The Face on the Wall(30)

“You mean to say he wasn’t strapped in?” said a self-righteous woman in the next car, stopping to criticize. “I think that’s absolutely criminal.”

Poor old Eddy! When he next came to Annie’s door there was a purple lump on his forehead. But he was beaming. “Whassat?” he said, staring up at the wall, pointing at the mouse in Beatrix Potter’s pocket and the rabbits at her feet. Annie explained about Peter Rabbit and his invasion of Mr. McGregor’s garden. She found her copy of the story and showed it to Eddy. Then she gave him a sheet of her best paper and a collection of colored pens, and climbed her ladder and got back to work. Below her at the table Eddy’s small head was lowered over his paper. A bright-green pad was clutched in his hand.

This time his picture took only half an hour. “All done!” cried Eddy, holding the picture over his head.

Annie came down the ladder to look. It was Peter Rabbit. His ears glowed pink, his jacket reflected the blue of the sky, and Mr. McGregor’s garden was a corner of Paradise. “Oh, Eddy,” breathed Annie, delighted once again, “how wonderful.”

When Flimnap came in, he admired it too. “I like your pictures, Eddy,” he said, lifting him onto his shoulders. “Come on. I want to show you something.” Annie watched them swoop together out the door. Soon there were squeals of joy from the driveway. She looked out and laughed. Flimnap was still carrying Eddy on his shoulders, but now he was riding a unicycle. Around and around they went, Eddy whirling high in the air, shrieking with delight.

Roberta Gast witnessed this episode, coming unexpectedly out of the house. She stared, blank-faced, until Flimnap lowered Eddy to the ground and jumped down from the bike himself, grinning at her sheepishly. Roberta turned away without a word, climbed into her car, and sat behind the wheel for a moment, looking down. She’s making a note, decided Annie. Date, time, witnesses present.



That evening as they got ready for bed, Roberta and Bob Gast had another conversation about Eddy. Roberta stood in the bathroom doorway in her nightgown, watching her husband brush his teeth. “It’s no good,” she said. “Nothing works.”

Bob spat and hung up his toothbrush. “What do you mean, nothing works?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Oh, that,” said Bob uncomfortably. He slicked back his hair with a comb.

Roberta changed the subject. She sounded shocked. “You know what, Bob Gast? You’re getting bald.”

“Oh, I know,” said Bob. “Don’t you think I know?” Because of course it was true. If he had taken the trouble to count them, the separate strands above his high receding hairline would have numbered only one or two thousand. They had once been a thick bushy mass. Embarrassed, he rubbed the shiny place in the middle of his scalp, which was growing larger and larger. Rub, rub, rub. Oh, genie of the magic scalp, make my hair grow in again!

Roberta watched him put the cap back on the toothpaste. At once she was struck by an idea. She waited until he was finished in the bathroom, and then she got to work right away.

She did not look at herself in the mirror, knowing she wouldn’t like what she saw, a tired woman with pouches under her eyes. Instead she opened the door of the cupboard under the sink and took out a little piece of cardboard, handling it with care. On it lay a viscous drop of liquid. It was ant poison. Ants had become a problem on the kitchen counter and the bathroom sink. This nasty stuff seemed to do the trick. The ants were in retreat.

With delicate fingers Roberta put the square of poison down behind the cold-water faucet. Still more carefully she took a small toothbrush from the holder on the wall and laid it bristle side down in the drop of liquid, as though it had fallen there by accident. Then she washed her hands and went to bed.

She lay awake most of the night, staring at the shadowy ceiling. In the morning, just after she fell asleep at last, there was a shout from the bathroom, “What the hell?”

Roberta woke up instantly and opened her eyes. In a moment her enraged husband stood beside the bed looking down at her. “Eddy’s toothbrush, it was in the ant poison!”

She sat up and said feebly, “Oh dear, it must have fallen in. The ants were all over the sink, so I—” She didn’t finish. She put her legs over the side of the bed and stood up.

Bob stared at her. Then he said roughly, “God,” and went back to the bathroom. He wrapped the sticky toothbrush in toilet paper and threw it in the wastebasket, along with the square of ant poison. Then he scrubbed the sink with cleanser and washed his hands thoroughly, over and over again, his mind in a torment. An unlatched car door, a touch of ant poison, what was the difference? None, there was no difference at all. He shouldn’t blame Roberta any more than he blamed himself.