Beast in View

Chapter 16

She turned and saw Evelyn Merrick coming towards her across the lobby, picking her way fastidiously through the crowd. The day, which had changed Miss Clarvoe, had changed Evelyn too. She wasn’t smiling and self-assured as she’d been when they met on the street. She was a grim-faced, cold-eyed stranger, dressed all in black as if in mourning.

“I see you got my note.”

“Yes,” Miss Clarvoe said. “I have it.”

“We must have a talk.”

“Yes.” Yes, we must. I must find out how I lost the day, how the minutes passed overhead without touching me, like birds in a hurry. Wild-geese minutes. I remember Father took us hunting once, Evelyn and me. Father was angry with me that day because the sun gave me a headache. He said I was a spoil-sport and a cry-baby. He said, Why can’t you be more like Evelyn?

“Everyone’s been worried about you,” the stranger said, “Where have you been?”

“You know, you know very well. I was with you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We went into the country together — to see the lupine — we...”

The stranger’s voice was harsh and ugly. “You’ve always told fantastic lies, Helen, but this is going too far. I haven’t seen you for nearly a year.”

“You mustn’t try to deny it...”

“I’m not trying to deny it. I am denying it!”

“Please keep your voice down. People are staring. I can’t have people staring. I have a reputation, a name, to protect.”

“No one is paying the least attention to us.”

“Yes, they are. You see, my stockings are torn, and my coat. From the country. You have forgotten how we went into the country, you and I, to see the lupine. I tripped over a boulder and fell.” But her voice trailed upward into a question mark, and her eyes were uncertain and afraid. “You... you remember now?”

“There’s nothing to remember.”

“Nothing?”

“I haven’t seen you for nearly a year, Helen.”

“But this morning — this morning you met me outside the hotel. You asked me to have a drink with you, you said you were on your way over to see a man who would make you immortal and you wanted me to come along.”

“It doesn’t even make sense.”

“Yes, yes, it does! I even remember the man’s name. Terola. Jack Terola.”

Evelyn’s voice was quiet, insistent. “You went to see this man, Terola?”

“I don’t know. I think we — we both went, you and I. After all, I wouldn’t go to such a place alone, and besides Terola was your friend, not mine.”

“I never heard the name before in my life. Until I read the evening papers.”

“Papers?”

“Terola was murdered shortly before noon today,” Evelyn said. “It’s important for you to remember, Helen. Did you go there this morning?”

Miss Clarvoe said nothing, and her face was blank.

“Did you see Terola this morning, Helen?”

“I must... I must go upstairs.”

“We have to talk.”

“No. No. I must go upstairs and lock my door against all the ugliness.” She turned, slowly, and began walking towards the lift, her shoulders hunched, her hands jammed into the pockets of her coat as if she wanted to avoid all physical contact with other people.

She waited until one of the lifts was empty. Then she stepped inside and ordered the operator to close the door immediately. The operator, an old man, was no bigger than a child, as if the years he’d spent inside the tiny lift had stunted his growth. He was accustomed to Miss Clarvoe’s idiosyncrasies, such as riding alone in lifts, and he’d been well enough tipped, in the past, to indulge them.

He shut the door and as the lift began to ascend he kept his eyes on the floor indicator. “A wintry day, Miss Clarvoe.”

“I don’t know. I lost mine.”

“Beg pardon, ma’am?”

“I lost my day,” she said slowly. “I’ve looked everywhere for it, but I can’t find it.”

“Are you... are you feeling all right, Miss Clarvoe?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Ma’am.”

“Call me Evelyn.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, say it. Go ahead. Say Evelyn.”

“Evelyn,” the old man said and began to tremble.

Back in her suite she locked the door and without even taking off her coat she went immediately to the telephone. As she dialed, she felt the excitement rising inside her like molten lava in a crater.

“Mrs. Clarvoe?”

“Is that — that’s you, Evelyn?”

“Certainly it’s me. I’ve done you another favor.”

“Please. Have mercy.”

“Don’t snivel. I hate that. I hate snivelers.”

“Evelyn...”

“I just wanted to tell you that I’ve found Helen for you. I have her all locked up in her hotel room, safe and sound.”

“Is she all right?”

“Don’t worry. I’m looking after her. I’m the only one who knows how to treat her. She’s been a bad girl, she needs a little discipline. She tells lies, you know, awful lies, so she must be taught a lesson or two like the others.”

“Let me talk to Helen.”

“Oh no. She can’t talk right now. It isn’t her turn. We have to take turns, you know. It’s very inconvenient, because Helen won’t voluntarily give me my turn, so I just have to go ahead and take it. She was feeling weak from the accident, and her head hurt, so I simply took over. I feel fine. I’m never sick. I leave that to her. All the sordid things like being sick or getting old, I leave to her. I’m only twenty-one, that old crock is over thirty...”

Evelyn Merrick was waiting for Blackshear in the lobby when he arrived twenty minutes later.

“I got here as soon as I could,” Blackshear said. “Where is Helen?”

“Locked in her room. I followed her up and tried to talk to her, but she paid no attention to my knocking. So I listened at the door. I could hear her inside.”

“What was she doing?”

“You know what she was doing, Mr. Blackshear. I told you when I called you. She was telephoning, using my name, my voice, pretending to be me.”

Blackshear was grim. “I wish that’s all it was, a child’s game, like pretending.”

“What else is it?”

“She has a rare form of insanity, Miss Merrick, the disease I thought you had. A doctor would call it multiple personality. A priest might call it possession by a devil. Helen Clarvoe is possessed by a devil and she gives your name to do it.”

“Why should she do that to me?”

“Are you willing to help me find out?”

“I don’t know. What must I do?”

“We’ll go up to her room and talk to her.”

“She won’t let us in.”

“We can try,” Blackshear said. “That’s all I seem able to do for Helen, is try. Try, and fail, and try again.”

They took the elevator up to the third floor and walked down the long, carpeted hall to Miss Clarvoe’s suite. The door was closed and locked and no light showed around its edges, but Blackshear could hear a woman talking inside the room. It was not Helen’s voice, tired, uninterested; it was loud and brash and shrill, like a schoolgirl’s.

He rapped sharply on the door with his knuckles and called out, “Helen? Let me in.”

“Go away, you old fool, and leave us alone.”

“Are you in there, Helen?”

“Look at the mess you’ve got me in now. He’s found me. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? You’ve always been jealous of me, you’ve always tried to cut me out of your life. Now you’ve done it, calling in that man Blackshear and the police to hunt me down like a common criminal. I’m not a common criminal. All I did to Terola was touch him with the scissors to teach him a little lesson. How was I to know his flesh was soft as butter? An ordinary man wouldn’t even have bled, my touch was so delicate. It wasn’t my fault the poor fool died. But the police won’t believe that. I’ll have to hide here with you. Just you and me, how about that? God knows if I can stand it, you should be able to. You’re dull company, old girl, you can’t deny that. I may have to slip out now and then for a bit of fun.”

Blackshear tried to call out again but the words died of despair in his throat: Fight, Helen. Fight back. Stand up to her. He began pounding on the door with his fists.

“Listen to that, will you? He’s trying to break the door down to get to his sweetheart. Isn’t that touching? Little does he know how many doors he’ll have to break down; this one’s only the first. There are a hundred more and that pitiful idiot out there thinks he can do it with his fists. Funny boy. Tell him to go away, Helen. Tell him not to bother us. Tell him if he doesn’t go away he’ll never see you alive again. Go on. Speak. Speak, you ugly crone!”

A pause, then Helen’s voice, a tattered whisper, “Mr. Blackshear, Paul. Go away.”

“Helen, hang on. I’m going to help you.”

“Go away, go away.”

“Hear that, lover boy? Go away, she says. Lover boy. God, that’s funny. What a romance you had, eh, Helen. Did you really think anyone could fall in love with you, you old hag? Take a look in the crystal ball, you crow.”

She began to laugh. The sound rose and fell, a siren screaming disaster, and then there as a sudden silence, as if the loud night were holding its breath.

Blackshear pressed his mouth against the crack of the door and said, “Helen, listen to me.”

“Go away.”

“Unlock your door. Evelyn Merrick is here with me.”

“Liar.”

“Unlock your door and you can see for yourself. You are not Evelyn. Evelyn is out here with me.”

“Liar, liar, liar!”

“Please, Helen, let us in so we can help you... Say something to her, Miss Merrick.”

“We are not trying to fool you,” Evelyn said. “This is really Evelyn, Helen.”

“Liars!” But the lock clicked and the chain slid back and slowly the door opened and Miss Clarvoe’s tormented face peered out. She spoke to Blackshear, her pale mouth working painfully to form the words: “Helen is not here. She went away. She is old and sick and full of misery and wants to be left alone.”

“Listen to me, Helen,” Blackshear said. “You are not old and sick...”

“I’m not, no. She is. You’re mixed up. I’m Evelyn. I’m fine. I’m twenty-one. I’m pretty, I’m popular. I have lots of fun. I never get sick or tired. I’m going to be immortal.” She stopped suddenly, her eyes fixed on Evelyn Merrick, fascinated, repelled, “That girl — who is she?”

“You know who she is, Helen. She’s Evelyn Merrick.”

“She’s an imposter. Get rid of her. Tell her to go away.”

“All right,” Blackshear said wearily. “All right.” He turned to Evelyn. “You’d better go down to the lobby and call a doctor.”

Miss Clarvoe watched Evelyn go down the hall and get into the lift. “Why should she call a doctor? Is she sick?”

“No.”

“Why should she call a doctor, then, if she isn’t sick?” She added peevishly, “I don’t much like you. You’re sly. You’re a sly old man. You’re too old for me. Not much use your hanging around. I’m only twenty-one. I have a hundred boyfriends...”

“Helen, please.”

“Don’t call me that, don’t say that name. I’m not Helen.”

“Yes, you are. You’re Helen and I don’t want you to be anybody else. I like you exactly as you are. Other people will, too, if you’ll let them. They’ll like you just as you are, just for yourself alone, Helen.”

“No! I’m not Helen, I don’t want to be Helen! I hate her!”

“Helen is a fine young woman,” Blackshear said quietly. “She is intelligent and sensitive, yes, and pretty too.”

“Pretty? That crock? That hag? That ugly crone?”

She started to close the door, but Blackshear pressed his weight against it. She released the door and stepped backwards into the room, one hand behind her back, like a child concealing a forbidden object. But Blackshear did not have to guess what she was concealing. He could see her image in the round mirror above the telephone stand.

“Put down the paper-knife, Helen. Put it back on the desk where it belongs. You’re very strong, you might hurt someone accidentally... How did you meet Terola in the first place, Helen?”

“In a bar. He was having a drink and he looked over at me and fell in love with me at first sight. Men do. They can’t help it. I have this magnetism. Do you feel it?”

“Yes. Yes, I feel it. Put down the knife, Helen.”

“I’m not Helen! I am Evelyn. Say it. Say I’m Evelyn.”

He stared at her, saying nothing, and suddenly she wheeled around and ran across the room to the mirror. But the face she saw was not her own. It was not a face at all, it was a dozen faces, going round and round — Evelyn and Douglas and Blackshear, Verna and Terola and her father, Miss Hudson and Harley Moore and the desk clerk and the little old man in the elevator — all the faces were revolving like a Ferris wheel, and as they revolved, they moved their mouths and screamed out words: “What’s the matter with you, kid, are you crazy?” “You’ve always told the most fantastic lies.” “What a pity we didn’t have a girl like Evelyn.” “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” “Why can’t you be more like Evelyn?”

The voices faded into silence, the great wheel of faces stopped, and there was only one image left in the mirror. It was her own face, and the mouth that moved was her own mouth, and the words that came out were uttered by her own voice: “God help me.”

Memory stabbed at her with agonizing thrusts. She remember the bars, the phone booths, the running, the strange streets. She remembered Terola and the odd, incredulous way he looked just before he died and the acrid smell of the coffee boiling over on the stove. She remembered taking the bills from her own money clip and then thinking later that they’d been stolen. She remembered the cat in the alley, the rays from the night air, the taste of rain, the young man who’d laughed because she was waterproof...

“Give me the knife, Helen.”

In the mirror she could see Blackshear approaching, slowly and cautiously, a hunter with a beast in view.

“It’s all right, Helen. Don’t get excited. Everything’s going to be all right.”

A pause, and then he began to talk again in a low persuasive voice, about doctors and hospitals and rest and care and the future. Always the future, as if it was definite and tangible, rosy and round like an apple.

She stared into the crystal ball of the mirror and she saw her future, the nights poisoned by memories, the days corroded by desire.

“It’s only a matter of time, Helen. You’ll be well again.”

“Be quiet,” she said. “You lie.”

She looked down at the knife in her hand and it seemed to her that it alone could speak the truth, that it was her last, her final friend.

She pressed the knife into the soft hollow of her throat. She felt no pain, only a little surprise at how pretty the blood looked, like bright and endless ribbons that would never again be tied.