“Oh, yes,” she said in a vague way; and she raised the glass and barely wet her lips. Tully turned and poured himself a drink almost as copious.
“Let’s go into my den, Kathleen,” he said, forcing another smile. “It’s comfier there.”
Rather to his surprise, she said, “All right,” and ambled along in his wake.
He sat her down in his oversized leather chair and hovered over the telephone without seeming to do so. If only someone would call!
“I suppose you’ve wondered,” Norma said brightly — she was sitting in a stiff position that made him wince — “what I can possibly see in a man like Oliver Hurst.”
“Well... yes.”
“I know everybody does. What people don’t realize is that the beautiful Kathleen Lavery — they call me that, don’t they? — with all this money and position, is way down deep the unhappiest girl in town. The beautiful Mercedes — they call mother that, too, don’t they? — doesn’t understand that I need to be needed for myself, for what I am inside, not for what I look like and have. Ollie Hurst needs me as a person — the only man I’ve ever known who does. What do I care what Ollie looks like? Or that he hasn’t a dime? He’s mad about me. And he always will be.”
Under other circumstances Tully would have been fascinated. This is how it must have been, he thought, seen through Norma Hurst’s eyes.
“You aren’t listening,” Norma said. She was still sitting rigid on the edge of the chair, still holding the glassful of untouched Scotch.
“Oh, but I am — Kathleen,” he said hastily. “Please go on.”
“There! You remembered again.” She smiled, a painful surface adjustment of muscle tissue. “Why did you keep calling me that other name? You know, that was cruel of you. Poor Norma can’t help being what she is.”
“I’m sorry,” Tully said. Idly he removed the handset from its cradle. “I mean I’m sorry for—”
“Will you stop playing with that phone?” Norma said shrilly. “It makes me nervous.” He replaced the handset. “What was I saying? Oh, about Norma. She’s so sensitive and high-strung, you know. And so unattractive. Of course, she’s hopelessly in love with Ollie. The only way she could possibly get him would be to catch him on the rebound while I’m out of the picture. Poor Norma.”
So that was it. His skin crawled.
“It may happen, too,” Norma said, staring into space over her glass. “That horrible mother of mine! She’s offered me a ‘compromise.’ She’s taking me abroad for three months, during which I’m not to see or communicate with Ollie. If I still want him when we get back, mother says, she’ll give us our blessing.”
“I see,” Tully said.
“But I know her, the way her mind works. She’s figuring on tricking me, the way she always does. Divine Mercedes! If people only knew her... She’ll pretend to be sick, or she’ll find some other excuse to keep us in Europe indefinitely. And that will be Norma’s chance.”
Tully could not help asking, “Then why are you leaving?”
“I have no choice. I’m under age. It’s going to be a battle. Because I’m going to fight just as hard to talk mother into keeping her word.”
“How does Ollie feel about this?”
“Oh, he doesn’t know yet. About my going away, I mean. I’ll have to tell him soon. The whole story— Where are you going?”
Tully had edged over to the doorway, his mind made up. “To see a man about a dog.” It was a phrase, he recalled, popular in Kathleen’s day. “Why don’t you drink your drink, Kathleen? You’ve hardly touched it.”
She glanced down at the glass with the same vague smile. Tully slipped out of the den. He went quickly into the master bedroom, shut the door without noise, snapped on the light and was over at the night table diving for the telephone book under the bedroom extension in one scrambling leap. Just as he found the S’s he heard a car turn into his driveway.
By the time Tully managed to leave the bedroom without alarming Norma Hurst and make his way through the rear service door around to the driveway, Ollie Hurst had his ignition and headlights turned off and was coming around the front of his car.
“Ollie.”
“Dave, is that you?”
“Yes—”
“Dave, it’s happened again—”
“I know.”
“She’s here?” the lawyer cried.
“Not so loud.” He grabbed Ollie’s arm. “She’s inside. I was just going to call Dr. Suddreth.”
“How is she, Dave?”
“Not good.”
Oliver Hurst slumped against his car. In the light coming from the bedroom window he looked as if he were going to collapse.
“How far gone is she?”
“She thinks she’s Kathleen Lavery.”
Ollie was struck dumb. With his head thrust forward and his mouth open and his bald head he looked something like a carp. Then he said, “Kathleen Lavery. Why in God’s name...?”
“From what she’s been saying, Ollie, I think this goes back a long, long way. Back to her wedding day.”
“That was the happiest day of her life!”
“Only on the surface.” It was hard for Tully to look at the lawyer. “She’s cracked up twice now. Once when little Emmie was killed. Now when Ruth — the best friend Norma ever had — when Ruth’s been accused of murder. I’m no expert, Lord knows, but it seems to me this particular gambit began when she married you — when unconsciously she felt that Kathleen’s death made her marriage possible. She’s carried the load of that guilt around ever since.”
“I don’t understand,” Ollie muttered.
“You’d better start trying,” Tully said, more harshly than he intended. “Don’t you see how fiercely glad Norma must have felt when Kathleen drowned? But at another level she was shocked at those feelings. I suppose a psychiatrist might say the resulting guilt made it possible for Norma to keep functioning. I don’t know — I’m sure it all goes back even further than that. Whatever it is, wherever the hell it stems from, you’d better get her to your psychiatrist fast.” Ollie nodded and they hurried toward the service entrance. “Where were you, Ollie?”
“I could see she was working up to something. But I thought she’d be all right if I went for some groceries she mentioned we needed. When I got back from the shopping plaza she was gone. I kept calling around, and hunting for her, till it occurred to me she might have come here. Thinking maybe Ruth was back, or something.”
They found Norma in the living room. She was standing at the bar, pouring more Scotch into her glass. It kept slopping over.
She turned and saw her husband and her whole long, taut face screwed up as if she were trying to see through a dense fog.
“Ollie...?”
Hurst’s cheeks, gray and slick, twitched as he moved toward her. “Everything’s going to be all right,” he said nervously. “I’ll take you home now, Norma.”
She hurled the glass at his head. It sailed past him and smashed against the opposite wall, drenching both men.
“Don’t call me that name!” Norma screamed. Everything in her face was contorted except her eyes; they remained dull and remote. “It’s my mother, isn’t it?” she panted. “So she finally got to you, too. She’s turned you against me, Ollie. You’re all against me!”
“Stop her, Ollie!” Tully shouted.
Hurst was nearer, but her violence had paralyzed him. And Tully was too late. Norma burst through the French doors and disappeared in the darkness of the patio. Tully dashed out after her.
“Ollie, switch on the patio lights!”
The lawyer stumbled to the wall and snapped on the switch. The patio and the grounds beyond lit up like a stage set.