The Listening Walls

6.

On Friday of the same week, when Rupert returned from lunch, he found Helene Brandon waiting for him in his office. She was wearing a sable-trimmed suit and matching hat, and she carried the commuters’ essential, an enormous handbag. She had obviously been passing the time going through the handbag. Half its contents were on Rupert’s desk: paperback books, a magazine, two pairs of spectacles, cigarettes, pills, a candy bar, a collapsible umbrella, plastic rain boots and a pair of low-heeled black shoes.

The feminine clutter reminded Rupert of Amy and he tried to avoid looking at it by keeping his eyes fixed on Helene’s face. A pretty face, round and plump and without secrets.

She began thrusting everything back into her handbag. “Gill would have a cat fit if he knew I was here, so it goes without saying that I’m not, eh?”

Rupert smiled. “For a lady who isn’t even here you’re looking very pretty.”

“We Peninsulans have to dress to the teeth when we come to the city just to prove we haven’t gone to seed in the suburbs.”

“That hardly seems likely in Atherton.”

“Oh, you think not? Listen, I haven’t had on a pair of high heels for weeks. My feet are killing me.”

“Change your shoes.”

“No, I’d rather suffer. I’ll enjoy the trip more in retrospect if I suffer now.”

“That’s logic, I presume?”

“No. It’s just true.” She snapped the handbag shut and said with no change of tone, “I know about Amy. Gill told me.”

“I’m glad he did. I wanted you to know.”

“You haven’t heard from her?”

“I didn’t expect to. She told me she wouldn’t be writing for a time.”

“She could at least let you know where she is.”

“She could, yes,” Rupert said. “But she hasn’t. And I’m not in a position where I can tell her what to do.”

“Maybe that’s what she wanted.”

“What is?”

“To be where people can’t tell her what to do. I wouldn’t mind it myself for a few weeks.” Helene contemplated this idea with half-closed eyes. Then she dropped it, with a sigh, and said abruptly, “Listen. Gill’s spoiling for trouble. I thought I’d better warn you.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I’m not sure... You’d better close the door. If Miss Burton’s ears perk up any further she’ll take off in the first high wind.”

“I have no secrets from Miss Burton.”

“Well, I have,” Helene said dryly. “And you might be going to.”

Rupert closed the door. “What does that mean?”

“Gill has ideas.”

“About what?”

“You and Miss Burton.”

Rupert let out an explosive sound like an angry laugh. “Oh, for Christ’s sake!”

“I think it’s funny too, but I’m not laughing. Gill’s dead serious. He’s managed to convince himself that you don’t want Amy back because you have — other interests.”

“What possible basis could he have for such a screwy idea?”

“Miss Burton has a key to your house.”

“Naturally. I gave it to her so she could feed Mack twice a day while I was away.”

“Gill said you usually put him in a kennel.”

“The last time we left him in a kennel he picked up mange.”

“You see? There’s a logical explanation for everything but Gill just won’t believe it. He’s practically irrational on the subject of family. I don’t know why, and I prefer not to think about it since there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“I often think about it,” Rupert said.

“So do I, really. It’s useless, though. We might just as well say ‘Gill is a nice guy but he’s nuts on the subject of Amy,’ and let it go at that.”

“Consider it gone.”

Helene took a deep breath to signify that that subject was closed and another about to be opened. “Then there’s the lipstick.”

“What lipstick?”

“On the highball glass in the den. Gill says it was exactly the same shade as Miss Burton was wearing.”

“And thirty million other American women. It was a new color introduced last spring, something or other sherbet.”

“Tangerine sherbet?”

“Right. I gave it to Amy for Easter in one of those fancy doodad cases. Now is that all?”

“Not quite.”

Rupert struck his palms together in helpless fury. “What else, for God’s sake?”

“I wish you wouldn’t keep swearing. It upsets me. And if I get upset heaven knows what will happen. I seem to be the only calm one in the whole caboodle. Now what was I going to say?”

“I’d be a fool to guess,” Rupert said grimly and sat down behind his desk to wait while Helene sorted through her mind, as she had sorted through her handbag, coming across all sorts of odds and ends she thought she’d lost.

“I should have taken notes, but I couldn’t very well because Gill thought he was talking to me in confidence. I mean, he had no idea I’d come here and tell you. He’d have a cat fit if it...”

“You said that.”

“Did I? Well, it only goes to show. Oh, I remember now. The cigarette butts in the den.”

“There were no cigarette butts in the den.”

“That’s just it. None in the ash trays, none in the fireplace. Amy’s a very heavy smoker — it’s one of the few things she’s ever defied Gill about. And since she was particularly nervous that night, Gill said you’d expect to find all the ash trays overflowing.”

“With fifty years of training, Gill might make a detective.”

“Well, he does notice things,” Helene said defensively, “even if they turn out to be wrong.”

“Even if, yes. In this case he didn’t notice far enough. Amy spent no more than five minutes in the den. He should have taken the trouble to examine the rest of the house. Tell him that next time he’s to bring his microscope.”

“You’re mad, aren’t you?”

“You’re damn right I’m mad. What’s he trying to prove?”

“Nothing definite. He just thinks you’re not telling the truth.”

“The truth about what?”

“Everything. I warned you, he’s simply not rational.”

“That’s a quaint way of putting it. The man’s a maniac.”

“Only where Amy is concerned.”

“Isn’t that enough?” Rupert pounded the desk with his fist in a half-conscious imitation of Gill. “Ever since Amy and I have been married he’s been trying to break us up. He’s been sitting around hoping I’d beat her or chase other women or turn into a lush or a drug addict, anything. Anything at all, just so Amy would leave me and climb back into the family nest like a goddamn baby bird. Well, he’s half succeeded. She’s left me, but she didn’t head back for the nest.”

“She hasn’t left you, Rupert. Not really. I–I read the letter.” She flushed slightly and twisted one of the rings on her plump fingers. “Gill asked me to read it.”

“Why?”

“He wanted my opinion about whether it made sense — female sense, as he called it — and about whether I thought the handwriting was, well, authentic.”

“And was it?”

“Of course. I told Gill the handwriting was unmistakably Amy’s. Only...”

She paused, working at the ring again as if it had shrunk in size and was hurting her. It was the diamond Gill had given her twenty years ago. Amy had still been in the nest then, baby bird Amy, featherless, formless, her mouth constantly open not because of hunger, bird-style, but because of a bad case of adenoids. The adenoids had been removed, feathers grew, wings developed; but there’d been no place to fly until Rupert came along. Helene remembered Amy’s wedding day more clearly, and more happily, than her own. Bye bye, blackbird.

“Only what?” Rupert said.

“He didn’t trust my judgment. Yesterday he took the letter to a handwriting expert, a private detective named Dodd.”

Rupert leaned forward, mute with shock. From Borowitz’s office next door came the spasmodic coughing of the adding machine. Business as usual, Rupert thought, Borowitz feeding figures into the machine and coming up with answers. And a few blocks away, in another office, Gill was coming up with answers too, only there was something the matter with his machine, a loose screw. “What,” he said finally, “does he think has happened to Amy?”

“He’s not thinking, he’s feeling, don’t you see that? None of his ideas makes sense. That’s why I came here, to warn you. Also because I’m worried, I’m worried sick. It’s not good for Gill’s health to have these ideas.”

“It’s not good for mine either, obviously. Tell me some of these ideas of his.”

“You won’t get mad again?”

“I can’t afford to. The situation’s too serious.”

“All right then. He said last night he’s not sure Amy ever came home at all.”

“Then where is she?”

“Still in Mexico.”

“Doing what?”

“Doing nothing. He thinks — no, I don’t mean thinks, I mean feels. He feels she’s dead.”

Rupert didn’t even look surprised. The surprises were over, he knew now Gill was capable of anything. “A psychiatrist would have a ball with that one. Has he managed to feel how she died?”

“No.”

“Or when?”

“During the week that you were down there.”

“So I went to Mexico City,” Rupert said, sounding very detached, “and killed my wife. Did I have any particular reason?”

“Money. And Miss Burton.”

“I wanted to inherit Amy’s money and marry Miss Burton, is that it?”

“Yes.” She had managed to work the ring off her finger. She sat now with it in her lap, not looking at it, only partly conscious that it was there. “Oh, he doesn’t really believe all this, Rupert. He’s hurt because Amy didn’t confide in him, and angry at you for letting her go away.”

“There’s more to it than that. You oversimplify. Why do you suppose Gill feels that Amy is dead?”

It was a question she’d been avoiding in her own mind for several days, and it disturbed her to hear it spoken aloud. “I don’t know.”

“Because he wants her dead.”

“That’s not true. He loves her. He loves her best.”

“He also hates her best. She is — or he believes she is — the source of his emotional troubles. If Amy’s dead, his problems are over. He’s free. Oh, sure, he’ll suffer at the conscious level, he’ll feel grief and pity and all that, but down at rock bottom he’s free.” He paused. “Only he isn’t. She’s not dead.”

“I never thought for a minute that she was.” But Helene looked relieved to hear it, guiltily relieved. It was as if she, too, scraping along rock bottom, grubbing for satisfactions, had come across a dead Amy, a drowned, bedraggled baby bird with its mouth still open. “Listen, Rupert. You seem to understand that Gill isn’t — himself. You’ll be tolerant, won’t you?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“How far he goes.”

“I’m sure the worst is over. When something upsetting like this comes along Gill thrashes around for a while but he eventually sees reason.” She had convinced herself, if not Rupert. She picked up the ring from her lap and put it back on her finger, only partly aware that she’d taken it off in the first place. “I must go now. I’m late for a dental appointment. You’ll let us know right away if you hear from Amy?”

“Certainly. I’ll even bring the letter over so Gill can have the handwriting analyzed.”

“Don’t be bitter.”

“I’m not. I’m quite serious about it. What have I got to lose?”

“You’re being an awfully good sport over all this,” Helene said warmly. “I think Amy’s made a terrible mistake, walking out on you.”

“She didn’t walk. I drove her. And if she made a mistake, that’s her business. For her to do anything on her own is a good thing, even if it’s wrong. Perhaps eventually Gill will understand that.”

“He will, give him time.”

“She’s never done anything on her own before. The trip to Mexico City was intended to be a declaration of independence. But it was merely a change in dependence: Wilma planned every inch of the way.”

Helene mentally crossed herself at the mention of Wilma, whom she hadn’t really liked very well but who at least had never appeared in her dreams as a dead bird. “Listen, Rupert. You may think this is silly, but have you thought about advertising for Amy in some of the big newspapers throughout the country? I mean, let her know we’re worried and want to know where she is. You see ads like that all the time: Bill, contact Mary; Charley, write to Mother; Amy, come home. Things like that.”

“Amy, come home,” he repeated. “Gill’s idea, I suppose?”

“Well, yes. But I agree with it. It might do some good. Amy isn’t the type who’d want people to worry about her unnecessarily.”

“Perhaps she is. How do we know? She’s never had much of a chance to prove what type she is.”

“You could try advertising anyway. It can’t do any harm. There wouldn’t even be any publicity if you made the ad vague enough and didn’t mention last names. We certainly don’t want publicity.”

“You mean Gill doesn’t.”

“I mean none of us does,” she said sharply. “This whole business — it would look very queer in the newspapers.”

“It won’t take long to reach the papers if Gill goes around sounding off that Amy is dead and I’m about to establish a love nest with Miss Burton.”

“So far he’s sounded off only to me.”

“And to the private detective, Dodd.”

“I don’t think he told Dodd much, just enough to make it plausible that he wanted the handwriting in Amy’s letter compared to other samples of her writing.” She got up and leaned across the desk. “I’m on your side, Rupert, you know that.”

“Thanks.”

“But you have to make some concessions to Gill for your own protection. If he thought you were really trying to find Amy and get her back, it would help put him straight. So try.”

“Advertise, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“All right, that’s easy enough.”

“The library should have the names of all the leading newspapers in the country.” She hesitated. “It might be quite expensive. Naturally, Gill and I will pay for...”

“Naturally?”

“Well, it was our idea. It’s only fair that...”

“I think,” Rupert said, “that I can afford to advertise for my own wife.”

Amy, come home. He could already see the letters in print, but he knew Amy never would.