This Sweet Sickness (21 page)

After he had hung up, he tackled the radiocarbon book again, and now it was interesting. He skimmed through it, concentrating only on the chapters beside which Dr. Osbourne had put a small, neat check in the table of contents. He read steadily for nearly two hours, until he began to feel sleepy. When he thought of Effie and Wes again, they seemed miles away and quite removed from him. If Wes didn't know the Neumeister story, then he obviously couldn't tell it to Annabelle. And Effie wouldn't. Apparently he could depend on her. William Neumeister—good old Bill—had come through again. A pity David Kelsey couldn't be such an all-round success.

When he went upstairs and glanced into the bedroom, he had a funny illusion: he thought he saw Annabelle lying on the bed, face down, with her arms around the pillow. He had left one lamp on in the bedroom. But the bed was made, its surface smooth, he saw as he blinked and stared at it. Had the illusion been due to eyestrain, he wondered, or to a quirk of his brain? Matter or mind? That was a question for a metaphysician.

A whole week passed with no call from Annabelle. David went to dinner one evening at the home of Kenneth Laing, a thirty-five-year-old physicist in his department, and the other evenings he spent at home. He was tempted every evening to call Annabelle, especially the evening he came home from the Laings': couldn't he tell Annabelle the telephone had been ringing as he came in and that he had called to see if it had been she? But he knew Annabelle would find the story only pitiful. She called him so seldom. She never
had
called him in this house, David realized. And maybe she never would. That thought drove him from his armchair, and he hurled the book he had been reading against the pillows of his bed. No use thinking things like that, playing little games with himself, holding his breath as long as he could and betting—against whom?—that the telephone was going to ring before he had to breathe again. No use running down the stairs
every
time he flushed the toilet. But if he ran down the stairs half the time, what was to tell him which half of the time he should run down?

What would somebody else do? What would William Neumeister do? William Neumeister would go up to Hartford, pack her things and drag her out of that apartment, David thought. And another man, any other man, what would he do? David broke his pacing of the floor and ran downstairs to the telephone and called her.

A strange female voice answered, a middle-aged voice.

“May I speak to Annabelle?”

“She's not here. Who's calling?”

David, suddenly realizing who it was, felt a wave of anger break over him. “A friend,” he said nastily. “Can you tell me when she'll be back? I'll call again.”

“Oh, well, they went to the movies, y'know. Then they'll probably have a cup of coffee and something at the Sweet Shop—” She chuckled with vicious satisfaction.

“How very charming. She and Grant, you mean.”

“Yep,” said the crude, smug voice. “Listen here—”

“Mrs. Barber, you listen to me. I advise you to tell your son to keep his distance from Annabelle, understand? There's some people I don't like her associating with and he's one of them.”

“Are you that David? I thought you were that David. You've got a fine nerve calling that nice girl up and making trouble after all the trouble you've made already. I'm going to tell the police! I'm going—”

“Shut your stupid mouth! I'd like you to leave a message for Annabelle to—”

But Mrs. Barber had hung up.

David slammed the telephone down. “Bastards!” he muttered. Then he put his head back and laughed at the idea of Mrs. Barber calling the police about him. He laughed long and richly with the relief and the satisfaction his burst of temper had given him. It was a great pleasure, a great satisfaction to yell “Shut your stupid mouth!” to an old hag like Mrs. Barber. She deserved it so. David wondered how many people had had the courage to call her that to her face? Not many, he supposed, not enough, anyway. Otherwise Mrs. Barber couldn't walk the earth with such unbelievable and revolting complacence. She was the kind of mother who, on producing a clod of a son like herself, would congratulate and preen herself every damned Mother's Day. Her vulgar figure would bustle up to the head of the table at every holiday feast, and no one would praise her greasy cooking more than she herself. It must be great, David thought, really great to have such a high, unchallengeable opinion of oneself, to think that everything one did or possessed or thought or maybe even felt was the best and the finest in the world!

“Good
God
!” David said in total exasperation, almost as furious again as he had been on the telephone.

He thought of driving to Hartford. He could get there by midnight with any luck. But by midnight, Annabelle would probably be in bed, and she'd be annoyed if he called her. Nonsense, David thought. Where had his passivity, his lack of action ever gotten him or anybody else?

Less than ten minutes later, David was on the road.

Just across the Connecticut line, he was stopped for speeding by a traffic cop who, however, let him off with a warning, despite the fact David did not trouble to appear contrite. After that the roads were clear, and he reached Annabelle's street at ten to twelve. A dim light showed at a third-story window, which he thought was hers, though he realized he had never been in that bedroom and he only assumed it had a window on the street. David pressed the bell confidently.

There was a rather long wait, he rang again, and then the release button sputtered the door open for him.

“Who is it, please?” Annabelle's voice called down.

“David,” he replied, climbing the stairs two at a time. “Are you alone?”

“No. No, I'm not alone.”

“Good.” He smiled at her and would have taken her hand, but she avoided him. “Grant's here?”

“Yes. Dave, must you? Can't we talk out here? What is it?”

“What it is is that I want you. And I intend to tell this guy Grant off,” David said, moving toward the door that was slightly ajar.

Grant Barber stood there, a fellow nearly as tall as David and heavier, a blank expression on his rather stupid face. His black hair was crew cut.

“Yes, I'm David. How do you do?” David said, walking past him into the room.

“If you're here to make more trouble, Mr. Kelsey,” said Mrs. Barber, wild-eyed, “I'm going to call the police!” And she moved toward the telephone, keeping her eyes on David.

David put his fists on his hips. “I'm not armed, Mrs. Barber. What do you think I am?” His voice cracked. He turned suddenly to Grant. “Mr. Barber, you've had your last date with Annabelle, so I hope you enjoyed it.”

“What're you getting at? I think you'd better get out of here, Mr. Kelsey. This is Annabelle's house and she doesn't want you here.”

“I don't like you either. But I didn't come here to call you a lot of unpleasant names. I came here to tell you Annabelle's going to be my wife and that I am not pleased about her making dates with men like you, understand?”

“Oh! Listen to that! Did you ever!” The old hag was flapping about again, like a chicken in a barnyard. “I'll give you just one minute to get out of this house, Mr. Kelsey, and if you don't, I'm going to call the law!”

“Just shut up,” David told her.

“Dave, please,” Annabelle said. “You can't come here and make scenes like this.”

“Darling, I'm sorry, but this is something that's got to be done. I want you to pack your things.”

“Oh, Dave!” Annabelle threw her head back in a gesture of despair that David had never seen before.

He caught her shoulders. “Annabelle—”

“Get your hands off her!” said the blustering Mr. Barber, and David quickly took his hands from Annabelle and hit Grant in the jaw.

The blow staggered him but didn't fell him. Grant backed against a coffee table, upsetting a couple of cups, and David patiently righted the dishes, while Mrs. Barber cackled and screamed, and Annabelle held Grant back from coming after him with his fists, though David doubted that Grant would have really tried to take him on. Grant looked scared.

“I think you should, I think you should,” Grant was saying to his mother, and his mother picked up the telephone.

“Don't be a bore,” David said, pulling the telephone gently but firmly from her hands.

“Dave, I ask you to leave—if you care anything about me,” Annabelle said.

“I'm not afraid of him,” Grant was muttering nervously, more to himself than to Annabelle.

“Grant, take the phone!” his mother commanded, but David held the telephone in both his hands, swinging it out of her reach. “Go downstairs and call somebody, Grant! Or
I
will!”

“Pack your bag and let's leave these people!” David yelled over Mrs. Barber to Annabelle.

Now the baby was crying in the bedroom. The sound was another little encumbrance to David. But having gone this far—For an instant, with all three of them shouting at him and somebody in the next apartment thumping on the wall, David lost his momentum and felt a presentiment of defeat. Then he grabbed Annabelle's wrist and propelled her toward the bedroom, and told her again to get the things that she wanted to take with her. Mrs. Barber's wrinkled, hideous mouth so close to his eyes filled him with intolerable disgust, and he would happily have pushed her in the face and sent her across the room if he could have brought himself to touch her. Her son was pulling at his shoulder. Then David swung around suddenly and this time the crack of his fist against Grant's jaw was very satisfactory, seemed enough to have knocked his head off, and Grant's shoulders boomed against an opposite wall.

Mrs. Barber screamed, and the crazy babble of voices came to a sudden halt.

“
David
!” Annabelle shouted, covering her face with both hands.

“I'm asking you to do a simple thing!” David yelled at her. “You're coming with me tonight!”

“You're out of your mind!” Annabelle said as if she were in terror of him.

David looked around and saw Mrs. Barber crouched on the floor beside her son, who was moving but was too groggy to get up. Slowly David picked up a standing lamp that had been knocked over. An ugly lamp. “We're leaving,” he said quietly to Annabelle.

There was a knocking at the door. “Mrs. Delaney? What's going on in there?”

Then Annabelle rushed to the door, calling to Mr. Somebody, and David closed his eyes and ears to Mrs. Barber's yapping and her fist-shaking and her fat, quivering forearm motioning him to the door. A scowling man with black and gray hair came into the room, and David noticed he hadn't quite the courage to clench his fists.

“Mrs. Delaney would—would like you to leave or we'll get the police,” the man said to David.

“
Get
the police,” David replied. “I want these two people removed.” He gestured to the Barbers.

“Is he drunk?” asked the man.

“No,” Annabelle said. “David, this has gone on long enough. I may as well tell you I'm going to marry Grant and there's nothing you can do about it. Nothing.”

He looked at her, unbelieving, not even feeling angry now, only bewildered by what seemed a small, stupid delay. He glanced at the scowling man who stood rigidly braced for an attack, and at Grant who was getting to his feet. His mother clung to his arm. It would be possible, of course, to knock Mr. Barber's head off and thus keep him from marrying Annabelle or anybody else, but that was troublesome, messy, and uncivilized. David laughed. “I don't believe you. Not for a minute. You're just trying to get me to go quietly.”

“We certainly are,” said the older man.

“Please do go, Dave. It's late and the whole house is upset,” Annabelle said.

“Well, that's a hell of a thing to tell me!” David said, exploding suddenly. “What do I care if the house is upset? My whole life is upset and now you tell me you're going to make another mess of yours!”

“I know what I want to do, Dave,” she said. “And I swear, Dave, I'm tired of you meddling in my life. I don't care what I say now or how I say it, I've had enough. I've been patient, understanding—I've taken your insults—”

“Insults?” he said, coming toward her, confused by her beauty, her face that he loved and the words she was saying. Then the older man made a lunge for him, and David veered toward Grant Barber. David hurled a fist at him again, but his arm was caught, and the blow fell short. David's arm felt on fire where the man had caught it.

“Look here, you're going to leave!” the man shouted at him.

Grant, too, had entered the fight, David had one on either arm now, and he couldn't throw them off. He braced his feet against the approach of the door, which Mrs. Barber was opening. Another man, two men, appeared in the hall. David bent and hurled himself against Grant, but it was David's own head that cracked against the wall. After that, he might as well have been unconscious, though he was aware that he struggled on with all the strength he could muster, fighting them every inch of the way down the stairs. There might have been five of them grappling with him, pulling at ankles, wrists, hair, anything they could get their hands on, and David fought back with a bitterness he had never known before, as if all five or ten of them were Mrs. Barbers that he now had a perfect right to hit and kick at. At the bottom, he and a couple of them fell to the floor, and David felt himself pulled up on his legs again as if he weighed nothing. Then he was aware that his feet dragged the ground, aware of a babble of voices, and of Annabelle's voice among them, and he was unable to reply, might as well have been paralyzed.

They hit his head on the door frame of his car. The car door slammed shut. David knew his eyes were shut, knew he was half reclined on the front seat, and that he was motionless, though his rage still boiled and stormed in him.