Beginners

by Raymond Carver

  “They said they were innocent.”

  “Who? What are you talking about?”

  “The Maddox brothers. They killed a girl named Arlene Hubly near the town where I grew up, and then cut off her head and threw her into the Cle Elum River. She and I went to the same high school. It happened when I was a girl.”

  “What a hell of a thing to be thinking about,” he says. “Come on, get off it. You’re going to get me riled in a minute. How about it now? Claire?”

  I look at the creek. I float toward the pond, eyes open, face down, staring at the rocks and moss on the creek bottom until I am carried into the lake where I am pushed by the breeze. Nothing will be any different. We will go on and on and on and on. We will go on even now, as if nothing had happened. I look at him across the picnic table with such intensity that his face drains.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” he says. “I don’t—”

  I slap him before I realize. I raise my hand, wait a fraction of a second, and then slap his cheek hard. This is crazy, I think as I slap him. We need to lock our fingers together. We need to help one another. This is crazy.

  He catches my wrist before I can strike again and raises his own hand. I crouch, waiting, and see something come into his eyes and then dart away. He drops his hand. I drift even faster around and around in the pond.

  “Come on, get in the car,” he says. “I’m taking you home.”

  “No, no,” I say, pulling back from him.

  “Come on,” he says, “Goddamn it.”

  “You’re not being fair to me,” he says later in the car. Fields and trees and farmhouses fly by outside the window. “You’re not being fair. To either one of us. Or to Dean, I might add. Think about Dean for a minute. Think about me. Think about someone else besides yourself for a change.”

  There is nothing I can say to him now. He tries to concentrate on the road, but he keeps looking into the rearview mirror. Out of the corner of his eye, he looks across the seat to where I sit with my knees doubled under me. The sun blazes against my arm and the side of my face. He opens another beer while he drives, drinks from it, then shoves the can between his legs and lets out breath. He knows. I could laugh in his face. I could weep.

  2.

  Stuart believes he is letting me sleep this morning. But I was awake long before the alarm sounded, thinking, lying on the far side of the bed, away from his hairy legs and his thick, sleeping fingers. He gets Dean off for school, and then he shaves, dresses, and leaves for work himself soon after. Twice he looks into the bedroom and clears his throat, but I keep my eyes closed.

  In the kitchen I find a note from him signed “Love.” I sit in the breakfast nook in the sunlight and drink coffee and make a coffee ring on the note. The telephone has stopped ringing, that is something. No more calls since last night. I look at the paper and turn it this way and that on the table. Then I pull it close and read what it says. The body is still unidentified, unclaimed, apparently unmissed. But for the last twenty-four hours men have been examining it, putting things into it, cutting, weighing, measuring, putting back again, sewing up, looking for the exact cause and moment of death. And the evidence of rape. I’m sure they hope for rape. Rape would make it easier to understand. The paper says she will be taken to Keith & Keith Funeral Home pending arrangements. People are asked to come forward with information, etc.

  Two things are certain: 1) people no longer care what happens to other people, and 2) nothing makes any real difference any longer. Look at what has happened. Yet nothing will change for Stuart and me. Really change, I mean. We will grow older, both of us, you can see it in our faces already, in the bathroom mirror, for instance, mornings when we use the bathroom at the same time. And certain things around us will change, become easier or harder, one thing or the other, but nothing will ever really be any different. I believe that. We have made our decisions, our lives have been set in motion, and they will go on and on until they stop. But if that is true, what then? I mean, what if you believe that, but you keep it covered up, until one day something happens that should change something, but then you see nothing is going to change after all. What then? Meanwhile, the people around you continue to talk and act as if you were the same person as yesterday, or last night, or five minutes before, but you are really undergoing a crisis, your heart feels damaged…

  The past is unclear. It is as if there is a film over those early years. I cannot be sure that the things I remember happening really happened to me. There was a girl who had a mother and father—the father ran a small café where the mother acted as waitress and cashier—who moved as if in a dream through grade school and high school and then, in a year or two, into secretarial school. Later, much later—what happened to the time in between?—she is in another town working as a receptionist for an electronic parts firm and becomes acquainted with one of the engineers who asks her for a date. Eventually, seeing that’s his aim, she lets him seduce her. She had an intuition at the time, an insight about the seduction that later, try as she might, she couldn’t recall. After a short while they decide to get married, but already the past, her past, is slipping away. The future is something she can’t imagine. She smiles, as if she has a secret, when she thinks about the future. Once during a particularly bad argument, over what she can’t now remember, five years or so after they were married, he tells her that someday this affair (his words: “this affair”) will end in violence. She remembers this. She files this away somewhere and begins repeating it aloud from time to time. Sometimes, she spends the whole morning on her knees in the sandbox behind the garage playing with Dean and one or two of his friends. But every afternoon at four o’clock her head begins to hurt. She holds her forehead and feels dizzy with the pain. Stuart asks her to see a doctor and she does, secretly pleased at the doctor’s solicitous attention. She goes away for a while to a place the doctor recommends. His mother comes out from Ohio in a hurry to care for the child. But she, Claire, Claire spoils everything and returns home in a few weeks. His mother moves out of the house and takes an apartment across town and perches there, as if waiting. One night in bed when they are both near sleep, Claire tells him that she heard some women patients at DeWitt discussing fellatio. She thinks this is something he might like to hear. She smiles in the dark. Stuart is pleased at hearing this. He strokes her arm. Things are going to be okay, he says. From now on everything is going to be different and better for them. He has received a promotion and a substantial raise. They have even bought another car, a station wagon, her car. They’re going to live in the here and now. He says he feels able to relax for the first time in years. In the dark, he goes on stroking her arm…He continues to bowl and play cards regularly. He goes fishing with three friends of his.

  That evening three things happen: Dean says that the children at school told him that his father found a dead body in the river. He wants to know about it.

  Stuart explains quickly, leaving out most of the story, saying only that, yes, he and three other men did find a body while they were fishing.

  “What kind of a body?” Dean asks. “Was it a girl?”

  “Yes, it was a girl. A woman. Then we called the sheriff.” Stuart looks at me.

  “What’d he say?” Dean asks.

  “He said he’d take care of it.”

  “What did it look like? Was it scary?”

  “That’s enough talk,” I say. “Rinse your plate, Dean, and then you’re excused.”

  “But what’d it look like?” he persists. “I want to know.”

  “You heard me,” I say. “Did you hear me, Dean? Dean!” I want to shake him. I want to shake him until he cries.

  “Do what your mother says,” Stuart tells him quietly. “It was just a body, and that’s all there is to tell.”

  I am clearing the table when Stuart comes up behind and touches my arm. His fingers burn. I start, almost losing a plate.

  “What’s the matter with you?” he says, dropping his hand. “Tell me,
Claire, what is it?”

  “You scared me,” I say.

  “That’s what I mean. I should be able to touch you without you jumping out of your skin.” He stands in front of me with a little grin, trying to catch my eyes, and then he puts his arm around my waist. With his other hand he takes my free hand and puts it on the front of his pants.

  “Please, Stuart.” I pull away and he steps back and snaps his fingers.

  “Hell with it, then,” he says. “Be that way if you want. But just remember.”

  “Remember what?” I say quickly. I look at him and hold my breath.

  He shrugs. “Nothing, nothing,” he says and cracks his knuckles.

  The second thing that happens is that while we are watching television that evening, he in his leather reclining chair, I on the couch with a blanket and magazine, the house quiet except for the television, a voice cuts into the program to say that the murdered girl has been identified. Full details will follow on the eleven o’clock news.

  We look at each other. In a few minutes he gets up and says he is going to fix a nightcap. Do I want one?

  “No,” I say.

  “I don’t mind drinking alone,” he says. “I thought I’d ask.”

  I can see he is obscurely hurt, and I look away, ashamed and yet angry at the same time.

  He stays in the kitchen for a long while, but comes back with his drink when the news begins.

  First the announcer repeats the story of the four local fishermen finding the body, then the station shows a high school graduation photograph of the girl, a dark-haired girl with a round face and full, smiling lips, then a film of the girl’s parents entering the funeral home to make the identification. Bewildered, sad, they shuffle slowly up the sidewalk to the front steps to where a man in a dark suit stands waiting and holding the door. Then, it seems as if only a second has passed, as if they have merely gone inside the door and turned around and come out again, the same couple is shown leaving the mortuary, the woman in tears, covering her face with a handkerchief, the man stopping long enough to say to a reporter, “It’s her, it’s Susan. I can’t say anything right now. I hope they get the person or persons who did it before it happens again. It’s all this violence…” He motions feebly at the television camera. Then the man and woman get into an old car and drive away into the late afternoon traffic.

  The announcer goes on to say that the girl, Susan Miller, had gotten off work as a cashier in a movie theater in Summit, a town 120 miles north of our town. A green late-model car pulled up in front of the theater and the girl, who according to witnesses looked as if she’d been waiting, went over to the car and got in, leading authorities to suspect that the driver of the car was a friend, or at least an acquaintance. The authorities would like to talk to the driver of the green car.

  Stuart clears his throat, then leans back in the chair and sips his drink.

  The third thing that happens is that after the news Stuart stretches, yawns, and looks at me. I get up and begin making a bed for myself on the couch.

  “What are you doing?” he says, puzzled.

  “I’m not sleepy,” I say, avoiding his eyes. “I think I’ll stay up awhile longer and then read something until I fall asleep.”

  He stares as I spread a sheet over the couch. When I start to go for a pillow, he stands at the bedroom door, blocking the way.

  “I’m going to ask you once more,” he says. “What the hell do you think you’re going to accomplish?”

  “I need to be by myself tonight,” I say. “I just need to have time to think.”

  He lets out breath. “I’m thinking you’re making a big mistake by doing this. I’m thinking you’d better think again about what you’re doing. Claire?”

  I can’t answer. I don’t know what I want to say. I turn and begin to tuck in the edges of the blanket. He stares at me a minute longer and then I see him raise his shoulders. “Suit yourself, then. I could give a fuck less what you do,” he says and turns and walks down the hall scratching his neck.

  —

  This morning I read in the paper that services for Susan Miller are to be held in Chapel of the Pines, Summit, at two o’clock the next afternoon. Also, that police have taken statements from three people who saw her get into the green Chevrolet, but they still have no license number for the car. They are getting warmer, though, the investigation is continuing. I sit for a long while holding the paper, thinking, then I call to make an appointment at the hairdresser’s.

  I sit under the dryer with a magazine on my lap and let Millie do my nails.

  “I’m going to a funeral tomorrow,” I say after we have talked a bit about a girl who no longer works there.

  Millie looks up at me and then back at my fingers. “I’m sorry to hear that, Mrs. Kane. I’m real sorry.”

  “It’s a young girl’s funeral,” I say.

  “That’s the worst kind. My sister died when I was a girl, and I’m still not over it to this day. Who died?” she says after a minute.

  “A girl. We weren’t all that close, you know, but still.”

  “Too bad. I’m real sorry. But we’ll get you fixed up for it, don’t worry. How’s that look?”

  “That looks…fine. Millie, did you ever wish you were somebody else, or else just nobody, nothing, nothing at all?”

  She looks at me. “I can’t say I ever felt that, no. No, if I was somebody else I’d be afraid I might not like who I was.” She holds my fingers and seems to think about something for a minute. “I don’t know, I just don’t know…Let me have your other hand now, Mrs. Kane.”

  At eleven o’clock that night I make another bed on the couch and this time Stuart only looks at me, rolls his tongue behind his lips, and goes down the hall to the bedroom. In the night I wake and listen to the wind slamming the gate against the fence. I don’t want to be awake, and I lie for a long while with my eyes closed. Finally I get up and go down the hall with my pillow. The light is burning in our bedroom and Stuart is on his back with his mouth open, breathing heavily. I go into Dean’s room and get into bed with him. In his sleep he moves over to give me space. I lie there for a minute and then hold him, my face against his hair.

  “What is it, Mama?” he says.

  “Nothing, honey. Go back to sleep. It’s nothing, it’s all right.”

  I get up when I hear Stuart’s alarm, put on coffee and prepare breakfast while he shaves.

  He appears in the kitchen doorway, towel over his bare shoulder, appraising.

  “Here’s coffee,” I say. “Eggs will be ready in a minute.”

  He nods.

  I wake Dean and the three of us have breakfast. Once or twice Stuart looks at me as if he wants to say something, but each time I ask Dean if he wants more milk, more toast, etc.

  “I’ll call you today,” Stuart says as he opens the door.

  “I don’t think I’ll be home today,” I say quickly. “I have a lot of things to do today. In fact, I may be late for dinner.”

  “All right. Sure.” He wants to know, he moves his briefcase from one hand to the other. “Maybe we’ll go out for dinner tonight? How would you like that?” He keeps looking at me. He’s forgotten about the girl already. “Are you…all right?”

  I move to straighten his tie, then drop my hand. He wants to kiss me good-bye. I move back a step. “Have a nice day, then,” he says finally. Then he turns and goes down the walk to his car.

  I dress carefully. I try on a hat that I haven’t worn in several years and look at myself in the mirror. Then I remove the hat, apply a light makeup, and write a note for Dean.

  Honey, Mommy has things to do this afternoon, but will be home later. You are to stay in the house or in the backyard until one of us comes home.

  Love

  I look at the word “Love” and then I underline it. As I am writing the note I realize I don’t know whether backyard is one word or two. I have never considered it before. I think about it and then I draw a line and make two words of it.
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br />   I stop for gas and ask directions to Summit. Barry, a forty-year-old mechanic with a moustache, comes out from the restroom and leans against the front fender while the other man, Lewis, puts the hose into the tank and begins to slowly wash the windshields.

  “Summit,” Barry says, looking at me and smoothing a finger down each side of his moustache. “There’s no best way to get to Summit, Mrs. Kane. It’s about a two-, two-and-a-half-hour drive each way. Across the mountains. It’s quite a drive for a woman. Summit? What’s in Summit, Mrs. Kane?”

  “I have business,” I say, vaguely uneasy. Lewis has gone to wait on another car.

  “Ah. Well, if I wasn’t all tied up there”—he gestures with his thumb toward the bay—“I’d offer to drive you to Summit and back again. Road’s not all that good. I mean it’s good enough, there’s just a lot of curves and so on.”

  “I’ll be all right. But thank you.” He leans against the fender. I can feel his eyes as I open my purse.

  Barry takes the credit card. “Don’t drive it at night,” he says. “It’s not all that good a road, like I said, and while I’d be willing to bet you wouldn’t have car trouble with this, I know this car, you can never be sure about blowouts and things like that. Just to be on the safe side I’d better check these tires.” He taps one of the front tires with his shoe. “We’ll run it onto the hoist. Won’t take long.”

  “No, no, it’s all right. Really, I can’t take any more time. The tires look fine to me.”

  “Only takes a minute,” he says. “Be on the safe side.”

  “I said no. No! They look fine to me. I have to go now, Barry…”

  “Mrs. Kane?”

  “I have to go now.”

  I sign something. He gives me the receipt, the card, some stamps. I put everything in my purse. “You take it easy,” he says. “Be seeing you.”

  Waiting to pull into traffic, I look back and see him watching. I close my eyes, then open them. He waves.