Stone Mattress: Nine Tales(61)

He turns away from the window, focuses instead on Irena. She’s a bit wrinkled and quite a lot thinner, but all in all she’s held up well. Her cheekbones stand out; she looks distinguished and expensive. Her astonishingly blue eyes are still unreadable. She’s much better dressed than when they were roommates; but then, so is he.

The white wine comes, a cabernet sauvignon. They lift glasses. “Here we are again,” says Irena with a trembly little smile. Is she nervous? Irena was never nervous before; or not that he could tell.

“It’s wonderful to see you,” says Jack. Surprisingly, he means it.

“The foie gras is especially good here,” says Irena. “I know you’ll like it. That’s why I chose this place for you: I always did know what you like.” She licks her lips.

“You were my inspiration,” Jack finds himself saying. Jack, you shameless cornball, he admonishes himself; but it seems he wants to give her pleasure. How did that happen? He needs to cut to the chase, toss her off a balcony, heave her down some stairs.

“I know,” says Irena, smiling wistfully. “I was Violet, wasn’t I? Only she was more beautiful, and I was never that selfish.”

“You were more beautiful to me,” Jack says.

Is that a tear, is she having an emotion? Now he’s frightened. He always depended on Irena to keep herself under control, he now realizes. He won’t be able to murder a sniffling Irena: to be murdered, she needs to be heartless.

“I bought those shoes, the red ones,” she says. “Just like the ones in the book.”

“That’s …” says Jack. “That’s wild.”

“I’ve always kept them. In their shoebox.”

“Oh,” says Jack. This is getting too strange. She’s as nutty as some of his little Goth girls, she’s fetishized him. Maybe he should forget about killing her. Make a run for it. Plead indigestion.

“It opened things up for me, that book,” she says. “It gave me confidence.”

“Being stalked by a dead hand?” says Jack. He’s losing focus. Had he really intended to steer Irena down a dark alley and hit her with a brick? That had only been a daydream, surely.

“I guess you must have hated me all those years, because of the money,” says Irena.

“No, not really,” says Jack untruthfully. He has indeed hated her. But he doesn’t hate her now.

“It wasn’t the money,” she says. “I didn’t want to hurt you,

I just wanted to stay connected. I didn’t want you to forget all about me, in your glamorous new life.”

“It’s not so glamorous,” Jack says. “I wouldn’t have forgotten you. I could never forget you.” Is this bullshit, or does he really mean it? He’s been in the bullshit world for so long it’s hard to distinguish.

“I liked it that you didn’t kill Violet,” she says. “I mean, the Hand didn’t. It was so touching, the way you ended it. It was beautiful. I cried.”

Jack had been intending to let the Hand strangle Violet: it seemed right, it seemed fitting. The Hand would cover her nose, her mouth; then it would close around her neck and squeeze with its dead shrivelled fingers, and her eyes would roll up like a saint’s in ecstasy.

But at the last minute Violet had bravely overcome her terror and revulsion, and had taken the initiative. She’d extended her own hand, and reached out in love, and stroked the Hand, because she knew it was William really, or part of William. Then the Hand had vaporized in a silvery mist. Jack had stolen that from Nosferatu: the love of a pure woman had an uncanny power over the things of darkness. Maybe 1964 was the last moment when you could get away with that: try such a thing now and people would only laugh.

“I’ve always thought that ending was a message you were sending,” says Irena. “To me.”

“A message?” says Jack. Is she wacko, or is she right? The Jungians and the Freudians would agree with her. Though if it was a message, f*cked if he knows what it meant.

“You were afraid,” says Irena, as if in answer. “You were afraid that if I really touched you, if I reached out and touched your heart – if you let me come too close to the truly fine, spiritual person you kept hidden inside – then you’d vanish. And that’s why you couldn’t, why you didn’t … why it fell apart. But you can now.”

“I guess we’ll find out,” says Jack. He grins what he hopes is a boyish grin. Does he have a fine spiritual person hidden inside? If he does, Irene is the only one who’s ever believed in it.

“I guess we will,” says Irena. She smiles again and puts her hand on top of his; he can feel the bones inside her fingers. He covers their two joined hands with his second hand. He squeezes.

“I’m sending you a bouquet of roses tomorrow,” he says. “Red ones.” He gazes into her eyes. “Consider it a proposal.”

There. He’s taken the plunge, but the plunge into what? Jack, be nimble, he tells himself. Avoid traps. She may be too much for you, not to mention crazy. Don’t make a mistake. But how much time does he have left in his life to worry about mistakes?





STONE MATTRESS




At the outset Verna had not intended to kill anyone. What she had in mind was a vacation, pure and simple. Take a breather, do some inner accounting, shed worn skin. The Arctic suits her: there’s something inherently calming in the vast cool sweeps of ice and rock and sea and sky, undisturbed by cities and highways and trees and the other distractions that clutter up the landscape to the south.