A Secret Rage Read online

  As I soaked in the bathtub under a mound of bubbles, I conjured up a vision of myself in candlelight satin and a picture hat (I’d worn a wedding outfit like that in a show once), marching down the aisle to meet Cully – who was in a tux, of course. The whole tableau was fuzzily framed by an old-fashioned church full of flowers and people who wished us well. Mimi was beaming by the minister, her arms full of flowers – but not wearing a hat like mine, I decided judiciously; Mimi would look like a fool in a picture hat . . .

  By the time I was ready to switch off the bedside lamp, Cully tucked in beside me, I had designed Mimi’s whole outfit and selected my china and silver. Cully’s love for the wounded, his air of remoteness, had completely vanished in my vision – as had my memory of the years I’d knocked on the doors of his awareness in vain.

  As I sank into sleep, Cully’s breathing even and quiet beside me, I almost fantasized myself a virgin again for the wedding night.

  * * * *

  The funeral was scheduled for Tuesday at two. When I got up that morning it was raining, a cold autumnal rain. I let Mimi give me a lift to my first class; I didn’t want to start the day soggy. I had been debating whether or not I should go to the service. I decided, after slogging between my second and third classes, that I couldn’t. I’d already come up with a rebuttal to the argument I expected from Mimi. But when I got back to the house and announced my decision she only nodded.

  Cully had an appointment that would keep him in his office till the last minute, so Mimi left alone. She was drawn with exhaustion: Her eyes looked hollow. Her emotions had been burned away by their intensity. Our conversation, what there was of it, was strained. We all needed time to heal. I wondered if we would have it.

  The house was silent except for the patter of the rain. After I watched Mimi’s car back out of the driveway, I tried to settle at my desk with a stack of work. I was doing well in most of my classes so far, particularly well in my English classes. I’d been so afraid that what I’d been through would ruin my grades that I’d actually been working much harder. Desperate concentration helped keep the wolves at bay.

  I was supposed to read Macbeth for my Shakespeare class. It was fortunate that I was already familiar with the play, because I couldn’t bury myself in concentration. I tried the devices that usually worked, but nothing seemed to help. The cats were having a running (and vocal) battle, both irritable at being trapped inside by the rain. I kept imagining Alicia’s funeral and feeling guilty I hadn’t gone, if for no other reason than to bolster Mimi. We might be estranged, but love is a habit as well as an emotion.

  After I’d run through all my rational reasons for feeling restless, I discovered the true one. I was alone in the house for the first time since I’d gotten raped.

  When I realized that, I closed my Shakespeare and began to piece together a conspiracy. If Mimi wasn’t home, Cully was; if neither of them was in the house, it was while I was at school or studying in the library. Since I hadn’t consciously been avoiding an empty house, it occurred to me that the other two had been orchestrating their departures and arrivals to ensure I wasn’t alone. In an instant I was sure of it.

  Well. I was alone now. I listened to the drip of rain off the eaves, and stared out the side window into the soaked vegetation between Mimi’s and Mrs Harbison’s empty house. I shivered a little and pulled my sweater closer around me, doubled over my breasts. I couldn’t sit there at the desk a moment longer; not with my back to the silent room.

  I prowled the house. Attila had curled up to sleep in my clothes hamper, but Mao drifted at my heels. Upstairs, downstairs, from the kitchen to my bedroom. Back into the living room. All my favorite colors were there, my own harmony in the rugs and furniture; but I took no pleasure in it, in the fineness of the workmanship and wood. I stood at a front window and peered out at the houses across the street. They looked forlorn and dismal in the steady mist.

  A man was slogging down the opposite sidewalk, his collar pulled up and his head covered with a plastic-treated rain-hat. I eyed him with idle curiosity, not recognizing him as any of the regular neighborhood walkers. A persistent cuss, to be taking his constitutional in this weather. Only when he was exactly opposite my window and had turned to look at the house did I recognize that the man was John Tendall. I started to open the front door and call to him to come share tea or hot chocolate – that’s how desperate I was. Even flashy Tendall, the detective, whom I associated with that horrible night, seemed preferable to the hush of the house. I caught myself with my hand on the doorknob.

  ‘You fool,’ I said out loud. ‘That’s right. Just ask a man into the house when you’re alone. A man on the list, yet. Real intelligent.’ My fingers dropped from the knob. ‘Smart, Nickie Callahan.’ It made me feel a little sick, calling myself a fool because I’d been prepared to be friendly, been at the point of extending the trust one automatically feels toward familiar people.

  Come to think of it what was John Tendall doing walking in the nasty chilly rain? Especially when almost every other resident of a certain segment of Knolls was sitting in the church a few blocks away? I’d turned to sit at my desk, but now I moved again to the window to watch. Tendall had paused to stare at Alicia’s house. Then, as I watched, he trudged away through the rain.

  Maybe Tendall, the dedicated detective, was pondering the crimes. Maybe he’d wanted to stare at my house and Alicia’s to refresh his memory. Maybe he was revisiting the scenes of his crimes.

  My thoughts began the same old round. Barbara and I called each other, or saw each other, almost daily. We were still trying to come up with a way to further narrow our list, which remained at six. I’d told her I thought Ray Merritt was out, but she argued quite rightly that we had to have something more substantial than a gut feeling to drop him from the list. We’d temporarily reached a dead end. Maybe I should try again from the other end.

  Back to the same old question. What did we, the victims, have in common? A young, inexperienced student. A college professor of thirty-plus. A former model, now writer-to-be and struggling student. An efficient young matron.

  Already eliminated: build, hairstyle, access, age. Could be eliminated: Let’s see. Income. Background – Alicia’s and mine similar, but Barbara’s father was a small-scale farmer and her mother a nurse, and Heidi Edmonds’s father was a minister, I recalled. Oh – religion? No. Alicia had been a Baptist, I was an erratic Episcopalian, Barbara a Lutheran.

  But there had to be a pattern, a rhyme and reason. This violence, this hatred, had a specific focus. I had to know that focus for my own peace of mind. I might tell myself and everyone else that I was blameless. And I was; of all the usual things rape victims are accused of: leading men on, wearing sexy clothes, being alone outside at night. As if such harmless behavior meant the victim should expect to be raped in consequence. As if lack of wisdom, incaution, merited such a punishment. But always at the back of my mind was the niggling idea that maybe I’d offended somehow, had trodden over delicate ground. In some innocent way, some blind way, I’d aroused that violence, and I wanted to know how.

  I couldn’t recall any disagreements I’d had with anyone in Knolls since I’d arrived. No arguments, aside from classroom discussion, came to mind. Those were hardly heated enough or long enough to provoke a reaction of that intensity, and they’d often as not been with other women in the class.

  When Mimi and Cully finally pulled into the driveway in their separate cars, I was ready to talk. I wanted to hear voices and ideas other than my own. They wanted to talk, too; anything to wipe out the memory of what they’d just witnessed. They had taken the afternoon off to attend the funeral, so they were home for the day.

  Cully kissed me. ‘You were right not to go,’ he said, and went to the kitchen to bring us all some wine. We settled in the living room. I asked him what he’d heard from his policeman friend about the progress of the investigation.

  ‘He hardly tells me everything,’ Cully warned. ‘But I reckon they’v
e checked all the obvious things. Men registered at the motels on the nights of the crimes. Drifters. Anyone in town or close by who has a record of violence or sex offenses. So far, almost everyone they’ve checked has an alibi for one, or all, of the incidents. The people who don’t have alibis seem to be in the clear for other reasons: extremely short, which doesn’t tally with anyone’s impressions, or mentally deficient, which doesn’t either. Or something. Thank God, Ray’s in the clear. He was miles from here with witnesses at the time Alicia must have died.’

  So casually, another name was gone. That left five: Jeff Simmons, Charles Seward, Don Houghton, Theo Cochran, John Tendall. I had a fact for Barbara.

  ‘No one’s seen anything strange on any of the nights the guy’s been at large,’ Cully was rambling on. ‘That’s not too surprising when you consider how early this town goes to bed. No cars parked where they shouldn’t be, no fingerprints, just physical evidence collected from—’ He stopped short.

  ‘From me and the others,’ I said quietly.

  ‘What physical evidence?’ Mimi asked suddenly. She’d been drinking her wine very fast, in silence. ‘I don’t want to upset you, Nickie, but I don’t really understand what that means.’

  I focused on a snag in my hose. ‘What they got off me, with a kind of sticky-feeling pad,’ I said after a moment, ‘was a pubic hair that was not mine. And – saliva samples, I think, and – semen.’ My fingers plucked the snag into a run.

  ‘Some men secrete their blood type in the semen,’ Cully told Mimi quickly in a blessedly matter-of-fact way. ‘Some men don’t. But getting a blood type is a good corroboration. This man was a secretor, as it turns out. And from Alicia, I believe, they got some skin and blood from her fingernails, since she fought.’

  ‘I haven’t noticed anyone going around with a big scratch across his face,’ I said. But I’d watch from now on. What would Alicia have grabbed for? Not his face, dummy. His hands. His knife. Of course. I’d seen what shape Alicia’s hands were in, the palms . . .

  ‘But none of this is any good, is it?’ Mimi said abruptly. ‘Until you catch the bastard. To match all this evidence up with. It can’t help catch him, right? It’ll just help nail him if he is caught.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Cully said.

  The rest of the day was just something to get through. Neither Mimi nor Cully could come up with anything we victims had in common. I lay awake long after Cully had gone to sleep. I was facing the fact that the man who had harmed me would probably go free. Quite possibly he would go forever unpunished for his violation of my life and body.

  Then I had an idea so galvanizing that I sat up straight and drove my fist into my pillow. I shook Cully by the shoulder.

  ‘Hunh?’

  ‘Cully, wake up!’

  ‘You okay, Nickie?’ He rubbed my shoulder.

  ‘I’m fine, Cully. Listen – did your police friend tell you what blood type the guy is?’ I held my breath.

  ‘What? Oh. Yeah. Let’s see.’

  Dammit, Cully.

  ‘Not a big help,’ he mumbled finally. ‘O positive. Real common.’

  ‘Go back to sleep, sweetheart,’ I whispered. ‘Everything’s okay.’ He was snoring in two minutes, but I waited ten before I crawled out of bed to call Barbara.

  I knew she’d be awake.

  11

  THURSDAY MORNING BEGAN marvelously. Cully woke up feeling frisky. Hugging my wonderful plan to me, I was glad to respond. The room was cold. Cully and the bed were warm. My first class had been canceled because of a conference my professor was attending, so I didn’t have to be at school until 9:45. Everything was going beautifully until I giggled when Cully’s fingers brushed a sensitive area. In mock reproof, he lay a hand over my mouth.

  I was instantly blind with fear. I struck his hand with all my strength, my breathing seemed to stop, and there went my heart, racing racing for the end, oh God I’m going to die . . .

  ‘Nickie! Nickie!’ Cully’s face was over me, white and shocked. ‘Oh my God, honey, I forgot! I’m sorry!’

  I managed to gasp, ‘Wait. Wait a minute.’ I fought desperately to control my lungs.

  He had frightened me so much that for a few seconds I hated him. His black hair rumpled from sleep seemed ludicrous rather than endearing. For an abysmal moment I thought: What is he doing here? I don’t know this man. There was no sap left in me, nothing left that wasn’t burned and shriveled from the blaze of fear and hate.

  ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said very quietly.

  I stared at him. I believed nothing.

  ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’ Then for the first time he said, ‘I love you, Nick.’ But he said it in his ‘calming’ tone, professional and even. He put his arms around me, to cancel out that voice. I shuddered. ‘I wouldn’t hurt you for the world,’ he whispered. And I began to warm. I located myself correctly in the day and scene. Weak daylight was sliding from behind drawn curtains. This was my Cully.

  ‘I care for you,’ he said. He kissed me on the neck. I stared at the ceiling over his shoulder. Very slowly, he began to caress me again. I responded as best I could. I was trying very hard not to disappoint him, not to disappoint myself. When we finished, it had only been an exercise to me; to prove to myself I could still do it. I hadn’t had a problem with sex before, and had counted myself lucky. The nightmarish flashback had been triggered by something as small as his hand over my mouth.

  Cully kissed me very gently and adjourned to the bathroom. I lay wondering how many more such incidents were lying in wait for me. After a while, Cully came out and got dressed without talking. We both had a lot to think about. He sat on the side of the bed.

  ‘Cully, I don’t think I’ll ever get over it,’ I said bleakly when I saw he was waiting for me to speak. Then I was furious with myself. I’d cried for help, knowing he couldn’t resist that. I would not become an object of pity to my lover.

  He had been badly frightened, too, so now he was ill at ease with me. ‘I wish I could stay here with you now,’ he said to me directly. I searched his eyes. ‘I can’t. I have appointments this morning I can’t break.’ And he hadn’t had his morning run, either. ‘But you’re not alone, Nick. I’m with you.’

  ‘You’re with a lot of raped women right now,’ I said as lightly as I could. Underneath the blanket, I dug my nails into my palm. Maybe you’re pretty sick of coming home to another one, Cully.

  ‘Nick,’ he said, and pulled me up and put his arms around me. We sat like that until he felt me relax against him. ‘I’ll be thinking about you all day,’ he told me.

  I thought he meant it. Those were good words to leave me with. They infused some warmth into the outer edges, the area where I dealt with other people; and some of that warmth seeped a few layers deeper, to where I dealt with people I cared about very much. But my core, in which I lived as a solitary homo sapiens – that was still cold, still alone, and would be for an incalculable length of time. I had a mission to accomplish.

  In that silent chilly room, I knew for the first time I would never be the same woman I’d been. Unconsciously, I’d been expecting to feel a ‘click’ someday; after the police caught the rapist, when I was sure Cully loved me, or just any old time. And I’d imagined that after I felt that click I’d be just the same as I had been before that dark night. I’d forgotten what had frightened me so much when Barbara got raped: my conviction that what had happened to her was irreparable. Until this moment, I hadn’t applied that to myself. ‘Dumb old Nick,’ I said out loud and with immense sarcasm. And I slapped myself hard.

  At that instant I quit waiting for the click.

  Before I could brood any longer, I jumped out of bed. I moved briskly as I dressed and gathered the books I’d need. Just feeling my body moving and working revived that incredible wonder at being alive. As always, I outlined my day while I brushed my hair. A 9:45 class. Out at 11:15 for the day. A meeting with Barbara. A paper due in – I squinted at the calendar by the dresser �
� a little over a week, right before Thanksgiving. And all my midterms were over except the one a dilatory professor had scheduled for Tuesday. So I needed to spend some time in the library studying before Mimi and I went to tea at Sarah Chase Cochran’s in the afternoon. Also time to write my mother a letter, another fabrication that would omit all the important things. She’d sent me a thank-you note for the birthday present I’d mailed her, a sweater and blouse, and in it she mentioned that she’d gone out to dinner with some friends of my father’s to celebrate. And again she hadn’t mentioned Jay. Instinctively I throttled the rising hope, as I had for the past month. No point in dreaming about a sober mother, a mother without Jay.

  Jay would just love it if he knew someone had ‘gotten’ me. What I should have done all those years ago, I decided, was rocket out of that bathroom with . . . well, no, not a plunger, not heavy enough . . . but something . . . and bam! Beat the tar out of him!

  It pleased me so much to picture Jay cowering (or even quite battered) that I wished passionately I’d had the guts at seventeen to do it. The fantasy was so vivid and satisfying that for a few happy minutes I felt I had done it. Even the bite of the November wind couldn’t diminish my smile. It was the first time in ages I’d gone to class with a real smile on my face.

  Despite the morning’s humiliation, despite the beast still at large, in spite of everything, I suddenly knew that in some mysterious way I was going to win.

  * * * *

  ‘You take – let’s see . . .’ out came the ragged list, which never seemed to leave Barbara’s purse. ‘Um. Don Houghton, that’ll be easier for you. Charles, likewise. I have Jeff Simmons and Theo. I don’t know what to do about John Tendall.’