by
Mary E. Overstreet
Going up the stairs to his room was the most strenuous activity Willie had done in almost three weeks. And it felt good to have his heart and pulse plumping blood through him at an accelerated rate for a reason other than fear or pain. His chest was still sore, but it didn't feel like anything was wrong. The cold air outside had bothered him some; he would not have wanted to stay out in it for long.
He barely had time to look around the drawing room before Julia and Barnabas had ushered him toward the stairs. The presence of the telephone was the only change he was able to detect. His room was another story entirely. For one thing it was not the same room. Barnabas went ahead of him and opened the door to one of the nicer bedrooms he had restored.
"You never said if you wanted a different room, Willie," Barnabas said, "so I took the liberty of moving your things in here. I remember you once mentioned that this room had a view you really liked."
"Yeah, the ocean," he said. "But the other one was okay." He was touched by the obvious thought that Barnabas must have put into moving him but didn't like changes being made for him.
"You may certainly move back if you like. But I think this is more appropriate for you than a servant's room."
Willie didn't quite know how to react to that, so he went in, shrugging. A fire burned steadily under the white marble mantle of the hearth. An antique armoire, much larger than he needed, stood against one wall and a dresser was against the adjoining one. Beside the large window, his desk had been put, and a big high wooden double bed took up the wall across from the door. The headboard must have been at least eight feet and the foot board four feet tall. Willie had admired it, but never thought he would be sleeping in it. It was similar to the one Barnabas used. But what was the most noticeable was the television set on a stand by the door.
"Willie, why don't you change clothes and get into bed," Julia suggested.
"I can't believe you bought a tv," he said, ignoring her words and going over to turn the set on.
"Well, actually it was the only way we could think of to get you to stay in bed more," she said. "So why don't you do it?"
"Needs tuning," he said, flipping the channels and moving the rabbit ear antenna around.
"Willie," she began.
"All right. I'll get in bed as soon as I get this fixed."
Julia and Barnabas looked at each other, and she sighed. "I'll be back in five minutes with your medication."
"This won't work here," Willie said, feeling tired and a little shaky. "I can't possibly see over the footboard of that bed."
"We'll move it for you," Barnabas said. "But first, why don't you do as Julia has suggested?"
Willie looked at them and sighed. "Okay." He knew they knew how sick of being in bed he was, so he did not say it.
"Good. We'll return and move the television for you." Barnabas followed Julia out.
Willie pulled open the drawers in the chest, not comfortable with the fact that someone had been all through his things. He even thought there seemed to be more underwear and bed clothes than he remembered having. He chose not to worry about it and changed, wrapping his robe over his pajamas, then climbing into the high bed.
It felt good to slide down between the sheets and lie back. He was a lot more tired than he realized and shut his eyes. With the heavy comforter and blanket, it did not take him long to warm the place where he lay.
Remembering that Julia and Barnabas were going to come back in was a rude shock that brought him out of a light doze. He sat up and tried to see the tv, tempted to go move it himself. For so long he had seen little or no television. But all the time in the hospital had made him appreciate it to a certain extent. Evidently Julia interpreted his attention to it in the hospital as a much stronger interest to him than it was. He had mainly watched to alleviate boredom. Sports programs were what he had enjoyed the most, but during the weekdays there were none on, so he watched some of the soap operas or read. Stokes had lent him a copy of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo. He had only just finished, finding it brought back his memories of Paris, while making him identify too strongly with the hunchback, Quasimodo. But Willie was too caught up in the story to not finish it, no matter how much it disturbed him that when he pictured Quasimodo's master, Frollo, he would sometimes see Barnabas. It was just a book, he had told himself when he had read it through. That some of the hunchback's ordeals struck chords in him, causing a resonance that had made him see Frollo as Barnabas was just a coincidence, he thought, made worse by the drugs.
At the sound of a knock on his door, he said, "Come in," and watched his two friends step inside. "I told ya I couldn't see it."
"I'll move it. Where do you want it?" Barnabas turned off the TV and unplugged it. The stand that the set rested on did not have wheels, and Barnabas had a difficult time trying to move it over the edge of the rug.
Willie couldn't stand to just sit there and got out of bed to help him.
"No you don't, Willie," Julia said, stepping in his way. "I'll help him."
"But if—"
"No, 'buts'. Back in bed." She gave him a little push and turned to help Barnabas before he could move.
Willie felt sullen at first, but the sight of them ungracefully maneuvering the table with a heavy tv set on it made him want to laugh. Since they were doing him a favor, he refrained from it. "Why don't you take the tv off the stand first," he said.
"Why don't you get back in bed," Julia said testily.
They did as he suggested, putting the stand beside the chest to the left of the bed, where he'd indicated. Willie smiled at them when the set was running again. "Thanks."
Julia brushed her hands off and went over to the bed. "Are you cold, Willie?"
"No. I'm fine." He felt like an idiot, sitting up on the big high bed while they looked at him.
"Then why do you have your robe on in bed?"
"W— I-I dunno."
"Off with it, then." She held her hands out.
Not understanding what difference it made, he struggled out of it and handed it to her.
"Thank you." She draped the robe across the footboard and went to the bed stand where a fancy old china pitcher stood full of water, and a matching cup and a prescription bottle sat beside it. She poured water in the cup and handed him a pill. "Here."
"I don't need that," he said, without moving.
"Willie, you know you're too nervous to get enough rest without this."
"No, I'm not."
"Would you rather have an injection?" she threatened him.
If Barnabas had not been there, he would have still refused, but he didn't want to do anything to make him angry. Disgusted, he took the cup and pill. His throat was no longer sore enough to make swallowing the drug difficult.
"Thank you, Willie."
"If you need anything, we'll be downstairs for a while. Please call us, Willie. Don't try to do anything by yourself." Barnabas smiled to him. "It'll be good to have you back." He had faced down his guilt and was searching for the truth about his feelings for Willie. He only knew that now he owed him kindness, and he wanted to give it to him.
"Thanks." Willie watched them go and slid back down into the bed. He turned on his side to watch the tv, but it only put him to sleep.
*
His breath came in hard gulps, his back ached intensely. He was so afraid that his bare knees knocked together. Hands held his arms which were bound in a strait-jacket. Words, garbled phrases tumbled out of his mouth as he looked at the white uniform of the man who held him. He couldn't see his face, and suddenly it became very important to him to see it. But the shock he received when his focus cleared, choked off his senseless scramble of words. It was Barnabas' face, hardened and cruel with fury. He raised an object in one hand, and Willie expected to see the cane, but it was a short length of garden hose. He was spun around against a padded wall, wailing and crying. He felt the blow to his back like some explosive charge, taking him from his nightmare to a reality of pain.
Willie wondered for a brief second if he had cried aloud before another cramping pain gripped his back. He tried to hold in a groan, not wanting Barnabas to hear him, not wanting him to come in and finish what he had started in the dream. He twisted, rapidly turning from his back to a foetal position on his side. Muscle spasms, he told himself, they'd go away; he used to make them go away—no, the nurses had. He turned again, pulling one of his pillows down across his head as it felt like someone slicing up his back with red hot knives. He hadn't had this since Wyndecliffe, he thought. A low cry of agony escaped him, and his fear crystalized when the door opened.
Barnabas looked in. Light from the hall lamps shone in across Willie's stricken face. It was nearly three in the morning. It was only his third night home. Willie's expression was quickly lost in a grimace of pain and irrational fear, and he rolled quickly over again.
"Willie! Willie, what's wrong?" Barnabas went to him. Willie was soaking wet with sweat.
In the throes of another spasm, he uttered a high-pitched, "No!"
"Willie, listen to me. I'm not going to hurt you." He tried to grab Willie's shoulders, but he rolled again onto his back. The pillow was pulled so taut across the top of his head, Barnabas thought it would tear. "Willie what is it?" He leaned over, taking his wrists. "I'm not going to hurt you. I promise you, I want to help. Tell me what's wrong."
In between darting pangs of agony, he looked at him. Terror gripped Willie; his face was streaked with sweat and tears. His hair stuck to his head, and he panted unevenly.
"What is it? Willie, I want to help." If only Julia were there, Barnabas thought. She would know what to do. "Try to relax."
Willie arched his back as the burning knives went to work again. "God," he breathed.
"Willie, is it your back?"
"Y-y-yes," he managed. The searing intensity of the pain consumed his fear. "M-mm—" He couldn't finish, and his fingers tore the slipcase around the pillow. He quickly grabbed another part of it. "M-muscle spasms," he said.
"What can I do, Willie?" A careful rubdown was what he needed, since he was unable to provide him with a drug. "Do you want me to massage your back?"
Willie was running out of energy for all his tense straining. "Yes." But he couldn't move.
Barnabas turned him over; he was like a stiff board, only turning his head to the side to breathe. The older man put his hands on his back, feeling Willie's muscles tensed like piano wire through his wet shirt. He pressed gently at first, kneading his shoulders and moving his hands downward to rub at the hardest knots.
Willie had lost his fear somewhere. A touch from Barnabas had always had a distinctive effect on him. If it was an approving pat on the shoulder or light, gentle touch to his back, Willie would sometimes grin and feel considerable fondness for Barnabas. It bolstered his self-confidence and made him happy. A negative touch could devastate him. But this helping touch was a new experience, and he found that he had forgiven Barnabas for hurting and humiliating him. Up until now, he had been unable to deal with that, but it no longer mattered to him.
He relaxed his grip on the pillow as the concentrated cramps eased off, breathing hard and only flinching when Barnabas touched a tender spot too hard. He wasn't quite sure when most of the tension had gone. He found himself wondering when Barnabas had learned to give a back massage.
"Is that better now?"
"Yes." Willie was uncomfortable in an emotional way—he felt vulnerable and exposed—but didn't want him to stop yet. He was still having individual twinges here and there over his back. Barnabas seemed to feel them and would rub them out. "Barnabas, where did you learn to do this?"
"Well, er, Willie, I prefer to shield my private life as you do yours."
It was not the kind of answer Willie expected. "You got a woman?" he blurted, hugging his pillow under his head. With his arms up more, his muscles stretched gently and relaxed further. He grew calmer.
Barnabas didn't answer for a moment, unprepared for this intrusion into his personal life. He was getting tired of standing beside the bed and leaning over to rub Willie's back. "Well. . ."
"It isn't Julia, is it?" He looked up at him.
"No. Willie, I. . . Well, you know how I used to tell you everything, or nearly everything." He stopped the massage and went over to the window to look out at the night view of the cliffs and ocean.
"When do ya mean?" Willie turned on his side, pushing the covers the rest of the way off himself to try to cool down. His back ached, and he knew he'd be sore for days.
"When I still wanted Josette."
"You didn't tell me everything."
"But you knew my feelings for her, my dreams. That was all very personal to me."
"Yeah." He didn't know what else to say.
"I stopped telling you much when you were no longer in my power. Perhaps I shouldn't have trusted you less."
True, he had been kept in the dark about so many things until he had to be told. "I never really wanted to know more then."
"Well, let me just tell you this. I am seeing a woman, but we do not meet often."
"She married?" That sounded callous, he realized.
Barnabas turned and looked down at him in the light from the hall, surprised at Willie's perception.
"Sorry," he said quietly.
"I forget sometimes what a man of the world you are. Yes, she is married."
Willie felt as if he had received a great compliment. "I-I'm sorry I was scared of ya when you came in." He pushed his hair off his forehead. It was still wet, but he was cooling off.
"You had a bad dream?"
He turned to lie on his back. "Yeah." He swallowed down the emotion that rose in his throat.
"What happened? Was I hurting you?" The questions were hard for Barnabas. The answers made him ashamed of himself. He was grateful he had not had a terrible mood since the night Willie was beaten up.
"Don' matter." Willie looked at the torn pillow case which he pulled around in front of him.
"Is that when the pain started?" Barnabas looked at him.
"In the dream, yeah, but I don't remember much of it." It seemed such a long way off now, he thought.
"You've had this before, haven't you?"
"Had what?" Willie still didn't look up, fingering the ripped material.
"Muscle spasms in your back."
"Yeah, but it's been a long time."
"When was the last time?"
"I dunno." He shrugged. "In the hospital." He looked at Barnabas' questioning frown. "Wyndecliffe," he elaborated.
"What causes it?"
"I dunno. I'm not a doctor." They hadn't bothered to tell him in the sanitarium, except to say that he was too nervous and needed to calm down. But it didn't make sense to him to blame it entirely on his nerves. It hadn't necessarily happened when he was terribly nervous or anxious over something. And his memory was too vague for him to remember if the other times had been precipitated by a dream. He thought it was likely, however, since he'd had so many nightmares then.
"Well, how do you feel now? Do you think it'll come back tonight?"
"Nah." He thought he could have used a few more minutes of massage, but he was not about to ask for it.
"I think you should take another one of the pills Julia left for you."
Willie was too tired to argue and dropped the material he held to sit up. Having Barnabas wait on him had made him uncomfortable when the amusing irony of it had worn off. "Thanks, Barnabas." He took the drug like he had every day at Wyndecliffe.
"I'm going on back to bed now, Willie. If you need me again, don't hesitate to call me." Barnabas went to the door, shutting it behind him.
Willie was beginning to feel chilled, but he didn't have the energy to get up and change into drier night clothes. He pulled the heavy covers up over him. Doubtless Julia would know all about it in the morning and be asking him a ton of annoying, unwanted questions, plus wanting to examine him. He'd have to put up with it lest they think he was concealing something. But he did not want them knowing he'd been having nightmares. Every night since he had come home he'd had one or two and more in the hospital. Maybe now that he thought Barnabas was not likely to turn on him, they would go away. However, he still felt guilty about his imminent betrayal, and even if the dreams about Barnabas stopped, why should the ones involving the hospitals? He was glad he didn't remember them. He needed some kind of respite.
*