Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner [85]
“I was just going to say maybe she should stay up here till he goes.”
“It’ll bother you.”
“Why should it? There are all those extra rooms, she can take her pick. If she really wants to stay out of his way.”
I made that offer strictly for Ada’s sake, not Shelly’s. I suppose we will be peeking from behind the shutters every time a jaybird drops an acorn. I’ll be reaching for Grandfather’s horse pistol every time the house creaks. The thought of that speed freak prowling around in my woods and spying on us doesn’t thrill me. Neither am I happy to have a visitor in one of my many guest rooms. I like it better when I am alone, or with nobody in the house except Ada. So I hoped I would be thanked and my offer rejected.
But all Shelly said was, “Wow. I almost hope he does stick around. Wouldn’t it bug him to find out I’m shacked up in the big house with the boss.”
“Watch your mouth!” Ada said, furious.
“All right, Mom. J-o-k-e, joke.”
“About as funny as one of his.”
As I think it over, remembering the little incident last evening, I wonder if it isn’t like one of his. A cannibal track for me to find and stare at. This is the ribald streak I referred to.
And what in hell could have been in her mind last night? Ada was getting me ready for bed, she had me undressed and out of the chair, standing on my one unsteady peg with my underwear around my foot and my arms around her neck, when I heard the sloppy slap of Shelly’s loafers in the study, and Shelly’s voice said, “Need any help, Mom?”
Help?
Ada clutched me to her bosom and turned her furious back on the door. Her blast of outrage went past my ear. “Don’t you come in here!”
Once she turned, I was turned too: I stared right over Ada’s shoulder, through the bathroom door and into the study, where Shelly leaned against the doorjamb in her turtle-necked sweater with the sleeves pushed up. I got a very good look at her, as she did at us. I observed that she was ohne Büstenhalter, and pretty opulent. I also could not help seeing very clearly what she saw–her mother in her white nurse’s nylon clutching the naked freak to her breast.
“Well, I’m sorry,” Shelly said. She looked me in the eye, she almost winked, there was a secret little smirk on her face. She pushed her shoulder away from the jamb and turned and slip-slopped across the bare study floor.
Ada said not a word, aside from her usual encouraging grunts, while she bathed me and got me to bed. When she got out the bottle for our nightcap I could see her contemplate the notion of asking me if we shouldn’t ask Shelly in, and reject it. Shelly had borrowed my transistor radio right after supper, and we could hear it going, rock with a beat like a flat tire, off in the east wing where she had taken up residence. We sipped our drink and spoke of other things and ignored everything that had happened.
Finally Ada heaved to her feet and picked up the glasses and looked me over to see that I had everything I needed. She breathed through her nose and compressed her lips, wheezing. “Well, grin and bear it, I guess,” she said.
“I guess.”
“Get you a good sleep now.”
“Thanks. You too. Don’t let this business bother you. He’s probably gone.”
“He don’t bother me as much as some other things. Well, good night now.”
“Good night.”
She went out, heavy and discouraged. I heard the lift’s metabolism going, then it stopped. The front door opened and closed, was rattled hard in a testing of the lock. The thumping of the amplified guitars went on, deep in the house. Maybe, I thought, she keeps it on for reassurance, because she really may be scared. Maybe she came in at bath time because being alone in her empty wing spooked her.
The radio went on for a long time; it kept me awake until after midnight. For the last hour, after I had got past being annoyed at her characteristic lack of consideration, I concentrated on forgetting all about her and her speed freak and the new world he wants to create and she seems to doubt. I am not going to get sucked into this, I’ll call the cops in a minute if I have to. And this is all, absolutely all, I am going to think about it. I am going back to Grandmother