Wall of Eyes

Chapter 3

It was six o’clock when Alice came home. The wind and the hill had tired her. A million years ago the Hill had belonged to Lake Ontario, but the water had gradually receded leaving its long steep shore as booty to enterprising architects and real estate agents. Here, on the edge of the shore which was now St. Clair Avenue, Isobel Heath had built a house for her husband, and within its walls they had built together a life and a family, first John, then Alice, and last of all a small, delicate child, whom Isobel, without reference to anyone, had called Kelsey. It was Isobel’s last concession to a physical world which repelled her. From that time on she began to recede like the lake, quietly and gradually drying at the edges, vanishing, but leaving a long deep shore behind her. On this shore she left her husband, cast up on the beach like a fish after a storm, gasping and feebly twisting his body.

Even Prince was tired and lay on the stone steps while Alice took out her key and fitted it into the door. The door opened, and here were the familiar sights and sounds and smells coming out at her, dragging her inside. The potted hyacinth on the hall table, the distant clink of dishes from the kitchen — the smell and sound of home that you always came back to.

But how much stronger were the sights — the red and blue Persian rug, the two bird prints one on each side of the hall facing each other. Alice could remember believing implicitly in those birds, as a child believes. For a time she had gone out every day staring up into the trees, expecting to come upon birds as huge and bright, expecting so hard that her whole body was stiff and set against the fright she knew would come when the birds appeared. She could remember, too, the terrible sinking in her stomach when all she ever saw was a sparrow, small and drab, sitting ignominiously among the horse leavings on the road.

She closed the door quietly and bent over to take off Prince’s harness. As she moved her eye caught a glimpse of white down the hall. She turned quickly.

In front of the closed door which led into the drawing room stood a small stout girl in a white and green uniform. Her ear was pressed tight against the door, her body bent sideways into an angle of eagerness.

Alice said, “Ida!”

The girl turned, gasping, and saw her. Her fat red mouth split open like a cherry wounded by a robin’s beak.

“Awk,” she said. “Awk.”

“What are you doing there, Ida?”

“Nothing. Honest, I wasn’t doing...”

“Don’t listen at doors, Ida,” Alice said. “It’s not polite.”

The wound healed gradually, puckering at the edges. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, backing up as Alice walked toward her. “But I didn’t hear nothing, ma’am.”

“Go back to the kitchen,” Alice said quietly. “It’s time for Prince to be fed. Take him with you.”

The girl stood still, breathing very heavily so that her body seemed ready to pop out of her uniform and splash against the wall.

“Maurice said to come and fetch the tea tray.”

Ida turned and walked away. Kelsey’s voice came through the door of the drawing room. “You’re away half the time anyway. You might as well get out for good! I don’t want you here!”

Without looking around Alice knew that Ida had heard, that Ida’s head was swinging up in the gesture that said, “I’m just as good as you are.”

Alice stood with her hand on the doorknob. What could you do with the Idas of this world, she thought. Put your fists over your eyes, as children do, to squeeze the evil in behind the eyes where it could lie in secret and gradually die, too well hidden to be found again.

She jiggled the doorknob to warn them she was coming, and then quickly, before she could change her mind, she slipped through the door and closed it again.

Kelsey was standing behind the high-backed chair, wrenching at the wood. In the chair Philip sat, doubled over, with his hands clasping his stomach as if he had a cramp.

“Who’s that?” Kelsey screamed. “Who came in?”

“Alice,” Philip said dully.

Alice came toward them, tossing her gloves casually on the tea table, pretending the scene was too ordinary to notice.

“Hello,” she said cheerfully. “What did I miss at tea? Cucumber sandwiches! Wait till I get Maurice!”

“Where have you been?” Kelsey said. “You should have been here. Leaving me to fight alone...”

Alice put her hands over Kelsey’s to quiet them.

Philip remained doubled up in the chair with the two women behind him. He did not turn his head or listen to them, as if by shutting them out of his ears and eyes he could leave them there forever, behind him.

But what could you do about the touch of Alice’s hand on your shoulder, coaxing you to recognize her, asking to come to life again?

“No, Alice,” he said. “It’s no use. No.”

“Such children,” Alice said, “both of you. And do you know who was listening with all ears to the row? Ida.”

“Ida’s on my side,” Kelsey said. “I asked her to be on my side when she came.”

“What did you say to her, Kelsey?” Alice said sharply. “You shouldn’t confide in the servants, especially Ida. She’s sly, you can’t trust her.”

“I can’t trust anyone,” Kelsey said. “Can I, Philip? Can I?”

Underneath the cold irony a plea fluttered like a baby bird, unfeathered, defenseless. Philip heard the plea and shut his ears.

“No, better not trust anyone,” he said.

“Children,” Alice said again, but Kelsey had slipped her hands away and was feeling her way to the door, stumbling once, regaining her balance with a little cry of rage. The door opened and closed. They could hear her going up the steps, the banister creaking under the weight of her hand.

“You’re worse than she is,” Alice said in a small cold voice.

For a long time he didn’t answer, didn’t move his eyes to follow her when she walked from behind his chair and sat down opposite him. She was so quiet that he raised his eyes finally and looked at her. Quiet dead Alice. No emotion at all, like a corpse.

“Don’t look at me,” he said, almost whining. “You’re so still.”

“I’m not looking at you,” she said in a surprised voice. “Not at all.”

“I know. I want you not to.”

“Very well.” She turned her head and looked out of the window. “Is that better?”

“Yes. I’m going away.”

“Oh?” She didn’t turn.

“Tomorrow.”

“Why not tonight? Tomorrow Kelsey may change her mind.”

“Kelsey has nothing to do with it,” he said savagely. “I’m just going. It has nothing to do with what Kelsey said, or anyone, or anything.”

“I see,” Alice said dryly. “Entirely your own idea.” She turned and glanced at him. “Well, good luck to you, Philip. Have you told Johnny?”

“No. He’s out.”

“Johnny will miss you. We all will.”

“You don’t believe I’m going?”

“I’d like to believe it,” Alice said. “I want you to go.”

“Well, I’m going. Tomorrow. Tomorrow night.”

“Why not tomorrow morning?”

“Stop repeating that,” he said hoarsely. “You don’t have to be afraid I’ll change my mind. You heard what she said. She doesn’t trust me. She wants me to leave. After eight years she...”

“Don’t waste your energy in words,” Alice said grimly. “You’ve done that before. Save some for actually going away.”

He stared at her bitterly. “Thank you for your sympathy.”

“I think you’ve had your share of sympathy,” she said, flushing. “All of you have had your share. Maybe I’m tired of being an unmarried mother!”

“You were never...”

“I’ve known for some time that Kelsey would never marry you. She doesn’t need a husband, only a good strong nurse like me whose feelings are not easily hurt. Go away for a while, Philip. Forget this house and these years for a time. Go back to where you were before.”

Go back. He said the words silently to himself. Forget these years. Roll them up and throw them over your shoulder and start hiking.

“I haven’t any place to go back to,” he said, “no place, and nobody. You picked me out of a vacuum. My mother died when I was small and I ran away...”

“I know,” she said, impatient not that he should repeat himself but that he should be trying to change the subject. “Will you go by train?”

“Train? Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Where will you go?”

“I... New York, perhaps.”

She got up and began to switch on the lamps.

“You despise me,” Philip said.

“That’s nonsense. I’m very fond of you.”

“You’ve never been fond of anybody.”

“Haven’t I?” She walked over to the fireplace, smiling slightly. She was always flattered when people commented on her coldness. She liked to think that the coldness was of her own making, that she could step out from behind her self-constructed refrigerating coils any time she liked, or step back in if she found the warmth too much for her.

Maurice came in for the tea tray. He packed the dishes slowly. Alice saw that his lips were moving silently as they did when he was planning to say something to her. He stood straight with the tray held high across his chest and cleared his throat.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Alice.”

“Yes?”

“Ida...”

“Oh, yes. She was eavesdropping again. You’d better confine her to upstairs work.”

Maurice coughed again. “Yes, ma’am. But I thought of letting her go. She is unsatisfactory in every respect.”

“Give her another chance, Maurice,” Alice said. “It isn’t easy to get help now.”

He turned away uncertainly, a frown flickering through his eyes.

“Kelsey has taken a fancy to the girl,” Alice added.

His face relaxed. “In that case, ma’am...”

“Yes,” Alice said, unsmiling, “in that case, yes”

At the door he stepped aside to let Johnny come in. Johnny brushed past him and shouted directly at Philip, “I thought everything went all right! Didn’t you? Did you think Kelsey snubbed her? She said Kelsey snubbed her. I no sooner got her outside than she began to bawl.”

He hurled his hat across the room. “And bawl and bawl and bawl! Oh, hello, Alice. Goddamn women anyway!”

“Who bawled?” Alice said. “I missed the first instalment.”

Johnny scowled at her. “Marcie. You know. I told you. You should have been here. Why weren’t you?”

“Business. Sorry.”

“I thought everything was fine and then she started bawling. I don’t understand. I thought Kelsey was all right, better than usual.”

“And that didn’t make you suspicious?” Philip asked dryly.

“Then there was something... something I didn’t catch?”

“Always,” Philip said. “It’s practically a rule of thumb that there should be something you don’t...”

Alice said hastily, “Philip is leaving tomorrow, Johnny.”

“Leaving?” Johnny stood in front of Philip’s chair and looked down at him, grinning. “Again?”

Philip saw that there was no trace of uncertainty in the grin. It said, Good old Phil, he’ll never leave.

“Oh, hell,” Johnny said; “Cut the comedy, you two. I’ve got enough trouble.”

“There’s no comedy,” Alice said. “Philip is leaving here tomorrow. It was his own suggestion and I approve.”

“Approve being the mildest word for it,” Philip said with a wry smile. “Alice thinks it’s time I went out into the world and stood on my own two feet. And when I’ve made good and proven my worth, I have her permission to come back and recapture the Heaths. You’ll all be here when I come back, just as you are. Nothing will be changed, least of all Alice, sane, sensible, know-it-all Alice. If in doubt, ask Alice.”

“You’re being unpleasant,” Alice said coldly. “Sorry I can’t stay to hear the rest.”

Johnny stared at Philip, bewildered. “What in hell’s got into you? I’ve never heard you talk like this.”

“He wants me to coax him to stay,” Alice said with an ugly smile. “And I didn’t. And I don’t intend to. I’ve quit my job as wet-nurse to the artistic temperament.”

She walked to the door, her legs weak and heavy with rage.

When she closed the door she could hear Philip’s voice begin again, a smooth drone. She walked slowly up the stairs and the drone became fainter and fainter and died so gradually that there was no moment of death, only a vanishing.

She sat down on the top step, too feeble to go on. She covered her face with her hands, but a minute later she was on her feet again. Someone might come along the hall and see you. Don’t give yourself away to anyone. Keep yourself to yourself. Forever and ever. Amen.

The control she had forced on her body spread to her mind. She repeated silently to herself the comforting formula she used in bad moments. “I am Alice. I am Alice Heath.”