She had called on returning to the house, thinking he might have tried her in her absence, but his secretary reported she had not heard from him. When she did reach him, he was short with her, almost brusque. She tried to tell him about the woman’s appearance in her bedroom and he didn’t seem to be paying much attention.
“I was hoping to see you today,” she said.
“I was tied up. Running around all over the place.”
“Maybe tomorrow—”
“I don’t think so, Bobbie.”
She hesitated, unable to leave it at that. “I need you,” she said. “I’m having a tough time right now, Jeff. I feel as though I’m cracking up. I’m holding myself together with little blue pills and I have a feeling there’s a point when they stop working.”
“I’ll try to call you.”
“Can’t we see each other?”
“Listen, I can’t make plans,” he snapped. “How do I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow? I might be dead tomorrow.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We could all be dead tomorrow,” he said. “Maybe we’d be better off.”
She was left holding a dead phone in her hand, shaking her head in wonder. He had never said anything remotely like that before. Nor had she ever felt the way she was feeling lately.
She felt all shaky inside.
Was it time for a pill? You were supposed to wait four hours. Had it been four hours? Not that the pills could have little Swiss watches ticking away inside of them. Four hours was the standard medical interval, wasn’t it? Four hours, two hundred forty minutes, fourteen thousand four hundred seconds — there was nothing magical, was there, about that particular span of time?
She laughed at her own rationalization. And went upstairs to take a Valium.
The pill grabbed hold almost immediately, as if the mere act of swallowing it engendered a psychological easing of tension even before the tablet could dissolve and enter the bloodstream. With its assistance, Roberta was able to concentrate on preparing dinner. While it was cooking Ariel came home, carrying her horrible flute, and David arrived moments later. For once Roberta was glad to see them, glad for company in the house.
The meal went well enough, she thought. She and David had a drink before dinner. You weren’t supposed to drink when you were taking Valium, she knew, but she didn’t think one would hurt. It did make her the slightest bit woozy, but its effects had vanished by the time dinner was over.
Afterward she cleared the table, did the dishes. Now a few hours of television, she thought, and you’ll have gotten through another day, and that’s not so bad, is it? She could just take them one at a time, and next week perhaps she’d start seeing Gintzler again. Or maybe not. Maybe she didn’t need therapy.
She couldn’t concentrate on the television.
Twice she got up, walked to the closed door of David’s study. Both times she made herself turn and walk back to the television set.
The third time she knocked briskly, then opened the door. He was sitting like some sort of English gentleman with his pipe and his brandy and his book. He frowned at her, and she saw that his eyes were already slightly glazed. He was drunk, she thought.
“What?” he said. “What do you want?”
Drunk. No time for a conversation, least of all a heavy conversation. Say something trivial, she told herself. Something about trouble with the car, something that won’t lead anywhere, and then go back to the television set and numb yourself out until it’s time for bed.
Instead she said, “Could you come in the other room for a minute? I think we should talk.”
Ariel started the tape recorder, picked up her flute to play along with the track she had recorded earlier. She put the flute to her lips and waited, but instead of playing she merely sat and listened to the music. After a few moments she set her flute aside.
It had been a funny day. For some reason Erskine had been getting on her nerves, and she didn’t think it was anything he did. It was just her nerves.
On the way to his house after school, she had seen Jeffrey Channing three times. The first time Erskine didn’t see him. The car passed them without slowing down, and she just got a glimpse of him behind the wheel before he was out of sight. Another time his car crossed an intersection as they were approaching it, and it was Erskine who pointed it out, reading the license number as the car disappeared from view. The third time, Channing drove slowly past them when they were on Erskine’s block. Erskine said, “Don’t look but it’s him again,” and of course she looked, and her eyes locked with his but only for a moment because although he was driving very slowly he was still going faster than they were.