She made no move to open her purse. She said, “I have no Uncle Charley and I didn’t go to grade school.”
“No? Well, other things.”
“Nor did I talk about myself,” she said quietly, “except to give you an idea of Kelsey.”
“That’s true,” he said with a faint smile. “Sorry. My profession is one that breeds suspicions.”
“Since you intend to be reasonable, I’ll be just as reasonable and admit that I didn’t come here strictly for Kelsey’s sake, nor for my own. Whatever the others do I shall have to stay with Kelsey. I don’t expect much from life and that is all right. But I want you to save Johnny and Philip.”
“Save them?” he said ironically. “From what?”
“From Kelsey, from this feeling of guilt that keeps them there when they should both go away and live their own lives. She’s only keeping Philip to make him suffer. She tells him to get out and when he tries to leave she won’t let him.”
“She’s not a witch,” Loring said. “And he’s not a cripple.”
“You’re wrong. She’s part witch, and I think he’s part cripple. Philip isn’t strong enough to stand up to her. And now it’s worse than ever because about three months ago she began to imagine that there were eyes watching her, a wall of eyes.”
He leaned forward across the desk. “Whose eyes?”
She didn’t see him or hear him. “She has built a wall of eyes around her, the good eyes of the rest of us, the eyes of the people who hate her and watch her and wait for her to die. That’s what she says, that the eyes are watching and waiting. Yesterday she was clawing the wall, the ordinary wall of her room, trying to...”
She stopped, sucking in her breath. “Letty found her on the floor, crying.”
“Letty?”
“She was my mother’s nurse. It is a terrible thing to see a blind person cry, eyes that can’t see shouldn’t cry, blind eyes should be tearless and unseen. But there she was, crying, on the floor. Her eyes look real, they haven’t faded, they look as good as new.”
“Don’t you cry!”
She stared at him. “I’m not one of your lonely ladies — in love.”
“They’re not my ladies,” he said irritably. “Don’t get personal. I haven’t done anything to you.”
“You’re cold, without sympathy, and you’re too young. I don’t trust you. I think I want to go home.”
“Five bucks,” Loring said wearily.
She half rose from her chair. He reached his hand across the desk and made a violent pushing motion toward her. The hand didn’t touch her but the gesture was so savage she fell back in her chair, cold with fright.
“There,” he said. “I’ve lost my temper. Every time I lose my temper I double my price. You’d better get out of here while you’re still solvent. Try Graham at the Medical Arts. He’s twice as old as I am and twice as sympathetic and consequently twice as expensive and twice as rich. He’ll suit you on all counts.”
“You can’t order me out of here. I don’t want to go. I’m all mixed up...”
“You’re mixed up because you talk too much. You’re even dragging me into the conversation.” He saw that she was going to cry and his voice coaxed her. “Tell me about your sister. Good Lord!”
Her crying was as quietly intense as her voice. She cried for some time, holding the sleeve of her suit over her eyes to hide her face from him. When she had finished she put her arm down again and he saw with a shock the two dry deep lines from her nose to her mouth. She looked forty. Tears were not a balm to her as they were to the lonely ladies.
She probably never cries, Loring thought, so why in hell is she crying now?
“Please,” he said. “Tell me about your sister. What do you want me to do about her?”
“See her,” Alice said. “Talk to her. Make her realize her own motives for some of her actions, let her see that she’s only ruining her own life.”
“A tall order.”
“Yes, but she’s reasonable, she’s more coldly reasonable really than any of the rest of us. And some of it — I’m sure that some of it is only pretense. Not the eyes, but some other things. She pretends that she’s forgotten she used to smoke and she refuses to let us smoke in the house.”
“Was she smoking when the accident occurred?”
“No. She had asked Philip to light her cigarette. The windows of the car were open and Philip bent down, cupping the match in his hands, when the car crashed. He tried to twist the wheel at the last minute.”
“Will she see me voluntarily?”
“No! She doesn’t even know I’ve come here. Could you... couldn’t you come to the house? We could pretend that you were a friend of mine. You could come for tea. I know this is imposing on you.”
“No.” he said dryly. “I like tea. When?”
“Tomorrow?”
“All right,” Loring said. “What about the dog?”
She stared at him. “What about him?”
“Why did you bring him along?”
“Oh.” She hesitated. “I know what you’re thinking, that perhaps I like to pretend I’m blind, identify myself with...”
“You’re at it again.”
“I brought him because he has to be kept in practice. Is that good enough?”
“Fine. Tomorrow at what time?”
“Four. You have my address. What... what is your first name?”
“Tom.”
“Mine is Alice. I think you had better not be a doctor tomorrow. What will you be?”
“I have sold insurance,” Loring said. “I could sell it again.”
“I hope... I’m sure you’ll be able to help.”
“Don’t hope anything,” he said curtly. “The girl is blind and she’s young and she was in love. What good can I do? I can’t make her see again.” He opened the door and saw Prince. “How would you like to be led around by a dog?”
She went past him. Without turning around she said, “Well, you can try, can’t you?”
“Sure,” he said cynically.
“Good day.”
“Good day.”
He watched her from the window, liking the way she walked, with smooth arrogance, as if she had paid for every inch of the sidewalk and her own personal engineers had constructed it, guaranteed without holes.
Chapter 2
She lay on her lounge beside the window, her neck twisted to one side so that a blue net ruffle of curtain softly touched her hair, coaxing her to wake up. But it wasn’t time yet, she would wake when the sun came round the corner of her window and gradually warmed her hair, her forehead and finally her eyelids.
Even when the sun did come she didn’t open her eyes but lay quietly, feeling the heat on her eyes like hot slivers of steel prying at her eyelids. She tasted her pain like an epicure, not moving her head out of the sun’s way or putting up her hand to draw the blind. She had to know that the sun was there, the room light, and she had to find out by herself, without asking anyone, “Is the sun out today?”
Not one of them would say simply “Yes,” or “No,” without pity or impatience, without telling her that the leaves had turned and were beginning to fall and suggesting that she go for a walk. She had her ways, like this one, of outwitting them, giving them no opening. They were all in a conspiracy to get her out of the house, walking on the street where people would stare at her or hurry past to avoid staring. Out there on the street she’d be helpless, she’d have to cling to Alice’s arm or lean on Prince’s harness, utterly dependent.