The 5th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories

THE FIRMIN CHILD Richard Blum

Elizabeth Firmin was an ordinary woman. Her husband was an ordinary man. They lived in a modern apartment in Menlo Park, which is certainly an ordinary town. But their child Tommy was extraordinary.

Elliot Firmin had been a graduate student at Berkeley when he met Elizabeth. She worked in the administrative offices of the University. She was a pretty girl; blonde, snub-nosed, with happily impertinent lips, grey eyes, and a well-moulded body which, not without vanity, she clothed in the latest fashions. She had found Elliot appealing. He was lean, dark-haired, sharp-featured, with shoulders that sloped impatiently forward, giving him an angular stance, as if he were holding himself ready for a sudden start, like a runner in a game. His movements were quick and nervous, enhancing the impression of latent forces tightly reined. He was funny and sarcastic and he startled Elizabeth. She, finding secretarial work dull, liked that.

When they were married they moved into a student apartment which was small, dirty, and Bohemian. Travel posters and penny poetry were thumbtacked to the plywood walls, and half-empty wine bottles stood atmospheric vigil on orange crate tables in the brief intervals between parties. There were a few books lying on the brick-and-board bookcase shelves, but there were not enough of them to lend seriousness to the pretension of scholarship. Elliot himself soon abandoned even the pretensions and shifted his field from chemistry to education.

Tommy was born seven months after their wedding, a premature baby only in the social sense. His development had been normal enough, so it seemed, until the day Elliot had installed the hi-fi set. Elliot was an enthusiast. Stereophonic locomotives roared through the room, stereophonic oceans raged at their door, stereophonic jungle animals rambled across their ear drums—and Elliot loved them all. But Tommy did not. From the moment it began to play he began to kick and scream and it was at this point that his long war with the stereo set began. His parents thought it was because he had an aversion to music.

Tommy was two when Elliot finished school and got his first job, as a teacher, in Menlo Park. There they lived in an apartment and there, whenever the music played, Tommy ragingly pounded the sound system’s heavy doors with his fists. He was unable to affect the set, but eventually he affected his father. Elliot, annoyed, would become peevish himself and would tune the set louder, ostensibly to hear the music over the roar of his son, but in fact he aimed to show just who was boss in the family. The issue was never settled clearly.

During his third year Tommy began to have what Elizabeth called “quiet tantrums”. They occurred without any apparent reason. Odd movements they were, contortions, writhing, as though his muscles had some spontaneously sensuous rhythm of their own. Elizabeth tried scolding, massage, and finally, a new mattress, but the movements went on.

Elliot received a raise and they moved to a new and larger apartment, a six-family California two-storey place with a lawn, common utility room, and an enclosed play area out back. The other families had toddlers too, and, in the manner of suburbanites, Elliot and Elizabeth met the other people there through the children. It wasn’t long before Elizabeth joined the other mothers in the patio or play area to drink coffee, chat, and watch the children play. Occasionally the girls, as they thought of themselves, had morning Martinis. Evenings and weekends all of the adults shared cocktails and barbecues and Elizabeth loved it. But she wasn’t sure about Tommy.

He began the business with the spoon about the time of his fourth birthday. At first it was just a matter of his insisting that he be allowed to carry the spoon, a battered tablespoon he had apparently found somewhere, wherever he went. He kept it carefully in his jumper pocket, treating it with more affection than any puppet or shaggy stuffed animal. Clearly it was his spoon and he treasured it.

But soon he began to polish it, daily at first and hourly later. Usually he used his pants cuff or shirt sleeve, gently rubbing to and fro, holding the spoon this way and that in the light, watching it carefully, breathing excitedly as he did so. At first Elizabeth thought he was mimicking her, for often he watched her fight her weekly kitchen battle with the tarnished silver, but soon she realised it must be something else. He was too intense about it and it made her uneasy.

The three of them were sitting in the living-room one evening, jazz playing loudly, and Tommy huddled in scowling defence in the farthest corner of the room. By now he had abandoned his physical attacks on the record player, now he just stared at it. But this evening he did something more. They watched him as he hauled himself from the floor, tumbling some surrealistic structure he’d made with his plastic blocks as he arose, and pulled that spoon from his pocket. He turned it over repeatedly in his hand, the solemn gravity of the very young bearing his movement company. Slowly he bent towards the loudspeaker, but averting his eyes sideways, focused on the spoon. He moved it in little circles, in long straight lines. Next came spirals and figure eights, all sculpted in the air. These latter he repeated and his head began, an automatism, to nod rhythmically with his baton.

Elliot smiled, “Well, what do you know? We’ve got a bandleader in the family.”

Elizabeth was immensely relieved, “Of course, that’s what it is!”

“What else?” asked Elliot.

“I’d wondered, that’s all,” she replied.

He ignored her. “What do you think, Tom Toms,” he smiled over his new-coined diminutive, “you want to be a drummer or are you a horn man?”

Tommy paid no attention. His grey eyes followed the slow geometry of his wand. His mouth was open. His tongue moved restlessly, rhythmically, back and forth over his lower lip. His tousled silky light brown hair had fallen over his forehead, and his eyebrows, already bushier, broader, and darker than ordinarily seen in children of his age, seemed to curl downwards, at their ends, as if they were willing themselves to frown.

He did look like a symphony conductor thought Elizabeth. Happily she called to the child.

“Tommy? Come on over here to mommy.”

Tommy shook his head. He went on carving his symbols out of the air, intense, a tiny necromancer, exorcising.

Elizabeth was hurt. Why had he refused to come to her?

It was a few weeks later that they were sitting in the living-room after dinner. Elliot was correcting papers, Elizabeth was sewing, and Tommy was sitting on the floor pushing some toy cars about. It was quiet except for those muffled sounds which creep through apartment houses in the evening. Tommy stopped playing to stare at the floor. He got to his knees, pulling his spoon from his pocket. With great care he polished it, using his blue corduroy trousers as a cloth. Still kneeling, he cocked his head sideways, averted his eyes again, and began to wave his spoon slowly about, sweeping it in twisting athetoid motions. His wrist seemed like rubber.

A chill coursed through Elizabeth. Tommy was “conducting” when there was no music. Elliot, sensing her shiver, turned.

“Tommy, what are you doing that for?” he asked.

Tommy didn’t seem to hear. He continued to move the spoon.

“Tommy! What are you doing?”

The boy made no reply.

Except for the business with the spoon there was nothing else tangible which his mother could point to in order to account for her growing uneasiness. Tommy played with his friends, he ate well, slept well, and seemed capable of entertaining himself. Comparing him to other four-year-olds Elizabeth felt differences which were difficult to pinpoint. There was no question that Tommy was brighter than others, his vocabulary exceeded that of the six-year-old Watkins child downstairs, but it wasn’t that kind of idiosyncrasy that troubled her. For one thing he had begun to have long periods of silence, which, unlike the moods of other children, seemed to have nothing to do with his being angry or tired or feeling hurt.

Elizabeth found his silences, preoccupations if they were that, hard to understand. She herself was an extroverted person who rarely gave in to moods. Conversation was her joy; she had never understood the silent people. Elliot would, Elizabeth thought. Most dark-haired people did tend to introversion, but even he liked to be sociable. Where could Tommy have picked it up? Maybe Tommy had inherited his temperament from Elliot. It was alien to her; alien and repugnant, and now a little frightening.

As the months passed and Tommy grew taller, he began to grow thinner too, looking less and less Elizabeth thought, like her. There was more of Elliot showing in his face now; a development which she didn’t welcome, although she wasn’t too surprised. Elliot himself had not been growing any better-looking the last year or two, nor was he endearing himself particularly to his wife.

She had come, by now, to view her husband as a little tedious, a little too “practical” and quite unamusing. It had been a long time since he had surprised her, and his old energies seemed to have dissipated, leaving him fatter and too content. She was tired of the apartment house too and had suggested to her husband that a change of scene would do them no harm. But he had argued, a conservative at age twenty-nine, that change had little to recommend. He was comfortable where he was.

She was reluctant to bring up her views on Tommy. That was already a sore subject. Nevertheless there were occasions on which she gathered her courage to confront her husband with her most profound concern; that there was something odd about Tommy. Her husband’s usual response was to ridicule her and pompously to advise her to encourage the growth of “uniqueness” in their child. At such times she was overcome with bitterness, for she felt she knew something of Tommy’s sinister “uniqueness”, and she could well do without it.

Her case was a difficult one to present. Tommy looked well. He never fought with the other children and, when attacked, retreated into an impermeable silence. The other mothers praised him and rightly claimed he was good-looking and had a charming smile. So he might, but it had been some time since his mother had seen him smile at her. Once inside the house he was moody and impenetrable, absorbed in what appeared to her to be nonsensical black magic with his spoon, or twisting into those body-warping rhythmical acrobatics that reminded her of an animal in its death throes. Desperately she had tried to break him of these habits, but she had failed. Now when he began she turned away.

But she couldn’t turn away from him all the time, nor did she want to. Sometimes he was adorable, at other times sad and helpless, and sometimes bright and cheery. These were times for play and love and lullabies. And then there was the other Tommy, the fey child, the stranger, the witch. She saw that side more often now. It made her nervous to be with him.

Elizabeth and Tommy were having lunch together one Wednesday, peanut butter sandwich, apple, and milk.

“Mommy?”

“Yes?”

“Why do the Watkinses hate each other?”

Elizabeth was shocked. The Watkinses, their neighbours downstairs these several years, were a pleasant couple, friendly, and apparently happily married. Their son, nearly Tommy’s age, was his play companion.

“Where in heaven’s name did you get an idea like that, Tommy?”

He shrugged his shoulders and took another bite of his sandwich.

“Why?” he repeated.

One day, Elizabeth was sitting out back in the play area with Eleanor Watkins and Sally Neubruck while their children scrambled about on the slides and in the sandbox. Tommy was pushing a toy tractor in the sand; he had given up using his precious spoon as a toy and kept it safely tucked away in his jumper pocket. Something had gone wrong with his tractor, sand had jammed the moving parts of the blade in front. He brought it over to Elizabeth.

“Mommy, can you fix this?”

She had taken it from him and using her hairpin, managed to put it in order again.

Eleanor Watkins smiled at Tommy, saying.

“There, Tommy, your mother is a good mechanic, isn’t she?”

Tommy nodded, but instead of going back to the sand pile, he stood looking quizzically into Mrs. Watkins’ face.

“What is it, Tommy?” she asked.

“What’s a divorce?” he asked.

Eleanor Watkins blushed deeply, turning to Elizabeth with a look of fury over Tommy’s question.

“Did you tell him?” Eleanor asked Elizabeth bitterly.

“No, certainly not,” said Elizabeth, shocked by Tommy’s question and by her friend’s angry accusation. She faced Tommy.

Tommy looked up at his mother, a look of deep hurt passing over his face. Without answering, he turned his back and shuffled despondently back to the sand pile.

“I told you it was in confidence!” Eleanor Watkins was near tears.

“But I tell you, Elly, I didn’t mention a word,” cried Elizabeth, “not to a soul.”

“I’ll bet!” Eleanor Watkins stalked angrily away, pulling her children along after her.

“What’s that all about?” asked Sally Neubruck, who had been sitting quietly as an amazed bystander.

Elizabeth was near to tears. “It can’t hurt to tell you now, not after that. Eleanor has been thinking of getting a divorce. She’s not getting along with Fred at all. I guess they’re having some awful scenes. It was a surprise to me, but she just told me about it and asked me not to tell a soul. I feel so embarrassed I could cry. I didn’t tell anybody, not even Elliot. I just don’t know why Tommy had to ask her that question. She had no right to jump to conclusions. Tommy probably didn’t know a thing. It was just a coincidence, that’s all.”

“I’m sure it was,” agreed Sally Neubruck. “It had to be.”

That evening, in the quiet of the living-room as Elliot graded papers, Tommy waved the spoon with a new violence. It was more than Elizabeth could bear. It hadn’t been her day. She walked over to Tommy, shaking him.

“Stop that I say! Stop that silly spoon business this minute!”

Tommy continued to trace his sorcery in the air.

“Stop it!” she screamed, tearing the spoon out of his hand.

Tommy shook his head, stunned, and turned to look at his mother with frightened, troubled eyes. He made no sound.

Elliot had turned and had seen Elizabeth’s outburst; he was angry at her.

“Now just what are you trying to prove?”

“Nothing! I just can’t stand that crazy spoon business a minute longer. It isn’t normal. There’s something wrong with him, I tell you!”

“Knock any kid around like you did and there’ll be something wrong with him. The spoon’s nothing, just a fancy like kids have. You know as well as I do that he’s musical. Let him play conductor if he wants.”

“Conductor, my foot,” shouted Elizabeth. “He’s not a bandleader and never will be. He’s a troublemaker, that’s what he is. I can’t stand it any more.”

With wide eyes Tommy listened. In the middle of their quarrel he allowed himself to be packed off to bed by his mother thirty minutes before his ordinary bedtime. Elizabeth was furious, nervous, ashamed. As she turned out the light, she kissed Tommy with the briefest of pecks and turned to walk out of the room.

“Mommy?” It was his first word since she had taken the spoon away.

“Yes?” she said irritably.

“What’s my name?”

“Don’t ask nonsense. You know very well what your name is.”

“Am I Tommy?” he persevered.

“Of course you’re Tommy.”

“And you’re Mommy?”

“Of course,” Elizabeth replied angrily.

“But I’m not the same Tommy, am I?” he asked, his voice sad.

“I really don’t know,” replied his mother, “sometimes I don’t think you’re the same Tommy.” With that she stepped out of his room, slamming the door.

In the kitchen the next morning Elizabeth ruminated over the events of the previous evening. She prided herself on being a reasonable woman, but this time she mused, she had been driven too far. Tommy had embarrassed her in front of Eleanor Watkins, embarrassed her sick he had, with that animal cunning of his, and then he’d gone into that unnerving spasm with the spoon which was enough to drive anyone insane. Then there was Elliot, a clod, a stupid blind fool. She’d told him so last night.

Elliot came in for breakfast. He smiled weakly and not with much sincerity. It was his way of saying he was willing to let bygones be bygones. Elizabeth made no effort to smile in return. She nodded her head curtly and turned once again to the stove. Elliot scowled.

Tommy came running in.

“Hi, Tom Toms,” cried Elliot, happy to be able to attend to someone other than his ill-tempered wife.

“Hi, Daddy,” said Tommy, scurrying up on to his father’s lap.

Over her shoulder Elizabeth said, “Good morning, Tommy.”

Tommy ignored her.

Elliot smiled in satisfaction.

“That’s a boy. Here, do you want your orange juice?”

Tommy gulped down the proffered glass. As he smacked his lips he turned.

“Daddy, can we have an orange tree someday?”

“Sure we can,” replied his father.

“Will it grow colours or juices?”

Elliot laughed, “Neither, just oranges.”

“Oh,” said Tommy, adding, “Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“Is she really my mother?”

Elizabeth turned away from the stove, knocking over a salt cellar in the sweep of her hand. The boy was uncanny, he inscribed her sins like the recording angel. Only in this case it was not an angel. Last night, after they’d gone to bed, she had been talking to Elliot, cursing him really, demanding of him how she could be asked to feel motherly toward a child like Tommy. Part of him was a monster, and that part her nature denied. It was as if her whole self was possessed of that mysterious instinct of organs which recognise their kin but reject alien tissue, building antibodies against it. Antibodies generated themselves in her without her willing.

She knew this, but when she looked at her child she knew that she had exaggerated and been cruelly unkind. He sat there near to tears, pathetic, despairing. How sudden his mood shift had been; from giggles to sorrow like a shutter snapping, closing his inner self. She cursed herself, her evil, her doubts. She wanted to rush over to him and pluck him from his father’s lap, sweep him into her arms, crush him in love, reassuring them both that she was his mother and he was her son.

She hesitated, Elliot would resent her picking Tommy up. Lately they had been competing for his affection. But she was remorseful; the poor baby, the tender child. What kind of a woman was she to have feared him, her own sweet Tommy? Was she, she wondered, insane?

Elliot had ignored Tommy’s question, although a hint of satisfaction could be detected as he chewed breakfast with joyful aggressiveness. Tommy waited hopefully, but finding no reply in the offing, turned to his toast and jam. He nibbled disinterestedly for a moment or two and then turned to his mother.

“Mommy?”

Her heart was pounding as she answered; hope and fear balanced precariously within her.

“Yes?”

“Can I have my egg turned over?”

Sweet victory. Redemption. “Of course you can, darling.”

How much she loved him.

“Mommy?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Why do you think Daddy’s a stupid fool?”

And the brat smiled as he asked it. Smiled!

At that moment Elizabeth could have killed him.

Elliot came home early, resolved to have it out with Elizabeth. Her behaviour with Tommy had been intolerable. She was all love one minute and all fury the next. And she was so nervous; what a change from the easy-going vivacious girl he had married. Elliot didn’t like to think about it, but the marriage was going downhill.

Elliot was convinced that Tommy was at the root of the trouble. Tommy was such a sweet boy, why couldn’t Elizabeth enjoy him? Oh, he could agree that Tom Toms was a little moody once in a while, but that was no reason for her to get upset. As for the spoon business, well, it might be a little funny, but why fuss? He’d outgrow it. Elliot believed in permissiveness; let children grow up without carping at them all the time. He was sure Tommy would turn out all right. He needed time, that was all.

No one was home when he arrived at 4.15. He presumed they were probably still out shopping. Elliot looked around the kitchen for something to eat. He was munching a cold leg of chicken when he heard the footsteps on the balcony by the front door. There was a light knock simultaneous with the door being pushed open.

“Hello there, Elizabeth?” It was Eleanor Watkins. She walked into the living-room calling again, “Elizabeth?”

“Nobody in here but us chickens,” Elliot called back.

“Oh, Elliot is that you?”

“Nobody else.”

Eleanor Watkins walked into the kitchen. She was a pretty girl, petite, dark brown hair, bright brown eyes, a sultry—almost pouting—mouth. Elliot’s eyes followed her into the room. She wore a tight sweater and a full flaring skirt. He liked what he saw.

“Oh, but you’re home so early,” Eleanor smiled, pleased and surprised. She liked Elliot.

“A little I guess. For once this month there wasn’t any extracurricular nonsense at school to supervise.”

“Oh.” Her hand began to stroke her hair. Eleanor stood there smiling, at home, her lips slightly apart.

“Anything I can do for you?” asked Elliot cheerfully. “Cup of sugar, eggs, flour, rattlesnake meat? We aim to please.”

“Oh Elliot, you are a tease. No, I just came up because I needed someone to talk to . . .” Her smile disappeared and in its place there came a look of sadness. She lowered her lashes and bit, with even white teeth, into the softness of her lower lip.

“Something wrong?” asked Elliot frowning.

“Nothing, nothing really.” She seemed near to tears.

“Gosh Eleanor, what is it?”

“Oh Elliot, it’s simply awful, awful,” she had begun to cry.

“What’s wrong?” Elliot felt awkward, and incompetent.

“It’s Fred. He’s been beastly to me, just beastly. I can’t tell you how awful he’s been. He hates me, he said so, and he’s just awful. “The tears were coursing down her cheeks, red framed her eyes.

“Well, gosh, well, I’m certainly sorry to hear that.”

Elliot had begun to perspire. He blushed a little. He had no idea what to say. Poor Eleanor. She’d always been so cheerful; friendly, too. Elliot wondered what to make of it all. Fred Watkins seemed to be a decent enough fellow. Elliot had known him for—was it four or five years now? He’d never suspected Fred of being ornery. Imagine. Elliot had thought the two of them had gotten along fine. Amazing. Embarrassed, Elliot repeated himself.

“Well, yes, I am sorry to hear that.”

The tears sprang from her eyes. She wailed.

“Fred and I are going to get a divorce!”

Before Elliot could comment, Eleanor Watkins had hurled herself against his chest, her arms clinging around his waist, her soft hair nestled against his cheek. She held him as she shuddered, crying.

Elliot was dumbfounded, embarrassed, flattered, pleased. He felt a swell of tenderness arising within him. His conscience told him not to, but nevertheless his own arm went around her, his hand stroked her head. He murmured.

“There, there, Elly, don’t you worry. It’ll be all right.”

She held him tight. He held her.

She raised her tear-wet face expectantly.

“Oh Elliot, I’m so unhappy.”

Elliot’s heart was pounding. He was hot and dry and churning as he kissed her.

They were still in the kitchen, embracing, when Elliot heard the sounds that he feared; footsteps coming up the outside steps. He recognised them as Elizabeth’s and Tommy’s. Abruptly he pulled himself from Eleanor’s embrace, saying,

“We mustn’t be seen Elly, we can’t, no no!”

He fled, consumed with panic, guilt, residual excitement; he fled to the bathroom, to lock the door, to secure himself from discovery, to gain time. Once inside he breathed more easily, checking his shirt and face in the mirror for telltale signs of powder or lipstick. Over the ripple of the running faucet he heard the front door close and the voices of the two women greeting each other in the kitchen, Elliot took his time.

“Hi, Daddy,” Tommy greeted Elliot cheerfully as he sauntered into the kitchen.

“Hi, Family,” he replied.

Elizabeth was unloading groceries on the sideboard. Her greeting was cordial and totally unsuspicious.

Eleanor said nothing, only smiled. Her eyes were red-rimmed but she appeared to Elliot’s astonished eye completely composed. He looked at her only once, quickly averting his eyes. It was Eleanor who spoke next.

“Oh Elizabeth, I hate to bother you, but I just stepped in to beg a couple of eggs. I guess Elliot was in the bathroom. Anyway, I didn’t want to take them without asking. May I?”

As Eleanor departed Elliot smiled a secret good-bye.

At dinner time Tommy was in a good mood. He chattered about his toys, asked about going to the park the next day, expressed his solicitude over the fact that Floppy, his monkey hand puppet, was about to lose an ear, and effervesced over toasted almond ice cream with chocolate sauce and whipped cream. Watching him affectionately, Elliot wondered what in the world could have made Elizabeth think anything was wrong with a tiptop Tommy like his.

“Daddy?”

“What is it, Tommy?” Elliot was in an exceptionally good mood, yes, exceptionally good.

“When can we go to the beach?”

“Why, as soon as it gets warmer, Tom Toms, maybe in a couple of weeks.”

“Can I take Floppy to the beach?”

“Sure, you can take Floppy.”

“Will Mrs. Watkins come along with us to the beach too?”

“Mrs. Watkins?” Elizabeth was puzzled. “Why in heaven’s name would you think of that, Tommy?”

“Because she’s sad, like Floppy. She’d like the beach.”

“Why that’s very nice of you to think of her, Tommy, but what makes you think Mrs. Watkins is so sad?” said Elizabeth.

“Yes, she is, she is! I know she is.” He turned to his father, a serious look on his face.

“Isn’t Mrs. Watkins sad, Daddy?”

Elliot, infused with a guilty conscience, turned scarlet.

“Isn’t she, Daddy?” Tommy insisted.

“Why yes, Tommy, I suppose she is.”

Elizabeth had no idea why Elliot seemed so uncomfortable. Perhaps, she thought, he was reluctant to talk about the private problems of adults, perhaps too he had recognised the arrow of Tommy’s perturbing clairvoyance. She was pleased. She hoped Tommy would ask his father more of those intrusive and disconcerting questions. Someday maybe Elliot would begin to get an idea of what she was talking about.

Elliot was seething with anxiety, doom seemed just around the corner. What would Tommy ask next? The wily little . . .» Elliot fought to suppress the curse. It would be a miracle, Elliot thought, if he could slip out of this situation without Elizabeth noticing, without Tommy trapping him. The treacherous . . . Elliot fought to control himself, to outwit his son. There, damn him, Tommy was taking aim again.

“Daddy, why does Mrs. Watkins . . .”

Elliot interrupted. He wasn’t going to let Tommy have his say.

“We’ll not talk about Mrs. Watkins. Her life isn’t our business. You’ve got to learn that; not to stick your nose into other people’s affairs. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Daddy.” Tommy’s eyes were troubled.

Elliot had spent a sleepless night. He asked himself what had he gotten himself into? Why had he behaved so warily with Tommy? The poor kid, probably just an innocent question, coincidence, that was all. He’d probably seen that Elly’s eyes were red when she’d been in the kitchen borrowing the eggs. That had to be it. Imagine, being afraid of your own five-year-old, yes, really afraid of him; it didn’t make sense.

The next morning at breakfast, in spite of his own ugly fatigue, Elliot made an especial effort to be nice. Was it a bad conscience or bribery? Elliot wasn’t quite sure. He felt uncomfortable being in the same room with the boy. Terrible, Elliot strove for a façade of amiability.

“What do you say, Tom Toms, if it’s nice next Sunday maybe we can go to the beach?”

Tommy nodded absent-mindedly.

“What do you say, Tom Toms Boy?” Elliot exuded affected good cheer.

Tommy stared at him.

Elizabeth had been in bed with the flu for four days. Sally Neubruck had taken care of Tommy most of the time, while Elliot, more considerate and affectionate these days than he had been in years, prepared the meals. The apartment had gone to pot. Elizabeth, who was still sick but who had insisted on getting up to eat with the family at dinnertime, surveyed the wreckage. Elliot was certainly no dishwasher. The yellow linoleum-tiled floor was turning beige from the dirt.

“I’ll never be able to clean this mess up,” she complained plaintively.

“It’s a little disorganised, I’ll admit,” replied Elliot.

“Disorganised! It’s simply hopeless. Oh, I wish I’d never gotten sick! What ever will I do?”

“Why don’t you get a cleaning woman in to help you for the next week or so? I think we could afford it.”

“Oh, Elliot, could we really?”

“Sure. What does it cost?”

“It’s expensive,” she warned.

“Like?”

“About $1.50 an hour I’m afraid.”

“Wow. Not bad for the cleaning woman. I think I’ll give up teaching.”

Elliot pulled a pencil from his pocket and scratched some figures on the pink paper napkins.

“Let’s say you have her in for five hours a day for the next six days. Would that do the trick?”

“It would be a Godsend!”

“Good. Tell you what, I’ll go down to the bank tomorrow and get the money out of savings. You call the employment office and have them send somebody out. Okay?”

“Grand.” She smiled weakly.

The cleaning woman, a thin tired-looking coloured lady of about sixty, dressed in an old faded blue print dress and wearing shoes with run-down heels, peered at Tommy. She wore thick old-fashioned spectacles that testified to her short sight.

“Boy?”

“Yes?”

“You run in now and tell your mother I’m all ready to go now.”

Obediently Tommy shuffled into the bedroom. Elizabeth was dressed in her pink terry-cloth robe. She was sitting in the lounging chair reading the morning paper, even though it was by now afternoon. For the last few minutes her eyes had been fixed on an advertisement. There was a clearance sale of imported Italian purses; black calfskin, lined in gold-coloured satin, very fashionable. Reduced from $21.00 to $10.95.

Elizabeth wanted one of those purses. She’d needed a purse for longer than she cared to remember. They never seemed to have any money for what she wanted, only for what Elliot wanted. It wasn’t fair. More debts and tighter budgeting, that’s what each year seemed to bring. She was still wearing the things she’d bought when she was single, years ago. Elliot was a real pennypincher, salting it away in the bank. Why the cleaning woman had more money in her purse than she did. Yes, it was true, Elizabeth affirmed to herself, the cleaning woman was better off. One dollar and fifty cents an hour. It was robbery. What had the woman done these last six days? Waved a mop at the dust and run some hot water over the dishes. It was dishonest.

When Tommy came in with his message, Elizabeth pulled the wallet out of her purse. There was the money inside, three ten-dollar bills and three fives, just as Elliot had given her. How self-satisfied he’d been with his generosity, like a millionaire giving dimes to the poor. And there, in her side of the wallet, a measly five dollars. Disgusting.

As she held the wallet in her hand, Elizabeth had an idea. It was a new kind of an idea and she liked it. She liked it very much.

“Tommy,” she said, “you go outside and play now. See if some of your friends are home.”

Tommy walked obediently to the front door. She listened carefully as his steps ran down the outside stairway and faded away into silence as he reached the patio below. She waited another moment. She needed time to gather her resolve.

The old woman, her face soured by too many of the wrong kind of years, said only:

“I’m done, ma’am. That’s forty-five dollars.”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, “here you are.”

Quickly she counted out the money: “ten, twenty, thirty, forty, forty-five. There you are.” She thrust the bills into the other’s hand.

The cleaning woman peered nearsightedly at the money. As she did so Elizabeth could feel her own heart pounding rapidly inside. Her mouth was dry and sticky, as if someone had glued the membranes to one another.

The woman thanked Elizabeth and shuffled out the front door, the bills wadded tightly in her claw-like old hand. As soon as the front door closed Elizabeth plummeted into a chair, her shaking legs no longer able to support her. She was breathing heavily. It wasn’t easy to do what she had done, still, it had gone well. She opened her palm to look at the two ten-dollar bills flat inside, moist now from her perspiration.

When she heard the knock on the door her stomach twisted inside her and the skin of her body turned dry and prickly. She summoned her strength to answer the door knock. It was, as she had known, the cleaning woman. The woman stood there blinking uncertainly. Her old face was more puckered than ever. What an evil face, thought Elizabeth, evil and corrupt.

“I counted that money you give me. They wasn’t two tens you give me, they wuz two fives.”

“I don’t understand,” said Elizabeth sweetly.

“You only give me $35 not $45, just then.” The old woman’s voice rasped and whined.

“But that’s impossible. You were there when I counted it out.”

“I don’t care who wuz there, honey, but you give me fives instead of tens. I want my $10.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken. I’ve given you your money.”

“I don’t make mistakes about money, honey. You give me my pay!”

The old woman’s yellow teeth, black at the gums, glistened in the afternoon light, wet and dirty like a rodent’s. Elizabeth felt a little ill. A fetid mouth. Evil.

“You’ve been paid,” said Elizabeth firmly.

“You cheated me. That’s what you done. I’m gonna call the police.”

“Please do. On the other hand I don’t think you want to get into trouble.” Elizabeth’s eyes were narrow. She felt suddenly very self-possessed, as if she were made of steel. She continued:

“It’s your word against mine, I think I know whom the police will believe, don’t you.”

The old woman’s eyes gleamed, small and full of hatred. Elizabeth went on, speaking calmly:

“Besides, I think there’s some silver missing in the buffet.”

The old woman blinked rapidly. Her breath came in short gasps, wheezing, like a squeaky bellows. Her mouth moved but no sound came. There was a silence of a full minute while the two women measured each other and themselves. The old Negro’s shoulders sagged. Bitterly she said.

“Thank you, honey. You must need that money real bad, I won’t forget you, no, I won’t.”

Elizabeth stood on the balcony and watched as the old woman walked slowly out of sight, Elizabeth was surprised to find herself smiling.

Tommy came in for cookies and milk at four. He was moody, munching the supermarket’s newest brand of marshmallow puffs without a word. Just looking at him made Elizabeth uncomfortable, the way his eyes seemed to follow her, the way he seemed to know something.

“Well Tommy, is there something you want to say?” she challenged him menacingly.

Tommy shook his head. His fingers, buried in his pocket, caressed his spoon.

It was a Sunday afternoon. The weather was sunny but a crisp wind blew in from the Pacific. The rock-framed beach south of Pescadero was empty, save for the gulls and the long cables of bulbous seaweed which were coiled across the sand. Tommy had run down the narrow twisting path from the tiny parking area to the beach itself. He was exuberant. As he ran, his hands moved rhythmically, snaking in hesitant circles through the air; a spastic Balinese dance. For the last few months any excitement had produced these bizarre wooden gyrations. Now he kicked off his rubber Japanese sandals and rushed up to the water’s edge, there to play tag with the foaming, darting waves. Occasionally he stopped to check his coat pocket where Floppy the monkey had been put to ride, head forward, like a baby kangaroo in a pouch.

His parents walked some fifty or sixty feet behind him. They were talking, their heads close together, each straining to hear the other’s voice above the roar of the sea.

“Look at him go,” said Elliot. “Why, he runs like a sandpiper.”

“He loves it,” agreed Elizabeth.

“It’s good for him to get out.”

“Yes,” agreed Elizabeth. “It is good for him. Maybe that will help . . .” Her voice trailed off, tentative.

“Yea,” said Elliot, “maybe it will.”

Elizabeth looked curiously into the face of her husband, “You see it too, then?”

“Yes,” said Elliot quietly.

Elizabeth experienced a wave of relief. After all these years of blindness, of lying, of angry denial, Elliot had at last opened himself to the truth. She was no longer alone. She and Elliot were together again, bearing a burden together.

She reached out her hand to grasp his. He responded, holding hers firmly. It had been a long time since they had walked hand-in-hand like that. As far as Elizabeth was concerned it was a rebirth. Elliot, too, was glad that he had stopped lying to himself and to her. He would face the facts head on.

“He’s a strange child,” mused Elliot.

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“He’s getting worse.”

“The spoon, the dances, the silences, the spells. It’s not human. He’s like a devil sometimes, or an animal.”

“But he’s so sweet sometimes, so intelligent.”

“Too intelligent,” Elliot was emphatic.

“Yes, that’s true.” She spoke bitterly, then asked.

“Do you have any idea, Elliot, I mean why it had to happen to us? What have we done wrong? Why did we deserve it?”

Elliot shook his head. She went on,

“What is it or what is he that makes him this way? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know really. Maybe he’s sick; sick in the head, nutty. It’s hard to believe. I’ve never heard of any sickness like this. But if it’s not sickness, well, maybe it’s something even worse, something diabolical. I don’t know.”

“It scares me, Elliot. It really does.”

“Yea. Me too.”

Ahead of them, Tommy was seated on the sand waiting for them. As they drew near he pulled his precious spoon out of his pocket, gently dispossessing Floppy as he did so. Gripping the spoon in his left hand he gestured like a divine in a benediction. His ritual had begun.

It was the first time that Tommy had ever pointed a spoon at either one of them. They didn’t understand his intentions, but they understood evil. They stood transfixed as the spoon swung through the air, an eerie aura, ominously portending.

Elizabeth’s spine chilled, frosty tingling fingers raced out her limbs.

“Tommy!” she shouted. “Stop it! Elliot, make him stop!”

Elliot strode up to his son and grabbed him by the shoulders. He shook the boy so hard that the child’s teeth rattled.

“There, that ought to shake some sense into you.”

There was a fool’s grin on Tommy’s face. He began to laugh, but not like a child. It was the cry of a whooping crane hooting from the treetops in the whispering quiet of the seashore’s night. That laughter consumed him until he fell back dazed on the sand.

Horror-stricken, spellbound, his parents could only watch.

When he had recovered wit and strength, Tommy, his face bland and expressionless, asked:

“We’re all frightened, aren’t we?”

His parents didn’t answer.

“We’ll go away now, won’t we? We’ll make it go away.”

“Do you want to go home, Tommy? Is that what you mean?” his mother asked.

Tommy clutched the spoon so tightly in his small hand that the knuckles grew white. He aimed the spoon at his parents.

“I’m going to make it go away, Daddy. I’m going to make the ocean drown the noises down. The noises go away in the water. I wave the waves, wave the sounds. Goodwaving soundbyes. The fish will drown. Go down. Round with the sound. Down to drown.”

“Oh, Tommy, please!” His mother was pleading, fighting back the terror and the tears. “Please don’t talk like that. Listen to me Tommy, I’m your mother. Please. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“The ocean is wrong, Mommy, the waves are too noisy. It’s too deep and nobody can swim. The fish don’t play any more, but I’ll wave them away. Then Floppy can play and it won’t scare me Elliot like the devil sometimes or an animal.”

“Tommy, what are you saying?” Elliot was aghast.

“Too intelligent Elizabeth, sick in the head or something worse. Something dies. And Floppy with his ears coming off.”

“My God!” Elizabeth’s hand covered her mouth, her face was snow pale.

“He heard us. The kid heard us.” Elliot was appalled. “He heard what we said. He must have heard what we said way back there behind him on the beach. He heard us. No. He couldn’t have!”

Elizabeth’s eyes were closed as she said, “Yes Elliot, he’s been hearing us all along. Hearing everybody. I’ve been wrong. He wasn’t reading my mind. He’s been listening,” she whispered the last words.

“It’s not right!” Elliot shouted angrily. “He didn’t tell us. We didn’t know. He’d have to have ears like a dog, like a bat, an animal. No, that’s not it. It can’t be. It’s the other . . .” Elliot’s voice had dropped low, as one first discovering the grand conspiracy; triumphant, understanding, but half-insane. He faced his son.

“Well, Tommy, is that it? You can tell us now. We know.”

“I love you, Elly. Elizabeth must never know. Oh Elliot I love you. Is that the way I love Elizabeth, Daddy?” Tommy’s voice was bland but his face was excited, his eyes overbright. He clenched and unclenched his fist about the spoon.

Elliot began to move toward his son slowly. The muscles in Elliot’s cheek twitched. Tommy watched him carefully, like a cat gauging the approach of an antagonist. He raised the spoon and pointed it toward his father, saying:

“You cheated me that’s what you done. I’m gonna call the police. They’ll take Floppy and he’ll kill everybody. He’ll kill the ocean. Thank you, honey, I won’t forget you, you must need that money, no I won’t.”

Elliot stood still, Elizabeth stared at her son. The sound of sea surf encompassed all of them; the salt wind burying them with whispers, the ocean roaring oblivion at them.

And her child smiled back. He laughed sweetly, a choir boy, an angel, and then, doubling into twisted deformity, began to roll in the sand, flailing it with his hands. He was screaming; flecks of froth flying, tiny flakes, being blown with the sea foam coming from the sea, his cries merging with the circling gulls, his laughter with the roar of the sea.

The climb up from the beach on the winding path had been exhausting. Both of them were pale and panting. Blood oozed from Elizabeth’s knee. She had fallen while running up the steep trail.

“Oh, dear God!” she moaned, “Oh Elliot. It was awful!” She was hysterical.

“Yea.”

“Oh, dear God!”

“Try to calm yourself, darling. Maybe in the long run it will work out for the best this way. It wasn’t, it wasn’t natural to expect it to go on. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.”

“But Elliot, it wasn’t God that did . . .” For a moment she stopped, giving her shocked mind time to search for an acceptable phrase . . . “that did—what happened just now.”

Elliot admired her delicate choice of words.

“No darling, it wasn’t God, but no one else will ever know that will they, dear?” He put his hand over hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze. They reached the car and got inside.

Her cries were only whimpers now. As she fought for composure she replied:

“No dear.”

She held tightly to his hand as they sped away from the empty beach, hurrying to the nearest telephone.