The War Of The Roses Part 16

'Help me,' he screamed, remembering suddenly his experience in the sauna. Fat chance, he thought. The ruthless b.i.t.c.h. His resolve hardened. He tried to shift the weight periodically and managed to redistribute it temporarily, holding that position until his shoulder was shot through with pain and each position became equally unbearable. Aside from the compelling danger, which was terribly real and ominous, he felt ridiculous.

Soon he would simply have to plunge Forward, accepting whatever injury the heavy object would dispense.

The muscles in his shoulders tired first, then his back, and finally his shoulders just to keep standing. His legs began to shake. Save me, he wanted to scream. Who would hear him? Who would care?

'Dirty b.i.t.c.h,' he mumbled, hoping his hatred would fire the strength in his flagging muscles. His breath came in gasps now. He was faltering. His body was collapsing and he felt the full weight of the armoire move downward. His knees began to give. Gathering all his remaining strength, he prepared himself to take a giant leap forward. But he could not summon the strength. The weight was descending swiftly now. Finally he was on his knees. The pain in his shoulders was excruciating. The thought of injury or even his death in this manner revolted him, since it would give her the victory she wanted. Suddenly the power of hate intervened, and he felt the force of it shoot through his tired muscles. Concentrating all his energy, he lurched away from the falling armoire.

As it fell his body did not escape completely, and the armoire caught his shoe by its sole and badly twisted his ankle. The pain stabbed him. But he managed to contort his body, untie his shoelace, and painfully extract his foot from the trapped shoe.

Whiskey oozed from under the armoire, soaking through his clothes, its acrid smell permeating the room.

If she was up in her room, she surely had heard the crash. He had no illusions about her motives. This caper was no mere annoyance. It was the real thing. He crawled across the library floor, where a confused Benny had been startled to wakefulness by the noise of the crash. He felt Benny's warm tongue on his face. 'Good old Benny,' he whispered, embracing him, breathing in his doggy odor. It was more welcome than that of the liquor and perspiration in which he was soaked.

Raising himself on one leg, he managed to hop to the phone. It was, he was relieved to find, still functioning and he called a cab, then crawled outside to wait for it.

'You're lucky it's not broken,' the black intern in the emergency room of the Washington Hospital Center told him. He shook his head. 'You'd better get off the juice. This is what always happens.'

'I'm not on it.' ,'You stink like a brewery.'

Oliver felt the futility of responding. Who would believe him? He accepted a shot of painkiller and went back to the house.

But before he went to sleep, he Scotch-taped a note to her door. The shock had weakened him and the scrawl and wispy and uncertain.

'You had better watch your a.s.s,' he had written. Like her notes, it was unsigned.

He woke up in a puddle of sweat. Every muscle ached. He felt stiff, ravaged, and his ankle throbbed. With the air conditioning not working, there was not a stir of air in the room.

He posed a question to himself: Is this me? Searching his mind, he looked for glimpses of identification. He spelled his name, whispered his Social Security number, his date of birth, the name of his law firm, the address of his house, the names of his children. Superficial, he decided, half-amused, certain that the pained hulk lying moist and terrified in the two-hundred-year-old canopied bed was not himself at all.

Himself, he declared, was a forty-year-old man named Oliver Rose, with two beautiful children, Eve and Josh, and a lovely, loyal, beautiful, wonderful wife named Barbara.

The name set off a musical lilt in his mind. Barbara.

Dear Barbara. Whatever had happened to her? Where was everybody?

He had lived with and loved someone for nearly two decades and all she was, was an object of his imagination, something without substance or reality. He wished he could blot her from his mind, all the years, all the false roles.

He got out of bed and opened the drapes to the rising sun. Opening the windows, he was disappointed to discover that the outside air was as hot as it was inside. He had forgotten how hot it was inside. He had forgotten how hot a Washington summer could be.

Something was missing in the room. Benny wasn't there. Somehow he had got lost in the shuffle of last night's events. Sticking his head out the window, Oliver shouted the dog's name, then* listened for his familiar bark. Yet he wasn't worried about Benny. Benny could take care of himself.

Inadvertently, as he moved toward the bathroom he put too much weight on his ankle and crashed against the wall in agony; it took some time to gather his strength again. Peering at his worn face in the bathroom mirror, he felt the odd sensation of personal liberation. He actually felt good, and he couldn't believe it. He searched his mind for a reason. For the first time since Barbara had shocked him with her admission, he now felt the complete absence of doubt. He had no more illusions. He knew the real score. The lines were clearly drawn. The b.i.t.c.h would not be satisfied until she had his b.a.l.l.s in her hand. Never, never, he vowed. It was the moment of truth. Basic hate. Basic war.

He winked at his image in the mirror and, making a fist, shook it in front of his face. There was no undue heat to his anger now. The cutting edge was cool. He knew what he had to do. He picked up the phone.

'I'll be away for a few days,' he told Miss Harlow.'You need a vacation, Mr. Rose.'

He paused, deliberately giving weight to suggestion.

'I know what I need,' he whispered, hanging up.

24.

She had always hated the armoire in the library. Big, bulky, and overpowering, it was, as she saw it, typical of some compensating masculine desire for bigness. Sawing the front legs where they joined the cabinet and cementing the front doors had been practically a labor of love.

But she had expected, and hoped for, a larger crash. Perhaps she hadn't quite thought it through and applied the energy and zeal that he had expended to b.o.o.by-trap her kitchen or ruin her food. What she had done to his Ferrari she dismissed as 'compulsive inspiration.' Of course, he was more adept mechanically than she. It was time, she decided, to get tough, really tough. She was prepared to devote herself totally to the task. Like everything else, this ch.o.r.e, too, she would have to take on herself. Thurmont, she decided, was only out to line his pockets.

With her children safely tucked away at camp, the house empty, she was free to maneuver. She'd drive him out of the house or die trying, she vowed.

The armoire tactic, although disappointing, could be considered a warning of things to come. From her window she had seen him hobble off to a waiting taxi with what seemed like a comparatively minor injury. Then she had heard him return and limp up the stairs.

The night was unbearably hot and she had opened the windows. The sounds of the city were unfamiliar and that and the heat and listening for Oliver inhibited her sleep. As daylight emerged she got up, showered, and, surprisingly, felt refreshed.

As she quietly closed her door she saw the note he had written. Removing it, she scrawled a line in lipstick and reattached it to his door.

'h.e.l.l is coming,' the note read.

Holding her shoes in her hand, she moved downstairs stealthily to the kitchen. She removed the containers of still-frozen pate pate and chicken and chicken galantine galantine from the freezer and loaded them into her car. She had decided that rather than let them spoil, she would give them as gifts to her various customers, those that she could still count on. She had written off her recent dinner guests. Her mortification lingered. She hoped she would never have to face any of them again. As for the others, she hoped they would remember her generosity. Adversity, she had found, sp.a.w.ned resourcefulness. from the freezer and loaded them into her car. She had decided that rather than let them spoil, she would give them as gifts to her various customers, those that she could still count on. She had written off her recent dinner guests. Her mortification lingered. She hoped she would never have to face any of them again. As for the others, she hoped they would remember her generosity. Adversity, she had found, sp.a.w.ned resourcefulness.

The next few weeks would be slow, businesswise, anyway. Most people fled Washington in the summer, at least from mid-July to the end of August. She had more immediate and pressing problems on her mind.

Although she wasn't used to antic.i.p.ating events, she moved some cartons of canned goods and perishables from the refrigerator up to her room. Just in case, she told herself, proud of her newfound wiliness. In case of what? she wondered. But that thought did not diminish her new feelings of pride and self-reliance.

'I'll be away for a while,' she told the proprietor of the French Market, who accepted her pate pate with a flourish and a kiss on both cheeks. It took her three hours to make her rounds. with a flourish and a kiss on both cheeks. It took her three hours to make her rounds.

Returning, she let herself in through the back door. Cautiously, she ascended the back stairs as if she were walking through a minefield. She must learn to be alert, she told herself, wondering if he was still in his room.

A note was Scotch-taped to her door, scribbled on a piece of jagged cardboard ripped from a piece used as backing for laundered shirts. He had torn away the note she had pasted on his door.

'It has come your way.' The words were written in his sloppy, doctor-like scrawl. Her bedroom door was open a crack and an odd odor emanated from within. It confirmed what she had intuitively known. He had made another key to her room, which explained how he had tampered with her Valium.

Inside the room, she discovered that he had out-done even her most exaggerated expectations, despite her determination not to be surprised at anything he did.

He had methodically opened all the canned goods she had brought to her room and emptied their contents in the sink, the bathtub, and the toilet. The food had already begun to give off a foul, rotting odor and the sight was equally offensive. She was annoyed that she hadn't been able to predict such an action. But she fought down anger. Anger was one emotion that she would resist. Stay calm, she cautioned herself, noting that the windows were now closed. She moved to open them but couldn't get the cas.e.m.e.nt k.n.o.bs to move. Inspecting them, she realized that he had cemented them closed.

Without giving the act another thought, she picked out one of her high-heeled shoes and, using it as a hammer, knocked out all sixteen lights of each window, carefully removing the gla.s.s with a handkerchief and dropping the slivers into the bushes below. He had, by some strange quirk of fastidiousness, placed the empty cans in their cartons, as if he were determined to limit the damage to their rugs and furnishings. She smiled at that, since it told her that the damage she had inflicted on the armoire had meant more to him than this incredibly ridiculous act of revenge.

She felt almost exhilarated as she went into the bathroom determined to clean up the mess as quickly as possible. Again she had not antic.i.p.ated his actions. He apparently had shut off the water. Very clever, she told herself. She knew, of course, where the main water valve was located and, moving downstairs, discovered that it was not shut off, which meant that he had blocked the water pipes to her bathroom.

The kitchen taps worked fine. She filled as many stock pots as she could find and laboriously carried the water upstairs, dumping it into the bathtub. Again he had foiled her. He had, of course, blocked up the drain.

Her sense of calm purpose was ruffled. Despite the air coming into the room, the odor was still offensive, and it was obvious she could not stay there for long. The effort of bringing up the pots of water had left her with sweat-soaked clothes. She changed into jeans and a T-shirt. No underwear. No shoes. Her battle dress. She saluted herself in the mirror.

Throwing a canvas shopping bag over one shoulder, she went downstairs and proceeded to fill it up with what she considered useful items, a flashlight, candles, matches, bread, cheese, cookies. Then she chose the sharpest, heaviest cleaver she could find among her cutting tools. Thus armed, she went into his workroom, surprised to find it unlocked. She put a hammer and screwdriver into her canvas bag, then slowly, methodically, emptied all the containers on his neatly lined shelves in the workroom, all the screws, bolts, nails, nuts, every small item that he had carefully catalogued and put in its proper place.

In her heart, she knew she had always wanted to make this place a jumble. Its perfect organization had always offended her. His oasis, he had called it. The thought merely intensified her pa.s.sion for destruction. She cut all the wires off the power tools and drowned most of the other tools in a tub of lubricating oil.

There was a certain logical progression to everything she did, she a.s.sured herself, like the relentless course of true justice. She was even able to maintain a superior moral position about what she was doing, remembering Oliver's often quoting a line attributed to Hemingway: 'Moral is anything that makes you feel good.' And she felt good, deliciously buoyant.

It was growing dark and she made her way by flashlight up the stairs, sprinkling bottles of remaining screws and bolts on the steps. Any obstacle was a weapon, she told herself, feeling shrewd.

Pa.s.sing his room on the way to the third floor, she noted, through her flashlight beam, that the cardboard was no longer on the door. So he had ventured outside his domain.

Silently, she padded up to Ann's old room. The sleigh bed moved easily against the door and she lay down on its bare mattress, alert to any sound. Her hand tightened around the cleaver handle, its blade cool against her cheek. She hoped he would try to attack her. She was ready.

25.

In the flickering candlelight he could see the long row of wine botdes that he had rescued from the now-useless vault. He had finished one already, the Grand Vin de Chateau Latour '66, nibbling simultaneously on some Camembert he had found in the fast-warming refrigerator. Now he uncorked a '64 of the same wine. Definitely inferior, he tojd himself, letting the liquid slowly roll on his palate. That done, he upended the bottle and swallowed deep, greedy drafts.

Stripped down to his jockey shorts, he was sticky with perspiration. Through the open windows he could hear the night sounds of the city, a honking horn, a screeching tire, a child's scream. He thought of what he had done earlier, opening all those cans. What an unsightly mishmash. He erupted into peals of hysterical laughter.

Surely there were other delights ahead, he told himself, finishing the bottle and rolling it under the bed. Earlier, he had whistled to Benny. He missed Benny. He needed him to talk to. Benny truly understood. He stuck his head out the open window and shouted, 'Benny, Benny, you h.o.r.n.y old b.a.s.t.a.r.d.' He would have to call the pound in the morning. Once or twice Benny had strayed too far from home and the dogcatcher had caught up with him. 'I'll whip your a.s.s, you desert me now,' he vowed. 'In my hour of greatest need.' He knew he was drunk. There was no point in being sober. Not now. Not ever.

Taking another wine bottle, and with flashlight in hand, he limped out of his room, listening at her door.

Through the cracks where the door fitted into the jamb he could still smell the repugnant mess he had created. He was sure he had driven her from her room. Their room. It was a first step. He toasted the victory with a long pull on the wine bottle. He went into Eve's room, fiddled with the dial on her large portable radio, and, finding the most raucous rock station, turned the music on full blast. The exploding sound filled the silent house. He opened the door to Josh's room, looked inside to be sure it was empty, then put the radio in the corridor outside, first pulling off the volume and selection k.n.o.bs. Barbara, he knew, hated loud rock music even more than he did. 'Enjoy, b.i.t.c.h,' he muttered.

Holding on to the bra.s.s banister for support, he found it difficult to carry both the flashlight and the wine bottle. Emptying the latter in a long draft and then discarding it, he moved cautiously downstairs. In the library, concentrating the beams of the flashlight, he saw the armoire lying on its belly like some dead monster. The room stank of liquor. He shrugged and turned away. No sense mourning any dead soldiers now. There surely would be many more. Leaving the library, he limped along the hallway, past the kitchen, to the door that led to his workroom.

Although there was a fuzzy edge to his mind, it had not, he a.s.sured himself, affected his motivation, his single-minded purpose of driving her from the house. His His house. Holding the flashlight high to light the stairs, he stepped onto the first step. He had struck out with his good leg, but his foot hit something unsteady. His leg buckled in pain. He could not get a firm grip. His balance gone, he dropped the flashlight and slid down the wooden steps, grasping along the wall. Stabs of pain speared his skin as he lurched into metal objects strewn along the staircase. house. Holding the flashlight high to light the stairs, he stepped onto the first step. He had struck out with his good leg, but his foot hit something unsteady. His leg buckled in pain. He could not get a firm grip. His balance gone, he dropped the flashlight and slid down the wooden steps, grasping along the wall. Stabs of pain speared his skin as he lurched into metal objects strewn along the staircase.

The impact had broken the flashlight, plunging the area into darkness. The loss of balance and the pain sobered him instandy. He sensed he was lying at the entrance to his workroom. Feeling about his torso, he picked off metal objects, some of which had embedded themselves into his flesh. He knew he was bleeding. As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness he was able to make out objects in the workroom and to comprehend the devastation. Crawling carefully, he moved toward the sauna, lifting himself by the wooden handle, opening the door, and feeling his way inside.

He felt as if he had crawled inside a black hole. Unable to see anything now, he stretched out on the built-in redwood bench, knowing he was trapped here until the natural light filtered through the ground-floor windows. With the tips of his fingers he a.s.sessed his injuries, picking out more bits of metal from his flesh.

Vaguely, he imagined he could hear the discordant strains of the rock music. The idea that she, too, was tossing in the agony of wakefulness comforted him somewhat, although he felt a keen sense of his own inadequacy. The elation he had felt earlier had disappeared. He cursed his stupidity, his failure in not predicting the extent of her next act of retaliation. He was, apparently, still thinking of her as the old Barbara, not as the cagey viper she had become.

The shock of his fall had jogged his mind into alertness. He laid out the house in his mind, every nook and cranny, every pipe and wire. He was certain he knew it better than she. If it was to be a weapon, then so be it. He could devise a thousand more horrors. The house was his and, therefore, a trusted ally. They would fight her together. Nothing in life was worth anything if you didn't fight for it, he told himself, stimulating his courage. And his patience.

Sweat rolled down his body. Periodically, he would open the door to see if the light had come yet. The night seemed interminable.

When dawn did come at last, he moved out of the sauna and picked his way among the wreckage of his workroom. His resolve had become specific now and he knew exactly what he was looking for. He was surprised that the silicone spray cans and the large square can of lubricating oil were intact and where he had originally stored them.

Picking them up, along with a crowbar for which he had no other specific purpose in mind than its use as a weapon, he picked his way among the rubble and carefully ascended the steps, brushing aside the tacks and screws and bolts with the flat of his hand. As he limped through the corridor nothing intruded on his sense of purpose, although he gave himself a pa.s.sing glance in the hall mirror, quickly turning away from the ravaged, unshaven visage.

The smashed radio lay in ruins at the foot of the second-floor stairs. She had apparently attacked it, beating it to death unmercifully. With the aid of the banister, he pulled himself up the flight of stairs to the third floor, concluding that Barbara was holed up in Ann's room.

With the crowbar, he pulled out the tacks that held the carpet runner on the stairs, rolled it downward step by step, uncovering the bare wood. Then he calmly sprayed each step with silicone. When that ran out, he poured a thin film of oil on the remaining boards.

Despite the incongruity of doing the work in jockey shorts, he felt methodical and businesslike, as if he were writing a brief or dictating to Miss Harlow. What he was doing was necessary, a tangible countermeasure to soften her blind and corrosive stubbornness. This could all have been avoided, he thought, if only she hadn't been obdurate and grossly unreasonable. There was simply no other alternative.

When he had completed his self-a.s.signed task, he walked up the back stairs. When he reached the top landing, he jammed a wooden wedge into the door to prevent its opening and, like a man who had completed the day's work, retired to his own room. He felt he deserved a drink and opened a bottle of Lafite-Rothschild '59. It was, after all, a special occasion. Finishing it quickly, he lay down exhausted on his bed. He imagined he could hear Benny's familiar bark in the distance. It reminded him to pick up the phone and call the pound. But the phone was dead. In disgust, he pulled it out of the wall and flung it across the room, where it crashed and split. He opened another botde of wine and finished it.

He awoke, his mind on the outer edge of a bad dream, but could not remember where the dream ended and reality began. The room was dark, the heat unbearable. He lay in a pool of fetid moisture. Struggling out of bed, he moved in fits and starts towards the bathroom, feeling waves of nausea. His throat burned and he put his head under the faucet and turned the tap. Nothing came out. Groping back through the room, he uncorked a bottle of wine and poured some of it over his head, gargled some and spat it out. Then he took a long drink.

The drink steadied him and he lit a candle, carrying it to the mirror to view himself. Surveying his face, he shook his head with despair. His beard was growing out, his eyes were encased in deep circles, and his bare torso seemed pocked and scarred.

Opening the door of his room, he half expected to see her unconscious body on the stairs and he was already feeling his disappointment at not having heard her screams of pain. He had wanted, more than anything, to hear her scream.

Standing in the hallway, he felt a strange sense of deja vu, deja vu, and for a moment was disoriented, lost in dme. Strange odors seemed to permeate the air, but now, suddenly, he could pick out the familiar smell of her cooking again. The idea of it seemed bizarre, considering what was happening. and for a moment was disoriented, lost in dme. Strange odors seemed to permeate the air, but now, suddenly, he could pick out the familiar smell of her cooking again. The idea of it seemed bizarre, considering what was happening.

Turning suddenly as if she were prodding him, he saw a note Scotch-taped to his door, written carefully in what seemed now a much surer hand.

'This can't go on, Oliver,' the note said. 'We must talk. Meet me in the dining room at nine.'

The note was oddly tranquilizing. He felt a brief wave of shame, which changed quickly to hopefulness. Perhaps he was emerging finally from the nightmare. Was she coming to her senses at last? He read the note again. Of course. This could not indeed continue to go on. As if to b.u.t.tress his optimism, the clock in the foyer offered nine chimes. Aware of his nakedness, he went back to his room and put on a print robe. The least he could do was dress for a possible reconciliation.

26.

Ann had registered for summer school, more as a ploy to keep her in town than to acquire additional credits toward her master's. Only a sense of guilt and regard for her dwindling finances kept her going to cla.s.ses. What she had on her mind was the Rose family, particularly Oliver.

Other than making brief phone calls to his office, a subterfuge to hear his voice and check his att.i.tude, she had resisted any further contact. In the first place, she told herself, she had had more than her fair share of unrequited love. It was foolish, adolescent. Worse, it was one-sided. She was not a fool, she a.s.sured herself. Besides, it was time to find out whether he missed her. It annoyed her to be at the mercy of such a treacherously time-consuming and obsessive emotion. Yet, no amount of self-imposed discipline could chase it away. It was a curse. Its most insidious damage was to give her a sense of hope? hope that once the divorce was finally settled, he would choose devotion over indifference. She could make him a truly happy man. Besides, she loved the children. Every day she expected a call. None came. She wrote to the children. Periodically, she telephoned Eve.

'Do you see Mom and Dad?' Eve had asked.'Oh, occasionally,' Ann lied.

'I got a letter from Dad and one from Mom,' Eve volunteered vaguely. Ann detected her unhappiness. 'The princ.i.p.al problem for Josh and me is how we're going to handle Parents' Day.'

Ann caught the tone of rising anxiety. Deliberately, she did not react, offering placating humor instead.

'I should be home,' Eve said. 'It was wrong for them to send me here.'

'It's their problem, Eve. They have to work it out.'

'I know.' But nothing could move her. *I should be home with them. They need me.'

'They'll be fine.'The words were uttered without conviction.

When she didn't hear from Oliver for a couple of weeks, Ann called Oliver's office, only to be told that he had left for vacation. She wondered vaguely why the children hadn't mentioned that in their letters, which were becoming increasingly anxious.

After much debate with herself she called the house. A recording informed her that the phone had been disconnected. Armed with innocuous questions, she called Goldstein and Thurmont. They, too, were on vacation.