Ariel

Six

David sat in his ground-floor study, smoking a lovat-shaped Barling and watching the blue smoke rise to fill the little room. There was a bottle of brandy on one shelf of the built-in chestnut bookcases, and his eyes fixed on the bottle as they had done every few moments since he had entered the room. He wanted a drink, longed for a drink, but he had made the decision earlier not to have one. Not tonight, anyway.

It was his nighttime drinking that was becoming a problem. He never drank in the morning — only alcoholics, for God’s sake, drank in the morning. He was apt to order a drink at lunch — a Bloody Mary generally, occasionally a martini — but he never had more than one drink at that time, and frequently had a sandwich at his desk or a quick bite at the Greek place down the street and passed up his noon drink without giving it a thought.

He always had a drink after work. That was ritual. His after-work drink was scotch on the rocks with a twist of lemon, Teacher’s if he remembered to ask for it by brand name, otherwise whatever the bartender poured. At the Blueprint Room, just around the corner from Ashley-Cooper Home Products, the barman knew him and he didn’t have to specify his brand. He’d have one drink there, or at the Cliquot Club, or at Hardesty’s. Once in a while, on a Friday, say, he might have a second. Never a third.

He’d have another drink upon arriving home. Sometimes he and Roberta would have a drink together in the front room, but if she was busy or not in the mood he’d have it himself. Teacher’s on the rocks, but no twist of lemon this time. And only the one drink.

And that would be it for him until after dinner. A total of three drinks, four on exceptional occasions, sometimes only two if he missed his lunchtime cocktail. Some years ago, he recalled, he and Roberta had gotten briefly into the habit of wine with dinner. They made a mini-hobby out of it, trying different wines, reading books on the subject, drinking from elegant Waterford stemware. They’d given it up because neither of them had really liked wine all that much, and he had especially disliked the way it made him sleepy. Whenever they shared a bottle he was apt to doze off in front of the television set.

Now, curiously, he drank brandy after dinner to help him get to sleep. And brandy was the worst choice for that particular purpose, as he well knew. There was something distinctly stimulating about it, and on the one occasion when he’d taken it on an empty stomach he’d been rewarded with palpitations and jangling coffee nerves. It didn’t really make him sleepy; enough of it, though, and it would knock him out.

Yet it was what he wanted after dinner. Pipes to smoke and books to read (or at least turn the pages of) and brandy to sip, here in this little room that was solely his.

Well, tonight he was breaking the pattern. He’d had his Bloody Mary at lunch, his scotch at the Blueprint Room, a second scotch while he read the evening paper in the front room. And that was enough. He didn’t need any more. Hell, he didn’t even want any more.

His eyes rose again to the brandy bottle. Force of habit, he told himself, drawing on his pipe, watching the smoke rise. Force of habit, ritual, routine. It was that simple. And he would break the habit, the ritual, the routine, just as simply — by not taking the drink.

Because he felt he had the opportunity to take charge of his life, to grab hold of it and turn it around. His life, his marriage, his household — he sensed that everything was at some sort of crossroads. Things had been proceeding in a certain direction, and then Caleb had died abruptly, and now—

His pipe had gone out. He tried to relight it but there was nothing left to relight. He knocked out the dottle, ran a pipecleaner through the stem and shank. He returned the pipe to the rack, selected another one automatically, then put it back and left the little room.

In the doorway, he paused automatically for a glance at the brandy bottle, then turned his back on it and headed for the kitchen.

She was standing at the sink, a glass in her hand. Turning at his approach, she extended the glass to him and ordered him to look at it.

“What is it?”

“Just look at it.”

He took it from her hand, looked down into a glass half full of a cloudy brown liquid.

“Smell it.”

He did, and wrinkled his nose in distaste. It smelled of the bottom of a swamp, of something equally foul.

“It came out of the tap,” she explained. “I wanted a glass of water and that’s what came out of the tap. This house is driving me crazy.”

He reached to turn on the taps, the cold and then the hot. The water ran clear.

“I know,” she said. “It’s crystal clear now. But that’s what I got a minute ago.”

“Well, it’s an old house. Old plumbing.”

“I know it’s an old house.”

“And maybe it has nothing to do with the house. Maybe it’s the water supply. There was something in the paper not long ago, they were getting little red worms in their water up around Race and Rutledge. Maybe it’d be a good idea to let it run awhile before drinking, but—”

She shuddered, took the glass from him, poured its contents down the sink. “It’s this house,” she said. “And that stove, with the pilot lights going out all the damned time, and I’m forever smelling gas.”

“It’s not dangerous, you know.”

“So I’m told, but—”

He put an arm around her, rested his hand on her shoulder. She stiffened under his touch but he left his hand there. “You’re under a strain,” he said.

“Is that what it is?”

“Of course, and it’s understandable. Maybe it would be a good idea for you to see Gintzler again.”

“I’m not going crazy and I don’t need to see a psychiatrist.”

“He helped you before.”

“I’m not sure he helped me and I’m not sure I needed any help in the first place. I don’t want to see him now.”

“If you say so.”

“I say so.” She turned, drew away from him, and he withdrew his hand. There was a challenge in her eyes. He thought fleetingly of the bottle of brandy in his study — just a reflex thought, just a matter of habit — and then he rose to the challenge.

“This weekend,” he said, “I think you ought to take Ariel for a drive.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“A nice drive in the country. God knows it’s the perfect season for it. Ramble around inland or take a nice leisurely drive up the coast, just the two of you.”

“What are you getting at, David?”

“While you’re gone, I’ll clean out Caleb’s room.”

“While the child and I take a nice leisurely drive in the country.”

“That’s right.”

“While we’re doing this, you’ll clean out his room.”

He nodded.

“I don’t think I understand,” she said evenly. “Are you implying that Caleb’s room is dirty?”

“No.”

“Or disorganized? Are things out of place?”

“You know what I mean, Roberta.”

“You mean you want to get rid of his things. Throw them out.”

“Or give them away.”

“No.”

He flared. “For Christ’s sake, Roberta, why are you punishing yourself? What do you want to do, make the kid’s room into a national shrine? Or do you figure if you leave everything just the way it is maybe he’ll come back to it, like a soldier missing in action? Is that what it is?”

“Stop!”

“I’m not trying to hurt you.”

“You’re doing a good job of it. What are you trying to do?”

“I’m trying to help you get over something.”

“What? His death? Or his life?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You want to erase Caleb. You want to deny he ever existed.”

“And you want to deny he’s dead.”

“That’s not true.”

“Are you sure of that?”

She turned away from him. Other thoughts came to mind and he fought to keep himself from giving voice to them. There were just too many things they couldn’t say to each other, too many subjects that didn’t get mentioned.

She said, “The night he died—”

“What about it?”

“When I woke you—”

“Yes?”

“You went to his room to check him.”

“So?”

“What did you do?”

“I checked him.”

“How?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, did you pick him up? Did you touch him? What did you do to check him?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember?”

“Jesus,” he said. “It was the middle of the night and I just woke up out of a sound sleep. I didn’t pick him up. I suppose I touched him.”

“Maybe you just looked at him.”

“Maybe.”

“Did you put the light on?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, please. You must know.”

He thought for a moment. “I didn’t turn the light on. There was enough light from the window.”

“And you looked at him.”

“Yes.”

“Was he alive?”

“Of course he was alive.”

“How do you know?”

“Roberta—”

“You don’t know for a fact, do you? You just looked at him to put my mind at rest. You didn’t take me seriously, did you?”

“I checked him and he looked fine. What the hell’s the matter with you, anyway?”

She didn’t answer immediately. Then she said, ”Why did my son die, David?”

“It just happened.”

“You mean you can’t explain it? I thought you had an answer for every question.”

“Sometimes I don’t even have the questions.”

“But I’m sure you have a theory.”

“Well—”

“I just knew you had a theory, David.”

He ignored the bitchiness in her voice. “There was something that came to me at the funeral,” he said. “When the minister was talking about the will of God.”

“Oh?”

“I was thinking how a century ago, even more recently than that, it was commonplace for a woman to bear half a dozen children in order to raise one to maturity. That was a part of natural selection. Infancy was a very hazardous period and only a small percentage of infants survived it—”

“So?”

“So... it occurred to me that crib death may be nature’s method of weeding out structurally weak children. Maybe a certain percentage of babies are born with constitutional defects that modern medicine isn’t yet aware of. But there’s some factor that makes them weak, and one night they go to sleep and don’t wake up—”

“And it’s just nature’s way.”

“That’s right.”

“The same as death is just nature’s way of telling us to slow down.”

“Roberta—”

“You filthy son of a bitch.”

He took a step backward, driven off by her words, by her tone of voice.

“You bastard,” she went on. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? The idea of my son being defective. So the great God of nature just took a wet rag and wiped him off the slate. You’d love to think of it that way, wouldn’t you?”

“Your son.”

She looked at him.

“Caleb was our son. Remember?”

And he thought, “You’re seeing him again, aren’t you? You and Channing. Don’t ask me how I know. I can read it, I can sense it. You’re the way you were on Coteswood Lane, before Caleb was born, before he was even conceived. The same sort of detachment, the same preoccupied air.

It was this realization that had made him resolve to discontinue the after-dinner drinking, to clean out Caleb’s room, to take charge of their lives again.

But she wasn’t making it easy.

She stood still for a moment, then turned and ran water in the sink. She let it run for awhile, clear and cold, before filling a glass. She held it to the light, studied it, sniffed it, then took a sip.

“Just cold water,” she said.

He didn’t answer.

Without turning to look at him she said, “I’m sorry I said what I did. I’ve been under a strain. You know that.”

“Sure.”

“And that doesn’t help.”

“What?”

She winced. “That godawful noise. That... music, I suppose you’d have to call it. Don’t tell me you can’t hear it?”

He listened. He hadn’t even been aware of it before, the reedy piping from the second floor.

“Oh,” he said. “You mean the flute?”

“For lack of a better term, the flute.”

“I can barely hear it. Is it bothering you?”

“It always bothers me,” she said. “God, it drives me crazy. And as for just barely hearing it, I couldn’t hear it more clearly if it was happening inside my skull. It goes through me like a diamond drill.”

“I could tell her to stop, I suppose. It’s getting late—”

“Oh, I suppose I can stand it. But you can’t tell me it doesn’t bother you. It must bother you.”

“It really doesn’t.”

“Maybe you should have your hearing checked. I swear it’s like chalk on a blackboard.”

“Oh, come on,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I have to say I like Ariel’s music. I don’t always pay attention to it, but I like it.”

“You;ve just absolutely got to be kidding.”

He shook his head. “Not at all. Oh, I’m not saying I think it’s good, but it might be good. I don’t really know enough about music to say. I know it’s not ordinary.”

“I’ll grant you that.”

“But there’s something about it I like. It has a sort of pagan quality to it, don’t you think? A druidic quality. Can’t you picture her sitting on the limb of a sacred tree somewhere in Devon or Cornwall and piping away like that to placate the woodland spirits?”

“What an idea.”

He shrugged. “Just a thought.”

“If that’s what they had for music in those days, then I’m glad the good old days are dead and gone.”

“Oh, I’ve no idea what their music was like. I doubt anyone does. But that’s what it ought to sound like.” He chuckled. “Anyway, the music is our Ariel down to the ground. Thin and reedy and fey and pagan and a little bit weird.”

“Our Ariel.”

“How’s that?”

She looked at him for a moment, then shook her head, dismissing the thought. “Well,” she said, “I think I’ll watch a little television. Maybe I won’t hear that noise over the sound of the set. I appreciate your idea of a long ride in the country, but I think we’ll forget about it, if you don’t mind.”

“It was just an idea.”

“And I want Caleb’s room left just the way it is. Let’s agree on that, shall we?”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

“I wonder what Gintzler would say about it.”

“Well, that’s something you can go on wondering about, because I won’t have the opportunity to ask him. I don’t suppose you feel like watching TV?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t suppose so.”

Back in his study, he took a long time choosing a pipe to smoke. He kept changing his mind. As if it mattered which one he picked.

All the things they’d said to each other. All the things left unsaid.

She was seeing Channing. He knew it and hadn’t mentioned it. And it was Jeff Channing who had fathered Caleb, and he knew that, too.

And hadn’t mentioned that, either.

He thought now of the night she’d quizzed him about, the night of Caleb’s death. Waking abruptly, hearing her babble about some ghost who was no longer to be seen. Then padding down the hall to the baby’s room.

He didn’t much want to relive those moments.

Because there was something she evidently didn’t realize. He’d probed a little after the funeral and she didn’t seem to know what she’d said. What she’d screamed, really, because it was her scream that woke him, and she had screamed a name, and it wasn’t his name.

Jeff, she had screamed. Jeff.

His eyes went to the bottle of brandy on the bookshelf. It was almost full. He could imagine the sound of it flowing into his glass, could picture its warm glow held up to the light.

A great improvement on Roberta’s glass of swamp water.

Upstairs, Ariel was playing her flute. He smiled as he listened, and then other thoughts intruded, and the smile died.

For God’s sake, one little drink wouldn’t hurt. There was a world of difference between watching out for overindulgence and giving up a legitimate pleasure altogether. Alcohol in moderation had a tonic effect on the system. Everyone knew that....

When the bottle was a little over two-thirds empty, he switched off the lamp in the study and made his way upstairs to bed.