preferably when it was in session.
Peaches said, " Mr. Byrne has promised to be there. "
Yeah, right , thought Helen. Aloud she said, " That would be best, under the circumstances. "
They agreed to meet on the day after next and Peaches hung up, leaving Helen free to return to her battle with the plumber.
He was a big man with red cheeks and wiry hair, a longtime employee of the outfit who ' d redone the baths during the makeover of Helen ' s house two years earlier. She was pleased that Tony had been the one sent to solve her madde ni ng mystery. She remembered him as being more approachable than the others, more inclined to explain why there was never enough water pressure upstairs and why the sink back- siphoned into the dishwasher every once in a while.
But that was then, and this was now.
" I ' m te ll in ' you, Mrs. Evett, it ' s not the pipes you hear knockin ' all the time. I ' ve just bled every last one of the radiators, and look, " he said, handing her a paper cup. " Practically no water. It ' s not the pipes. I ' m tellin ' you. "
" Well, something ' s keeping me up every night, " said Helen in an equally testy voice. She was tired and irritable after two weeks of interrupted sleep. What good was it to be over the sinus headache if she was going to be awake all night anyway?
Shaking his head, the plumber chewed on his lip and mulled the possibilities while he stared at his shoes. " Wood can shrink and expand with temperature changes, especially in spring and fall. " He looked up at her from under bushy eyebrows. " You could be hearing beams. "
From outer space, you mean. Plainly he didn ' t believe her. And in fact, the house had been predictably quiet the whole time he was there.
Tony turned to Russ, who ' d ventured out of his room in search of milk and cookies. " Do you hear anything in your bedroom at night? " he asked the boy.
Russell—who was singlehandedly supporting half the dairy co-ops in New England—shrugged as he filled a sixteen-ounce tumbler with milk. " Nope. "
The plumber tried another tack. " So it would be— where?—in the livin ' room that you hear these noises? "
" Nope. I don ' t hear that stuff. "
" Why are you asking him? " Helen said, rescuing the Oreo bag from her son and handing him four cookies. " He walks around under a set of headphones all day. "
Not that she ' d given the boy a choice. The latest rap group whose spell he ' d fallen under was so loud, so vile, so guaranteed to put Helen ' s teeth on edge, that she ' d bought him a top-of-the-line personal CD player that he wore strapped to his hip at home.
In any case, Tony didn ' t have any answers, so Helen gave the joyless plumber a soothing smile and said, " I ' m sure you solved the problem, whatever it was, " and asked him to send her the bill.
But that night as she lay sleepless in her bed, waiting for the sounds she knew would come, Helen gave in to a bout of self-pity.
If Hank were here, she thought, I wouldn ' t care about the sounds. If Hank were here we'd make cute jokes about ghosts in the attic. But Hank isn ' t here.
Unless?
No. Hank was gone forever. Too stoic ever to indulge in false hopes, Hank had always said, " When you ' re dead, you ' re dead. " It used to distress Helen whenever he said that, because she knew that sooner or later one of them would be dead and one of them would not. She ' d wanted to believe that somehow they ' d be able to bridge the great divide of mortality. And yet here she lay, cold and alone, without Hank; without hope.
She fell asleep in a state of depression, fu ll y expecting to be awakened at three A.M. She wasn ' t disappointed. The first knock, barely audible and yet somehow thunderous, woke her instantly. In the dark she listened without moving her head on the pillow, without breathing, as she waited for the sound to evolve into the next phase.
There it was: the jiggle. After the knock always came the jiggle. It sounded exactly as if someone were trying a
Peaches said, " Mr. Byrne has promised to be there. "
Yeah, right , thought Helen. Aloud she said, " That would be best, under the circumstances. "
They agreed to meet on the day after next and Peaches hung up, leaving Helen free to return to her battle with the plumber.
He was a big man with red cheeks and wiry hair, a longtime employee of the outfit who ' d redone the baths during the makeover of Helen ' s house two years earlier. She was pleased that Tony had been the one sent to solve her madde ni ng mystery. She remembered him as being more approachable than the others, more inclined to explain why there was never enough water pressure upstairs and why the sink back- siphoned into the dishwasher every once in a while.
But that was then, and this was now.
" I ' m te ll in ' you, Mrs. Evett, it ' s not the pipes you hear knockin ' all the time. I ' ve just bled every last one of the radiators, and look, " he said, handing her a paper cup. " Practically no water. It ' s not the pipes. I ' m tellin ' you. "
" Well, something ' s keeping me up every night, " said Helen in an equally testy voice. She was tired and irritable after two weeks of interrupted sleep. What good was it to be over the sinus headache if she was going to be awake all night anyway?
Shaking his head, the plumber chewed on his lip and mulled the possibilities while he stared at his shoes. " Wood can shrink and expand with temperature changes, especially in spring and fall. " He looked up at her from under bushy eyebrows. " You could be hearing beams. "
From outer space, you mean. Plainly he didn ' t believe her. And in fact, the house had been predictably quiet the whole time he was there.
Tony turned to Russ, who ' d ventured out of his room in search of milk and cookies. " Do you hear anything in your bedroom at night? " he asked the boy.
Russell—who was singlehandedly supporting half the dairy co-ops in New England—shrugged as he filled a sixteen-ounce tumbler with milk. " Nope. "
The plumber tried another tack. " So it would be— where?—in the livin ' room that you hear these noises? "
" Nope. I don ' t hear that stuff. "
" Why are you asking him? " Helen said, rescuing the Oreo bag from her son and handing him four cookies. " He walks around under a set of headphones all day. "
Not that she ' d given the boy a choice. The latest rap group whose spell he ' d fallen under was so loud, so vile, so guaranteed to put Helen ' s teeth on edge, that she ' d bought him a top-of-the-line personal CD player that he wore strapped to his hip at home.
In any case, Tony didn ' t have any answers, so Helen gave the joyless plumber a soothing smile and said, " I ' m sure you solved the problem, whatever it was, " and asked him to send her the bill.
But that night as she lay sleepless in her bed, waiting for the sounds she knew would come, Helen gave in to a bout of self-pity.
If Hank were here, she thought, I wouldn ' t care about the sounds. If Hank were here we'd make cute jokes about ghosts in the attic. But Hank isn ' t here.
Unless?
No. Hank was gone forever. Too stoic ever to indulge in false hopes, Hank had always said, " When you ' re dead, you ' re dead. " It used to distress Helen whenever he said that, because she knew that sooner or later one of them would be dead and one of them would not. She ' d wanted to believe that somehow they ' d be able to bridge the great divide of mortality. And yet here she lay, cold and alone, without Hank; without hope.
She fell asleep in a state of depression, fu ll y expecting to be awakened at three A.M. She wasn ' t disappointed. The first knock, barely audible and yet somehow thunderous, woke her instantly. In the dark she listened without moving her head on the pillow, without breathing, as she waited for the sound to evolve into the next phase.
There it was: the jiggle. After the knock always came the jiggle. It sounded exactly as if someone were trying a
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