“My darling. You make me happy too. Happier than I have ever been. Now I don’t feel alone. Now I feel safe.”
Kate picked delicately at the gold thread with her fingernails.
They sat in the warmth for a long time before Faye stirred. “Kate,” she said, “we’re forgetting. It’s a party. We’ve forgotten the wine. Pour it, child. We’ll have a little celebration.”
Kate said uneasily, “Do we need it, Mother?”
“It’s good. Why not? I like to take on a little load. It lets the poison out. Don’t you like champagne, Kate?”
“Well, I never have drunk much, it’s not good for me.”
“Nonsense. Pour it, darling.”
Kate got up from the floor and filled the glasses.
Faye said, “Now drink it down. I’m watching you. You’re not going to let an old woman get silly by herself.”
“You’re not an old woman, Mother.”
“Don’t talk—drink it. I won’t touch mine until yours is empty.” She held her glass until Kate had emptied hers, then gulped it. “Good, that’s good,” she said. “Fill them up. Now, come on dear—down the rat hole. After two or three the bad things go away.”
Kate’s chemistry screamed against the wine. She remembered, and she was afraid.
Faye said, “Now let me see the bottom, child—there. You see how good it is? Fill up again.”
The transition came to Kate almost immediately after the second glass. Her fear evaporated, her fear of anything disappeared. This was what she had been afraid of, and now it was too late. The wine had forced a passage through all the carefully built barriers and defenses and deceptions, and she didn’t care. The thing she had learned to cover and control was lost. Her voice became chill and her mouth was thin. Her wide-set eyes slitted and grew watchful and sardonic.
“Now you drink—Mother—while I watch,” she said. “There’s a—dear. I’ll bet you can’t drink two without stopping.”
“Don’t bet me, Kate. You’d lose. I can drink six without stopping.”
“Let me see you.”
“If I do, will you?”
“Of course.”
The contest started, and a puddle of wine spread out over the tabletop and the wine went down in the magnum.
Faye giggled. “When I was a girl—I could tell you stories maybe you wouldn’t believe.”
Kate said, “I could tell stories nobody would believe.”
“You? Don’t be silly. You’re a child.”
Kate laughed. “You never saw such a child. This is a child—yes—a child!” She laughed with a thin penetrating shriek.
The sound got through the wine that was muffling Faye. She centered her eyes on Kate. “You look so strange,” she said. “I guess it’s the lamplight. You look different.”
“I am different.”
“Call me ‘Mother,’ dear.”
“Mother—dear.”
“Kate, we’re going to have such a good life.”
“You bet we are. You don’t even know. You don’t know.”
“I’ve always wanted to go to Europe. We could get on a ship and have nice clothes—dresses from Paris.”
“Maybe we’ll do that—but not now.”
“Why not, Kate? I have plenty of money.”
“We’ll have plenty more.”
Faye spoke pleadingly, “Why don’t we go now? We could sell the house. With the business we’ve got, we could get maybe ten thousand dollars for it.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no? It’s my house. I can sell it.”
“Did you forget I’m your daughter?”
“I don’t like your tone, Kate. What’s the matter with you? Is there any more wine?”
“Sure, there’s a little. Look at it through the bottle. Here, drink it out of the bottle. That’s right—Mother—spill it down your neck. Get it in under your corset, Mother, against your fat stomach.”
Faye wailed, “Kate, don’t be mean! We were feeling so nice. What do you want to go and spoil it for?”
Kate wrenched the bottle from her hand. “Here, give me that.” She tipped it up and drained it and dropped it on the floor. Her face was sharp and her eyes glinted. The lips of her little mouth were parted to show her small sharp teeth, and the canines were longer and more pointed than the others. She laughed softly. “Mother—dear Mother—I’m going to show you how to run a whorehouse. We’ll fix the gray slugs that come in here and dump their nasty little loads—for a dollar. We’ll give them pleasure, Mother dear.”
Faye said sharply. “Kate, you’re drunk. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t, Mother dear? Do you want me to tell you?”
“I want you to be sweet. I want you to be like you were.”
“Well, it’s too late. I didn’t want to drink the wine. But you, you nasty fat worm, you made me. I’m your dear, sweet daughter—don’t you remember? Well, I remember how surprised you were that I had regulars. Do you think I’ll give them up? Do you think they give me a mean little dollar in quarters? No, they give me ten dollars, and the price is going up all the time. They can’t go to anybody else. Nobody else is any good for them.”
Faye wept like a child. “Kate,” she said, “don’t talk like that. You’re not like that. You’re not like that.”
“Dear Mother, sweet fat Mother, take down the pants of one of my regulars. Look at the heelmarks on the groin—very pretty. And the little cuts that bleed for a long time. Oh, Mother dear, I’ve got the sweetest set of razors all in a case—and so sharp, so sharp.”
Faye struggled to get out of her chair. Kate pushed her back. “And do you know, Mother dear, that’s the way this whole house is going to be. The price will be twenty dollars, and we’ll make the bastards take a bath. We’ll catch the blood on white silk handkerchiefs—Mother dear—blood from the little knotted whips.”
In her chair Faye began to scream hoarsely. Kate was on her instantly with a hard hand cupped over her mouth. “Don’t make a noise. There’s a good darling. Get snot all over your daughter’s hand—but no noise.” Tentatively she took her hand away and wiped it on Faye’s skirt.
Faye whispered, “I want you out of the house. I want you out. I run a good house without nastiness. I want you out.”
“I can’t go, Mother. I can’t leave you alone, poor dear.” Her voice chilled. “Now I’m sick of you. Sick of you.” She took a wineglass from the table, went to the bureau, and poured paregoric until the glass was half full. “Here, Mother, drink it. It will be good for you.”
“I don’t want to.”
“There’s a good dear. Drink it.” She coaxed the fluid into Faye. “Now one more swallow—just one more.”
Faye mumbled thickly for a while and then she relaxed in her chair and slept, snoring thickly.
3
Dread began to gather in the corners of Kate’s mind, and out of dread came panic. She remembered the other time and a nausea swept through her. She gripped her hands together, and the panic grew. She lighted a candle from the lamp and went unsteadily down the dark hall to the kitchen. She poured dry mustard in a glass, stirred water into it until it was partly fluid, and drank it. She held on to the edge of the sink while the paste went burning down. She retched and strained again and again. At the end of it, her heart was pounding and she was weak—but the wine was overcome and her mind was clear.
She went over the evening in her mind, moving from scene to scene like a sniffing animal. She bathed her face and washed out the sink and put the mustard back on the shelf. Then she went back to Faye’s room.
The dawn was coming, lighting up the back of Frémont’s Peak so that it stood black against the sky. Faye was still snoring in her chair. Kate watched her for a few moments and then she fixed Faye’s bed. Kate dragged and strained and lifted the dead weight of the sleeping woman. On the bed Kate undressed Faye and washed her face and put her clothes away.
The day was coming fast. Kate sat beside the bed and watched the relaxed face, the mouth open, lips blowing in and out.
Faye made a restless movement and her dry lips slobbered a few thick words and sighed off to a snore again.
Kate’s eyes become alert. She opened the top bureau drawer and examined the bottles which constituted the medicine chest of the house—paregoric, Pain Killer, Lydia Pinkham, iron wine tonic, Hall’s Cream Salve, Epsom salts, castor oil, ammonia. She carried the ammonia bottle to the bed, saturated a handkerchief, and, standing well away, held the cloth over Faye’s nose and mouth.
The strangling, shocking fumes went in, and Faye came snorting and fighting out of her black web. Her eyes were wide and terrified.
Kate said, “It’s all right, Mother. It’s all right. You had a nightmare. You had a bad dream.”