Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner [275]
“Where is he?” I heard Shelly’s deep voice say.
“In the bathroom,” said the other voice. “How’s your mother?”
“All right, I guess. They’ve given her digitalis.”
“Her heart, is it?”
“I guess. A lot of pain in her chest and down her arm, and her pulse all irregular, way up and racing one second, and the next so faint you could hardly feel it. Arrhythmia, they call it. It isn’t necessarily so serious, but it’s scary. She really had us panicked.”
Careful female voices, a dark and a light, carefully friendly, carefully open. They came on invisible waves through the hollow-core door to the rigid head, the listening ear. The light one said, “It must have been frightening. You shouldn’t have tried to come over here.”
“Oh, no trouble,” said the dark one. “She’s all right now. But she was worried about Mr. Ward. Has he had anything to eat?”
“I fixed him a tray.”
“Oh. How about his bath?”
“His bath?”
“He has to have a hot bath every night, to soak out the pain so he can sleep.”
“Yes. Well, I’ll see that he takes it.”
“He can’t take it. He has to be given it. He can’t climb in and out of a bath tub with one leg.”
“All right, then I’ll give it to him.”
“I’d better do it. I know the routines.”
I could not see the face of the man in the chair, listening behind the door, but I could feel the sweat that had been greasy on his skin ever since the woman arrived on the porch. The politeness was still there in the women’s voices, but it was under a strain, it could crack any minute.
“Have you . . . given him his bath before?” said Light.
“Not usually. Mom does it,” said Dark.
“Ever?” said Light.
“What does it matter?” said Dark. “I know how it’s done, you don’t.”
Pause. Finally Light said, “Since you haven’t given it to him before, I think I could do it quite as well, and a little more appropriately. There’s really no need of your staying, Miss . . .”
“Rasmussen,” said Dark. “Mrs. And I don’t know about that appropriateness. Where have you been all summer, while we’ve been taking care of him? If he didn’t want us to take care of him he wouldn’t have hired us.”
But he didn’t! said the man listening ratlike behind the door.
“I understood that he had hired you as a secretary,” said Light.
That’s right! said the man behind the door. Your mother ran you out the one time you tried to come in! You stay out of here!
To his horror the door burst open, she came in, rolling him back. She seemed to have grown two feet, she was huge and broad-shouldered in a turtle-necked jersey within which her unconfined breasts bulged like eggplants, like melons. The man in the chair tried to dart past her out into the studio, but she blocked his way, shut the door, and put it on the chain.
“All right,” she said cheerfully. “No tricks, now.”
Like a bug trapped in a matchbox he darted from corner to corner. The door opened an inch, all the chain would allow, and he saw Ellen Ward’s face peering in. She was pounding angrily on the door with her fists. The bathroom was as hollow as a drum.
“Now,” said Shelly Rasmussen, turning on the hot water. Steam billowed up, half concealing her. Stooping to flop a hand in the rising water, she had to turn her face. Her hand clawed back her wet hair. With an impatient grunt she sat back from the tub and hauled the jersey over her head and threw it aside and bent back in, testing. Her great breasts hung into the tub, steam rose around her. Terribly smiling, nine feet tall, she stood up in the cloud of steam and put her fists on her hips. The eyes of her breasts looked at him insolently. As if amused by his fascinated, terrified, hypnotized gaze, she did a little bump and grind.
“Come on!” she cried. “Let’s have a look at you. Off with those clothes.”
She approached, he retreated, darted, got his hand on the chain, had to let go as she lunged. Ellen was pounding on the outside of the door, the tub was filling, the room was white with steam. For a wild instant his face raced across the mirror, a smear of terror, and then she had him. Her hands were at his fly, unzipping, tugging