Chapter 23

The address was more difficult to find because she sought it deliberately. Through the fog, street lights dissolved and reappeared, inscrutable sentinels that seemed to delight in pointing her the wrong way. At last, Meredith found Thirty-second Avenue where it passed near the college. She followed it east, pausing at each intersection to locate the sign for Dimont. Gradually the landmarks became familiar, and she knew she had found the right area when the lighted window of a small delicatessen appeared like a beacon in the fog. She pulled to the curb in front of the red brick building.

Thirty-two-twenty-five Dimont. The man she did not love, but rather the man that the young wife loved, lived here for one more night at least. Meredith took the key from the ignition and leaned against the door wondering exactly how to say what she knew she was going to say. She could think of only two explanations for Arthur’s behavior. He had intruded into her life. He had returned on the pretext of selling some things at a yard sale. That could only mean that he was playing games or was himself being compelled by this horror.

She had left her house with no clearly formed plan. In the instant when she set down the phone she had been certain of some other realities. She did not love Arthur Watson, but the young wife had loved him desperately. It was a love born of that poor woman’s emptiness, her sense of shame for ever having been born. She had overcome that shame through Arthur’s love, but for some reason his love had failed. In her anguish, facing unending hopelessness, she had committed suicide.

Gus had tried to explain that, apparently, compulsions could be guided by dead hands. The dead made demands on the living. Meredith was ashamed. She had fought the dreams at every step. Instead, she should have spoken to Arthur Watson days ago. If she had, tonight’s suffering might have been avoided. She had trusted neither Gus’s instincts, nor her own. That was what it came down to, simple instinct, and she was trusting her own now.

November darkness descended. Meredith pulled her collar shut and opened the car door. Clouds of fog swirled past the streetlamp to give the narrow street a dreamlike quality, but this was no dream. She felt as certain of her movements, as if she had performed them a hundred times. As an afterthought she took the envelope from the dash and tucked it into her pocket.

The entryway of the apartment building was well lit and rows of locked mailboxes lined the wall facing the door. Meredith stepped over to them across the ornate wine-red carpet. It was an old rug, never fine enough to become an antique, but protected by plastic in the paths that might have become threadbare, and mended along one edge where the weave was nearly gone. The mailboxes were polished pink brass, and Meredith caught a glimpse of her features as she drew her finger across the row of names. She told herself that she looked like the back room of a junk shop, but that it was all right. Her hair might be a mess, and her clothing crumpled, but she was no longer on the defensive. She brushed at her hair with one hand, then decided to forget it. Arthur Watson’s name was printed on a small white card beneath the etched figure 2C.

Below his name, a note in small, fine handwriting asked that, beginning tomorrow, mail deliveries be held at the post office for one week until a forwarding address arrived. The date on the note meant he had not yet left, and the handwriting—the neatly inscribed 0’s and the wide W of his last name—stirred a memory. Deep below the semblance of rationality, of purpose, Patty cried out in her mind. This was Arthur’s own handwriting and it looked almost too beautiful to contemplate.

Meredith pushed Patty’s longing sternly away. The note meant he was still here for one more night, and that was all that mattered.

The carpet leading up from the second landing did not match that in the lobby, but it was just as clean and well mended. She climbed the stairs, studying the fine detail of the woodwork and admiring the years of care that must have been required to bring out its high shine. The brass lamp fixtures were probably the originals, designed for gas, but changed to electric. Lights glowed, casting a safe radiance along the hallway. The door to apartment 2C stood halfway down the hall.

Meredith knocked twice before calling out.

“Arthur? Arthur Watson?” She felt glad to recognize the tones of her own normal voice, free of the wispy uncertainty of Patty’s presence. She called again, but there was no reply from inside the locked door.

He had not left yet, Meredith told herself, he was merely out somewhere. She wondered whether she should wait downstairs on the bench in the lobby. He would have to return, but there was no promise it would be soon. Her instinct held firm. She turned and walked back toward the stairs.

Moments later, studying her features once more in the gleaming brass of the mailboxes, Meredith felt her instinct waver for the first time. Her fingers tugged at a corner of the envelope in her coat pocket. Apartment 2C was definitely the right one. Now she noticed a narrow opening at the top of the box. A letter would slide through it, if the envelope were folded. She could discharge the real debt that she owed him and slip away.

The impulse flickered over her mind even as she rejected it. A helpless young suicide’s need pressed on her, and it was the most important debt. In addition, she had her own needs. She wanted to lead her own life, not the life of some other woman. She firmly told herself that she would help Patty if she could, but Patty was going to make no more demands. She turned toward the doorway, suddenly sure she should not wait for Arthur to appear. As if the young wife had spoken a message clearly, in that small yet hopeful voice, Meredith knew where she would find Arthur.

The darkness seemed to deepen with the thickening fog. As her steps approached the end of the block, the windows of the Top Stop Tavern glowed before her. Meredith paused beside one to survey the interior before pulling back the door.

Small polished tables stood in a cluster around the low stage. The bandstand was dark, and only half a dozen couples sat scattered through the room. Sitting alone at the bar, his black raincoat folded carefully over a nearby stool, Arthur Watson lifted the page of a newspaper and turned it back. A glass of beer stood untouched before him, and his fine-boned features showed clearly in the mirror behind the bar.

Meredith watched him a moment, attentive to the feelings that whispered in her. She recognized the young wife’s yearning, but it seemed pale, a mere flicker of a memory. Her own need was much stronger, a need to understand what they had suffered together. Thankful to be in control, she slid the envelope from her pocket and stepped through the door.

“Mr. Watson,” she said, reaching the bar, “excuse me, I don’t know if you remember me.”