The War of the Roses

25

In the flickering candlelight he could see the long row of wine bottles that he had rescued from the now-useless vault. He had finished one already, the Grand Vin de Chateau Latour ’66, nibbling simultaneously on some Camembert he had found in the fast-warming refrigerator. Now he uncorked a ’64 of the same wine. Definitely inferior, he told himself, letting the liquid slowly roll on his palate. That done, he upended the bottle and swallowed deep, greedy drafts.

Stripped down to his jockey shorts, he was sticky with perspiration. Through the open windows he could hear the night sounds of the city, a honking horn, a screeching tire, a child’s scream. He thought of what he had done earlier, opening all those cans. What an unsightly mishmash. He erupted into peals of hysterical laughter.

Surely there were other delights ahead, he told himself, finishing the bottle and rolling it under the bed. Earlier, he had whistled to Benny. He missed Benny. He needed him to talk to. Benny truly understood. He stuck his head out the open window and shouted, ‘Benny, Benny, you horny old bastard.’ He would have to call the pound in the morning. Once or twice Benny had strayed too far from home and the dogcatcher had caught up with him. ‘I’ll whip your ass, you desert me now,’ he vowed. ‘In my hour of greatest need.’ He knew he was drunk. There was no point in being sober. Not now. Not ever.

Taking another wine bottle, and with flashlight in hand, he limped out of his room, listening at her door.

Through the cracks where the door fitted into the jamb he could still smell the repugnant mess he had created. He was sure he had driven her from her room. Their room. It was a first step. He toasted the victory with a long pull on the wine bottle. He went into Eve’s room, fiddled with the dial on her large portable radio, and, finding the most raucous rock station, turned the music on full blast. The exploding sound filled the silent house. He opened the door to Josh’s room, looked inside to be sure it was empty, then put the radio in the corridor outside, first pulling off the volume and selection knobs. Barbara, he knew, hated loud rock music even more than he did. ‘Enjoy, bitch,’ he muttered.

Holding on to the brass banister for support, he found it difficult to carry both the flashlight and the wine bottle. Emptying the latter in a long draft and then discarding it, he moved cautiously downstairs. In the library, concentrating the beams of the flashlight, he saw the armoire lying on its belly like some dead monster. The room stank of liquor. He shrugged and turned away. No sense mourning any dead soldiers now. There surely would be many more. Leaving the library, he limped along the hallway, past the kitchen, to the door that led to his workroom.

Although there was a fuzzy edge to his mind, it had not, he assured himself, affected his motivation, his single-minded purpose of driving her from the house. His house. Holding the flashlight high to light the stairs, he stepped onto the first step. He had struck out with his good leg, but his foot hit something unsteady. His leg buckled in pain. He could not get a firm grip. His balance gone, he dropped the flashlight and slid down the wooden steps, grasping along the wall. Stabs of pain speared his skin as he lurched into metal objects strewn along the staircase.

The impact had broken the flashlight, plunging the area · into darkness. The loss of balance and the pain sobered him instandy. He sensed he was lying at the entrance to his workroom. Feeling about his torso, he picked off metal objects, some of which had embedded themselves into his flesh. He knew he was bleeding. As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness he was able to make out objects in the workroom and to comprehend the devastation. Crawling carefully, he moved toward the sauna, lifting himself by the wooden handle, opening the door, and feeling his way inside.

He felt as if he had crawled inside a black hole. Unable to see anything now, he stretched out on the built-in redwood bench, knowing he was trapped here until the natural light filtered through the ground-floor windows. With the tips of his fingers he assessed his injuries, picking out more bits of metal from his flesh.

Vaguely, he imagined he could hear the discordant strains of the rock music. The idea that she, too, was tossing in the agony of wakefulness comforted him somewhat, although he felt a keen sense of his own inadequacy. The elation he had felt earlier had disappeared. He cursed his stupidity, his failure in not predicting the extent of her next act of retaliation. He was, apparently, still thinking of her as the old Barbara, not as the cagey viper she had become.

The shock of his fall had jogged his mind into alertness. He laid out the house in his mind, every nook and cranny, every pipe and wire. He was certain he knew it better than she. If it was to be a weapon, then so be it. He could devise a thousand more horrors. The house was his and, therefore, a trusted ally. They would fight her together. Nothing in life was worth anything if you didn’t fight for it, he told himself, stimulating his courage. And his patience.

Sweat rolled down his body. Periodically, he would open the door to see if the light had come yet. The night seemed interminable.

When dawn did come at last, he moved out of the sauna and picked his way among the wreckage of his workroom. His resolve had become specific now and he knew exactly what he was looking for. He was surprised that the silicone spray cans and the large square can of lubricating oil were intact and where he had originally stored them.

Picking them up, along with a crowbar for which he had no other specific purpose in mind than its use as a weapon, he picked his way among the rubble and carefully ascended the steps, brushing aside the tacks and screws and bolts with the flat of his hand. As he limped through the corridor nothing intruded on his sense of purpose, although he gave himself a passing glance in the hall mirror, quickly turning away from the ravaged, unshaven visage.

The smashed radio lay in ruins at the foot of the second-floor stairs. She had apparently attacked it, beating it to death unmercifully. With the aid of the banister, he pulled himself up the flight of stairs to the third floor, concluding that Barbara was holed up in Ann’s room.

With the crowbar, he pulled out the tacks that held the carpet runner on the stairs, rolled it downward step by step, uncovering the bare wood. Then he calmly sprayed each step with silicone. When that ran out, he poured a thin film of oil on the remaining boards.

Despite the incongruity of doing the work in jockey shorts, he felt methodical and businesslike, as if he were writing a brief or dictating to Miss Harlow. What he was doing was necessary, a tangible countermeasure to soften her blind and corrosive stubbornness. This could all have been avoided, he thought, if only she hadn’t been obdurate and grossly unreasonable. There was simply no other alternative.

When he had completed his self-assigned task, he walked up the back stairs. When he reached the top landing, he jammed a wooden wedge into the door to prevent its opening and, like a man who had completed the day’s work, retired to his own room. He felt he deserved a drink and opened a bottle of Lafite-Rothschild ’59. It was, after all, a special occasion. Finishing it quickly, he lay down exhausted on his bed. He imagined he could hear Benny’s familiar bark in the distance. It reminded him to pick up the phone and call the pound. But the phone was dead. In disgust, he pulled it out of the wall and flung it across the room, where it crashed and split. He opened another botde of wine and finished it.

He awoke, his mind on the outer edge of a bad dream, but could not remember where the dream ended and reality began. The room was dark, the heat unbearable. He lay in a pool of fetid moisture. Struggling out of bed, he moved in fits and starts towards the bathroom, feeling waves of nausea. His throat burned and he put his head under the faucet and turned the tap. Nothing came out. Groping back through the room, he uncorked a bottle of wine and poured some of it over his head, gargled some and spat it out. Then he took a long drink.

The drink steadied him and he lit a candle, carrying it to the mirror to view himself. Surveying his face, he shook his head with despair. His beard was growing out, his eyes were encased in deep circles, and his bare torso seemed pocked and scarred.

Opening the door of his room, he half expected to see her unconscious body on the stairs and he was already feeling his disappointment at not having heard her screams of pain. He had wanted, more than anything, to hear her scream.

Standing in the hallway, he felt a strange sense of deja vu, and for a moment was disoriented, lost in time. Strange odors seemed to permeate the air, but now, suddenly, he could pick out the familiar smell of her cooking again. The idea of it seemed bizarre, considering what was happening.

Turning suddenly as if she were prodding him, he saw a note Scotch-taped to his door, written carefully in what seemed now a much surer hand.

‘This can’t go on, Oliver,’ the note said. ‘We must talk. Meet me in the dining room at nine.’

The note was oddly tranquilizing. He felt a brief wave of shame, which changed quickly to hopefulness. Perhaps he was emerging finally from the nightmare. Was she coming to her senses at last? He read the note again. Of course. This could not indeed continue to go on. As if to buttress his optimism, the clock in the foyer offered nine chimes. Aware of his nakedness, he went back to his room and put on a print robe. The least he could do was dress for a possible reconciliation.