“You have to go over to Claudia’s and get it back,” I told him. “Tell her you’ll give her a hundred bucks for it; that ought to get it out of her.” Going to the desk I got my checkbook out and sat down on the bed to write out a check. “Okay?” I said. “I’ll leave it up to you. It’s entirely in your hands; it’s your responsibility.”
Nat said, “I’ll go do what I can.” He stood holding the check, however, not doing a damn thing.
“Go on,” I said. “Go get it. Or is this another of those degrading domestic errands that so offends you?”
“Your husband said that when he gets back up here he’s going to kill you.”
I said, “Oh, the hell he is. I’ll kill him. I’ll buy a gun and shoot him. Go get that thing from Claudia, will you? Don’t worry about Charley; he’ll probably fall dead of a heart attack on the way home. He’s been saying that for years. He came home one day when I sent him to buy me Tampax and practically killed me on the spot. It’s the kind of solution that comes into the mind of a man like that; it’s predictable, and when you’ve been married to him –”
By this time Nat had started out of the study, holding the check in his hand.
“You’re going to do it?” I said, following him. “Get it back? For me? For us?”
“Okay,” he said, in a weary voice. “I’ll try.”
“Work your sexy charm on her,” I said. “Do you know her? Have you ever met her? Go home and get that marvelous rust-colored skiing sweater you had on that day I first met you — god, have you got an experience in store, meeting Claudia Hambro.” I followed him outdoors, to his car. “She’s the most sensationally beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my entire life. She looks like a jungle princess, with that mane of hair and those filed teeth.”
I told him how to find her house, and he drove off without saying anything further.
Feeling much more cheerful, I returned to the house. The girls were fooling around at the dinner table, sliding mounds of spinach back and forth at each other. I gave them a couple of swats with my hand and then reseated myself and lit a cigarette.
I’m smoking too much, I thought. I’ll have to get Nat to help me cut down. He’d probably force me to stop entirely, once I gave him an inch. He probably thinks it’s too expensive anyway.
Later on, since Jack had not put in an appearance, I cleared the table and got the girls to do the dishes. Seated in the living room in front of the fireplace, I began meditating about what Nat had said, the business about Charley.
Like hell he’ll kill me, I thought. But maybe he will. I’ll have to go get the sheriff or something. Get somebody to come over and stick around.
I thought of calling Doctor Andrews at his home and asking him about Charley. In the past he had been able to predict what Charley was going to do; it was part of his field to know those things. How the hell could I tell? Maybe the heart attack had scared him so much he might actually do it.
The front door opened. For a moment I thought it was Nat, back with the document, but instead it was Jack, wearing his old army raincoat and hiking boots. Jumping up, I said, “God damn it, I don’t mind you telling Charley, but why the hell did you have to tell the Inverness Park flying saucer group?”
He glanced down sheepishly and grinned in that idiotic way.
“What did you say in that nutty piece of writing?” I demanded. “Do you have a copy of it? Yes? No? Do you remember? You probably don’t even remember what it said, you –” I couldn’t think of any words to fit him. “Get out of here,” I said. “Get out of my house. Go on, get your stuff and go. Pile it in the car and I’ll drive you down to San Francisco. I mean it.” By his reaction I saw that he didn’t believe I was serious. “I wouldn’t have you around here,” I told him. “You lunatic.”
In his creaky voice he said, “I have an open invitation from the Hambros to stay with them.”
“Then go stay with them!” I shouted. “And get that woman to pick up your crap; tell her to come drive you and it over there.” I grabbed up something –it felt like one of the children’s toys– and threw it at him. I was so furious at him I was virtually out of my mind; if he could stay at the Hambros’ we’d never get him out of town — he could stay there and give them all the inside dope on us, write one telepathical paper after another, supply junk for an endless number of meetings. “And don’t expect me to drive you over.” I yelled, running past him to open the door. “You get over there on your own power. And get all your crap out of here tonight.”
Still grinning his idiotic grin he sidled past me and out. Without a word –after all, what could he say?– he shambled off down the driveway to the road and disappeared into the darkness beyond the cypress trees. I slammed the front door, and then I hurried through the house, to his room, and began gathering up all his crap.
At first I tried to lug it out front, to the driveway. But after a few trips I gave up. Why should I carry his stuff for him? Kill myself over a lot of rubbish –.
Getting madder and madder, I threw it all together into the cardboard carton we had intended to use as a cage for the girls’ guinea pig. Taking hold of one end, I dragged it out the back door of his’room, onto the field and over to the incinerator. And then I did something that at the time I knew was wrong. Getting the gallon jug of white gas which we used with the roto-tiller, I poured gas onto the carton, and, with my cigarette lighter, ignited it. In ten minutes the whole thing was nothing but glowing embers. Except for his collection of rocks, the whole thing had been burned up, and I for one was relieved. Now that I had done it I ceased feeling regret; I was glad.
Later in the evening I heard a car out front. Presently Jack opened the front door. “Where’s my stuff?” he said. “I only see a little out front.”
I had seated myself in the big easy chair, facing him. “I burned it all,” I said. “I threw it in the incinerator, the whole god damn mess.”
He stared at me with that asinine expression on his face, that giggle. “You did?” he said.
“Why aren’t you leaving?” I said. “What’s keeping you here?”
After fidgeting around, he wandered out, leaving the front door open. I saw him gather the junk that I had put out front into Claudia’s car. And then Claudia backed down the driveway to the road.
Wow, I thought. Well, that’s that.
I got the bottle of bourbon from the cupboard in the kitchen and carried it and a glass and the tray of ice cubes into the living room and put them down beside the big chair. For a time I sat drinking and feeling better and better. At least I had gotten my asshole brother out of the house, and that was something. I could get Nathan to help me in a lot of ways that Jack had helped. The girls would miss him, but again Nat would take his place.
And then I began thinking about Nat and Claudia Hambro, and I stopped feeling better and felt worse. Was he over at their house? Was everybody over there, my brother and Nat both? House guests of the Hambros?
No doubt Claudia Hambro was ten times as attractive as I. And Nat had never seen her before. Her magnetic personality — her ability to influence people; look at how she had gotten the upper hand with me, and Nat was far weaker a person than I. Not only that, it had always been evident that he was the kind of man that a woman can easily deal with. I saw that from the start. If an ordinary-looking woman like me, with only average intelligence and charm, could get such a reaction from him, what would Claudia get?
Thinking that, I began to drink as never before. After a while I lost count. All! could think of was Nat and Claudia Hambro, and then it all became mixed in with Charley coming back and killing me, possibly killing the girls . – . I saw Charley coming in the front door with the jar of smoked oysters for me again, and I found myself getting up out of my chair and going toward him, reaching for the oysters and being so glad that he had brought me a present.