I was only like that for a few minutes, sitting there and staring, but a world of things, most of my kid life, came back to me in that time. She came back to me, the housekeeper, and she had been so much of that life.
""Want to fight, Helene? Want to learn how to box"... ?"
And:
""Oh, I'm tired. You just hit me"...."
And:
""But you'll like it, darling. All the big boys do it...."
I lived back through it all, and then I came to the end of it. That last terrible day, with me crouched at the foot of the stairs, sick with fear and shame, terrified, aching with the first and only whipping in my life; listening to the low angry voices, the angry and contemptuous voices, in the library.
""I am not arguing with you, Helene. You're leaving here tonight. Consider yourself lucky that I don't prosecute you."
"Oh, ye-ss? I'd like to see you try it!"
"Why, Helene? How in the world could you do such a thing?"
"Jealous?"
"You--a mere child, and--"
"Yes! That's right! A mere child. Why not remember that? Listen to me, Daniel. I--"
"Don't say it, please. I'm at fault. If I hadn't--"
"Has it hurt you any? Have you harmed anyone? Haven't you, in fact--I should ask!--gradually lost all interest in it?"
"But a child! My child. My only son. If anything should happen--"
"Uh-huh. That's what bothers you, isn't it? Not him, but you. How it would reflect on you."
"Get out! A woman with no more sensibilities than--"
"I'm white trash, that's the term, isn't it? Riffraff. I ain't got that ol' quality. All right, and when I see some hypocritical son-of-a-bitch like you, I'm damned glad of it!"
"Get out or I'll kill you!"
"Tsk-tsk! But think of the disgrace, Doctor... Now, I'm going to tell you something...."
"Get--"
"Something that you above all people should know. This didn't need to mean a thing. Absolutely nothing. But now it will. You've handled it in the worst possible way. You--"
"I... please, Helene."
"You'll never kill anyone. Not you. You're too damned smug and self-satisfied and sure of yourself. You like to hurt people, but--"
"No!"
"All right. I'm wrong. You're the great, good Dr. Ford, and I'm white trash, so that makes me wrong... I hope"."
That was all.
I'd forgotten about it, and now I forgot it again. There are things that have to be forgotten if you want to go on living. And somehow I did want to; I wanted to more than ever. If the Good Lord made a mistake in us people it was in making us want to live when we've got the least excuse for it.
I put the concordance back on the shelf. I took the picture into the laboratory and burned it, and washed the ashes down the sink. But it was a long time burning, it seemed like. And I couldn't help noticing something:
How much she looked like Joyce. How there was even a strong resemblance between her and Amy Stanton.
The phone rang. I wiped my hands against my pants, and answered it, looking at myself in the laboratory door mirror--at the guy in the black bow tie and the pink-tan shirt, his trouser legs hooked over his boot tops.
